### Chapter 474 – Room 206, The Cursed Room – ‘Demon King Revives After 100 Days’ Re (33) Fin
—
– Yu Songee
About a year ago, around days 579 to 580.
We woke up in a deserted city where all humans had vanished.
Even the primordial beings that hid in special shelters during the cycle where the entire city was sacrificed to the Demon King had disappeared without a trace when faced with his resurrection.
Survivors in the entire universe? Just a measly seven!
Yu Songee, Lee Eunsol, Kim Mooksung, Kim Sanghyun, Park Seungyub, Elena, Cha Jinchul.
Only we, aided by the hourglass capable of withstanding the Demon King’s rampage, made it through.
At the time, we didn’t have the faintest idea of what exactly transpired deep below us.
We speculated something like, “Oh, the Demon King probably killed us once he came back.”
However, one thing was for sure: the Demon King had vanished.
If we emptied the bowl before the Demon King fed, he would just head off for another hunting ground!
Believe it or not, this ridiculous plan actually worked.
So, the day we awoke was full of festive vibes.
…
But even with the Demon King gone from Earth, we couldn’t let our guard down.
The most crucial procedure was still ahead.
That’s right—returning and reviving!
The whole reason we went through this ordeal was to create a world where the folks in Room 206 could live safely.
Ultimately, we needed to revive the dead to finish things off.
At this point, everyone fell into a serious dilemma.
“When should we rewind time?”
Amidst our discussions, this popped up.
“What does it mean that the Demon King came from outer space?”
“Teacher, do you really think the Demon King has incredibly vast soul-seeking abilities?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well then, Grandpa, the Demon King is probably still flying somewhere in space, right?”
“Yeah, that’s likely.”
“If that’s the case, we should delay returning time as much as possible.”
“… Right.”
Exactly.
If we rewinded time too early, the Demon King might sense ground zero, thinking there’s no food left, and come back to check things out.
Hence, we needed to rewind time to the most distant moment possible, that is, the latest moment we were permitted.
This limit isn’t something we decide, but rather, set by the Time Master.
“The time delay limit for reverting learned from the founder’s memory is about a year.”
“Then that’s it, let’s endure for a year before we rewind.”
The meeting wrapped up quickly, but the conclusion was rather bleak.
The town had crumbled completely due to the creepy rumors spawned by the revived Demon King, and humans were nowhere to be found throughout the universe.
It was essentially like a Stone Age survival scenario in Room 203!
Yet, it was much more livable than Room 203.
Why? Because we had our survival expert, Dr. Kim.
“Teacher, can I eat this—”
“How many times must I tell you? All mushrooms are poisonous! And Seungyub, why do you keep collecting mushrooms like it’s a game?”
“…”
“Hey, Sanghyun! What’s wrong with Seungyub collecting poisonous mushrooms?”
“I’ll just put them in your stew! Trust in luck!”
“… You little rascal! Get rid of that right now!”
To this day, I still don’t understand why Seungyub insisted on picking those mushrooms.
What if they really were delicious and healthy after all?
Of course, believing in luck was way scarier than those poisonous mushrooms.
Days passed in this daze, until one day.
Ari appeared from the sky.
She was in an utterly horrid state.
One arm missing, eyes nearly gone, and her skin…
A human couldn’t survive with those injuries without proper treatment.
Even if luck allowed someone to survive, there’s no way they could drop down somewhere in the Pacific and return to us.
After all, she could sever an arm and still not bleed a drop; those wing boots must have saved her life.
Poor Ari wasn’t mentally okay either.
She had over-processed the Demon King without the protection of the hourglass.
Even the flute couldn’t reverse her condition.
According to Dr. Kim and Yumi’s analysis, her mind had clearly been damaged; several months must have passed, giving her brain physical holes.
Thanks to that, we now had a dementia-stricken girl added to the already pathetic little hotel village.
…
Ari regained her sanity every few days and shared the events that unfolded deep below.
The revelation that the Demon King didn’t leave Earth the moment he awakened.
The ultimate being and Brother Kain acted as bait to lure the Demon King into space.
Right now, it felt like they were still cruising through the cosmos.
Hearing all this was giving me dizzy spells.
It was my first experience with a room that had such surreal and absurd happenings as Room 206.
Many shared similar thoughts, but amidst it all, Dr. Kim appeared to be so deeply moved by Brother Kain that he even shed a tear.
Seeing him all emotional was a rare sight!
As for anything else, well, there were moments when Elena was taking care of Ari and gazed blankly at the sky, saying cringe-worthy things like, “Could that star be Kain? Or possibly that one?”
