Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 487
Only Krnovel
EP.487 Episode 487 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The First Trial ‘Eternal Life and Resurrection’ (5)
Episode 487 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The First Trial ‘Eternal Life and Resurrection’ (5)
– Kim Sang-hyun
As I moved to the royal tomb, I mentally organized the current situation.
The setting is ancient, unified Egypt, created through a truce between the superhuman Pharaoh Menes and the evil god Malkab.
For a long time, the Pharaoh’s family and the evil gods maintained a balance.
However, the balance was broken when the current Pharaoh, Omar, who could not overcome the fear of death, surrendered to Malqab.
Currently, Malkab is in the process of devouring or ‘harvesting’ Egypt in real time.
Aedia suggested awakening the great Menes to stop Malkab.
When I opened the envelope Ga-in gave me, wondering if it was a case of calling a tiger out of fear of a wolf, I found this content.
“Please respect the historical flow that we know.”
After seeing this sentence, Ari Yang immediately decided to wake Menes up.
Why?
Ari-san, who didn’t understand at the time and didn’t want to waste her time zone power, disappeared without explanation.
As I was moving to the royal tomb with Aidia, I vaguely knew the answer.
After going through the events of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and understanding the situation in the outside world, we often talked about the reality we each remembered.
As we got closer to the recent time, each person’s memories became quite different.
From small things like politicians’ names to large things like city names and developments in historical events.
Conversely, the further back we go into the past, the more similar it becomes.
It’s hard to pinpoint a specific point in time, but everyone’s historical knowledge before 1900 is similar?
Ancient Egypt is of course included here.
Menes or Narmer or the Scorpion King.
He is a historical figure and the first monarch to unite Egypt.
He is in fact the first pharaoh and the founder of ancient Egypt.
On the other hand, what about Malkab?
Before coming to Room 207, I had never heard of such a god.
When it comes to Egyptian mythology, it’s not about Malkab, but about beings like Horus, Anubis, Isis, and Osiris.
What if we assume that the history we know is correct and that the ancient Egypt inside Room 207 is a ‘distorted history’?
The Malkav sect is an entity that should be buried in the darkness of history without leaving even a trace.
Menes, on the other hand, remained famous thousands of years into the future.
If you had to choose between the two, wouldn’t it be better to help Menes and subdue the Malkav cult?
*
“This way! Come this way, the guards are -”
“Aidya, I don’t think you need to worry about the guards.”
“… Everyone is just drooling and sticking their tongues out. Let’s go in!”
The oppressive force of the skull pattern of Malkab floating in the sky was more than any ordinary human could bear, and it was no different for the guards guarding the royal tomb.
From a different perspective, Aidia is a unique entity, as she is in step with us despite not having any hotel experience.
“Aidia, are you okay? Don’t you feel like vomiting when you see that pattern?”
“are you okay.”
“Do you want to kneel down and pray?”
“It is the people who worship Malkab as a god, not our clan.”
“Uh, that’s not it… Okay. Let’s go in.”
The question for Miro Yang is whether she can feel the magic of that pattern ‘now’, even though she worshipped it in the past and left her home.
Aidy didn’t understand the intent of the question at all, which means she didn’t feel any pressure at all.
“…”
Certainly, Aidia is something special.
He’s too good to be considered an extra in a simple explanation role.
Is this to be expected, being a descendant of the superhuman Pharaoh?
I don’t think so.
Clearly, it seems to have a plausible role… .
“We’ve arrived!”
The guards guarding the inside of the royal tomb were in good condition, as if they had not seen Malqab’s symbol.
“Who, who are you! This is the hall of the great kings -”
“it’s me!”
“Aidia? What’s going on?”
“Sorry, get out of the way. I have to get down.”
“Even if it’s you, that’s not right. I don’t know what’s going on outside – ugh!”
I had no intention of wasting time, so I immediately made a surprise attack and took them down one by one.
Aidy didn’t stop him, even though he had a bitter expression on his face.
“…come down.”
Songi asked Aidia an important fact.
