Chapter 64: Room 101, Cursed Room – ‘A Strange Family’ Re (2)

Chapter 64: Room 101, Cursed Room – ‘A Strange Family’ Re (2)

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 22

Current Location: Floor 1, Corridor

Sages Advice: 3]

So that means we have four of us that failed.

Eunsol-noona, Miss Elena, Ahri and Grandpa Mooksung couldnt escape, is that correct? I asked.

I have no words to say, replied Grandpa Mooksung.

Sorry everyone.

Hmm, Im sorry as well but lets stop there for the apologies and come up with another plan.

Its a fairly serious problem, said Grandpa Mooksung. Look, our first plan was to see the difficulty of escape through our first attempt and allocate 1 person to escaping after that for the safety of the team to have the remaining 7 continue with the room, right?

But 4 of us failed, which means we only have a few that will be proceeding with the rooms curse.

However, what is fortunate is that I can swear there wont be any problems in the next attempt. I will not repeat the same mistake twice.

I decided to organise the situation for now.

First off, let me organise the reasons for our failure.

1. Eunsol: The house is too big; there are too many people and it is difficult to escape while hiding from all the people.

2. Elena: The house is too small, and starts in the same room as her family.

3. Mooksung: Bewildered by the resurrection of the deceased family members.

4. Ahri: The starting place is the 1st Hotel, and a physical escape is therefore impossible.

Does that sound right?

They all returned a nod.

What I could tell once again while going through those points was that there were quite a few unexpected reasons. I wasnt expecting it to be impossible to escape due to having a big house, and starting at the Hotel was also fairly shocking.

I understood what happened for the other people but had a slightly hard time understanding Ahris case. She was physically strong so couldnt she just beat her family?

Ahri? I asked.

Hn?

I get that you cant physically leave the Hotel, but according to you, that means you only had your mum showing up as your family, right?

Thats right.

Then the situation itself seems similar to Jinchul-hyungs, so how about you try overpowering her next time? You can be like Jinchul-hyung and escape after bashing your mother up the moment we begin to stop her from approaching you.

Hey Kain! I dont like the way youre saying that! What do you mean I bashed my mother up? Youre making me sound like the shittiest guy on the planet! I punched not my mother, but the fake that was pretending to be my mother.

Ahri didnt say anything for a while nor did she show any sign of approval.

?

Sorry, but my mum is a bit strong. I dont think Ill be able to do anything. I cant beat my mother no matter what I do and I cant stop her from approaching me either.

What was going on, I wondered.

There were still quite a lot of things we werent sure about regarding Ahris abilities, but to think she was so certain that she couldnt beat her

What kind of person was her mother? Was she even human?

Now! Eunsol-noona continued off from where I stopped. So it will be hard for Ahri, but what about everyone else? First off sir? Are you sure you can proceed next time?

I can assure you that I will not make the same mistake twice.

It was a simple mistake for you, so lets say youll be fine from our next attempt. On the other hand Ahri, theres no way for you to do anything, is that right?

Sorry, but yes. Itll be absolutely impossible.

That cant be helped then. I guess it boils down to Elena and me.

Hah, this is quite a peculiar situation, isnt it? said Jinchul-hyung. For noonim, its a problem because your house is too big and for Miss Elena, its because the house is too small.

For a while, Eunsol-noona and Elena both turned silent and pondered by themselves and so did we.

No matter what, having 3 people unable to do anything was quite rough. 1 of us had to be a dedicated escaper and adding 3 people to that meant we had to resolve the curse with only 4 of us.

After 5 minutes of silence, Eunsol-noona opened her mouth.

Im really sorry, but I dont think I can do anything. I cant punch my family and overpower them like Jinchul, and the house is too big and crowded for me to leave in secret.

I think I might have a better fighting chance than Eunsol-unni, said Elena, Because I just need to buy 5 seconds. With just 5 seconds, I think I can leave the house because it is quite small.

The problem is that you start with the Strange Family next to you though, so buying 5 seconds is going to be quite hard.

I decided to be more proactive at finding information in our next attempt.

For now, I wrote down the two notes that Seungyub and Songee found for us.

1. The internet is strange.

2. The family might be normal humans.

Adding the two of them naturally made us come up with a hypothesis.

Is the origin of the curse the Internet then?

Were the family afflicted with the curse from using the internet? And maybe the animals got infected by them?

Theres nothing certain, but I believe the Advance Team should first look at matters related to the internet.

After discussing for about 30 minutes, we finished organising the situation and setting our goals.

Lastly, I ripped the note out and put it on the table for everyone to see.

1. Escape Team: Park Seungyub

2. Advance Team: Han Kain, Yu Songee, Cha Jinchul, Kim Mooksung, Elena

3. Rest Team: Lee Eunsol, Kim Ahri.

Goal of the Advance Team: Find the Origin of the Curse. Search primarily through the Internet.

I think we had a solid starting point now for another attempt.

Kain. Can you please just get rid of my name?

I guess hes the type of person that needs to report to the professor about the unhelpful group project members~

*

Third Attempt

*

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 22

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 101 (Cursed Room A Strange Family)

Sages Advice: 3]

The moment I came to myself, I immediately put up a filter in front of my eyes. Next, I turned on the computer in my room.

Oh right, I couldnt forget to remind the family not to come in.

Mum!

Kain?

Even after covering myself with the system window, my mind turned blank for a bit immediately after hearing her voice.

I need to apply for my courses so dont interrupt me!

It seemed to be around February right now inside the room, so there should be nothing wrong with me saying that I was in the middle of applying for my university subjects.

Her feet slowly went further away from the room.

Turning on the computer, I browsed the web for about a minute, and immediately understood what Seungyub meant.

Seriously, the world of the Internet had absolutely gone crazy, and I realised that Seungyub was trying to put it nicely when he said that. There were shows where people tried to eat people, and the news and dramas were literally horrendous.

Even psychopaths would probably get goosebumps after seeing these.

In less than 1 minute after I started watching the videos, my head started to ache tremendously and strange sounds started echoing in my ears.

A rather distorted common sense tried to seep into my head.

What was wrong with humans eating humans?

Quickly turning off the monitor, I retreated back.

My mind returned after 5 minutes of rest.

I pondered to myself.

Seungyub said the Internet was strange, but after seeing it with my own eyes, I came up with a more distinct explanation.

It was the Media that was strange. There was nothing strange when using search engine platforms like Naver and Google. It was mainly TV shows, eating shows, sports, news and dramas that were all crazy.

There were still so many unanswered questions though. Was Media the problem? Was Media the origin of the curse?

Then what was the Hotel asking us to do then?

This was probably not the right approach. I decided to think back to Room 103 that Songee resolved. The origin of the curse back then were the Athanasias, and the room was resolved after she wiped them out.

In other words, the origin of the curse was probably something that could be physically destroyed. That thing must have contaminated the Media, which spread to the people and the world.

I came up with a hypothesis.