To that, Ari responded with her usual cute-yet-hilarious headbutt.
Wow, it felt like something straight out of an 80s melodrama—not to mention the absolutely cheesy line, “Could that star be Kain?”
I think once Elena becomes a successful actress, she should let someone else handle the script!
—
Life in the wild is incredibly harsh, with no respite for anyone, young or old.
Humans in civilization can earn around ten bucks for just an hour’s work at a convenience store and buy themselves a decent meal.
In the wild, one would have to struggle for almost 7 to 8 hours just to scrape enough together for a barely edible snack.
At this point, do I really need to explain how tough our lives were?
If we hadn’t found even a few preserved food items in that paradise, we would’ve ended up eating nothing but bugs!
—
Torrential times flowed like water.
From the circumstances, the majority of humanity likely died between days 571 and 580.
We didn’t have an exact timestamp; we were frozen due to the hourglass, and Ari was too loopy to keep track.
If we conservatively assume 570 days passed, the time limit for Red Boy’s return to revive everyone would hit the 935th day after the previous ones.
Today is the 930th day.
—
Early in the morning, Dr. Kim, with his bushy beard on display, addressed everyone.
“Let’s get moving today. We can’t afford to delay any longer.”
Seungyub, whose attire was a bit tattered but had no spare clothes to change into, replied lazily.
“Yawn! What day is it?”
The answer came from the disheveled-looking Lee Eunsol.
“If there’s no mistake in my calculations, it’s day 930. Are you sure you didn’t miscount?”
“930 is right.”
“Okay then, time to set off.”
Still wearing a scruffy appearance and looking disheveled, Elena let out a half-hearted chuckle.
“We look like total homeless people! It’s like we’re desperate refugees after our country collapsed.”
Refugees from a fallen country?
Oddly, that felt somewhat accurate.
And it made me a bit annoyed to hear Elena, even in her mess of a state, still looking incredibly pretty.
“Cough! Let’s move. Ari!”
“…”
Ari was still far from normal.
When we first returned, she’d communicate like a person about once every three days. But the intervals lengthened until lately, she’d been unable to snap back into reality even once a week.
Everyone started to gather up, ready to head back to the ruins of paradise.
—
While we navigated around scattered concrete debris, Grandpa murmured to himself.
“It’s been ages since we’ve visited paradise. I haven’t even thought about it after rummaging through and finding a few cans.”
“Yeah.”
When we held the fort outside, a few folks went searching through the depths of paradise.
They were concerned if “time delay” phenomena still lingered in the depths after the Demon King’s revival.
Should that be the case, recalculating dates would become much more complicated.
Thankfully, it seemed unlikely.
The time delay phenomena seemed to have disappeared with the Demon King’s arrival, meaning we must start up the ruler of time again.
“Just to check—can the ruler of time even be activated?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Hmm, that was a silly thing to say. Let’s go.”
The group was feeling anxious about whether the revival of the Demon King had damaged the time controller or something.
But until we actually checked, there was no way to know.
We had to trust it was still operational.
Not without reason.
Such a grand power that rewinds all time on this planet.
According to the duo from the Administration Bureau, the ruler of time is “definitely not something created by humans.”
Clearly, it was acquired from some cosmic being!
Evidence suggests even the Demon King had suffered from the ruler of time’s delays for centuries.
“Here we are. Normally, you’d take this elevator down to the depths.”
Elena chimed in, and Grandpa added.
“Four months ago, Sanghyun and I checked and found no time delay phenomena or monsters. The Demon King was gone. Now, tie the ropes.”
As we were tying up ropes to replace the malfunctioning elevator, an all-too-familiar face came to mind.
“Looks like Miro hasn’t made it back after all.”
“…It seems she probably perished when the Demon King revived. But I had a feeling it was always likely.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s okay. You can do it. The confirming is already done.”
“…”
I, Yu Songee, need to activate the ruler of time.
How on Earth do I activate it when I’m not even part of the Order?
There were moments when such thoughts swirled in my mind as well.
In this world, there exists a concept of a designated survivor or an acting successor during emergencies.
Should a terrorist attack, war, or natural disaster wipe out the president and government officials, someone immediately takes charge to sustain power continuity.
This system, utilized by governments around the world, also applies to the Administration Bureau and the Order.
In essence, if the first-ranking member of the Order dies, the second takes their place.
If the first ten ranks perish, then the eleventh steps up.
What happens if all the upper echelons are wiped out?
If there’s no survivor?