“Do you know where Menes is? I’d rather avoid searching this entire place.”
“I know. He is half ancestor and half god to us -”
“Thank goodness. That explains it.”
After that, I walked with Aidia for almost 15 minutes.
My mind was in a hurry, but it was dark and narrow all around, and there were arrow traps set up here and there, so I couldn’t move rashly.
Moreover, the very location of the royal tomb left us perplexed.
“This… . Hmm, does that make sense? How could a building built in ancient times… .”
Songi Yang couldn’t hide her bewilderment, and Miro and Seungyeop also touched the wall as if they found it strange.
“Ancient? What do you mean? You too are so naive? Are you surprised by the grandeur of the ‘Royal Tomb’?”
“…”
“I understand. Everyone who comes to this place for the first time acts like you. Want to see something more amazing?”
— Click!
The moment Aidia pressed the ‘switch’ installed on the wall, the entire royal tomb, which had been dark, became bright.
“Ta-da~! Are you surprised? Have you never seen anything like this in your life?”
“…”
“That glowing round thing, we call it ‘cold fire.’ Oh, it’s not cold to the touch. It’s just colder than a real flame -”
“… It’s a light bulb. It even has a filament.”
“What? A pyramid?”
“no.”
Everyone was surprised, but the cause was completely different from what Aidy had thought.
It’s not that I’m surprised because I don’t know what a ‘light bulb’ is or because it’s so new, but I’m surprised that there were light bulbs in ancient Egypt.
“No, no… The light bulb isn’t the problem. Is there electricity here? Is there a power plant? What the -”
He grabbed Songi Yang’s arm tightly as she spewed out ‘out-of-date knowledge’ in a startled manner.
“You’d better calm down.”
“Ah. Um, sorry. Aidya! Let’s stop wandering around and get moving.”
“Everyone, come this way!”
Fortunately, Aidya didn’t notice Songi Yang’s change.
Even if we knew, we wouldn’t be able to realize that we are actually people of the future just by seeing this level of reaction.
*
Finally, we arrived at the deepest part of the royal tomb, the stone chamber where Menes was sleeping.
“Over here! Over there, that’s Menes.”
“Then that coffin is the ‘Immortal Sarcophagus’?”
“Maybe. I didn’t know that the coffin itself was special until then. Did my father know…?”
Aidyia looked around the sarcophagus for a moment to check for any traps or anything, then opened it.
“…”
I looked inside the sarcophagus of the immortal by shining a light on it.
The first thing that caught my eye was a thick, cloudy liquid with a texture similar to petroleum, and a hazy shape inside it.
Although he had clearly been trapped in the coffin for hundreds of years, Menes retained his human body, not a mummy or skeleton.
Well, since the sarcophagus has this much power, it must have been given the grand title of immortal.
“Menes! I am your distant descendant, Aedia -”
At that moment, for the first time, the great Pharaoh opened his mouth.
“I have a headache, so be quiet.”
“… yes.”
The man lying in the sarcophagus slowly raised his upper body, then his expression became distorted for a moment, as if he felt a headache.
He is about 170cm tall, which is quite tall considering he is an ancient person.
His body was thin, perhaps because he had not eaten properly for a long time.
The age is around late 50s to early 60s, and the face has a somewhat rough impression.
If you meet him on the street, you will feel like he is a nervous old man –
“Thank you. That’s a very objective evaluation. I was a bit on edge, though.”
“…”
You say you have various superpowers. Is mind reading one of your talents?
“Aren’t you surprised?”
“… Excuse me.”
Everyone responded quickly, as if the hardships they had endured at the hotel had not been in vain.
Since there is no ‘unchangeable’ blessing, Miro and Seungyeop, who have difficulty responding to the poison technique, immediately retreat, and Songi approaches with her bracelet shining.
I took three steps back and collected my thoughts.
Yesterday’s lunch was a tasteless bean stew, and while a patient was asking me to take a look at her knees because they were hurting, it started raining, and the dogs were barking and pooping, and the price of pork went up a lot, and the chickens were incubating eggs, and the girl next door was changing men again –
“Stop, stop. Stop it. Have you learned some kind of miracle coping method? It seems like the world has changed a lot while I was asleep.”
