Chapter: 102
102 – Party Time (4) – Consultation about the Grimoire and Descent, Use of Advice
Party Time, Morning of Day 1
– Han Kain
– Consultation on the Grimoire.
The phenomenon occurring during possession with the Grimoire, the disappearance of the status window, and the addition of a timer.
“First of all,” Ahri began, “there’s a very important reason I started this hypothesis. You mentioned that by obtaining the Grimoire, you gained ‘eternal life’, right? If that’s true, then essentially, you’ve acquired a cheat code at the Hotel.
It’s not like the Apostle’s experience at all. He couldn’t leave the area near the Mansion of Fear to resurrect his god and had to perform various tasks for that resurrection.
Because of his goal, he faced restrictions in both movement and actions, which allowed us to locate him.
But you don’t have any of those limitations. The moment you enter a room, if you steal the bodies of NPCs and run away endlessly to some far corner of the world, how on earth could an enemy possibly find you, let alone kill you?
Such a ‘cheat escape technique’—do you really think the Hotel would allow that? There must be restrictions in place to prevent that, and I’m absolutely convinced after hearing your explanation.”
Ding, ding, ding! Welcome to Hotel Round 2!
As for me—the one who received the Inheritance—I hadn’t thought of that at all, but Ahri had it all figured out in a flash.
Without restrictions, the power of possession essentially translates to guaranteed escape.
If I kept stealing NPC bodies and fleeing to who-knows-where, how would anyone even find me!?
Ahri continued her explanation.
“This might get a bit tricky, so listen closely. What do you think distinguishes a person’s identity? Descartes proposed a dualistic philosophy where the body and mind are separate entities, connected by the pineal gland.
Of course, modern science has proven that theory wrong. The mind is produced by the brain, which is clearly a physical organ. From a scientific standpoint, there’s no meaningful distinction between mind and body. Monism is the only truth here. What do you think?”
Suddenly, she threw a question during this intense philosophical monologue.
Technically, I could use the Grimoire’s power to hijack another entity’s body.
In other words, the mind and body are separated.
“Right now, since my body and mind are divided, wouldn’t your argument lean towards dualism?”
“But doesn’t that sound strange?” she shot back.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Just before you got the Grimoire, your sense of self was undoubtedly a combination of electrical signals created by your brain, hence you were a monistic being. But the moment you obtained the Grimoire, you became a dualistic entity where you no longer rely on your brain for thought?”
“Can you just explain it plainly?” I grumbled.
“Alright. When you use the Grimoire for possession, you essentially split into two parts: the body that your consciousness leaves behind and the mind that enters another body. You naturally think of the ‘Real Han Kain’ as the consciousness in someone else’s body, while your physical body is just an empty shell.
But…
Dun-dun-dun!
Is that really true? Your body is still there, right? Even the brain that created your sense of self remains in that body? Viewed from another angle, the ‘Real Han Kain’ might be the body left behind. The consciousness that entered another person’s body could just be a replica created by the Grimoire.”
I began to grasp what she was getting at, but a crucial question lingered.
“But when I possess someone, the body left behind can’t think at all.”
“How do you know that?” she replied.
In that instant, I was left speechless.
“Actually, the Real Han Kain might be thinking—it’s just that the body is unable to move. Perhaps the consciousness left behind is overwritten by the consciousness of the one possessing when it returns.”
…That explanation sent chills down my spine.
“Of course, remember this is just my hypothesis. Now, back to our original question. Why does the status window disappear when you’re in someone else’s body, and what’s the timer for? Here’s my take. The Hotel seems to consider you as no longer being the ‘Real Han Kain’ once you possess someone else. Hence, you can’t utilize the status window.
In that context, the timer takes on a different meaning. It indicates the ‘time until you are officially deemed dead’.”
“Considered dead…?”
“If the hotel considers you to be a false Han Kain the moment you possess someone else, then you could say that the Real Han Kain dies as soon as you use that possession. But if the criteria are that strict, it becomes impossible for you to leverage the Grimoire, which is likely why they offered you an hour of leeway.
Once you surpass that time, perhaps they conclude that the Real Han Kain is dead, and the ‘Han Kain who possessed someone else’ is simply a fake duplicate.”
To sum up that lengthy explanation, it was a simple story.
According to the Hotel, when I possessed someone else, I was not deemed to be the real one.
