Monkey's Paw, Laughing Buddha (2)

The winter sun rises late. In the early morning, before the sky had even turned vermilion, the nameless mountain was still cloaked in darkness.

The crescent moon hanging at the edge of the night sky was scattering a dim moonlight, but it was nowhere near enough to illuminate the mountain. The glittering stars could serve as landmarks, but not as a sun. The stars beyond the star system were only revealing their own existence, not lighting the Earth.

So they turned on the flashlights.

Lee Min-su and Kim Mi-ryeo, walking at the very front, marched ahead with large flashlights in hand.

But the mountain, thick with fog, could not take in the light as it was. As if an invisible curtain hung there, the beams did not stretch far and could barely light a few meters ahead.

"It's ominous."

Lee Min-su said, wiping away the droplets gathered on the back of his hand.

"This flashlight isn't an ordinary item. Since it uses blood as a battery, its performance is definitely solid, but even so, this much... If we'd brought a normal flashlight, we wouldn't have been able to see anything at all."

"Yeah. Could this fog be some kind of anomalous phenomenon too?"

Kim Mi-ryeo waved her hand through the fog. The formless mist fluttered lightly in response to her gesture...