Chapter 667 – Room 301, The Cursed Room – ‘Origin of the Species’ (11)
—
User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 5
Current Location: Level 3, Observatory – Room 301
Sage’s Advice: 3
—
— Ku-Kung!
After the Solution Party entered, a door appeared in the void leading to the observatory.
This time, everyone walked towards it with a sense of familiarity.
— Clang!
Naturally, the door locked behind them.
What was the next step again?
Ah, right! The telescope’s focusing process!
— Wheeeing…!
Soon, the noise from the telescope quieted down.
“Let’s get started right away.”
“Shouldn’t Kain go first this time?”
“Let’s do that.”
While Sanghyun nodded, he turned back with a slightly anxious expression.
“What’s up with that?”
Seeing Miro with wide eyes like she was surprised by something made me chuckle.
She’s adorable every time!
Behind her, Seungyub had summoned a pizza at the table.
Sanghyun seemed to lose his words for a moment, then sighed and mumbled.
“There are only four people in the observatory.”
The way that sounded in my ears was:
“There are only two people in the observatory.”
“Hey! We’ve got plenty of people inside! If we all put in our effort, we’ll be fine!”
Listening to Miro’s spirited words made me smile regardless.
“Right. Let’s work hard. Now, let’s start the observation.”
*
As I pressed my eye against the eyepiece, phenomena began to unfold.
It felt like my consciousness was leaving my body and drifting off to a distant world.
Having experienced it before, I wasn’t surprised or flustered, but it still felt mystical.
Soon, I arrived in a space filled with pristine white light.
A starkly high celestial realm.
A utopia physically unreachable.
An intense conviction that couldn’t be logically explained rushed through my mind.
This place I could reach through the observatory’s telescope must be an area not easily accessible even to a cosmic deity!
The moment I crossed the radiant space — I immediately shut my eyes.
Hadn’t I experienced that during the ascension?
Observing that line is extremely dangerous.
However, the owl’s answer about that line was something I could never forget.
“All of it,” wasn’t it?
“…”
Soon, an unidentified force pulled me towards a murky black line, and a dizzying time of endless freefall ensued.
When I came to my senses, I could choose between the perspectives of two people.
To put it metaphorically, there were two surveillance cameras in a darkroom, and the observer could choose one to watch.
“I can only pick between Eunsol noona and Songee.”
In the first iteration, only those two had gone in, but this time, there were additional entries from Ahri, Grandpa Mooksung, Jinchul hyung, and Elena.
Even so, the only perspectives I could select were Lee Eunsol and Yu Songee.
It felt as if the ‘starring characters’ of Room 301 were strictly those two.
Let’s check on Songee first!
— Wheeeing…!
The time was around 4:10 AM.
I saw Songee rubbing her sleepy eyes in bed while another girl was poking her.
Ahri had already used the Dream Kingdom to join Songee.
‘…’
At this point, a single question crossed my mind.
When exactly did Room 301 begin?
Since the clock in Songee’s room showed 4:10 AM, did it start then?
Nope, that’s a misunderstanding.
I mustn’t overlook that Ahri had already joined Songee.
The Dream Kingdom can only be used when the user is fast asleep, and Ahri can’t just drop off to sleep like me in an instant.
Considering the preparation time, Ahri probably started around 3:30 AM.
So, did Room 301 begin at 3:30 AM?
That’s also incorrect.
The answer is: ‘Nobody knows.’
Observation starts from the point when the stars of Room 301, Songee and Eunsol, awaken. There’s just no way to know anything prior to that.
While I was pondering this, I could hear the conversation between Songee and Ahri.
“Are you going to spy on my parents?”
“… Including this house. They might be more special people and may have a special home than you think.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
Songee’s acceptance of this was casual, and Ahri took it in stride.
Truth is, it’s not that straightforward.
Songee considers the parents in Room 301 to be ‘real.’
Among the possibilities I foresaw through insight, there was a glimpse of Songee displaying noticeable displeasure at Ahri’s somewhat rough words.
That’s why I clued her in last night.
It seemed like she needed to brace herself for the fact that her parents are under surveillance.
“Let’s start.”
At 4:25 AM, Ahri and Songee began looking around the house.
I too checked the apartment’s interior alongside them.
Suddenly, I recalled the phrase at the ceiling of the guest area.
“You can’t see the whole picture from the inside,” right?
If flipped, that could be interpreted as “You can see the whole picture from the outside.”
Of course, the two don’t equate logically.
It’s definitely true that in terms of observation, we who are watching through the telescope have an advantage over those going through the motions.
The perspective is a third-person observer.
While the center of focus is on Songee, I could look 360 degrees around.
The person can only look ahead, while we could see left and right, and behind.
Additionally, since the person is experiencing the situation directly, they can get caught up in various thoughts.
For Songee, thoughts like, ‘When will my parents wake up? What will they do when the sun rises? Do I need to go to school when the weekend ends?’ will swarm in her head.
