### Chapter 217 – Room 104, Cursed Room – ‘Prestigious Hotel High School’ Re (11)
—
– Lee Eunsol
“I have dedicated my life to the lord. Please grant me even a brief opportunity for conversation.”
Aurelia’s heartfelt plea felt incredibly painful to my ears. If anyone had a heart, they wouldn’t be able to suppress their emotions upon hearing such words. Of course, the lord is not human, and that elementary school saint doesn’t seem to have had proper character training.
“You should realize that the best you can do is sacrifice yourself here.”
A peculiar glow seemed to rise from the girl, who wore a torn, grinning smile, as she raised her arm as if swinging an invisible sword.
Moments later, Aurelia, who seemed to have lost all hope just a second ago, rolled on the ground at a tremendous speed, dodging the invisible blade and lunging at the young saint!
The young saint, startled, stepped back, but it was already too late. Aurelia quickly seized the saint’s neck with one hand. A faint trace of light rippled behind Aurelia like a wave.
I thought the power bestowed upon her by the lord had nearly drained, but maybe there’s still a little left? The gap in skill must have been so vast that she won with just that slight edge.
“H-huh? What the—?”
“You’ve received no training on how to wield your power. You’re just gathering it in your fingers and spewing it out. Your reaction time and thought speed are that of an average human!”
“….”
“What on earth is my father thinking? A replacement saint? Of course, he could choose. I wasn’t even the first saint! But I really don’t understand why he’d choose a kid like you who hasn’t even trained.”
I feel sorry for Aurelia, but I think I get it. To the lord, the church is just a cake he’ll bite into and toss aside, showing no interest in long-term management!
Even though she’s a child with power but no training, she likely thought she could beat someone like me or Grandpa. Elena must have been unable to use her powers in front of that terrifying elementary school saint. This begs the question: where did the lord’s calculations go wrong?
The fact that Aurelia is still joining our side with energy left is the source of the failure.
The moment Grandpa and I took a step forward, Aurelia’s sharp gaze fell on us.
“Stop.”
“…”
“I only need my father’s promise at this point.”
Phero Kain responded, “Are you planning to ask that little girl to arrange a conversation with the lord?”
“Exactly. You may not know, but a saint of the church—”
“If you’re going to say that your god has the right to ask questions and receive answers, I consider that irrelevant if your god ignores it.”
“My father stands above all, not some drifter on the street. His words carry a weight akin to gold, far from as light as your words imply. If you disagree with me, you are welcome to do as you please with me and this child right now.”
When I heard this, Grandpa couldn’t hold back and rushed out!
To be precise, he was going to rush out. If Aurelia and the lord were to negotiate and escape, it would leave just Grandpa and me to fight that clueless saint, and we both knew that would end in disaster.
But then there was a loud ‘thwack’ above Grandpa’s head.
— Thwack!
“You—”
“Grandpa, just wait.”
I could tell what Kain was thinking.
“In the end, you cannot give up your god, can you? You’ll soon pay for that wrong choice.”
What happened next unfolded swiftly. The saint’s body sparkled, and she promised Aurelia a chance for conversation in the name of the lord, and the lord granted her permission in some unfathomable way.
The intention was painfully clear. The only being present that could threaten the saint was Aurelia, and they were trying to eliminate her without a fuss.
I didn’t want to think about what happened next.
It’s unfortunate, but neither Grandpa nor I are fighters in our party. Thankfully, the lord wanted things done swiftly, so the young saint didn’t have the chance to toy with us.
With a massive hole pierced vertically in my belly and a burning sense of agony throughout my body, I witnessed Phero ‘fly’ toward the saint, transforming grotesquely before splintering apart.
In that moment of death, understanding that hope was realized helped me forget the pain for a moment.
*
A long corridor stretched ahead, with a girl and a woman in her twenties walking together.
— Click-clack. Click-clack.
“… Don’t think foolish thoughts.”
“Foolish thoughts?”
“Ah, perhaps you should plead for forgiveness from father!”
“Saint, I have no intention of asking to be a saint again, so don’t worry.”
“Who even said such a thing? Don’t jump to conclusions!”
“Oh, really? Then I’m sorry.”
At the end of the corridor stood a rather antiquated door. As Aurelia reached for the doorknob, the saint snatched her hand away.
“What are you doing? I’m not an idiot! That’s not the door!”
“Oh, right. I must’ve been too muddled to recall.”
