Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 30: Room 103, Cursed Room – ‘Animal Farm’ (4)

Chapter 30: Room 103, Cursed Room – ‘Animal Farm’ (4)

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 12

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 103 (Cursed Room – Animal Farm)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

My chest felt stuffy and it was hard to breathe properly.

Something hot surging from the depths of my chest scorched my stomach and the throat as it flared up from the inside. 

The sound of the bullet piercing through Seungyub’s chest was still echoing in my ears.

But why?

Didn’t I tell him to run away? I had definitely told him not to overdo things and that it was okay for me to die by myself!

And yet instead of running away, that idiot provoked the farmer in an extremely dangerous way and brought him all the way to the barn. 

What he got in return was a bullet.

The price of a wolf provoking an armed human was brutal. 

I had to be calm. It was not over yet.

All we had to do was escape.

As long as we escaped from this place, this guy that died a stupid death to save me would also be able to stand back up. 

I could drive a fist into his head, scold him for not listening to me and…

After that, maybe I could help Seungyub meet Ahri a bit more. Well, we would need to discuss that with Ahri as well.

I forced my brain to change its line of thought.

Thinking of what I would do after somehow escaping this place settled my emotions a little. I slowly froze my heart because anger was completely unnecessary. 

It seemed that the green monster in one of those movies could become endlessly more powerful through anger, but that had nothing to do with me.

Fury was the agent of making foolish judgement.

The rationality that rose back up to the surface after my frozen emotions started throwing out warning signs.

One of my legs was gone. It was definitely not functioning as per normal.

While I was fighting against 3 wolves, I had to focus on the one that was in front of me. In the meantime, one of the ones behind crunched on my leg so hard that I couldn’t even stand up properly.

Rat King (Kim Mooksung): Is everyone… okay?

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): About resolved. No other issues. Wolf dead, cow injured.

Pig (Cha Jinchul): How big is the injury?

Black Cow (Han Kain): Quite serious on the leg.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): More variables. Need to acquire information.

More variables.

Noona was thinking the same thing as me.

She was right.

The farm was clearly in a mess, and a few of the domestic animals were screaming out in pain. 

I could also hear members of the human family sobbing in sorrow. 

The incident with the wolves wasn’t completely over yet either. There were only about 10 wolf casualties in total, and there were still more than 30 wolves roaming around the farm.

For us, it was even worse than before.

We no longer had Seungyub and there was no way for us to tell what was happening with the pack of wolves, and overall, it became even more difficult to predict what would happen in this farm.

That was when an ominous trail of thought popped up in my brain.

What kind of farmer would continue raising a cow with a crunched leg?

That ominous prediction was soon proven to be true.

Kim Cat (Kim Ahri): The family talking about farm restoration.

Kim Cat (Kim Ahri): Not looking good. The wife wants to sell the farm.

Kim Cat (Kim Ahri): The husband wants to clean up the animals first.

Kim Cat (Kim Ahri): There are talks about slaughtering the injured cows.

Ahh… I knew it.

That was nothing strange.

I was never used for ploughing the land, and I was probably there to be butchered. A potential beef had a serious injury to the leg, so what kind of person would call a vet to heal the injury instead of killing it?

However, I accepted my fate.

It wasn’t time to sacrifice more people just for my survival. That would only lead to the downfall of everyone.

Black Cow (Han Kain): I’m fine. No need to help anymore. Hope to see you outside.

Yes. This was how it was supposed to be done.

At this point, I decided to look at it from a positive standpoint. Dying to the farmer was still better than being devoured by wolves, because there was no way he would intentionally harass me in the process.

He would use his set of tools to end it in one blow.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): No. We change plans.

Black Cow (Han Kain): I’m seriously oka…

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): I.E. I will use all the letters now so let’s all shut up. 

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): It’s a different situation from the Mansion of Fear. We had the wrong approach.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): Mansion of Fear – It was unclear what the danger was. We needed sacrifice to find out the enemy. Animal Farm – The enemy is very clear. Sacrifice is meaningless; we are only losing members. We must fight based on number’s advantage.

Rat King (Kim Mooksung): Is the family of farmers the enemy?

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): The farmers killed Wolf (Park Seungyub). Goose (Yu Songee) and Cow (Han Kain) were both threatened. At this point, it’s clear – the farmer’s family is the enemy in Room 103.

Eunsol-noona’s point was quite clear.

