Turn at the Gate — The Legendary Flower Udumbara (1)
"Open up! Door!"
Hwarang is summoning the Dokkaebi Door.
When Hwarang smashed her club against the ground, a massive door began to rise slowly from the earth.
It's been a while.
The Dokkaebi Door — a skill that let Hwarang zip from place to place and gather materials with remarkable speed.
A utility skill that lets you travel anywhere under the jurisdiction of the dokkaebi who serve Bihyeong. Its only drawback is that it can't be used mid-combat.
And most of the Korean peninsula was territory ruled by those dokkaebi and spirits under Bihyeong's command.
What did they call that again? Popularity buff?
A voice chattering excitedly in Seolhwa's ear flickered past like a passing breeze.
While she was lost in that thought, an old traditional wooden door adorned with a gigantic gwi-mask ornament had risen into full view. Beyond it, an eerie blue mist swirled and churned.
"Well, that's ominous."
The viewers had started voicing their worries at the sinister-looking door. But the smile never left Seolhwa's lips.
"Looks can be deceiving — the performance is rock solid. And even if it doesn't look like much, only I know the path inside, so don't get separated."
Seolhwa nodded. Getting lost in there would mean a horrific fight for survival amid countless imae and mangnyang — the wandering vengeful spirits of Korean folklore.
"Then let's go in."
Seolhwa followed slowly behind Hwarang. Inside the mist-filled door lay a forest steeped in chilled, stale air.
Hwarang took Seolhwa's hand and walked forward at a leisurely pace.
"It's about a ten-minute walk."
Hwarang said it with total confidence. But there was something she didn't know: this was the first time she'd ever brought anyone here besides herself.
The mist began to thicken. The blue fog that had once only swallowed their ankles now climbed past their waists, clouding their vision.
"Uh... this is weird. The fog's never usually this dense."
Hwarang's flustered voice spread through the space. Seolhwa could feel the grip on their joined hands tightening sharply.
And then a red system window flickered into being.
The imae and mangnyang have caught the scent of an alien soul and are swarming toward you.
The instant the system message appeared, bone-chilling whispers slid into their ears.
"Who is that?"
"I've never smelled anything like it."
"Looks tasty. So rich with blood. Such a thick scent of death."
The whispers of the mangnyang.
Just then, blue flames erupted from Hwarang's waist sash.
"Tsk tsk. That's my contracted one for you. You've overlooked the rules of the passage."
Bihyeong studied Seolhwa with evident interest.
"This path was only ever meant to be crossed safely by 'those bound to me by contract.' When uninvited guests wander in, of course the dregs come crawling. And besides..."
The corner of the flame's mouth split grotesquely into a wide grin.
"That kid's soul is far too heavy. No wonder the starving mangnyang are drooling over her."
Kiii-gigigi! Kyaaaaak!
The moment Bihyeong finished speaking, grotesque shrieks burst from the depths of the thick fog. Dozens — no, hundreds — of crimson eyes glinted to life, tightening their encirclement around the two of them.
"W-what the hell! What ARE those things!"
Hwarang shrieked and hoisted her dokkaebi club overhead.
"Bibi! Help me!"
When Hwarang cried out in desperation, Bihyeong answered with a laugh.
"The children in this place aren't under my jurisdiction. To put it precisely, you might call them something like wildlife?"
"What kind of bullshit is that?! You're supposed to be the KING of the imae and mangnyang!"
Seolhwa drew Aurora's bowstring with practiced ease. She took aim toward the direction of the sounds — and released.
A silver arrow punched clean through a monster's forehead.
"I think we should clear them out as we go forward."
"I KNOW that already!"
When Hwarang slammed her club into the ground, dokkaebi flames of every color blazed up into the air.
"Go!"
With Hwarang's shout, the multicolored flames scattered in every direction and pounced on the monsters lurking in the fog.
FWOOM!
BOOM!
KRA-KA-BOOM!
Each dokkaebi flame carried devastating power on its own. But when the colors mingled, the results were flashier and far more devastating still.
Still rough around the edges, though.
Seolhwa drew her string and advanced, imagining what a fully bloomed Hwarang would one day look like — all while picking off the mangnyang her friend failed to catch.
But the red eyes glinting beyond the fog showed no sign of thinning. If anything, they only multiplied.
"Seriously, why are there SO many?! What have you been doing with your life?!"
Hwarang snapped at Seolhwa with unbridled irritation.
"Hmm, whatever could I have been doing."
Seolhwa absorbed the jab as smoothly as breathing. Then she shifted Aurora's form.
A firearm — usable in cramped spaces while guarding Hwarang.
Aurora transforms into a new form at the wielder's will.
Aurora mode is being changed.
Mode Change: Machine Pistol
Registered Modes: 10/10
Aurora can no longer take any new forms.
