### Chapter 464 – Day Off – Contemplations on the Solution (3)
—
– Han Kain
Date: Day 552
Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor
Sage’s Advice: 3
—
「A Study on the Perfect Solution for Room 206, Volume 2」
… Is it Volume 2 because yesterday’s meeting counts as Volume 1?
Despite the playful tone in Eunsol’s title on the whiteboard, the attitude of my comrades was nothing short of serious.
“About the spaceship escape plan Miro mentioned yesterday—I’ve been thinking about it all night—”
Hyung Sang-hyun seemed to earnestly contemplate how to create a ‘Space Habitat’ within 100 days.
That kind of specialized talk was only understood, in a clumsy way, by Ahri. No matter how hard we tried, the conclusion was that 100 days was simply impossible.
“What about using the Time Overlord’s regression ability? Couldn’t we just go back to before the Demon King arrived on Earth?”
At first glance, Songi’s thought seemed plausible, but with the memories gathered by Miro, she sadly rebuffed it.
“Not that far back… Even the most, maybe a year?”
“Gah!”
Thinking of some Romanian dictator proposing a ‘forced childbirth’ policy to buy time was quickly dismissed, as we couldn’t even come up with ways to stall. Ideas ranged from transferring human consciousness to a computer—a notion right out of a sci-fi movie.
It was an impressive brainstorming session from the get-go.
However, a lot of opinions had glaring holes in their reasoning.
Of course.
If there were easy solutions to come up with, the Order of Reason would already have figured them out.
At that moment, Seungyub raised his hand with a rare look of determination on his face.
“U-Um!”
“Seungyub?”
“I have an amazing idea I came up with last night!”
Sorry, but just hearing ‘I thought about it all night’ somewhat diminished its credibility.
“People’s thoughts or beliefs influence the Demon King, right? So if we make him think he’s worshipped as a divine being, he won’t harm anyone, which was the Order’s attempted solution!”
“That’s right.”
“What if we convince him that he’s something other than a god? Like, um, a protective barrier for the world? Or a gigantic shield? Or a great tool made by the Order?”
“…”
Suddenly, the people around us fell silent.
Not because it sounded ridiculous. Quite the opposite—it sounded very plausible.
Instead of submitting to the Demon King by worshipping him, we spread the image of him being a tool or an inanimate object?
If successful, the Demon King wouldn’t harm humanity, and humans wouldn’t sacrifice their fate to him. This idea was practically an upgraded version of the ‘Demon Worship Plan.’
“…”
But I felt a strong sense that this wasn’t the right direction.
My comrades—unlike me, who had a ‘hunch’—reacted positively.
“Oooh! Seungyub, this sounds somewhat plausible! What do you think, big sister?”
“It doesn’t have to be an inanimate object. Just saying the people of Room 206 worship the progenitor, we could claim it’s a spirit contracted with the progenitor—”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way to go.
But I couldn’t articulate why. I knew in my gut it was wrong, yet I couldn’t logically explain why.
Suddenly, I grew curious about Ahri, who had been quiet for a while.
“…”
I sneaked glances, wondering what she was thinking.
Why did Ahri want to enter Miro’s dream yesterday?
“…”
Is she not going to tell me?
It couldn’t be some lame reason—
— Tap!
With a light tap on the table, Ahri lifted her head.
“I thought of something while talking to Miro yesterday.”
I felt a jolt as I looked at Miro, who seemed twitchy.
Given the context, the ‘Miro’ she was talking about wasn’t the middle school girl in front of us but the other Miro.
“I’m not sure about the solution for Room 206, but it’s more about pondering the Demon King itself?”
Pondering the Demon King itself?
The next part of the conversation felt eerily familiar.
“Why does the Demon King act like a deity? Before that, why does he react to human imagination in the first place?”
These were questions posed by the ultimate being, the head of the Order of Reason, to Hyung Sang-hyun, which he then passed on to me.
I had my own answer for this.
“We analyzed it as a form of mimicry. It’s similar to how a wolf dons a sheep’s disguise to hunt.”
A form of mimicry but essentially a hunting strategy.
“Some snakes wiggle the tip of their tails to mimic tiny insects or earthworms to lure prey in. Some fish produce little lights in the deep sea to attract their catch.”
Hyung Sang-hyun nodded as if he understood.
“So, the Demon King reacts to humans to devour them and sometimes acts like a god?”
“Rather than ‘humans,’ I’d say it’s more accurate to refer to small prey or low-level intellects. According to the records, the Demon King is a being that came from outer space.”
Humanity in Room 206 couldn’t even build a ‘planetary migration method’ until the Order fell.
However, the Athanasia from Room 103 and humanity of Room 203 managed to create means to escape the stars.
The Demon King ‘evolved’ to prevent these prey from escaping.
If the prey considers the Demon King mysterious or worship him, they would flock to him rather than flee.
“Thinking about it this way, Seungyub’s idea would be hard to succeed.”
“Ah.”
“So, Seungyub, this thought was genuinely impressive, I’m surprised!”
“Uh, yes.”
The idea that the Demon King reacting to human imagination is merely a hunting strategy.
Thus, embodying a figure from horror stories to kill humans, or acting like a god to exploit them spiritually, is a mimicry the Demon King would accept.
However, he would never take on the role of serving humans purely.
“…”
This was an entirely different analysis from mine.
If my hypothesis stemmed from the ‘divine insight’ I felt using the Holy Sun, then Ahri’s was typical of the Administration Bureau’s style.
The directions of our thoughts diverged so much that it was hard to judge who was right or wrong.