Even if someone was just a mere staff member yesterday, come tomorrow, they might become the New Leader of the Order and hold the world up!
Survivors from the Order in the depths all perished, and the progenitor was gone.
I’m the heir of the governing family established by the progenitor.
…
After wandering through the dark ruins, illuminated by a few flickering torches half a day later, I found that guy’s research lab.
Several familiar faces had been there before, making the path easy to remember, but I was there for the first time.
Swallow!
“Relax. I’m sure once you prove you are of the Cardiroff family, the ruler of time will acknowledge you.”
But what if I can’t prove myself?
After all, the lab wasn’t exactly in tune with the world above!
Ari even claimed to be the progenitor’s heir without convincing them or anything!
“…”
Setting aside unnecessary worries, I fiddled with the ‘identification items’ I brought from paradise.
The Cardiroff family’s seal, the One More Chance passed down through the family, and my bracelet.
One of those must work, right?
— Click!
“This should be it. According to the perfectly sane Ari, that’s what it should be… right, Ari?”
“I’m hungry!”
“…”
“I want sausage.”
“… Songee, let’s get going.”
Ari’s mental state had slid into the weird, acting just like Miro!
Wait—this is kind of funny, isn’t it?
On the flip side, is Miro acting like a dementia-ridden Ari?
“I want sausage!”
Out there, I’d just whack them both with a sausage—
“Hungry!”
Ari trailing behind me was so cute it was hard to resist.
Staying in this state might just be fine—
“Ah! Ah! Aaaah!”
“What, what’s wrong? Songee, are you okay?”
“… Ah.”
“Songee? Did you feel something?”
—
An indescribably warm energy began to wrap around me.
Following an undefined guide, I opened the secret passage hidden in the lab’s walls and descended.
And then…
I spotted a round object shining bright like a beacon in a cold world.
The moment I saw it, I understood.
“You’re the ruler of time.”
There was no need for the deep-root control device or computer equipment or any of that.
Those were all secondary elements.
What truly mattered was just one thing.
The ruler of time recognized ‘me.’
It had found the last descendant of the Order remaining on this planet.
In this instant, I knew what to say.
“Give us one more chance! Let’s do it from the start!”
And then, there was light.
—
This was my final recollection of Room 206.
—
“You’ve succeeded!
In a paradise where the term ‘human rights’ feels like a juvenile joke, isn’t it ironic to name it so?
A world where everyone lives not as individuals, but merely as cogs in a machine for the city.
Sadly, the victims of this implicit tragedy were not just workers.
The progenitor, the city manager—they too were little more than larger gears.
The source of all suffering, literally the root of all evil?
The Demon King.
An entity that pushed humanity ruthlessly toward despair, something you can’t defeat through brute strength.
So how should one tackle this?
Perhaps joining forces could be the answer against such insurmountable opponents.
Some believed that was the sole hope left.
You’ve uncovered another option.
By understanding the Demon King is more akin to a natural disaster or a feral beast rather than an intelligent being, you’ve driven that monster away from this planet.
In truth, it was a plan fraught with gaps here and there.
If it were real life, it probably would’ve resulted in failure. You’d know that just as well.
However, let’s evaluate not by the minute details but rather the larger framework.
Do you grasp what this means?
Congratulations!
—
A final resolution among your companions! Congratulations!
With the emergence of a final resolver, all members safely return home.
As for the treasure, who receives it is for you to decide.”
—
Evaluating from a broad perspective?
That means it’s a good thing, right?
Implying they’re handing us tickets, right?!
—
Instead of answering my doubts, the hotel displayed another notification.
“Participants, once again congratulations on resolving Room 206.
You have survived thus far—”
With all survivors’ names listed, there was no need for scrutiny.
Judging by my instincts, the one who contributed the most must be Brother Kain, who flew off with the Demon King into space, but it seems he’s dead by now.
The moment Brother Kain perished, the contributions of the other survivors were of equally questionable standing according to the hotel’s assessment.
—
I assume it’s already decided who’ll acquire this inheritance.
The inheritance of Room 206, the power to save the world.
It has already been agreed upon who receives it before entering the room.
But…
Another ticket was completed.
This time, it’s likely to be exchanged for a different inheritance instead of resurrection.
Who will obtain ‘that inheritance’?
—
And thus, the long saga of Room 206 comes to a close!
Of course, there are still a few tidbits left to clean up.
Now, only one room remains on the second floor.
I would like to express my gratitude to the readers who came along every day.
+
Special thanks to Thi for your support.
Your rich imagination has delighted me as well while reading. It’s a joy as an author to see you enjoying the work!
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