**Chapter 5: A Path Less Traveled**
The trees stretched endlessly before them—dark trunks like prison bars, and no path in sight. The wilderness did not welcome us. It stalked us, whispered with rustling leaves, and watched from the shadows.
We kept moving.
Seonwoo limped beside me, each step a struggle. He was trying to be strong, trying to act like the hero he was supposed to be. But even he had limits. I saw the moment his knees buckled.
"Seonwoo!"
Luckily I caught him, barely, his full weight slumping into my arms. He was burning up, trembling. Whatever strength he had left had been drained completely.
"Don't do this to me," I muttered, panic creeping in.
No answer.
I looked at the wild woods around them. No shelter. No food. No help.
Then I had a thought in my mind
"I could leave him. I SHOULD leave him."
He wasn't my responsibility. I didn't even belong here. This wasn't my story.
But… I didn't know this world. Not its rules. Not its monsters.
And for some reason—maybe instinct, maybe stubbornness—I couldn't walk away.
With a grunt, I grabbed his arms and began to drag him across the forest floor.
It was slow. Painful. My arms burned. My legs screamed. But I kept going.
Time blurred. Minutes became hours.
Then—water.
A river, glittering in a streak of pale moonlight. I nearly cried in relief.
I dragged him to the edge and cupped water in my palms, pressing it gently to his cracked lips. He didn't stir.
I leaned him against a rock and sat down beside him, breathing hard. My fingers trembled as I reached for the book.
When I opened it, the pages were shifting again.
More words had formed.
"In the original tale, the hero ate their food. He thanked them. He trusted their smiles. When he realized the truth, it was too late. He slaughtered them all. And left, wounded and sickened."
My breath caught.
"He survived by chance. Found a cave. Drank from glowing water. Healed slowly. Alone."
I stared at my surroundings.
So this place… it had been written. But my presence was changing it.
Just as I wondered if the book would say more, I turned to the next page.
It was forming. Slowly. Like ink bleeding through parchment.
"The cave lies near the river. Beneath the cliff's shadow. Inside, the crystal drips."
I stood up at once. River. Cliff.
I followed the stream, searching the rocky edges. And then—there. A break in the stone. A low cave, nearly hidden by vines.
Inside, darkness. But as my eyes adjusted, I saw it.
A crystal. Embedded in the ceiling, glowing faintly. From its point, a droplet of luminous water fell every few seconds, collecting in a shallow groove in the stone floor.
I knelt, tasted it.
Warmth. Strength. Clarity. Without hesitation, I ran back.
Dragging Seonwoo again nearly broke me. My arms screamed. My legs trembled. But inch by inch, I was able to bring him into the cave.
He didn't wake. Not at first. So I stayed. And waited.
I didn't know how I came to be here, or how to go back to my world. I didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
All I know was that I had to survive. And somehow, I would.
I brought the glowing water to his lips again. He drank. I talked to him while he slept. Cursed at him when I had to. Told him stories from my world.
Slowly, he got better.
The fever faded.
His breathing eased.
One night, he opened his eyes and blinked up at the glowing crystal.
"…you stayed."
I exhaled a laugh, half-exhausted. "Didn't have much of a choice."
"You always have a choice," he whispered.
I shrugged. "Yeah. I made mine."
He smiled weakly. "Thank you."
More silence. But this time, it felt warm.
By the end of the week, he could walk again—slowly, carefully. But it was enough.
We packed what little we had. I tucked the book back into my bag.
The wilderness still waited for us
But now, we weren't running empty-handed.
We were low on food. Our bodies ached, our clothes torn, and the forest around us never stopped whispering. Still, we survived. Barely.
The cave had offered shelter, the glowing water from the crystal above had nursed Seonwoo back from the brink. But it couldn't feed us.
"We can't stay here," I said one morning, my voice hoarse.
Seonwoo nodded. "We should leave before nightfall."
I hesitated, looking up at the shimmering blue crystal embedded in the cave ceiling. It had dripped healing water for days. "We owed our lives to it."
"I think we should take it with us."
He scoffed. "You think you can just pry it out of solid stone with your bare hands? That crystal is probably older than both our worlds."
"I didn't say with my hands." I grinned and borrowed his sword.
He blinked at me. "What are you doing? That blade isn't for—hey!"
I didn't use the blade, of course. I took its sheath and started hammering around the base of the crystal. Sparks flew. Bits of rock chipped. Slowly, steadily, the crystal wobbled.
"Catch it!" I shouted.
Seonwoo scrambled, arms outstretched. It came loose and dropped right into his grip.
He stared at it in disbelief. "You actually did it."
We wrapped the crystal carefully and fashioned a rough pack. Seonwoo carried it with a strange mixture of pride and wariness, like he couldn't quite decide whether it was treasure or trouble.
Before leaving, I took a spare cloak from the fort. My clothes were strange here—foreign enough to draw stares. Wrapped in the heavy, faded fabric, I felt like I could pass for someone from this world. Almost.
