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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 330: Re Room 203, Curse Room - ‘A New Beginning’ (10)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 683,623

Current Location: Level 2, Room 203, Curse Room ‘A New Beginning’

Sage’s Advice: 0]

- Han Ga-in

Toward evening, everyone gathered in a place inside the building that resembled a conference room. As always, Eun-sol held a pen and began writing on the whiteboard.

“Let's organize everything in order, starting with Room 203's scenario and our progress so far.”

After compiling and interpreting all the information we had found in the building, along with Owl's advice, Room 203's scenario was as follows.

Exactly 1,872 years ago, the Pride of Humanity arrived on this planet with around eight hundred crew members in Cryogenic Sleep and Human Growth Kits capable of producing more than a hundred thousand Enhanced Humans.

According to the records, the planet's first civilization formed in the mountain range within ten years. It was the civilization whose ruins we had seen in the mountains.

There had been no conflict at all until then.

Humanity from the stars had been full of hope for a new beginning. The AI had eagerly cooperated, sowing the seeds of civilization, while Adravita had dreamed of becoming the master of a newly spreading mythology.

The first conflict occurred fourteen or fifteen years after their arrival.

“It says Adravita broke away around this time.”

Adravita's reason for leaving was rather grand. Apparently, it had clashed severely with the AI over the direction civilization should take.

“More specifically, it says Adravita and the AI clashed over the education of the so-called second-generation Enhanced Humans created through the Human Growth Kits.”

I felt like I was starting to understand.

“It seems Adravita wanted to turn the second-generation humans created by the kits into its faithful followers. The AI probably wanted to raise them as ‘great humans,’ like the first generation born into a science-fiction civilization.”

According to the records, Adravita left the mountain range alone and scattered Quasi-Humans across the continent.

Since those Quasi-Humans had no proper civilization, they had no choice but to depend on Adravita to survive the planet's harsh environment.

“Those Quasi-Humans must be the primitive people of today, right?”

“Probably...”

The moment he understood the truth, Jin-cheol let out a hollow laugh.

“I really hope I'm wrong, but wasn't Adravita the one who spread all the monsters across this planet?”

“... I'm 99.9 percent sure.”

“Ah, that fucking bastard!”

Anyone who still hadn't caught on by this point was an idiot.

What would a god who left because future humanity would not faithfully worship it have been thinking when it created new humans?

Of course, it would have made beings that had no choice but to worship it.

Spreading monsters across the entire world must have been one way to achieve that.

The future human faction living in the mountain range had vaguely noticed the terrible things happening outside, but instead of intervening, they focused on increasing their own numbers.

Jin-cheol looked uncomfortable.

“Why did those bastards stay holed up in the mountains? If the people outside were suffering that badly, couldn't they have helped at least a little? They had enough power to cross space and pioneer a planet.”

Why hadn't the mountain faction helped the primitive people?

The answer wasn't written clearly. Still, I could infer it from the tone of the records, especially from the term “Quasi-Human.”

“Jin-cheol. The spaceship faction didn't see the primitive people outside as fellow humans.”

“...”

“It's not just the term Quasi-Human. Look at this sentence here.”

Quasi-Human had been a comparatively polite term. Other records were filled with far more blatant descriptions, such as “Adravita's livestock,” “a god who delights in worship and beasts that can do nothing but worship,” and “insects.”

“To the future human faction of that era, the primitive people outside must have been less than animals.”

Eun-sol added her thoughts.

“They probably thought that once they had increased their numbers enough and were ready to pioneer the planet in earnest, they could sweep them aside like an anthill.”

Jin-cheol let out a deep sigh.

“It's not like I asked because I don't understand what you're saying.... Just thinking about it makes me feel suffocated. Think about it. How do you think that group of ‘future humans’ would see us living in the twenty-first century?”

“...”

“Wouldn't we look no different from primitive people?”

“I don't think they considered them worthless just because the gap in civilization was so great. Their origins were different from those of the future humans. They probably saw them as toy-like beings made by Adravita.”

“Then that's a relief, at least.”

That brief peace didn't last long.

Even without an AI from a spaceship created by distant-future super-science or a great god breathing life into a continent, it was easy to predict what would happen next.

The future human group had crossed the galaxy and arrived on this planet to pioneer it in the first place.

Naturally, once they had grown their numbers and strengthened their faction enough, they intended to leave the mountain range and pioneer the entire planet. In that process, the primitive people spread by Adravita were no more than a feeble group they could wipe out with a single puff of breath.

“There was also the issue of their goals, as well as the balance of power. The future human faction in the mountains grew rapidly stronger as their numbers increased over time, right?”

“Adravita would remain alone forever. And the primitive people were too weak to even be worth counting.”

Everyone nodded as they listened to Eun-sol and me speak.

In the end, as time passed, the future human faction in the mountains would become the ruler of the planet. That was what the AI had calculated, and it looked right to me too.

If there had been no rebellion, that was surely what would have happened.

Then, one day, a rebellion erupted so abruptly that no clear record remained.

“From this point on, the records get seriously hopeless. Even as a human, I feel like I might start hating humanity...”

“According to the records, Adravita promised the rebels eternal glory that would pass down through their descendants for generations.”

“Looking at the state of this planet now, can't you guess what kind of deal it was?”

A vicious world filled with monsters.

To survive, the primitive people knelt before humanity's traitors, calling them Divine Humans. They worshipped Adravita, which had sent down the Divine Humans, and lived on.

