### Chapter 351 – The Final Rest and Room Selection
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[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 153
Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor
Sage’s Advice: X]
—
– Han Kain
With Ari leading the charge, all comrade grabbed from the Hell of Gluttony returned.
The next morning, Ari and I began chatting while enjoying some much-needed downtime.
“So, everyone else escaped before me?”
The doctor and Jinchul managed to get out of the Hell of Gluttony even before Ari did.
“Something feels a bit off, huh? Like, how did they manage to escape? What’s their story?”
“Well, Jinchul chose a scenario where his family was killed by a serial killer.”
“Ah… so he caught the killer on the spot?”
“Yeah, he killed him in self-defense and boom—escape was granted right away.”
“And Sanghyun?”
“He played the role of the older brother to a grad student still suffering under a nasty professor. He met the professor directly and solved the issue.”
“… How?”
“Smoothly.”
No need to pry into the specifics. At this point, we didn’t need to worry about the aftermath or any loose ends. By the time those would arise, everything would already be over.
Hypothetically speaking, he might have ‘persuaded’ the professor by dismembering his hand or something crazier.
“Oh, Sanghyun and Jinchul picked good scenarios.”
“What about you?”
“Mine was a bit more complicated. But hey, I’m out now, so it’s all good.”
“Today’s the last day of party time, you know? Later, we’ll pick the room we need to go into tomorrow.”
“Right.”
As we moved to head back to our quarters, Ari suddenly turned to look at me.
“Hey, you haven’t eaten anything for the last three days, right?”
“Yup.”
“… You probably didn’t even drink a drop of water. Are you okay?”
“Surprisingly, I’ve been holding up. At this point, I could probably go a few more days without food. Consider it a diet.”
“…”
*
By evening, everyone gathered around the massive table on the second floor for a meeting.
Once we settled in, my sister asked me, “Kain, are you okay?”
“What?”
“… No, I’m just relieved to see you’re looking okay.”
“It’s been manageable, surprisingly.”
The first to speak after the meeting commenced was the teacher.
“As you all know, today’s meeting is about figuring out which cursed room to enter next. The first point we need to consider is the promise made by the hotel. Some of you have witnessed it, while others have heard about it.”
In room 203, Adrabiya’s over-the-top antics had turned from amusing to tormenting our experience.
However, as the room was resolved, the notification that popped up said the prisoner’s interference was against the hotel’s wishes.
As a form of compensation and apology for enduring such harsh trials, the hotel made one promise:
“‘The next room you enter won’t be the same kind of scene.’ That’s the gist of it. What do you think this statement means?”
I chimed in with my thoughts.
“I think we can interpret the ‘next room’ quite literally. It refers to the next room we’ll be choosing.”
“Seems that way, right?”
“The problem lies in the interpretation of ‘the same kind’… Does it mean it’ll completely eliminate the prisoner’s interference?”
“We won’t know for sure until we step inside, but I don’t believe it’ll be that cut and dry.”
Eunsol, who had been quiet recently, spoke up for the first time in a while.
“From my experience, opponents often turn out to be the prisoner’s minions. If a prisoner loses its influence to the extent of being forcefully removed from a room, the opponents would also lose the powers granted by them. This means we might get to breeze through one room without the usual complications.”
Ari chimed in, “Honestly, I don’t think the hotel would be that helpful.”
“Same thought here. I’d like to approach this from a ‘role’ perspective.”
“Role?”
As Eunsol offered what sounded like a solid point, everyone’s gaze turned to her.
“In a usual hotel-furnished scenario, we are essentially the protagonists while the opponents act as villains.”
Not all rooms operated this way, but it was a similar sentiment.
“Conversely, the prisoner should be an entity operating in the background. A faceless schemer lurking in the shadows—the source of all evil. They must remain abstract, only appearing to intervene when the plot demands or right at the moment of a certain doom.”
Several examples crossed my mind.
“Room 203 was nothing like that. Adrabiya acted like a villain on the main stage. The hotel must have seen that as an issue, hence their promise of preventing it in the next room.”
That sounded plausible.
If Eunsol’s theory held true, the prisoner wouldn’t manifest prominently in the upcoming room.
Instead, it would exist as a background character, possibly only making an appearance in the closing moments when a bad ending was set in stone.
