The forest was unnaturally quiet.
No birds. No wind. No monster howls. Just the heavy, wet crunch of boots stomping over moss and half-dissolved goblin corpses.
Han Joon-seok's legs ached, his fingers blistered from holding his chipped dagger too long. He didn't care. His eyes were locked on the massive stone door looming ahead twice as tall as a house, covered in glowing blue veins, standing between the trees like it didn't belong in this world.
He grinned. "We made it..."
Lee Hyun, trudging beside him with a bent wooden shield strapped to his arm, let out a wheezing laugh. "Think there's a rest stop on the other side? My lungs feel like they're melting."
Joon-seok elbowed him lightly. "Come on, this is good. We're really doing it. We're part of something real."
"Yeah, real broke, real tired, and probably real dead soon."
Ten of them had come in new recruits, F-rankers, desperate nobodies. Two had already died on the first day. One lost his leg to a trap. But the rest followed Kang Dae-ho like idiots chasing a dream.
Dae-ho, A-rank hunter and leader of the Serpent Guild, marched ahead with swagger. Blood on his blade, his dark green armor looking polished and untouched. His voice boomed through the quiet:
"That's the boss room. Fifty years, no one's made it this far. But we're here. You've earned the right to witness history."
Han Joon-seok felt his heart pounding in his throat.
He thought back to his mother, slumped over in her stall after a double shift, coughing blood she tried to hide. He had seen the hospital letter. Stage four. Inoperable without specialized mana therapy. Price: beyond impossible.
She told him not to go. Told him the tower would eat him alive.
But then he saw it on a cheap ad, scrolling through his cracked phone in the dead of night:
"JOIN SERPENT GUILD – EVEN F-RANKS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD."
He applied the next morning.
To his left, Yoo Min-ji, a tall, cold-looking B-rank with a tight ponytail and an expensive sword, stopped walking. She wiped goblin blood off her glove like it offended her existence.
"Are we really opening that door?" she asked flatly. "We're not geared for this."
Park Joon, the team's healer—also B-rank, short, anxious, with glasses too big for his face—nodded quickly. "Maybe we should pull back. We've already lost two of the F-ranks, and I'm running out of potions."
"Relax," Dae-ho said with a grin. "This is what separates us from the cowards. You think the Tower gives peace to quitters?"
Joon-seok looked back at Lee Hyun. His friend was wheezing but smiling, eyes flicking toward the door.
"You okay?" Joon-seok asked.
"Yeah. Just thinking..." Hyun exhaled slowly. "My sister better get into college after this."
That was why Hyun joined. He didn't even awaken for glory just wanted enough money to pay tuition for the only family he had left.
As they moved closer, the blue runes on the door pulsed with a slow heartbeat. The forest around them bent inwards, as if being sucked toward the door like gravity had reversed.
Min-ji narrowed her eyes. "Something's wrong with the mana here."
Park Joon checked his scan device it glitched, spitting out random symbols.
Kang Dae-ho kept walking.
"This is our moment," he said, unsheathing his blade with a shiiing that rang through the air like a bell tolling for death.
"Everyone ready up. Weapons out."
Han Joon-seok's hands trembled as he gripped his dagger. Not from fear. From hope.
"If we win... if I help even a little... I can get a cut of the reward. I can take her to a real hospital. I can save her."
The closer they got, the more the door seemed to breathe. A pressure built up in the air, like they were approaching a thunderstorm no one could see.
Something behind that door was awake.
The stone door groaned open with a sound like the earth cracking in half.
Inside nothing but darkness.
Even the faint glow of the runes behind them seemed swallowed whole. The air was still,but not empty. It was waiting.
"Light," Park Joon said, voice shaking.
A faint, blue-white orb formed in his palm and floated upward, casting eerie shadows across the room. The light stretched out just enough for them to see... the floor.
Bones.
Not just a few.
Thousands. Piles. Stacks. Mountains of human bones. Swords. Armor. Crushed phones. A half-rotted hunter uniform bearing an S-rank badge, soaked in dried blood.
