Throughout the night, Elric never once turned around. She simply endured beneath the weight of that resentful gaze until the break of dawn. Only then did it finally vanish. Her head throbbed with pain from the sleepless vigil, yet she forced herself upright and glanced back—there was no trace left on the wall behind her.
Turning her gaze to the bed, she saw the wooden effigy still lying there, a vague, indistinct form.
Was it that thing last night? Elric couldn't be sure.
"…Did anyone else feel like something was watching us all night? I couldn't sleep at all," Adaline croaked.
"I did! So it wasn't just me?" Aurora chimed in before Elric could respond.
"I felt it too!"
To Elric's astonishment, it turned out that every female player had spent the night under the same malevolent, hateful gaze.
"I'm losing my mind. It has to be that thing's doing. What can we do to drive it away?" Adaline glared at the bed.
"Let's get moving. We need to finish making the puppet and leave this cursed village."
No one cared for more rest—they all rose hastily.
Elric's mind was a haze. Her thoughts sluggish, she followed the group out. She could hear movement in the side rooms—after exchanging a few words, they learned that the others had also been watched the entire night.
"It felt like surveillance," Rowen said, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the female players and the men in the right-side room. "Did any of you do something yesterday to provoke this?"
"We're all in this together. Don't you dare drag us down with your antics. If I find out who stirred this up, don't expect mercy from me."
His words were sharp, his gaze cutting across the group like a blade.
Nerves frayed and tempers short from a sleepless night, his accusation was the spark in a powder keg.
"You're full of shit! If I had that kind of power, would I have suffered through last night without sleep?"
"Why the hell are you accusing people for no reason? Who did anything to you?"
"We're all stuck in the same mess. This isn't the time to fight…"
Elric opened her mouth to speak, but a thought struck her—could it have been because of her?
Was it because she had nearly voiced a hidden truth about the wooden tree effigy? Had the entire instance turned its malicious gaze upon the players because of that?
It felt far-fetched… yet possible.
Uncertain, half-believing, half-doubting, she kept the suspicion to herself.
The day began with tension as the players quarreled. Soon, the mountain couple arrived with breakfast, their smiles unaffected by the heavy mood.
"Shall we bring lunch and dinner to the village chief's house later today?" the wife asked with a cheerful tone.
"Yes, thank you," someone replied listlessly.
After breakfast, they trudged toward the village chief's home, heads bowed. The wooden spirits from the women's room and the right wing followed closely behind, their presence unnervingly persistent.
Elric, lost in thought, walked more slowly. Ahead of her, Ximena and Brielle led the way. Suddenly, a dull pain flared in her right eye.
In that fleeting moment, Elric quickly scanned her surroundings, hoping to seize the narrow window when her Ghost Eye revealed hidden truths.
And she saw them—two faint humanoid shadows perched atop the tree that Ximena and Brielle were carrying. Their forms resembled the wooden spirits, but much fainter.
Aurora and Adaline, walking beside Ximena, each carried their own tree trunks. Around their shoulders and heads, mist-like shadows writhed—amorphous, formless.
A flash of insight split through Elric's mind like lightning. She immediately turned to examine the tree she carried—
There was no shadow.
The Ghost Eye lasted only a few seconds, yet Elric stood frozen, stunned.
In that moment, the disparate fragments of clues came together. She finally understood.
There had only been three wooden spirits when they first appeared—this number had misled her. Elric had once suspected a link between the spirits and the trees each player carried down the mountain, but the numbers hadn't added up… until now.
A new theory began to form.
Forget the village chief's misleading words. Strip them bare and distill the truth—these wooden spirits hadn't appeared by chance. Nor were the puppet awakenings based on random luck.
Every wooden tree bore a spirit.
The ones cut into pieces—those spirits dispersed and latched onto the players.
The ones carried whole—their spirits remained intact and humanoid. The fainter ones still clung to the trees; the denser ones took on human-like forms, visible to the eye.
Perhaps this was the instance's trap: preventing players from realizing the spirits were tied to the full trees they had carried down.
One player had turned into wood the first night. The remaining twenty had each brought down a tree. Of them, five had carried complete trees.
That explained why there were wooden spirits in both the right and left wings—Gavin and Bo had each brought down a whole tree.
Among the women, three of them had complete trees. Yet only one spirit had appeared in their room. It likely belonged to the tree Elric had carried. Ximena and Brielle's spirits still lingered in the trees.
