Episode 33 - Room 103, Room of Curses - 'Atanasia's Human Farm' (2)
[User: ㅁㅁㅁㅁㅁㅁ
Date: Day ㅁㅁ
Current Location: Layer 1, Room 103 (Room of Curses - Atanasia's Human Farm)
Sage's Advice: 3]
I stand blankly, watching the people.
Enormous pure white structures, far too massive to take in at a single glance.
Between the structures, the beings we had thought were 'goblins' reveal their true forms as white giants with numerous tentacles, walking about busily.
Countless incomprehensible machines.
Some look like giant smartphones, others have forms that aren't even fixed and constantly shift.
One thing in common.
They all wore a silver bracelet on one of their tentacles.
Every time an eerie divine light flashed from the silver bracelets, changes occurred in the people.
Is it a tool to control humans?
In the spaces created by those structures, I could see people living within their respective illusions, each wearing something like a restraint around their necks.
Perhaps at first, they are assigned a 'human role' and live within illusions.
Then, as their souls are gradually sucked dry, at some point they become trapped in the bodies of beasts, and ultimately they are consumed, assigned only the role of a being whose intelligence has degraded to less than that of an insect.
I am truly witnessing a world where humans have become resources.
The last day of the animal farm, now barely even a memory.
Everything collapsed, and the small rebellion we staged was swept away with a single gesture from the giants.
What if I had died then too?
At least I wouldn't have had to endure this life of suffering.
Cow, pig, cat, dog, snake, wolf, mouse — all crushed in an instant,
The moment they were assigned their 'new roles,'
Only the goose escaped from that cursed cycle.
The being that pulled me out was a pure white giant.
Only after quite some time had passed did I learn that he was called 'Theodous' by his companions.
Theodous reset the 'farm' and pulled out only me.
Why?
Unable to ask the giant with whom no conversation or communication was possible, I pondered endlessly alone.
'Affinity.'
The blessing I had received from the hotel.
The blessing of 'Affinity' made the bizarre monkeys not attack me on the first day, and this time it made the monster that devours human souls show me favor.
Perhaps the psychology that giant holds toward me is...
Like a person running a poultry farm who happens to see a particularly cute-looking chicken, pulls it out, and keeps it as a pet.
Humans slaughter chickens without cease, sending hundreds of thousands of chicks to grinders every day, but at the same time, many people also keep pet chickens.
If even humans are creatures with such complex facets, then beings that appear to clearly surpass humans could hardly be simple.
Within the range of metaphors I can comprehend, this is all I can come up with.
Should I call it fortunate?
Theodous didn't particularly abuse or torment me.
Rather, if I had to judge, he treated me like a cute pet, flicking my head lightly whenever he passed by, and before I knew it, some of the other giants started doing similar things.
Water and meals weren't provided in a degrading manner either; I just constantly received something like an energy bar of ordinary taste and water in a cup.
I suppose, if my guess is correct, I'm probably a pet.
There aren't many people in the world who would abuse a pet they went out of their way to rescue from a poultry farm.
If all of this is because of the blessing the hotel gave me, then I truly received an incredible blessing.
----------Beep
A signal tone ringing throughout the building.
Now, I know the meaning of that sound too.
The silver bracelets of the giants wandering the structures emit a pure white radiance,
And countless humans, each trapped in their own world, their own illusions, come walking out.
Even the moment they walk out like this —
They were still lost in their illusions.
Their minds still trapped in endless illusions while their bodies move on their own, waiting for their turn to be 'harvested.'
After some time, a gray giant with a bizarre form appeared.
While the other giants generally had humanoid forms with multiple tentacles instead of arms,
That being didn't even have legs; it was just a form with countless tentacles attached.
Like a body with nothing but tentacles, as if a spider or starfish had been enlarged about a million times.
What on earth is it?
Why is only that being so different from the other giants?
Even the 'Teacher' didn't know. Actually, the Teacher's circumstances weren't fundamentally much different from mine.
It was just that, having been confined in this facility for an incomparably longer time than me, the Teacher had come to know more facts.
Tentacles stretched out and pierced through people's heads.
At first I almost cried watching it, but now I just find it curious.
Why doesn't a single drop of blood come out when a person's head is pierced?
And there should be nothing but a brain inside a person's head,
How does that tentacle extract 'something like that' from a head?
Something like that.
A pale, grayish mass.
At a glance, it looks like a tiny cloud,
Or seen another way, like a radiant stone emitting light.
