Chapter 699 – Room 301, The Cursed Room – ‘Origin of Species’ (33)
—
– Kim Ahri
As we kick off the third attempt in Room 301, there was one nagging concern in my mind: the starting location of Miro.
I couldn’t help but dread the possibility of starting off solo in Jeju Island, that would be such a hassle.
Fortunately, the hotel initiates the maze in the house where my younger sister and Mooksung live.
Right now, Miro is trembling in front of me, fear written all over his face.
“Ahri, do you think the Duke will listen to us?”
“Why are you worried? We already summoned him once during the meeting yesterday!”
That’s right. We had a brief two-minute convo with the Duke last evening.
To be honest, I thought he was quite cooperative.
“But that time Kain was here! Now he’s not!”
“…”
From what we confirmed in the first round, the Duke can easily overpower everyone except Kain.
So, it’s really no surprise that he may act differently with Kain around versus not.
Miro’s fears are more than justified.
“What if the moment he appears, he just wants to kill us or brainwash us? He could attack before I even think about counter-summoning!”
Right now, I really wish we had some control mechanism for the time summon.
But unlike Miro, I wasn’t overly worried.
“It’ll be fine.”
“Why? You said during the meeting that a king or a pioneer would be tough to persuade.”
“That may be true, but the Duke will definitely listen.”
“What? The Duke may not be as strong as the King, but he’s way, way, stronger than anyone else!”
It’s a logic where you can’t persuade A, but you can persuade B.
Miro seems to have interpreted my logic to mean that A is too strong to control.
“Miro, it’s not that the King is strong and thus unpersuadable, while the Duke is weak and thus persuadable. It’s a matter of disposition.”
“Disposition?”
“In the first round, we negotiated pretty smoothly with the Duke and Kain after the apocalypse. The same happened in yesterday’s meeting. They have a similar disposition. It’s not about strength; they both lean heavily towards extreme rationality.”
So, whether someone gets persuaded or not depends more on disposition than power.
Soon, Miro spoke up as if he grasped something.
“Oh, so the Duke is also a T, right?”
?
“… What?”
What does ‘T’ even mean?
Confused, I asked Miro, who just shook his head wildly.
“Ah~~ You don’t know about that? Ugh… you’re really slow.”
“…”
“Ahri, you know these days smartphones exist, right? Or do you not even know what the internet is?”
— Bang!
I immediately knocked Miro on the head.
“Yikes!”
“Stop spewing nonsense and summon him already.”
Miro puffed out his cheeks and summoned the time summon device.
— Clank!
Soon, amidst the hazy mist, the Duke revealed his form.
“…”
A good ten seconds of unintended silence followed.
I thought I was mentally prepared, but the sight of the Duke standing right in front of me unexpectedly made me shrink back.
Regaining my composure, I opened my mouth.
“I briefly told you yesterday, but I’ll reiterate. Your king only leads to destruction for everyone. Not just humans, but the Is race will end up lost in heaven as well. You’ve experienced this firsthand, right?”
The silence remained between us.
“I mean, your king has strayed from the righteous path. As a loyal subject, should you not correct your king?”
Still, there was no response from him.
“Are you seriously refusing to talk to someone of a lower status? That can’t be it, right?”
“I have two requests. First, I want you to persuade the king. There’s nothing but destruction where he’s leading everyone. They will all be lost in heaven. Just tell him that. I’m not asking for a lie, but for the truth you’ve experienced firsthand.”
Honestly speaking, I was skeptical about the chances of persuading him.
I said the same thing to Kain, and I reiterated it during the meeting.
I genuinely don’t believe someone like the King of Is can be persuaded.
However, since the others think differently, I’ll simply relay that info.
“Second, I want the end of the ‘Blessing Ceremony.’”
For the first time, the Duke’s hazy form began to shift.
It seemed like he fell into somewhat complex thoughts of his own.
“Ultimately, the source of all the destruction has to be the Blessing that the King of Is is currently conducting.”
The condition to resolve Room 301: uproot the ‘Blessing’ being conducted in the underground of Gangwon Province.
This conclusion was reached at the end of the meeting.
While opinions differed on other topics, all agreed on this point.
“If we can halt the magical ceremony for the Blessing being conducted in the underground of Gangwon Province, we might just be able to salvage the situation.”
I began to feel the Duke’s gaze gradually shifting towards me.
“Blessing is a highly advanced magical ritual involving precious materials, hard-to-recover equipment, and irreversible processes. You should know enough about the Blessing to understand how to stop it.”
Finally, the Duke replied for the first time.
“I can stop it.”
“Thank goodness. In that case, please cease the Blessing ceremony, the source of destruction. Ideally, it shouldn’t be recoverable forever. And also…”
I opted to skip the part about you guys should return to your world.
— Swaaa…!
In that instant, the Duke’s aura surged like a tide.
An overwhelming pressure began to engulf me, both mentally and physically!
What if the Duke decided to kill me now? I wouldn’t have a way to resist.
Miro’s reverse summon? The opponent could knock Miro out in an instant.
“… If you have something to say, I’d love to hear it.”
“My remaining time is 55 minutes and 27 seconds.”
“Wha—”
“According to your plan, I shouldn’t run out of time. If anything, I’ll have plenty to spare.”
“…”
His words hinted that he had already inferred our plans.
In a sense, the Duke currently was even more complex than the King of Is, who was coiled deep within the Gangwon underground.
That’s because he remembers the events that transpired in the ‘heavens.’
Thanks to which, a wave of anxiety washed over me.
At that moment, the Duke unexpectedly posed a request.
