Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 510
Only Krnovel
EP.510 Episode 510 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (12)
Episode 510 – Room 207, The Gate Room – The Third Trial ‘Miskatonic University’ (12)
The ruins beneath the city that Aedia built 700 years ago.
The overall structure was like a tower extending underground, and as Aidy had said, there was no particular threat.
Just feeling the dark and murky air and going down the gray path endlessly underground.
At first, everyone just walked and walked in silence, but after about 30 minutes, Seungyeop couldn’t hold it in any longer and opened his mouth.
“Aidya, we’ve already walked for 30 minutes.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“No, I said it took 30 minutes?”
“Are you having a hard time?”
“No… that’s not it, no. Okay.”
I understood what he was trying to say, speechless.
The present time is somewhere between 1500 and 2000 BC.
How on earth did they create such an enormous underground ruin in such ancient times that you can’t see the bottom even if you go down for 30 minutes?
It’s a reasonable question, but we’re from the future and the girl in front of us is an alien, so we can’t really ask questions like this.
Even this relic is something beyond the understanding of those aliens.
— Crunch! Crunch!
After going down for about 5 more minutes, this time Aidia opened her mouth.
“A long time ago, 724 years ago to be exact, we gathered a primitive tribe.”
A story from the days when cities were built on the Iberian Peninsula?
“To be honest, at first I planned to attack Egypt as soon as I gathered enough forces.”
“…”
“It was impossible. Do you know? Outside of Egypt, there is only the barbaric world?”
“…”
“Rather than gathering power, I had to teach a tribe that was closer to monkeys than humans how to farm and make clothes. Well, it all came together as I went along.”
As I was doing it, it all came together.
These simple words contained the weight of the years that Aidia had endured.
“Then, one day, I realized. The world we live in is really strange.”
“what?”
Is the world really strange?
Now that I think about it, we had a similar conversation when we first met.
‘What is more mysterious than anything else is this world itself.’ Was it?
“About 500 years ago? A man-eating boar ate more than 30 tribesmen.”
“A wild boar? Not a leopard or a lion, but a wild boar?”
“Yes. I was curious, so I took my skilled warriors and chased the boars. When we finally found the herd of boars, what did I see?”
“…”
“I met a group of wild boars that were eating human flesh and turning into humans. The one that had changed the most was completely human from the head down.”
Seungyeop, who was listening, frowned.
“Does that make sense?”
“If you have a boy who stays young for 1,000 years, a witch who uses magic, and aliens all in one place, is it really that strange to have a boar that transforms into a human?”
Seungyeop was speechless.
“That’s not all. About 320 years ago, a bird as big as a house appeared in the sky over the city, and with a single loud noise, it blew off the heads of 20 people and kidnapped children to feed to the baby birds.”
“…Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m not trying to scare you, so listen carefully.”
Nana Seungyeop is not the type of person who would be scared by a story like this.
I just understood what Aidia meant when she first said that.
What a strange world we live in.
“It happened recently. About 160 years ago? Every night, a glowing mushroom grew on the hill east of the city. Every night, the city people would go to pick the mushroom and get eaten by wolves.”
“mushroom?”
“At first I thought it was some kind of mushroom that could show illusions. I don’t know if you know, but some mushrooms have the power to enchant people.”
“I know there are mushrooms that are similar to drugs.”
“Drugs? It’s the first time I’ve heard that word, but it sounds good.”
He winked at Seungyeop, telling him not to reveal his ‘future knowledge’ so carelessly.
Of course, I don’t know if what I’m saying will make sense to Seungyeop, who always has a boyish side.
“Anyway, I figured I could just burn the mushrooms, so I went to where the mushrooms were with some skilled warriors and torches.”
“What kind of monster appeared this time?”
“I wish it were a monster!”
“…What is it?”
“The mushroom turned out to be a human. We named it the human body mushroom.”
“Wh, what -”
“Listen. When you take a bite of the human mushroom, the spores start to burrow into the person’s body and start to multiply. During this process, the person feels extremely happy.”
“Ugh!”
“As time passes, the host’s skin cracks and mushrooms grow. By this time, people also realize what is happening to them… but it’s no use.”
“It’s useless?”
“When you get to that point, you’re already a slave to the pleasure mushrooms give you. You keep eating mushrooms, eating mushrooms, eating mushrooms, and eventually you lose your energy and collapse near a mushroom colony. That’s how new mushrooms are born.”
“It’s terrible.”
“How would I have responded?”
“They must have burned the mushroom colony.”
“That’s basic. But even if you burn a mushroom colony, there will still be people who have eaten mushrooms, right?”
“Uh…. We’ll collect them and treat them?”
“Phuhut!”
Instead of answering, Aidyah snickered.
I think I knew what choice she ultimately made.
Mushrooms are organisms that reproduce through spores.
Also, by the time a finger-sized mycelium (commonly called the mushroom body) becomes visible to the human eye, invisible spores have been spread over a range hundreds of times that of the mycelium.
Therefore, the problem cannot be solved by simply burning mushrooms.
All ‘hosts’ that spread spores incessantly must be eliminated.
…
After a moment of silence, Seungyeop realized the truth and sighed as he muttered.
“Let me ask you again. Why are you telling such a depressing story?”
Instead of answering this time, Aidia brought up a different story.
“I realized what it means to rule a city. The responsibility of a ruler, I guess?”
“It’s the ruler’s responsibility.”
“If you take pity on fifteen people who have the plague and try to save them, two hundred people will die because of them.”
