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Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 459: Room 206, Curse Room - The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days Re (21)

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[User: Han Ga-in (Wisdom)

Date: Day 521

Current Location: Room 206, Curse Room - ‘The Demon King Who Revives After 100 Days’

Sage’s Advice: 3]

- Han Ga-in

The moment I gained the name Ga-in Kadyrov, I realized something.

The job of a “dictator” was far more exhausting than I'd ever imagined!

What was a dictator, anyway?

A greedy politician who completely disregarded the separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers, then seized all that authority for himself.

And holding all the power meant every bit of it was my job.

The mountains of paperwork piled on my desk every morning, the endless demands Paradise sent to its ruler!

The moment I grasped this terrible truth, I came up with a brilliant idea.

“Ga-in Kadyrov, a moment ago-”

“Do not enter!”

“... Kadyrov?”

“A sacred revelation is descending upon me now.... The Great Will is whispering to me.”

The secretary had watched me play saint about twenty times already, but unlike before, didn't back down.

“... This isn't a report from the council or the administration. It's a report from the Enforcers.”

“Hey! Then you should've brought it in right away!”

Song-i had received a considerable portion of the mayor's authority and currently controlled the Enforcers. Grandpa Mook-seong was also an Enforcer.

In other words, an Enforcer report was effectively a report from my Hotel companions.

“... What about the revelation?”

“That letter is the revelation. Let me see it.”

The contents of the letter were somewhat surprising.

“I'll leave immediately, so get ready.”

“Understood.”

* * *

- Kadyrov, you bastards!

- I hope you get shot dead!

- You fucking demon!

It was a secret prison ordinary citizens couldn't access.

Furious voices rang out from every direction as I walked down the corridor.

The Enforcers on guard beat them or shocked them with electricity each time, but it wasn't enough to suppress their rage.

“...”

Paradise operated a facility like this because it had to offer sacrifices to Indomitable Reason every day.

Human sacrifice was naturally a secret known only to a very few, so they needed a secret prison outside the formal judicial process.

“...”

It was a necessary facility.

That was why Song-i and I hadn't abolished it even after taking control of the city.

“...”

The sacrifices were vicious criminals, not innocent citizens.

Considering Paradise's harsh laws, they were people who would've been executed anyway, even without Indomitable Reason.

That was true “in principle.”

But what was it really like?

The Secret Agents assigned to that duty were given quotas.

Did it make sense to expect them to regularly capture a set number of heinous criminals?

I didn't need to investigate each one to know that some had probably been brought here unjustly.

I'd known that in my head for a long time....

But seeing it with my own eyes left me feeling conflicted all over again.

“Ahem, Kadyrov. You must be careful from here onward. This is the area where we contain cultists.”

“I will.”

In the city, cultists meant the Demon King Cult.

--- Click!

When the door opened, I saw my companion in handcuffs.

“Ga-in, it's been a while.”

“It really has! Mister, you've had a hard time.”

“... Mister?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

After sending the nearby Enforcers away, which naturally wasn't a smooth process, Mister and I began talking.

“Ga-in, this is a story that serves as an appetizer before we get to the main subject.”

“An appetizer? What is it?”

“Why hasn't the mayor purged the Demon King Cult?”

“What?”

“Isn't it strange? The mayor knows the Demon King Cult exists.”

“...”

That was true.

The mayor and the city's leadership already knew about the Demon King Cult.

Why else would they have dispatched Secret Agents, including Mister Sang-hyeon, into the Cult?

“Because he lacks the power? Of course not. Because he doesn't know who the Cult's members are? The Secret Agents who infiltrated it reported all that long ago.”

“...”

“You seem to have guessed it.”

Why did the mayor leave the Demon King Cult alone when he knew it existed?

The answer was simple and cruel.

“Everything in Paradise is like a cogwheel. Everyone has their own role. Interestingly, that rule applies to the Demon King Cult as well.”

Everyone in the city had a role, and the Demon King Cult was no exception.

“To the mayor, the Demon King Cult is an excellent source of sacrifice candidates.”

Leon Kadyrov truly was a man of steel.

Of course, Song-i and I did similar things, but we weren't like Leon.

