Chapter 669 – Room 301, The Cursed Room – ‘Origin of the Species’ (13)
—
User: Lee Eunsol
—
“Silence. Forget. Obey. I will grant you three opportunities.”
“W-Who are you?”
“I am the king. The king of the faithful beyond the galaxy, the king of those who will be born on this land. And I am also your king.”
—
At that moment, the incomprehensible being declared it would give my father three chances!
—
— Swoosh!
A gray mist enveloped my vision.
Soon, with a crack, ‘Lee Eunsol’ was forcibly separated from ‘Lee Seok-hwan.’
…
Imagine getting so deeply absorbed in a movie that you start to think you’re one of the characters.
How would you feel if, in that moment, a blackout suddenly turned off the screen?
This is my current situation.
“Ugh!”
“Oh my! Are you okay, sister?”
“…”
The person next to me—Elena, I remember her name—grasped my arm to support me, and for a brief moment, I pondered who I was.
I am Lee Eunsol, the owner of the blessing of wealth and a participant in the hotel.
The whole world is the interior of Hotel Pioneer’s Room 301.
Right now is the second attempt in Room 301, and the first attempt had already failed.
My goal in this attempt is to uncover the secrets relating to the great race of Is and the Administration Bureau from my father.
What happened, again?
I woke up early in the morning, contacted Elena, and the two of us entered the chairman’s office together.
Up to that point, it was easy.
Dae Yang Group’s chairman, Lee Seok-hwan, isn’t someone just anyone can see, but I’m his daughter.
With some reluctance, I brought Elena along, and neither bodyguards nor secretaries stopped us.
…
Even after talking for a long time, my father wouldn’t easily spill any secrets.
Eventually, Elena even resorted to some minor force, but my father didn’t even blink.
Well, considering what I’ve read in my memories.
My father was truly someone who had gone through it all for a normal human.
His courage and judgment are on a level far beyond that of a typical person.
Thus, I decided it was time to use slightly more coercive means.
I had brought my colleague all the way here, and I couldn’t back down just because he didn’t answer willingly.
…
Many hotel tools become stronger the more they’re used.
Does the tool itself get stronger?
Or is it due to the user’s increasing proficiency?
I can’t pinpoint the exact reason or principle, but who cares?
The important fact is that ‘Dream of the Butterfly’ wasn’t an exception to this logic!
When I opened the brooch to summon the nightmare butterfly—a powerful intuition struck my soul like a lightning bolt.
I realized I could become a butterfly.
…
In my dream, I transformed into a butterfly, fluttering around, and genuinely felt joy!
So much so that I didn’t even realize I was Eunsol.
But when I woke up suddenly, I was surprisingly Eunsol.
Did I become a butterfly in my dream? Or did the butterfly become Eunsol in the dream?
There must be a distinction between me and the butterfly, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
…
I or my consciousness changed into a butterfly and burrowed into my father’s heart.
In that instant, I was both Lee Eunsol and the nightmare butterfly, and also Lee Seok-hwan.
A vague and hazy mind.
An unstable perception mixing dream and reality.
Truly the power worthy of the name ‘Dream of the Butterfly’!
When could I have used such power?
I have a faint idea of the trigger.
It was a reality so unreal that it felt unreal, in the lunar realm—Field of Sinners.
There, I had, hand-in-hand with greed, risked my life using the Dream of the Butterfly.
I feel as if I realized something in that process.
It might not be the divine enlightenment of Kain, but I definitely broadened the functional limits of my tool a bit.
Thanks to that, I obtained a lot of information that I couldn’t get through conversation, but it still wasn’t enough.
“Sister, are you okay?”
“… I’m fine.”
Having briefly merged with my father’s mind, I can definitely say.
I haven’t gathered everything.
There must be much more information left!
What was that gray mist that appeared at the end?
It shattered the merge between me and my father, casting me out of his dream.
“If I try again—”
Just as I was contemplating, my father, awakened a step later than me, trembled all over.
“Gasp! W-What did you just do to me?”
“…”
“That brooch—it seems to be a special object? Did you forcibly delve into my memories?”
At that moment, my mind became complicated.
It was a necessary thing, but wouldn’t my father feel like his daughter suddenly used some dark magical power to toy with him?
Also, he might create a nuisance by calling the bodyguards and such.
So, I thought about putting my father back to sleep with the Dream of the Butterfly.
