### Chapter 269 – Room ???, The Cursed Room – ‘????’ (7)
—
In a space where a dark veil hung, obscuring all vision ahead, I could strangely feel countless lives writhing in the shadows. The buzzing of insects tickled my ears, and the gloomy sounds of bats began their day late at night. Sticky annelids crawled in the dirt, having spent their whole lives unable to distinguish light from dark.
I could even feel the droplets of sweat dribbling down my skin making noise. In this darkness that made even a step ahead impossible, my hearing and sense of smell sharpened more than ever, and I could no longer deny it.
I was certainly beginning to change into something that was not human. Was it the power of the descending demigod? The grimoire’s strength? Who knows? Now is not the time to ponder such thoughts.
Amidst the extreme tension, I cautiously moved behind a nearby tree. I suppressed my footsteps, not out of fear of being detected, but rather because I feared missing other sounds due to my own footsteps. I was already figured out by everything in this world.
“Something is watching us.”
Finally, Jinchul couldn’t endure the silence anymore and broke it. I had no intention of scolding him as I felt the same way, and besides, we were already discovered.
“Should we head down the mountain?”
“After coming all this way without gaining anything? Let’s take a closer look. It’s a grand mountain range; if we’re running away, we’d at least like to see a monster’s face before we go!”
Jinchul seemed to have summoned courage from deep within, stepping forward boldly.
— Creak!
When I turned my head towards the sudden noise, I was struck speechless at the sight of an unimaginable being.
“That, that’s not a monster, is it? No matter how you look at it—”
With a whirring sound, a ‘robot’ pointed what looked like a ‘turret’ straight at us!
“Run, run!”
— Boom! Boom!
I poured all my energy into my legs and ran like the wind!
A tremendous explosion and the sound of trees bursting echoed behind me, mixed with various creatures fleeing. When something invisible flew through the air and crashed into the solid cave wall, what was once a ‘cave’ instantly turned into a stone tomb.
— What’s this? Is this a dialogue box?
“What do you mean, come this way! If we step outside the ‘bounds’, they won’t chase us!”
I heard the familiar voice of the doctor. After our chaotic dash ended, we encountered two of our comrades.
*
It’s worth noting that meeting like this was neither easy nor a given. In this vast, primeval world, what was spread out around us were nothing but primitive tribes.
Since everyone had experiences breaking through cursed rooms, reaching the conclusion that we must go beyond the mountain ridge with some suspicious song or legend wasn’t hard. But the mountain range was enormous. It’s not like there’s a designated hiking trail laid out like in the 21st century; we were just a bunch of people scattered around the continent making our way to a distant mountain ridge—how were we supposed to meet?
It would be more normal for everyone to explore the mountains from different spots. However, grandpa and the doctor were able to find us from afar.
“You brought the tribe with you, didn’t you? How many people do we have? I think there are over 5,000 combined… With such a massive group moving, clouds of dust arose even from a distance. I had a hunch and spent the whole day searching for you!”
“Huh, I didn’t think that bringing the tribe along would make it easy to track us, but that was quite a surprising effect.”
“The saying ‘While backing away, catch a rat’ suits this situation perfectly. Anyway, welcome to the Hell’s Mountain Range!”
Underneath the mountains, we had a lengthy conversation in the huge camp set up by the primitive people. We shared stories about what each of us had experienced, what monsters we faced, and what led us to conclude we had to come to the mountain range.
It suddenly struck me how much we had all grown. We had been thrown into a mad mission of controlling tribes and beating monsters in a primitive era, yet all four of us managed to handle it decently! In some ways, Jinchul and I, with our magical books and supernatural powers, had it easier. Even the fact that Sanghyun managed to set up ‘bobby traps’ to deal with the monsters drew surprise from Grandpa, who’d heard about it before.
However, when the next discussion began, a hush fell over the room. Jinchul spoke up with a heavy expression.
“So… you left the tribe behind and came with just the two of you?”
“Yeah. What can we do? We have to get to the mountain range, but those tribe folks would rather ask for death than go there. What can we do?”
I had no intention of discussing this issue with Grandpa or the doctor. I had thought of it early on too. Jinchul’s repetitive remarks were indeed factual.
The only ones who could forcibly drag the tribe up to the mountain range were Jinchul and I. It was something only an evil wizard that robs bodies or a primitive era Hercules who punches monsters could achieve—it was impossible for Grandpa or the doctor.
As Jinchul seemed to be sputtering, he eventually blurted out just one line.
“Everyone… I thought you would have realized something after going through the trials of the hotel. What we do in the cursed room ultimately revolves around protecting people.”
The doctor responded.
“I understand. To solve this room, I plan to do that. But to solve the room, we first need to gather information by repeating the escape. At the stage of gathering information, there’s no choice in the matter.”
I figured it was best to cut it off here. Unnecessary tension isn’t good.
“Cough, cough. Alright! Let’s focus on the mountain discussion. As the doctor said, this is essentially a process for ultimately solving the room.”
