### Chapter 247 – Room 202, Cursed Room – ‘Mermaid Princess’ (25)
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– Han Kain
It only took about 30 seconds for Elena, who had dashed off screaming, to regain her composure. When she returned with an awkward expression and apologized to Ahri, she mentioned that she was completely rattled after witnessing a truly horrific scene right before our escape.
After that, we spent quite a while talking. The party had split up, and Seungyub and Elena had gathered different information in their separate situations. Sorting through everyone’s scattered intel took a significant amount of time.
The second attempt was largely handled by Elena on her own. When we heard her recounting the events, we couldn’t help but be left slack-jawed. Although bizarre and grotesque stuff occurs in nearly every room of the hotel, what Elena experienced was something else entirely.
As everyone wrestled with the chaotic jumble of information, my sister, who had been deep in thought, stood before the whiteboard.
“I think I’ve got the scenario of Room 202 mostly figured out. Let’s stop sharing our individual stories for now and instead chronologically arrange the events that happened in Room 202. That should make things clearer.”
Soon, the noted events began to fill the board:
1. 800 years ago, poor fishermen on the coast accepted Rudakh, the daughter of the sea god, and turned into merfolk. Later, it was revealed that the side effect of this transformation was that they became sea creatures.
These merfolk struggled to accept their fate. The highborn offspring of Rudakh, the sea god’s daughters, enabled the merfolk to remain on land with their abilities.
2. 20 years ago, the former sea priestess Imelda, plagued by nightmares, made a deal with the Management Bureau to sell Rudakh as a test subject.
The Bureau devised a plan to genetically enhance humans using Rudakh. The sea god was furious about this betrayal, and the nightmares faced by the merfolk intensified.
3. In modern times, the sea god rose from the deep to judge sins, preparing Lee Sooho and Rilinganor. It appears that Sooho will take the lead first, and if he fails, Rilinganor will step in.
That seemed to cover the major events. My sister continued explaining.
“From the key point of ‘sin’ in Room 202, it makes sense to think of it this way. Point 1 is about the merfolk’s first sin of ‘rejecting the life of the sea.’ Point 2 refers to the second sin, which is ‘handing over a divine being as a test subject.’ The last point is the sea god’s response to this. If anything is unclear, just let me know fast.”
Jinchul hyung was the first to raise his hand.
“I’m curious about something I’ve experienced twice now—the fog curse on the bridge leading to the sea god’s island. Who do you think is responsible for that?”
“We need to think about the purpose of that fog. Clearly, it was a curse aimed at killing us. There aren’t many forces that can wield that kind of power. The likely suspects left in the scenario are Serenade, the Management Bureau, and also Lee Sooho and Rilinganor.”
“It can’t be the Management Bureau. At that point, we knew nothing about the ‘project,’ so they wouldn’t have a reason to purge us.”
“And it’s not Serenade either. If an agent of the Management Bureau suddenly got wiped out on the way to the sea god’s island, what do you think the Bureau’s reaction would be? No one would dare do something like that, knowing the potential backlash.”
“So that leaves Lee Sooho or Rilinganor. Since the god is supposed to descend tomorrow, they probably wouldn’t care about the aftermath. Their goal is likely to prevent the Bureau from interfering right before the sea god’s descent?”
“That’s right. Maybe the tsunami hitting Busan serves the same purpose. We just didn’t notice it because we managed to enter the island before getting swept away.”
Once the topic of Rilinganor came up, Seungyub raised his hand right after.
“Did Rilinganor know her fate from the beginning?”
Just from Seungyub’s expression, I could tell what he meant. During the first attempt, Seungyub seemed to have gotten quite close to Rilinganor. While that connection vanished over repeated attempts, the memories did not.
My sister, unable to speak easily, had Ahri respond.
“We can’t know for sure. But either way, she’s a significant danger. We might have to… eliminate her.”
I shared the same thought. Rilinganor could very well have been aware right from the start that she was a tool for the resurrection of the sea god, or perhaps after Sooho died, the sea god used dreams to awaken her. Either way, she poses a serious risk to us.
Elena cautiously raised her hand.
“Do you remember the message from the sea god? The one Kain heard in the first attempt, ‘Grant me the end of suffering,’ and the ones I heard during the second attempt: ‘One more time,’ and ‘You are almost there. Why are you a mermaid?’ What could these mean?”
Grandfather chimed in with his thoughts.
“‘Grant me the end of suffering’ could be asking to stop the Bureau’s experiments on Rudakh, right? Or it could also mean asking us to solve this room and let him rest.”
Just like the prisoner in Room 103, he might be a being seeking peace.
“One more time, you’re almost there. This likely means we’re close to a resolution, but just need a little bit more work. The last line is the biggest riddle. ‘Why are you a mermaid?’ How does that sound to you?”
A moment of silence fell over us as I hesitantly offered my thoughts.
“Contextually, ‘you’ obviously refers to Elena, right? ‘Why is Elena a mermaid?’”
Why are you a mermaid? It implies that we can’t end this without humans. What could this possibly mean?
