CHAPTER 324: ROOM 203, CURSED ROOM - 'NEW BEGINNING' RE (4)

0% – Kim Ahri

Inside the split cocoon, a hideous being was visible.

The skin was red without a single hair. The body was large but the limbs were short, and all it could do was cry with its mouth open.

It was a human child. A fetus not yet fully mature. At first, I thought it might be one of the primitive humans said to be abundant in this world.

However, recalling the information from my companions, I felt a sense of discomfort. This was because the reproductive process of the primitive tribes in Room 203 was no different from humans. They mated among themselves, got pregnant, and gave birth.

There was no need for such a “human production factory”.

...The beings that weren’t like that, the “Divine Ones”, came to mind.

According to the information Jinchul obtained in the first attempt, Divine Ones couldn’t see offspring like themselves in relationships with primitive humans.

Even if they married, got pregnant, and gave birth, the child born was just a primitive human, not a Divine One. If they couldn’t increase their numbers through reproductive acts, it meant there was a separate “production method”.

Are Divine Ones being made inside all the cocoons everywhere?

At that moment, the wasps that recognized the destruction of the cocoon started flying in, rubbing their wings.

Until now, they had been strangely non-hostile towards me and Miro, but the destruction of the cocoon seemed to have clearly crossed a line. It was no different from entering a wasp’s nest and harming the larvae.

As a giant wasp approached, opening its pointed mouth horizontally, I quickly moved forward and hid behind another cocoon.

As expected, the monsters changed their attack direction quickly, intending to protect the cocoons even in this situation.

— Slash!

I swung a blade of cold towards the wasp’s wings. The body looked quite sturdy, but I aimed for the wings, which were thin and transparent, and my judgment was correct.

In an instant, the wings were torn and the giant monster crashed into the hatchery. At this rate, I could easily handle three or four of them?

– Buzz!

The ceiling of the hatchery opened and more than 10 wasps started flying in. At this point, I sensed death.

***– Miro

I curled up my whole body. I hid my body between the writhing outer wall and cocoons, and crouched down with both hands covering my head.

If one lifted up a large stone in a dark, damp place near a school playground or an old house, one often saw rolly polly curled up and wriggling. My current posture was exactly like a rolly polly.

I recalled a funny story I heard at school when I was young.

They say that when predators appeared, animals with low intelligence didn’t hide from the predator, but just buried their heads in the soil.

It was a story about how they mistakenly thought they were safe if they couldn’t see the predator with their own eyes.

Still, even if they are animals, how can something be that stupid? I was clearly lied to.

...I thought, but it might have been a surprisingly realistic story.

Maybe it wasn’t an intelligence issue, but that they were so terrified of the predator that they couldn’t bear it? That was exactly what I was like now.

Ahri was fighting for her life against the monsters, and I was curled up alone in a place like this.

I’m scared. So scared.

Why am I the only one who fell into such a strange place?

I could have started among primitive tribes even if I was ignored like Seungyub!

“Why... Why am I the only one in a place like this—“

Just as tears were about to pour out again, soft yet firm arms wrapped around my head.

“I’m here with you, too.”

Only then did I realize that the surroundings had become quiet. The remains of more than 10 wasps filled the floor, and Ahri...

“A-Ahri! Your arm!”

“What about my arm?”

“Your arm is gone!”

“That can happen when fighting.”

“How can that—“

“There’s no time. Listen to me carefully. I’ll forget all the information I obtained here, so Miro needs to remember.”

When the summoning ends, Ahri will lose all her memories.

“I’m listening!”

“This place is where Divine Ones are created.”

“Divine Ones?”

“Divine Ones were said to come down from the heavens, right? It seems like they make Divine Ones here and then those wasps move them to the tribes on the continent.”

“W-why on earth?”

“I don’t know that either. More importantly, quickly get into the cocoon I tore.”

“Get into the cocoon?”

