### Chapter 155 – Room 201, The Cursed Room – ‘□ □□’ (4)
—
– Kim Ahri
With the power of the nightmare butterfly, the gorilla began to suffer from powerful drowsiness and mental agony.
Mooksung and I hurriedly dashed in, emptying our guns into the gorilla’s twisted skin.
— Bang!
Also, there was Elizaveta! Amidst the gunfire, Mooksung staggered, grabbing his shoulder.
“We need to use the gorilla as a shield!” I yelled as we quickly repositioned ourselves.
Thankfully, the gorilla was partially incapacitated now. The invisible woman was still here!
On one side of the stark white space, we were blasting the gorilla’s life force to snuff it out, while on the other, a bizarre bloodbath was raging amongst the invisible ones.
“Seriously, why is this brat so tough? Didn’t we unload over 50 shots? And it’s still twitching?” Mooksung grimaced as he struggled upright, enduring the pain.
“It should eventually die from this state over time. But the headshot is definitely the way to go,” he said, heading straight for the gorilla’s head, jamming the gun into its eye and pulling the trigger.
At that moment, the gorilla finally stopped its twitching. What a grotesque vitality!
Sighing, I turned my head to see the battle with the invisible ones was hilariously chaotic.
Elizaveta couldn’t locate Eunsol, wasting bullets in the air, while Eunsol took deep breaths to endure whenever Elizaveta faced the wrong way.
Oddly enough, Eunsol seemed to have figured out where Elizaveta was despite her invisibility, but her aim was just bad, dragging the fight out.
Such an ambiguous balance usually ends when comrades join in.
As Mooksung and I strategically circled Elizaveta, suddenly, she revealed herself, yanking off her helmet—
— Bang!
With that shot, the confused battle came to an end.
“Ugh! This is such -”
“Mooksung, remember the kids are around.”
“Cough. This craziness has been a hell of a ride. Jinchul’s gonna be so bummed about this!”
Eunsol checked on Songi and Seungyub, who were both down.
She quickly took off Songi’s armored suit, revealing several horrendous bruises the size of a grown man’s palm across her upper body. “Ugh,” Songi sighed as she struggled to stand.
When Eunsol checked Seungyub’s status, it was even more serious. No matter how much armor he wore, it couldn’t fully absorb the gorilla’s overwhelming punches.
Barely conscious, he gasped for breath before slowly starting to move.
As it stood, resolving anything was out of the question. But we needed to escape at the very least.
Thinking about the escape button relieved me a bit. If things got dicey, I could always push that!
Eunsol returned.
“Ari, you were right… I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s fine. Next round let’s twist Elizaveta’s arm right away.”
“Let’s grab her gun first. We didn’t figure anything out since she just pulled the trigger on herself.”
Looking around, it struck me that there were three potential exits, including the door through which we came into this bizarre space.
Maybe it was better to let Seungyub choose again?
Eunsol, sounding curious, asked, “This room must be a dud, right?”
“Yeah. Conversely, that means the rooms we passed through might actually have been the right ones. We mistook every monster for a discrepancy, but compared to this room, those felt like heaven.”
Exhausted, Songi approached.
“Ari! I’m sorry…”
“It’s okay. It was a confusing situation.”
Despite the apologies, I paused to reflect. Our group typically had a ‘conflict-avoidant tendency.’
This trait had certainly helped keep our party united, but perhaps during critical moments like this, it made us hesitate to make the harsh decisions?
That’s why they likely didn’t agree with my seemingly extreme suggestion.
After all, my judgment was based solely on instinct, so I couldn’t provide a solid argument.
I understood their hesitation, due to the nature of their personalities.
But…
— Thud!
I smacked Mooksung on the head, sending a personal message.
Kim Ahri: You should’ve backed me up!
This guy has seen my instincts save the day more than once yet refuses to listen!
If he had just taken my side, maybe the others would’ve followed suit!
Mooksung just chuckled like the old man he is.
“By the way, there’s something a bit terrifying.”
“What? This situation is already plenty scary, but lay it on me.”
“This gorilla had a kind of ‘master.’”
“…”
“When I got the affinity boost, I became able to read the chaotic thoughts a bit better, right?”
“But the gorilla didn’t act friendly toward you at all.”
“Well, I’m saying it had a master! It seemed genuinely terrified of that person. When the gorilla crumpled under the butterfly’s influence, it thought of ‘someone’ and was afraid of getting scolded. It’s likely that terrifying master ordered it to kill anyone who stepped in.”
Yikes, that was both scary and truly exhausting to think about.
Even a being as overwhelming as this gorilla is subservient to someone.
That must be the adversary—who on earth could that be?
At this point, they should at least show their face!
Sighing, I turned my head.
Seungyub, who had taken a far worse beating than Songi, was still gasping for breath, incapable of rising.
Just as I was thinking we needed a little more time to recover—
Words appeared on the walls all around.
MOVE!
“Should we follow that? Looking around, my teammates also seemed uncertain.”
Songi, unable to contain herself, asked, “Who’s writing that? Initially, it felt like some hotel announcement, so we all followed it naturally, but it’s hard to believe a hotel would issue a notification in this place.”
Surprisingly, Mooksung, who initially disliked the idea of being toyed with by the enemy, stood up obediently.
“Well, even without those words, it’s better to start moving. Before our guide fully loses consciousness, we should move while we can.”
Our guide.
Seungyub was definitely in no condition to be just resting.
Without proper treatment, he might not just recover but could also slip into danger.
Dying isn’t the only issue; losing consciousness in a situation like this could lead to severe trouble.
As Mooksung said, if Seungyub passes out, we’d be lost without a guide.
Seungyub weakly waved his barely functioning hand, tossing a coin.
