CHAPTER 330: ROOM 203, CURSED ROOM - 'NEW BEGINNING' RE (10)

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User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 683,623

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

Sage’s Advice: 0

– Han Kain

In the evening, everyone gathered in a place like a conference room inside the building. As always, Noona held a pen and started writing something on the whiteboard.

“Let’s organize in order. From the scenario of Room 203 to our current progress.”

The scenario of Room 203, interpreted using all the information found in the building and the owl’s advice, was as follows:

Exactly 1872 years ago, the Pride of Humanity arrived on this planet with 800 crew members in cryosleep and cultivation kits capable of producing over 100,000 enhanced humans.

According to records, the first civilization on the planet was formed in the mountain range before 10 years had passed. This was the trace of the collapsed civilization we saw in the mountain range.

Until this period, there was no conflict at all.

The humans of the star were full of hope for a new beginning, the AI actively cooperated and sowed the seeds of civilization, and Adravita was excited about the dream of becoming the master of the newly spreading myth.

In the 14th or 15th year after arriving on the planet, the first conflict arose.

“They say Adravita defected during this period.”

The reason for Adravita’s defection was quite grand, with major differences of opinion with the AI about the direction of civilization’s development.

“More precisely, it’s said that he clashed with the AI over the education issue of the so-called 2nd generation enhanced humans created by the ‘cultivation kits’.”

I vaguely understood.

“It seems Adravita wanted to make the 2nd generation humans created by cultivation kits his faithful believers. The AI probably wanted to raise the 2nd generation as ‘great humans’ like the 1st generation born in the sci-fi civilization.”

Adravita, who left the mountain range alone, according to records, spread “pseudo-humans” recklessly across the continent.

These pseudo-humans had no proper civilization, so they had no choice but to depend on Adravita to endure the harsh environment of the planet.

“The pseudo-humans would be today’s primitive humans, right?”

“Probably...”

As he realized the truth, Jinchul-hyung let out a hollow laugh.

“I’m really asking this because I can’t believe it, but isn’t Adravita the one who spread the monsters all over the planet?”

“...99.9% certain.”

“Ah, that motherless bastard!”

One would be a fool not to notice the situation at this point.

What would a god who defected because he didn’t like that future humans wouldn’t faithfully worship him think while creating new humans?

Of course, he would have made beings that have no choice but to worship him!

Spreading monsters all over the world was also likely a means to this end.

The future human forces residing in the mountain range vaguely recognized this terrible thing happening outside, but instead of intervening, they focused on increasing their numbers.

Jinchul-hyung showed a somewhat uncomfortable reaction.

“Why did these guys just stick to the mountain range? If humans outside were living in such pain, they could have helped a little, right? They have the power to cross space and pioneer planets.”

Why didn’t the mountain range forces help the primitive humans?

The answer to this question wasn’t clearly written. However, we could guess from the nuances of the sentences, especially the word “pseudo-human”.

“Hyung. The spaceship forces didn’t consider the primitives outside as proper humans.”

“...”

“Look at this sentence, with the word ‘pseudo-human’ and all.”

“Pseudo-human” was a relatively polite expression. Other records were full of much more explicit expressions like “Adravita’s livestock,” “beasts that can only worship a god who enjoys worship,” “insects,” etc.

“To the future human forces of this period, the primitive humans outside were just beings less than beasts.”

Eunsol-noona chimed in, “They probably thought they could just sweep them away like an ant nest when the time came to seriously pioneer the planet after increasing their numbers sufficiently.”

Jinchul-hyung sighed deeply, “It’s not that I don’t understand what you’re saying... It’s just suffocating. Think about it this way. How would we, living in the 21st century, look to that ‘future human’ group?”

“...”

“Wouldn’t we look not much different from primitive humans?”

“It’s not just because of the extreme civilization gap that they considered them trivial. Their very origin was different. They probably saw them as toy-like beings created by Adravita.”

“Then that’s rather fortunate.”

The short peace didn’t last long.

This part could be easily predicted even without the AI of the spaceship created by the ultra-science of the distant future or the great god breathing life into the continent.

After all, the future human group originally crossed the galaxy with the goal of planetary pioneering to arrive here.

Of course, they planned to come out of the mountain range and pioneer the entire planet after increasing their numbers sufficiently and growing their power, and in that process, the primitive humans spread by Adravita were just a weak group that could be swept away with a single breath.

“There’s this teleological issue, and also the issue of power balance. The future human forces in the mountain range are rapidly getting stronger as their numbers increase over time, right?”

“Adravita is eternally alone. The primitive humans are too weak to even be worth considering in the calculation.”

Everyone nodded, hearing Noona’s and my exchange.

In the end, as time passed, the future human forces in the mountain range became the dominant power of the planet. The AI calculated this, and it seemed undoubtedly true to me as well.

If there had been no betrayal, it surely would have turned out that way.

On a day when records weren’t even clearly left because of how urgent it was, betrayal occurred.

“From this part on, content that’s thoroughly without answers comes out. I’d say it’s enough to make even me, a human, develop misanthropy...”

“According to the records, Adravita promised the traitors eternal glory that would be passed down for generations.”

“Looking at the state of this planet now, can’t you guess what kind of contract it was?”

A world full of monsters and dangers.

To survive, primitive humans knelt calling the betrayers of humanity Divine Ones, and lived worshipping Adravita who sent down the Divine Ones.

