### Chapter 244 – Room 202, Cursed Room – ‘Mermaid Princess’ (22)
—
– Park Seungyub
A parrot suddenly crashed through the window, transforming into a monstrous creature and taking out two restaurant staff members near the wall.
“Arghhh!”
As I stumbled backward in shock, something bizarre happened. Guns suddenly popped out from the waists of the restaurant employees! Wait, do restaurant staff carry guns these days?
In the chaos, I glanced across the table to see my manager, maintaining a calm expression despite the pandemonium, pulling a gun from his coat and aiming it at me. I watched in slow motion as the trigger was about to be pulled—
— Bang!
I was sent flying through the air. In an instant, I realized that the grotesque creature had headbutted me.
My manager’s face contorted while the restaurant employees all trained their guns on the grotesque. While my mind was completely lost, my hands acted on their own! Thanks to the countless fights I’d had with my pet, I instinctively covered my ears!
— Kraaaaaraaaar!
A roaring blast shook the building!
I had prepped my mind and plugged my ears, but the intensity of the moment made me kick the table in excitement. Regaining my composure just enough, I turned and ran towards the exit!
They were the enemy. I didn’t know why, but the Bureau was my enemy right now!
How could this happen? How did things go so wrong? I felt like a rabbit fleeing from a wolf as I bolted from the room where my manager was, dashing towards the restaurant’s main area.
— Thump!
The door I had just passed swung open. Already? Did they recover from Pharaoh’s roar that quickly? What do I do? What do I—
— Swoosh!
“Ah, hot! Damn it, why is it so hot?!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”
“I’m sorry!”
I instinctively blurted out an apology, even if I didn’t feel sorry at all!
At that moment, a bubbling seafood stew was right in front of me. As I grabbed it with my bare hands and hurled it, I felt like my hands would melt off any second! Naturally, my manager, having the stew dumped on him, fell flat on the ground and began rolling around.
I ran like a madman, pushing aside chairs and tables as I headed for the exit. First things first, I needed to get outside and find a crowded place!
— Thump!
Oh…
Is this what it feels like to get struck by lightning? A scorching hot iron skewer seemed to pierce through my body.
In the movies, protagonists take a bullet or two and still manage to perform acrobatics, but I guess that’s not me. I felt like I got hit in the shoulder, but every ounce of strength left my body, and I collapsed on the slick floor.
— Whoosh!
It was raining from the sky. I could hear footsteps approaching from the direction of the restaurant.
It hurt. It hurt so much. Right now, the pain felt greater than the fear of dying. I prayed desperately for this pain to end…
“Mom…”
“…”
“Mom… Mom… Hic…”
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it comfortable soon.”
At that moment, the streetlights flickered and went out. Is death approaching? Can I no longer see the light?
In the next moment, the streetlight across the way went out. Then suddenly, all the light sources around vanished. It was eerily deserted, and darkness settled all around.
— Clop!
In the dark night sky, through the pouring rain, footsteps echoed. Oddly enough, in that moment, even the searing pain felt like it was stifled as I sensed someone approaching.
“What on earth is this—”
Tilting my head in confusion, my manager’s body was stiff like a rock as he took a step towards me.
Someone was coming closer. They looked about my height, dressed in what looked like a raincoat. Their steps weren’t hasty. They appeared to be just a little girl.
“Hello?”
“…”
I lacked the energy to respond. The girl emerged from the shadows, staring at the motionless manager.
“Oh! Mister. I saw you in my dream last night. Suho oppa was quite scared of you.”
The girl’s gaze shifted slightly upward, and I suddenly heard a strange noise coming from the water-soaked sign of the restaurant above us.
“Mister, you know what? Whenever I see a shabby restaurant sign like this, I always think, what if it suddenly fell? It’s not entirely out of the question, you know? Every year in Korea, people get injured from falling icicles.”
— Creeeak!
Something felt off. There had been Bureau employees inside the restaurant, surely they had been stationed around here as well. Yet, not a single one of them was drawing near. Was it because her unsettling imagination cloaked the dark street?
The old sign of the restaurant began to sway slightly. My manager couldn’t move a single finger. The girl walked over slowly and tilted his head ‘upward.’
“Just keep an eye on this. Even if something happens when I leave, it won’t be so frustrating to know what it was, right?”
Slowly, as the tilting sign fell, turning my manager into a mound of meat—
— Clop!
“Goodbye!”
“…”
“Out of words? Seungyub… hmm. It seems it’ll be tough for you to survive. What a shame. You might have lived if you had gone to the hospital right away.”
“…”
“I dreamt last night. An ancient dream. I heard the cries of my brethren throughout the world. And then I gained new ears.”
