NoveLight ™
[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 22
Location: Floor 1, Hallway
Sage's Advice: 3]
"So, you're saying that a total of four people failed to escape?"
"Eunseol-noona, Elena-ssi, Ahri, and Grandpa Mookseong—all of them failed to escape."
"I'm ashamed."
"I'm really sorry, everyone."
"Well, let's skip the apologies for now and quickly come up with a new plan."
"This is a dire situation. Our initial strategy was to assess the difficulty of individual escapes on the first attempt. From then on, we planned to ensure that at least one person—who had the easiest escape—would guarantee our safety by continuously escaping, while the remaining seven would work to solve the room.
But with four people failing, normal resolution is out of the question.
Fortunately, I’m confident that I won’t make the same mistake in the next attempt."
"I’ll summarize the situations of those who failed:
Does that sound correct?"
Everyone nodded.
As I reviewed the summary, I couldn't help but find it absurd. The idea of failing to escape because the house was too large or starting in a hotel was beyond ridiculous.
I understood the others’ reasons, but Ahri’s situation puzzled me. With her combat prowess, couldn’t she just overpower her 'family'?
"Ahri?"
"Yeah?"
"You said you physically couldn't leave the hotel, but wasn’t your 'family' just one 'mother,' right?"
"That's right."
"Then your situation is similar to Jinchul-hyung’s. Couldn’t you just 'subdue' your mother in the next attempt? Jinchul-hyung knocked out his mother in one punch and escaped immediately."
"Kain! The way you said that makes me sound like the worst kind of jerk. I didn’t punch my mother; I punched the fake that was imitating her."
"..."
"?"
"Sorry. My mom’s too strong. I don’t think I can proceed. No matter what I do, I can’t beat her or stop her from approaching me."
...
What on earth?
Though I still don’t fully understand the extent of Ahri’s abilities, for her to claim, “I absolutely can’t win,” made me question what kind of person her mother really was. Could she even be called a person?
"Okay, let’s put Ahri aside for now and focus on the others. Grandpa, you’re confident you can proceed next time, right?"
"I guarantee I won’t make the same mistake twice."
"Then, we’ll count Grandpa’s issue as resolved. Ahri, on the other hand, absolutely cannot proceed, correct?"
"I’m really sorry, but no, I can’t."
"It can’t be helped. That leaves the issues with me and Elena."
"This is such an odd situation. Noona’s house is too big, while Elena-ssi’s house is too small."
Eunseol-noona and Elena both fell silent. The rest of us also paused, lost in thought.
With three people unable to proceed, the team’s situation was tight. One person was assigned to escape solely for the team’s safety, but now only four people could move forward.
After about five minutes, Eunseol-noona finally spoke.
"I’m really sorry. No matter how much I think about it, I can’t find a solution. I can’t subdue my family like Jinchul, and there are too many people and too much space to evade them."
"I think I might be able to do it. If I can just hold out for about five seconds, I could escape. My house is small."
"The problem is how to survive those five seconds when your 'bizarre family' is already clinging to you at the start."
"Ah!"
"Songyi?"
"Elena-unnie, would you be able to escape if your sight and hearing were completely blocked off?"
"I memorized the layout of the house since it’s so small."
... Elena started muttering about how “small” her house was.
"Then how about this: I block your senses right before you start, like I did for Jinchul-oppa before. It’s much more effective than just covering your eyes and ears and would protect you mentally even if the 'bizarre family' is right beside you. It lasts for about 10 minutes, so you’d have time to escape."
"If I escape that way, wouldn’t it put you at risk, Songyi? The bracelet only works on one person at a time, and if you use it on me, you wouldn’t be able to protect yourself until its cooldown ends."
"Unlike you, I just start in my room. I’ll lock the door and rest for 30 minutes to an hour until the bracelet’s cooldown is over. I’ll be fine."
"Songyi, could you use that method for Eunseol-noona too?"
"The bracelet only works on one person at a time."
"Then just use it for Elena. Sorry, but I can’t escape if my sight and hearing are blocked. My house is too big."
Noona handed me a notebook and pen, so I jotted down our revised plan:
This should work, right?
Having two people unable to proceed, one assigned to escape, and five focusing on progress seemed manageable. We couldn’t increase the number of participants anyway.
As we all reviewed the notes, murmurs began.
"'Abandon Team' sounds harsh. Can you remove my name?"
"Kain, you wrote our names like it’s a group project’s 'freeloader list.'”
"... It’s just for my own reference."
"Hmm, it’s well-organized, though. Seungyub, let me ask—"
"Yes!"
"You’re confident you can escape? Your role is critical since our survival depends on you. If you fail, we’re all doomed."
"I’m 100% sure. Last time, I escaped in 10 minutes. My parents rarely come into my room, so I just jumped out the window, landed on the car roof, and ran."
"Reliable and reassuring. We’ll count on you."
Seungyub’s face flushed at the praise.
Observations and Conclusions
By combining Seungyub’s and Songyi’s findings, we had two key pieces of evidence:
This led us to a hypothesis:
"Could the curse’s origin be the internet?"
"Perhaps the families were cursed through the internet, which then spread to their pets and surroundings?"
Though nothing was certain, the Progress Team decided to focus on investigating internet-related abnormalities in the next attempt.
Attempt 3
– Han Kain
[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 22
Location: Floor 1, Room 101 (Room of Curses – The Bizarre Family)
Sage's Advice: 3]
With practiced ease, I activated the filter as soon as I began. Immediately, I turned on the computer in my room.
Of course, I needed to make sure my family couldn’t barge in.
"Mom!"
"Kain?"
Even with the status screen covering me, her voice alone was enough to make my head spin for a moment.
"I need to register for classes, so please don’t disturb me!"
Considering the approximate date seemed to be February, I figured I could use the excuse of spring semester registration.
It seemed to work—her footsteps retreated down the hall.
I turned on the computer and began poking around. In less than a minute, I understood exactly what Seungyub meant.
The internet wasn’t just strange—it was deranged. The details he gave us were clearly understated. Mukbangs showing people eating live insects were tame in comparison to what I found. News broadcasts and dramas were horrifying beyond belief.
Even a psychopath would flinch at this content.
In less than a minute of browsing, I felt a pounding headache and an incessant ringing in my ears.
Somewhere deep inside, a warped sense of logic tried to creep in. What’s so wrong about people eating people?
...
I immediately turned off the monitor and stepped away.
After taking about five minutes to recover, my mind finally felt clear again.
Time to think carefully.
Seungyub said the internet was abnormal. Now that I’ve seen it firsthand, I can refine that statement: media is abnormal. Simply navigating platforms like Naver or Google didn’t trigger anything strange. But any kind of content—whether mukbangs, sports, news, or dramas—was undeniably corrupted.
This wasn’t just about the internet itself.
Could the media really be the source of the curse?
If so, how were we supposed to deal with it?
I remembered Songyi’s solution for Room 103. The curse there was tied directly to the Athanasias, and we resolved it by destroying them all.
The source of this curse must also be a tangible entity—something that corrupted the media, people, and the world at large.
A hypothesis began to take shape.