Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 445
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EP.445 Episode 445 – Room 206, The Cursed Room – ‘The Demon King Resurrects After 100 Days’ Re (10)
Episode 445 – Room 206, The Cursed Room – ‘The Demon King Resurrects After 100 Days’ Re (10)
– Kim Ari
“This station is a place for sashimi, sashimi. Customers, please take off your clothes and show your bare skin.”
“What are these perverts talking about now?”
When Cha Jin-cheol shouted in amazement, I had a thought.
From the ‘white figure moving around’ from before to the announcement from the train saying ‘This station is a transfer station’.
Haven’t you both heard this story somewhere?
It’s a very famous Japanese urban legend!
The first one is ‘Kunekune’ and the second one is ‘Monkey Dream’.
The contents of the ghost story also came to mind faintly.
“If this is a monkey’s dream!”
“What dream? Ari, don’t talk about things that only you know.”
“There’s got to be a monster with a knife beyond the door! Those guys -”
— Squeak!
The door to the back compartment opened.
Sure enough, a dwarf wearing a strange cone-shaped hat appeared, just as the monkey had dreamed.
A playful, cruel expression and tattered clothes like rags.
In both hands, there are shining blades!
“Huh! You don’t think I’d be scared just because of a small knife!”
Not only Cha Jin-cheol, who is full of energy, but even Seung-yeop doesn’t seem that scared.
Aren’t we past the time when we should be scared by a few dwarves with swords?
Besides, we didn’t come naked.
— Bang! Bang!
While Seungyeop was pressed against the wall, Jincheol Cha and I repeatedly pulled the trigger of the rifle we brought from Paradise.
As disgusting as the dwarves were as they snickered while turning into blood clots, the power of the rifle was still there.
“What did you say just now? What dream?”
“Monkey dream.”
“It’s nothing. It’s a waste of bullets.”
“It’s definitely a waste of bullets. This is a dream to begin with, so there’s no need to fight -”
“I’ll tell you again. This station is Hoetgi, Hoetgi Station.”
“…”
“…”
It wasn’t the end.
I thought I heard a rattling noise throughout the train, and then I started to feel vibrations from the back along with a foul smell.
“I think the monster… is coming again.”
It’s definitely bigger this time!
“Everyone, pay attention! This is a dream. We are in a nightmare!”
“Dream? Oh, so that’s why you said it was a monkey dream earlier? Then, should I wake up? How do I wake up?”
Could it be because I had just recently experienced a nightmare of unknown origins?
My colleagues reacted quickly.
We all started doing what we call RC checks (Reality Checks) to really hammer home to our brains that ‘this is a dream’!
There was chaos as people bent their fingers at bizarre angles, held their noses while breathing, and did other ‘impossible moves’.
The RC check itself is a method used by agents of the Management Bureau who frequently experience supernatural phenomena, so there were no problems with the response itself.
The problem is that Cha Jin-cheol’s fingers regenerate as if nothing happened even after being broken twice, and Yu-mi starts breathing through her skin when her nose is blocked – what on earth did this guy do to her body?
After a moment of everyone unintentionally admiring each other’s ‘monstrousness’, everyone’s expressions hardened.
“No matter how special our bodies are, is it normal for them to not wake up like this?”
“… No. It’s just the content of this ghost story, the monkey dream, that’s the problem.”
“What’s the content?”
In the monkey dream ghost story, the ‘narrator’ is a being who can freely wake up from the dream if he realizes that it is a dream.
However, the speaker who was caught up in the nightmare did not wake up easily.
“… the ghost story includes the line, ‘Even if you know it’s a dream, it’s hard to wake up.’”
“What the fuck!”
“I’ll tell you again. This station is Hoetgi, Hoetgi Station.”
The ominous message is heard again.
Finally, Yumi grabbed Seungyeop’s hand with a nervous expression.
“Huh? Yu, Yumiya?”
“It looks like you need shock therapy to wake up from the dream. It might be different if you physically break a normal person’s finger.”
“Huh? Huh?”
“I’ll break it.”
“Hey hey hey! This, this is not -”
“Prince, wake up first and wake us up.”
“Eww!”
The moment when the girl, with a cold expression on her face, was about to break poor Seungyeop’s fingers.
Suddenly, a bright light appeared behind her and Eunsol fell to the floor.
“Huh? Sister?”
“What? Hey! Ariya! Why did your sister collapse?”
“The monster hasn’t even entered our cell yet, what the heck -”
— Hug!
“uh?”
I feel like someone is pinching me hard.
Soon, Jincheol and Seungyeop opened their eyes wide and caressed each other’s cheeks.
Clearly I am here and no one is touching me, but I can feel the pinching sensation clearly.
This is what it means….
Eunsol woke up.
‘Everyone, wake up!’
…
“ah.”
When I came to, I was awake in a crevice of rusty iron debris.
Eunsol was waking up the people lying on the floor one by one.
“Eunsol, how did you wake up just now?”
Just a moment ago, we knew we were in a dream, but we couldn’t wake up easily.
This is because even ‘it is difficult to wake up from a dream even if you know it is a dream’ is included in the content of ‘Monkey Dream’.
But how did Eunsol wake up?
“With the power of a butterfly.”
“A butterfly dream?”
“The problem is that the content of the dream itself is a dream that is difficult to wake up from.”
“that’s right.”
“So I put a butterfly in my body and changed the content of the nightmare.”
