CHAPTER 338: ROOM 203, CURSED ROOM - 'NEW BEGINNING' (18)

0% – Kim Sanghyun

– Roo-o-o!

The sound of a flute was heard.

My clouded mind cleared, allowing me to think more calmly.

Ironically, because of that, I could fight a little better.

“Haah!”

I twisted my head to the right to avoid the sharp energy the enemy was emitting while simultaneously extending my left hand and thrusting out a sharp bone spear that sprouted from my palm.

The opponent’s irritated voice was heard.

“Ugh! How on earth did you gain the power to make spears come out of your body? Are you Wolverine?”

Instead of answering, I rotated my body half a turn and struck the opponent’s upper body with my elbow. At that moment, she performed a strange falling technique and landed slowly behind.

Ahri seemed to slow her falling speed with a strange power, then suddenly emitted red mist from her entire body!

I thought I had no choice but to retreat and look for an opportunity-

I knew there was no need for that.

If my current body were that of a natural human, it would have been difficult to face such supernatural power even if I had mastered excellent martial arts through Diligence.

However, Adravita had bestowed upon me the power of a demigod.

The moment I leapt into the blood mist, sharp needles formed from all directions and pierced my entire body.

At that moment, my skin hardened like stone and blocked the onslaught of Ancient Blood.

The opponent’s bewildered voice burst out.

“What on earth is this power!?”

In the repeated exchanges, I realized. If we only fought with the power the malevolent god gave me and Ahri’s Ancient Blood, I would win!

The next moment, a blue light flashed in the mist. As soon as I recognized it, I had to immediately roll my entire body to the side.

...The flash didn’t come.

It was that power that was making this fight drag on.

No matter how much I pressured Ahri with the power of the robust body given by the malevolent god, she could turn me to ashes with a single point of her finger.

That was why I had to retreat time and time again with victory in sight.

Of course, Ahri’s situation wasn’t comfortable either. Paradoxically, she couldn’t shoot easily because if she missed, her defeat would practically be confirmed.

“Kyaah!”

As a sharp scream was heard, Ahri’s head immediately turned in that direction.

Eunsol was rolling her body to avoid a whip with sharp teeth.

Seungyub, wearing the Protective Suit, shouted and grappled with the monster, but he didn’t seem able to endure for long.

She picked up the flute again while bleeding from her leg.

Ahri sighed in relief seeing that sight.

As if that flute contained the key to overcoming this room.

– Roo-oo-oo!

The sound of a flute was heard.

I felt a strange sensation of the flute sound digging deep into my brain, reversing each rotted and decayed brain cell.

I recalled memories from long ago.

Memories from when the “family” I gained in Room 203 was still alive, before my body rotted and decayed.

The face and voice of a woman I had forgotten long ago came to mind.

The children she bore vaguely came to mind.

A conversation I had with someone, or was it a written conversation?

The other person seemed to have great difficulty speaking human words with their mouth or “beak”.

***— Doctor, marriage and childbirth are certainly things to celebrate, but I’m worried. Please don’t forget that we must leave this room someday.

—  □□□□□□, we need forces. Didn’t I explain what we’re going to do?

— I’m worried about you.

***Huh!

Such a mistake in the middle of battle! If the opponent had tried to cut my neck, they could have done it ten times by now!

“...Why didn’t you attack?”

“The Flute of Peace seems to be having an effect.”

“Effect?”

“What are you thinking about? You seem to be lost in memories.”

I couldn’t answer.

Memories that were clearly mine but that I couldn’t recall were returning, gradually confusing my mind.

“Sanghyun, listen to me for a moment.”

“...”

“The final blow that broke you mentally was because of those people, right?”

Ahri quietly stretched out her hand and pointed all around.

The field was full of terrible monsters that looked as if an elementary school student had randomly kneaded flesh-like clay.

“The trigger the malevolent god left in the primitive humans has activated. You probably thought your efforts to resist Adravita were meaningless when you saw that...”

“...”

“I don’t think so. It’s not an emotional story, there’s a logical basis.”

“Logical basis...”

“First, the problem has only occurred with the soldiers who came this far. It seems the Convict’s power becomes especially strong in this place. The people in the city are still fine.”

“...”

“Come to think of it, you know this too. You experienced this 70 years ago, right? When you returned to the city then, the people in the city were fine, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Second, they can marry ‘humans’ and leave descendants. You know that best. Biologically, what does it mean that they can leave descendants? It means that if we look at the concept of the human species broadly, they’re included too.”

“Ahri, are you saying those words sincerely? Or is it just to persuade me?”

“Is there a need to distinguish that? What’s important is that there’s still a possibility of ‘resolution’ left. The City of Light, humanity’s new beginning, is still intact. The problem is...”

Ahri looked around for a moment and sighed.

Was it because the flute sound that had been heard for a while cleared my mind?

I seemed to know what her concern was.

