Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
"Ominous, seriously. What kind of writing is that supposed to be?"
The middle-aged man waved his hand, saying it left a bad taste.
[The tower granted you a precious opportunity, and yet you kept weeping and despairing.]
[Finding that impudent, I have summoned the Gates of Hell.]
[If you wish to fulfill your wishes, you must find your strength. How regrettable.]
"Wh-what?! Where is he?"
The Curator's voice.
Everyone looked around wildly for the Curator, but not even the hem of its robe was in sight.
Without showing itself, it inputted its voice directly into our ears.
"But the Gates of Hell that Rodin made doesn't have this inscription on it."
Since there was no telling where the Curator was, I simply spoke at the empty air.
[Because this is not the real Gates of Hell.]
[Think carefully.]
'I already know it's not the real Gates of Hell, obviously.'
And what exactly am I supposed to think carefully about?
[Then, to the visitors who have made it this far — I present your quest!]
A huge leaflet unfurled above the Gates of Hell.
Fwish-
=================
-This gate is Rodin, and it is a torso.
-It is the beautiful yet incomplete hope of humankind.
-Will you enter through the gate?
-Or will you return the way you came?
-Act as you have thought.
=================
The Gates of Hell were tall to begin with, and with the leaflet spread out above them, the text was hard to make out.
We all stepped back together and read the quest.
'Only two choices, so in its way it could be a simple problem. ...But the consequences are anything but simple.'
Even the phrases that seemed to be hints read like riddles.
"H-how are we supposed to choose that door when we don't know what's beyond it?!"
"Exactly. It's called the Gates of Hell — how could anyone go in there?"
"Ah, but it said it's not the real Gates of Hell. Then it's fine to enter, isn't it?"
Opinions split sharply among the visitors.
Right. The problem was that this was, of all things, the Gates of Hell.
The people carved into the gate writhed in torment, tangled together.
Passing through a gate that chilled you just to look at demanded enormous resolve.
"It said the quest is given to those of us who arrived at this gate. Doesn't that mean the people waiting back there were never even given the chance?"
"It could be deceiving us! It never said 'only' us."
"And what if we go back that way and all fail together?"
"......."
Jang Si-woon and the middle-aged woman debated, then both fell silent.
With no solid feel for the answer, each was quickly swayed by the other's words.
Jang Si-woon turned her head toward me, eyes gleaming.
"Anything coming to you?"
Perhaps because I'd matched the quests to their works so far, everyone was looking at me with expectation.
However.
"I don't know."
When I shook my head from side to side, sighs burst out on every side.
'In the Divine Comedy, a gruesome hell unfolded beyond the Gates of Hell.'
If it followed that text to the letter, we must never pass through this gate.
But if we turned back?
Beyond simply avoiding the Gates of Hell, what meaning would that hold?
'Judging by everything so far, quest answers connect to the works.'
The link between Dante's Divine Comedy and Rodin's work: the 'Gates of Hell.'
The clue had to be found there.
I approached the Gates of Hell and examined the work closely.
Dust had settled so thickly that the sculpted figures' fine shapes couldn't be seen.
When I carefully brushed the dust away, the middle-aged man practically leapt into the air.
"Hey, pal, what are you doing?!"
"If someone ends up choosing the option to leave, they'll have to push this gate anyway. Before that, I want to see if there's anything to find."
"Are you allowed to just touch it like that? What if you get cursed?"
"The dust was so thick I couldn't make out the shapes."
"...Delicate-looking face, but you've got no brakes, huh."
It didn't exactly sound like a compliment.
Maybe it was because I could hear the whispering of visitors still debating whether to turn back.
'If this were the real Gates of Hell, I wouldn't have tried touching it right away. But this is a fake the tower created.'
When personal meaning is added, a new work made from another work's motif can still hold significance.
But this was a gate that plagiarized someone else's work to test visitors' fates.
Beautiful as it might be, its depth was flimsy — which was why I could lay hands on it without hesitation.
"If you're not certain, better not to put yourself forward too much. In the end, you're the one who bears the responsibility."
Jang Si-woon came up beside me and whispered quietly.
'...Kind of her to say, but I've already put myself forward on deduction and a shaky half-certainty.'
I couldn't claim to bear no responsibility, so I had to find the answer, whatever it took.
"...Si-woon. Look at this."
Brushing off dust until my hands turned black, the hidden sculptures revealed themselves.
Torsos and sculpted pieces of particular body parts — absent from the genuine Gates of Hell — were plastered all over it.
"Isn't it strange? They deliberately added torsos."
