### Chapter 328 – Room 203, The Cursed Room – ‘A New Beginning’ (8)
—
– Han Kain
Date: 683,622 Days In
Current Location: Floor 2, Room 203 – The Cursed Room ‘A New Beginning’
Sage’s Advice: 1
—
Ah, humanity has long gazed longingly at the blue sky.
In many myths, the great gods always look down from above on clouds, and the messengers of the gods swoop down from above, fluttering their wings.
What about the tale of Icarus, who, with his meager talents, tried to fly only to meet tragedy as the sun melted his wax wings?
This story paradoxically proves that humans have been yearning for the sky since ancient times.
And now, I am overseeing the ground from above!
“Wow… I wonder if the Wright brothers felt as moved as I do, watching this view?”
Hundreds of meters below, Jinchul looked like a little ant scurrying around. At that moment, Eunsol raised her head from atop the grotesque creature and waved at me.
“Hello— ugh!”
Suddenly, the ‘Cutter’ began to twitch and wobble. My body was tightly bound by the creature’s tough exoskeleton, so I didn’t just fall off, but the sudden jolt nearly made me puke.
“Songyee! Drive carefully!”
“Oppa! Can you shut up for a bit? The Wright brothers? This thing is hungry right now!”
“…”
Hearing Songyee’s irritation, my sentimental mood instantly vanished as the giant beetle gradually descended towards the ground.
*
As soon as we landed half an hour later, Songyee once again shattered my emotional state.
“Urrghhh! Ughhh!”
Eunsol lightly patted Songyee’s back. I glanced back at Jinchul.
“Hyung, you okay?”
“…”
“Hyung?”
“Huhhh! It’s… tough. Kain, how far do we have left?”
“Uhm… if we keep this pace, we should reach the maze’s location by tomorrow morning.”
“Four, four days to get here? That’s pretty fast.”
“If we grit our teeth a bit more, we could arrive tonight even—”
“Hey! Do you want to babble comfortably while we go? I can’t move even one more step!”
A person can’t just keep trekking like a car guzzling gas. The exhausting march stretched for days, wearing out not just Jinchul and me but even the grotesque creature carrying us through the air.
The sun was starting to set.
“It seems we won’t be able to move much further today.”
With those words, Jinchul flopped down on the ground, and Songyee started moving the Cutter, now resembling a grotesque monster, towards a lake she had spotted from the sky.
I was the only one left with any stamina, reflecting on the days of marching we had endured.
On the morning of the third day in Room 203, everyone gathered to reach a simple conclusion.
We needed a means of transport. Coincidentally, some ‘monsters’ were suitable for carrying us.
We had two candidates—one was a gigantic bull nearby Eunsol, and the other was the flying bug, ‘The Cutter,’ floating near Songyee.
It seemed that utilizing the flying creature would provide us with an advantage in scouting, so we decided to tame the Cutter, but my anxiety was pretty high. If Songyee fails at taming it, everything would go down the drain.
Luckily, that never happened. When Hyung and I made the journey to Songyee’s location after two nights and three days, she had already tamed the Cutter and brought Eunsol along.
“Kain, you should take a sip too.”
“Yeah. Is Hyung feeling better now?”
“Well… we’re near the lake, so I drank water, but the issue is hunger. I’ve been munching on bits of tree fruit for days.”
“That is quite a dilemma.”
“It seems the mental stress is pretty significant too.”
“Mental stress?”
“Sometimes I wonder if leaving the villagers behind was the right call.”
Of course, we couldn’t drag the entire tribe through this exhausting expedition.
“Aren’t they not even human? Hyung, you’re being awfully sensitive.”
Eunsol looked at me with a somewhat bemused expression.
“You seem a bit like Ahri right now.”
“…”
Choosing the Cutter instead of the bull had its drawbacks. It wasn’t massive like the bull, and being a flying monster, it didn’t have the stamina to carry all of us for long periods.
In the end, Jinchul had to run, while Eunsol was stuck riding our grotesque friend.
“Man, this is getting really tough. I mean, I was just sitting on Fero, but my legs are shaking so much I can barely stand.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You’ve got quite the stomach. You’re riding a bumpy bug for hours, and you’re okay? I can’t handle it after just one ride.”
