The Forest of No Return
After the commotion had finally died down, Bongsindang opened its doors once more.
Sitting in the Tower lobby, Bonghyuk felt utterly at ease, readying himself for the day's readings at an unhurried pace. Doyeon set up her tripod and arranged the stream settings, while Jian sorted talismans and items beside the booth.
Perhaps because news of Jeong Wooseok clearing the 7th floor of Hell had spread far and wide, the line outside Bongsindang was a good several times more crowded than usual.
"Number fourteen, come in."
"Aigoo, thank you! Finally, my turn."
A man walked in beaming from ear to ear.
"I'm Jang Dongseong! Pleasure to meet you!"
He dropped into a deep, respectful bow.
Bonghyuk studied the man. A bright halo of light wrapped around his face, and the moment Bonghyuk invoked his skill, a tingling current ran through him as information about Jang Dongseong surfaced in his mind.
"Jang Dongseong. B-rank. A Miner."
"Yes, that's right, that's right."
"Go on."
"The thing is, I used to run a small factory. Now that I've awakened as a Miner anyway, I'd like to grow the business in a bit of a different direction."
"You want to reprocess Tower minerals and sell them, right?"
"Yes! Exactly that."
Bonghyuk regarded the man for a moment. Scenes drifted up through his mind. Conveyor belts humming along in a busy factory. Wads of money changing hands. Awakened Miners hired one by one as the business steadily grew.
"Looks like it'll do well."
"Oh! Really?"
"It will. But..."
Bonghyuk's eyes narrowed to slits.
He saw another man standing at Jang Dongseong's side. The two seemed quite close, drinks passing back and forth between them.
"Brother Seonguk! Thanks to your advice, the business has flourished like this. Have a drink!"
"What advice did I even give? You did well all on your own, Dongseong."
The two draped arms over each other's shoulders like sworn brothers.
"This Seonguk person. A business partner of yours?"
Jang Dongseong flinched at Bonghyuk's words.
"Oh, no, he's not a partner—just an older acquaintance. He's given me advice in all sorts of ways, a truly grateful person. Actually, he's been suggesting we try a business venture together..."
"That man's a con artist."
"I'm sorry?"
"He looks like a grateful man right now, doesn't he? He isn't. He's fleeced plenty of others besides you."
"Wh-what? No, no—there's no way that man would do something like that..."
But what Bonghyuk's eyes saw was different. Seonguk ransacking a gutted office—cleaning out the safe, scooping up documents, and running. Unpayable promissory notes piling up, seizure notices slapped across the factory walls.
"Everything else is fine. Guard against just that one thing, and the business will go smoothly."
"Sh-should I report him to the police, then?"
Jang Dongseong swallowed dryly, and Bonghyuk looked him over once more, carefully. Someone was hunting Seonguk with relentless pursuit—perhaps one of the people he'd swindled. Blood running down an alley. The end of the road for this man Seonguk was not a pretty one.
"Just leave him be. Keep your distance, and he'll get taken in on his own."
"O-okay. Thank you! ...Wait, no, but he's really not that kind of person..."
"Never mind what that man says. Listen to your wife. Do that, and you might even take the company public."
Jang Dongseong jumped in shock.
"I'm sorry? I'm not married, though...? I don't even have a girlfriend..."
"You will soon."
At the promise of a lover and a wedding, the face that had gone stiff bloomed into smiles again. Jang Dongseong retreated, bowing repeatedly to Bonghyuk as he went.
"Next."
The next to appear was a middle-aged man. He walked over without a word, sat down, and gave a quiet bow.
Beneath a hat pulled low, a haggard face. Dry lips. Slumped shoulders. The shadows under his eyes were pitch dark, as if he hadn't slept in days, and his eyes were like empty caves.
Bonghyuk stared straight at the man, and the man slowly opened his mouth.
"I want to enter the Tower... but strangely, whenever I try, my legs grow heavy and my feet won't carry me forward. My stomach turns, too. I don't know why. I came hoping there might be a way for me to get in."
"A-rank Awakener. Lee Sanghyeok. Advanced Floor 8 was your last attempt, wasn't it?"
"Yes. That's right. I want to enter the Tower. I must."
The moment he tried to enter the Tower, his legs turned to lead and his feet refused to move? Bonghyuk scrutinized the man. A face sunk in darkness. The instant he laid eyes on it, something surfaced in his mind.
