Chapter 694 – The Second Escape, Meeting (1)
—
– Kim Ahri
I woke up feeling the plush texture of the floor and the cool air.
The sensation of the familiar 2nd-floor hallway was different from the awkwardness of the 3rd floor—wait, what?
“What?!”
I escaped Room 301, so why am I in the 2nd-floor hallway?
The answer hung on the wall, written on the display.
“Oh! Look, the screen says something!”
“Dear guests, due to the disturbances caused by the guest from Room 301, some facilities on the 3rd floor have been damaged.
Despite repeatedly making the same mistakes without realization, how can we endure such inconveniences?
Dear guests, please remain on the 1st and 2nd floors until the facilities are restored. The recovery period will be one day.
– From the ever-kind and customer-loving staff of Hotel Pioneer.”
“Disturbance from the Room 301 guest? Restoration of the 3rd floor? What does this even mean!”
“Woohoo! A day of rest!”
Sungyeob completely bypassed the ominous phrases of the disturbance and restoration, reacting only to the phrase ‘a day of rest.’
He looked like he only woke up during lunch after sleeping through the entire class, which made me chuckle.
But hey, the most important thing is that ‘a day of rest’ is indeed accurate.
“Ugh… My head hurts so much…”
“Are you okay, Eunsol?”
“Hmm, maybe?”
Eunsol, who woke up from the floor, stretched her neck and stood up.
Soon, she approached the Observation Team nonchalantly.
“Hey guys – ”
– As she approached, it seemed she was going to ask something.
But suddenly, both Miro and Sungyeob, not to mention Sanghyun, took a step back repeatedly.
“Guys?”
“N-Noona! Stay right there and don’t come any closer!”
“… Miro, what’s going on?”
“Is the situation really over now? Kain!”
Sungyeob squinted at Eunsol as if confused, and Miro hid completely behind me, asking Kain.
Wait, why is she asking Kain while hiding behind me?
Am I supposed to be the human shield? Trust in Kain’s judgment?
— BAM!
“Ow!”
I slammed Miro’s head hard out of sheer incredulity.
One thing’s for sure, the latter half of Room 301 was incredibly chaotic.
The only ones who could explain what happened were the Observation Team.
Soon, Kain took the lead, with Sanghyun assisting, and a lengthy explanation began.
*
As the general explanation wrapped up, Jinchul looked up with a curious eye.
“So, the ‘Post-Apocalyptic World’ of the second attempt happened on the 3rd floor?”
“That seems to be the case.”
Before I realized, it seemed they made attempts to resolve the end of the world, and when it failed, they tried to escape from the wreckage.
I didn’t think a different pattern would intrude from the beginning.
The progression after Room 301 collapsed is just like the heavenly layer; it makes sense as a world in itself.
Mooksung looked uneasily at Eunsol and said, “Are you saying the prisoner invaded using Eunsol’s body?”
“Close.”
Before those words could settle, Sungyeob jumped in.
“Y-Yeah! It was incredible! Just Eunsol unblinkingly gaping made the whole hotel shake!”
“Was it that extreme?”
“Even Kain-hyung was knocked out with just one wave of her hand!”
The expression Kain made at that was adorably huffy, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
He didn’t deny it, so it really seemed like they clashed.
“Myself and the doctor just knelt down and prayed!”
“We didn’t pray.”
“You did kneel!”
“I just closed my eyes and lowered my head…”
“Miro was outright fainting and sobbing!”
“Don’t lie!”
From what I gathered, it seemed the prisoner entered the hotel using Eunsol’s body and caused chaos.
In the middle of all this, the funniest part was Eunsol’s reaction.
“Wow… that’s amazing~!”
It looked like ‘Mom’ was genuinely impressed by the mischief her own body was causing.
She even edged closer to Kain and waved her hand.
“Kain, what do you think? Think you’d be knocked out instantly?”
“…”
“Is Miro still not crying?”
“I told you I wasn’t crying!”
Eunsol’s playful demeanor might seem outrageous, but I completely got it.
What the Observation Team was conveying felt too unreal.
The prisoner invaded the hotel, knocked down teammates with just a wave, and opened ‘the door to heaven’…
It felt so detached from reality.
As the basic situation explanation wound down, Songyi, who was devouring a couple of snacks at the tea table, spoke up.
“Oppa, teacher, did you happen to see the contents of ‘The First Wish’?”
The Observation Team immediately shook their heads.
“We haven’t seen it. Both Songyi and Eunsol, the same. We only witnessed it standing still for a few seconds.”
