Escaping the Mystery Hotel

*

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 24

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 101 (Cursed Room – Common Sense Renovating Media)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

*

Fifth Attempt

*

– Han Kain

An alarm popped up the moment I entered the room.

[The Enemy is aware of the contestants.]

[The power of the curse has been enhanced.]

[You cannot escape.]

…

Were these the penalties of the ‘Fifth Attempt’?

How ridiculously unfair…

It was then.

— Kung! Kung! Kung!

“Come out! Ahahaha! Oppa? Hurry up!”

— Stab!

…

As soon as it began, everyone inside the house started going on a rampage. Immediately I locked my room up and stayed holed up in my room.

How was I supposed to leave this place?

Let’s think about how it would be for everyone else.

Since Grandpa Mooksung had the gun with him, all he had to do was kill his family. On top of that, Songee with her bracelet and the powerful Jinchul-hyung would probably be able to resolve it somehow.

I was a bit concerned about Elena. She had to start off with her family in the same room, with her sense of sight and hearing gone. It was questionable if she could somehow bear through that at the beginning and activate her blessing on top of that.

…Honestly, it wasn’t the time for me to worry about others. The biggest problems were me, Seungyub and Eunsol.

It was hard to believe that Eunsol-noona would be able to make it out alive. The securities would probably try to kill her from the start so what could she even do? She might even be dead already.

Plus, it didn’t look easy for Seungyub either.

— Kung! Kwang!

The biggest problem at hand was me though. They were about to smash the door open at this rate.

…

Opening the wardrobe, I dressed myself like it was the coldest winter outside. I put on three jeans, two sweaters and two padded jackets. With clothes this thick, I might even be able to survive in Antarctica. 

This should be hard to breach with a kitchen knife, right? My parents and my sister weren’t sword masters after all.

— Thud!

After quickly pulling the door wide open, I immediately stabbed my sister on the neck with my dagger. In that brief moment, a kitchen knife slashed past my upper body but as expected, it failed to go through my thick coats!

Frantically, I continued stabbing forward but after sensing a presence from the back, I urgently dodged to the side but still felt something blunt landing on my back.

Turning around, I found dad carrying a golf club. 

It was doable!

Unlike me, who was pretty much wearing cloth armour, everyone in my family was wearing normal clothes, and besides, it seemed that their intellectual ability had also dropped significantly because of the strong effect of the curse.

It didn’t take long for me to defeat everyone.

…

As expected, it wasn’t considered an ‘Escape’ despite me killing every one of my family.

…My stomach started to ache.

‘The power of the curse has been enhanced,’ was it?

Leaving my house, I saw that the world had turned into a pandemonium. Pretty much every human I could see was running in at one another. 

What was fortunate, at the very least, was that unlike my ‘family’ who were only coming after ‘me’, the people outside the house were battling each other in mayhem. Obviously, it seemed difficult to expect transportation systems like the taxi to operate properly in a world like this.

How was I supposed to go to the TV Station? Did I have to walk through this hell?

After some time, I decided to try driving a car. There was no way I would be caught for driving without a licence in a world like this, right?

I had a rough idea of how to get to the TV Station.

Before setting off, I checked the system window.

[Teammate Location Information (*)

Park Seungyub: Dead

Lee Eunsol: Dead]

As I thought, the two of them couldn’t make it out alive.

I told myself to use ‘Descent’ if need be. Using it once for the Inheritance wouldn’t be a bad trade-off.

…My stomach was in pain.

*

It was my first time driving, but it was easier than I thought. Through the experience driving the bumper car, I was somewhat used to the basics of driving.

Everyone was busy fighting and there weren’t many cars on the road.

As for the people walking by… I just drove straight through them.

I ignored the speed limit, knocked people away and continued driving even after bumping into poles and whatnot.

Driving was super easy!

…Let’s learn how to properly drive a car when I’m outside.

After somehow arriving at the TV Station, I finally saw the faces of my teammates, which I had started to miss in that short period of time. Waiting there for me to arrive was Songee, who said she lived 10 minutes walking distance away from the TV Station, and Grandpa Mooksung, who probably drove here.

“What about everyone else?”

“We’re still waiting. Check with your ability. You said it shows if they’re dead or not, is that correct? Are there still some that we are waiting for?”

“I’ve been seeing it on a regular basis, and it seems that Elena and Jinchul-hyung are alive. They seem to be on their way somehow.”

“By the way, are you trying to look like a penguin? What’s with your… Ahah! I see what you were doing. You don’t have a gun after all – what a great idea. As expected of my junior!”

“…”

“But how about you take them off now? You look like you’re dying from the heat.”

I had no plans of becoming his junior at the Administration, but it was indeed very hot so I followed his advice and took off some of my clothes.

“Where are the staff of the TV Station?”

“My guess is that they are all ‘preparing’ themselves.”

“What do you mean, ‘preparing’?”

“None of them are coming downstairs. The guy knows we are coming, so he must have made some preparations for himself.”

“I wonder what those would be.”

“My biggest concern is guns. For a TV Station this big, it’s not strange for them to have armed police officers as security guards. They might have prepared a bunch of guns. That’s why Songee and I are just waiting here instead of going up – that pig needs to come and use something as a shield. Otherwise, it’s going to be rough.”

Cough!

…

My throat suddenly felt ticklish so I let out a cough.

What came out were things resembling teeth as well as blood.

…

“…”

“Are you alright?”

I pulled up my clothes to have a look at my stomach.

…A new mouth was being formed on my stomach.

“What about you and Songee, sir?”

Without saying anything, Grandpa Mooksung raised his clothes a tiny bit.