A storm roared through her thoughts. Elric pieced it all together, profoundly grateful for her Ghost Eye. The agonizing cost of losing her eye had become her lifeline in this twisted trial.
She had seen the truth—and now she knew what to do.
They arrived at the chief's house. The players filed in. It was the third day of the instance, and puppet crafting had only just begun. Everyone hoped to speed up today.
Elric chose not to immediately share her discovery with Brielle and Ximena. Instead, she quietly urged them not to cut their trees—she would test her theory first.
"Did you find something?" Brielle asked.
"Wait until the chief arrives. I'll try it then."
Elric settled into the same seat she had used the day before and waited. But the chief did not appear that morning, and her anxiety grew.
Privately, Brielle pressed her for answers. Elric only replied, "If I succeed, you'll see it for yourself. If I fail, all my assumptions collapse."
Even such a small clue didn't trigger any deadly retaliation. It confirmed what Elric suspected—something unseen was watching.
At noon, the mountain couple returned with lunch, and this time, Niuniu came with them. A player asked to touch her little puppet.
"It's gone," she mumbled, lips pouting. "It broke."
She cast a furtive glance at Rowen. He didn't notice, but Gavin did.
"What happened to your puppet, sweetheart? Want Uncle Gavin to fix it?" he cooed.
Niuniu's eyes welled up. "It protected me… it can't be fixed anymore…"
The wife laughed. "Kids cry over the smallest things. Don't cry, sweetie. Mommy will help you make a new one later."
The family left hand in hand, sunlight bathing them in a warm, golden glow. Their retreating silhouettes exuded peace and gentleness.
Elric lowered her gaze, trying to quell the unease churning in her chest.
Her eyes remained fixed on the main hall. Would the village chief show up today?
She could only stall Brielle and Ximena for so long. If too much time passed and her theory proved wrong, she would not only doom herself, but them as well.
Fortunately, shortly after lunch, the village chief finally emerged.
Elric stood. "Village Chief, could you come here for a moment?"
He greeted her with a genial smile. "Elric, was it? Trouble with the task? You need to hurry today—your group is falling behind."
Brielle and Ximena watched her intently, curiosity burning in their eyes.
Had she discovered something?
Ximena's gaze flickered. Her attention drifted toward Kai, who was progressing the fastest. In just one morning, he had already shaped the puppet's rough form. If all went well, he'd finish the body today and start on the face, hands, and feet tomorrow.
Even without Elric's warning, she wouldn't have touched her tree.
On the day they entered the instance, while the others rested after their hike, Ximena had risked leaving the courtyard to gather information. It was dangerous, but fruitful.
She'd seen that several households were making puppets too. Though everything seemed normal, she didn't trust anything "normal" in a supernatural instance.
Eventually, she found the village's largest estate—the village chief's home—and overheard a conversation between the chief and a young man.
The chief had said, "Treat them well—keep them all if you can. We haven't had new arrivals in a long time. The forest's grown too dense—someone's here!"
Startled, Ximena fled. A small figure chased her down.
Their fight was short-lived—Ximena's hand shattered from the first blow. The girl was no longer human.
To survive, Ximena used a tool that sliced the attacker in two.
Yet after dinner, half a puppet was found in the courtyard well, exuding a murderous aura.
Fearing it still harbored hatred, Ximena took the initiative—she stole the puppet during the night and dismembered it into tiny pieces, burying them deep in the earth.
Since then, she had harbored deep distrust toward the puppets. She feared she might inadvertently create another monster.
She didn't know what Elric planned—but she hoped it would work.
Unaware of Ximena's past, Elric stepped forward and smiled with practiced ease.
"Village Chief, my puppet is done."
The players erupted in disbelief. Even the chief's warm expression faltered.
"Here, take a look." Elric lifted the tree she had leaned against the wall, beaming. "Isn't it lifelike? A perfect creation—there's no need to carve it any further. Don't you think it's exquisite?"
All expression drained from the chief's face. He looked like an old, gloomy puppet, carved from aged wood. He wanted to deny it, to refute her claim.
How could this be?
How could an outsider know the secret of the Wooden Men Village?
His eyes darted frantically. Elric heard the scraping, carving sounds in her ears again—just like last night. She stood amid a storm of unseen malice, cold to her very soul.