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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 438: Room 206, Curse Room - The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days Re (3)
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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)
Date: Day 384
Current Location: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’
Sage’s Advice: 3]
- Han Ga-in
The underground mine lay dark, its lights gone.
I led the miners onward at an easy, unhurried pace.
They had all worked here for a long time, so no one bumped into the walls even in the darkness.
Maybe the screams echoing through the mine were stirring up their fear.
The miners began to grow impatient.
“Gasp! Y-young man! Shouldn't we run?”
“I-I think so too!”
“If we run straight for about three minutes, then turn right, we'll find the cart!”
I spoke calmly, as if nothing were wrong.
“Aren't you tired from working in the mine all morning? Running will wear you out.”
By then, some of the miners looked close to tears.
“Hnnng... That's not the problem! We've been hearing horrible sounds from every direction-”
“Didn't I say you'd be fine?”
“That's-”
“Roy. If you doubt my words, go on alone.”
“...”
The miners fell silent.
“Have I forced you? Did anyone put bomb collars around your necks?”
“...”
“The choice is yours. Go your separate ways, or trust me.”
--- Rumble!
At that moment, another tremendous vibration echoed from somewhere in the mine.
The frightened miners shrank back like children, yet they still couldn't leave me.
Little by little, ‘Faith’ was beginning to take root in them.
“Believe. Faith will save you...”
Setting aside the act I was putting on for the miners, the periodic rumbling and vibrations were suspicious.
It felt as though some enormous, powerful being was shaking the ground, but nothing in the plan should have been making noises like that.
--- Splash!
“...”
“What is it, young man? Why did you stop?”
“Is something wrong? D-did you receive another revelation?”
“... No. Let's go.”
I stepped on a corpse, and a pool of blood soaked my foot.
It wasn't that I was suddenly trembling at the brutality.
The Hotel was the kind of place where you saw human flesh more often than beef.
I'd simply thought of a companion who hadn't hesitated to stain their hands with blood for a brutal performance.
“The cart should be coming into view soon. Put your minds at ease.”
“Y-yes! Did the great one perhaps say something-”
“Don't worry. You are safe.”
Let's put aside unnecessary thoughts.
The goal was to recruit some of the miners so we could begin building a force in earnest.
To turn people who had been ordinary miners until yesterday into fanatics, they needed an experience they would never forget.
For example, what if miners were dying at the hands of an unknown demon, only to escape with the help of a chosen one?
At some point, the miners had begun speaking to me respectfully.
“T-there's the cart! Light! I can see the way out!”
At last, the passage leading out of the mine appeared.
The moment they spotted the dim light filtering in from the passage, hope entered their terrified eyes.
And then-
--- Rumble!
The wall to the left of the passage collapsed, and the culprit behind the terror in the mine appeared.
A massive Enhancement Suit, nearly red from all the blood covering it.
The intense stench of flesh and organs stuck all over it.
Even the red glow pouring from the center of its helmet!
It was A-ri in a Protective Suit.
I had to admit, the moment I saw the thing before us, I nearly fell backward in shock myself, never mind the miners.
Even I, who'd come here knowing the plan beforehand, was startled by A-ri's appearance in that Protective Suit, like something that had crawled out of hell. How could people who had been ordinary miners until yesterday endure it?
Some screamed as if they had lost their minds. Others couldn't even scream and collapsed to the floor to pray.
“Aaah! Aaaaah-!”
“Urrghk! Kweeeek!”
“Almighty Progenitor, forgive the sinner Roy-”
The rumbling we'd been hearing all this time was A-ri smashing through the tunnels with the Protective Suit's weight and power?
Indomitable Reason couldn't suppress the Protective Suit?
But it suppressed the Wing Boots?
This was different from the plan we'd discussed outside.
Originally, A-ri was supposed to bring the Demon King worshipers into the mine-
“...”
I calmed myself and tried to stay composed.
The terrified miners were all looking at me.
If I showed panic now, all the charisma I'd built up would collapse in an instant.
Could a prophet sent by God be startled by something like this?
I stepped forward calmly.
As if I'd anticipated this turn of events all along, as if a great being had told me everything.
“You... One born from the city's darkness.”
I threw out whatever words came to mind.
One born from the city's darkness. What impressive-sounding words could I put next?
“Why do you block my path and flaunt your crude power before me?”
I could vaguely see A-ri's face through the bloodstained helmet.
“Stand aside! Faith shall save us, and no matter how corrupt a devil may be, it cannot harm sheep who obey without doubt.”
With those words, I thrust both hands forward.
As if an unknown palm blast would shoot from my hands!
“...”
A-ri wore a blank expression that clearly said, What the hell is this?
“Stand aside!”
This time, I thrust my hands out even more dramatically.
“...”
No, what was A-ri doing?
Didn't A-ri know what a palm blast was? A palm blast?
How could we be this out of sync?
When God's apostle thrusts out his hands like this!