“Well, it’s passable….”
Am I just resistant to motion sickness?
Eunsol muttered, worriedly.
“I wonder how the others are holding up?”
That made me recall our plans.
During our second attempt, we were forced to escape without any success, but thankfully, before that, I managed to gauge the distance between myself and my teammates using the status window.
Including a kind of landmark that everyone could see, the Red Mountain, I was able to estimate our approximate positions.
As a result, it made sense for us four—me, blessed with a way to track the maze’s location, Eunsol with her keen sight to spot distant tracks, Jinchul, who could run like a car, and Songyee, with the Chick Cutter—to regroup and head toward the maze.
The other four were having a bit more of a complicated time.
Grandpa and the doctor were way too far from the maze, almost closer to the mountains instead. So they decided to scout toward the mountains, our final destination.
Meanwhile, Elena and Seungyub were in positions that allowed them to move directly towards the maze without having to join us. The problem was…
“Kain, do you think Seungyub can accurately track the maze’s location?”
Eunsol didn’t ask about Elena, as she lacked those kinds of abilities.
“Based on the information about the teammates, it looks like they’re tracking just fine. Seungyub and Elena should catch up to us in a day or two.”
After a moment of silence in the surroundings, she asked me.
“Got anything new? You seem to be chatting with the Owl a lot lately.”
What’s there to do while riding on a bumpy beetle all day?
Of course, I had been asking for advice daily. That said, my inquiries were always pretty much the same.
“I’ve been discussing Adravita’s intentions.”
“The fact that you’re saying you’re ‘discussing’ just sounds funny. Shouldn’t the Owl be giving you answers?”
“I’ve come to believe that the sponsor might not fully grasp the prisoner’s plans either. I had a similar vibe back in Room 104…”
Room 104—when ‘Lord’ was about to bring destruction. I thought that if the Owl had fully comprehended Lord’s plans, maybe it could have given us a clearer warning in advance?
The vague answers back then and the still hazy answers today.
Even if the sponsor transcends humanity, could it fully comprehend the clever machinations of a transcending prisoner?
Eunsol posed a somewhat hopeful attitude as she asked.
“Could it be that your initial thought might be right after all?”
“Initial thought?”
“I think Adravita is just tired. After thousands of years of repeating in this cursed room, it probably just wants to die already.”
“From what I’ve shared about our chat, it doesn’t seem like it wants to die.”
“Hmm… that’s true. So, have you figured anything out?”
“What’s the case with the Owl?”
“The Owl said Adravita seems deeply immersed in this room.”
“Deeply immersed in Room 203?”
She found that amusing and soon brought forth an entertaining tale.
“Have you heard of Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream?”
“In the dream, he became a butterfly only to awaken as a person. He couldn’t tell if he was a butterfly or a person.”
“Oh, you’re well-informed. Sometimes I think Adravita’s situation fits that feeling perfectly. Perhaps for him, this place, Room 203, is another true world…”
What could it be like for the prisoners trapped in the cursed room, experiencing a seemingly endless, meaningless puppet show?
It could be something rather different. The entities within the cursed room behave just like actual humans, whether in intelligence or actions.
Moreover, every time ‘participants’ and ‘prisoners’ from the external world interacted, they caused ripples of change within the cursed room, causing those inside to demonstrate entirely different behaviors each time.
That’s why sometimes Jinchul and Eunsol regard the entities within as just ordinary people.
Eunsol continued her train of thought.
“In Room 103, the teacher found joy in killing the inner Athanasias, indicating that he truly felt ‘hate’ towards those NPCs. In Room 202, the Sea God wished for salvation for his followers, showing his genuine care for them as well.”
“That’s quite convincing. If we go by that logic, perhaps Adravita’s been in this room for so long that it’s become deeply engrossed in the scenario of Room 203 like some other prisoners. So, what’s the goal?”
“…And the discussion stops here again.”
“…”
“I can ponder this much at least. After the ship of humanity arrived on this planet, what happened?”
It’s been eons since the pride of humanity set foot on this planet.
