After returning to the inn with the information he had obtained from the Adventurer's Guild, Ang immediately began going through it. The detail and comprehensiveness of the contents secretly amazed him at the power of the Adventurer's Guild's information network. Although the intelligence had cost him five Magic Crystals, Ang felt the expense was worthwhile. The records not only documented every Guanda person disappearance and death related to Andalutin Forest over the past five years, but also provided detailed accounts of every missing person and victim, including their names and specific circumstances. This further confirmed Ang's suspicions about the so-called "Ancestral Punishment," and he began to form a preliminary theory.
As he reviewed the records, he noticed that quite a few Guanda people had indeed vanished after heading into Andalutin Forest over the past five years. In total, the dead and missing numbered around seventeen hundred. However, the causes of death varied greatly. Some had died in magical beast attacks, some in conflicts with other adventurers, while others had succumbed to accidents or illness. Ang found no particular pattern among these causes that could prove the existence of the so-called Ancestral Punishment. Even among the missing Guanda people, many had simply never returned after entering the forest, rather than having "died from a curse" or "Ancestral Punishment," as the rumors claimed. On the contrary, Ang suspected that many disappearances were simply due to the dangers of Andalutin Forest itself, rather than the intervention of some mysterious power.
The records also documented the tangled history between the Guanda people and Andalutin Forest, including the circumstances of Roel's parents' deaths. This information left Roel silent. He had always held a deep fear and reverence for the forest. Ang could tell that, though Roel had never said it aloud, he had gradually come