“…”
“Hey, did you say your name was Aidia?”
“Huh? Me, Menes!”
“Come closer. And, guests, if my power is unpleasant, just stay away.”
Menes began to clearly distinguish between Aedia and us, calling us ‘guests’.
“Menes, the situation outside is -”
“Child, is there anything in the world that is as untrustworthy as a horse?”
“…”
“Just think about it. There must be a reason you woke me up, right?”
As Menes began to understand the situation, blurry letters began to appear in his vision.
Songi Yang delivers a message while avoiding Menes’ ears.
“No matter how you look at it, the royal tomb is not a building that fits into ancient Egypt.”
Of course.
Songi Yang was surprised by the light bulb on the ceiling, but before the light bulb, the material of the wall was not ancient.
“How is this possible? Menes created the building with his supernatural powers?”
Did you know that before the 1990s, no concept similar to a ‘smartphone’ appeared in science fiction novels?
People in the 1800s would imagine a future where pigeons would fly at supersonic speeds and carry messages.
Predicting the future is difficult, and human imagination cannot go beyond the limitations of the times.
This means that even if Menes had great superpowers, he would have difficulty thinking of concepts such as light bulbs, electricity, and power generation.
“Could Menes have had any foresight?”
“… Yes.”
Unlike other superpowers, ‘precognition’ is a bit different.
Have you actually seen future technology rather than just imagined it?
No, even if you saw it, it’s impossible.
This is a story that I know very well, even if others don’t know it.
Because we have created civilization through suffering for a long time!
I, in room 203, was a modern person who had fallen into ancient times with knowledge of the future.
The level of civilization I have created over hundreds of years is, unfortunately, at best, comparable to that of ancient Rome.
That’s a given.
Just because you know the concept of a light bulb doesn’t mean you can make one.
Even if you are a university professor who has studied architectural engineering your entire life, if you fail in ancient times, it would be difficult to build a log cabin, let alone a modern concrete building.
If you’re an engineer, shouldn’t you start by making concrete and steel?
If we want to talk about steel, this time we need to find a blast furnace and coal.
To make A, you need B and C, and to make B, you need D, E, and F.
At this point, my suspicions, and those of the hotel party, turned to certainty.
The royal tomb was not built using ancient Egyptian technology, and Menes was not an ancient person.
He is a being who possesses both miracle-working supernatural powers and future knowledge.
That’s not all.
There is an additional, unidentified force that enabled this mysterious being to create the futuristic structure known as the Royal Tomb.
“Guests, please come here.”
Songi approached, her bracelet shining.
“I heard you are priests of Horus?”
“yes?”
“You’re both busy, so don’t hide it.”
“Uh… um. I guess so.”
Priest of Horus?
For a moment I wondered what he meant, but then I understood.
When Yumi first met Aidia, she half-jokingly called her “the daughter of Horus,” but Aidia and Menes seem to have taken her words seriously.
Menes had already clashed with Malkab.
Horus may also be considered a similar ‘native god’ of sorts.
“What do you want from me? Building a temple of Horus?”
“Uh… . Uh… . Uh… .”
“You’re not a fish, so stop whining and speak properly. I can’t read your thoughts because of the power of that bracelet.”
It was such a sudden and unexpected statement that Songi was speechless.
For Menes, who had previously attempted similar negotiations with the Malkab sect, this was a reasonable idea.
I stepped forward, pushing aside the flustered Songi Yang.
“Let’s negotiate later. What’s important is the punishment of Malkab.”
“Okay. You seem more relaxed. Well, shall we start with the story about Malkab?”
About ten minutes later, Menes woke up the ‘Guardian of Egypt’ and left the royal tomb.
“…”
Guardian of Egypt.
It clearly meant a robot made with science fiction technology.
It wouldn’t be strange if tanks and helicopters started appearing.
At this point, even the evil god Malkab could understand why he had a hard time dealing with Menes.