Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 507
Only Krnovel
EP.507 Episode 507 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (9)
Episode 507 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (9)
– Kim Ari
In the vague darkness, an unpleasant smell from an unfamiliar underground cave tickled my nose.
It was the strange ecosystem created by the humid environment and the smell of rotting flesh.
“Just a little bit, just a little bit further.”
Sophia slowly advanced forward, shining her unusually shaped flashlight – which did not seem to be a product of science – until increasingly more horrifying sights were revealed.
Under the light, huge, thick lumps of flesh began to appear.
Lumps of flesh filled the entire outer walls of the cave and moved ceaselessly, making it seem as if they were on an alien planet.
“… Oh my.”
Mukseong made a displeased expression and then showed me the number ‘203’ by folding and unfolding his fingers at an angle that only I could see.
It certainly is subtly similar to the ‘incubation area scene’ seen in Room 203, A New Beginning.
— Wiggle!
“Ugh~!”
Suddenly, a tentacle shot out from the ground and climbed up Mukseong’s leg.
Unlike me and Sophia, who were able to float in the air with wing boots and avoid the terrain well, Mukseong was a first-timer and had no talent for flying, so he ended up getting caught by the tentacles.
Soon, Sophia drove away the tentacles, emitting a strange light with her fingertips.
“Be careful. The Master’s lair is full of danger at every step.”
“Miss Sophia, can you contact the Master and ask him to take care of this?”
“Of course it was possible when he was in good health.”
“…”
The fact that I would have to pass through this crematorium-like place on my way back was etched into my mind.
The urge to turn back immediately surged, but there was a lot of information I needed to find out from Yumi, so retreat was not an option.
As time went by, the air became heavier and heavier, and a foul squelching noise of mucous membranes could be heard here and there.
“What the hell, Yumi – why are you living in such a weird place, Master? Just live long enough and use the money you’ve accumulated to build a mansion or something!”
Sophia responded to Silent’s complaint with unexpected seriousness.
“Lucas and I were curious about that too. Even though the ‘nest defense system’ wasn’t as haphazard as it is now, this place was pretty scary back then.”
“Is there a reason?”
“There was. The Master didn’t explain it, but I knew it on my own.”
I wonder why Yumi made the ‘nest’ so horrible.
“Master, you really slept a lot of the time.”
ah?
“This cave is like a giant hibernation system.”
“hibernation?”
“A place where the Master sleeps for decades or even centuries. These unpleasant fleshy things are used to ward off intruders, but they are primarily there to provide nutrition and remove waste.”
“…”
“You know what’s really amazing? They say that while you’re asleep in the cave, you stop aging. Isn’t that amazing?”
“That’s amazing.”
This is a place where humans can hibernate for decades or even centuries without going outside.
It makes perfect sense why Yumi created this place.
Even if humans were to attain immortality, they would not have the ability to survive for thousands of years with their minds still intact!
So, this is a facility that Yumi created for herself or Seungyeop to hibernate with.
Given the circumstances, it must have been used many times before.
Even if Yumi was special, there’s no way she could have lasted 3,000 or 4,000 years with her mind intact.
Perhaps Seungyeop may have also used this facility several times.
“…Thank you for your hard work.”
He nodded and looked towards Mukseong.
Interestingly enough, Mukseong was looking at me, as if he had had similar thoughts.
Hotel Fischer, ‘One More Chance’ is an item to save the world.
The fourth ordeal that Gain confirmed at the dinner party is similar to the dangers of reality.
As if to give you a preview of the dangers you’ll have to face when you go out there!
Silence spoke with his eyes.
‘Surely, I have to go in here in the end?’
I also answered with my eyes.
‘well?’
…
Is this what we talked about?
Sometimes, we would say something like “hey hey!” with our eyes, but when we actually checked later, we would often come up with completely different thoughts.
Sophia stopped in front of the cave, the place where Yumi was staying or ‘trapped’.
“180 years ago, I told you that the Master collapsed?”
“okay.”
180 years ago, Fortuna, who grew stronger every time she woke up, finally defeated Yumi and fatally wounded her.
“Then, who made the Master like this?”
“Hmm? Of course it’s Fortuna, right?”
“You didn’t explain this part in detail. No.”
The one who defeated Yumi was Fortuna, but it wasn’t Fortuna who made her into her current state?
“Even though the Master lost, Fortuna also suffered a fatal blow and retreated.”
“Then who brought down your teacher?”
Sophia’s expression as she silently looked at Yumi’s residence looked gloomy.
“… Virgin Mary.”
“what?”
“Have you ever heard of the Virgin Aedea?”
“at all.”
In the real Vatican, when you say Virgin Mary, it is of course Maria, and I have never heard of names like Aidya.
“It’s understandable. He is a hidden figure, and only a few people within the Vatican know him.”
“Yes, Miss Sophia. What kind of being is the Virgin Aedia?”
“The de facto head of the Holy See. Dictator.”
Our Lady of Aedia is said to be the de facto head of the Holy See and a secret being with no external status.
You could say that she was the opposite of Yumi, who had been manipulating Lucas from behind the scenes during his normal days.
Mukseong continued asking questions.
“And the Pope?”
“She’s just a face madam. If an immortal monster were to act as the eternal pope, wouldn’t it be too weird for the average person to see? She just periodically sends out minions.”
“… This is incredible.”
Contrary to the bewildered silence, I wasn’t all that surprised.
In the first place, the Vatican in Room 207 is actually a management office, right?
There must be similar beings in the Vatican to The Silent, the leaders of the Administration.