Let’s say the resolution condition for Room 203 was “humanity’s new beginning” like the room’s title. The city that would be the foundation of the beginning had already been created.

The problem was that the world was full of monsters threatening the young civilization that hadn’t developed sufficiently, and the hatchery, the source of those monsters, remained.

According to the original plan, we were going to push away the hatchery with the power of the legion we brought this far and the remaining power of the hotel party, but that plan went awry as that very legion collapsed under the malevolent god’s power.

How on earth should we destroy the hatchery?

– Roo-oo-oo!

The sound of a flute was heard.

Once again, I recalled memories from long ago.

Cha Jinchul, who fought to save everyone from the spaceship, died.

Seeing the monsters rushing in from all around, I despaired and despaired again.

I couldn’t overcome it.

Alone, I had no way to deal with those monsters.

I, too, would become a frozen pollack stuck in cryosleep, rotting and decaying for eons of time...

At the moment I gave up everything, a miracle occurred. The miracle approached in the form of a bird.

“I’m recalling something from long ago.”

“Did you remember something?”

“It’s the story of when Jinchul and I were fighting to save you all. I couldn’t recall it earlier, but actually, we achieved some success at that time.”

“Success?”

“I told you earlier that the spaceship had dismantled and absorbed a considerable number of security units to depart, right?”

“Yes.”

“But why couldn’t it depart?”

Ahri’s mouth opened halfway.

“Ah?”

“You hadn’t thought about this part? It’s nothing special. Jinchul and I separated the spaceship’s core again.”

“The core. Come to think of it, the core could move on its own, right? Where is it?”

– Roo-oo-oo!

The sound of a flute was heard.

The incomprehensible melody finally drew out the most painful memory encompassing 300 years.

The memory of when I... collapsed.

Tears flowed down.

“Ahri, this room is a painful place. You can’t imagine how many, really how many terrible things I’ve been through.”

“...”

“But I could endure for about 200 years. Do you know why?”

“...”

“Because I wasn’t alone.”

Even after Jinchul disappeared, I had one more companion.

There was someone who could endure eons of time even after losing their body.

“Do you know? Even if a person enters a bird’s body, they can’t fly in the sky. It’s because the software for flight doesn’t exist in the human brain. But when a ‘very long time’ passes, it’s not always like that.”

“...”

“I recall memories of flight training with a bird that had human intellect. It was an unimaginably fun and enjoyable moment. So...”

“So?”

“The day his intellect collapsed, I collapsed with him.”

A clear flute sound was heard.

The screams of mutated humans heard from all around stopped.

There was a bird in the sky.

In front of the bird was a book.

***– ???

The sound of a flute was heard. I felt the end of a long nightmare.

I knew that the irreversible destruction that came after abusing the Grimoire while losing the “Status Window” had been nullified by another miraculous power.

Come to think of it, who am I?

What is the species of one born human, lived 20 years, then changed into a bird and lived 300 years?

I look at a book.

An enlightenment that transcended the frame of mortals brushed my tiny head.

Am I human? A bird? Such concerns are worthless and useless.

If one has truly accepted great wisdom, the physical body is merely clothes.

How can clothes that can be changed as needed define my essence?

As I turned my head, I saw a boy standing among the monsters petrified by the Power of Incarnation, looking at me with a dazed expression.

“That book! C-could it be!”

The woman holding the flute also looked at me with round eyes.

As I tapped the flute with my beak, she belatedly came to her senses and started playing the flute again.

I flew up.

Feeling the cool wind, I soared endlessly upward.

The endlessly high sky, a secret place not yet permitted to those who still walk the earth.

Those who could fly in the sky had no intelligence, yet those with intelligence could not fly in the sky.

Therefore, this place was the safest in the world.

That was why we hid an enormous power right in this place.

So that we could pass judgment at the final moment!

There was a sun in the sky.

At the moment of creation, there was another sun created by humans, not the real sun created by the great universe.

There was a sun that could purify the polluted land created by the false creator in a single moment.

My body flying towards the core slowly started to burn.

It was only natural since the core was a machine that endlessly emitted heat.

But there was no issue—after all, this would be my last flight.

The power I needed was enough to press a button once with my whole body.

– Beep!

***– Kim Ahri

The temperature of the atmosphere started to rise.

The “core” that had been even higher than the aurora covering the sky started falling to the ground!

People, monsters that were people until just now, monsters that were originally monsters—

All looked at the sun coming down from the sky with their souls gone.

At that moment, the voice of an infinitely tired man was heard.

“Shoot now.”

“What?”

“That thing, it won’t explode even if it hits the ground. Adravita set up aurora to block it and even made a buffer zone.”

“Y-you dropped it? Already?”

“Do you know how long 300 years is? You have no idea how many attempts I, no, ‘we’ made during that time.”

“...”

“We had the bomb, but no trigger.”

Raising my hand—I said what might be the last sentence of this room.

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

A single flash of light pierced the sun coming down from the sky.