Before she noticed their presence, Eric had merely perceived the extra figure in the room as "female." But now, when she turned her gaze, she found herself unable to discern the faces or bodies of the three figures. To her eyes, they resembled three looming shadows, as tall as grown men, shifting and vague.
She stared intently at them, yet her ghost eye remained utterly still.
The moment the three puppet spirits entered, a deathly silence fell upon the village chief's courtyard.
"W-Why are they here…"
"Why are they following us so closely?!"
The wooden puppet spirits did nothing—just stood still in the corner, silently watching the players.
Only the players could see them. The chief and Da Shan were completely unaware of their presence.
When the chief glanced in the direction the players were pointing, he saw nothing but the courtyard wall.
"They followed you down from the mountain. Only you can see them. It's a good sign they haven't harmed you—don't provoke them."
Who would dare?
The chief handed each of them a set of tools—axes, files, and other items, mismatched and varied in condition, borrowed from the villagers. Larger tools like saws and heavier axes had to be shared.
The chief taught them carefully, and Eric listened with equal care.
Returning to her place, Eric stared at the tree in front of her, lost in thought. Did she really need to saw it open? Would doing so be akin to "killing" it? Would it invite revenge?
She looked at the others. Those who had finished trimming their wood had already started crafting their puppets with smaller blocks. She then glanced toward Gavin, Brielle, Ximena, and another male player—Bo—who had discarded his previous wood before they descended the mountain and had dug up a new tree entirely.
Their trees were larger and bulkier, so the chief had grouped them together in the same area.
None of them had begun crafting.
It made sense. Even without Eric's ghost eye, they had brought down whole trees, which suggested they shared the same unease.
"Why haven't you started yet? Just sitting there won't teach you how to carve," the chief said as he strolled over with hands behind his back. His comment drew curious glances from other players.
"I'm still deciding what kind of puppet to make," Eric offered as an excuse. Gavin and the others echoed her sentiment. The chief sighed. "Don't delay too long. Look at Kai—he's already making real progress."
Since entering the dungeon, newcomer Kai had been through hell, nearly collapsing from exhaustion and catching a cold in the rain. But luck had finally smiled on him. Before all this, he'd worked in jade carving—not very skilled, just an apprentice—but among these players, his experience was invaluable. He had progressed the fastest, and his first piece already had the rough form of a puppet's head, limbs, and torso.
"Ah!" With a careless stroke, he filed too deeply at the neck, and the head fell clean off. Grimacing, Kai picked up the wooden piece, but his eyes held no real frustration—he believed he could complete a puppet eventually.
"All right, go have dinner now. Da Shan and his wife should have prepared it for you," the chief announced.
The players left half-heartedly. Some took their wooden materials with them; others left theirs behind. Eric, of course, carried her tree with her. It was her only one—losing it would be a major problem.
Ximena and Brielle did the same. Their relationship with Eric had grown a bit closer.
They chatted on the way back.
"Have you figured out how to start cutting it?" Brielle asked, clearly vexed. Watching others make progress only heightened her anxiety.
Ximena said nothing.
Eric glanced at her, wondering what exactly Ximena had learned after entering the village yesterday.
But it was only speculation. Eric herself had secrets—she understood all too well the instinct to hide the truth.
"This village and its NPCs look normal, but in a supernatural dungeon, normalcy is the greatest anomaly," Eric murmured with a sigh. "We don't have any clues. The only thing we can do is follow the NPCs' lead and push the plot forward."
"But the quest clearly tells us to create a finished puppet."
"Will completing one really guarantee our safety?" Eric couldn't shake the disquiet that had followed her ever since they entered the village—an eerie, persistent wrongness she couldn't put into words.
"I get what you're worried about. That's why I don't dare touch my tree," Brielle said with a strained smile, adjusting the weight on her shoulder.
"Also… living puppets and puppet spirits that desire human bodies—can we really say they're not connected?" Eric continued thinking aloud. "The chief claimed that living puppets are benevolent and obedient, made to protect the village, while puppet spirits are malevolent, trying to usurp living bodies. But… the half-body puppet we pulled from the well—where does it fit?"
If it was the former, who would willingly slice it in half and throw it into a well?
If it was the latter, why was it made of wood instead of flesh, if it had already taken over a human body?
There were contradictions in the chief's words.
