WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈
Episode 440: Room 206, Curse Room - The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days Re (5)
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- Kim A-ri
After deciding to meet the prophet, the Cult's leadership brought the lay followers gathered for the assembly outside Paradise.
As always, the air outside Paradise was different from that of the cursed city.
Normally, the Cult members would enjoy the beautiful world outside with their purity restored, criticizing the Kadyrov Family for trapping everyone in that hellish city.
Today was different.
Everyone was looking at one young man instead of nature or the Kadyrov Family.
The prophet, Han Ga-in, was walking across the soft grass with the miners brought from the mine.
The miners looked dazed, as though they were seeing the world outside the city for the first time in their lives. When we approached, they must have grown wary, because they gathered around Ga-in.
Every action like that, like bodyguards or followers protecting him, showed what Ga-in meant to them.
While the Cult examined Ga-in, he examined the Cult.
He met my eyes at the front for a moment, then looked over the lay followers behind me.
He was probably searching for Kim Sang-hyeon, the Second-Class Citizen and Secret Agent hiding among them.
Soon, Sang-hyeon lightly tapped the ground with his foot, as if to say, I'm here.
Raymond broke the silence.
“I heard from Apostle A-ri. You received a Revelation?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us what it was?”
“Of course.”
Ga-in began vividly describing the overwhelming form of the Demon King he had seen in his dream.
Magic power that could drive an entire city mad in a single breath.
A massive hand that could crush Paradise in an instant.
He added that it had possessed an endless whirlpool of boiling impulses, and that it had felt less like a living creature than a cosmic disaster.
The lay followers listening from behind looked confused.
Ga-in's description of the Demon King was far too different from the image people in religious organizations usually associated with a divine being.
The Cult's leadership, on the other hand, began to tremble, their eyes widening.
It matched the records of the Demon King passed down through the Cult.
Of course it did.
Ga-in hadn't made that description up. It was a memory of fighting the Demon King himself and feeling its presence.
Naturally, there were skeptics too.
“Hey! Young man! It seems you happened to get your hands on the Cult's records somewhere.”
Ga-in replied calmly.
“Do you leave sacred records describing your god lying around on the roadside?”
“Ha! Of course not, but the Cult has a long history. Some records or scriptures could have leaked outside!”
“Hmm...”
Instead of arguing with the skeptic, Ga-in seemed to casually take a step back, then -
“Gasp!”
“Urgh! Wh-what was that?”
He used Teleportation to move about five meters backward.
The Wing Tattoo he'd received as a reward from the first-floor Gate Room was really useful at times like this.
Seeing once is worth hearing a hundred times.
Showing Teleportation once was far more convincing than declaring a hundred times that he was a prophet.
No wonder all those fake cult leaders out there prepared bizarre shows.
With clear proof of a “miracle” before them, Raymond spoke in admiration.
“I'll admit it. You do seem to possess something extraordinary.”
“It's not that I possess something extraordinary. Didn't I tell you the Demon King showed me a vision?”
“Who knows? There are others in the Cult besides you who possess special powers.”
With that, Raymond lightly clapped and let out a howl.
--- Gwooooo!
An inhuman sound wave, something no human vocal cords could ever produce, burst from Raymond's mouth.
The ordinary followers repeatedly collapsed to the ground, unable to keep their balance, while leaves rained down from trees in every direction.
I knew this old-timer had supernatural powers, but I hadn't known it was this kind of power.
What was the source of it?
Ga-in gave a bitter smile.
“You certainly have a powerful voice.”
“The Demon King once granted me a speck of power. It's nothing worth mentioning.”
“...”
“Possessing special power is not proof that one is a prophet.”
“...”
“Still, I admit that there is something special about you. Will you join the Cult? I promise you will be treated well.”
Raymond, one of the Cult's leaders, made an offer.
They acknowledged that Han Ga-in was an extraordinary person, but they possessed supernatural abilities too.
So rather than insisting he was the Demon King's prophet and trying to stand above them, he should become one of them.
...
What a pointless conversation.
We hadn't come here to divide up some tiny religious organization with extras like these.
I'd expected this much resistance.
Who would happily kneel just because someone suddenly told them to submit?
They had to be forced down.
And we had an Inheritance for exactly that.
“You are truly arrogant...”
Then the Sacred Sun appeared, radiating an authority that seemed capable of crushing all creation.
Even while its functions were inactive, the supernatural charisma emanating from the Sacred Sun was more than ordinary humans could bear.
The lay followers soon began collapsing, having lost their senses.
“Ah! G-Great Hand...”
Some even began crying out through tears.
“Argh! God! Crouching Savior!”
The Sacred Sun's charisma was this overwhelming to ordinary people.
...
A few weeks ago, Ga-in had summoned the Sacred Sun while everyone was gathered together.
How had we reacted then?
We'd felt pressured and fallen silent for a moment, but that was all.
Seeing the difference between our reaction and that of these truly ordinary people left me with mixed feelings.
Should I be glad that everyone had grown so much, or stay wary because we were drifting farther and farther from humanity...?
Then I noticed Sang-hyeon, who wore a similarly conflicted expression.
Everyone around him was rolling around on the ground and crying out, but he alone stood calmly, making him stand out.
For the brief instant our eyes met, we knew we were thinking similar thoughts.
That aside, I might get away with it, but it would be a problem if someone posing as a lay follower was the only one still perfectly fine.
When I made a show of slightly bowing at the waist, Sang-hyeon immediately caught on and threw himself onto the ground.