The risk factors that we belatedly discovered at the Mansion of Fear (Corrupt priest, possessed Songee, the devil at the depths and the moving statues) were all unclear even until the very end.

That was why we needed sacrifices to find out what the risk was.

On the other hand, it was obvious what the risk was in the Animal Farm!

The family had been threatening our lives several times already, and one of us was already killed.

There was no point in having any more sacrifices. Instead, we had to fight as soon as possible when we still had most of our members available!

As soon as I finished listening to her words, despite having no hands, I slapped my thighs in my heart in enlightenment. 

This was it.

That also made me feel quite relieved. According to her plan, there was no reason for me to sacrifice myself and stuff!

As expected, everyone started forming a plan to make sure we could do something before I was slaughtered.

Tomorrow, we would be destroying this damned farm.

*

– Yu Songee

Was this really the correct approach?

While cleaning my feathers with my beak, I thought about multiple things.

Destroying the Farm

Everyone was already discussing detailed plans on how to efficiently destroy the farm, as well as how to brutally crush the family of farmers.

Something… was off.

But I had no idea what that was. I had the feeling that this wasn’t the correct plan, but I had no confidence in explaining myself.

I was constantly under the impression that everyone was acting emotionally.

I could understand them getting angry because the family of farmers were constantly threatening us, and because Seungyub was shot to death in front of everyone’s eyes. I also felt like crying when I saw that.

But this was seriously strange.

Goose (Yu Songee): Is this really the right plan?

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): Any opinions?

Goose (Yu Songee): Something feels wrong.

It sounded stupid. I regretted writing that as soon as I sent those words.

Everyone was devising a strategy with their lives on the line, and yet all I could say in opposition to that was that ‘something felt wrong’.

It sounded stupid but…

I seriously couldn’t explain myself using any other expression.

El Doggy (Elena): It’s hard for Songee to leave the farm. You can wait.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): The Boar and the Snake have the crucial roles. Don’t worry.

Ah.

They appeared to be thinking that I was saying such a thing because I was scared. I immediately realised what my image was in the minds of others, and that was heart-wrenching.

A young student who was too timid to chime into important matters. Someone that required concern.

I could understand them though, because it was true that I had done nothing until now. I felt ashamed for being less impactful than Seungyub and Ahri, who were both younger than me. 

Ahri was a probationary agent of the Calamity Administration Bureau so that was passable, but Seungyub was just a normal middle school student who risked his life and died to save Kain-oppa.

What was I doing?

The strategy meeting finished while I was gloomily thinking to myself.

And because there was nothing else to do, I… decided to head to the outskirts of the enclosed geese farm to see the monster again.

It was late at night.

Only when it was so dark that I could not even see my own body if not for the grace of the glorious silver moon hanging on the night sky… did a black figure appear from the darkness.

It was the same as yesterday.

The entire world turned silent as soon as it showed itself.

All the animals turned quiet as if there was nothing going on, and the soft whispering words of the family of farmers that were discussing throughout the night also vanished like an illusion.

The black figure scanned across the surroundings as if observing something and…

Soon, it walked towards ‘me’.

I was certain. It had no eyes and didn’t have a clear figure, but I could still tell for some reason.

Like yesterday, that being approached me once again while being conscious of my existence.

It might be because it was my second time, but it wasn’t as unbearably frightening as yesterday. After approaching me, a long tentacle came out of the monster.

As if the walls of the geese breeding farm was nothing but water, the tentacle penetrated through it, before tapping my head a few times.

This time, it even stroked my feathers that had been cleaned up by my beak.

This thing that the monster was doing… was something I was quite familiar with.

Around 30 minutes went by.

The black figure melted into the air and vanished without any preceding omens like what happened when it first appeared.

*

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 13

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 103 (Cursed Room – Animal Farm)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

– Han Kain

I woke up as soon as the sun rose. The pain on my leg that didn’t let me sleep properly at night was also a lot better now. 

Today was a very busy day!

There was no need to blankly sit in the barn and go, ‘Moooo’ without being able to do anything.

Everyone else appeared to be thinking the same thing, as we soon began our recap of the morning operation.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): Night Squad? What happened to the gun?

Kim Cat (Kim Ahri): The gun’s broken.

Clever Snake (Lee Eunsol): Operation start. Cat, Pig, Dog – go! Cow, get ready. I’m in position.

We were finally doing it. It was time to return the pain we had to go through.

On the 4th day at the horrible Animal Farm;

We finally began our operation to destroy the farm.