Episode 24 - Room 102, The Cursed Room - 'Mansion of Terror' (10) FIN
Creeeeeak.
I pushed open the front doors of the mansion and stepped inside.
Ah, I really didn't want to come back here.
Living as an incompetent maid in this exhausting mansion was truly tedious.
Still... it's almost over now. Just a half-step away from escape.
Only one thing left, and of course it had to be the most painful one.
Just moments ago, Gain drew the 'Elder's' attention and left.
Walking through the empty mansion, I recalled the memories from a few hours ago.
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"Stop... stop it. What kind of look is that?"
"You couldn't make a decision, so I was trying to help, but you're stubbornly resisting.
If you just accepted it, it would've ended easily for both of us."
"I have a better plan!"
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A better plan.
Compared to the 100% guaranteed escape method of 'immediate suicide,' it has its own risks...
But truthfully, I can't just endure by doing only safe things in this hotel.
If something is worth obtaining, taking risks is actually safer in the long run.
So I was persuaded by his plan.
Since entering the mansion, this was the first time I'd been alone like this.
It really is spacious. Perhaps I feel it more intensely because I'm in a child's body.
As I kept walking, I naturally arrived at the 'Elder's' study.
This must be the place.
My memory isn't clear.
According to the memories of the 'injected personality' from the hotel, the bride's granddaughter came to persuade the Elder in the past,
but her mind collapsed after seeing 'something' the Elder showed her.
And then the bride's submission. As compensation, the Elder restored the granddaughter...
During the recovery process, the granddaughter's memory of that 'something' she had seen also grew hazy.
Originally, crushing that memory was the recovery process itself.
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"I'm not saying we shouldn't die. I'm saying we should do what we need to do before dying."
"Is there something more you want to do?"
"When I saw the message that appeared after leaving Room 101, I had a suspicion...
But after playing a card game with you recently, I became certain.
Escape isn't the end of the 'Cursed Room.' It's just a means.
By somehow having at least one person escape while repeatedly attempting and exploring the Cursed Room,
we ultimately eliminate the 'source of the curse,' right?
So even if we die, we need to uncover at least a little before we do."
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I decided to go to what might be the most horrific death in the world.
Entering the study, I saw piles of documents scattered in disarray.
Where was it? My memory is fuzzy. Definitely... probably around here?
Lifting the painting on the wall, a lever appeared. How classically subtle.
When I pulled the lever, a bookshelf rotated as expected, revealing a wooden door.
Beyond the door, stairs came into view. So many stairs that the end was nowhere in sight.
Not even any lighting.
I have to go down something like that.
I've seen all kinds of horrors in the world countless times.
But experiencing something multiple times doesn't mean you get used to it.
Stairs. Endlessly descending, descending further. The edge of hell.
The air rising from even deeper below felt like it was corroding every corner of my lungs.
How long have I been descending? At least an hour must have passed, but I can't be sure.
In a place like this, your sense of time naturally grows hazy.
At the end of the stairs, a bluish glow appeared for the first time.
Beneath the glow was a nearly rusted, crumbling old iron door.
Forcing the door open and stepping inside—
There was a book emitting a bluish glow.
The moment I saw it, I knew. That's it.
That must be the final reward of this room.
The moment I touch that, I'll learn something and die horribly.
But I can't just go back up now, so I have no choice.
The exterior of the book was ordinary. A cover of unidentified black leather.
Unidentifiable characters engraved upon it.
I opened the book. Darkness—overwhelmed me.
Falling endlessly.
A bottomless pit. Eternal freefall.
A place where even after falling for ten million years, you cannot reach the bottom.
Just as there is nothing north of the North Pole and every direction is south—
Here there is no beginning or end, no distinction between above and below.
Every direction is 'down.'
There's clearly no light source, yet strangely, the shapes on the walls are visible.
Black, red, writhing walls. An abomination like the innards of a living creature.
I am nothing but a bug falling through the innards of a creature.
For an incomprehensible reason, the fall stopped midair.
Something is visible in the distance.