“Why do you think the monsters haven’t harmed us until now? I’ve been wondering, but now I know. It’s because we’re also judged as Divine Ones in this room.”

I understood. The status given to us inside Room 203 was “Divine Ones”, and this place was a hatchery that created Divine Ones. I understood why the wasps, the workers of the hatchery, didn’t antagonize us until Ahri destroyed the cocoon.

When I realized this, I understood Ahri’s words to enter the cocoon.

Let’s recall what’s been happening in the hatchery.

After the Divine One inside the cocoon matured enough to control its body, it wriggled and signaled the wasp to pick up the entire cocoon and move it outside.

To escape, we needed to use that process. If I entered the cocoon and wriggled, wouldn’t the wasp judge it as a completed Divine One cocoon and send it to the outside world?

“You mean hide in the cocoon and shake my body around? So the monsters will send me outside?”

Ahri’s lips curved slightly into a smile.

“You’re smart indeed. Miro, do it like that. Another wasp will probably come and send Miro out. Now... I’m not needed anymore.”

Ahri’s head lost strength and fell onto my shoulder. The bright red blood flowing from her mouth began to soak my body.

“A-Ahri!”

“...It’s okay. Don’t worry, we’ll see each other again when we get out.”

“Doesn’t it hurt? Cancel the summoning right now—“

“No, leave it. We need to check something, anyway.”

“Check?”

“What will happen to the sealed participants’s original body if I die...”

Ahri urged me not to cancel the summoning, saying she needed to check what effect her death would have on her sealed self in the mountain range.

I felt Ahri’s body, which was leaning her entire weight on me, rapidly cooling.

...It was painful.

“Don’t... waste... time... Get into... the cocoon...”

“...”

“The second... Miro... I have to... raise... well...”

“W-who’s raising who!?”

After forcibly getting up, I moved towards the cocoon Ahri had torn, avoiding the wasp corpses scattered everywhere.

“Hnngh!”

The moment I saw the inside of the cocoon, my whole body got goosebumps. It was because there was the corpse of a child that had turned into a bright red lump of flesh in a short time.

The cocoon was a place to create “Divine Ones” and Ahri tore it apart. It would be stranger if the immature baby inside was still alive until now.

It’s okay now. I don’t want to curl up like a bug anymore. Because Ahri told me to get into the cocoon!

“I’m sorry, baby! But the living must live, right? Big Sis has to live today!”

After pulling out the baby’s corpse, I entered the torn cocoon interior and curled up again. An unpleasantly smelling and slimy feeling, writhing flesh wrapped around my body.

It was full of terribly disgusting things that couldn’t be described in words... But now I could endure it.

– Buzz!

I heard the sound of a monster flying from afar.

Now I can escape from this damn place!

– Boom!

“Huh?”

Just now, the world shook. I couldn’t express this feeling in words, but I just knew.

This vibration was completely different from the vibrations inside the hatchery so far. It was a vibration of the entire world!

Suddenly, an unknown force ripped open the top of the cocoon.

Surprised, I lifted my head, and this time the entrance where wasps were coming and going in the hatchery ceiling was torn wide open, and just as the clear sky was revealed—

The god of the sky looked down at me.

I am small and weak.

How can a human compare to that great being?

I knew the moment I saw it.

The gap between me and that being might be greater than the gap between a chick and a human.

I became a candle before the sun.

[You are indeed a candle. But you are also a flame that does not extinguish even in the ocean.]

I heard a strange voice. In a mysterious place full of fear and joy, grotesqueness and beauty, I felt a masked being reaching out its hand, bestowing protection upon me.

The being in the sky no longer looked like a god. It was just a whale-like monster a bit stronger than humans.

“Who are you?”

[The □□□□□ of □□ity has been □□□troyed. What □□□ you □□?]

“What?”

What are you saying? There’s too much strange noise?

Perhaps because I didn’t understand, the sky whale didn’t speak to me anymore.

Instead, an unknown force lifted me up with the cocoon and moved at an incredible speed!