Seeing Seungyub looking dejected, Eunsol and Grandpa patted him on the back, offering praise.
“You don’t usually say much in meetings, but you’ve been quite active these last couple of days, giving three opinions! At this rate, you’ll be a hotel expert! Maybe even a field agent, right, Grandpa?”
“Definitely! Way better than those dim-witted juniors!”
Has Seungyub really provided three opinions already?
Was I so dazed from the Holy Sun that I didn’t notice?
“What were the first two, then?”
When I asked, Seungyub replied sheepishly.
“Hyung, the first two were just random thoughts without much consideration—”
“Random thoughts? Just messing around?”
“Well, I felt pressure when I was sitting silently, so…”
“Feeling pressured to speak up on a whim?”
“Gah! Hyung, why are you saying this?”
Thinking I was scolding him or reprimanding him, Seungyub awkwardly took a step back.
On the other hand, someone else felt off about my words.
“… So, if they were random, impulsive, rough ideas tossed out twice, and both happen to be the same?”
As Ahri emphasized, others began to wake up to something peculiar.
“Seungyub, what did you say yesterday?”
“Huh? Huh?”
Funny enough, Seungyub couldn’t even recall what he had said.
Of course, nor could anyone else.
“… You suggested we kill everyone and then rewind time to bring them back.”
Killing everyone in the city, no, the entire planet, and then resurrecting them.
Absurd as it sounded, it was feasible in Room 206.
The Order kept the entire human race controlled via ‘one-button’ means, and the ability to turn back time actually existed.
Separating ‘killing them all’ from ‘bringing them back’ already happened in Room 206.
In our second and third rounds, we escaped while mercilessly massacring 2.34 billion survivors, and in the first round, the mayor made use of the One More Chance to resurrect the deceased of paradise.
But there was a critical flaw in this approach.
“U-uh? Am I confused? If a person offered to the Unyielding Reason dies, they cannot be resurrected, right?”
As Songi said.
If a person sacrifices themselves to the Unyielding Reason to suppress the Demon King, that person won’t come back even if we rewind time within the room.
That’s because the soul itself has disappeared.
Even the Time Overlord can’t overcome this limitation.
Sacrificing souls to the Unyielding Reason or the Demon King, reversing time to resurrect them, and then offering back the resurrected ones?
Such a cycle of ‘endless energy human sacrifice’ is impossible.
Only those whose souls remain intact can be resurrected.
At this point, everyone fell silent once more.
It was surely a peculiar idea, spoken twice by the once-thought-lucky Seungyub!
So what to do now?
“What is this? What is this? Seungyub, what’s the deal?!”
“…”
The one who initially threw out the idea, Seungyub, looked utterly clueless.
As we all spiraled into confusion.
“… I think I just had a thought.”
Ahri raised her hand with a spaced-out expression.
…
…
…
It was a bizarre notion.
A strange solution mixed with Miro’s inquiries into the essence of the Demon King and Seungyub’s idea of resurrection through time reversal.
Rather than being perfectly seamless, it had so many gaps that it was hard to figure out how to counter any part of it.
Let’s say it was creative; in a worse case, who knew how the Demon King would react.
Nonetheless, it seemed worth trying.
*
– Han Kain
Date: Day 552
Current Location: Room 105 – ‘Room of Rest’
Sage’s Advice: 0
—
Late in the day from an extended meeting, everyone was tired.
I returned to Room 105 for a breather and collapsed onto the bed.
“I feel clearer since yesterday.”
I was relieved the strange thoughts about my comrades had stopped.
“… In the style of the Owl, maybe it’s because the black paint has spread.”
With the power of the grimoire growing stronger, the Holy Sun seemed to take a step back.
I felt like a shrimp caught in the power struggle between the two legacies.
Either way, one truth dawned on me during this process.
“Is the grimoire slightly more rational?”
Fundamentally, the grimoire seeks to break free from the constraints of flesh.
The body is merely an expensive garment one can swap at will.
Yet, most of humanity’s desires rely heavily on the body.
With impulses from appetites or sleep, and even sexual desire stem from the flesh.
While the grimoire doesn’t specifically pursue asceticism, it tends to diminish desires rooted in the body because it views flesh as insignificant.
That’s why the closer one gets to the grimoire, the more hyper-rational they become.
The Holy Sun, on the other hand, does not pursue this path.
It endlessly absorbs the prayers and aspirations of its followers, expanding its ego.
Most of these prayers usually go, “I want this, I want that.”
How could a being made stronger by devouring desires gain freedom from those desires?
“… Anyway, that’s my realization.”
Suddenly, I chuckled.
Lying alone on the bed and lost in my thoughts must’ve made me look like I was chatting with an imaginary friend, right?
That’s something a typical middle school second-year would do.
However, I actually had a secret friend.
— Crackle!
Another me appeared out of nowhere in the air.
“That is your realization, but it is also my realization.”
He wasn’t made of proteins.
He was something beyond the grasp of light and shadow, empty imagination, or the concept of matter.
If I was something closer to the grimoire, then he was a being closer to the Holy Sun.
“Yesterday, we sought advice from Miro regarding the erosion of the Holy Sun.”
“…”
“She provided us with two answers.”
“…”
“Shouldn’t we try one of them?”
Suddenly, flames appeared in the air.
The source of it all—the Holy Sun—had become the origin of every problem.
The man ablaze like a flame.
Another me laughed as if amused.
“So, how’s it? Feeling like you want to worship me?”
“Hey, you better fix your attitude first.”
“…”
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