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User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 683,615
Current Location: Floor 2, Room 203 – Cursed Room ‘New Beginning’
Sage’s Advice: 3
– Han Kain
I sent away the people around to talk with Hyung.
“You ran here as soon as it started, right? Isn’t there a monster near your tribe too?”
Jinchul-hyung nodded.
“I already killed it.”
“What?”
“I killed it on the way here. I knew its location too. So the tribe mbers should be fine for now.”
His tone was as if he just had a cup of coffee on the way. It wasn’t anything new, but there was no one among us better at dealing with physical monsters than Jinchul-hyung.
“Anyway, it’s good you ca early. I experienced so strange things and gained a lot of information.”
“Strange experience?”
I told Jinchul-hyung about what happened on the spaceship before waking up in the primitive era. Hyung couldn’t hide his bewildernt for a long ti with his mouth half-open.
“Really, this damn Hotel keeps coming up with weird stories no matter how much we dig.”
“That’s right.”
“F-first! Let’s put aside the spaceship story and talk about the others’ locations. Are they all hundreds of km apart?”
“Not all of them. Surprisingly, Eunsol-noona and Songee are only 60km away at the starting point. Grandpa Mooksung, who’s the farthest, is now showing as 871km away.”
“871km... Kain, do you know how far that is?”
“I don’t have a license, so I’m not sure.”
“If you follow the road from Seoul to Busan, it’s about 390km. 871km is enough to go diagonally across South Korea and back with distance to spare.”
“That’s really far.”
“It’s not just far! How are we supposed to et?”
“We did et at the mountain range in the first attempt, right?”
“That was because Sanghyun and Gramps moved on their own, ignoring the tribe mbers.”
“We can et if we do that this ti too.”
“...”
Silence fell around for a mont.
I felt sorry for the tribe mbers outside, but it was a thought I’ve had since I confird the companions’ locations with the normalized Status Window.
It was hard to et because we were hundreds of km apart?
That was true when moving with ordinary human tribe mbers, but it was a completely different story if we ignored them and moved on our own.
What if I controlled the bodies of monsters overflowing in this world to move? What if Songee did sothing similar with Affinity?
Not to ntion Elena who could create flying monsters or Jinchul-hyung who was faster than a horse even with his bare body.
It might be a bit difficult for the doctor and Grandpa. They didn’t have the talent to fly in the sky or handle monsters.
But their basic physical abilities were among the highest in humanity due to Diligence and their background as forr Administration agents respectively.
If we moved on our own, we could close even 871km in a short ti. Hyung, who understood my words, sighed.
“That might be the answer. Haa...”
“...”
“Let’s talk about the spaceship story. I found a really shocking point while listening to you.”
“There was a lot of shocking information.”
“Humanity in the distant future sends a spaceship for space pioneering? All the crew mbers on board are enhanced humans, and there’s an AI so advanced it’s hard to distinguish from humans?”
“It’s like a sci-fi movie.”
“What’s this human cultivation kit? Did you see it?”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“The most surprising information is the ti itself you spent.”
“By ti, do you an the 683,615 days showing on the Status Window?”
“That ti of 680,000 sothing. It’s about 1800 or 1900 years, right?”
“Yes.”
“That ti is just a number for us who were in cryosleep. But what aning would it have for the Convict?”
“By Convict, do you an Adravita?”
“Wouldn’t that guy have spent 1800 years wide awake?”
...That’s right.
Unlike us who fell into cryosleep, Adravita was perfectly awake even on the spaceship. Of course, it would have spent the subsequent 1800 years wide awake too.
“It is quite long. But it’s a transcendent being, not human. Wouldn’t its sense of ti be different from humans?”
“That’s true, but think about it from a different perspective. For it, 1800 years isn’t just a one-ti thing, right? In fact, it’s not even 1800 years. We’re already in our second entry, so it’s ‘at least 3600 years’.”
I understood.
If the sa thing happened in the first attempt but we didn’t know because we didn’t wake up on the spaceship, Adravita had spent 3600 years with just two attempts.
“Moreover, that’s the minimum. Didn’t they say the Hotel has accepted countless participants in the past? There were probably people who challenged this room before us and failed. If 1800 years passed each ti, then...”
How much ti had Adravita spent in the Cursed Room?
A heavy silence fell for a mont.
“...Let’s talk about this part with the others later. For now, it seems more urgent to think about where to go right away.”
“Let’s do that. This ti, rather than going to the mountain range, the unidentified being said to be in the sky—co to think of it, isn’t that Adravita?”
“It must be. The appearance description from Noona who saw it directly and what I saw were similar. It was said to have been promised ‘the right to spread faith’ by humanity.”
