Escaping the Mystery Hotel

- Lee Eunsol

As Perro Kain was explaining, Grandpa took a moment to reflect before summarizing.

“From what you’ve said, I understand what the Lord’s goal is. To achieve that goal, he deliberately didn’t help Aurelia properly in Room 104, allowing you to defeat her, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Then why did he interfere?”

“Excuse me?”

“Aurelia was about to be defeated by you anyway, right? If ‘The Holy Sun’ hadn’t appeared, you would’ve killed her, and the room would’ve been cleared. We would’ve already taken the Holy Sun and exited the room.”

“…”

…Come to think of it, that’s true.

Aurelia was already on the verge of losing to us!

He could have just waited and achieved his goal that way.

As I thought about it more, something else struck me.

Why did he give her the information about “Justice” in the first place?

Without that information, Elena’s justice would have allowed us to defeat Aurelia much faster.

“Both of you, listen to me for a moment. I think you’ve been so overwhelmed by The Lord’s immense power that you’ve missed something quite simple. Like in chess, moves that are obvious to an observer are often missed by the player themselves.”

“Have you figured out a clever move?”

“I’ve come up with a theory while listening to you. To keep things straightforward, I’ll give you my conclusion first: I believe the Lord’s victory condition isn’t just the room’s clearance, but specifically, Kain acquiring the Inheritance.”

“It has to be me who gets the Inheritance for the Lord to win?”

“If you think of it that way, many of your questions suddenly make sense. Why did he interfere? Because if he hadn’t, someone other than Kain would’ve gotten the Inheritance. You said that during the fight with Aurelia, everyone contributed, right?”

“Yes, it was a situation where everyone’s contribution would’ve been recognized. If we had cleared the room, there would’ve been a Moment of Choice, where we’d decide who would claim the Inheritance. I probably would’ve given it up. If I got it again, I’d be sealed out of the remaining rooms on the second floor.”

“So, the Lord interfered. He tried to kill Aurelia and then eliminated the remaining participants so that only you, Kain, could be left to claim the Inheritance. After that, he’d have dealt with the remaining cultists and cleared the room.”

“Now I see why the Lord gave Aurelia information about Justice. If Elena had used her Justice and defeated Aurelia one-on-one, it would’ve given Elena too many contribution points.”

“Exactly. If the contribution gap was too large, Elena might have automatically received the Inheritance without any choice involved. That’s why Justice had to be sealed. There was also probably a second goal—to account for the chance that you might lose the fight.”

By now, I started to grasp the theory.

“In a fight, you never know the outcome until it’s over, so the Lord must’ve considered the possibility of us losing!”

“He foresaw that if you were weaker than expected and lost the fight, he could step in with a revelation to prevent Aurelia from killing you.”

After hearing Grandpa’s theory, Perro Kain seemed to have an epiphany.

“Could the reason why I need to acquire the Inheritance be related to Descent?”

“Most likely. What does The Lord intend to do by bringing himself into the outside world in the form of an Inheritance? Who knows, but for him to act freely, he probably needs to control the person who possesses the Inheritance. That’s where Descent comes into play.”

Grandpa’s theory was simple: for The Lord to win, Kain must be the one to acquire the Inheritance.

There were three main reasons to support this theory:

Firstly, Aurelia was already losing to us, yet the Lord interfered. If his goal were just to clear the room, there was no need for him to do anything.

Secondly, the Lord gave Aurelia information that countered Elena’s Justice, ensuring that Elena wouldn’t overpower Aurelia alone and rack up too many contribution points. He also made sure Aurelia couldn’t kill us, even if she won.

Thirdly, the existence of Descent itself suggested that Kain was special in The Lord’s plans.

With that, Grandpa grew a little tired and quieted down, but the mood lightened significantly compared to before.

There was finally hope.

If The Lord’s victory was simply clearing the room, there would be no way to stop him.

But if it depended on Kain getting the Inheritance, then preventing Kain from getting it could thwart The Lord’s plan.

Once Grandpa recovered a bit, he asked another question.

“There’s still something I don’t understand. Why can the Lord interfere so freely? We’ve cleared several Cursed Rooms and met many Convicts, but none of them were like him.”

“At least, it’s not because the Lord is particularly strong.”

“I agree. It’s ridiculous to measure the strength of transcendent beings as humans, but if the Lord were strong enough to ignore the Hotel’s rules, he wouldn’t be trapped in Room 104.”