A-ri should roll backward as though blown away by an invisible gust of wind!
“... Ah.”
--- Thunk! Clatter!
“Kyaaaaaah!”
A-ri finally rolled backward, making a strange noise.
The path out of the mine had opened.
“The path is open!”
“Ooh! W-what kind of miracle was that just now-”
“We'll talk outside. Everyone, follow me!”
As I watched the miners, half out of their minds and overjoyed to be alive, I thought to myself.
Thankfully, it seemed nobody had noticed anything strange about our clumsy performance.
They were gradually becoming sheep who obeyed without doubt.
* * *
Chaos had already broken out outside the mine.
The miners lucky enough to be near an exit had spread word of what had happened underground.
The mine manager and Enforcers questioned the miners who had escaped from below, but they got little from them.
To begin with, I was the only miner who knew the truth.
The other miners, terrified out of their wits, eagerly babbled about the demon underground, confusing the manager and Enforcers even more.
Then, within just a few hours, the faithful ones who had been transformed into entirely different people came to me.
“Ga-in-nim, what should we do now?”
“Do not worry. You have demonstrated steadfast faith, so the Lord's guidance will come soon.”
Confusion, curiosity, fear, and anticipation.
I looked into the eyes of my followers, filled with complicated emotions.
I took the hand of one of them, Robert.
“W-why all of a sudden-”
“Robert. What has your life been like until now?”
“Pardon? M-my life? Well, I-”
I stared at Robert as though I could see through him.
“You don't know who your parents were, and you grew up in an orphanage in District 7 until you were eleven. Your first job wasn't at the mine. You worked at a canned food factory. After making a few mistakes there, you were sent to the harsher mine.”
As I recited a past Robert had never told me about, he stood there with his mouth half-open, drool spilling from it.
“H-how do you know that!”
How else? You had a drink and told me all about it in the previous run.
“What a pathetic life.”
Robert's expression hardened at the sudden insult.
“A typical Fourth-Class Citizen's life, no different from a cog in a factory. You have never decided the direction of your own life. You've simply lived like an animal, doing as those above you commanded and wasting your life away.”
“H-hey! I know you're someone special, but-”
I raised my head and met the eyes of the other miners one by one.
“The lowest status in Paradise. Endless, brutal labor. You work yourselves to the bone for over ten hours every day, yet you've never had a single piece of quality meat or slept in a soft bed. This is your life.”
There were many people living lives like this outside the Curse Room too.
The world I'd lived in was no different.
“All of that describes who you were until yesterday.”
For the first time, a faint light entered the eyes of the destitute and starving.
“The Lord delivered a revelation yesterday. You saw it, didn't you? You saw the power that saved you from the demon's hands.”
The people repeatedly nodded with vacant expressions.
A life of endless daily suffering with no reward.
The suffering of being mercilessly ground down for the comfort of people in the upper classes of developed nations.
Perhaps it was an unavoidable fate, since they had been born into the lowest class...
Even people like them had dreams in their hearts.
They longed for a miracle to happen one day, for their endless suffering to end.
“Obey. Faith will save you.”
That was why people believed in religion.
* * *
Late that night, I slipped out of the lodgings with the help of the faithful little lambs.
When I reached the meeting place, A-ri was leaning against a concrete structure beside a gap.
“You're late.”
In the previous run and this one, A-ri had freely moved around the mine area as if using Teleportation.
“You can't use supernatural powers right now, can you?”
“No.”
“How do you keep appearing everywhere like this?”
“The Demon King Cult knows the terrain beneath Paradise better than even the Enforcers.”
“Does that passage connect to the mine too?”
“Let's just say it does.”
It seemed the explanation would be complicated.
“Fine. A-ri, the next plan is-”
“Hey. What the hell was that earlier?”
A-ri suddenly cut me off and mimed waving both hands through the air.
It was the motion I'd made during the miracle show in the underground mine.
“You don't know that? It was a palm blast! A palm blast!”
“... A palm blast?”
“When you thrust your hands into the air like this! A blast of invisible wind shoots out and sends an evil being flying backward-”
“No, why would you make such a ridiculous move?”
“Ridiculous?”
“Don't you usually like chanting something that sounds like a spell? I was waiting for a line like, ‘Thus says the Lord, corrupt one, return to the darkness!’”
“That would be too childish.”
A-ri reacted as though that was absurd.
“But palm blasts aren't childish?”
“From now on, let's settle on specific moves.”
“...”
“When I thrust both hands forward, that's a palm blast! Roll backward.”
“...”
“Spells are fine too. If I say, ‘Corrupt one risen from the darkness! Return at once to the pit of hell!’ then fall to the ground and pass out.”
“...”
“Ah, this works too. If I spin around once and say, ‘Father in heaven!’ then-”
“Why am I the one doing all the hard work while you get all the cool parts, Ga-in?”
“...”
My meeting with A-ri continued late into the night.
Footnotes:
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