Chapter: 85
85 – Party Time (7) – Secrets of Room 103 (2)
– Han Kain
Room 103. A place so filled with horrific conditions that it’s hard to comprehend even now. What on earth could the secret of Room 103 be?
Songee turned towards me, as if she felt my gaze.
“Oppa? Do you have something to say?”
“No. I was just reminded of how you did something truly incredible in Room 103.”
“Ahaha~. What’s with the sudden praise?”
But as we talked, I found my curiosity being piqued.
“What do you mean?”
“Isn’t Room 103 really weird? From the moment we started, we were imprisoned on an alien’s farm, drowning in the delusion that we had become animals. And to top it all off, it was set aboard a spaceship cruising through space. How on earth were we supposed to escape? Was your ‘Affinity’ power the only method to charm Athanasia and ‘The Devouring One’?”
“Couldn’t be. Not every hotel party has someone with Affinity, right?”
“If that’s the case, then is there another method?”
Songee gazed up at the sky, deep in thought.
“Well, from my experience cracking it open, there were some gaps I noticed.”
At that moment, Eunsol-noona chimed in.
“Well then, Songee, please tell us what you felt while going through Room 103.”
“Oh! You don’t have to—”
“This isn’t just to hear Songee brag, you know. The only rooms we’ve solved so far are Rooms 101 and 103, and we’re all aware of what happened in Room 101 since we did it together.
But as for Room 103, no one besides you knows the details well. If we analyze the rooms we’ve cleared, we might find clues for the ones we haven’t solved yet.”
“… I’ll need to collect my thoughts before I can explain everything well to you. I’ll let you know shortly.”
“Sounds good.”
Songee was the only one who had truly experienced Room 103. I couldn’t help but wonder, from her perspective, what the escape route or any possible ‘gaps’ might have been.
Did she really need more time to gather her thoughts all on her own? She required a surprisingly long preparation time before she could start her ‘lecture’ for us.
SFX: Brrrinnng! Time for a break!
On the second afternoon of Party Time, we returned from the Safari—everyone was worn out and quickly finished their meal before resting.
On the third morning, I was busy dodging Grandpa Mooksung who was hot on my trail, only to find myself caught and inevitably forced to run around the park under the guise of exploration.
Finally, around lunchtime on the third day, Songee started her “Room 103 Special Lecture.”
*
“The reason I’m explaining Room 103 today isn’t to boast. My goal is for all of us to understand the structure of a ‘Cursed Room’ by revisiting Room 103, which you haven’t really experienced.
First, I’ll explain the structure of the curse as I understand it, and afterward, I’ll highlight the ‘weaknesses’ that both Room 101 and Room 103 had.
Finally, I’ll share my ideas about how we could’ve solved and escaped from Room 103.
Please feel free to ask questions or share differing thoughts if anything is unclear along the way.”
Songee suddenly sounded very much like a teacher.
“Firstly, let’s discuss the structure of the Cursed Room.
Based on the information we’ve gathered so far, here’s how the structure looks:”
Songee showed us what she had noted down.
1. Participant Party
2. Enemy
3. Convict
“Of course, a lot of NPCs won’t fit neatly into these categories, but since they don’t really have roles or influence, we can say there are three groups affecting the scenario.”
“First, the Participant Party—us.”
“Next, the beings we have to face—let’s borrow the Hotel’s term and call them the Enemy.”
“Finally, the Convict, who has a god-like power but is severely restricted and can only affect things indirectly.”
“By the way, I heard from Grandpa that the term ‘Convict’ is used by the Administration.”
Grandpa Mooksung nodded from across the table.
“From what we’ve confirmed so far, the Enemies in the rooms have been plotting various schemes.
In Room 101, the Enemy was Kim Sangmin, while in Room 102, it was probably the mansion’s owner, ‘Sir.’ For Room 103, it’s Athanasia, and for Room 104, I think it’s the Guider.”
“As for the Convicts, they’re deeply associated with the source of the curse but we don’t need to deal with them right now. They’re beings we can’t do anything to anyway.”
Eunsol-noona responded.
“Seeing it all put together like this makes Room 103 seem impossible. Sure, the Guider in Room 104 was strong, but at least it was just one person.
But Room 103 had the entire batch of Athanasias, right? I’ve heard that each one is unbelievably powerful.”
Songee continued her explanation.
“So, what I want to explain next are the weaknesses of each Cursed Room. These rooms are designed with such horrible conditions that it’s nearly impossible to clear them without understanding their specifics.
However, each Cursed Room does have certain vulnerabilities, and exploiting those can actually make things easier for us.
Room 103 is no different. Let’s start with Room 101, since we know it better. What do you think their weakness was?”
Taking my time to consider, a thought started to form.
“The Enemy, Kim Sangmin, was weaker than we expected?”