Bonghyuk asked.
"Why are you so desperate to get into the Tower?"
"Because I awakened. I have... to enter the Tower."
"Your real reason. Did you think I wouldn't see that you're trying to go to your little girl?"
The man lifted his head slightly. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed in red.
People nearby began to whisper.
"Daughter? What's this about?"
"A family reading, is it?"
The viewers sensed the strange shift in the air as well. Chat was pouring into the stream window just as fast.
Bonghyuk gazed at the man in silence.
Scenes surfaced in his mind. A little girl in a hospital gown, lying in a hospital bed, smiling faintly at her father with a face drained of color. The man clearing the Tower by the skin of his teeth and paying hospital bills late into the night.
And then, the next scene. A flatline droning on and on. The man's back as he collapsed before a gravestone, shoulders heaving.
Bonghyuk looked at the man with pity.
"You've been climbing the Tower all this time to pay for your daughter's hospital bills."
"...Yes."
"How sad. How much it hurts. And now nothing means anything anymore. You just—"
"..."
"—want to give it all up and go to her side. That's all."
Instead of answering, the man bowed his head even deeper. His shoulders shook.
"Just... please let me enter the Tower."
The chat froze in an instant. People had realized what the man's words meant.
Bonghyuk clicked his tongue.
"You're thinking of nothing but yourself. You don't understand your daughter's heart at all."
Bonghyuk saw. He saw what came after the man finally forced his way into the Tower. Monsters swarming from every direction. The man standing frozen, without even the will to raise his weapon. And then, right there, a shadow fading away in vain.
"Don't enter the Tower."
"Master Shaman. Please let me enter. It is my final wish."
In that moment, Bonghyuk's eyes caught a faint shadow standing beside the man. It was the girl in the hospital gown. Looking at Bonghyuk with desperate, pleading eyes, she slowly shook her head. No. He must not be allowed into the Tower.
"Lee Sanghyeok. Do you know why you can't enter the Tower?"
The man's shoulders flinched.
"Why I can't enter...? Isn't that why I came—because I don't know? Just let me into the Tower."
"You sorry fool."
The reason Lee Sanghyeok could never enter the Tower. The reason his legs grew heavy and his stomach churned every time he stood before a gate. It was his daughter. His daughter had been desperately, desperately blocking her father from entering the Tower.
Bonghyuk clicked his tongue—tch.
A newly acquired skill—
Kut.
With it, he might be able to guide the daughter's soul on to the afterlife and send the man into the Tower after her. Do that, and this reading would be over, too. But somehow, that didn't sit right with him.
There was one more thing Bonghyuk could see. A single thread of red, faintly connecting the man and his daughter—and that thread stretched long, deep into the inside of the gate.
After pondering for a long while, Bonghyuk opened his eyes.
"Lee Sanghyeok. Fifteen minutes from now, enter the Middle gate—Floor 10."
"...Fifteen minutes? Why Middle...? I want to enter Advanced."
"Do as I say, and I'll let you into Advanced."
The man stared at Bonghyuk for a long time, then eventually nodded.
"...Understood."
"One condition."
"...?"
"You do exactly as I say. Once you're inside the gate, head straight for the eleven o'clock direction. You're A-rank, so Middle-tier mobs shouldn't give you trouble. Run for about thirty minutes and you'll reach the 'Sanctuary of Souls.' Go there. If you make it and come back, then I'll grant whatever you wish."
A strange reading, this. Lee Sanghyeok asked.
"...That's all I have to do?"
"That's all."
Bonghyuk paused, choosing his words.
"It won't be the ending you're imagining. But go that far regardless. That is my reading."
The man stood rooted in place. Then he set down his offering and strode off in silence toward the Middle gate. Watching his back for a moment, Bonghyuk murmured:
"Doyeon. Follow him."
"Ah—yes!"
Doyeon scrambled to gather her streaming gear and hurried after the man. He glanced back once, then walked on indifferently, as if it meant nothing at all.
"Next reading waits until that guy comes back out."
The man—Lee Sanghyeok—stood before the Middle gate. Middle Floor 10.
Why there, of all places? For now, he resolved to do as he was told. But strangely, standing before the Middle gate brought none of that heaviness in his legs, none of the churning in his gut. If anything, he felt calm—and somehow, wistfully nostalgic. The man slowly pushed himself through the gate, and Doyeon followed with her camera in hand.