“After Fortuna left, the Master spent some time in seclusion, concentrating on regaining his strength. Then one day, the Virgin Aedia herself came to visit him… .”
There was an unmistakable fear in Sophia’s low voice.
A teacher I respected my whole life, someone even Yumi couldn’t stand up to.
Our Lady of Aedea.
“What next?”
“I don’t know. The Master told us to just go. Aidya didn’t stop us either.”
Mukseong nodded.
“It seems like a situation where the two of you have similar interests. Yumi would want to avoid a situation where Sophia and Lucas would die, and Aidia would want to avoid a joint attack between you and Lucas.”
“I think so too. By the way, you guys call me ‘Yumi’ a lot. The teacher didn’t like it when others called him that name.”
“…”
I hated it when people called me Yumi… .
There are many cases where people only allow their full names to be used by those close to them, but the ‘Yumi’ we know did not have that tendency.
It’s a small difference, but it means that Yumi has changed a lot over time.
“After that, the Master was split into hundreds and thousands of pieces for unknown reasons.”
This is a story I heard yesterday.
“The flesh containing the Master’s memories was literally scattered all over the planet.”
“…”
“The flesh soon began to burrow into the people around them, resulting in countless madmen who had acquired fragments of the Master appearing throughout the world.”
“…”
“I’ve been wandering the world with Lucas for over 100 years. I’ve been collecting pieces of the Master. I’ve found about 10 of them and managed to restore ‘that thing.’”
“But it was successful?”
“Well, I guess the rest of it is all gone now. You said it had been wandering around for over a hundred years? The rest of the pieces must have disappeared as it died of old age.”
“… great job.”
“thank you.”
Sophia’s calm tone contained a pain that was too much to express in words.
The tragic downfall of the master he had served his entire life, and the disciples’ efforts and frustration to recover.
I vaguely felt some of that sadness.
“How on earth is such a strange thing possible?”
How did Virgin Aedia bring down Yumi?
“That’s a good question. I’ve been wondering that part for the past 180 years. Sorry Ari, but I still don’t know the answer.”
Sophia doesn’t know the answer either.
That means we have to find the answer.
“Let’s go in, Master! Can you hear me?”
*
The sight of my old colleague, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, made me and Mukseong depressed.
Originally, Yumi’s appearance was similar to that of a teenage girl, similar to Aurelia from Unit 104, but now she was something completely different.
So far, this is nothing surprising.
According to Sophia, Yumi has changed bodies several times.
The problem was that it was twisting its body around in the cave alone, and no matter how you looked at it, it looked more like a terrifying spider-man than a human.
“You’ve become even stranger than before. Don’t be surprised! The Master is like this now, but he was originally very noble and wise -”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, just calm down for now.”
It seems like it’s making a lot of noise and causing a commotion, but then it suddenly becomes quiet and absorbs the nutrients provided by the tentacles like a child.
He looks at me and Mukseong and turns his head 360 degrees, getting excited, but then he looks at Sophia next to him and whines like a child.
No matter how you looked at it, it was a crazy mess, and there was no way to package it any better.
Mukseong and I made a miserable expression for a moment, then looked at Sophia. Seeing Sophia’s blank expression, we were speechless and kept our mouths shut.
If you think about it, that’s true.
Hasn’t Yumi already spent significantly more time in room 207 than she has with us?
The story is that Sophia and Lucas’ feelings for Yumi are much deeper than our feelings for Yumi.
As my thoughts reached this point, I became even more depressed.
Sophia says that the Master is alive, but at the same time refers to Yumi’s piece as ‘that’.
Lucas, who had suffered for over 100 years to recover Yumi, exclaimed, “Do you still respect that fool who only looked for Horus until the moment of his death?”
“Whew… It’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy… .”
Sophia responded calmly to the silent words.
“I’m fine, come in. Didn’t you come here to do something?”
“…Sophia, I’m sorry, but can you please step outside?”
“Why? Do you have to talk to each other?”
“…”
“Okay. I’ll go out.”
After Sophia left, I talked to Mukseong.
“Ariya, just looking at it, it looks like normal conversation is impossible.”
“It looks that way to me too.”
“I think you need to delve into Yumi’s mind and get something out of it.”
“…”
That’s a being that Sophia and Lucas forcibly created by putting together the pieces of the original Yumi that was split into hundreds of pieces.
I don’t know how many pieces there were in total, but it would be less than 10% of the original, and there is no way to restore an entity that has collapsed to this extent.
However, scratching the memory is a different matter.
Because by using the power of old blood, you can penetrate into the mind of your opponent.
With this power, I have penetrated the mind of Cain, and also the mind of Miro.
“How is it?”
“First of all, it is quite dangerous to delve into the mind of someone who is that crazy.”
“Hmm, you could get involved too?”
“Yes. Do you remember what happened a long time ago after escaping from Room 201? When Gain delved into Elena’s mind after she went mad after witnessing the Eye of the 0th Dimension.”
“… I remember. Gain almost turned around too.”
“There are other problems too.”
“What is it?”
“It’s going to take a long time to find any meaningful information. If you keep going like that, the information will be scattered all over the place.”
“…”
He added to the sighing silence.
“But I have to do it. I have to ask Sophia to suppress the, um, Yumi’s remains with her strength. And…”
“and?”
“If anything happens, wake me up immediately.”
“i get it.”
Slowly sinking into the mad chaos that remains in Yumi’s fragments.
Soon, some of the fragments of shattered memories unfolded like a panorama.
*
The first thing I saw was a ‘mirror’.
It’s something that holds the greatest weight in all of Yumi’s memories.
She thought about the mirror.
‘The cause and solution to all the world’s problems’