Fast! Too fast!

“Uwaaaaah!”

As soon as I barely regained my senses, my body was ejected from the cocoon.

In front of me was a huge machine whose identity I couldn’t understand at all, and on the front of the machine was written enormous letters that could be recognized even from afar.

“...Pride of Humanity?”

At that moment, a notification popped up in front of me.

You have escaped!

This was my last remaining memory.

***

User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 683,615

Current Location: Floor 2, Corridor

Sage’s Advice: 3

– Han Kain

“...”

“...”

“...”

The corridor was filled with silence. Since we escaped from the Cursed Room, one would think everyone would offer at least perfunctory congratulations, but the situation was too strange to be happy.

Honestly, we were “forced” to escape too suddenly and absurdly.

“Why is the atmosphere like this? Didn’t we find out a lot?”

Only Ahri, who didn’t understand the situation, was puzzled alone. As soon as Ahri spoke, there was someone who showed a noisy reaction.

“Uwaah!”

Miro suddenly cried and body-slammed Ahri. More precisely, it seemed she tried to hug her fiercely, but a too fierce hug wasn’t much different from a body slam.

“Miro, did something incredible happen?”

“A-Ahri! Y-your arm was cut off!”

“...My arm is right here.”

“Y-you put me in a cocoon!”

“What cocoon?”

“You said there’s no child in the world as smart as me!”

“...”

Ahri wore a truly complex expression.

Based on the circumstances, it seemed Miro spent an incredible time with the Ahri summoned by the Time Borrower, but Ahri didn’t remember anything, creating a strange situation.

“L-let’s go to the table for now!”

***Quite a long conversation followed for something that came out so suddenly.

Only Miro and I opened our mouths. The rest had no words because they were suddenly “forced to escape” before even half a day had passed since waking up.

“Do you understand the information related to the spaceship roughly?”

“...”

“It’s a hypothesis, but the situation in Room 203 seems to be a problem that occurred in the process of humanity, which reached a sci-fi level of civilization, pioneering an exoplanet. The being borrowing Ahri’s body is the spaceship’s AI.”

Noona muttered as if she had a headache, “Are the traces of ancient civilization in the mountain range the remnants left in the process of the spaceship pioneering after arriving on the planet that became the stage for Room 203?”

“Probably?”

“What was the machine Miro saw at the end?”

Grandpa tilted his head, “Isn’t it the remains of the spaceship?”

Noona had difficulty understanding, “Isn’t the spaceship in the mountain range? The AI dwelling in Ahri’s body was in the mountain range, right?”

I was confused too.

The AI was in the mountain range, so the spaceship seemed to be in the mountain range, but then what was the machine Miro saw at the end?

The doctor carefully offered an opinion, “Wouldn’t it be something like a core component of the spaceship?”

“The spaceship is in the mountain range, but only a core component of the spaceship is separately in the place Miro saw?”

“Perhaps we need to bring that component to the mountain range.”

“What would happen if we do that?”

“Wouldn’t we be able to repair the spaceship? If only the core component came out, the spaceship in the mountain range must be in a broken state now.”

Spaceship repair. It sounded plausible, but I wasn’t sure.

Just as I was thinking I should use Advice to find out, Jinchul-hyung, who had been quiet until now, opened his mouth, “That’s good and all, I understand all that, but I want to talk about this guy called Adravita.”

The actions of Adravita, presumed to be the Convict, were certainly very strange.

“Why do you think it woke Kain up at the beginning?”

“It probably didn’t wake me up targeting me specifically. It just caused a disturbance on the spaceship, and the AI chose to wake me up.”

“Then let’s say it intended to wake any one of us. Also, showing the machine device to Miro afterwards is peculiar too. This is almost like...”

Ahri said what Hyung was about to say, “An attitude of being desperate to help us. It seems to be begging us to solve Room 203. Doesn’t it disappear too if the room is solved?”