“Y-yeah. I was just talking out of turn. What kind of monsters are in that mountain range? No, aren’t they robots?”
As soon as the topic of the robots we encountered in the mountains came up, the atmosphere shifted, and everyone began to eagerly speak up.
“Definitely robots! There’s no doubt about it. The primitive tribes have no related knowledge, so they probably thought those robots were just enormous monsters. The ‘endless eyes’ they spoke of referred to the cameras on the robots, while the thunderous force was the sound of machine guns.”
“It’s now 100% clear that this place is not your ordinary spot. To cross the mountain range, we have to get past those robots.”
With my words, everyone fell silent. Jinchul wore a rather gloomy expression as he spoke.
“Did you see that robot shooting machine guns earlier? Just grazing against us would’ve blown apart trees, right? If we get hit with something like that, we wouldn’t leave even a trace behind. Surviving and coming out here feels miraculous.”
“I think we weren’t just lucky. It seemed like the robots were doing ‘warning shots,’ yet all the shells missed us even though we weren’t far away.”
If those were indeed high-level AI robots, there wouldn’t be a chance they’d misfire at such a distance. They were intentionally warning us off with near misses.
“Warning shots? So we’re relying on the mercy of the robots to stay alive?”
The doctor contributed his thoughts.
“The robots in the mountain range seem to possess certain behavior patterns. For instance, they never cross the mountain’s boundaries. If those things were to break free and start rampaging outside the mountains, they wouldn’t just pose a threat to the primitive tribes, but even monsters wouldn’t be able to stop them.”
“They don’t stray outside the mountainous bounds… Sure enough, when we crossed a certain line, they retreated sharply.”
It’s good that they don’t leave their mountain range, but that doesn’t mean they won’t stop us from entering it. Was there some other ‘pattern’? A thought crossed my mind.
“This might not be what you’d call a pattern, but it seems they observe us before doing ‘warning shots.’ As soon as we set foot near the mountains, I felt strong scrutiny from somewhere outside.”
Jinchul nodded in agreement with that thought. At that moment, the doctor clapped his knee.
“Ding! I just thought of a brilliant idea! Han Kain and Jinchul, you went through such trouble to bring the tribe along, right? Shouldn’t we let them have some fun? It’s a perfect time for them to—”
I held my breath. I couldn’t help but notice that I had fleetingly considered that same thought, and now it seemed the doctor had reached the same conclusion!
“Let’s hold off on that!”
“… Huh?”
“I briefly had a similar thought too, but regardless, crossing certain lines is out of the question. We have to go outside someday. If possible, we want to avoid innocent casualties.”
“Excuse me, but what exactly did you think Han Kain was suggesting?”
“… You were proposing to force the tribe to charge into the mountain range, right? While the robots are busy dealing with them, we’d sneak past?”
Both the doctor and Grandpa stared wide-eyed.
“What are you, some Stalin? Are we forming an execution battalion here? Are we the death squad?”
“Han Kain, that’s totally not what I meant. Your and Jinchul’s leadership skills are indeed impressive, but if you pulled something like that, the primitive folks would rebel. It’s not worth escalating a fight.”
“Then what’s your idea?”
“How about the so-called ‘round and round’ strategy?”
The doctor’s idea sounded simple yet plausible.
The robots don’t leave the mountain range, and upon entering, they begin observing. If they cross a certain line, they warn us off with gunfire. In other words, entering the mountain range doesn’t mean we’re going to die immediately!
So, what if we spread out all 5,000 tribe members thinly and widely near the mountain’s boundary and have them shuffle back and forth?
Wouldn’t the robots get overwhelmed trying to keep an eye on thousands of people spreading out? After dispersing the robots, the hotel crew could breach a relatively more defenseless spot and move these in!
“What do you think?”
Grandpa nodded in agreement.
“It’s a good idea, but there are two catch points. First, those tribe members are terrified just looking at the mountains. Getting them to shuffle near the boundary won’t be easy. We’ll have to make them understand it’s safe to remain around the boundary. Moreover, this world lacks communication devices, so training will probably be necessary to coordinate thousands of people.”
“With time, we can solve that. Though, we might be under a ‘time limit.’”
“Secondly, and this is more serious. If we manage to disperse the robots, let’s say there’s only one path we can take. Can you take on even one of them?”
A heavy silence descended upon the room once more.
Occasionally, the hotel party feels strangely vulnerable when it comes to the sheer ‘brute physical force’ of things. It’s one thing to handle supernatural creatures or evil spirits with the grimoire, but when faced with machine guns firing at 30mm, more is left to chance.
Ultimately, Jinchul wrapped up the situation.
“We need someone else.”
“…”
“We need someone who at least has the capability to take out a couple of robots with machine guns. My blessing has weakened quite a bit, so…”
The doctor replied somewhat gloomily.
“I think someone capable of that is approaching us now.”
*
The next day, huge clouds of dust started coming from several kilometers away. Those who had initially felt joy, thinking it was the arrival of a new comrade, soon wore expressions of dread.
The ‘legion’ was approaching, flying through the skies.
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