"I remember it clearly—the puppet from the well looked exactly like a living person."
Eric hesitated, then decided to speak of the puppet tree's uncanny nature. "It was *too* realistic. Its skin felt human to the touch. Even the hair... And the trees in the forest of puppet spirits—from a distance, don't they resemble—"
A human being.
A chill ran through her, dread coiling tight around her heart. Eric never finished the sentence.
No one noticed her sudden change. Ximena finally spoke. "Everything we've learned about this dungeon has come from the NPCs. But in most supernatural dungeons I've played, the NPCs are untrustworthy. They lie to lead us to our deaths."
Walking beside them, Eric felt like an empty husk—her body and soul had parted ways. One kept walking stiffly forward, while the other floated above, frantically scanning the surroundings like a frightened bird:
What was it? What force had poised to strike the moment she tried to speak the tree's truth?
Thank God she'd stopped in time. Had she continued, she'd be dead by now.
Beads of cold sweat gathered on Eric's brow. She said nothing more and spent the last stretch of the walk in silence.
"You feeling okay?" Brielle finally noticed something was off.
"A bit dizzy."
"Then get inside and rest. You might be catching a cold."
Back at the courtyard, Eric stowed the wood in the living room. The summer rain had come quickly and vanished just as fast. The ground dried in no time, and her clothes had long since dried from her body heat. The humid, stifling air mirrored the tension among the players. Pretending not to notice the killing intent from earlier, Eric joined the others to wait for dinner.
As she waited, her nerves gradually calmed.
She felt grateful that she hadn't recklessly spoken aloud what her ghost eye had seen back in the forest. Had she done so, she might've died on the spot.
Now that she was calm, she began to ponder: the puppet tree's resemblance to a human had to be a critical clue. Why else would the dungeon's hidden force try to silence her?
Eric's mind churned, hoping to glean the dungeon's secrets.
As expected, Da Shan and his wife soon delivered dinner. The players, exhausted from the day, devoured every last bite.
The three shadowy figures had followed them back, drifting silently in the corner of the courtyard.
"Let's talk things through," Gavin suggested.
Rowan rolled his eyes. "Talk? What's the point? You brought down *whole* trees and spent the whole afternoon doing nothing. Clearly you're planning to let the rest of us serve as your test subjects. We've already cut our materials and started making puppets, and none of us have died—so that path is safe! Just follow our lead tomorrow. No need to thank us. Take it. Use it. What's left to discuss?!"
His sarcasm silenced Gavin, whose composure finally cracked.
The players dispersed in sour spirits, each returning to their rooms.
The female players sat in uneasy silence. One of the puppet spirits followed them in and lay down on a bed ahead of them.
Aurora asked softly, "Is it our turn to sleep in the beds tonight?"
"…Yes. We're rotating. Try to sleep early," Brielle replied.
"Sleep? With *that* thing on the bed?!"
"What choice do we have? Sleep on the floor again?"
"That's not fair! You got the beds last night—tonight was supposed to be ours!"
"The beds are right there. Who's stopping you? If you've got the guts, *make it leave*. Go on!"
The room erupted in argument.
The oppressive atmosphere of the dungeon made it easy for tension to boil over into frustration.
Eric tried to mediate, but gave up and quietly found a corner to lie down in.
She was deeply unsettled herself. She had seen the puppet tree's truth, but couldn't unravel its secrets—couldn't even speak of it, let alone discuss it with others.
That night, Eric slept poorly.
The old courtyard was anything but peaceful. In the second half of the night, Eric kept hearing the sound of a file rasping against wood—close, too close—like it was right beside her ear. The noise made it impossible to relax.
Who was carving in the dead of night?
Or was something else moving? Had the half-body puppet returned? Or was it the malevolent force that had threatened her earlier?
She listened closely, but couldn't pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It seemed to echo from everywhere.
She then turned her attention toward the bed. Had the puppet spirit lying there moved during the night?
Because of her chosen corner, she could only see the edge of the bed—not what lay atop it. By the time she felt the chilling sensation of being watched, it was too late. Her back stiffened. She couldn't—and wouldn't—turn around.
Behind her was a wall. She'd picked this spot carefully, thinking it was the safest.
But now, that wall… what was watching her from it?
It felt like being submerged in ice water. Eric's body froze, rigid with fear.