Or does the fact that Elena is a mermaid signify something, and we must understand this meaning?
It was all too complicated. Silence heavy hung around us again.
Then, my sister, who had been standing by the whiteboard, raised her hand.
“Actually, I have something that I can’t quite wrap my head around, regarding the flute. Isn’t it odd?”
The flute holds quite a few mysteries.
According to what Elena realized during the second attempt, the flute was something created to quell the sea god’s madness or suffering. There was talk that when the melody of the flute echoed, the sea god seemed to regain sanity.
Elena tilted her head.
“What seems strange to you? The fact that the sea god created an object to alleviate his own suffering but didn’t use it himself, instead handing it to the merfolk?”
My sister shook her head.
“No, that’s easy. The flute, while made for the sea god, was also useful to the merfolk, right? It helped lessen their nightmares, after all? Since it’s a treasure beneficial to the denizens, it could be passed on. What feels odd to me is the ‘timing.’”
“Timing?”
Was she walking around to collect her thoughts? My sister took a moment before continuing.
“The sea god is suffering; that’s clear. He directly asked Kain for ‘the end of his suffering.’ But what’s the source of that suffering?”
Grandfather answered, “Isn’t it that Rudakh was captured and experimented on by the Bureau? It must be extremely painful for a god watching their kin turn into lab rats.”
“Maybe so? In fact, according to the info gathered, it’s said that Sooho’s sanity seemed to edge closer to that of Rudakh’s, and he even asked Elena for revenge! Plus, the daughters of the sea god have sensed that the nightmares have been increasing since 20 years ago, bringing about all sorts of issues.”
“Sister, so what’s strange then?”
“The sea god’s suffering began 20 years ago when the Bureau started treating Rudakh as a test subject. But when did the flute come into play? Elena?”
Elena’s eyes widened.
“Uh… I’m not exactly sure. It’s been passed down through generations, so it feels like it must date back hundreds of years.”
“Twenty years ago, the sea god began suffering, and yet the flute was created hundreds of years prior. How can an antidote exist before the disease itself? At that moment, my sister grasped the time paradox that had become apparent.”
Just then, Ahri slapped the table.
“I think we’re getting a bit too bogged down in the minutiae, don’t you? We don’t need to solve every riddle in Room 202 to resolve the overall situation. I believe we can solve it with just the information we have.”
Grandfather echoed a similar sentiment.
“In the end, isn’t it a matter of stopping the sea god’s descent? We’ve managed to figure out what cards the sea god has up their sleeve. First, we have Lee Sooho, who we thought was dead but is actually alive. Second, we have Rilinganor, who seemed like an innocent child but turned out to be an outrageous monster. We just have to deal with those two.”
I understood where Ahri and Grandfather were coming from. If we had about a month to work with, we could debate and explore all possible issues. But we had to go back in tomorrow. There wasn’t time to sit around obsessing over questions that had no answers.
Now was the time to figure out what we needed to accomplish once we stepped back into the fray, and we started outlining our plans step by step.
Strategies for dealing with Sooho, who was plotting mischief on the sea god’s island, and for tackling Rilinganor, who wielded a variety of superpowers.
And an ultimate method for escape involving the ‘living flute’ created by the Bureau, should all else fail!
In the last discussion regarding flutes, we inevitably touched on the flutes that belonged to the daughters of the sea god, which could be seen as the original source for the ‘living flute.’
“The living flutes are just imitations made by the Bureau. The original items were bestowed by the sea god. Surely, the flutes given by the sea god are more powerful, right?”
Elena seemed to have a different opinion on this.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The living flutes that the Bureau produced… I hate to say it, but they could be made on a ‘mass production’ scale. They might not measure up to the original, but they make up for that with sheer numbers.”
“Regardless, let’s ensure we secure the original flute if we can. If things take a turn for the worst, using the flute to quell the sea god’s fury would be an escape route in itself, making it a highly valuable item.”
If we failed to obtain the original flute, we’d have to settle for using the ‘living flute.’ I asked Elena.
“The original flute seems relatively easy to use, but the living flutes made by the Bureau seem rather tricky to handle. I hear you need to control the Conductor Snail… Elena, could you make that moth monster again?”
Elena suddenly stared at me wide-eyed.
…
The moment I felt overwhelmed and lowered my gaze, I found that the spot I looked at was even more pressuring.
“Absolutely not.”
“Huh?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh.”
“Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely!”
“I… I get it!”
Ahri chuckled.
“Okay then. Let’s proceed with securing the original flute if possible. No need to recreate a creature we can’t control. Rilinganor has one, and Serenade does too, right? What about Elena?”
We continued filling in the details of our plans for quite a while.
Suddenly, I realized that Eunsol hadn’t spoken much until now.
“Sister? What are you thinking so hard about?”
“Um… I just had a sudden epiphany.”
“Epiphany?”
“I think I’ve just figured out the meaning behind the last words of the sea god.”
“Why are you a mermaid, right?”
“Kain, did you check the advice again?”
…
…
…
The next day, we re-entered Room 202 for our third attempt.
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