“…”
“It’s strange. Right after waking from the dream, I realized that my ears were utterly useless. I heard none of the sounds I was meant to hear. Why hadn’t I realized such an obvious thing until now? So, I ripped off my useless ears. Now… now I can hear. Seungyub, can you hear the voices too?”
That was when I noticed the girl had ripped off both of her ears.
“Father! Can you hear our prayers? Only now can I hear your voice. Bestow grace upon me, just as you did for Lee Sooho.”
With those words, the girl’s hands moved towards her eyes. I instinctively shut mine. Soon, I heard horrifying sounds.
Rilinganor destroyed her ears to hear what she couldn’t. Now, was she about to pluck her eyes out to see what had been hidden?
The sounds of footsteps faded away from me. At that moment, I began to sense that my end was approaching….
What on earth is happening? Is this the final trial of this room? The last card of the Sea God, prepared for Lee Sooho’s failure? I couldn’t tell.
And yet, I felt a slight sense of betrayal. Rilinganor might not remember, but during our first attempt, we had grown quite close while saving the people of Busan from despair… Was it all just a facade?
Or perhaps, before Lee Sooho failed, she didn’t know her role either. But this could just be my vain hope.
With those thoughts swirling in my mind, I decided to stop thinking. Every prediction only becomes meaningful when there’s a chance for a next time. Within my fading consciousness, I fervently wished for ‘next’ for me, for all of us.
—
– Elena
Early in the morning, I woke up with a start, shaken by someone, only to hear the shocking news. The head of the research institute, Park Jinsung, had absurdly died!
“Wait… so how did he die exactly?”
“He was crushed when a restaurant sign fell during a mission.”
I was momentarily speechless.
Of course, people do die in funny ways, like choking on food or tripping over a rock. But to think someone in a high position in the Bureau would die so absurdly was shocking.
As the atmosphere grew chaotic, while sharing my disbelief with my sister Serenade, I came to realize something was amiss.
“Rudakh is emitting chaotic waves! Your daughters need to intervene immediately!”
At the shout of a flustered staff member rushing over, the three daughters of the sea deities, myself, Serenade, and Imelda rushed toward the tank where the snails were trapped, not even taking the time to change clothes.
Indeed, the Rudakhs were writhing collectively, emitting strange sound waves, causing great suffering to the ‘advanced humans’ packed within the research institute.
What was stranger still was that we had lost control over the Rudakhs altogether. Even Imelda, who was most skillful at controlling them, couldn’t stop Rudakh from emitting those wretched waves.
Instead of stopping, those chaotic waves began to affect us too. Just as I began to feel a horrifying sensation beneath my skin as if “something” was about to rise up—
I finally realized the moment of destruction was upon us.
Thinking back, it’s only natural. The Sea God’s descent halted with Lee Sooho’s death, so why hadn’t any escape option appeared?
There had to be one more bullet left for the Sea God. There was surely some method unknown, a final move reserved for the descent. That single bullet was now piercing through the entire world.
The reason the Rudahks broke free from our control was clear. Something with even greater authority must be controlling them.
…
So, we didn’t need to hold back any longer.
“Why on Earth is it not obeying?!”
“Imelda, don’t you have anything prepared for emergency situations? Surely, conducting all kinds of experiments on these odd supernatural beings doesn’t mean you didn’t prepare a final resort?”
“Of course, we do have something. But that’s something the institute heads must discuss—”
“Elena, I have a rough idea of what that measure is.”
Cutting off Imelda’s words, Serenade fixed her gaze on me. I thought I was the only one exploring this institute in the past few days, but had Serenade been looking into something as well?
With Serenade’s meaningful look directed at me, I felt a strange sense of amusement.
“What’s suddenly—”
In the next moment, Imelda turned as stiff as stone.
“Imelda, why are you so sloppy, the one who was supposed to have made a decisive alliance with the Bureau? Have you turned into a fool spending too long in this safe research institute?”
Was this lingering resentment from when we were ambushed by the Bureau and dragged here? Serenade began to stomp down hard on Imelda’s foot.
— Bang!
The sound of a gunshot rang out. The long-suffering former saint’s ending was more anticlimactic than I had anticipated.
“Elena, when you see what the ‘last resort’ the institute had prepared, you might laugh at how familiar it is.”
“Familiar item?”
“Yeah. It’s something you know well. The Bureau just made a significant ‘improvement’ on it. I was amazed by their creativity.”
Screams erupted from everywhere.
Amidst the oppressive chaotic waves flooding the institute, the ‘advanced humans,’ who had claimed to be ‘the future of humanity’ and ‘the hope for Homo sapiens,’ were writhing on the floor like bugs.
I could sense that the second attempt’s end was closing in, as well. I guess I would likely be the last survivor. Could I even escape?
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