Escaping the Mystery Hotel

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 3

Current Location: Basement, Swimming Pool

Sage’s Advice: 3]

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Suddenly, the floor started to wobble. Did I step on something? I was thinking that when screams and profanities began filling the pool.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

“What the fuck is this shit! What the fuck. Uaaahhh!”

Bizarre things ‘came out’ – lips suddenly came out of the floor, walls and the ceiling. Those huge lips that looked like the cut-off lips of a giant cracked open. 

A tongue as thick as an arm left from those lips. Those ‘tongues’ lengthened and shortened itself without any restrictions, and made me wonder if they were even tongues at this point.

Well, I guess a frog’s tongue did do that when eating flies.

The only problem was that ‘we were the flies’.

Kwadang!

My body suddenly fell to the side. 

When I turned my gaze to my right leg in a fluster, I saw a tongue that soared out of the ground grasping on my ankle. Startled, I swung my legs around and even tried to rip that disgusting tongue away with my hands but it was all in vain.

As if there was a thick rope tightly gripping onto my leg, I couldn’t move it at all!

Bbiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikkkk!

A growl that was definitely not from the mouth of a human reached my ears.

What was it this time?

I turned to where the sound came from and found ‘lips’ that were evidently crumpled from immense pain which appeared to be letting out a scream. As expected, Jinchul-hyung was different from us. He seemed to have just ripped the tongue out which was why the lips were screaming.

That monster appeared to feel pain just like a normal person’s tongue.

Using his bare hands, he ripped out another two tongues with his monstrous power as if it was just a thin string, and the tongues no longer went for him.

Thus, Jinchul-hyung quickly ran to everyone else, and Eunsol-noona, Seungyub and I were all freed again in less than a minute.

However – this was only the beginning.

“Ahpu, ahpu, huaak. Cough. Please. Please, uaaak!!!”

The two people that happened to be in the water when it happened, Elena and Songee, were unable to come out. Going closer to the pool, I looked inside and became speechless.

Lips. Extremely large lips. Those lips were way too enormous.

It was on a whole different league to the lips that had emerged out of the walls and floors of the pool. 

At this point, it was pretty much like the mouth of a whale, and the tongue leaving that mouth was also incomparably thicker than the other ones. The other tongues were like an arm, whereas this one was as thick as a person’s leg.

Plus, there were two tongues this time instead of one.

Jinchul-hyung ran up before I could even do anything.

He should be able to solve it. These past few days, I had seen his nonsensical strength time after time. 

Even if the tongue was as thick as a human leg… someone strong enough to crush concrete with his fists should be able to deal with it.

That was what I was thinking, but things turned out differently from my hopeful anticipation.

“Uhhk. Why the hell is this mouth so damn big! Kain!! Come here and pull with me!”

I mindlessly ran forward. Jinchul-hyung was displaying his might by pulling Elena with one arm while pulling Songee with his other arm, but had to let go of one of his arms and I frantically ran towards Songee to pull her out.

While running up to her, a doubt appeared in my mind.

Even though the tongue was strong, it was in the end a tongue, and was not as tough as metal.

It felt soft even for me, so shouldn’t Jinchul-hyung be strong enough to snap the tongue itself with his strength? I saw him snap the small tongues like rotten ropes in just 1 or 2 seconds, so I thought the big tongue wouldn’t be that different but…

The moment I started pulling Songee, I realised what the issue was.

Songee and Elena tried to leave the water as soon as something bizarre started to occur but it was too late, and most of their bodies were still underwater. Naturally, the tongues grabbing onto their ankles to pull them deeper in were also underwater.

How would Jinchul-hyung, who couldn’t even stay still in the water go that deep and break those tongues!

In fact, it would have been difficult even if he was a good swimmer.

Regardless of how strong a person was, when underwater without anything to support your body, it would be difficult to use your strength properly unless you could go against the laws of physics.

Slowly, Songee and I were dragged deeper into the pool.

Crackkk!

The floor of the pool cracked open. Water swirled while being sucked into that large mouth as I felt the unbearable pressure turning even stronger.

Ahh… that mouth! Look at that mouth! There were countless horrifying teeth gleaming inside the opened mouth.

It definitely wouldn’t be a nice death if I ended up there. Freezing to death in Room 101 was quite merciful compared to dying inside that mouth.

When the floor opened its mouth, Songee’s wail and her scream doubled in noise, and was now so loud I thought I was turning deaf.

Tinggg–

That was when something metal fell next to me.

A silver dagger.

It was the ornamented dagger we found in the corridor in the morning before entering Room 101. Even though I didn’t even get to use it in Room 101, I had been keeping it next to me the whole time.

I was going to keep it around because of how fancy and expensive it seemed, and I could also remember how Seungyub and Jinchul-hyung used to play around with it. That piece of artwork which was worth at least a few tens of thousands of dollars, and even a few hundred thousand dollars had been tossed around like a toy.

From a distance, I could see Seungyub shouting something.

He must have taken the dagger out of my clothes and thrown it to me.

I understood what his intention was, so I picked up the dagger and stabbed on the tongue as hard as I could.

This tongue might be strong but was not as tough as metal, so there was no way it would be able to hold off against a blade!

