CHAPTER 323: ROOM 203, CURSED ROOM - 'NEW BEGINNING' RE (3)

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User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 683,615

Current Location: Floor 2, Room 203 – Cursed Room ‘New Beginning’

Sage’s Advice: 3

– Han Kain

I sent away the people around to talk with Hyung.

“You ran here as soon as it started, right? Isn’t there a monster near your tribe too?”

Jinchul-hyung nodded.

“I already killed it.”

“What?”

“I killed it on the way here. I knew its location too. So the tribe members should be fine for now.”

His tone was as if he just had a cup of coffee on the way. It wasn’t anything new, but there was no one among us better at dealing with physical monsters than Jinchul-hyung.

“Anyway, it’s good you came early. I experienced some strange things and gained a lot of information.”

“Strange experience?”

I told Jinchul-hyung about what happened on the spaceship before waking up in the primitive era. Hyung couldn’t hide his bewilderment for a long time with his mouth half-open.

“Really, this damn Hotel keeps coming up with weird stories no matter how much we dig.”

“That’s right.”

“F-first! Let’s put aside the spaceship story and talk about the others’ locations. Are they all hundreds of km apart?”

“Not all of them. Surprisingly, Eunsol-noona and Songee are only 60km away at the starting point. Grandpa Mooksung, who’s the farthest, is now showing as 871km away.”

“871km... Kain, do you know how far that is?”

“I don’t have a license, so I’m not sure.”

“If you follow the road from Seoul to Busan, it’s about 390km. 871km is enough to go diagonally across South Korea and back with distance to spare.”

“That’s really far.”

“It’s not just far! How are we supposed to meet?”

“We did meet at the mountain range in the first attempt, right?”

“That was because Sanghyun and Gramps moved on their own, ignoring the tribe members.”

“We can meet if we do that this time too.”

“...”

Silence fell around for a moment.

I felt sorry for the tribe members outside, but it was a thought I’ve had since I confirmed the companions’ locations with the normalized Status Window.

It was hard to meet because we were hundreds of km apart?

That was true when moving with ordinary human tribe members, but it was a completely different story if we ignored them and moved on our own.

What if I controlled the bodies of monsters overflowing in this world to move? What if Songee did something similar with Affinity?

Not to mention Elena who could create flying monsters or Jinchul-hyung who was faster than a horse even with his bare body.

It might be a bit difficult for the doctor and Grandpa. They didn’t have the talent to fly in the sky or handle monsters.

But their basic physical abilities were among the highest in humanity due to Diligence and their background as former Administration agents respectively.

If we moved on our own, we could close even 871km in a short time. Hyung, who understood my words, sighed.

“That might be the answer. Haa...”

“...”

“Let’s talk about the spaceship story. I found a really shocking point while listening to you.”

“There was a lot of shocking information.”

“Humanity in the distant future sends a spaceship for space pioneering? All the crew members on board are enhanced humans, and there’s an AI so advanced it’s hard to distinguish from humans?”

“It’s like a sci-fi movie.”

“What’s this human cultivation kit? Did you see it?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“The most surprising information is the time itself you spent.”

“By time, do you mean the 683,615 days showing on the Status Window?”

“That time of 680,000 something. It’s about 1800 or 1900 years, right?”

“Yes.”

“That time is just a number for us who were in cryosleep. But what meaning would it have for the Convict?”

“By Convict, do you mean Adravita?”

“Wouldn’t that guy have spent 1800 years wide awake?”

...That’s right.

Unlike us who fell into cryosleep, Adravita was perfectly awake even on the spaceship. Of course, it would have spent the subsequent 1800 years wide awake too.

“It is quite long. But it’s a transcendent being, not human. Wouldn’t its sense of time be different from humans?”

“That’s true, but think about it from a different perspective. For it, 1800 years isn’t just a one-time thing, right? In fact, it’s not even 1800 years. We’re already in our second entry, so it’s ‘at least 3600 years’.”

I understood.

If the same thing happened in the first attempt but we didn’t know because we didn’t wake up on the spaceship, Adravita had spent 3600 years with just two attempts.

“Moreover, that’s the minimum. Didn’t they say the Hotel has accepted countless participants in the past? There were probably people who challenged this room before us and failed. If 1800 years passed each time, then...”

How much time had Adravita spent in the Cursed Room?

A heavy silence fell for a moment.

“...Let’s talk about this part with the others later. For now, it seems more urgent to think about where to go right away.”

“Let’s do that. This time, rather than going to the mountain range, the unidentified being said to be in the sky—come to think of it, isn’t that Adravita?”

“It must be. The appearance description from Noona who saw it directly and what I saw were similar. It was said to have been promised ‘the right to spread faith’ by humanity.”

