Chapter 678 – Room 301, The Cursed Room – ‘Origin of the Species’ (22)
—
Late at night, darkness settled over the observation room.
While Seungyub and Miro had briefly closed their eyes, Kain and Sanghyun were enduring fatigue while sharing their thoughts.
“This observation room is tougher than I expected,” Kain said.
“Yeah,” Sanghyun replied.
“Our teammates suffering inside might be baffled, but being stuck here for days….”
“Should we want to go in there ourselves?”
“That’s honestly how I feel.”
Kain chuckled softly and nodded. He had been thinking the same thing for a while.
It’s not just the fatigue from the poltergeist; being cooped up in a small observation room for days was quite miserable.
“Sometimes, I have scary thoughts,” Sanghyun admitted.
“Scary thoughts?”
“The situation in Room 301 might not be one that takes an incredibly long time to resolve, whether through success or failure.”
At this point, Sanghyun’s expression darkened as he understood Kain’s implication.
“What if there are rooms like 203 or 207 that take ages?”
“…”
“I mean, it’s rare, but there could be rooms that take 5 or 10 years.”
“If the hotel has a conscience—”
“Did you just say that? Does it even exist?”
“…”
Stuck in a small concrete building, rotting for over 10 years? Kain thought it would be better to go into the cursed room together instead.
Sanghyun took a weary sip of coffee before changing the subject back to Room 301.
“Mooksung is going to rewind time soon. But I don’t know how things will progress inside.”
Kain nodded in agreement with Sanghyun’s concerns.
“The only one who can maintain memories is the grandfather. Songee will forget what happened underground in Gangwon.”
“Lee Eunsol will forget her birth secret related to the king of Is.”
“The information itself won’t disappear.”
“Exactly. The people in the observation room – we’re not affected by One More Chance. Once our teammates escape, everyone will know.”
“The real problem is now.”
“Hmm… I hope we’re not just repeating failed progress…”
As Kain paused for a moment, Sanghyun expressed his worries.
“Then Songee and Ahri approach the Administration Bureau, head to the underground in Gangwon, and Eunsol faces the prisoner… that would waste One More Chance.”
“That can’t be. Grandfather knows we’ve regressed. He might not know why we failed, but he’ll realize ‘This way leads to failure.’ So—”
— Wheeeng…!
At that moment, a ‘sound of refocusing’ echoed throughout the entire observation room.
Kain’s and Sanghyun’s eyes lit up, and Miro and Seungyub, who had been resting with their eyes closed, rubbed their sleepy eyes as they emerged from the bedroom.
“What? Did we just start again?”
“Yeah.”
“Eunsol and Songee are back?”
“Must be. Checking the status window—”
Just as they struck the teammate location information on the status window and confirmed the resurrection of Eunsol and Songee.
“- What is this?”
Kain’s eyes went wide as he couldn’t hide his shock.
“What’s going on?”
“…”
“What’s happening?”
“Hyung Kain?”
After a brief pause where Kain was left speechless, he wrote something on the whiteboard.
「Kim〿Sung(So〿)」
After a moment of silence, Sanghyun cautiously asked.
“What does this mean?”
Immediately afterward, Sanghyun realized the answer to his question by looking at Kain’s expression.
Kain himself didn’t understand either.
*
– Yu Songee
—
Fluffy bed.
I woke up with a weird prickling sensation.
“Happy… sister’s sleepy—”
“Not happy. Wake up.”
“Ah.”
As I opened my eyes drowsily, the faint dawn light seeped in.
Turning my head, I saw Ahri’s spine-chillingly beautiful face.
At moments like this, Ahri really is something else.
Seeing her daily—
“You don’t have time to look at my face.”
“Huh?”
“You might not know, but it’s been over 2 hours since the room started.”
That statement threw me off a bit.
According to the plan, Ahri should have joined me right as her dream kingdom started.
“Why are you late? What happened—”
“I was late because I had to hear an explanation. Something pretty huge seems to have happened.”
“What?”
The next statement was truly shocking.
“We’re in a state of rewind right now.”
“…Ah.”
“The attempts are still the second one, but it looks like just before a bad ending, Mooksung used One More Chance.”
While I was left speechless, Ahri gradually continued with the explanation she heard from Grandfather about our teammates’ backstories and the progress we made before the rewind.
“So… I mean, after contacting the Administration Bureau, I went to the underground ruins in Gangwon, right?”
“Exactly. There, you met the pioneer and ended up dying during the underground exploration.”
“Lee Eunsol ended up dying after uncovering all of the chairman’s memories?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what those memories are?”
“Nope. Once we go outside, the observation room crew will tell us, but for now, I have no clue.”
“Hmm… Did Eunsol receive this info?'”
“She’ll convey it through Elena. We could use the secure message feature of the Teleotalk app.”
Shortly after finishing what she needed to say, both Ahri and I fell into silence as we tried to understand.
“…”
I had roughly grasped the situation.
To sum up:
1. If Ahri and I go to the underground in Gangwon, we die.
2. Lee Eunsol dies after uncovering all that the chairman knows.
Now, I knew two ways we could kick the bucket.
But, what should we do next?
“Then what should we do?”
“…We have to rethink everything from scratch.”
After a meeting outside, we’d devised Plan A but upon entering, it turns out our rewind teammate would make us go by Plan A to our deaths.
So what to do now?
“Um… hey, sister.”
“Yeah?”
“Songee made a plan that’s close to improvised.”
“Oh, Songee? What did she suggest?”
Seeing Elena struggle to find the right words with an awkward expression was alarming.
It felt like something had already been decided between others without me!
“…She suggested we shouldn’t act like participants.”
“What?”
“In this situation in Room 301, it’s pretty much like our past, right?”
Room 301’s current situation is like my and Songee’s past?
There’s a hint of awkwardness, but she wasn’t entirely wrong.
“It feels similar.”
“Plus, it’s a room intertwined with the first wishes of the two of us.”
“True.”
“Don’t you want to know? What wishes you and Songee made before coming to the hotel?”
“…Of course.”
“So, how do we find out?”
After hearing this, I finally understood the nature of the plan B that others had devised.
“You guys want us to repeat our lives right before we entered the hotel.”
“…”
“By going through it again, you’re hoping that whatever happened just before arriving might trigger the first wishes in our memories.”
“…”
“And that those memories could be related to solving Room 301.”
“…”
“Doesn’t it make sense? The first wishes encompass a massive theme that spans the entire third floor.”
“…”
“Let’s behave as we did before entering the hotel. Not as participant Lee Eunsol—but as the executive Lee Eunsol of Daeyang Group?”
“Yes!”
When I reached that point, I was finally able to smile.
“Elena.”
“Yes!”
I immediately reached out and gave Elena a light smack on the head.
“Get out.”
“Huh?”
“What’s a rookie actor with no experience doing in my car? Can’t you get out immediately?”
The team members may not know, but before entering the hotel, my personality was genuinely quite different!
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