That’s why I couldn’t use the status window, and Ahri’s hypothesis was that if I didn’t return to my original body within an hour, they would consider the “Real Han Kain” to be dead.
If that’s the case, using someone else’s body to escape from a Cursed Room wouldn’t work.
Dramatic pause for effect
– Discussion on Descent
“Now, let me share my thoughts on Descent. This too, ultimately ties back to your ‘sense of identity’. What exactly is the Son of Heaven following the Descent? Is it a completely separate entity from you?
If that’s the case, the Hotel would have determined you died the moment you used Descent and wouldn’t have granted you the Inheritance. Yet, the Hotel still sees you as ‘Participant Han Kain.’ You didn’t get hit with any timers, and after solving matters, you also received the Inheritance.”
“Is it because you still have the same body?”
“That’s possible, but there could also be more complicated criteria in play. What I’m saying is, don’t separate yourself too much from ‘you’ after using ‘Descent’. While listening to your explanation before, I sensed something. You got caught in thoughts about ‘detachment’ right after using Descent, expecting yourself to be completely different before and after using it.
That very thought could’ve caused the confusion you experienced. Next time you use it, try to think differently. Tell yourself, ‘I am just me!’ or something along those lines.”
How very philosophical!
Listening to her explanation was starting to raise some eyebrows.
After all, both Ahri and Grandpa Mooksung were part of the Administration Bureau.
Didn’t they reject supernatural powers that could pose threats to humanity?
The ‘Son of Heaven’ had just come out and already slaughtered untold innocent civilians while showing extreme arrogance.
“I expected you might warn me against using Descent, if possible.”
“Why? Is it too dangerous?” Ahri cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah. The mental toll can be heavy too.”
“Are you really not going to use it if I tell you not to? Are you actually going to hold back even if we’re about to become ghosts roaming hopelessly around the Hotel forever?”
“…I probably would.”
“That’s why I won’t bother to instruct you not to use it. It’s pointless. If a crisis arises, you’ll inevitably have to use it, so if you’re going to use it anyway, you should at least think about how to use it effectively.”
Preach!
Cue applause for Ahri’s well-spoken wisdom!
Ahri was right, it would indeed turn out to be a resource we needed if things went south.
Fearing it had no meaning.
So, following her advice, I decided I would try to think about how to use it “well” and approach it differently next time I used it.
“By the way, do you have any guesses about what the ‘Lord’ might be planning?” I inquired.
“Not a clue.” She shook her head, looking baffled. “In fact, I truly don’t get it.”
“What’s there not to understand exactly?”
“Though the ‘Lord’ might come off as spectacular, the Hotel is actually a place where beings of that caliber are imprisoned in rooms. It far surpasses anything the likes of the ‘Lord’ could throw at us. So could they even really pull any tricks by gifting abilities to participants like mere criminals trapped in a single room?”
Dramatic music plays in the background
“Imagine Sun Wukong monkeying around on Buddha’s hand.
What baffles me is that ‘the Lord’ should logically know this. That’s what leaves me perplexed. It’s like Sun Wukong is performing tricks on Buddha’s hand while neither the Buddha’s nor Sun Wukong’s feelings make sense to me.
The only conclusion I came to is….”
“What conclusion is that?”
“We should avoid Room 104 as much as possible. After all, we’re already able to challenge the Gate Room, right? There’s no need to step into a room containing a convict who clearly has something up their sleeve. Honestly, Room 104 might be more dangerous than the Gate Room for us.”
And with that profound discussion, our long consultation wrapped up.
I jotted down a summary of our consultation onto the status window.
– Grimoire
1. It seems the Hotel views me as not the real deal once I possess someone else.
2. If the possession time exceeds one hour, they likely judge that the ‘Real Han Kain’ has perished.
– Descent
1. In times of crisis, it’s a power I’ll probably end up using again. Rather than being afraid, I should focus on how to use it effectively.
2. Next time, I shouldn’t obsess over the idea of ‘changing’ but consider how to maintain my identity.
3. Let’s refrain from entering Room 104 until we dig deeper into the Lord’s schemes.
And scene!
After wrapping up the consultation with Ahri, I returned to the area near the fire.
While we were deep in conversation, others were busy making their own plans.
Eunsol-noona approached me.
“So, have you finished the consultation?”
“Yeah, I think I got everything I wanted to ask out there.”
“I saw you both having a long and serious discussion, and I didn’t want to interrupt. I even caught some philosophical tidbits about Descartes in there!”