The only reason I could act like the mayor was because Room 206 wasn't fundamentally “my reality.”

Would I be able to act like this after returning to reality?

If it were necessary for humanity, could I offer even my family and friends to a demon without blinking?

I wasn't confident.

Unlike the mayor, I was someone who loved my family.

Not everyone could be as bloodless and heartless as the mayor.

That applied to the Secret Agents who captured sacrifices under the mayor's orders as well.

“Indomitable Reason demands sacrifices every day. Whenever there are too few sacrifices, bringing in innocent people places extreme stress on the agents responsible for that work.”

“... I know. The mayor's subordinates can't all be people like the mayor.”

“Well, I think the mayor is much the same. Have you not seen Miss A-ri and Agent Mook-seong? They aren't evil people without consciences.”

“...”

“Their conviction that the work was necessary simply suppressed their compassion. In any case, Paradise needs something ordinary cities do not.”

“...”

“You could call it emergency rations, or perhaps a livestock farm.”

Paradise needed a farm for sacrifices.

It needed prey it could regularly capture without any pangs of conscience.

“That is why the Demon King Cult has endured for nearly two hundred years. They are also necessary to the city.”

“...”

“You already knew, didn't you? You are a ruler now.”

“Yes.”

“I dragged out the introduction before getting to the point because I wanted to explain the relationship between the city and the Cult.”

Paradise needed the Demon King Cult.

It needed prey it could capture and kill whenever necessary without feeling guilty.

That was why the mayor didn't wipe out the Cult unless he had to.

The Cult hated the Kadyrov Family all the more for periodically killing them for nearly two hundred years.

A short while later, Mister explained in detail what had happened in the Sacred Domain.

“Hmm....”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes. I understand the Cult's history well enough, and the next part is interesting.”

The Demon King hadn't acted like a god from the beginning.

At first, it had simply been a natural disaster, a storm, a demon-like being. That matched the impression I'd formed after clashing with the Demon King in the first run.

Therefore, the Cult had served the Demon King because it hated the Order of Reason.

The interesting part came next.

After more than a century of being worshiped as a god, the Demon King changed at some point.

At least toward the Cult, it began acting like a real god.

It bestowed revelations upon believers and granted supernatural abilities through trials and rewards.

Wasn't that the sort of thing found only in ancient Greek and Roman mythology?

The moment I heard it, an insight struck me like lightning.

“When you think about it, this is a principle we already knew.”

“Is that so?”

“What happened in Deep Paradise during the latter half of the first run and in the second run: the Demon King pulled humanity's nightmares and terrible imaginings into reality.”

“The Demon King is originally like a mirror?”

The Demon King was originally an entity that reacted to human imagination.

Its power to bring ghost stories into reality was proof of that.

“I thought it only reacted to ominous imaginings, but that wasn't it. It reacted to Faith.”

“I think the same. Just as it reacted to humanity's ghost stories and created monsters, it reacted to Faith and performed miracles.”

“And all these phenomena are fundamentally because of the Ruler of Time, right?”

“What?”

The Doctor looked slightly flustered.

Apparently, the Doctor hadn't thought that far.

“I mean the principle by which Indomitable Reason imprisoned the Demon King. It isn't because Indomitable Reason is equal to the Demon King, is it?”

“That is true. In a contest of pure power, it would be even more absurd than a child overpowering a dinosaur through strength alone... Ah!”

Mister nodded as though he understood at last.

“Just as Indomitable Reason suppressed the Demon King with output hundreds of times greater because of time distortion, the same phenomenon occurred with the Demon King Cult?”

“The Demon King must have absorbed the Cult's accumulated ‘Faith’ all at once over an extremely short span of time. Could that be why this meaningful change occurred?”

“Good, very good. It feels like we're finally getting somewhere.”

“Mister. Please don't say things like that. It feels ominous.”

“Haha, I will refrain.”

Deep down, I agreed with Mister's opinion.

Just as Mister had predicted before the third run began, there really was something close to the answer within the Demon King Cult!

It finally felt as though we were approaching the solution to Room 206.

If the phenomenon caused by the Cult could be made to happen on a broader scale....

If all humanity worshiped the Demon King as a god!

