There Is Nothing Here.

The hut was no different from when the group had left it.

But it felt far gloomier than before. Bong Seok kept darting glances around.

Jeon Pyeong pressed his thumb hard against his brow as if his head hurt.

“What in the world was that just now…”

“You saw it. They are not human.”

Gyo-ha spoke calmly.

The group could not bring themselves to nod. Even seeing it with their own eyes, they could not believe it.

“S, such things cannot exist. It is sorcery!”

It was Bong Seok. At his shout, the group gave him dumbfounded looks.

Their gazes were cold.

But only Seo Jong-dae seemed to know why Bong Seok was acting that way, and the corners of his mouth lifted.

“Ah. So you are afraid of these things.”

“W, who says I am afraid!”

Bong Seok yelled back as if offended, which only made it look more like Seo Jong-dae was right.

Only then did the others’ eyes soften.

“It is all over now, so there is nothing to worry about.”

“I said it is not!”

Bong Seok shouted, but the group only watched him with gentle expressions.

“By the way, how should we explain this to them?”

Jeon Gwang spoke cautiously.

Only then did the group’s faces darken, as if they had just remembered something they had forgotten.

The sleeping woodcutter and woman.

To them, it would look as if strangers had suddenly appeared and killed their children.

Even they themselves found it hard to believe, so the couple would all the more.

Jeon Pyeong let out a sigh.

“We will have to explain it properly.”

There was no other way.

Thankfully, there was still evidence left outside.

It would be painful, but they had no choice except to make them understand.

At Jeon Pyeong’s signal, Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong struck their pressure points.

Before long, the two awoke from their sleep.

“Wh, who are you?”

“…Where is this?”

Their reactions, so different from what they had expected, left the group confused.

---

Contrary to their worries, it was not difficult to make the two understand.

It was because both of them had no memory of the time that had passed.

After hearing the explanation, the woodcutter and the woman fled the hut as if running away.

The hut had been the woman’s home, but she seemed to have no intention of ever returning.

“…I do not know whether to call this fortunate or not.”

Jeon Pyeong let out a hollow laugh.

“Let us leave as well.”

Bong Seok spoke hurriedly, and the others gave wry smiles.

“Even so, the matter ended well enough, did it not?”

Jeon Gwang spoke with a smile to change the mood.

The others also nodded with faint smiles.

Except for one person.

“It does not feel over yet.”

“…”

“…”

At Gyo-ha’s words, the faint smiles crumbled from their faces.

When they slowly turned to look at him, Gyo-ha sniffed the air.

Then he nodded.

“There is a smell.”

“Then?”

At Seo Jong-dae’s question, Gyo-ha nodded again.

“Something is still here.”

At his words, silence fell over the hut.

The first to recover was Jeon Pyeong.

“You mean there are more of those things outside?”

“…That I do not know.”

Gyo-ha shook his head. But something was definitely still here.

The group’s gazes swept quickly around the hut.

In particular, Bong Seok’s movements grew even more restless.

He quietly edged himself further into the middle of the group.

“It is not in here.”

If it had been inside the hut, he would have found it long ago.

“Then where?”

Gyo-ha brought his face close to the floor, then shook his head.

“I cannot tell right now.”

“S, surely you are mistaken. Let us just go.”

Bong Seok tugged at Gyo-ha’s collar, but he did not budge.

Jeon Pyeong mulled over Gyo-ha’s words.

“‘Right now,’ meaning?”

“…I will be able to find it once night falls.”

Gyo-ha spoke with certainty.

He had sensed it yesterday. This smell grew stronger at night.

“This is insane. I am out. We do not even know what those things are!”

Bong Seok cursed.

He jumped to his feet, but the others only sat in place.

“You are all crazy.”

With that, Bong Seok stormed out.

Jeon Pyeong looked back at his juniors. They nodded, their faces set.

“…In that case, we should clean the area up. It looks too ghastly to leave it as it is.”

He meant the corpses hanging outside the hut window.

If others happened to come by, they might misunderstand.

On the outside, they looked no different from human children.

The group nodded and went to take care of the bodies.

By the time they finished and returned to the hut, the surroundings had grown dim.

Not long after, they saw Bong Seok running toward them.

He flung the hut door open.

“Have you changed your mind?”

Jeon Pyeong asked, but Bong Seok could not answer.

He was pale as a sheet, drawing ragged breaths.

Seeing that something was wrong, Jeon Pyeong asked again.

“What happened?”

“…We cannot get out.”

“Mm?”

“I am telling you we cannot get out of the forest!”

Bong Seok shouted irritably, but there was no strength in his voice.

“…Are you sure you are not mistaken?”

It was his first time on this path, and it was a forest, where it was easy to lose one’s way.

“No. I checked several times. No matter which way I go, I end up back here.”

After hearing his story, Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong quietly rose.

And they returned after about half an hour.

“It is true.”

Their faces were stiff as well. Only then did the group grasp how serious it was.

“Is something trying to take revenge on us?”

Jeon Pyeong bit his lip.

At that, Gyo-ha shook his head.

“It is blocking us.”

“So we cannot leave?”

“No. So we cannot find it.”

Gyo-ha smiled as he watched the setting sun.

“But it cannot hide its smell.”

As the surroundings darkened, the smell grew even stronger.

---

Gyo-ha stepped out of the hut and sniffed the air.

“This way.”

On all fours, Gyo-ha crawled forward. At the sight, the group’s expressions twisted.

“…It’s like he’s a dog.”

They had not imagined he would move around like that.

“If we do not hurry, we may lose it.”