“Sounds about right.”
“… In that case, let me summarize the content.”
It was a straightforward story.
The Is race took possession of the parents’ bodies, and upon realizing it and attempting to report, that’s when they got caught themselves.
It felt like a lot was omitted in that tale.
“Oof… are you alright?”
“You’ve really been through a lot.”
“That’s in the past. Now, well, I’m fine.”
For a moment, I fell into silence.
Those not near Songyi or those observing from beyond the sky with telescopes wouldn’t know, but I was right next to her.
I could remember how emotional Songyi was when she just realized her wish.
I felt a vague sense of intense hatred and immeasurable sorrow that I had never seen before.
So, when I opened my mouth wanting to say something—white letters flashed before my eyes.
“I want to keep my heart to myself. I don’t really want to share everything.”
Even with family-like comrades, she meant she didn’t want to reveal ‘everything’ to them.
“…”
Naturally, the next turn was Eunsol’s.
The incident when she met Agent S with her father in her childhood.
How she got kidnapped in the underground ruins of Gangwon and awakened as a participant through an unfathomable process.
Unlike Songyi, Eunsol seemed to share most of her story honestly.
Thanks to that, by the time her tale wrapped up, all the comrades were left speechless.
“Uh, uh, Eunsol… are you alright?”
“Ah… it’s hard to tell whether I’m okay or not. It’s a surreal memory.”
“Eunsol, sister…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Everyone, don’t react too loudly.”
As Eunsol awkwardly smiled, I felt a flicker of unease as I glanced toward Songyi.
She put on a calm face in front of her comrades, but truthfully, she harbored immense hatred for the Is race right now.
What must Eunsol, the ‘princess’ or ‘daughter of the deity’ of the Is race, look like to Songyi?
“…”
Fortunately, Songyi was slightly teary-eyed as she listened to Eunsol’s account.
Instead of feeling like the clan of the enemy, she probably felt like another victim.
After all, the Is king couldn’t even be jests as ‘a good mother.’
It seemed her only real children were from the Is race.
Eunsol’s siblings were merely precious consumables meant to save her true child.
In that moment, Kain cautiously spoke up.
“Ahem! Well, I was thinking we really need to share our thoughts on a topic.”
He had long been aware of it but hadn’t mentioned it to other comrades.
“It’s about Room 301 and, furthermore, the 3rd floor as a whole. Since we just brought up the topic of the first wish…”
Kain glanced briefly at Songyi, who seemed to sense something and quietly nodded.
‘Go ahead, I’m not bothered,’ was the feeling I got.
“According to Songyi, the cursed room on the 3rd floor seems kinda like the world we lived in before coming to the hotel.”
“What?”
“What does that even mean -”
“When I first heard it, I thought it was merely an intriguing hypothesis… but we were made aware of it thanks to the prisoner’s invasion. That is, you can access the heavenly layer from the internal world of Room 301.”
At that, everyone fell silent.
Indeed, it was a compelling hypothesis.
Just based on Songyi’s gut feeling saying ‘my parents seem real!’ might be dubious, but thinking about the shocking ‘hotel invasion incident’ by the prisoner.
Forget about metaphysical debates of real or fake; the 1st and 2nd floors were fundamentally closer to ‘simulation worlds’.
No matter how strong the prisoners on those floors were, it was virtually impossible for them to invade the hotel outside of the cursed room.
But it’s possible on the 3rd floor.
Why? Because the 3rd floor is one of the many loops of reality.
Just as we were dragged here from reality into the hotel, the dark gods from reality can also encroach upon the hotel.
What if there’s a difference in time zones?
The heavenly realm, furthermore the hotel, exists in a domain that somewhat transcends the timeline of reality.
To those viewing the reality on the outside, there may not be much difference between the loops from the 1st and 2nd floors compared to the living loops of Room 301.
However, there was one thing that puzzled me, and Elena pointed it out.
“Eunsol!”
“…”
“Do you think the same? You don’t seem to feel the same way as Songyi?”
Eunsol, a co-star like Songyi on the 3rd floor.
Unlike Songyi, who spoke as if the family in Room 301 was real, Eunsol didn’t express that.
If my memory serves me right, weren’t the two of them from different loops?
Mooksung gently reminded, “If my memory is correct, your memories of reality seem quite different…”
Soon, an odd revelation slipped from Eunsol’s lips.
“If it were before, I wouldn’t understand what’s going on, but now I think I do. Is it because of these questions that I need to be aware of ‘The First Wish’?”