“Exactly!” Songee confirmed. “Even though he did create a giant, it was barely strong. Kim Sangmin himself was just a lump of meat that couldn’t even move.
Finding him amid the family, the broadcasting station, the hospital, and the hospital room was the difficult part, but the Enemy itself was incredibly easy to defeat. That was the weakness of Room 101.”
“So, the weakness of Room 101 was that the Enemy was weak and immobile.”
After nodding, Grandpa Mooksung asked another question.
“That makes sense for Room 101. But what about Room 103? The Athanasias there were formidable, and there were so many of them.”
“There’s one crucial difference that makes Room 103 stand out compared to the others. And that difference is its weakness.”
“A definitive difference unique to Room 103?”
“Room 103 is the only one where the Convict and the Enemy maintain an antagonistic relationship.”
“In Room 101, while we didn’t see the Convict, it didn’t seem like he had any animosity toward Kim Sangmin, at least.”
“In Room 102, the Convict was probably the demon from the basement. The mansion’s owner was gaining power from that demon and tried to set it free. It was a collaborative relationship.”
“In Room 104, the Convict was ‘the Lord.’ The Guider worshipped the Lord as their god. Another collaborative relationship.”
“However, in Room 103, the Convict ‘The Devouring One’ was trapped by the Athanasias—our enemies—through inexplicable mechanisms that drained his power for eons.
When I freed the Devouring One, the first thing he did was annihilate all of the Athanasias. They were purely hostile towards each other.”
The unique room where the Convict harbored hatred for the Enemy.
That was the weakness of Room 103.
“Now, you might think that the Devouring One sided with me because I had Affinity, which made it possible for me to solve it that way.”
“But do you think a Convict possessing divine strength would be swayed by just my blessing?”
“I believe that anyone could have gained the Devouring One’s active cooperation as long as they managed to make contact with him.”
“My blessing might’ve made the Devouring One a bit more approachable, but he would’ve assisted the participants anyway due to his endless hatred for the Athanasias.”
Finally, it started to dawn on me a bit more.
The Convict in Room 103 was not an enemy from the very beginning, but rather a collaborator.
Realizing that fact was the key aspect to resolving Room 103.
Yet, even with this explanation, it wasn’t enough. I still had a few questions.
“I get that the Devouring One would’ve helped us as long as we made contact with him. But how on earth were we supposed to reach him in the first place?”
“You were able to charm one of the Athanasias using your Affinity. But we wouldn’t have been able to charm or kill them ourselves.”
“That’s the preconception you need to shake off,” Songee said. “Our role in Room 103 wasn’t to fight the Athanasias. If you think that way, it’ll be impossible to clear it.”
“Each of these Athanasias is practically a demi-god to us mere humans.”
“The only Athanasia I managed to take down in Room 103 was just one, and that was only because the Devouring One stalled them.”
“Killing the Athanasias was the role of the Devouring One. Our job was to endure until the Devouring One could recover.”
Songee was saying that our task to escape Room 103 was merely to survive until the Devouring One could regain power.
“Was it around 2 weeks? 3 weeks? I’m not quite sure of the exact timing, but after a duration like that, the Devouring One would regain enough power to attempt an escape.”
“He could unleash a shockwave across the spaceship to momentarily thwart the Athanasias. So, our role was just to hold out until then.”
“As long as we did, the Devouring One would’ve handled things afterward. He could’ve either reached out to us or destroyed the spaceship regardless of us.”
Nodding in acknowledgment, Grandpa continued, “We shouldn’t even entertain the thought of fighting the Athanasias. That part I understand. But is it really feasible to endure 2 to 3 weeks while our intellects and souls are being drained?”
“Draining our intellects was the role of the necklace around our necks, not the bracelet,” Songee explained. “Though it wasn’t visible, it was tangible and extremely fragile. So, breaking that was probably the very first thing we needed to do.”
“What if the Athanasias intervened and put another necklace on us when we broke them?”
“When I broke mine, they didn’t immediately replace it with another. There’s no way to know for sure at this point, but I can hypothesize a few things.”
“It could be that their system doesn’t readily detect failures in the necklaces. Another possibility is that they need to reboot the entire farm to put on new necklaces.”
“From my observations, it appears that they only put on necklaces when the Animal Farms were inactive. Restarting the whole farm because a small portion of livestock isn’t productive might not even make sense to them.”
“I believe the escape route would’ve been breaking our necklaces, thereby preventing our intellects from being drained.”
Feeling confused, Seungyub asked, “But how is that considered an escape? We didn’t leave the spaceship; we were still trapped like livestock on the farm.”
“Think about how we escaped in the other rooms. In Room 101, it was enough to distance ourselves from our family for it to count as an escape, right?”
“In Room 102, all we had to do was sabotage Sir’s ritual, and in Room 104, simply being chased out of the school counted as an escape.”