“What is it about?”
“I had a dream about falling from a building. I woke up the moment my head hit the floor.”
It’s a bit surprising, but it seems like Eunsol has also become an agent of the management bureau.
*
Is it because I am the owner of luck?
Although he had a hard time because of the monkey dream, Seungyeop’s idea to check out the inside of the train was successful.
Because there was actually a half-rotted route map inside the train.
“… That’s ridiculous. This is just a piece of paper. It’s been over 100 years since we lost contact with the underground.”
As Eunsol said, it was strange, but the route map was still legible.
Thanks to this, we were able to find our way through the dark underground city.
Basically, just follow the tracks, but when the tracks branch off here and there, refer to the route map.
“The white figure that Eunsol found earlier is called ‘Kunekune.’ The train from earlier was called ‘Monkey Dream.’ Both are Japanese urban legends, and they’re very famous. Has anyone heard of them?”
Everyone shook their heads.
It is unclear whether this is because they have lived in different worlds, or whether they simply had no interest in such urban legends before entering the hotel.
At that moment, Eunsol smiled bitterly.
“Kuni Kuni? I don’t know about that, but I understand that.”
“That?”
“That.”
After about a minute, I could figure out what ‘that’ Eunsol was talking about.
A beautiful woman wearing a pure white one-piece dress that doesn’t fit in the dark and murky underground city.
She appeared wearing a ‘red mask’.
Cha Jin-cheol stepped forward.
“Hohoho…!”
“…”
“Excuse me… Sir. I -”
“Is it pretty?”
“…”
“Is it pretty? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Am I pretty?”
“No? You’re so ugly?”
“What the heck -”
— Boom!
“Mirror! Look in the mirror, you bitch! Look at your vicious face -”
While the ridiculous fight going on in front of me was going on, I continued my conversation with Eunsol.
“Kunekune, after the monkey dream, now the red mask. Isn’t that too weird?”
“What’s weird? I mean, Ga-in told me about her experience fighting the ‘Devil King’.”
“A whirlpool of endless impulses, a collection of malicious imaginations.”
“Yeah. That’s what it felt like. I think the Demon King is a being that magically manipulates the horrific imaginations of humans. If it’s a famous urban legend like you said, wouldn’t he be able to bring it to life?”
“Eunsol, I’m not surprised that the Demon King can do something like this.”
“what?”
“What year is it in this world?”
According to the history of Paradise, the known world was destroyed about 180 years ago.
This world is a twisted future of Earth, meaning the present time is approximately the year 2200.
Only then did Eunsol understand what I meant.
“Monkey Dream, Kunekune. This kind of ghost story must have been famous in the 2000s… . In terms of Paradise, this story was famous 200 years ago. Isn’t this completely classic?”
“Why haven’t there been any ghost stories ‘recently’? Of course, even in paradise, there would have been all sorts of urban legends that fit the dystopian reality.”
“…”
I can guarantee it.
People of this era, people of paradise, don’t even know what such a horror story is.
There’s no way a story that was created and floated around somewhere on the Internet would survive for hundreds of years.
Why on earth did a ghost story from hundreds of years ago become reality in this underground city?
“This is so weak! Let’s go!”
Suddenly, I remembered something strange I had discovered when I first entered the basement.
Human remains with flesh still visible, as if they had died only a few weeks ago, despite contact being lost over 100 years ago.
A paper route map that I found a little while ago, the contents of which are still legible.
An underground city where ghost stories first appeared hundreds of years ago.
“… I kind of know, but I don’t know.”
*
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 466
Current Location: Room 206, The Cursed Room – ‘The Demon King Resurrects After 100 Days’
Wise Man’s Advice: 3]
– Han Ga-in
‘Lord… Please let me get through today safely -‘
‘Thank you to our Father in Heaven -‘
‘I am glad to be able to share in the glorious moment when the Prophet leads the church-‘
Every hour, every minute, every second.
There are more voices of praise being heard than ever before.
There was some truth to what Professor Sang-Hyeon said that this voice might shake my spirit, but in any case, it is clear that the ‘Han Ga-In Church’ is thriving.
Even the sacred sun began to reveal a heavy weight at some point.
It is not fully charged because you have only offered your faith and not your soul itself, but it is at a level where you can easily perform small miracles.
It’s a great achievement.
Not only I, but my other colleagues are also doing their best.
Songi rules the city more thoroughly than a dead mayor.
He also did not miss the opportunity to periodically offer up ‘reactionaries’ he had arrested for various reasons to the indomitable spirit.
The teacher and Elena also did their best, and thanks to them, Songi and I were able to continuously take over the city from above and below.
Yeah, so far so good. Good, but… .
This is a real problem.
No matter how much I thought about it, I ended up facing a huge crisis.
“… According to the status window, it is now day 466.”
“When did we get into room 206?”
“Day 380. It’s been 86 days since I entered the room.”
“… When did your colleagues go underground?”
“I think it was the 400th day.”
More than two months have passed since my colleagues went underground.
“Is everyone alive?”
“Surprisingly, everyone is still alive.”
“Then why aren’t you contacting me or coming out?”
“I know.”
The title of issue 206 is ‘The Demon King Resurrects After 100 Days’.
Now, there are 14 days left until the Demon King’s resurrection.
“Gain oppa. I think we’re in serious trouble.”
“… I know.”
Special measures are needed.