“If it floats in the sky spreading abundance across the entire continent in this primitive era, faith that didn’t exist would arise. Shall we follow Adravita’s shadow?”
“This ti, let’s—“
– Boom!
Suddenly, an incomprehensible vibration struck the entire world!
“What is this—“
Jinchul-hyung pointed at the air with his mouth wide open. In the air, there was a very familiar hotel-specific notification.
You have escaped!
A sudden escape? And the notification appeared to both and Hyung simultaneously? Could it be everyone escaped?
***– Kim Ahri
I ca to my senses in the cold air. As soon as I woke up, a terrible stench stung my nose.
I was the sealed participant of Room 203. But even though I woke up, there was no notification that the seal had been released. The aning of this was clear.
As I turned my head, there was the being I expected.
“Mi—“
“Shh!”
Before I could say anything, Miro covered my mouth and pointed around as if telling to look around.
– Whirr! Buzz!
I silently looked around and assessed the situation.
Everywhere was overflowing with huge cocoons large enough for a whole person to fit in, and the floor was covered with unpleasantly writhing dark red flesh.
So cocoons were starting to writhe, and as if they had been waiting, huge wasp-like monsters flew in and began moving the writhing cocoons to other places.
The strange thing was the monsters’ attitude.
They stared at us but didn’t act hostile. They just kept bumping us, as if telling us not to interfere with their work.
Based on the circumstances, this seed to be why Miro told to be quiet. Did those monsters react as if telling us to be quiet when we made a sound?
“...”
Well, this was a place that stimulated the imagination in many ways. The whole world was full of heteromorphic monsters and writhing cocoons.
Where on earth is this? A monster hatchery?
Why on earth is Miro in a place like this? Didn’t the others wake up among primitive people?
– Buzz!
As the nearby wasp disappeared, Miro asked while trembling, “W-why am I in a place like this?”
“...Why are you in a place like this?”
“...”
“...”
After briefly sharing a feeling of dejection, we soon started moving. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but there was no need to stay in such a terrible place.
By the way, Miro had been grabbing my arm with enough force to almost break it since earlier.
“Hold on a bit more gently.”
“...”
“My arm is going to co off—“
The mont I turned my head to look at Miro, I lost my words. She was whimpering as if even breathing was painful.
Only then did I look around the surroundings once again.
The ground was covered with a slimy, mucous mbrane that gave a sticky feeling every ti one’s feet touched it.
Writhing cocoons that made terrible noises, as if scraping sothing.
Wasp-like monsters flying around busily working everywhere.
It wouldn’t be strange at all if this was a scene from the movie Alien.
Perhaps people like or Kain might calmly observe what the wasps were doing, even in a place like this.
Of course, we were the strange ones, and being crushed by fear like Miro was the normal human reaction.
But all this would change in a matter of ti..
Miro would eventually adapt to the bizarreness of the Hotel. It wouldn’t take that long. Of course, I wasn’t sure if such a change would necessarily be positive.
I also walked around the “hatchery” full of heteromorphic beings while tightly holding Miro’s hand.
About 20 minutes later, I ca to one conclusion.
This place couldn’t be left on foot. There was no way connecting to the outside except for the ceiling where the wasps ca and went.
Miro, who ca to the sa realization, asked in fear, “H-how can we get out?”
“...”
“What are those cocoons?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ahri is an Administration agent but doesn’t know about that?”
Looking to the side, Miro was smiling slightly.
It seed she had recovered enough ntally to make jokes, and if she had regained her senses to this extent in such a short ti, it was truly a quality that made think she might be a born agent.
I’m not saying this because she’s my mom. Probably.
“There is a way to find out.”
“T-then try it quickly!”
“It’s a bit dangerous. Those monsters seem likely to react sensitively.”
“...”
Miro, who was trembling, soon hardened her expression.
“I-if we stay like this, we’ll clearly be trapped in this strange place until we die! The only way out is the ceiling.”
“That’s right.”
“So I think we need to do sothing... What if Ahri disappears in this situation!?”
That was right. The ti she could call out with the Ti Borrower was only one hour, and she had already used nearly 30 minutes.
Could Miro endure alone in a place like this? There was no way, so we should try sothing while I was here.
I instructed Miro, “Go over there.”
“M-? Alone?”
“From now on, it’ll be more dangerous to be next to .”
After confirming that Miro had moved far enough away, I drew up the power of Ancient Blood in my right hand.
The mont enough power gathered to make my fingertips tingle, a fierce aura cutting through the air split a cocoon in an instant.
– Kyaaah!
At the sa ti, the hatchery went into chaos.
Ignoring the loud noise that hurt my ears, I approached the split cocoon to see what was inside, and I realized the identity of this place.
“Uwaah!”
“...”
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