“Yet, despite that, the existential threats from those worlds remained unaddressed.”
“In Room 101, even if you distance yourself from your family, the world is still doomed; and even when we interfere with Sir’s ritual in Room 102, he will one day lure in more civilians and succeed in summoning the devil.”
“In Room 104, regardless of our presence, the hotel would keep operating smoothly.”
“For ‘escape,’ it is not essential to solve the root crisis within those worlds. All we had to do was temporarily break free from the threat looming over us.”
“I think the case for Room 103 is similar. As Seungyub said, breaking the necklace might not change our status as livestock trapped in place, but it would free us from the imminent danger of losing our intellects.”
It started to make sense. Initially, the Hotel clearly separated escape from resolution, and Songee’s explanation aligned well with that.
Unlike resolution, one doesn’t need to resolve the fundamental curse of that world to escape. Just evading the current life-threatening danger was enough to be recognized as an escape.
Reflecting on Room 101, did it truly mean anything to physically distance oneself from one’s family? The world was already lost, yet simply avoiding their death threat counted as an escape.
The same logic applied to Room 103. By breaking the necklace, we could avoid the imminent threat of our souls being drained, thereby extending our survival for a few months—that might just count as an escape.
Finally, as a sort of “what if” scenario, let me discuss how things might normally have progressed if my Affinity hadn’t created any mystical outcomes.
Probably, none of us would have known anything from the start. We would have tried to live on as animals, until, chance would have it; one of our necklaces accidentally broke, just like in my case.
That individual would survive a while longer, while the others would perish, maybe holding out for a few weeks, until witnessing the Devouring One making a move to overturn the spaceship. During that process, the illusions would have shattered, revealing the true horrors of the Animal Farm.
Without our cooperation, it’s likely the Devouring One would have failed and the point of ‘escape’ would have been triggered.
After escaping, we would all probably return for another round, now aware of the Devouring One’s existence. In our next attempt, we would have tried whatever means possible to connect with the Devouring One, our ally against the Athanasias.
This would have established the differentiation between escaping and resolving the room.
Breaking the necklace to survive longer constitutes an escape, while somehow collaborating with the Devouring One to aid in his liberation signifies a resolution.
Only after enduring Songee’s lecture throughout our entirety of lunch did I manage to grasp a rough understanding of Room 103’s structure.
“In the end, if the first necklace didn’t break ‘by chance,’ wouldn’t we all just end up dying?”
“Exactly. But that holds true even for Room 101, doesn’t it? If Seungyub didn’t ‘coincidentally’ play League and avoid his family, we’d all be dead by now.”
After listening for quite a while, Ahri finally piped up.
“I believe there must have been other ways to escape besides the chance of breaking the necklace.”
“Of course, there might have been,” replied Songee. “I’m merely speaking of what I came up with.”
“For instance, isn’t it possible there was a way for us to assume the role of the ‘Farm Family’ within the farm? Unlike regular livestock, they’d last longer as ‘farm managers’ and wouldn’t be killed immediately.”
“That makes sense. However, I’m uncertain about the specifics.”
And thus, our ‘review’ of Room 103 came to an end. After a vigorous discussion, I penned down a four-line summary on paper.
*
Start -> Break the necklace to halt the intellect drain; secure long-term survival.
Escape -> Survive for 2-3 weeks, then witness the Devouring One’s failed rebellion.
Resolution -> Acknowledge the Devouring One’s existence and enlist his help to wipe out the Athanasias.
& Was there a way to acquire the role of the Farm Family?
*
As I wrote it down, I came to understand why most participants at the Hotel fail.
You need to be smart, strong, but…
Fundamentally, if luck isn’t on your side, you can easily be wiped out before you even get started!
It felt like we were nearing the end of Party Time.
It was about time we started discussing which room to enter next.
I noticed a lot of questions popping up in the comments regarding Room 103, so I thought I’d casually clarify them this time around!
The core points of the discussion were threefold:
1. Break the necklace to endure until the Devouring One recovers his strength.
2. Understand the structure of Room 103 by witnessing the Devouring One’s fruitless rebellion—without any help from the main party.
3. Collaborate with the Devouring One to annihilate the Athanasias.
That was my three-step process!
Additionally, there was a side quest-type component where we might have attempted to acquire the role of ‘Farm Family.’
I tried my best to write this engagingly, but originally this could have easily expanded into ten chapters or more. Condensing everything into one chapter inevitably led to a lot being omitted.
But I can’t just have a monotonous review for rooms we’ve already passed, now, can I?
It seems our party time is winding down, and it’s almost time to move on to the next room. Thanks as always to our readers!
Thank you to PIA1640047047992 and Epoon for your support. I’ll return the favor with consistent updates!
+ If you have any remaining questions about Room 103, feel free to leave them in the comments for this chapter. I’ll answer without spoiling anything!
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