“…”
“So we have to kill all the infected people. Not because the lives of ten people are light, but because the lives of 200 people are heavier.”
It’s a story I’ve heard many times.
Seungyeop, who had similar thoughts, also had a gloomy expression.
*
It’s a strange feeling to hear the philosophy of the administration from someone else.
That woman, Our Lady of Aedia, must have been the founder of the Vatican.
Was the Vatican created based on the enlightenment gained while running a city in ancient times?
If we meet in person, I will call you ‘senior’ as we walk the same path.
*
It was only after I had been down for nearly an hour that I began to feel something strange.
It was a place with no lighting other than torches brought from the ground, but the surroundings were brightened without warning.
As Seungyeop and I looked at each other with caution, Aidia opened her mouth again.
“We’re almost there.”
“A place with a mirror?”
“yes.”
“… You said it was full of incomprehensible madness. Should I prepare to fight?”
“Before that, could you listen to me again?”
“If you have something to say, say it. You said it before too.”
“Haha, that’s right.”
Aidia, whose lifespan had been extended by unknown means and whose body had nearly 30% turned into crystal, had an expression that seemed to be dreaming.
“It may sound strange, but I wanted to be king.”
“king?”
“I wanted to establish a new kingdom on a new land, a kingdom greater than the Egypt that had abandoned me.”
“…”
Aedea said she gave up her revenge against Egypt and ‘us’ about 800 years ago.
Although the desire for revenge was half forgotten, a kind of competitive spirit seemed to remain.
‘I will create with my own hands a kingdom greater than the one that abandoned me.’
I had a vague idea of what it felt like.
“I wanted to be a good king. A king who was respected by all people. I wanted to be Nitocris, the queen of paradise where everyone could live in peace without starving.”
“Nitocris?”
“This is the name I use these days.
“… That’s a good name.”
“When I came to my senses, I realized that it was not a king sitting on the throne, but a monster.”
“…”
“To save 100, I burned five, drowned twenty, and hung thirty on a pole.”
“Aidia… .”
“No matter how many times you kill, there’s no end to it, right? Just when you think you’ve chased away the human mushrooms, a man playing a flute appears, and when you chase away the man playing the flute, corpse worship spreads.”
A despair that could not be expressed in words filled Aidia.
Even I, who is somewhat insensitive to such emotions, was taken aback by this, as Seungyeop already had a breathless expression on his face.
“When I came to my senses, I realized that no one had killed more people than me. People started calling me the Goddess of Death instead of the Merciful King.”
What could you say to her, who was thousands of years ahead of her time experiencing the suffering of the ‘Administration’ in the distant future?
Even Seungyeop and I were abandoned by Egypt, which said, “You guys figure it out yourself.”
“What should I do?”
*
What should I do?
The answer to the Virgin Mary’s worries was not found even by the management office 3,000 years after the water mirror.
What we have discovered, and it is embarrassing to even call it an answer, is simple.
‘Don’t even think about such worries.’
I too have believed this unwaveringly for a long time.
That’s why I was really shocked by Aidia’s next words!
*
“Uh, um, do I have to answer that? So, um, the, um, internal contradiction of sacrificing the minority to save the majority?”
“Stop that ‘um, um’ thing.”
“Haha! Yumi, don’t rush Seungyeop. The questions are difficult, so if you try to find the answers, you might end up saying “um-um.”
“I’ll just yawn from now on.”
“…”
“…”
Wait a minute, what the hell is he talking about?
Aidy, who had been making a face, controlled her expression again and spoke.
“Let me give you another analogy. You’ve come to a crossroads with three directions. You’re trying to decide which direction to take, but then you realize that all three directions lead to hell. They’re just different types of hell. Which path should you take?”
“I should choose a hell that is less painful -”
“That was the trap I fell into.”
“huh?”
At first, I couldn’t understand what Aidia was saying.
“The answer is to get out of the crossroads that are hell no matter where you go. We will create a completely new game.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ah, we’ve arrived now.”
The next moment, a genuine smile that had never been seen before appeared on Aidia’s face.
Beyond the back of the girl smiling brightly – a mirror appeared.
…
It’s a mirror.
It is a condensation of infinite possibilities, boiling like bubbles.
It is the trace left by the great one who stands at the highest place.
It is the greatest mystery that exists in this world.
So this is –
“Look! This is it -”
It’s the cause of all the world’s problems!
“It’s the answer to all the world’s problems!”
— Phagec!
“Yumi, Seungyeop. Let’s start again. From the beginning, this time in the right world.”
*
– Kim Ari
— Phagec!
“Eww! It stings!”
I woke up suddenly, semi-forcibly.
Because Yumi’s memories ended here.
…
I’m sure we saw the same object, the same mirror!
Some have found the ultimate answer, while others have discovered the cause of all evil.
I had no way of knowing whose answer was correct, Aidia or Yumi.
However, just before Yumi’s memory was cut off, she saw a strange scene.
Seungyeop, who was extremely nervous, shouted something and blocked Yumi’s path, and the mirror emitted an inexplicable five-colored light.
What does this mean?
“Just a little bit, I wanted to see just a little bit more! Mukseong-ah, I’m going to dive again – huh?”
When I looked around belatedly, I saw that there was no one else but me and the groaning, writhing Yumi fragment.
“Mukseong-ah? Sophia! Where are you both?”
Where did you both go and leave me behind?
If there’s something urgent, I’ll leave a note –
— Squeak! Clang!