Chapter 693 – Room 301, The Cursed Room – ‘The Origin of Species’ (31)
—
User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 16
Current Location: Floor 3, Lobby
Sage’s Advice: 0
– Han Kain
“You’re always blaming me, and you’ve reached here fueled by that hatred,” a voice echoed as if this moment wasn’t new at all.
I had no idea what it meant, yet there was no one around to explain it to me.
— KABOOM!
The doors of heaven slammed shut, and the manager vanished without a trace.
We were left amidst chaos, along with the Is King, wrapped in an indescribable sorrow.
Soon, the Is King looked at me with a strangely vacant expression.
Somehow, I managed to understand what he meant through those incomprehensible eyes.
It felt less like I was daring to scrutinize a prisoner and more like he was allowing me to see his intentions.
The king’s desire was clear.
+ Finish it! +
What happens if I kill the king? Does that mean Room 301 is resolved because a prisoner is gone?
But can I really consider this situation as a prisoner’s demise?
“…”
No, that can’t be right. I already received a notification saying, “Resolution failed. Therefore, ‘Post-Apocalyptic World’ will begin!”
Even the Owl hinted at the next round saying, “Opportunities aren’t singular.”
Given that I’ve made it this far, anything I do from now on means Room 301 simply can’t be solved.
The reason is crystal clear.
Room 301’s past loop has already perished.
Once the ‘Grace’ begins, we can declare Room 301 done and dusted.
Thus, in the next attempt, I must prevent the very beginning of that Grace.
I cautiously stepped closer to the king and spoke up.
“I think you want this to end here.”
“…”
“But this isn’t an ending for us. Perhaps it’s not an ending for you either.”
The king remained silent, but I continued.
“I’ve grasped your two biggest secrets. You might call them weaknesses.”
“…”
“First, how does a prisoner run around like this freely?”
“…”
“The answer is simpler than you think. It turns out we’ve been stuck in a ‘very long bad ending’ most of the time.”
In the cursed room, the prisoners are weighed down by multiple constraints, and the same principle applies to ‘Room 301.’
It wasn’t that Room 301 was the exception!
My first hint came from the differences between the first and second trials.
Looking back, the Is King didn’t even show up during the first attempt!
If the prisoner could act freely from the start, why didn’t he intervene back then?
Because they couldn’t act freely.
The circumstances allowing a prisoner to awaken in the cursed room are quite limited, the most obvious being a ‘bad ending.’
When participants choose destructive options and everything collapses, only then does the prisoner awaken to pass harsh judgment.
“… Lee Eunsol must have triggered the collapse when she peered into the chairman’s memories.”
Peering into the chairman’s memories was the trigger for the bad ending in Room 301.
Why hadn’t the Is King intervened in the first attempt?
Because he hadn’t forced open the chairman’s memories.
So, if we don’t force open the chairman’s memories in the next round, the prisoner won’t be able to act freely like this again.
Just like in the first attempt when the Is King had to just watch while trapped underground in Gangwon Province.
That’s the opponent’s weakness!
At that moment, a chilling thought crossed my mind.
Is the bad ending setup laid out by the Is King only dependent on the ‘chairman’s memories’? What if there are around 3,000 more hidden mines out there?
I laughed off the idea, thinking I could just avoid the mines now that I knew the location of Mine 128, but a grim vision of stepping on Mine 1732 as soon as I started the third attempt flashed through my head.
…
There’s no point in dwelling on such thoughts, I should just move on.
“Second point, your current situation. It was so bizarre I struggled to comprehend, but there was another prisoner who arrived at a similar outcome.”
“…”
“The real Is King should still be trapped underground in Gangwon Province. Right now, you are… essentially a copy of his mind. A program copied from the original king’s psyche has been nestled within Eunsol from the beginning.”
The king remained silent, but suddenly, Miro gasped in shock from behind.
“Eek!”
That’s the current state of the Is King.
From the moment Eunsol was born!
Deep within her psyche laid a malicious program copied from the king’s mind.
The king awakened that program and channeled most of his power into it to simulate the ascension ceremony, eventually reaching the third floor—the heavenly domain.
At this point, I vaguely realized.
Room 301, if not this attempt, can definitely be resolved in the next or a subsequent one.
However, the innate ‘malicious program’ that began from the moment Eunsol was born…
There’s no solution to that.
Just feeling this gnawing dread, a calm voice came through.
“So, do you consider me a fake then?”
Rather than showing any signs of confusion, he appeared unconcerned.