“Ahem, hmm. Ga-in, this isn't important, but...”

“Yes?”

“Um, how about calling me Doctor instead of Mister?”

“...”

Suddenly, I wondered what the people who had gone down to Deep Paradise were doing.

Had they awakened Mi-ro by now?

* * *

- Mi-ro

...

...

...

「Sealing has been lifted!」

I woke up with the notification.

For the first time, I opened my eyes in Room 206.

And then....

I realized the world had stopped.

“... Um, A-ri?”

--- Rumble!

I lightly, very lightly, tapped A-ri's shoulder with my hand.

Then A-ri's entire body began flying away.

“Huh? Eek!”

Slowly, as though swimming through the air, she drifted toward the wall.

“Ahhh!”

I hurried over and grabbed A-ri's arm to set her down, but then...

--- Crack!

A-ri's arm broke!

“Eek!”

--- Whoosh!

This time, Seung-yeop was swept away by the shockwave from my scream and floated off.

I was scared that if I touched him for no reason, I might break Seung-yeop's arm too!

Either way, at that moment, I became certain.

--- Thump!

My blessing, Immutability, which I'd enhanced to Stage 2, was resisting the time delay in Deep Paradise.

In a world where everyone else moved slowly, I alone moved at normal speed?

Looking at it another way, it was no different from gaining super-acceleration!

--- Thump thump!

An unbelievable sense of omnipotence!

Trembling from an overwhelming feeling beyond words, I thought:

Had Lady Mi-ro finally become a god?

Ha, Hotel, didn't you make a huge mistake?

This was dangerous, so I needed to get away from my companions first.

--- Boom!

The moment I lightly started running so I could escape quickly, the Research Lab floor cracked, and my body slowly rose into the air.

“Phew....”

I took a deep breath and steadied myself.

Of course, the shockwave from that breath knocked Pero over.

What had the people going into the depths said during the meeting outside?

We needed to move as quickly as possible. Time flowed differently from the surface, so even a ten-minute delay might mean a whole day passed above, something like that.

That had nothing to do with me.

I had to move as slowly as possible instead.

“First.... Mm! Quiet!”

When I looked around, there were many enemies inside the Research Lab.

To the soldiers, it must have looked as though outside intruders had kidnapped the Director.

Should I clear out the Research Lab first?

As I moved toward the corridor, I saw soldiers confronting a tense Jin-cheol.

If they fought like this, even Jin-cheol couldn't avoid serious injuries.

I'll take care of it!

In the endlessly slowed world, I stood before the soldiers.

Then I shouted confidently.

“Get... out!”

That shout and a light stomp were enough.

--- Kaboom!

The shockwave from my mouth and the vibration from my stomp sent the soldiers flying in an instant!

“Hehe! Jin-cheol, once we get outside, you have to thank me... Mm!”

Ah, it was a mistake to speak while looking toward Jin-cheol.

Thanks to that, Jin-cheol had started flying backward.

It was okay.

Jin-cheol's sturdy body was one of his strengths.

Anyway!

That was how I cleared out the Research Lab.

Whenever I opened my mouth, people flew away. Every time I stomped, concrete crumbled.

A light flick of my finger pierced bulletproof vests and shattered bones.

The problem wasn't that the enemies were strong. I was so strong that controlling my strength was exhausting.

I couldn't believe it.

Really, I couldn't stand how great I was!

I cried.

I cried at my own greatness.

Almighty God-Mi-ro was so amazing that I cried!

I was a god.

I was God Mi-ro!

“Starting today, Rabbit Princess Mi-ro is a superhero!”

I...

“Huh?”

I knew instinctively.

The “Power of Immutability” I'd gained from enhancing my blessing had all vanished.

“...”

Th-the Power of Immutability was consumed in my place whenever I got hurt.

I hadn't been hurt, so why had it disappeared...

“...”

I realized it.

The blessing had only protected me from time delay. It hadn't made me as hard as stone!

The Power of Immutability had protected my body, which had accelerated hundreds of times over.

And now I'd used all that power up?

I couldn't move anymore.

“...”

Guys, A-ri.

I'm in big trouble.

Footnotes:

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