That said, we could reasonably conclude that the opponents who got their power from the prisoner would still be able to use it.
After all, they were characters in the scenario, unlike the prisoner.
Eunsol rapped the table, summing things up.
“Let’s put a pin in our interpretation of the hotel’s promise. Now, it’s time to discuss which room we’ll be going into next.”
What room should we enter? Let’s think back to rooms we’d resolved in the past.
Room 101 had a prisoner whose identity we didn’t even know—a mystery still lingering, possibly the hospital director, but he had never stepped out right until the room fizzled away.
Room 102’s prisoner was the Nebula Dragon from the Mansion of Horror, who had barely made his presence felt, only revealing himself in those final moments.
Perhaps this was the ideal prisoner the hotel had envisioned.
For such rooms, even if the hotel’s promise did apply, nothing would really change.
Conversely, if room 103 had the teacher as a prisoner aligned with us, applying that promise could prove disastrous.
A room where the teacher couldn’t interfere? We wouldn’t stand a chance with our current capabilities.
Once I pondered all of this, the answer became clear.
Logically speaking, we should enter a room where the prisoner actively opposes us. And one perfect example popped into the heads of everyone present.
Jinchul raised his hand.
“Thinking about it, the candidates are pretty clear. Remaining rooms are 104, 205, and 206. Since we know nothing about 205 and 206, let’s skip them. Room 104 is clearly where the prisoner is going to stir up trouble.”
The teacher responded with a somewhat perplexed expression.
“Thinking strictly of the hotel’s promise, the conclusion would lean toward room 104… However, considering the information obtained through divine revelation, it becomes quite ambiguous. Kain, what do you think?”
During the divine revelation event, the hints provided about room 104 were as follows: the dangers of mirror battles, the order of the cult’s myths and doctrines, and ‘empty your enemy’s magazine.’
“The dangers of mirror battles? I’m not entirely sure what that means. As for the cult’s myths and doctrines? Even less idea. But the last line—I get that.”
“‘Empty your enemy’s magazine?’”
“‘Magazine’ refers to expendable abilities, and among the powers we possess, there’s indeed one resembling a ‘lord’s magazine.’ That would be the descents, right?”
That was my interpretation.
The divine revelation essentially told us, “You’re allowed to use your last descent before heading into room 104.”
Upon realizing this, my mood lifted a little.
The doctor continued.
“Perhaps the hotel’s promise isn’t necessarily focused on room 104. Instead, it might be regarding a different room altogether. If we think this way, it makes sense for the divine revelation to instruct us to exhaust all descents before entering 104.”
Ari curiously asked, “Are you suggesting there’s another room on our radar? One where the prisoner actively intervenes to oppose us? We have zero insights about 205 and 206.”
“Zero insights? What about the divine revelation?”
As soon as the teacher mentioned it, I recalled the details given about rooms 205 and 206:
Room 205: Absolute master. Inevitable death; luck won’t help, and superior strength is required.
Room 206: Three-way battle; a common trope in creations; check dates regularly.
Could there be anything in between these statements that suggests ‘prisoners actively opposing’ us?
At this moment, while we all pondered, the teacher stated confidently, “Room 205. Doesn’t the phrase ‘inevitable death’ stand out?”
“Inevitable death, huh.”
“Right now, our party boasts some unbelievably powerful members. Even the Administration Bureau must recognize this, right?”
Ari nodded, affirming, “Definitely. A few among us could easily be counted amongst the paramount mortals by their standards.”
“Could a mere human bestow ‘inevitable death’ onto such beings?”
With that, I began to grasp the concept.
The teacher implied that the wording ‘inevitable death’ in the divine revelation hinted at the existence of a hostile divine being.
That reasoning made sense.
If an entity possessed the power to deliver us unavoidable death with no questions asked, then it had to be more than just one of us mere mortals.
Ari and the older guys with us nodded in agreement.
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Next, is it fair that we enter room 205?”
Finally, Miro, who had been silent up until now, spoke out for the first time.
“So, you’re saying we should head to room 205? Phew, dodged a bullet with 206, right?”
Ari had shared intel from her patron indicating that the final cursed room on each floor was particularly demanding.
“So ideally, tackling the extremely difficult room should be saved for last.”
With that, our meeting reached a conclusion. We decided to enter room 205 next.
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