Adravita essentially made the betrayers kings and emperors.

“Did the betrayers offer the cultivation kits that could create enhanced humans to Adravita?”

“It seems so.”

At that moment, Seungyub muttered as if it was difficult to understand, “Isn’t it strange? I mean... the traitors chose the life of a ‘king in the primitive era’ over being a ‘pioneer of sci-fi civilization’, right?”

“That’s right.”

“No matter how I think about it, isn’t the latter overwhelmingly better? They talked grandly about being kings and whatnot, but we’ve played the role of those kings, right? Was it fun?”

I understood Seungyub’s words too easily.

Playing the role of a chieftain in the primitive era? Been there, done that.

Talk all you wanted about being a king, but what ended up on the dinner table was caterpillars and half-rotten meat.

Honestly, it was a life not even as good as being unemployed in the 21st century, and it was hard to even compare with the exciting term “pioneer of sci-fi civilization” that made one’s heart race just hearing it.

However, there was one thing Seungyub missed.

“That’s a problem that arose because the war ended in mutual destruction for everyone.”

“Eh?”

“When starting a war, you always think about the glory after victory. The traitors would have been the same. Of course, their goal wasn’t to play the role of primitive era chieftains, but to hijack the spaceship and enjoy the comfort of future civilization themselves.”

“While also ruling over slaves who worship them as apostles of god, of course.”

“Ugh...”

Destruction came in an instant.

The future humans who had been increasing their power were suddenly split in two and engaged in civil war. Even the AI, given the mission to assist humanity, had no way to prevent conflict between people.

The subsequent records were full of misery.

Due to internal strife, the spaceship was split into the main body remaining in the mountain range and the power source, and as the spaceship lost most of its power after losing its energy, the future humans couldn’t avoid downfall either.

What was more tragic was that even the traitors couldn’t avoid downfall.

The future humans couldn’t recover the spaceship’s power source, but the traitors also couldn’t break through the mountain range’s security units and hijack the spaceship’s main body.

In the end, everyone lost civilization. The fate left for those who dreamed of eternal glory was at best being a chieftain in the primitive era.

“It really is the destruction of everyone...”

With Seungyub’s utterly empty words, silence fell over the room.

After some time passed, Elena carefully opened her mouth, “It’s not the destruction of ‘everyone’.”

“What?”

“There’s a winner, right? Both the humans in the mountain range and the traitors lost civilization and fell, but...”

“Adravita won.”

That was right.

After splitting and bringing down the future human forces, Adravita, who got his hands on the cultivation kits that create Divine Ones or enhanced humans, became the true god of this hopeless world.

In a world full of monsters, the possibility of primitive humans raising a normal civilization converged to 0, and they had no choice but to depend on Divine Ones who came down from the sky to survive.

Amidst this hellscape, only the malevolent god who created and spread those Divine Ones emerged as the singular, everlasting entity.

At this point, I vaguely understood why Adravita was helping us, too.

“The reason Adravita is helping us. I think I understand now.”

Eunsol-noona showed a dejected reaction.

“He said he wanted to see the real ending, not the sloppy ending created by the hotel...”

“From Adravita’s perspective, this world is already a well-made farm of faith. But there’s just one source of anxiety.”

“The very existence of the spaceship.”

That was right.

The faith farm was already complete, so there was no need for the spaceship to remain on this planet. Then should it be destroyed by force?

It was dangerous. Even to the malevolent god with endless wickedness and schemes, the immense power contained in the spaceship created by future humans who crossed the galaxy to pioneer planets must have been uncomfortable.

Although the Pride of Humanity lost its power source and was neutralized, the AI was still lurking in the mountain range with security units.

So Adravita devised another scheme.

“He’s telling us to leave. Take the power source back to the spaceship, repair the spaceship, and go back into space.”

Jinchul-hyung frowned.

“We could fight that bastard with the restored spaceship! Surely, the spaceship must have power that the malevolent god would fear—“

“Us?”

Hyung momentarily looked speechless at my retort.

Noona smiled bitterly and said, “All these incredible stories that have happened so far. They’re miserable and sad, but for us, they’re just stories from another world that we’re detached from. Do we have a reason to risk our lives fighting a malevolent god for the revenge of extinct humans?”

“...”

“He helped us because we’ve read this far.”

“...”

“Tomorrow, let’s take the core and head to the mountain range. The AI won’t stop us if we say we’re repairing the spaceship.”

“You mean repair it and set off into space again?”

“Doesn’t that seem like the solution to this room? The AI is a being trying to capture and kill Divine Ones, that is, us. That’s why the escape judgment appeared as soon as Ahri died. But if we repair the spaceship and go back into space...”

“The AI might also put down past grudges for the greater cause. Since it’s not human to begin with, it will approach such issues calculatedly, and now we’re moving towards a ‘new beginning’.”

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

I finally realized the meaning of Room 203’s title.

We must lead humanity’s “new beginning” that was defeated by the malevolent god.

***After the meeting, everyone went to sleep early for the forced march starting tomorrow.

At that time, Lee Eunsol gently tapped the cheek of the sleeping Elena.

“Mmm...”

“Elena.”

“Kain?”

“What are you saying suddenly?”

“Aaah!”

“Be quiet. You’ll wake everyone up.”

“...Yes.”

“I have something to ask while your memory is clear.”

“...”

“Yesterday, what on earth did Seungyub do? I saw roughly, but...”