“This is exactly why your father thinks he needs to replace you.”
The saint, who had been mocking Aurelia’s ‘mistake,’ ignored the grand old door and instead opened a hidden door in the right wall. Upon opening it, a mysterious space filled with a gentle light was revealed.
At the far end of the space, there was a bed, which seemed rather out of place. As the young man on the bed quietly lifted his head, the saint immediately knelt.
“Father! First, I’m so very sorry. Unfortunately, my skills are lacking—”
“Hmph!”
“…”
“How utterly ridiculous.”
“Father?”
“No matter how much I try to minimize variables—”
Before finishing that sentence, the young man collapsed on the bed as if fainting. The saint’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.
*
– Han Kain
My consciousness floated into the void. In an instant, the consciousness, shackled to my body, gained freedom. As my newly liberated vision turned towards the reality, I saw the blazing sun there.
“Ha ha! How amusing! Aurelia, that child looked so desperate; I thought to extend a good will!”
“Goodwill? Let’s cut to the chase. You’re just trying to trick Aurelia because that silly kid doesn’t know how to wield power and doesn’t want to lose!”
“Through the eyes of a pig, only pigs can be seen; through the eyes of a Buddha, only Buddhas can be seen.”
“So, how does it feel to meet me again?”
“No matter how carefully laid plans are, some flaws will inevitably emerge. I had thought about the possibility of you seizing Aurelia’s body, but I assumed that a bit of my power would remain in that child and it would prevent you from acting recklessly. Did you exhaust my power completely after that previous collision? Such a bizarre harmony!”
I ceased the conversation and poured all my strength into awakening the ‘Power of the Incarnation.’ The battle with the lord over the control of my body had begun anew!
Black threads intertwined with threads of flame. Two controls, contradictory commands, were endlessly applied to my body as the magic book and the lord’s power clashed, and blood began to trickle from my eyes, nose, and mouth, tearing my flesh.
The flow was the same as before. Though it was my body, ironically, I didn’t care if it died. Conversely, the lord didn’t desire the death of this body. Ultimately, the clearly dominant lord had much more to lose, leading him to retreat.
“This experience is somewhat unpleasant but also refreshingly novel. However, nothing will change. This time while you’re stopping me, there will be no one to wreck my body!”
“Now you’re openly claiming this is your body?”
“How long do you think you can keep this ridiculous power struggle up? Five minutes at most? You can consider it an honor that you, a mere human sorcerer, have clashed with a god for five minutes.”
The lord’s pride felt dripping with mockery and laughter. Unlike before, while I detained the lord this time, most of those who would support me were already dead.
In an instant, amidst a bizarre tug-of-war reminiscent of a mix between intricate string games and puppetry, my consciousness returned to the moment I was pondering a ‘plan.’
Having fled, taking advantage of Phero’s body, I endlessly contemplated.
Where, exactly, were the lord’s shortcomings?
Initially, when the lord used my descent as his own, I simply had no idea how to deal with his tactics that seemed to mockfully read Elena’s blessing. He seemed effortlessly flawless, and I truly feared him like a god.
The epiphany struck like lightning.
If you start to believe your enemy is perfect, you can never defeat them. To overcome your foe, you must first identify their flaws, and to unveil those flaws, you must analyze their failures.
The lord has failed once.
According to the original Plan A set by the lord, we should have driven Aurelia into a crisis, prompting the appearance of the ‘Holy Sun,’ thereby ending the battle. This was because at the moment the lord seized control of my body and invoked the descent, we should have had no means to resist.
But his first plan failed when the hotel party managed to slip from his grasp, leaving him on the brink of death, unable to act normally for over a day. He had to execute a subsequent plan.
Why did he fail?
Was it because Songyi blocked the indoctrination through the bracelet? Was it because Cha Jinchul’s other-dimensional power was too strong? Or was it that Ahri’s sacrificial special attack infused too potent a blood curse? All three had some influence, but those variables were something the lord should have easily suppressed while controlling my descended body.
The singular failure stemmed from my ‘Power of the Incarnation.’ The only variable able to affect my almost physically invulnerable descent in a non-material manner was the ‘Power of the Incarnation,’ which derailed the lord’s original plan.
What does this imply?
Thus far, my impressions of the lord’s nature were that he was certainly not prone to reckless mistakes. If he knew of the existence of my power, he would have devised some countermeasure against it. The truth is, he did not know about the ‘Power of the Incarnation.’