“Please grant me a chance to meet the princess.”
“What?”
“Five seconds will be sufficient.”
In this moment, my thoughts didn’t linger on what the Duke intended to say to Eunsol.
No, the real question was what kind of conversation could possibly happen in just five seconds?
*
– Lee Eunsol
…
I think…
I just woke up in Room 301, and it seems I’m in a car now, heading to pick up Miro.
“…”
A moment ago, that was definitely it, but… what’s this scene? The beach?
Could I have dozed off on my way to fetch Miro or something?
Just then, I heard a voice.
“Presenting the princess.”
“… Princess?”
I was startled for a moment but then quickly pieced together the identity of the voice.
“Are you the Duke?”
“That’s what you may call me.”
“What’s… happening right now? Is this a dream?”
“It’s similar. It’s a one-on-one meeting with you. Also, as I have limited time, I want to make efficient use of it.”
“…”
No matter how he perceives me, at least his manner seems polite.
After all, I’m the daughter of the creator deity among the Is race.
“It feels weird to be called princess. ‘Mother’ doesn’t exactly treat us like her children.”
What did Mother think of me and my brothers?
Were we just expensive tools meant to save the true children of the Is race?
At that moment, the Duke shared some unexpected thoughts.
“Not at all.”
“…”
“If you perceive it that way, it’s simply due to your inability to distinguish between small and great love.”
“Small love and great love?”
“Wife, children, friends – affection directed towards a select few is what we call small love. This, too, is the typical form of love understood by humans.”
“… So, what then is great love?”
“It’s love directed towards an unfathomable number of beings – billions, hundreds of billions, thousands of billions, and beyond. This is the form of love bestowed by a deity upon their creations.”
“…”
“The king loves you. The deceased prince and princess also extend their love towards you.”
“How do you know that?”
You wouldn’t have witnessed the first wish, so how do you know about the deaths of my oldest brother and sister?
“They simply loved you like they loved the king and the princess.”
In that moment, I couldn’t contain the surge of anger from within and retorted fiercely.
“Lies! We were nothing more than consumables created for you!”
“Why do you think that?”
“Why? You sacrificed my older brother and sister, and even me, all to save yourselves!”
“Princess, please, widen your perspective.”
“What do you mean?”
“The essence of small love is discrimination. It differentiates between the cherished few and the unvalued many. Great love knows no discrimination. Sometimes, because there’s no discrimination, great love can be cruel.”
“What on earth are you saying?”
“A being who loves a billion evenly can ruthlessly sacrifice one billion to save the other billion.”
In that moment, I was at a loss for words.
“I believe you already understand this reasoning well, princess. Don’t you?”
“…”
Just as the Duke declared, I instantly grasped the concept of great love.
Since loyalty is directed at species rather than individuals, one must be willing to sacrifice a million to save a hundred million.
Isn’t this the very reality of the Administration Bureau serving humanity?
Upon reaching this understanding, I finally fathomed the Duke’s intent.
“… Are you suggesting that Mother sacrificing someone is not unprecedented for us?”
“It has been repeated countless times. Although you distinguish us from yourselves, the king sees no difference between you and us. This has been a recurring theme throughout the infinite history of the Is race.”
So, according to the Duke, it’s wrong to see the sacrifice of my brothers and myself as a mere act for the Is race.
The King considers both the Is race and my brothers and I as mere ‘creatures.’
The King has ruthlessly sacrificed millions for billions before, and the tragedies my brothers and I faced are just extensions of that same story.
I understood the meaning behind his words.
However, I certainly had no intention of agreeing to this claim.
“So? You expect me to accept the infinite love of your great king?”
Suddenly, I realized that unlike before, my tone was much harsher now.
Perhaps I was annoyed at how the Duke defended the King.
“No matter what you say, the King of Is leads everyone into destruction.”
In the next moment, the Duke began to speak some truly bizarre words.
“Princess, I am not here to urge you to align with the king’s intentions.”
“What?”
“Dismissing portions for the survival of the great mass is unavoidable. This applies not just to the Is race, but to humanity as well. You cannot refute that.”
Sacrificing a few is inevitable for the survival of the whole.
It’s a harsh logic, but when considering how the Administration Bureau governs humanity, I struggled to counter the Duke’s statements.
“So?”
Rather than answering straight away, the Duke suddenly stalled.
It felt like he was preparing a plausible story to help me understand.
“There exists a type of insect called a bee in the land the princess resides in.”
“…”
“In winter, the worker bees are pushed out of the hive and freeze to death. They’re not needed during the regular seasons, so sacrifices must be made during the harsh times.”
“…”
“Worker bees infected with a fungus do not return to the hive but die outside. This, too, is an act for the collective.”
“Are you trying to say it’s only natural for some to sacrifice for the collective? What on earth are you getting at?”
“Princess, it’s not just the worker or queen bees that make sacrifices. There are various reasons why your kind also faces sacrifices.”
“So, are you suggesting that the sacrifices of my brothers and me are just accepted?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
The Duke’s next statement was something I could never have anticipated.
“Even queens must be sacrificed.”
“… What?”
“Worker bees kill the aged or unproductive queens to raise a new monarch.”
“…”
“Even a queen who has lost her judgment falls into this category. Throughout the eons, it has been the case that the one must sacrifice for the many.”
“…”
“It’s not just anyone who can sit on the throne. Only a princess capable of releasing pheromones from birth can assume the throne of bees. Likewise, you were born to embody the power of the king.”
“…”
“I trust a wise person like you will comprehend my words.”
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.