Emotion, shock, fear, passion, and madness.
As an intense storm of emotions raged through the area, Raymond and the other Cult leaders stared at Ga-in with drool spilling from their mouths.
Many elders even shed tears like the lay followers and cried out, “Prophet!”
“Whew... Is that enough?”
At this point, we could say the Demon King Cult was in our hands -
“No!”
Huh?
“Y-you fraud! Everyone, come to your senses! Open your eyes at once!”
Raymond suddenly spewed frantic hostility.
“Come to your senses! That bastard is a fake!”
As if they'd been waiting, nearby elders joined in, shouting in agreement.
What was this?
D-did this suddenly go wrong?
--- Gwooooo!
Raymond unleashed that same inhuman sound wave, this time several times stronger than before.
In an instant, it felt as though clubs were striking every inch of my body. Those enchanted by the Sacred Sun gradually began to regain their senses.
“You bastard! You wicked creature! Kill him at once!”
Hadn't Raymond been trying to recruit Ga-in just a moment ago, saying they'd give him a position?
Now Raymond had completely changed attitude and was screaming for Ga-in to be killed!
The lay followers were too flustered to know what to do, and Sang-hyeon and I looked equally bewildered.
Then Ga-in, the man at the center of all this chaos, suddenly knelt.
“Father... please forgive them.”
He began praying through tears!
Wasn't he a freshman at K University? Was he actually a freshman at an acting school?
He hadn't even shoved pieces of onion into his eyes, so how were tears pouring out like that?
This show hadn't been part of the plan!
“Father, please forgive them. They do not know what they are saying.”
When had Han Ga-in memorized that Bible verse?
This was confusing!
Things had suddenly gone strange and the plan had gone off course. The elders were acting bizarrely, and now Ga-in was too, making my head hurt even more.
“You bastard! Do you think I don't know you're an apostle of a heretical god? Do you know where you are-”
An apostle of a heretical god?
At that moment, Han Ga-in rose with a gloomy expression.
“Ah... the Crouching Savior has granted me a Revelation. There are so many here who have committed sins beyond forgiveness.”
The instant everyone's eyes turned toward Han Ga-in, a pitch-black Book appeared in midair.
“Thus, I have become a living whip. I am His claw and His fist!”
Only then did I vaguely understand what was happening.
I understood what Ga-in was trying to do.
Ga-in was trying to kill every “real” person here!
As the Unborn One's magic power seized the surrounding area in an instant, a scene straight out of a horror movie unfolded before us.
First, Raymond, who had been shouting at the top of their lungs, suddenly began strangling themself with their own hands.
“Ghk! Guhk!”
Next came the elders who had quietly tried to take Raymond's side.
Some of them possessed strange supernatural abilities, but they were not strong enough to resist the control of the Power of the Avatar.
“Gasp! Uegh!”
The Demon King Cult's leadership lost consciousness one after another as they suffocated.
Even after losing consciousness, they continued strangling themselves until the moment they died.
One.
Then another.
This time, two.
Then three.
Before long, dozens of corpses had fallen one after another across the ground.
The lay followers who had been moved by the prophet's arrival moments earlier were now overwhelmed by indescribable terror, praying for their lives.
Then someone grabbed my collar.
It was Sang-hyeon.
“W-what is happening?”
“...”
“Did you plan this much with Ga-in in advance?”
“No.”
We hadn't originally intended to purge the Cult's leadership like this.
A considerable number of them had supernatural abilities, so I thought they would be useful personnel.
“Th-this... This... What is this all of a sudden?”
His eyes were wide open, and his shirt was soaked in sweat.
Kim Sang-hyeon couldn't hide his extreme tension.
Ga-in was definitely our companion.
He had never once threatened us.
Even so...
The sight from moments ago flashed through my mind.
With a flick of his hand, hundreds of people lost their senses and rolled across the ground, eventually crying and praying.
With the opening of a Book, dozens of people strangled themselves to death.
Could a being like this really be called a fake cult leader?
“Sang-hyeon, calm down.”
“... The Power of the Avatar seems much stronger than before.”
“Yeah. I don't think he could control this many people at once before.”
“So I was... just a little surprised.”
“...”
“G-Ga-in was on my side even while suffering for hundreds of years in Room 203.”
Then someone grabbed my foot.
“A-Apostle A-ri! Please... Please save me!”
“Lloyd.”
How did Lloyd survive?
Ah, it looked like Ga-in had used up the Power of the Avatar.
“T-that man is a monster! Don't you know? He isn't a prophet! He's a monster!”
Like Raymond just before, certainty filled Lloyd's despairing eyes.
Lloyd was unshakably convinced that Han Ga-in was not the messiah the Cult had been waiting for.
“How did you know?”
“W-what? Apostle A-ri?”
“How did you know Ga-in was fake? Did the Demon King tell you?”
Lloyd stared at me with a vacant expression.
I reached out and grabbed Lloyd's throat.
“I'll admit it. You people were the real thing.”
“Ghk!”
“So you knew he was a fake as soon as Ga-in brought out the Sacred Sun.”
“Ugh!”
“Thank you. We got this part wrong. We won't make this mistake in the next Loop.”
--- Crack!
The “last” priest of the Demon King died.
Now, all that remained here were foolish humans who did not even know whom they served.
Then the false shepherd's voice rang out.
“Everyone, do not be afraid. Rise! A new dawn has broken, and we have only put new wine into new wineskins.”
With that, the Cult became ours.
Footnotes:
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