He may not have even recognized it as a concept, or he might have only known the name without understanding its power. I myself only learned what its power was the day before entering Room 104. Upon realizing this, I knew a gap existed in the information he held about us.
What exactly does he know and what doesn’t he know?
At the very least regarding blessings, he knows exceptionally well. Especially concerning justice, he didn’t just know about the blessing of ‘Justice’ itself; he understood ‘Elena’s Justice.’ Without that, there would have been no way for a ‘juvenile criminal saint’ to have come about.
On the other hand, regarding inheritance, it’s apparent the information he has is uncertain.
A strange imbalance of information—exactly knowing about blessings yet inadequately informed about inheritance.
…
A hypothesis popped into my mind.
In the past when I obtained the descent and took a seat at the negotiation table to create a ‘win-win situation’ with the lord, there existed another entity, the ‘Patron.’ If the source of the lord’s information about us was indeed the Patron, this imbalance becomes understandable.
As the owl faced sanctions from the hotel, it proved that even the authority of the Patron has its limits. Blessings lie within their domain, but information regarding rewards provided by the hotel, like inheritance, may be a matter beyond their authority to share.
If that’s the case, the lord might not even be aware of the existence of what every member of our hotel party takes for granted.
“Father, five minutes will be more than enough time to end everything.”
*
As the young man fainted and collapsed onto the bed, the scene was engulfed in pure chaos. The young saint felt an indescribable fear at the sudden absence of the lord, flustered and disoriented. As if observing all this chaos, Aurelia took a step forward.
“Aurelia! Stop right now! I won’t tolerate any trickery.”
“Trickery? No way! I felt something was off with father and thought I should send him to a safe place.”
“A safe place? There’s nowhere safer than here!”
“Saint, are you not aware of the battle between the Administration Bureau and that infamous devil outside?”
“What does that have to do with anything—”
“The Administration Bureau has countless hidden powers. Some of those powers may have harmed your father just now.”
“…”
“Saint, if you truly are the pillar of the church, you must have the eyes to discern truth from falsehood.”
A faint glowing shimmer appeared in the eyes of the trembling girl, now engulfed in fear.
“Oh! You’ve grasped that power. Good for you. From now on, if I lie even a bit, I’ll gladly sacrifice myself, so please lend me your ear.”
“… Speak.”
“I possess a treasure for emergency escape, bestowed upon me by the great one in the past.”
“Your father granted you such a treasure?”
“This treasure guarantees that no harm will come to me. It is a treasure that sends you to the safest place in this world.”
“Where is that place?”
“A place like a comfortable hotel. It serves delicious meals every day, and its decor is nothing short of luxurious.”
“…”
“Did I say anything false? I didn’t think so. But if you refuse to accept it, I’ll wait. Yet I am worried. It’s already been three minutes since father has remained silent. What if something irreversible happens while we wait?”
The girl, trembling, stepped aside. Aurelia approached the unconscious young man while holding a small box. The box was labeled ‘Escape Button.’
“Father, I’ll send you to a safe place, so please wait a moment!”
*
[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 98
Current Location: Floor 1, Room 104 – Cursed Room ‘Prestigious Hotel High School’
Sage’s Advice: X]
– Han Kain
Aurelia held my hand and pressed the escape button, activating it. In that moment, my consciousness, which had been outside due to the Power of the Incarnation, immediately returned to my body. Simultaneously, my whole body began to levitate!
Rather than just my consciousness floating into the void as before, my entire body soared towards the sky. It felt as if all the concrete and ground of the underground city were mere intangible phantoms, allowing my body to pass right through them and rise to the heavens.
As I kept rising and rising, I instinctively sensed a ‘boundary’ at the sky’s limit. The moment I crossed that boundary, the ‘sun’ detached from my body.
“Ah ha ha! Is that you? Just not that impressive—”
Suddenly, an immense beam of heat burst from the sun, startling me into silence! Fortunately, the beam couldn’t breach the ‘boundary’ and merely flickered out like a match flame.
“Nothing special, and yet you play smart! I’ve won, you idiot!”
“You! How dare this bug! If we meet again, I’ll trap you in an eternal furnace that’ll never go out!—”
“Have you forgotten, father? Where’s the ‘next’ in our encounter? Bye-bye~!”
I felt my consciousness fading.
You have escaped!
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