“If it floats in the sky spreading abundance across the entire continent in this primitive era, faith that didn’t exist would arise. Shall we follow Adravita’s shadow?”

“This time, let’s—“

– Boom!

Suddenly, an incomprehensible vibration struck the entire world!

“What is this—“

Jinchul-hyung pointed at the air with his mouth wide open. In the air, there was a very familiar hotel-specific notification.

You have escaped!

A sudden escape? And the notification appeared to both me and Hyung simultaneously? Could it be everyone escaped?

***– Kim Ahri

I came to my senses in the cold air. As soon as I woke up, a terrible stench stung my nose.

I was the sealed participant of Room 203. But even though I woke up, there was no notification that the seal had been released. The meaning of this was clear.

As I turned my head, there was the being I expected.

“Mi—“

“Shh!”

Before I could say anything, Miro covered my mouth and pointed around as if telling me to look around.

– Whirr! Buzz!

I silently looked around and assessed the situation.

Everywhere was overflowing with huge cocoons large enough for a whole person to fit in, and the floor was covered with unpleasantly writhing dark red flesh.

Some cocoons were starting to writhe, and as if they had been waiting, huge wasp-like monsters flew in and began moving the writhing cocoons to other places.

The strange thing was the monsters’ attitude.

They stared at us but didn’t act hostile. They just kept bumping us, as if telling us not to interfere with their work.

Based on the circumstances, this seemed to be why Miro told me to be quiet. Did those monsters react as if telling us to be quiet when we made a sound?

“...”

Well, this was a place that stimulated the imagination in many ways. The whole world was full of heteromorphic monsters and writhing cocoons.

Where on earth is this? A monster hatchery?

Why on earth is Miro in a place like this? Didn’t the others wake up among primitive people?

– Buzz!

As the nearby wasp disappeared, Miro asked me while trembling, “W-why am I in a place like this?”

“...Why are you in a place like this?”

“...”

“...”

After briefly sharing a feeling of dejection, we soon started moving. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but there was no need to stay in such a terrible place.

By the way, Miro had been grabbing my arm with enough force to almost break it since earlier.

“Hold on a bit more gently.”

“...”

“My arm is going to come off—“

The moment I turned my head to look at Miro, I lost my words. She was whimpering as if even breathing was painful.

Only then did I look around the surroundings once again.

The ground was covered with a slimy, mucous membrane that gave a sticky feeling every time one’s feet touched it.

Writhing cocoons that made terrible noises, as if scraping something.

Wasp-like monsters flying around busily working everywhere.

It wouldn’t be strange at all if this was a scene from the movie Alien.

Perhaps people like me or Kain might calmly observe what the wasps were doing, even in a place like this.

Of course, we were the strange ones, and being crushed by fear like Miro was the normal human reaction.

But all this would change in a matter of time..

Miro would eventually adapt to the bizarreness of the Hotel. It wouldn’t take that long. Of course, I wasn’t sure if such a change would necessarily be positive.

I also walked around the “hatchery” full of heteromorphic beings while tightly holding Miro’s hand.

About 20 minutes later, I came to one conclusion.

This place couldn’t be left on foot. There was no way connecting to the outside except for the ceiling where the wasps came and went.

Miro, who came to the same realization, asked me in fear, “H-how can we get out?”

“...”

“What are those cocoons?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ahri is an Administration agent but doesn’t know about that?”

Looking to the side, Miro was smiling slightly.

It seemed she had recovered enough mentally to make jokes, and if she had regained her senses to this extent in such a short time, it was truly a quality that made me think she might be a born agent.

I’m not saying this because she’s my mom. Probably.

“There is a way to find out.”

“T-then try it quickly!”

“It’s a bit dangerous. Those monsters seem likely to react sensitively.”

“...”

Miro, who was trembling, soon hardened her expression.

“I-if we stay like this, we’ll clearly be trapped in this strange place until we die! The only way out is the ceiling.”

“That’s right.”

“So I think we need to do something... What if Ahri disappears in this situation!?”

That was right. The time she could call me out with the Time Borrower was only one hour, and she had already used nearly 30 minutes.

Could Miro endure alone in a place like this? There was no way, so we should try something while I was here.

I instructed Miro, “Go over there.”

“M-me? Alone?”

“From now on, it’ll be more dangerous to be next to me.”

After confirming that Miro had moved far enough away, I drew up the power of Ancient Blood in my right hand.

The moment enough power gathered to make my fingertips tingle, a fierce aura cutting through the air split a cocoon in an instant.

– Kyaaah!

At the same time, the hatchery went into chaos.

Ignoring the loud noise that hurt my ears, I approached the split cocoon to see what was inside, and I realized the identity of this place.

“Uwaah!”

“...”