…A strange eyeball and a tongue were twitching on top of his flesh.

“I remember seeing a message about the power of the curse being enhanced at the start.”

“It’s probably directly affecting our body as well. Songee has a problem on her right arm.”

“It will be difficult for us to last a long time.”

“Think positive. You don’t want to stay in a place like this for an extended period of time, do you? Let’s quickly head to the hospital as soon as the two of them are here.”

“I will use Descent if need be.”

“Right. Actually, that ability of yours is the reason why I thought it would be okay to enter Room 101 again.”

“Did you perhaps vote for…?”

“I think the right call would have been going to another room, but I guessed it would work out with your Descent anyway.”

*

After a while, the sound of a car echoed outside as Jinchul-hyung appeared from within.

“You’re here! Finally! You didn’t bring your mother again, did you?”

“Of course I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“Did you take the pill?”

“No. I just drove here.”

We waited there for Elena to arrive.

After approximately 15 minutes or so…

…

An angel flew towards us from the sky.

*

Her hair that seemed to have been made from gold fluttered like an ocean wave.

A radiant golden scale was rotating around her.

In that state, Elena ‘descended from the sky’. We were watching her in shock and awe, but without stopping, she immediately ran towards the upper floors of the TV Station as if she didn’t even see us.

…Huh?

“Umm! Miss Elena?!”

“Aht!”

“Everyone. Run after her! She probably can’t stop herself because she already activated Justice!”

Elena arrived at the TV Station with ‘Justice’ pre-activated.

We frantically ran after her as I looked at the state she was in. Her half-torn and ripped blouse revealed parts of her beautiful body and—

Wait. Torn?

I widened my eyes upon realising that several parts of her clothes were torn and her body was full of small wounds. 

Everyone else also belatedly noticed that.

“Unni? Did you get hurt?”

Just like last time, Elena was able to hold a conversation even though her ‘actions’ were still being forced.

She slowly explained herself.

“My sister attacked immediately after we started. I did activate my blessing before it was too late, but it didn’t heal any wounds that had already been made.”

…

We climbed up the stairs of the TV Station as they retaliated in full force.

— Bang! — Bang! 

People wearing police uniforms started shooting their guns while staff of the TV Station built desks and used walls as barricades. 

It would have been extremely difficult if we had to break through by ourselves.

Elena, however, solved it all too easily.

She threw the staff away with invisible hands and made them unconscious. Her invisible hands made the barricades and walls useless.

Wait, unconscious? Looking at them again, I noticed that none of the staff members were dead.

…Did she gain the ability to ‘neutralise’ the victims of the curse after hearing what Ahri told her yesterday?

I had a rough understanding of how Elena’s blessing worked.

Blood. 

Elena walked forward leaving an endless trail of blood behind her.

She could block flying bullets and render the barricades of the staff useless. Even with the overwhelming power of ‘Justice’, Elena could not heal the wounds that had already been carved onto her body.

Seeing her walk forward while tainting the floor with blood, we couldn’t help but ask ourselves.

“Grandpa!” said Songee, “What should we do? Can Elena-unni continue fighting with so many wounds?”

“It’s driving me crazy as well! If she could stop for just a little bit, we would be able to wrap her wounds with bandages and stop the blood, but she is not going to stop any time soon.”

“Let’s just go to the rooftop as quickly as possible. We are already on the 6th floor.”

“I will go and carry Elena,” said Jinchul-hyung.

“What if you get attacked for interfering with the enforcement?”

“I won’t though. I can carry her and run upstairs, right? Not sure if there’s an AI behind the ‘blessing’, but I won’t be interfering with the process.”

He ran up, carried Elena with his arms and started sprinting forward.

Fortunately, Elena didn’t turn him down.

…Would we be able to reach the end like this?

*

In the end, as soon as we got to the rooftop, Elena seemed to have lowered her mental guard for a moment and fainted. Even the power of ‘Justice’, that forced the enforcement, seemed unable to stop Elena from losing consciousness due to overworking her body. 

“We’ve neutralised everyone downstairs already. Let’s leave her here and go in just by ourselves.”

“Leaving her here won’t be safe though. None of the staff are dead; they’re just unconscious. We couldn’t even kill them in fear that Elena would suddenly start attacking us. If they wake up, they’ll definitely try to kill her.”

“Then do you want to take her with us? To a hospital full of monsters?”

“Look at this. We need to take her.” Songee said while pointing in a direction.

The scale was still rotating around Elena’s body.

“Her blessing is still there?”

“Justice is still activated. It’s just that Elena herself has lost her consciousness. If she somehow wakes up, she’ll be able to fight again.”

“She fainted from lack of blood. How is she going to wake up again!? She’s probably going to die soon.”

“We never know if the blessing will activate even with her unconscious. Besides, it might force her to wake up.”

“Let’s just take her!” said Jinchul-hyung to end the long discussion. “I can carry her! She’s not that heavy anyway.”

“No. Let me do it,” I replied. “It will be hard for us to climb if your arms are occupied.”

Jinchul-hyung was about to carry Elena, in an attempt to end the discussion by getting rid of the choice of leaving her behind altogether, but we would be losing way too much fighting potential if he were to carry her on his back, so I opted to carry her instead.

…As soon as I did, a strong smell of blood soared into my nose. Was she really going to be okay?

Grandpa Mooksung didn’t say anything else.

In front of the door leading to the rooftop of the TV Station; the one that was connected to the entrance of the hospital, everyone stood still for a bit.

…

But there was no time to waste. After looking into each other’s eyes, we resolved ourselves and entered the hospital.

At last, the end of the long Room 101 was drawing near.