Meaning she can’t concentrate completely on mere observation.
In summary, it’s like how a player in a game can’t see the strategies that an observer can clearly identify!
Just like right now!
What are Songee and Ahri doing?
The outer wall connected to the veranda is swaying ominously!
Why are they looking absently at the back of the TV?
I immediately concentrated all my senses.
“…!”
Can Songee and Eunsol noona understand this feeling I’m experiencing right now?
To express it, it feels like a gigantic giant shaking a dollhouse with its pinky finger.
Any detailed manipulation or specific message relay is impossible.
Back when I hinted at this during the meeting, Eunsol noona didn’t seem to grasp it and said something like, “Can’t we convey it through the frequency of vibrations? Shake once to stop, shake twice to continue!”
In reality, that’s just not plausible.
What’s perceived inside with one vibration isn’t just one in reality.
As a poltergeist, I might rattle the dollhouse over ten times, only for them to finally notice, “Oh? A book just fell?”
It would be hard to explain it unless they experienced it for themselves.
Anyway, with a few books falling in succession, the people inside finally reacted.
Ahri instantly activated her presence-vanishing ability and disappeared outside of the awareness zone, while Songee hugged Pero tightly against the wall.
“Wh-What door was that!?”
Songee’s panicked voice.
A door, you say? It might look like that, but from my perspective, it definitely doesn’t feel like one.
Rather, it felt more like a passage connecting to hell opening up in an intact wall.
Soon, through the swaying outer wall, a murky mist began to seep in.
A chilling sight surpassing any ordinary horror movie—it seemed that the average person would scream and collapse around now.
Thankfully, my companions aren’t average.
Songee calmly stepped back and moved toward the kitchen, while Ahri positioned herself between Songee and the mist, readying for combat.
However, such preparations didn’t hold much significance.
The mist didn’t even aim for Songee but instead floated around her house’s veranda and living room!
The mist strolled through the veranda and living room, lightly brushing against the scattered animals, before vanishing beyond the wall.
‘… What the heck?’
‘It doesn’t seem to be targeting us.’
The confused looks from Songee and the vanishing mist led to a questioning expression from Ahri.
“Is it some kind of sorcery used by the Is species?”
“…”
“Like, taking human souls and putting them into animals?”
“I don’t know. Is it certain the Is species caused this phenomenon in the first place?”
The two engaged in a whispered conversation, and I too was curious about the mist’s identity, but another thought crossed my mind.
So that’s why Pero showed such aggressive behavior during the first round!
At that time, Songee noticed Pero’s aggressive behavior but didn’t find it odd.
She probably considered it simply an expression of frustration from being trapped in a cage alongside her foolish companions.
Songee has a mental connection, so had she gone up to Pero and tried to talk, she might have found something out.
Well, it’s not really Songee’s fault for being a little dense.
Nobody, including me observing, picked up on it.
At times like this, it’s truly frustrating that Pero is just a parrot who can’t speak!
…
With dawn breaking, Ahri likely vanished using the Dream Kingdom to rejoin Grandpa Mooksung.
At this point, the situation on Songee’s side had settled somewhat.
The current time is 5:30 AM.
Eunsol noona would wake up in about one to one and a half hours, so I should swap out now.
*
“Huuh…!”
The moment my gaze left the telescope, a dizzying fatigue hit me.
In terms of time, it was barely over an hour, yet my head was splitting!
From experience, mere observation shouldn’t tire me out so quickly.
The pain I felt now was due to causing a poltergeist!
“Thank you for your hard work. Next, I—”
“Wait, just a minute!”
I relayed the facts I gleaned from observing in a rough summary.
Sanghyun, who was attentively listening, appeared intrigued.
“I often feel this way, but you are surprisingly sharp, Kain.”
“Really?”
“I mean about the starting point of Room 301. To think you’d realize right away after seeing Ahri already attached to Songee as soon as the observation began….”
“…”
“Now that you mention it, I too think this: The observation starts after Eunsol and Songee regain their consciousness. However, it’s clear that Room 301 was already in progress before then.”
“Just like the mist descended on Pero while Songee was asleep.”
“This issue will likely come up often moving forward—the things that happened before the Solution Party regains their consciousness.”
After a significant exchange of looks, Sanghyun added one more thing.
“It’s similar to what we experienced in Room 203. Secrets before the start. And….”
“And?”
“You mentioned something about Pero at the end. The part where you saw the strange mist but didn’t pass that information to Songee actively.”
“Yeah.”
“At first, I thought it was simply an animal, so it was frustrating…”
“True.”
“But thinking further on it, it makes sense. Pero wasn’t born in the hotel, was he?”
“…”
“The standards of the unusual and normal differ from ours. While from our perspective, the question is ‘Why didn’t he communicate the oddity he discovered?’ Pero might be wondering, ‘Why is that mist coming through the wall unusual?’”
That was a valid analysis.
“I’ll start observing now. Let’s check on Eunsol.”
—
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