Adravita had effectively made the traitors kings and emperors.

“Did the traitors give Adravita the Human Growth Kits capable of producing Enhanced Humans?”

“I think so.”

Then Seung-yeop muttered as if he couldn't understand it.

“Isn't that strange? I mean... the rebels chose between being ‘pioneers of a science-fiction civilization’ and ‘kings in the primitive age,’ and they chose the latter, right?”

“That's right.”

“No matter how I look at it, the former wins by a landslide. They can dress it up all they want by calling themselves kings and whatever else, but we've done the king thing before. Was it fun?”

I understood Seung-yeop's words all too easily.

We had already played the role of chiefs in the primitive age.

No matter if you called yourself a king, what came to the table was larvae and half-rotten meat.

Honestly, it was a life worse than that of an unemployed person in the twenty-first century. It was hard to even compare it to the thrilling phrase “pioneers of a science-fiction civilization.”

Still, Seung-yeop had missed one point.

“That only happened because the war ended in ruin for everyone.”

“Huh?”

“When people start a war, they always think about the glory after victory. The rebels must have been the same. Their goal wasn't to live as primitive chiefs. They probably intended to seize the spaceship and enjoy the comforts of future civilization for themselves.”

“And rule slaves who worshipped them as apostles of a god while they were at it.”

“Ugh....”

Destruction came in an instant.

The future humans, who had been steadily growing their faction, split into two and began a civil war. Even the AI, given the mission of assisting humanity, had no way to stop conflict between people.

The records after that were filled with misery.

The spaceship had been divided by internal conflict into the main body that remained in the mountain range and its power source. Once the spaceship lost its power source and most of its capabilities, the future humans couldn't avoid their downfall.

What was even more tragic was that the traitors couldn't avoid ruin either.

The future humans couldn't recover the spaceship's power source, but the traitors couldn't break through the mountain range's Security Units and seize the spaceship's main body.

In the end, everyone lost civilization. The fate left to those who had dreamed of eternal glory was, at best, becoming primitive chiefs.

“It really did end in ruin for everyone....”

Silence settled over the room with Seung-yeop's hollow words.

After some time passed, Elena cautiously spoke.

“Not everyone was ruined.”

“What?”

“There was a winner. The humans in the mountains and the traitors both lost civilization and fell, but....”

“Adravita won.”

That was right.

After splitting the future human faction apart and bringing about its downfall, Adravita acquired the Human Growth Kits that could create Divine Humans, or Enhanced Humans. It became the true god of this hopeless world.

In a world filled with monsters, the chance of primitive humanity building a normal civilization approached zero. To survive, they had no choice but to rely on Divine Humans who descended from the sky.

The Demon God that created those Divine Humans and scattered them throughout the world was the one eternal being in this hell.

Once I reached that conclusion, I vaguely understood why Adravita had helped us too.

“I think I understand why Adravita is helping us now.”

Eun-sol looked deflated.

“It said it wanted to see a real ending, not the half-baked ending the hotel made....”

“From Adravita's perspective, this world is already a well-made farm of faith. But there's one source of uncertainty.”

“The spaceship itself.”

That was right.

The farm of faith was already complete, so there was no need for the spaceship to remain on this planet. Should it destroy it by force, then?

That would be dangerous. Even for a Demon God with boundless evil and endless schemes, the mighty power contained in a spaceship built by distant-future humanity that had crossed the galaxy to pioneer a planet must have been troublesome.

Though the Pride of Humanity had lost its power source and been crippled, the AI was still lurking in the mountain range with its Security Units.

So Adravita made another plan.

“It's telling us to leave. Take the power source back to the spaceship, repair it, and head back into space.”

Jin-cheol frowned.

“Then we can fight that bastard with a restored spaceship! The spaceship must have power that even the Demon God would fear-”

“Us?”

Jin-cheol looked momentarily lost for words at my question.

Eun-sol smiled bitterly.

“All these huge events that happened. They're miserable and sad, but to us, they're only another world's story viewed from a distance. Do we have any reason to risk our lives fighting the Demon God to avenge humanity that has already fallen?”

“...”

“It only helped us because we'd read this far.”

“...”

“Tomorrow, we'll take the Core and leave for the mountain range. If we say we're going to repair the spaceship, the AI won't stop us.”

“We're repairing it and heading back into space?”

“Doesn't that sound like the solution to this room? The AI is a being that wants to capture and kill Divine Humans, meaning us. That's why we received the escape judgment as soon as A-ri died. But if we repair the spaceship and head back into space....”

“The AI might also set aside its past resentment for the greater good. It isn't human, so it would approach this issue rationally. Then we would be moving toward ‘A New Beginning.’”

[Current Location: Level 2, Room 203, Curse Room ‘A New Beginning’]

Only now did I understand the meaning of Room 203's title.

We had to lead humanity, defeated by the Demon God, toward a new beginning.

* * *

After the meeting ended, everyone went to sleep early for the forced march that would begin tomorrow.

At that time, Lee Eun-sol gently poked Elena's sleeping cheek.

“Mmm....”

“Elena.”

“Mr. Ga-in?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“Ah!”

“Be quiet. You'll wake everyone.”

“... Yes.”

“I have something to ask while your memories are still clear.”

“...”

“What exactly did Seung-yeop do yesterday? I saw some of it, but....”

Footnotes:

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