Middle Floor 10.
With a burst of static, Doyeon's stream came back online.
It was an eerie forest. The trees stood thick and dense, yet not a single birdsong broke the silence.
Eleven o'clock, it said. Sanghyeok set off straight in the eleven o'clock direction.
Grrr— Now and then a few beast-type monsters lunged out of the underbrush, but a few flicks of an A-rank Awakener's hand cut them down with ease.
The man walked on and on. How long had it been? Ahead, the forest broke off, opening into a wide clearing—and at its heart, a placid lake lay spread out like a mirror.
At the very center of the lake, a small stone temple rose above the water's surface. A few white stone pillars, their edges worn smooth by the ages, stood tangled in lush vines. Between them, all that could be seen within was a single old altar, sitting in solitude.
Is that the Sanctuary of Souls?
As if spellbound, the man set his foot upon the lake. Wonder of wonders, he did not sink—the water's surface received each step like a solid road.
He told me to come all the way here...
And so he stepped into the temple. A tiny space that seemed it could barely hold a handful of people, with a clear blue sky unfurling in a perfect circle through the open ceiling above.
The moment the man stepped inside, bright light came pouring down from the ceiling, gathering into a pillar. Within that light, a faint figure slowly took shape.
A petite frame. Neatly tied hair. A dress worn with care. A girl of about fifteen stood within the light, her toes hovering just above the ground.
At the sight of her, the man's legs crumpled beneath him.
"...Jiyeon...?"
"...Dad."
The girl opened her mouth—with a face that seemed one breath from weeping, and yet forcing itself to smile.
Middle Floor 10. The name 'Forest of No Return' had been given to this place because of this very Sanctuary of Souls.
Countless people had wandered into this dungeon by chance, only to meet in that temple at the lake's heart someone they longed for beyond all words. Parents gone ahead of them. Children. Sweethearts.
And they could not bring themselves to take another step away.
"I don't want to go back."
So many had sunk down right there, never to emerge again, that people came to call this forest the Forest of No Return.
At the sight of his daughter, Lee Sanghyeok crawled toward her, nearly on his knees. His face was a mess of tears, and his outstretched hands trembled.
"Jiyeon... Jiyeon... It's Dad. Dad's here. Have you been well, my Jiyeon? Hm? Nothing hurts?"
His daughter looked back at him with sorrowful eyes. The girl slowly bent down to meet her father at eye level.
"Dad. I'm doing so well here. Nothing hurts at all. But why do you keep... trying to come to me?"
"I have to go where my daughter is. Right?"
Doyeon, streaming it all, could not say a word. The chat, too, was nothing but T_TTTT after T_TTTT, endlessly.
Tower lobby. Bonghyuk sat in his booth, quietly watching Doyeon's stream. If only that father could finally understand, even now, the heart of the daughter who had held him back at the gate.
The girl spoke.
"Dad. The truth is... you were scared of the Tower, weren't you? You only went because of me, forcing yourself. You don't have to go anymore. Don't suffer for nothing."
"..."
"I don't want to see you right now. I'm a teenager, you know. If you came now, I'd end up hating you."
"Jiyeon..."
"So, Dad—go meet someone nice. Okay? And eat your meals properly."
"How... how could I..."
"Promise me. Dad, see you later. Much later. Got it?"
The girl's form slowly began to fade into the light.
"Jiyeon! Jiyeooon!!"
"Dad. Live a happy life until then. A truly happy one."
Just before she vanished, the girl turned her head and looked toward Doyeon's camera. And, as if in thanks, she bowed her head slightly toward Bonghyuk on the other side of the screen. He met that fleeting moment, clear-eyed and unblinking.
After his shoulders had heaved for a long while, the man slowly rose to his feet. The clear condition of this dungeon. To move forward. To take one step more, without ever collapsing.
Middle Floor 10 has been cleared.
In the Tower lobby, Jian stared blankly at the streaming screen, lost in thought.
Connecting the living and those who had gone on. Perhaps that was the true power the shaman Do Bonghyuk possessed.
© KAY™#13lul
Author's Note
Thank you for reading..!
And thank you to the reader who wrote a recommendation post!! I'll repay you with good chapters :)