Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 67
Only Krnovel
Episode 67 – No. 101, Room of the Curse – ‘Media that Changes Common Sense’ (1)
*
third attempt
*
[User: Han Ga-in (Jihye)
Date: Day 22
Current location: Tier 1, Room 101 (Curse Room – Common Sense Change Media)
Sage Advice: 3]
Let’s go underground. I thought I might find something more if I searched upstairs, but it was impossible.
The upper floor is a place where offices are concentrated. In other words, there are too many people.
Although the management bureau badge acts like a horse card, it only serves to push things away. Since you can’t kick them out of the building, it’s too dangerous to go to places overflowing with people.
Since I’m the only one left this time, I think it would be better to explore the underground, research the method together for the next attempt, and then search the whole thing.
—Takkak. Takkak.
The sound of my shoes began to echo through the hallway. There are no people at all. I’m glad that the headaches and tinnitus caused by the curse have disappeared thanks to this, but it’s a bit strange.
Employees will park their cars in the underground parking lot, so isn’t it normal for people to come to the ground from there? How can there be so many people?
Maybe it’s proof that you’re going to the right place.
—Takkak. Takkak.
It’s a bit creepy because I’m left alone. Even though it’s been a long time since I experienced all sorts of things at the hotel and thought about seeing a dead body, this type of fear did not completely disappear.
Slowly, we arrived at the underground parking lot. I saw a security office near the entrance to the parking lot. Would it be okay to show the power of the badge again?
Hmm.
He momentarily stepped back, holding his nose.
Terrible smell. There was an unbearable stench coming from the parking lot.
The stench of excrement, reminiscent of a very old conventional toilet.
A foul odor that would come from rotting, rotting food waste.
It’s such a smell that I can’t even think of going to the parking lot.
So maybe I should go instead?
This is clearly a strange phenomenon.
It’s strange that there’s a smell like this in the parking lot, and it’s even stranger that there’s a smell like this and no one is taking care of it.
After enduring the feeling of vomiting and approaching the parking lot, I realized that the source of the stench was the security office.
How can there be people in a security room like that?
I only went near the security office. After entering Room 101, I gained the ‘ability to detect people infected with the curse’.
Just approaching people infected with the curse causes headaches and tinnitus, making it possible to tell whether a person exists.
Even though I got right up to the door, nothing happened. It appears that there is no one inside infected with the curse.
However, as we got closer, it became more clear that the source of the odor was the security room.
Let’s at least check what’s out there. I flung open the door to the security office with the intention of checking for excrement or food waste and then forgetting about it.
…I saw hell.
…
What would happen if people were trapped in a small space and couldn’t get out, just eating and eating over and over again?
The floors, walls, trash cans, and other places are covered in human excrement, giving off a foul odor. Traces of canned food and other preserved foods piled up everywhere. Rotting food. Unidentifiable graffiti drawn everywhere.
Something more terrible than all these terrible scenes.
Man – alive.
Something that abandoned all hope and became a beast only in fear. The end of the despair endured by being born as a human and giving up human life.
The bust of a human being with nothing but bones looked at me and staggered towards me.
The corners of his eyes are full of scars, as if he had burned them because he didn’t want to see a fearful being. Did he cut his ears because he didn’t want to hear scary sounds? More than half of my ear was torn off. His entire body is full of signs of self-injury, and his left arm and right leg can barely move, possibly due to lack of proper treatment.
“You… Management Bureau… Why did you come only now?”
“…”
“Ugh! Ugh. Isn’t it fragrant?”
“…”
“I’m out of good food. It’s been a month. What do you think I ate?”
“…”
The bust crawling across the floor moved its bony finger and pointed to a piece of paper.
Just one thing in the midst of hell-like misery. Cleanly coated paper.
Clean paper that makes you feel like you are in another world.
When I picked up the paper, the man stumbled and fell into a hell of a mixture of excrement and food waste.
“…Would you like to go out together?”
“Please have mercy… the one on the right.”
…
—bang!
I closed the security room and came out.
Terrible stench. However, there are no headaches or tinnitus whatsoever.
The man who was now at rest was ‘a person who was not infected with the curse.’
Maybe I was simply lucky to have avoided being infected by the curse in the first place. As soon as you watch TV, you may feel something strange and turn it off right away.
After that, was it possible to avoid contact with people because the workplace was underground and remote?
But I was left alone. While the man was alone holding on to his senses, the world became stained with madness.
The man rotted in the security room without being able to take a single step into the fearful world… .
I took out the coated paper brought from the security office. The paper itself was clean, but honestly, I don’t want to keep carrying around paper that has the stench of the security office.
There are extremely simple three-line ‘precautions’ written on it.
1. You must not look inside the car in the parking lot.
2. You must not look back on the basement stairs.
3. Do not turn on the light when searching for items in the basement warehouse. Use a flashlight.
Simple content. After reading it a few times and memorizing it, I just threw the paper away.
First, following the precautions, we decided to explore further underground.
After walking across the parking lot, ignoring the car, a staircase leading down to the second basement level appeared. Didn’t I tell you not to look back?