It seemed he was fully aware of his situation.
“No. I understand that when it comes to beings like you, discussing what’s real and what’s fake is meaningless. You possess a mind almost identical to the original and nearly equal power, so there’s no need to distinguish between the two. However…”
I wondered if it was okay to proceed to the next point.
But if not now, I felt like I wouldn’t get another opportunity like this.
“I believe you’ve relinquished your anger towards the hotel and Buddha through some incomprehensible process you’ve faced here.”
“…”
“But the other you, trapped underground in Gangwon Province, has no way of knowing this. There’s no way for them to find out.”
Thus, in the next round, we’d have to wrestle once again with this terrifying prisoner.
Why? Because the ‘other Is King’ down underground has no idea what transpired in heaven!
The king muttered with a strangely vacant expression.
“It seems you have a request before it ends.”
“May I take one of your ‘children’? To persuade the next round’s you, perhaps?”
“…”
The king merely spread his arms wide as if to say he didn’t mind what I did.
He seemed to have lost all motivation.
At that moment, Sanghyun, who finally understood my words, approached and began whispering to me.
It seemed he intended to speak quietly, just for me to hear, but considering the other side was a prisoner, such efforts felt utterly pointless, causing me to smirk.
“So, you’re trying to borrow an Is race member to… convince the king from the next time?”
That was spot on.
No matter how much we explain what happened in heaven, the king from the next round likely wouldn’t pay any attention.
We’d have to endure another painful tug-of-war with the prisoner that continued throughout the second attempt.
But what if it were something said by a cherished child?
Couldn’t I say to the Is King?
“Your Majesty, your dream you wish to fulfill in heaven is in vain. So, please, let it go.”
This would be the fundamental premise for the progress of the next rounds.
As Miro, eyes wide with fear, approached the king, one of the tiny beings floating around him—one that felt oddly familiar, as if I had encountered it before—approached Miro.
“Lend me your hour!”
Though the miniaturized duke couldn’t hear Miro’s response, I imagined it was a definitive ‘Got it.’
Miro pointed at the time-borrowing device, affirming that it had been taken care of.
Now it’s really time to end the second attempt.
…
Under normal circumstances, imagining a participant killing a prisoner seems far-fetched.
But this isn’t a typical situation.
What was the Is King’s motivation for designating Eunsol’s body through endless schemes?
The requirement of ‘participant qualifications’.
Why? Without qualifications, not even prisoners can endure the celestial realm – Floor 3.
Thus, I must destroy Eunsol’s body.
If the opponent shows no resistance, it’s entirely doable.
“…”
In this moment, an insatiable cursed curiosity washed over me.
I thought perhaps this curiosity is one of the essences of ‘wisdom.’
Of course, it could simply be my excuse.
I was curious.
I was unbelievably curious.
Why wouldn’t the supreme being, who claims to save all beings, bother to save the Is race?
What made the Is King, who moments ago seemed ready to destroy the hotel, suddenly relinquish everything?
Above all, I was curious about the meaning behind what the manager said!
I know the nature of that manager.
In essence, he was just a robot, akin to a microphone, voicing for the entity behind him.
The existence behind him changes each time, but just moments ago, it was undoubtedly “the one who sheds tears for the Three Thousand Worlds!”
Even as I thought the next question might be taboo, I spoke up.
“You…?”
“…”
“Aren’t you here because you hoped your children would find salvation? Why are you so defeated?”
“…”
“What did you see beyond the doors of heaven? I saw absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. What about you—”
“Child.”
In that moment, I saw another emotion through the King’s gaze that I’d never been able to read.
“My children are saved, are being saved, and will be saved.”
“What?”
That was an answer entirely different from his previous cries of abandonment towards his children.
An astonishing story that, at every moment in the past, present, and future, they’ve all been saved.
“What do you mean—”
Then, a vision I couldn’t fathom suddenly crossed my mind.
+ Endless continuation one. It speaks of a single cycle. +
+ 2 appeared. Then 3 appeared. 4 appeared. Having reached the numbers beyond one, those who did so believed they had transcended the cycle. +
+ I always knew I would meet ‘this moment.’ Thus, I knew this moment marks the end of my calamity… +
Soon, the king sorrowfully smiled and blasted his own head.
This was the end of the chaotic second attempt.
“You’ve successfully escaped!”
…
“You’ve escaped the curse.
Yet, you still feel the source of the curse remains.
…
A successful escapee among your companions has emerged!”
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