He was even fast. The group hurried after him.

At that moment, Bong Seok spoke hesitantly.

“He is human, right?”

Watching him move like that was bizarre beyond words.

“Hard to say.”

Seo Jong-dae shrugged, and Bong Seok’s steps slowed.

He was beginning to doubt whether he should be following.

But the others did not slow their pace.

In the end, he followed them, on the verge of tears.

By now, the forest was completely swallowed in darkness.

Even the moonlight was hidden by clouds, leaving it pitch-black. The group each channeled their internal energy into their eyes.

It was an eye art passed down in Mount Hua and the Beggars’ Union.

Only Gyo-ha kept moving as he was.

Just then, Jeon Hong, who was following behind Gyo-ha, glanced around.

“What is it?”

“…There are no insects.”

Jeon Hong answered Jeon Gwang’s question.

The Mount Hua Sect was on Mount Hua. Because of that, he knew it well. Every night on Mount Hua, insect calls could be heard.

But here, it was far too quiet.

It was not just insects. He sensed no animals either.

An unpleasant chill swept over the group.

Even so, they forced themselves to keep walking.

Time passed like that, and then Gyo-ha, leading the way, stopped.

Naturally, the group stopped as well.

A large boulder lay before Gyo-ha, and beyond it they could see a cliff.

“A dead end.”

“Strange. The smell is coming from this direction.”

Gyo-ha scratched his chin. Their martial skill was outstanding, but climbing down a cliff on a night like this would be difficult.

“What smell are you even talking about?”

Bong Seok sniffed as if imitating Gyo-ha, but he smelled nothing.

The others did not sniff as blatantly as Bong Seok, but they secretly drew in breaths.

Even so, none of them could smell anything.

Stepping forward, Bong Seok picked up a small stone and tossed it into the darkness.

“See, there is nothing there.”

He pestered the group to hurry back. After a brief moment of thought, Gyo-ha took a step.

He threw his body past the boulder.

“What are you doing!”

“Young Master!”

His figure vanished into the darkness.

Awkward expressions appeared on the group’s faces as they wondered whether they should jump in after him.

“…Let us go.”

Having steeled himself, Jeon Pyeong spoke.

As he was about to step forward, the darkness rippled.

“You were right. There is a path here.”

“Heeek!”

Bong Seok nearly fainted. The others did not scream like he did, but they were just as startled.

Gyo-ha had poked his face out of the darkness.

The rest of his body was still submerged in shadow.

As if his body were hidden in another world.

Jeon Pyeong knew of such a phenomenon.

“…A formation?”

He had seen something similar at the Jegal clan.

Leaving only those words behind, Gyo-ha disappeared back into the dark.

Shaking his head, Jeon Pyeong climbed over the boulder and vanished into the darkness just as Gyo-ha had.

The others looked at one another, then leapt in one by one.

The darkness wrapped around them, and soon the air changed.

A sweet scent soaked into the air.

It was a scent they had smelled before.

It was the same smell that had risen from the children’s corpses.

As they emerged from the darkness, the group held their breath.

A wide clearing.

In its center stood a huge tree.

A tree that stretched high into the sky.

Its top looked as if it might touch the heavens.

Whenever the wind blew, its leaves rustled.

And in the middle of the tree hung great fruits.

Just then, the clouds cleared, and the fruits glittered in the moonlight.

They shone like jewels in a treasure box.

The sight was so wondrous that the group swallowed hard.

“Stay focused.”

Those who had lost themselves snapped back to their senses at Gyo-ha’s voice.

“…They were not people. They were fruit.”

The group understood what he meant.

The wind blew and one of the fruits fell from the tree.

And from the cracked fruit, a newborn child was crawling out.

Only then did they look at the scattered remains of fruits around them.

There were not just one or two.

“They are coming.”

Even without Gyo-ha saying it, they could tell.

The darkness rippled like waves.

Then pale white faces appeared in the dark.

Faces that all looked identical.

And unlike the children from the hut, they were all young, so young it was hard to know if they were boys or girls.

Even the oldest would be only six or seven at most.

Unlike the children from the hut, they wore nothing at all.

“How many of them are there?”

Even at a glance, there were clearly more than just a few tens.

Before they knew it, the group was surrounded.

Their faces were still expressionless, yet their enraged emotions reached the group.

“If you do not want to become their nourishment, you had better move in earnest.”

At Seo Jong-dae’s words, the group glanced under the tree.

Piled thick beneath it.

They were bone fragments. The faces of the group hardened as they realized it.

They now knew what these things had been feeding on.

Sreureung!

Swords were drawn in the darkness.

“Do not hold back your hands. Despite how they look, they are yokai.”

Even without Jeon Pyeong saying so, they knew.

A chilling light flowed into the eyes of Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong as well.

They, too, drew their swords.

Moonlight reflected off the blades.

That was the signal. The children charged the group all at once.

“Damn it. I told you we should not have come.”

On the verge of tears, Bong Seok raised both hands.

And so the battle began.

---

The battle was one-sided.

The children were as agile as beasts. Their strength also easily surpassed that of grown adults.

But the ones standing before them were martial artists of the Murim.

And not just any martial artists.

They were disciples of the Nine Sects, One Union.

Those who knew no martial arts could never match them.

“They do not feel pain. Aim for the head.”

Jeon Pyeong judged coolly.

Each time a sword flashed, the children whose bodies were severed fell like rotten old trees.

When fists and fan moved, heads burst without fail.

They were many in number, but they could not win.

That was only natural.

At least, until Bong Seok sensed something was wrong.