I went down to the second basement floor while looking straight ahead. As expected, nothing happened.
The second basement floor contained a supply room, a bathroom, an office, and a room with strange machinery in operation.
There are no people anywhere.
I looked around several rooms, but didn’t find anything special.
Underground warehouse.
The paper had instructions for when looking for something in the underground warehouse.
Is there something there?
I took the stairs again and started going down to the third basement level.
—Tatak…
The moment you take a few steps up the stairs to the third basement floor.
A sound like metal scraping the floor began to be heard from behind.
…
I was told not to look back on the basement stairs.
I continued walking down without making a sound.
Little by little, I feel a headache.
I looked back only after I reached the hallway on the third basement floor.
there’s nothing.
It’s increasingly difficult to know what’s what. I started exploring to find out something, but somehow I felt like I was learning more and more that I didn’t know.
What is the meaning of precautions in the first place?
There were no other rooms on the third basement floor. When you get to the end of the hallway, there is a flashlight hanging on the wall and a huge door in front of you.
Is this an underground warehouse? I was told not to turn on the lights in the warehouse.
After opening the warehouse door, I ignored the light switch as instructed and searched around with only a flashlight.
It’s a common warehouse. Here and there are stacks of clean A4 paper, consumables for printers and spare parts for chairs or tables. A place to come when something breaks or runs out in the office.
Even though I looked through all the items for nearly 20 minutes, I found nothing unusual. There are no people, nothing unusual.
…
In fact, nothing has been discovered. The only information I found after coming down to the basement was a guard who escaped from the curse and died in pain, and a piece of paper with ‘precautions’ written on it.
Did I think something was wrong?
I realized one thing.
Why did I come down to the basement? For survival? no.
I didn’t come down to survive, but to ‘get information.’
Proceed ‘safely’ by reading the precautions written on paper and strictly following them.
For example, this is the behavior that the protagonist of a horror movie does for the purpose of survival.
What I should have done was exactly the opposite.
Rather, precautions must be taken. It’s my job to find out what’s going to happen if I break it, and if I end up getting beaten to death. Seungyeop will help you escape.
Now it’s time for me to die for everyone.
*
1. You must not look inside the car in the parking lot.
2. You must not look back on the basement stairs.
3. Do not turn on the light when searching for items in the basement warehouse. Take a flashlight with you.
I looked at the precautions again.
Now, I can look inside the car in the parking lot, look back on the stairs in the basement, and turn on the lights in the basement warehouse.
I went up to the parking lot and looked around. The stench that stings my nose again, dozens of cars parked.
I feel strange once again. If there are this many cars, shouldn’t the car owners at least come to the parking lot? And no matter how crazy the curse may be, how can you not feel this stench?
When I think about it, I remember when I first entered room 101, my fake family and I ate the duck raw and thought it was fresh. In a state where ‘common sense’ has changed to that extent, is it even possible to perceive such a bad smell as a scent?
First, let’s take a look at the inside of the car.
A car whose interior is barely visible due to the tinting.
The moment you get closer and put your face right in front of the window –
I was so surprised that I fell backwards.
There are people. I didn’t feel a headache until I got closer.
‘There are people who are not infected with the curse.’
I got up again, collected myself, and looked inside the car.
A mysterious scene.
Not inside the car. Apparently, you are looking inside the car through the car window, but you see a strange space that has nothing to do with the car. A sturdy bed that seemed to be made entirely of iron, and handcuffs installed.
An unknown person is lying on a bed, handcuffed.
Saliva is flowing from the mouth, and the hospital bed is already full of ugly marks. A person who has clearly been tied up for a long time without being properly managed.
I tapped on the window, but there was no response.
The outside and inside of the car feel like ‘different spaces’.
—bang!
I broke the window.
Only then did the skeletal person inside look at me with blurry eyes.
“Are you okay? Where on earth are you? Are you-”
“Huh. Hmm. Student….”
“…yes?”
“Call the teacher. Call the teacher.”
“Which teacher are you talking about?”
“Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher.”
-thud!
“Hey! I can’t help you if you don’t explain what kind of teacher you are talking about.”
—Kiririlik.
The sound of something – metal scraping on the floor.
The man’s voice became quiet and quiet.
“It’s coming… It’s coming… The nurse is coming. Uncle. Student. Take me out. Take me out.”
He’s begging me but can’t even raise his voice.
As if something extremely frightening was approaching.
This man is out of his mind. Judging by the fact that my head doesn’t hurt, I’m not infected with the curse. Regardless of the curse, he is just crazy.
Normal communication is impossible.
The moment I step out of the car with a sigh.
The window I broke with a gun repaired itself.
…
The time to be surprised by something like this has passed.
I looked at both cars by similarly breaking the windows, but there was no significant difference. Everyone was out of their minds and tied to the bed, unable to understand what was being said.
Do you mean doctor? nurse? Is that place a hospital?
The next place to head is the underground stairs.
As you go down, look back and see what’s chasing you.
Before that, I filled the magazine with my blood.
See next episode