"Torso — that was the trunk, right? There are hands and feet here too, not just those."
"Yes. It's attached so conspicuously, it's almost like they're begging us to notice...."
"Does it mean something?"
"......."
I still didn't know why they had deliberately altered the work.
When I failed to answer, Jang Si-woon propped her chin on her hand and sank into thought.
"Did they make it look like a knockoff on purpose?"
"Look like a knockoff?"
"Like they're spoon-feeding people like me, who can't tell whether it's real or fake."
'A knockoff.... Spoon-feeding....'
[Because this is not the real Gates of Hell.]
[Think carefully.]
'Since it's not the real Gates of Hell, choosing to enter this gate... is no different from a gamble.'
Someone who trusted their own luck might choose it.
I've never been on good terms with luck, so I needed grounds.
I stepped backward again and read the leaflet's contents carefully.
=================
-This gate is Rodin, and it is a torso.
-It is the beautiful yet incomplete hope of humankind.
-Will you enter through the gate?
-Or will you return the way you came?
-Act as you have thought.
=================
"Rodin, and a torso.... A complete human...."
Awoooo-
Suddenly, the howling of wild beasts rang out.
An eerie wind blew through, sending the leaves whirling.
"Th-that's a real wolf howl...! If we keep standing here, aren't we all going to be torn apart and eaten?!"
The young man shrank in terror, crumpling his large frame small.
He shouted at me in his gravelly voice, as if venting his anger.
He seemed to resent me deeply for bringing us all the way here.
'The beasts did spare me earlier, just as in the Divine Comedy.'
But there was no telling whether that storyline would repeat itself.
Whether he screamed or not, Jang Si-woon didn't so much as glance at him, helping my deduction instead.
"Do you think the Curator was the one who attached these torsos?"
"Why do you think so?"
"Maybe it's just because I don't know this field, but. All the other sculptures here are made perfectly, yet these torsos are somehow...."
Jang Si-woon scratched her cheek, continuing slowly.
"They look like someone ran out of time and couldn't finish them. Why deliberately make it look less pretty?"
Ah.
From the words Jang Si-woon tossed out, I gleaned something important.
Just as I had recalled the Divine Comedy earlier, I churned through my old knowledge again.
Closing my eyes, I dug through the tangled information and sorted it in my head.
'Did I read it in a book? Or did I hear it from my brother, maybe....'
Tracing the faint memory, I spat the information out loud the moment it came.
There wasn't even time to filter and choose my words.
"Pretty or not pretty — that's a matter of each person's perspective. But Rodin...."
"Yes?"
Hooowl-
The beasts' cries were closer than before.
"Damn it, forget this! Rather than fail the quest and become lion feed, I'm going back the way we came!"
"Right. What if something happens to us after we walk into that horrid gate!"
When the young man shouted in his gravelly voice, the middle-aged woman chimed in.
Even so, the two seemed too afraid to flee alone; they were waiting for more companions to join them.
'Ah. That's it.'
Maybe my brain spun faster because of the urgency.
Out of the tangle of memories, the key piece of information finally surfaced.
Information that could solve the quest.
"We need to open this gate and go inside."
At my words, the two who had been about to flee looked at me with faces on the verge of tears.
"Because this is not the real Gates of Hell."
"That could just be that Curator bastard lying to us!"
"For a lie, it fits together too well. Look at that leaflet."
-This gate is Rodin, and it is a torso.
-It is the beautiful yet incomplete hope of humankind.
"Exactly — I was just about to ask about that."
As I gestured toward the leaflet, the middle-aged man raised his eyebrows.
"The beautiful yet incomplete hope of humankind. What kind of nonsense is that? To enter this gate, we're supposed to abandon hope, aren't we?"
"I don't know what's beyond it either. But...."
Even if what unfolds beyond it is a hell horrific enough to demand we abandon all hope.
"It never said we couldn't hope again."
"Ha — you realize that's pure wishful reading, right? Huh?!! F-f—k, my heart!!"
The beasts' howling tore in through the trees.
At the young man's cursing, I hurriedly stretched out my hand.
"Please, just hear me out a little longer!"
"......."
"Rodin died without completing the Gates of Hell."
Thankfully, the two stopped where they were and kept listening.
"The beautiful Gates of Hell is unfinished — while these torsos here, on the other hand, are complete."
"......."
"By Rodin's standards."
The standard of completeness belongs to the individual.
-This gate is Rodin, and it is a torso.
"This gate's theme is 'incompleteness' — and sure enough, the word incomplete was right there in the quest."
