Chapter 291: Room 204, Mission Room – ‘Hotel Cinema’ (14)

– Cha Jinchul

The moment the lightning struck me, a storm of light that seemed to burn the entire world filled the surroundings.

Nothing, absolutely nothing was visible. Like someone hit by a flash grenade, I just trembled in the violence of light that filled my entire field of vision.

I clearly realized only one thing. The fact that I was alive right now wasn’t normal.

My body, enhanced by the Blessing of Courage, did have superhuman durability, but there was certainly a limit. At least not to the extent of being able to think clearly while being burned alive by such lightning.

Something incomprehensible happened to my body.

Slowly, the light faded. At the same time, my senses started to return overall.

An acrid smell stung my nose, and my whole body was vibrating up and down. Kurta’s half-burned body was still clinging to its tenacious life.

My body had turned pitch black. Hard obsidian-like scales had replaced the skin all over my body and my eyes and ears had also changed.

In confusion, I climbed towards Kurta’s head, and a familiar voice was heard.

[…Who on earth are you? I burned until half my body was on fire, yet you’re fine and I’m in this state.]

“Is that you, Kurta?”

[Who else do you think it is?]

“Man, you don’t know, but there’s one more person talking in my head.”

[…]

“I’ll be ending your tenacious life now.”

[Master of the heavens…]

In its final moment, the hound of god died calling for its master.

As Kurta’s skull burst, a bright blue light rose from the dog’s body towards the sky. Perhaps someone in the sky might have collected the hound’s soul.

Of course, anything beyond that was none of my business.

“Raaaaaaah!”

A roar that shook heaven and earth!

The voices of jubilation from soldiers who had been despairing as they were trampled by Kurta, the incarnation of chilling violence, filled the battlefield.

How should I express the emotion of this moment? Joy? Fulfillment? Ecstasy?

It was impossible to express it with just one specific word! My heart was beating wildly, and a condensed emotion I had never felt in my life tickled my throat.

“Uraaaaah!”

Without realizing it, I roared madly, and the soldiers followed, roaring together. I’d probably never forget this moment for a long time.

However, one worry arose in my heart.

When I returned to the Commander-in-Chief, the Great General of National Defense’s tent, my worry became reality.

The soldiers on the battlefield were tens to hundreds of meters away from me. They just shouted in jubilation, thinking I had performed a miracle when they saw Kurta die.

This meant most of them didn’t see the state of my body. The situation changed when I entered the Great General’s tent, where they could observe me much closer.

As soon as I entered, the generals who had been shouting in jubilation started to panic, half-opening their mouths as they saw my strangely transformed body.

How on earth should I explain this?

I kept thinking about it on the way, but I couldn’t come up with a clear answer. So I decided to use the excuse of a dead being.

“General Cha! That body is…”

“Kurta.”

“What?”

“Kurta placed a curse on me. He said he would punish me for daring to bare my teeth at the loyal hound of the Sky God.”

“T-that’s!”

Even as I said it myself, I wondered if such nonsense would work, but it did. The generals, who had been looking at me with fearful expressions, soon approached and started comforting me, saying there would be a way to cure it when we returned to the imperial capital.

Well, to the generals, Kurta was an absurd monster—a wolf as big as an elephant wielding lightning. It was believable that it might have the power to curse humans.

As the atmosphere lightened a bit, the Great General of National Defense smiled at me slightly.

“General Cha, come here and have a drink. Your body may have changed, but you can still drink, right?”

…A cup of wine.

Thinking about that, I felt my face flush slightly without realizing it. Of course, I felt like I was blushing, but I wasn’t sure if my face, covered in something like pitch-black armor, actually turned red.

— I’ll return before that drink gets cold.’

What was all that really!?

Why did I have to say that?

Did I get too caught up in the moment?

…Still, I don’t regret it.

How many chances would I even get to say that famous line in the first place?

“Haha! Unfortunately, the wine must have all cooled down. If I had come a bit earlier—“

“What are you talking about? You returned before the wine cooled.”

The Great General of National Defense had placed the wine cup on top of a stove. At that moment, I was so impressed by the general’s sense that I couldn’t help but clap.

Not long after, feasts enjoying wine and meat opened up everywhere.

The excuse that I had been cursed by Kurta must have already spread throughout the military camp, because although the soldiers flinched when they saw me, they didn’t avoid me or treat me like a monster.

…

“Hey.”

…

“Answer me. You can talk to me, right? It seems like the ‘next scene’ will come soon, so what the hell did you do?”

Until the moment the scene changed, the being presumed to be the “witch” didn’t say a word to me.

What on earth is she thinking?

This was an issue I must address as soon as I get out.

As Jinchul’s body grotesquely mutated, all the audience in the theater fell into confusion.

“W-what? What the hell is that? Did Jinchul take the Star with him? N-no, that can’t be…”

Unlike the flustered Eunsol, Mooksung spoke with a calm attitude, “Isn’t it just a development within the movie? Did some god descend on the protagonist?”

Ahri showed a puzzled reaction, “So suddenly? It’s too out of nowhere. Besides, no matter how I look at it, that kind of change doesn’t seem like a divine transformation.”

Seungyub, seeing Jinchul’s appearance covered in pitch-black scales, admired it in a different sense, “That looks just like Black Panther I saw in the movie theater! Is it a similar portrayal?”

