Did I mishear that?
Kim Sibaek tilted his head, confused, and blinked his penlight just as he’d been taught.
It didn’t take long to find the residents who’d been swept up in the Eid Portal. Three elderly folks. After helping them up, they climbed the endlessly rising hill for a couple of hours. Eventually, the scenery changed. A building that looked like a school came into view. Before Moon Sunghui could even ask, one of the old men clapped his hands.
“Right, right! Didn’t we say it’s likely Younggil’s family is the host? This is the school his kid goes to.”
“Sir, was the school really up on a hill like this?”
“If it were, how would the kids even get there? The real school’s way down below. There aren’t many kids in the area, so the school’s far.”
“……Then the kid really is the host.”
Moon Sunghui clucked her tongue in sympathy.
As they cleared out the monsters and stepped into the schoolyard, the chilly, wintry scene suddenly mellowed into something gentler and brighter. The air warmed like spring, and the sun hung high in the sky. Since the school evoked positive feelings, this clearly wasn’t the core.
From the schoolyard, five paths stretched outward. They all looked the same—plain, featureless, indistinguishable. Aside from the hill path they’d just climbed, that left four directions to explore. According to the elders, the real school didn’t have paths like this.
The scanner—essentially a gamble with a 30 percent success rate—failed them again.
Four directions, huh… There’s not enough time to search them all one by one. What now?
As Moon Sunghui considered splitting the team in two—one led by her, the other by Kim Sibaek—to search separately and regroup later, Kim Sibaek suddenly spoke. He’d stayed quiet so far, saying he lacked experience with Eid Portals, but this was the first time he offered input.
“Which direction would a student take to walk home from this school?”
The elders pointed it out. Comparing it to the map, Kim Sibaek gauged that the boy’s home was to the north.
“If it’s the northern path… then it should be that one.”
Moon Sunghui followed his gaze. If they were going by compass directions, that path did match. But no matter how closely she looked, it didn’t seem any different from the others.
“Why do you think the house is the portal’s core?”
Kim Sibaek rubbed his chin, eyes distant in thought.
“I’m not certain, but if a kid triggered an Eid Portal without moving to a new place or experiencing a sudden change, it usually boils down to two things: bullying at school or abuse at home.”
“……Yeah. That’s why I was hoping the child wasn’t the host.”
“But the school clearly isn’t the core. The child views it positively. In fact, it was probably his escape—his only safe place. That means the house is the most likely location for the core.”
Moon Sunghui had considered the same possibility. She just hadn’t ruled out the others yet.
“The main abuser is the father. There’s a good chance the child didn’t imprint on the house, but on the father himself. If the father’s the core… then the house wouldn’t be the place he feared most. It’s the father he’d want to run from. The house can’t follow him—but the father can.”
It was a valid point. Still, Kim Sibaek kept thinking about the boy—just eight years old—and the shabby doghouse out front, where a dog limped on a tether. The dog hadn’t even barked when strangers approached, likely because of its timid nature.
An abusive father. A small child. A crippled dog. Could an eight-year-old, subjected to the same violence, really bring himself to leave that dog behind and run away?
“…….”
There was no way to know for sure. But Kim Sibaek didn’t think a child that age could even form the idea of running away alone, much less abandoning someone else in the process.
At least, his eight-year-old self hadn’t. Not once had he thought about leaving his brother behind to escape their father.
“Then I’ll take the path to the house alone. Captain, I suggest you search the other routes.”
“Are you sure you’ll be alright by yourself?”
“Killing monsters isn’t a problem. If I find the core, I’ll contact you right away.”
His voice was calm, steady. As if it were no big deal—even though this was an Eid Portal, where monsters of varying ranks could spawn at random, unlike the fixed levels of a normal field. He spoke without pride, as if his strength was only natural—not something to brag about.
After a moment of thought, Moon Sunghui nodded and accepted his plan.
[Saving the child host is a noble choice. If you succeed, you might even reunite with someone you miss.]
[Quest 11]
[Clear the Eid Portal.]
[Time remaining: 24:00:00]
The quest appeared long after they’d already figured out the child was the host. Kim Sibaek frowned. The vague wording was one thing—but what connection could there possibly be between a random Eid Portal and someone he supposedly longed for?
The only one I miss is Woonie…
What kind of trick was the system trying to pull now?
A monster suddenly burst from the ground, its gaping maw wide enough to swallow him whole. Before it could close in, Kim Sibaek’s blade sliced clean through it, splitting the beast in two and shattering its core. Before the blood even had time to drip off his sword, he swung again in a wide arc.
He sidestepped quickly to avoid the spray of fluid from the two bisected monsters. All around him, the ground was littered with the corpses of monsters whose cores had been destroyed.
In the child’s nightmare, the path home grew steeper and more brutal the farther he went. The journey was far from over.
“If I ever became the host of an Eid Portal… would the core be my father? Or my brother?”
[Death and Beauty flutters her wings, warning him not to speak such ominous thoughts.]
Lord Biendeoé clammed up, clearly uncomfortable, but Kim Sibaek couldn’t help the storm of emotions churning inside him. Walking through the Eid Portal born from a child who’d suffered similar wounds dredged up too many buried thoughts.
Was the core meant to be his father—so cruel in life, yet whose death had felt hollow? Or was it his younger brother, the one he failed to save?
[Death and Beauty muses that come to think of it, she’s hardly ever heard anything about her Apostle’s mother.]
“…Ah. My mother. Those memories wouldn’t become the core.”
[Death and Beauty asks, didn’t she abandon you?]
“She did.”
As he leapt high onto the monster’s head and drove his sword down through its skull, Kim Sibaek muttered like he was talking to himself.
“When I was little, I heard people whispering in the neighborhood, but I didn’t understand what they meant. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized… I don’t think my mother ever wanted me and my brother.”
It’s a common story. A girl with nowhere to go, no one to rely on, gets lured in by a man with a decent face and good looks. His father had probably dragged his mother into that house, shackled her there using the child—him, still in her belly—as the excuse.
As a husband, as a human being, he must have been monstrous.
Even so, their mother gave what affection she could to the children she hadn’t asked for. She tried her best to be a mother. She endured years at that man’s side—most likely because of her children. But that affection had never been strong enough to overcome the fear and hatred she felt toward her husband.
“If she hadn’t run, she might’ve been the one to die. Leaving… was probably the only choice she had.”
As he grew older, and came to understand her decision, Kim Sibaek found himself wishing—quietly, earnestly—that in the life she found after running from her hometown and that man, there had been no more running.
After clearing out the monster horde, he landed lightly on the ground. Trying to dispel the somber air, he gave a faint chuckle.
“She had me so young… If she’s still alive, she’d be close to seventy now. I’ve probably already passed the age she left at.”
[Death and Beauty pats her Apostle gently, assuring him he still looks wonderfully fresh, so there’s nothing to worry about.]
“Fresh—? Seriously, where did you even learn that word?”
[Death and Beauty remarks that with the sky darkening, they must be nearing the core.]
Kim Sibaek sighed at how quickly Lord Biendeoé changed the subject. Where else would she have picked that up? It was obvious.
Woonie really is perfect in every way… but he’s a horrible influence when it comes to kids…
Admitting that truth felt like swallowing glass.
After scarfing down another lunchbox and slaying a few more monsters for the exercise, Kim Sibaek finally came to a halt. He checked his surroundings, then pulled out his Eid Portal communicator.
“Captain, this is Kim Sibaek. I’ve located the Portal Keeper.”