“Eunsol, calm down! You need to listen to me!”
I expected him to feel betrayed and angry or to be frightened and call in the bodyguards.
It was neither.
His urgent attempts to persuade me caught me off guard.
“… I’m listening.”
After a moment of settling our hearts, I carefully asked my father.
“What was that gray mist that appeared at the end? It bounced me out from you.”
“The gray mist? Ah! The security measures I received a long time ago weren’t in vain!”
“Security measures?”
“I once met a retired agent from the Administration Bureau about 12 or 13 years ago.”
“Dad, with an agent from the Bureau—”
“There’s no such thing as retirement. I know that too. But there are those who leisurely live their lives while disregarding the Bureau’s calls.”
Thinking back, my grandfather Mookseong was in a similar situation, so I understood.
“I see.”
“I received help from that person. I asked them to erase or seal some of my memories.”
“…”
“They charged me a whopping 2 billion for a single procedure. At the time, I complained about being overpriced, but looking at it now, it was worth every penny.”
The gray mist that broke the merge through the Dream of the Butterfly turned out to be a security measure set by a former Bureau agent.
Erasing, distorting, and isolating memories is within the Bureau’s expertise, so such a thing is possible.
However, I had this thought.
Though I don’t know the principle behind the security measure, it may have endured the Dream of the Butterfly, but it wouldn’t withstand the Flute of Rest.
With the power of the flute, I could break any special security measures from the Bureau.
Once I’ve broken it, I could burrow back into the Dream of the Butterfly!
When I reached that conclusion, my father wore a frantic expression.
“From the look in your eye, it seems you’ve got some more tricks up your sleeve! You’re planning to destroy the security measure and look at the next memory, aren’t you?”
I almost thought my father had learned mind-reading.
“… Did you read my mind?”
“Eunsol, you must not see the next memory. That memory is a very, very dangerous one…! I know, I know. If that memory, that information leaks to the outside, a terrifying thing will happen.”
“A terrifying thing? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know exactly. But it’s certain that something will happen that we cannot handle.”
My father’s demeanor, half Laced with fear, startled me.
At that moment, a white hand rested on my shoulder.
When I checked beside me, Elena was slightly nodding.
It seems my father’s words hold truth.
“…”
Let’s sort out the situation.
According to the information I learned from the Dream of the Butterfly, my father is what you’d call an imperfect regressor.
While he vaguely recalls past loop memories, he mistakes fragmented information as prophetic dreams of the future instead of recognizing them as past memories.
Initially, he had been interacting with the Bureau for over ten years, and at that time, Dae Yang Corporation was a partner of the Bureau.
Later, guided by fate, he ended up at a research facility created by the Bureau in Gangwon Province….
He survived alone amidst a massacre and encountered the ‘King of Is.’
What came next? What had he done after meeting the king?
It seems he had done something in service to the king as a new superior, but only that part of the memory is edited out.
With more questions remaining, I was planning on using the flute to forcibly uncover it.
Then, with the experience of someone who has seen it all, he quickly caught on to my intention and said.
He had his reasons for sealing that memory.
If I were to forcefully open it, something would happen that we couldn’t handle.
Just that alone was shocking enough, but the warning that Elena conveyed added further confusion.
My father’s words are indeed true.
To be precise, he firmly believes he is correct.
What to do? Should I back off at this point?
No, isn’t that too wasteful to back off now?
I haven’t just been rolling around the hotel for a day or two, you know?
It’s clear that the next piece of information is the real key!
“…”
I’ve made my decision.
Silently rising, I grasped the Dream of the Butterfly in one hand and the flute in the other.
Seeing my stance, my father bore a complex expression, half fear and half worry, but he didn’t shout or resist.
He merely displayed an attitude that seemed resigned, as if he had been waiting for a day like this to come.
Slowly, I took a step closer, step by step!
So that those outside could thoroughly understand the meaning and purpose of my actions!
As I moved slowly over a span of about 10 seconds!
— Thud thud thud…! Crash!
An unidentifiable vibration engulfed the area, causing various trophies and booklets scattered here and there to fall.
“Ow! Eunsol, what is this—”
“I know. They’re signaling not to do it.”
Outside, the agreement states the meaning of poltergeist is ‘Danger!’
Feeling a twinge of disappointment, I returned the flute and attached the brooch back to my head.