The spaceship’s power source has been extracted and taken hundreds of kilometers away, left abandoned in the mountains, while the AI targets the crew members as rebels and immediately tries to kill them.
The demigod who had ridden along with humanity to assist their colonization aimlessly roams the skies, sightseeing over the continent, while beings whose lineage remains unknown live as primitive people in the Stone Age.
“This is something I heard when I asked the Owl.”
“Spill it.”
“It’s clear there was a clash between the crew and the AI, right?”
“Given they call each other traitors, that much is likely.”
“Perhaps that clash led to everyone’s doom? The spaceship lost its power source and became half disassembled, unable to leave the mountains, while the descendants of the crew—who knows what they are—lost their civilization.”
“That sounds plausible.”
“In that clash, what role do you think Adravita played?”
“Well… if we figure out its power source or whatever, we might find out. But I have another repulsive hypothesis popping up.”
“What is it?”
“This world is crawling with monsters, isn’t it? It feels like I see one almost every day.”
“Very true.”
“It’s an environment where humans wouldn’t survive without the might of the divine being coming down from the sky.”
“True indeed.”
“In other words, primitive beings with intelligence would have to fervently worship ‘some entity’ that delivers those divine beings.”
“…”
“…”
“You said we might meet the maze by tomorrow morning, right? Oh, and did you mention Seungyub and Elena are nearby too?”
“Yeah. There’s less than 40 km left. We’ll reach it in no time. Seungyub is already close.”
“It feels like the calm before the storm.”
The following morning, Songyee met her demise.
*
– Elena
“Master! Please listen to me!”
Hearing this familiar plea, I turned my head. Sure enough, several elders had gathered, begging desperately in front of Seungyub.
They truly must not grasp the current situation.
An incomprehensible, hellish march continued endlessly. No destination nor reason for movement. They were just walking the fields aimlessly, commanded by the divine.
Food was scarce, and water, even more so. With insufficient food and water, even the strong warriors—including the divine—could barely make ends meet, while the weak perished in the fields.
Yet, in a world filled with monsters, fleeing from the tyrant was no option. If the divine perished, another would likely descend within months, yet that could very well erase an entire tribe in the meantime.
For them, there seems to be but one escape route—their hopes pinned on persuading the tyrant.
“Master!”
“…”
“Please, over thirty people fell behind just yesterday. Where exactly are we going?”
“You won’t survive past today.”
“What?”
That ominous statement reverberated softly.
The primitives around flinched and stepped back. The appointed elder trembled, barely able to lift his head, shaking like a leaf.
The author will die today, or at least by tomorrow morning. It’s a fate repeated many times before.
Feeling a chill, I approached Seungyub—the ‘Primordial Human.’
“… I’m always curious, how do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you kill them? With just a word?”
“I’ve never killed a person.”
“Y-you did kill, didn’t you? I’ve seen people drop dead one after another due to your ominous tone!”
“That’s a strange thing to say.”
The boy, who seemed to have gathered all shadows from the world, looked at me strangely and gestured around. All around the vast plains were the lifeless bodies of primitives who couldn’t withstand hunger and thirst.
“See? You watched them crumble as they tried walking, right?”
“…”
“People are bound to die. I merely told them they would.”
That’s unsettling. This boy is downright disturbing.
… I felt a wave of self-doubt wash over me as these thoughts crossed my mind.
The primitives trembled in fear at just the sight of Seungyub, the Primordial Human. But whenever they reached their breaking points, they went to him instead, not to me.
Because…
At least Seungyub doesn’t turn people into monsters.
— Eeek!
I turned my head at the sound, which I could only describe as adorable, floating around my ears. I caught a glimpse of the fairies dancing with smiles in a wondrous scene.
Now I understand. I’m the only one in this plain who finds them beautiful.
“Elena.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re almost there.”
“Did you consult that turtle shell thing again?”
“Yup. Look.”
I recalled the day I rushed to see Seungyub, worrying he was suffering. The boy I knew was long gone.
What remained was an ill-fated sorcerer walking through the ancient world.
“Seriously… What command did he give?”
“Eh?”
“No, never mind.”
I wished for the time to pass quickly.
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