Someone gasped. Another dropped their weapon. Even Yoo Min-ji flinched.
"What... what the hell happened here?" she whispered.
The healer swallowed. "These were... hunters. Lots of them. This is from decades of failure..."
Kang Dae-ho stepped forward, casual, almost smug. "Relax. Skeletons don't bite."
He turned to face the group, sweeping his blade theatrically.
"This is it. Don't let fear win. I've fought worse. You want money? Power? This is the price."
The serpent guild members behind him snickered.
Han Joon-seok didn't laugh.
He took out his cracked phone, pulled up the wallpaper: a blurry photo of his mom standing at her food stall, holding a hot pot ladle and trying not to look tired.
He smiled faintly.
"I'll get us out of this. I'll fix everything."
Kang Dae-ho raised his hand. "Alright. Here's the plan."
He turned to the recruits Han, Lee Hyun, and the few remaining F-ranks.
"You five walk forward first. Make noise. Draw it out."
There was silence.
Han blinked. "What?"
"We're not bait," Yoo Min-ji snapped. "That's suicide."
Dae-ho turned cold. "You're not paid to think. You're paid to follow."
Park Joon stepped forward nervously. "This isn't what we agreed to—"
Then came the flash of silver.
Kang lunged, aiming straight for Han.
But the blade didn't reach him.
Lee Hyun,his friend,stepped in.
Steel pierced his side.
He gasped, blood spraying from his lips, and crumpled forward.
"Hyun?!"
Han caught him as he fell, screaming, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Kang smirked and shoved Han back with a single kick.
Hyun hit the floor hard, his blood painting the ancient stone.
"You all exist to die for people like me," Dae-ho said. "If you thought this was some fantasy story, you're dumber than I thought."
The remaining F-ranks froze terrified, broken. No one moved.
Kang barked an order. The serpent members grabbed the others and shoved them forward, deeper into the chamber.
"This is war," Kang muttered. "War needs sacrifices."
Han knelt by Hyun, hands shaking, pressing against the wound, but it was too deep.
"I just... wanted her to graduate," Hyun choked out, coughing blood. "She was so happy when I said I'd help..."
Han couldn't speak.
He just held him.
Until his friend stopped breathing.
"Come on let's go he's dead !"kang shove Han forward.
They were close to the center now.
But something was wrong.
There was no boss. No throne. No roar.
Just a massive hill of bones, weapons, and belongings... slowly pulsing.
Everyone's system pinged at once.
[WARNING: A Floor Boss is observing you.]
Min-ji looked around. "Where? I don't see anything!"
One of the serpent members vanished mid-sentence.
No sound. No flash. Just gone.
Then another.
"WHAT IS THIS?!" someone screamed.
Panic.Screams.
A black tentacle slithered from the shadows and snapped a hunter in half.
Another was pulled into the darkness.
Kang grabbed Han by the collar, shoving him forward.
"DO SOMETHING, BAIT!"
"I'm not—!" Han yelled, swinging wildly.
Kang stabbed him through the stomach.
Han fell, coughing blood, vision blurring.
"Die useful."
Then came the sound.
Like a thousand mouths laughing behind walls of flesh.
They appeared.
Black tentacles.
Mouths inside mouths.
Eyes blinking in the wrong places.
They devoured Kang Dae-ho mid-sentence, ripping him limb from limb before he could scream.
The serpent guild vanished into shrill shrieks and silence.
Han lay on the cold floor, bleeding out.
He laughed.
Not because it was funny but because it was pathetic.
"All that... for this?"
He looked at the photo on his phone one last time.
His mother, smiling through exhaustion.
"I'm sorry. I was such a stupid son."
A shadow moved.
The creature emerged formless, towering, writhing. Impossible to define. More like a thought than a being. A thing that should not be.
It raised a tendril toward him.
Han didn't scream.
He reached toward his phone and whispered:
"Please... take care of her."
A ridiculous request.
Who begs a monster to protect their mom?
But the creature stopped.
The tendril froze inches from his face.
And then, in the black void behind its eyes...
Han saw something and smile.