My father’s expression, watching this scene, showed curiosity.
“What was that just now? Some sort of superpower warning us of danger?”
“Something like that.”
If the colleague outside sees a crisis, it signals to warn us, so it’s somewhat similar.
Finally, a lull came upon us.
The three of us, all nervously relaxed for a moment, began to calm down, and my father started gulping down the cold coffee that had been sitting on the table.
“…”
“…”
Out of nowhere, he suddenly spoke.
“It was you.”
“…”
“It was you…. It was you….”
“…”
“I’ve always wondered ever since I received a revelation from that monster. Jeong-ho, Jin-wook, you, Heeyoon. Among my two sons and two daughters, who bears the ‘Great Destiny’….”
“So, did you make the brothers fight?”
“Make them fight? That’s truly a misunderstanding. What kind of parent deliberately causes discord among their children!”
“…”
“However, that’s true. I was curious who among you was the ‘special one’.”
“…”
“Perhaps that curiosity of mine may have driven you all.”
I murmured without realizing it.
“Aren’t you curious?”
“What?”
“How I obtained this power and gained such mysterious companions.”
“…”
“What your daughter has experienced in an unknown place.”
My father answered in a calm voice.
“I am curious. It would be a lie if I said otherwise. But….”
“But?”
“Not as much as you, but I have been through my share of trials.”
“Right.”
“And in that process, I learned a lesson. Curiosity kills the cat.”
“…”
“Eunsol, if you delve too much into the tales of a special world, it can be dangerous. Evil, greed, kindness—curiosity is more dangerous than any of those three.”
—
The next words were somewhat aggressive.
Perhaps they were a long-standing expression of accumulated discontent.
“Curiosity being dangerous? That’s your point, isn’t it? Not mine.”
His reply was a straightforward acknowledgment.
“True, that’s correct. I am a fox, and I should live with my head bowed, while you are an eagle, and you should live looking at the sky.”
“…”
I feel many questions I had about my father starting to dissolve.
The way he led the company with phenomenal choices like someone who knows the future and the way he instigated competition among his children.
What remained in the space that had emptied the mysteries were just the frail elderly being crushed under the incomprehensible weight of someone too big for him to bear.
On the other hand, I felt I began to somewhat understand how today’s events felt to my father.
Suddenly bringing in a mysterious companion and using absurd magical tools without surprise.
Even after forcefully reading his memories, he didn’t express much dissatisfaction, nor did he ask anyone for help.
For my father, today’s events were a fate that would come someday.
At the moment the great King of Is foresaw that ‘someone born from the small and tiny you would attain a great destiny,’ the future had already been decided.
Just before leaving the chairman’s office, I unknowingly said.
“I’m sorry.”
“… That’s something I should say. I’ve always been sorry.”
—
Let’s relay the information I’ve discovered to others.
Though it’s disappointing I couldn’t discover more, what I already know is quite significant.
“Sister.”
“Hmm?”
“I’ve been curious since earlier about what the King of Is said to the chairman.”
“Yeah.”
“That one of your children shall be marked to scream for the Three Thousand Worlds.”
“…”
“Something about that felt very… strange.”
“Later, later we can talk about it.”
—
‘So you’re saying you prevented Eunsol from obtaining crucial information from the chairman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it more dangerous to dig deeper? It seems you saw something through your insight.’
‘… It seems my sister and Elena didn’t catch on.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The revelation the King of Is gave to the chairman. Did you jot it down?’
‘“Silence. Forget. Obey. I will give you three opportunities.” You wrote this down, right?’
‘The chairman has already used up two opportunities.’
‘Oh no!’
‘If you forcibly obtain memories, that’ll be the third violation. The supernatural punishment will commence. Your sister and Elena, who are subjects of information leakage, would also be in danger.’
‘Understood. Then should we let go of this information?’
‘Let’s find another way.’
‘Then we should switch again. Kain’s nose is bleeding—’
‘I’ll do it! It’s always you two switching back and forth!’
‘…’
‘…’
‘I want to do it! Both of you are tired, right? Trust me!’
‘Trust me. It’s the first time you requesting this feels so uneasy.’
‘Right, let’s have Miro do it.’
‘Kain?’
‘Now it’s time to see Songi and Ahri, and it’s natural for a mother to protect her child.’
‘Ahri might think differently, though.’
‘But Ahri is not here, is she?’
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