How far away is it? I don't know. It seems enormously far, yet I can make out its shape.
Perhaps it's closer than I think. Or maybe it's just that massive? I can't tell.
I see a writhing shape. Like a bug crawling up the outer wall without stopping for even a moment.
Every time its arm touches the outer wall, the arm melts away, and yet again an arm endlessly sprouts forth.
Ah, this is like a parasite crawling through innards.
The sensation of hundreds of millions of bugs crawling, filling my stomach.
Disgust boils up from my innards.
Let me force myself to think of something else.
The mansion—no, most of this hotel is fake.
The mansion, the mountains, the rivers, everything is merely a stage molded by the hotel like clay.
But even in movies, the actors on the stage exist in reality.
There is something 'real' in the hotel.
Why was the hotel created?
Someone said it's a process to draw heroes from trials.
Someone said it's a process to give great treasures to the worthy.
Perhaps, the hotel is a breeding ground.
A hell that eternally imprisons monsters that cannot be released into the world,
periodically feeding them humans as fodder to manage them.
The gaze of the crawling shape turns toward me.
Did it originally have eyes? It wouldn't need something like eyes in this place, so did it create them?
That thing is what the 'Elder' worshipped as a god.
How ridiculous.
In the eyes of an ant, even a chicken looks like a god.
But in the end, once it falls into human hands, it's just a single meal.
No matter how great it seems, it's ultimately nothing but a wretched abomination trapped in the innards of an even more distant existence.
I feel everything in my field of vision crumbling.
Now, the real limit has come.
The moment I forcibly turned my gaze upward, something that surged from the 'innards' approached.
Making me do something this horrific and calling it a 'better plan.'
Once I get out, I'm definitely going to punch him hard.
The long night at the mansion has ended.
/You have successfully escaped! Unauthorized participation! It was clearly a rule violation, so you started at a disadvantage with disciplinary action.
Despite that, you did your best, and at the crucial moment, you helped a participant.
That strategy of choosing to kill the sacrifice instead of the devil without mercy! However, there are moments when such decisiveness is necessary.
With this, the consciousness of the mansion owner tainted by evil has failed.
You have escaped the curse. However, you still sense that the source of the curse remains.
A successful escapee has emerged among the companions! Congratulations! With a successful escapee emerging, all members return safely./
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 8
Current Location: Layer 1, Corridor
Sage's Advice: 0]
Feeling a dizzying sensation, I rose from my spot.
Just like when I came out of Room 101, it felt like I had been suddenly thrown out the door, fainted, and then come to.
Looking around, I saw '7' people struggling similarly to me.
Elena, Cha Jin-cheol, Lee Eun-sol, Yu Song-i, Park Seung-yeop. And the 2 people I now needed to have a long conversation with.
Scenes of people dying miserably in the hotel came to mind. My heart pounded fiercely without me realizing, and I felt a lump in my throat.
Elena dying by strangulation, Eun-sol unnie dying pierced by a skewer, Jin-cheol hyung dying from poison, me committing suicide with a dagger. How did Seung-yeop die?
But I pushed such horrific recollections aside.
This was the moment. Right this moment.
How much I had longed for the moment we would all leave our rooms and meet again with smiles...
Today, the meal at the hotel will probably be a sea of tears.
Even I felt my eyes grow moist as a lump rose in my throat.
Ah, come to think of it, one curiosity was resolved.
Even if the moments of death in the Cursed Room were different for everyone, we all come out at the same time.
Of course, this is just the beginning. We now have so many questions to resolve with each other.
Setting aside the secrets the hotel holds, there's simply too much we don't know about each other.
Just as I was thinking through the points we needed to uncover step by step—
Someone approached.
A familiar figure I'd seen throughout the mansion. So their appearance was similar to their form in the mansion.
"You're awake? Is your... name the same? I mean—"
A spicy fist flew without mercy. I ended up falling to the floor again.
Author's Note (Afterword)
The first long-form episode (though it's only 10 chapters) of this novel has ended. The next episode will have some explanation before proceeding with the next story.
Always grateful to those who are reading.