A moment later, when Jinchul mentioned “Kurta’s curse”, his companions fell into confusion again. From their perspective outside, they hadn’t seen a single scene of Kurta placing a curse.

At that point, Kain, who had been focusing more on the movie’s progression itself rather than Jinchul’s transformation, got greatly annoyed.

“Ah, really! Just when I thought it was about to end, again! Did these hotel bastards drug the plot!?”

– Clank!

The sound of an iron cart hitting a rock.

– Clang!

The sound of my body constantly hitting the surrounding iron as the cramped cart moves with difficulty.

“…”

What on earth happened to me?

To summarize the storm-like progression in the movie just now, it was simple. Around the time the feast was ending, I blinked once, and when I opened my eyes, considerable time had passed, and a minister of the emperor wearing a vermilion robe appeared before me and started shouting, “Criminal Cha Jinchul, heed the imperial order! Alas, it has been revealed to the entire world that you deceived the people and colluded with the plains bandits. Your wickedness has finally failed to hide its corruption and manifested in your flesh—“

To summarize the rambling, it was simple. They were saying I colluded with the nomads of the plains and brought crisis to the empire. With those words, the emperor’s minister started moving towards the capital, leading the soldiers who had brought me confined in a mobile prison.

Normally, I thought even the emperor couldn’t make such an unreasonable accusation.

The problem was…

I slightly turned my head and reflected my appearance on the iron ceiling. A strange being that anyone could see wasn’t human entered my vision. An appearance similar to the villains I often saw in special effects shows as a child.

“It’s kind of cool in its own way.”

Really.

To my eyes, it looked cool. But how would it look to the people of this world?

With just a little thought, the answer came to mind. In my current state, even if the emperor just spouted nonsense and framed me for crimes I didn’t, it all made sense. My body itself would be a testimony against me.

The generals who fought with me on the battlefield believed my excuse about Kurta’s curse because their faith in me—no, beyond faith, their feelings close to worship had grown so great.

Would the emperor or ministers in the capital who didn’t share that experience believe my words?

To begin with, as a “war hero”, there would be an overflow of people wanting to check me even for much more trivial reasons, and now that such an “appropriate justification” had been created, they wouldn’t tolerate me.

I had no idea what to do in this situation.

“Short break!”

“…”

As the procession stopped, the rattling iron cart also stopped. Then, a loud noise started to be heard from outside!

“Waaah!”

What on earth is going on?

Being confined in a mobile prison, I couldn’t see the situation outside. I could only hear the sound of numerous soldiers clashing weapons!

What is this? Isn’t the one transporting me now the emperor’s minister? Are they openly attacking the emperor’s minister on the road to the capital?

Even though I didn’t know much about history, I knew this kind of act was definitely treason!

Should I just break out of this prison?

Honestly, I was confident I could easily break this kind of prison with just one arm. This was why I had been able to think leisurely about various things until now.

I could get out anytime if I wanted to.

However, before I could open the prison door, someone else came in.

“Oh, oh!”

“Why are you so surprised?”

It was the familiar old man, the Great General of National Defense.

“No, aren’t I a great criminal now? Is it okay to just open the door and come in like this?”

“Were you surprised just because I opened a mere door? Don’t you see this?”

The old man smirked and rolled a round object towards me. It was the head of the person sent by the emperor who had been spouting nonsense earlier.

“Tell me honestly. You could have broken the iron bars and gotten out anytime if you wanted, right?”

“…”

“I’ve seen you fight several times, how could I not know that? Only the fools who came down from the capital think you’re really confined. I was observing when you would come out, but you didn’t come out for so long, so I came myself.”

“…”

“Why were you sitting there like an idiot? Do you intend to stay like this?”

“Then what should I do?”

“You should do something. Well, if your heart is so full of loyalty that you’re willing to die quietly, I won’t stop you.”

“…”

“I’ll tell you one thing you don’t know.”

“What I don’t know is…”

“There were three assassination attempts in your tent over the past few months, right?”

“Wasn’t it two?”

“It was three. Once, the servants found it when you weren’t there. Anyway, who do you think was behind it?”

“I’m curious about that too—“

“My friend! Why are you so clueless? Did you think it was the villains from the plains? They were so cornered that 80 members of the royal family jumped into boiling oil to summon the wolf. How could they so easily tamper with the meal of an imperial general?”

I felt like my head suddenly cleared.

An empire facing the crisis of war, a war hero rising in turbulent times.

Isn’t this a plot rehashed countless times in many movies? What’s the key element always added to this plot?

The emperor’s check

How could this not exist!?

“This Seonjo-like bastard, really!”¹

“Seonjo?”

“…It’s nothing. Great General, thank you for telling me. But why are you helping me?”

The old man muttered with a somewhat distant expression, “I’ve devoted my everything to guarding the wall for half my life. I’ve been blocking the bandits who attack to steal crops in summer and kidnap people in winter. But the one sitting on the throne is busy mixing interesting things into the food whenever a capable general appears.”

I was momentarily speechless when I heard the behind-the-scenes story of the emperor poisoning every time a promising general appeared.

This guy is three times worse than Seonjo!

At this point, my head finally cleared.

Just as Songee intuitively sensed the ending she would reach at some point in the first movie, I too realized the ending I should reach.

…Just because the one sitting on the throne was Seonjo didn’t mean I needed to become Yi Sun-sin.²

I’m sorry, but from now on, it’s time to Wihwado Retreat in this bitch.³