“It was a rather complicated discussion, for sure.”
“Please summarize it for us later. Anyway, while you guys were gone, we brainstormed a bit, and we decided to head straight to the Sanctum of Blessings as soon as we get back to the Hotel.”
We really needed to wrap that up quickly due to needing to sleep for a full day to enhance our blessings, plus we had to test the newly strengthened blessings as soon as possible.
“However, there’s something we need to do first.”
“What is that?”
“This time when we go to the Sanctum, you plan to empower your blessing and sleep, right? So let’s use up all your ‘Advice’ before we go.”
That made sense. It appeared they’d been plotting a list of questions while we were busy; they came up with a notebook packed with inquires.
“I’ve referred to your earlier explanation. You mentioned that ‘questions on topics we have no information about’ result in non-specific answers, so we focused on questions that had some relevant information but were hard to interpret.”
I started using my Advice and read through the list.
First question.
“Why is the usefulness of the Blessing so ridiculously low? It doesn’t help with personal enhancement at all.”
That seemed to be a thought I’d had before; looks like Eunsol-noona was equally disappointed by it.
[Advice: 3 -> 2]
[Make sure to inquire directly about the Blessing when you meet your sponsor today.]
“Goddamn it! This is infuriating! It’s so hard to utilize my blessing that I can’t even meet my sponsor!”
“Hmm, Eunsol-noona. I don’t think this answer is as bad as you think it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“The reason it didn’t give a direct response is probably some sort of ‘jurisdiction’ issue. Blessings are bound by the authority of each sponsor, meaning they probably can’t interfere. Or perhaps they deemed it cheating to use a blessing to gain more insight about another blessing and blocked it.
However, from using my Advice, I’ve started to notice that for ‘questions they can’t answer directly,’ it tends to respond in a somewhat roundabout way.”
Eunsol-noona caught on right away.
“Wait! Are you saying that when it says, ‘ask your sponsor today,’ it means I might actually meet my sponsor this time?”
“That’s my assumption. There’s no reason they’d specify ‘today’ otherwise. It suggests you’ll meet your sponsor when we arrive at the Sanctum today.”
She jumped for joy as I scratched out every question about blessings on the list. Clearly, questions regarding the blessings themselves were a no-go.
Second question.
This time I asked something I was curious about.
“I completely don’t understand the power of Incarnation. I need advice.”
As I asked, I felt a tingle of anxiety. Wasn’t this a classic case of a question that fell under ‘something I know nothing about’?
Yet, outside of Party Time, it was hard to use Advice for these personal queries.
We were constrained since Advice and Life Alerts shared the same limit; hence, we had to save up Advice for ‘alerting’ when it came time for the Cursed Rooms.
I had my fingers crossed for at least a half-decent answer.
[Advice: 2 -> 1]
[Are you currently understanding and utilizing the power of possession?]
…What?
That was weirder than I expected. I shared both the question and answer with everyone.
Oddly enough, it was Songee who deciphered the meaning.
“Ah! I think I understand! That response suggests that it’s ‘normal not to comprehend the workings of your inheritance.’ I mean, even though I’m using the bracelet, I don’t have the slightest clue about how it operates.
It’s just like using a TV remote; I know pressing buttons works, but the science behind it? Absolutely clueless.
I think it’s the same for you, Kain-oppa. Your ability to use possession doesn’t stem from understanding it fully, right? You just know how to use it practically. That’s why the answer implies it’s perfectly fine to not understand the Power of Incarnation.”
“It makes sense that I can’t fully grasp it, but how am I supposed to utilize it, then?”
“I think time will offer the answer. I’ve certainly improved since I started using the bracelet compared to when I first got it.”
So, the conclusion was that I needed to keep using the Grimoire longer before contemplating the next stage.
Third question.
Eunsol-noona had jotted down something incredibly important.
“Noona? This…”
“It struck me randomly a few days back. The HP Market sells blankets and sturdy ropes, and if we combine those well, could we create something like a parachute? Would that allow us to escape through the main entrance?”
I glanced at Ahri, the Hotel’s 2nd timer.
She merely tilted her head and shook it, indicating uncertainty.
I submitted my Advice.
[Advice: 1 -> 0]
[If your life doesn’t matter, then feel free to experiment with that.]
…
What does that mean?
Are they saying pushing my limits could be lethal?
Cue dramatic tension
I suppose we’re diving headfirst into disaster here!
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