Our journey began.
The forest was dense, wild, and full of dangers. There were beasts that sniffed at us from the shadows. Once, we heard something massive moving through the trees—not chasing, just... watching.
Days blurred into each other. We fought. About where to go, what to eat, whether we should rest or press on. But despite the arguments, there was warmth in the shared silence that followed.
At night, Seonwoo would speak.
"Did you know there's a city that floats above the clouds? Held aloft by magic and sky serpents."
I blinked at him. "Sky serpents? You're lying."
"I swear it. Saw one once. From a distance."
He told stories—of kingdoms built inside volcanoes, of forests that moved when you weren't looking. I listened, fascinated.
We hunted what we could. Seonwoo taught me how to snare rabbits, how to move without snapping every twig. I tried to fish once. I caught my own boot.
And the berries. Gods, the berries.
"This looks like a strawberry," I said, holding a small red fruit.
Seonwoo grabbed it from me. "That'll stop your heart in a minute."
"You could've led with that!"
We learned. We adapted. We survived. For now.
We reached a cliff.
The air was thinner here, and the drop below was deep—bottomless, for all I knew. Cracks ran through the rocky edge like veins, and there was no bridge in sight. Only the wind howling across the chasm.
I looked around, mind racing. "Can we make a rope from the vines we passed earlier? Maybe there's another way around?"
Seonwoo leaned over slightly, frowning. "We don't know how far the cliff stretches. Going around might take days."
Before either of us could speak again, a faint sound reached us—barely audible beneath the wind.
"Help… someone… please…!"
I froze.
There, near the edge on the opposite side, a figure sprawled against a boulder—bloodied and limp. I couldn't make out their face from this distance. Just red smears on torn cloth and a voice that trembled between pain and fear.
"Seonwoo, look," I pointed. "Someone's down there."
He narrowed his eyes, stepping closer to the ledge. "They're injured."
Then came the screech.It echoed from above—sharp, guttural, wrong. I jerked my head up just in time to see shadows slicing across the sky.
Not birds. Not anything natural.
They looked like vultures at a distance, but their wings were serrated, and their eyes glowed a sickly green. One of them dove, talons slicing through the air.
The person below screamed.
Now we knew why he was there. Bait.
Seonwoo drew his sword. "We can't leave him."
I grabbed his arm. "You saw what those things are."
"He's still alive."
"So was Jorin," I hissed. "Not everyone deserves saving."
He paused, caught off-guard by my words.
But that was the truth in this world. Kindness didn't come free. Nothing did.
I didn't move.
He looked at me, quietly. Then said, "I won't force you. But I'm going."
He turned and ran toward the edge—toward the monster.
And like a fool, I followed.
I wracked my brain, trying to think of a solution, my mind spinning faster than I could keep up with.
The cliff was too wide, the person was too far, and those terrifying monsters above were closing in.
I could hear their screeches growing louder with every passing second, the wind carrying their deathly cries like an omen.
My heart raced. There had to be something I could do. A way to get to them. But my instincts screamed against it.
The idea of risking our lives—especially after everything we'd gone through—felt reckless.
But then... the book pulsed.
A sharp, sudden thrum against my chest. The words were blurry at first, then began to form again, the pages rippling like they were alive, as if it was responding to the urgency in the air.
I blinked rapidly, trying to focus as the words began to appear.
"He will be saved by the hand of one who understands betrayal. The man who dies, not by the monsters' claws, but by the people who should have protected him."
My breath caught in my throat.
The book was… speaking about this very moment. It was narrating how Seonwoo would save the man—how he'd been betrayed, pushed to his death by his own people. It wasn't just some random plea for help. This was a trap. A twisted turn of fate.
I watched Seonwoo, my heart pounding in my chest. This wasn't just a chance encounter. This person wasn't a stranger. The book had written it. It was all a part of the path Seonwoo would walk—one he had to take.
I gripped the book tightly, my mind spinning.
The person, dying and screaming for help, was nothing but bait, but Seonwoo couldn't hear the warning. He didn't know. He was already moving, getting closer to the edge, reaching for a rope to throw down or even jump.
"Seonwoo, stop!" I shouted, desperate. "It's a trap!"
But he didn't listen.
I stared at the words in the book, each letter glowing, shimmering in the dim light. It was like the book was pulling me in, urging me to accept this truth. But could I? Could we really save this person without losing ourselves?
The monsters were almost upon us. Their shadowy forms flickered above like vultures ready to descend.
Then, my mind shifted. The book wasn't just narrating. It was guiding us, telling us exactly what had happened when Seonwoo was alone.
In the past, he had been betrayed by the people who he trusted the most. They had pushed him, abandoned him to the monsters, thinking him dead, just like this person was.
But the book had said Seonwoo would save him. It was no coincidence. He couldn't just let it happen.
Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.