“Oh, you seem to know the answer?”
Eunsol’s expression wasn’t very bright.
It probably wasn’t an enjoyable tale.
“From my long-lost memories, I once, uh, slammed into the heavenly layer thanks to ‘Mom.’”
“Yeah, yeah. And in the process, you and your younger siblings… um, that’s unfortunate.”
“It’s okay. Anyway, after colliding with the veil, I returned to reality.”
Eunsol was in her late teens when she made her first wish, but she arrived at the hotel after turning thirty.
So, there was a gap of over 15 years in between, and Eunsol spoke about the world she lived in during those 15 years.
“… The world I left and returned to was different.”
“What?”
“There were so many things that had changed, but my memories are so old that it’s a bit confusing.”
I tried to understand Eunsol’s words while momentarily dazed.
So, are you saying Eunsol and Songyi were born in the same loop?
Songyi lived her whole life in that loop until the end and experienced all hardships before arriving at the hotel.
Eunsol, after making her first wish, lived through ‘another loop’.
That’s a completely different concept than a ‘regressor.’
The idea of crossing over without dying is not present in the Administration Bureau at all.
“I think my knowledge must have accumulated from the world I returned to. Perhaps the Is king manipulated it to avoid confusion in memories? That being possible for a being of that level.”
Songyi opened her rabbit-like eyes and said.
“What about family? Isn’t your father and second brother…?”
“Father is likely an incomplete regressor, so he would have existed in other loops, and about the second brother… this is a bit odd. Perhaps these things are evidence that mysteries still linger in Room 301.”
“From the get-go! Why did you transition to a different loop after making a wish?”
“Good question.”
Then, Kain, who had been listening attentively, spoke up.
“It’s probably because the Is king didn’t possess a telescope.”
A telescope.
“What?”
“As the king himself admitted, ‘grace’ is merely a crude imitation of ascension. In other words, the king’s ability and techniques are just rough imitations of the hotel’s powers.”
“That… would make sense?”
“From the perspective of transcending the timeline, the lower realm is like an infinite loop eternally continuing on a colossal line.”
An endless massive line.
“From that infinite line, choosing the ‘exact loop’ I want. That’s what a telescope does in the Observation Team on the 3rd floor.”
“…”
“The king can’t do this. Because he lacks a telescope.”
Once you reach the heavenly domain, it seems there’s no way for the king to return to the ‘original loop’ with his powers.
It’s said that Eunsol and her siblings briefly accessed the heavenly realm.
Therefore, the king couldn’t send Eunsol back to her original world.
“Of course, all this is just my assumption. Just…”
“Just?”
Kain paused for a moment, writing ‘11111’ on the whiteboard.
“What is that?”
“Form?”
“Oppa?”
“… I wonder if this could be a trap that the king fell into.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I’ll explain a bit more clearly.”
The instant I heard that, I felt a tinge of irritation.
Can’t you explain it clearly since you don’t fully understand it?
If not, just don’t start!
Why bring up a hasty mention like this and then leave me wondering, ‘Do I not know much about this either?’
Maybe feeling the conversation veering into a more metaphysical territory, Mooksung lightly interrupted the flow.
“Okay! I guess there’s a lot to say. Given that we have a day off too, let’s eat something while we talk!”
With Mooksung’s suggestion, everyone nodded and headed to Room 105.
*
We all sat down to a grand feast of steak, grilled pork belly, roasted duck, and sliced flounder—a meal that was quite out of the ordinary.
…
A little aside, this is the one issue with hotel-style dining.
While the individual food quality is stellar, it’s troublesome when all sorts of different dishes are shoved together at one table!
Look!
Right next to me, Jinchul was mindlessly grilling pork belly; how could one taste the delicate flavors of the flounder?
More than half of what we discern as flavor comes from our sense of smell!
This subtle annoyance arose, but then again, it felt wrong to tell someone not to eat pork belly.
Though it was Jinchul who summoned the pork belly, both Sungyeob and Kain were gleefully munching on the grilled pork belly with green onion salad and stir-fried kimchi!
…
At this point, is it my fault?
Given the atmosphere, was it wrong for me to summon the flounder?
No, no!
This is definitely on the pork belly eaters!
Do I want to show them?
“Phew!”
I reached underneath the table, pulling out a mysterious can onto my palm.
Let’s put on a show.
I need to reveal the true power to those pigs who can’t even think to consider the delicacy served!
Today’s meal will be a masterpiece of my making.
Surströmming
The ultimate weapon, Surströmming.
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