Stabb–

As expected, the dagger pierced through the tongue.

It felt as if I was cutting into a very lean piece of meat. A horrendous vomit-inducing odour gushed out along with blood.

BBBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A loud scream ridiculous enough to bring my deafened ears back to life filled the pool while suppressing every other bit of noise.

And at last, Songee and I became free again.

“Oppa, oppa. Thank– Ptui. Thank– cough. I mean.”

“Keep that for later and collect your breath.”

“You should keep that for later as well! Come stab this tongue here as well!!!”

A low roar reached my ears as I mindlessly ran forward to pierce on the tongue that was wrapped around Elena’s ankle.

[Lower your body immediately!]

? What was this suddenly about – before I finished that line of thought, I flew across the sky.

It was my first time ever to fly in the air like this.

My line of sight suddenly turned higher, and my body flew around 7 or 8 metres like a bird before crashing into the wall.

“Ahhhhhkkk!!! Ha, fucccckkk! Uaaaaakkk!”

My whole body was probably crushed.

From the top of my head, to the tip of my toes – it felt like someone had hammered my body all the way down. I belatedly realised that that crazy tongue had come in like a missile to bash me away.

Ahah, so that’s why I got the alarm to lower my body huh.

But what else could I have done?

Why didn’t it warn me beforehand? It was already too late by the time I saw that message…

That was when I realised the principle of that ‘warning alarm’. 

‘Sage’s Advice’ was only activated when there was a materialised form of risk that would come in a few seconds. The reason why ‘Sage’s Advice’ hadn’t been activated even when we were roaming around the hotel facilities and even when we entered the pool was very simple.

It was because that mouth hadn’t been formed yet.

Besides, the alarm didn’t go off straight after the appearance of that mouth, and waited until that tongue was just about to half-kill me!

I finally realised that this ‘Advice’ had more weaknesses than I thought.

However, it might be too late already.

This might be my death.

My body had seriously exceeded the limits of what a human body could handle. 

Maybe this is how it feels to be run over by a truck. It was way, way too painful. In fact, it was so painful that I couldn’t even faint.

And, from the corner of my vision – I saw red mist being sprayed out. 

What was that thing? Despite the condition of my own body, I became curious. Eunsol-noona was swinging a strange container to spray out a bunch of mist, and mysteriously enough, that mist performed literally like magic.

Not only did the tongues run away in fright after coming into contact with the spray, they collapsed to the side and shivered. The big tongue wasn’t any different either.

After she whole-heartedly sprayed everything out of the container towards the large tongue, the two tongues – the one that smacked me and the one that was holding onto Elena – fell to the side and shivered as if their previous disgusting vigour had been an illusion.

What kind of mythical magic elixir did Eunsol-noona gain access to? How was she able to neutralise that monster so easily?

Those lips – they came to a close.

The tornado inside the pool ceased.

When the chaotic situation finally settled down, my consciousness faded along with the alleviation of my tension.

*

“Unni unni unni. Oppa oppa oppa. What do we do? Kain-oppa is not waking up! Kain-oppa? Oppa?”

“Songee, you’re distracting me so please stay still. Jinchul, you did some martial arts didn’t you? Do you know how to do first-aid and stuff?”

“I’m doing it right now. But his arm… His arm is completely crushed. He’s alive only thanks to his arm taking in most of the shock. If he took that strike to his stomach, he would have died already.”

“His arm… I’m not a doctor but his arm is clearly not the only problem right? He was flying… I saw Kain fly 10 metres!”

“I saw that too. His organs must be in a complete mess right now. This, this… I can’t do anything here; we need a doctor. You fucking hotel bastards, we need a doctor!!!!! Can’t you hear me!!!”

“Noona. Noona… shouldn’t we buy something at your market? Do you have a potion or something?”

“The things they sell in the market are generic. There’s no gun so how could there even be something like a potion? Actually, there’s nothing we can do even if there was. I already bought capsaicin and this bandage, and that’s 3 times this week already.”

Voices. Voices. It was so noisy that I hazily came to my senses.

I see, so the identity of that mythical elixir was capsaicin, huh. It was a tongue to be fair. It would have been strange if the tongue could withstand the flood of concentrated capsaicin.

That was no longer the question of how strong and weak that tongue was, but more than anything, it was amazing how noona was able to think of capsaicin amidst all that confusion.

I noticed something stuck on my arm, and also saw the people that were creating a fuss.

A girl was crying next to me. Even though there was no need for her to cry so much.

A lady was standing still while shivering, as if she was going to lose her mind. It seemed that my life wasn’t for naught judging from how a beauty of that level was worried about me.

There was a boy running. Why was he running? He seemed mindless and appeared to be doing it without even knowing the reason himself.

And… there was an alarm flickering in the corner of my sight.

[Return to Room 105 immediately.]

Room 105. Room of Rest.

Did ‘Rest’ mean more than just providing food, drinks and a bed?

Looking back at the games I played growing up, the ‘inn’ was indeed a place that filled your HP and Mana back to full after a sleep.

Forcing out all the remaining energy I had inside me, I managed to utter a few words.

“105. Room 105.”

That was all I could do.