"But Ji-san. Is it really all right to interpret 'beautiful and incomplete' by Rodin's standards alone? It looks different to us."
Jang Si-woon posed a sharp question.
-It is the beautiful yet incomplete hope of humankind.
"They say what Rodin wanted to capture in the Gates of Hell was the full range of human emotion."
I swept my gaze over the human figures within the Gates of Hell.
Sorrow, rage, love — incomplete humans, swept up in countless emotions like these. And yet.
"We're the same as the people carved into those Gates of Hell."
'Ji-san. You can do it.'
'Even when they've abandoned every hope, humans are rich, many-colored beings who dream of hope all over again.'
When was it? A conversation with my brother from more than a decade ago suddenly rang in my ears.
Maybe because, unlike me, he was someone with an exceptional artistic sense.
He was the kind of brother whose everyday words carried resonance.
"And the Curator said it too. That if we want our wishes granted, we have to find our strength."
"......."
"Telling us to find strength in front of a phrase that says abandon all hope — that's contradictory, isn't it?"
[The tower granted you a precious opportunity, and yet you kept weeping and despairing.]
[Finding that impudent, I have summoned the Gates of Hell.]
[If you wish to fulfill your wishes, you must find your strength. How regrettable.]
Like me — who gave up on everything and still came hoping for a wish — hope is something you can simply make anew.
'Whew....'
I had exhausted every explanation I could offer.
Whether the others believed me or not, I decided to open this gate.
"Ngh-"
The gate was so heavy that opening it alone was beyond me, but I pushed with everything I had.
Then, from the slight crack in the door, scorching heat billowed out.
[Welcome to Hell.]
"Aaagh — no. No, this is wrong. I'm going back!!"
At the Curator's low, resonant voice, people fell into utter panic.
It didn't seem like my strength alone would be enough to push this gate open.
'Honestly, the most terrified one here is me.'
The moment the heat touched my skin, goosebumps erupted over my whole body.
Even so, I gritted my teeth and forced more strength into my pushing hands.
"Somebody, please, help me push this...!"
Then.
"...Jang Si-woon!"
"Are you actually pushing right now?"
Jang Si-woon stepped in beside me and threw her strength into it.
Somehow, after losing at running, it seemed I was losing at strength too....
But at any rate, thanks to Jang Si-woon, the heavy door panel was slowly opening.
"Um-"
"Shut up! I don't care what the explanation is — I am not going in there!!"
"Wait a moment!"
I turned my head toward the young man and the middle-aged woman as they made to leave.
"If you run into the beasts on your way, shout for them to spare you."
"What...?"
"It follows the flow of Dante's Divine Comedy. That's how I survived earlier, too."
"......."
"I don't know if it'll work again. I'm only telling you just in case."
I couldn't afford to keep watching the two of them, so I leaned forward into the gate again.
Behind us, the patter of running footsteps faded into the distance.
Jang Si-woon clicked her tongue at me like an old man.
"Kim Ji-san. What a kind soul you are. But if you have energy to hand out tips to them, would you mind pushing this a little harder?"
"......."
Kind — that's overly generous. It was simply the advice owed to anyone diving back into that dark forest path.
In truth, I was actually grateful to those two — for sparing me from seeing any more of humanity's ugly side.
'However extreme the situation, nothing good comes from staying with people who just keep screaming, with no spine of their own.'
I shook my head to clear away the uncharitable thought and threw my strength back into pushing the gate.
"Oh, for — my back's going to give out, seriously...!"
Unexpectedly, the middle-aged man did not choose to return to where we'd started.
The moment he laid his hands on the gate to push, he immediately started making a racket.
At any rate, with the strength of the three of us combined, it looked like the gate would open completely before long.
'Considering they wrote on the leaflet that this gate is hope, even a one-dimensional reading gives the same answer.'
As Jang Si-woon put it, maybe this was them spoon-feeding us.
Either way, we'd chosen the path through the gate, so all we could do was spin our positivity circuits as hard as possible.
"I'll go in first! Everyone, follow in after me!!"
At last, the gate stood fully open.
I was utterly terrified, but for the sake of the two who believed in me, I volunteered to take the lead.
The inside was so choked with lurid red and gray smoke that the eye couldn't make anything out.
For me — the one who trembled even at a cigarette ember — to leap into that hellfire.
I will not burn. My body will be safe. Please.
'Even if what unfolds ahead of me is hell itself, I will climb.'
I squeezed my eyes shut and leapt in through the Gates of Hell.