“In fact, I’ve formed a hypothesis. Do you remember the advice the Owl gave me about Room 104?”

“Something about a game board, wasn’t it?”

“‘The wisest one sets the board so that everyone benefits.’”

I remembered it too.

“For a long time, I didn’t understand what that meant, but now I think I do. The key to interpreting that advice lies in three questions: First, who is the ‘wisest’? Second, who are the ‘all’ that benefit? And third, what do they gain?”

“Isn’t The Lord the wisest? He’s the one pulling the strings in Room 104, after all.”

“The Owl always layers meanings in his words. What seemed like a strange habit at first may actually be because it’s limited by the Hotel’s rules. In the hotel, ‘Wisdom’ refers to the Owl itself. I believe it also refers to the Patrons as a whole. In other words, the Lord and the Patrons set the board.”

“And who are the ‘all’ that benefit?”

“It’s not the cultists or Aurelia, who almost died at the Lord’s hands. Unfortunately, NPCs in Cursed Rooms don’t have a seat at the table. In the larger game of the hotel, there are three main parties: the Convicts, the participants, and the Patrons.”

When I heard this, I started to understand where Kain was going.

“So you’re basically saying that typically, participants and Patrons aim to clear the room, while Convicts resist. But The Lord has set up his own board to clear the room. His goal aligns with the Patrons’.”

“That’s why the Patrons have overlooked the tricks the Lord has been pulling. In fact, one of those tricks, Descent, has become a great power for us. My Grimoire itself is something I wouldn’t have obtained without Descent.”

Grandpa let out a small laugh.

“To add to that, from the Patrons’ perspective, the problems with ‘The Holy Sun’ or the Lord invading Kain’s mind might seem like nothing.”

“…”

“They don’t care about human concerns. Look at Elena, who’s passed out on the sofa. If they cared about mental health, they wouldn’t hand out cursed Inheritances like ‘Ominous Imagination’ or ‘The Star Fragment of Another World’.”

“What do you think the Patrons would make of this meeting we’re having right now?”

“They might see it as pointless worrying. Like we’re avoiding an easy path and choosing a difficult one over some trivial thing like ‘human purity’. But as a former Administration agent, I can tell you, Kain, don’t think like the Patrons. That’s why I’m willing to risk my life to stop the Lord’s plan for you.”

In short…

The Lord’s plan is to escape the Hotel through Descent and the Inheritance given in Room 104.

Clearing the room is part of that plan, and Descent provides participants with immense power.

Therefore, the Lord’s plan benefits the Patrons too, which is why they’ve allowed him to bend the rules.

Is it true?

Since even Kain wasn’t certain about this theory, it’s impossible to say.

We’ve been wrong about things in the Hotel before.

But now isn’t the time for endless speculation.

Grandpa summarized the situation.

“Alright! Enough analyzing. We can’t just sit around worrying.”

“Our goal is clear. Someone other than me has to get the Inheritance.”

“Exactly. And we know what to do. We just need to find Aurelia and finish this.”

“Let’s think more about that as we go, Grandpa.”

“Do you have something else in mind, Eunsol?”

“Yes, according to Kain, Aurelia was deeply shaken when she realized the Lord was trying to kill her.”

“Well, she was probably like a Saintess of sorts. When the god you’ve been serving tries to kill you, it’s bound to shock you.”

“She might have lost her faith. Can we still call her an ‘Adversary’?”

“Now that you mention it, I recall the Chief Researcher saying something similar. The terms ‘Convict’ and ‘Adversary’ are concepts we use for convenience, but the Hotel itself doesn’t have those labels.”

“Scenarios can change. So, we can’t rely too heavily on old information. Besides…”

“The hint.”

“Yes. The hint: ‘It is natural for the _______ to ______ the father.’ We still don’t know its exact meaning, but I think the first word is ‘daughter’. It’s a hint about how to deal with the Father, the Lord. And now that the daughter, Aurelia, has run away after being betrayed by her father, it seems too coincidental to ignore.”

“Let’s start by finding Aurelia. That seems like the first step.”

Everyone nodded.

When Perro Kain nodded too, it was so cute I almost burst out laughing.

As we left the hideout, I thought to myself: where could Aurelia be now?

***

https://ko-fi.com/genesisforsaken