— Clink! Tinkling.
The coin rolled for quite a while before crashing into one of the wall’s doors.
With that, Mooksung, still in armor, hoisted Seungyub onto his back, and we started moving again.
—
In a brief span, we zipped through the fifth and sixth mansions.
During this, we smashed toasters that spewed living bread and closets hiding murderous fiends.
The rooms where monsters lurked turned out to be manageable once we established a response strategy.
However, breaking through just led to another mansion appearing instead.
Eventually, utterly exhausted, we settled down in the seventh mansion after smashing a clock that had come to life.
Seungyub seemed to have reached his limits and drifted into a faint sleep.
“What should we do now?”
“It feels never-ending at this rate. We’re already on the seventh one. If we pass this, we’ll just face the eighth, and after that, the ninth.”
The dialogue between the weary Songi and Eunsol floated through.
Amidst that, my thoughts circled around “luck.”
An enigmatic force more complex than any other blessing.
According to Seungyub, the sponsor referred to as a god was childlike, right?
Luck has many traits, but one key word stands out.
Trust.
The stronger the self-confidence one possesses, the more actively they can use their luck.
Paradoxically, luck is the least believable of all blessings, derived from instinct rather than logic.
If Seungyub begins to falter even once, doubt will creep in and weaken his luck.
Another issue is that the beneficiary may not even know if the blessing has worked.
I recalled my experience in the Doorway Room during the Jekyll and Hyde game.
Was it the second time? The third? At some point, Seungyub panicked and didn’t choose Hyde.
He recognized that he didn’t “choose,” and we all thought likewise.
But looking back after some time, even “not choosing” was a choice in itself.
Since Seungyub was Hyde, he could not pick an external figure.
But how could we, at that moment, comprehend this method of decision-making?
Viewing it from the future, one could easily say, “Aha! That was a lucky choice!”
But in the present, one cannot even determine if luck was in play.
The prophet of Troy from Greco-Roman mythology came to mind.
Having gained perfect foresight but cursed so no one would believe her, that was Cassandra.
Luck shares an eerie similarity with such power.
A blessing that emphasizes belief, ironically, becomes one of the hardest forces to believe.
… Lost in that thought, it struck me.
What if what’s happening now is a product of that very luck?
Isn’t not being able to pick the next room due to Seungyub fainting another form of choice?
Or is this all just my personal delusion tied together by hindsight?
Watching my comrades bandaging each other up, mumbling as they took care of Songi and Seungyub, I rose to check around.
—
– Park Seungyub
Ahhh… it’s so hot.
My whole body feels like it’s on fire.
It’s been ages since I even considered where it hurts or how badly.
At some point, it shifted from pain to sheer exhaustion; I just felt sleepy.
Mooksung grandfather was fiddling with my armor, and in the end, he stuffed me back into it again.
I forced my mouth open.
“Grandfather…”
“Don’t speak. Just drink this.”
He handed me a syringe filled with red liquid.
“Is this the miraculous elixir that Kain hyung has desperately sought after, Ari noona’s blood?”
“… With that attitude, you seem pretty fine.”
“Honestly, I think you’d best just leave me be and take the armor for yourself.”
Wasting such a powerful tool while I couldn’t even move was absurd.
“Stop that. Have a little confidence.”
“I can’t even move, how am I supposed to—”
“Still, your fortune hasn’t sent any signals yet, right? Even in front of the gorilla, it didn’t activate. I believe you still have at least one more moment for glory.”
“…”
After relaying that, grandfather placed the “escape button” in my hand.
What on earth is the source of this firm belief?
Fortune didn’t always activate whenever I’m in danger, did it?
Truthfully, luck feels like it activates whenever the sponsor wants it to.
But maybe it’s because I’ve ingested the miraculous potion? I seemed to be feeling a tad more energized.
I heard that Ari noona’s healing power isn’t that strong when she’s fine, yet it shows some efficacy now.
Or perhaps it’s just the placebo effect.
Lying there, I could almost grasp the grandfather’s mental state.
In truth, we had fallen into quite a hopeless situation.
We’d lost most of our strength and were all fatigued, yet we had no clue how to escape.
In such circumstances, I guess grandfather’s last hope lies in my luck.
In other words, it feels less like belief and more like a mere desire to believe.
Out of nowhere, a loud crashing noise erupted.
The grandfather jolted up in surprise.
For the first time in ages, an alert popped up out of nowhere.
[Fortune Activated! The energy of the universe is protecting you.]
The name “fortune” was just something Ari noona had whimsically christened…
Grandfather called it fortune too, so are we just all settling on that now?
The catchphrases keep changing too. Wasn’t it something like “777!” before, and now it’s “the energy of the universe”?
Ah— I don’t even care anymore.
If the universe is guarding me, then something’ll work out, right?!
I just closed my eyes and sought comfort.
I suddenly envied Kain hyung, who had been soundly asleep since earlier.
—
– Kim Ahri
While surveying my surroundings, I continued my earlier ponderings.
If Seungyub’s collapse signifies a form of choice made, then what kept luck from choosing the next room?
…
This room must be the answer!
Holding onto that glimmer of hope, I surveyed the surroundings.
I touched everything, scrutinizing the walls and tables.
Nothing particularly unusual stood out.
Is this all just my delusion, then?
Lingering longer, words appeared in the familiar mirror above the sink.
MOVE!
Who’s sending these messages anyway?
My teammates looked just as lost. Seungyub, our designated guide, was barely conscious.
We can’t keep following these orders any longer. I wrote down my thoughts with some blood.
‘No!’
…
…
…
Oh? So you want to play with me!
— Clang!
A hand like a blade surged from the mirror, piercing my body in an instant.
I will repay this with faithful serialization.
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