Aurora, which had worn the shape of a bow, melted into a compact machine pistol that fit snugly in one hand.
And she opened fire on every mangnyang that lunged at her.
"Would they believe me if I said I was just out hunting?"
Seolhwa didn't stop there, keeping up her barrage toward the presence she could feel gathering in the distance.
"As if."
Hwarang blew a raspberry and drew her fan from her inventory.
"Scatter, all of you!"
With one great sweep of the fan, a colossal gust went roaring down the narrow forest path.
It was no ordinary wind — a storm laced with dokkaebi sorcery, and for a moment it blew away even the fog that had been choking their vision.
Seolhwa's hair whipped about in the wind Bihyeong had stirred up.
"Oh dear."
She shut one eye and kept on shooting.
"Kiiieeeek!"
"Grraaaahk!"
The mangnyang that had hidden in the mist, biding their time to ambush Seolhwa, couldn't withstand the furious gale — they were swept away like autumn leaves.
"Hohh, not bad at all. To wield my fan with such flair. I'll grant you my praise."
"Shut UP! If you're not going to help, keep quiet! Over there! Go straight ahead!"
Despite Hwarang's scolding, Bihyeong simply snickered and circled through the air.
"You two get along so well."
"Get along MY ass!"
"Well, better than the other contractors and their constellations do, at least."
Bihyeong's blue flames wheeled around the pair, laughing merrily like a viewer munching on popcorn.
"Bibi! You are SO dead later!"
"Beebee~! Yoo're sho dead latah~~! KWAHAHAHA!"
Bihyeong flapped his flames in an over-the-top imitation of Hwarang's voice. At that insufferable display, her face flushed red and purple.
"Argh, I'm seriously gonna smack—!"
Hwarang raised her dokkaebi club and swung it at the blue flame in the air, but Bihyeong slipped nimbly out of reach and stuck out a mocking tongue.
"Enough clowning around. Where do we go from here?"
When Seolhwa asked gently, Hwarang answered while still swinging her club.
"Almost... there. Turn right up here and it's the end."
Just as Hwarang had said, once they took the turn, they found a door carved with a pattern similar to the one they'd seen earlier.
Hwarang stepped up to it and smashed her club against the ground.
"Open up! Door!"
In that instant, the door began to swing open.
"Alright, let's head out."
Hwarang stepped through first, and Seolhwa followed close behind.
Outside, a forest path spread out before them, no different from the one within the door.
"Should be around here."
Hwarang bounced her club along as she walked out ahead.
"Found it!"
Between a crevice in the rocks, a faint blue glow rippled into view.
"Here it is. The gate where the Udumbara sleeps."
"Then let's go in."
Seolhwa walked into the gate without a moment's hesitation.
"Hey! Wait for me!"
Hwarang had been leaning against the boulder with all the confidence in the world — until Seolhwa went in, at which point she scrambled in after her.
She closed her eyes, then opened them. An entirely different world had unfolded before them.
You have entered the gate: Maze of the Flowerless.
The crisp air of Bukhansan was gone without a trace, replaced by a rank, fishy stench and sweltering heat that seared deep into the lungs.
Overhead, where the sky should have been, tree roots twisted and tangled together like castle walls.
From deep within the tunnel woven from those roots, a rumbling like the heartbeat of some colossal beast rolled through the ground.
Hwarang, who had lagged behind, fumbled through her inventory and pulled out a mask, slipping it on.
The mask she donned was a sky-blue dokkaebi mask that matched her hair color exactly.
"Even coming back a second time, I can't get used to this."
"Rotten fruit smell always gets me too."
"Hold on a sec."
Hwarang pulled a potion bottle from her inventory and popped the cap.
The stench hanging in the air seemed to thin ever so slightly.
"It's a Sky Lily diffuser the Mortar Dokkaebi made for me."
"You know the way through here too, right?"
"Yep. Follow me."
Hwarang strode boldly out front. Beyond the mask, her voice buzzed and echoed.
But for all her grand boasting, the maze was maddeningly complex.
The enormous walls of woven roots coiled and split apart, endlessly spawning side paths.
That Hwarang could still find her way at all was thanks to her eyes.
"Right, from here."
Following behind Hwarang as she walked on, glowing with blue light from her eyes, they arrived at an enormous cavern.
At its center sprawled a vast lake, and rising from the middle of it like a tiny island was a mound of earth. Upon it bloomed a flower that seemed to drink in every trace of light around it while radiating a soft, yet dazzling, brilliance of its own.
"That's the one — the legendary flower, the Udumbara."
It was said to bloom only once every three thousand years, and true to its legend, each and every petal glittered as though it had been woven from starlight.
Seolhwa moved her steps toward the lake. But in that very moment—
The once-still surface of the lake began to boil.
And as a colossal pillar of water shot skyward, something enormous that had been lurking at the bottom of the lake revealed itself.