Outwardly, it's a strange something that seems to have the characteristics of liquid, solid, and gas all mixed together at once.
'Fragment of Reason' 'The seam between Soul and Body'
That's how the Teacher described it.
If explained complexly, it becomes endlessly complex, but simply put, the more of that is extracted, the more human intelligence is squeezed out, drawing closer to the intelligence of vermin.
That, they say, is the reason the giants of this world, the 'Atanasia,' raise humans.
Actually, I'm told there are quite a few farms where beings other than humans are squeezed, but I've never been to any.
Because I always only move between the human farm and the underground (I named it underground on my own whim).
If I were alone, I would have had no way to know what that was forever.
Because even I didn't know at all until the 'Teacher' told me.
From humans who still possessed high intelligence, they extracted reason,
And I vaguely watched as humans whose intelligence gradually dropped to the level of beasts and whose productivity declined were 'disposed of.'
How long must I continue watching such things?
Time flows endlessly.
It's not even clear how many days have passed. I think I counted up to 10 days...
This white desert where everything is dyed in white light, the hell of emotionless people.
Counting the days itself was painful, so I gave up.
------Vwooooooom
A humming machine sound. I've heard it so many times now it's familiar.
When that sound occurs, Theodous always appears.
Ah, thank goodness.
The single reason I can still hold onto my sanity and endure in this hell.
The only being I can communicate with.
It's time to see the 'Teacher.'
Every time I go underground, there's something I'm curious about.
Of course, I'm not even sure if the place I'm going is underground to begin with, but assuming it is, how exactly do the 'Atanasia' move?
When the silver bracelet at the tip of Theodous's tentacle flashes, my location has already shifted.
Based on observation so far, the function of that silver bracelet is to twist the minds of intelligent beings like humans.
In other words, Theodous temporarily suppresses my mind each time and moves.
So strictly speaking, there's no way to know where I'm going, but the reason I call it underground is because the place I'm transported to is always dark.
A massive space with nothing but dim light sources
At least 20 or more Atanasia are operating gigantic machines that I cannot comprehend.
In the center of the room is something like a massive tank
Inside it...
There is something so overwhelmingly huge that it makes even the white giants look as small as fingers.
If a white giant's height is roughly 6 to 8 meters, that thing must be at least 50 meters.
By visual estimation, it's actually impossible to gauge its size at all.
Beautiful.
I always feel this, but the 'Teacher' is a creature of unbelievable beauty.
The true identity of the dim light source filling this massive room.
It emanates from the Teacher's body.
Like — an absurdly enormous whale with countless crystals jutting out,
And between the crystals, luminous powder endlessly floating.
From the outer perimeter of its body, something like unidentified creatures constantly emerge,
And soon are absorbed back again in repetition.
Rather than a single creature, it's a microcosm unto itself.
A cycle of samsara repeating endless birth and death.
With my inadequate powers of description, I simply cannot express it any other way.
But it was beautiful.
I feel as though that being is the most beautiful creature in the world.
Staring blankly at the single radiance that exists in this painful world for about 30 seconds —
I heard the 'Voice.'
My child... You came to see me again today.
Yes, Teacher. I came to see you again today.
Did you swim through suffering again today?
Today again, I watched people wither and die endlessly.
Suffering shall not be eternal. Endure and persevere. If you wait without letting them discover that your intelligence has been restored, the time shall come.
Restoration of intelligence. Strictly speaking, it would be more accurate to say that the 'extraction' of my intelligence had stopped.
I only learned this after meeting the Teacher, but the fact that the 'extraction' of my intelligence stopped in the first place was nothing more than coincidence.
Back when I was a goose on the farm, probably on the day the farmer tried to pluck my feathers, for some reason the restraint on my neck was microscopically damaged, and ever since then the extraction of my intelligence stopped.
But to use a poultry farm analogy, this would be like a chicken suddenly stopped laying eggs, so why wasn't I disposed of? I still don't understand that part.
More than that... when will that 'time' come when the suffering ends?
When, when will that time come? I'm always thinking. Could these beings be gods or demons?
To beings who toy with human minds with a single gesture and imprison them in an inescapable prison of illusions, could I ever escape?
In the eyes of a chick, an eagle is like a god, and in the eyes of a puppy, a human is like a god. Your salvation is not far off. For now, just sleep peacefully.
--------------Ah
As soon as I heard those words, my eyes grew rapidly heavy.
As I fell asleep, I prayed. Please, let the single remaining hope I have be realized.
So that the day may come when I can escape this farm of suffering and see everyone again...