"Quick!" Delilah whispered urgently. "I saw someone heading this way!"
They sprinted for the door, the malevolent gaze at their backs never wavering.
As the door slammed shut behind them, Brooks felt a cold sweat breaking across his spine.
Delilah swiftly resecured the chain, refastened the shattered antique lock, and then bolted after Brooks.
"Where are we going?" she asked breathlessly.
"To the mountains — we'll hide there until the Dragon King Festival!"
"I know a path that winds up the mountain. Follow me!"
While the two worked in tense coordination, Erik had already reached the mountain's base. Relying on the brutal experience earned in previous game instances, he climbed with practiced ease.
Yet even after reaching higher ground, Erik could sense the NPCs relentlessly closing in. Being locals, they knew the terrain far better.
And they had dogs. The barking echoed through the woods, pressing down on Erik like a weight.
This couldn't go on — he'd be caught at this rate.
He had to think fast.
Glancing at the towering trees around her, she knew she could scale them even in the pouring rain. But the dogs were sharp — she had already scattered multiple scraps of her scent-marked clothing along the way, yet still couldn't throw them off her trail.
Was there a way to nullify the dogs' sense of smell?
Rummaging through her inventory mid-run, she finally found something useful.
The one leading the pursuit was the village chief's son, cursing as he ran.
"Didn't she say she was going to college out there? How the hell can a girl run this far, this fast?!"
Their hands held machetes, hacking viciously at the branches in their way.
The figure ahead wavered in the rain, flickering in and out of sight.
"She vanished?"
"Don't stop, keep chasing!"
A dozen more minutes of fruitless pursuit later, they still saw no trace.
"Lost her. Now what?"
The chief's son scowled. "Keep searching! A girl like her, unarmed and unprepared — how far could she possibly hide?"
The villagers fanned out in search, but came up empty. Soon, they encountered another group sent by the chief for backup.
"Even the dogs lost her scent. Not even Black, our best hound, could pick it up," the son reported grimly.
The chief's voice turned cold. "It's already the second. Only two days left until the Dragon King Festival! We've lost three offerings — the Dragon King will not be pleased. Bring them back, all of them! If you fail, don't bother returning to the village."
His voice dripped with menace. "If the offerings do not please the Dragon King, then Dahe Village will suffer — and you all know it."
The villagers spread out again, searching every inch of the mountainside.
With no outsiders present, the chief's son grumbled to his father.
"Pa, seriously — you should've had Uncle Mute tie them up yesterday. Would've saved us all this mess."
"You know nothing!" the chief barked, his face twitching.
"Well, if I *did* know something, I wouldn't be soaked to the bone up here in this goddamn rain." He spat out a mouthful of muddy rainwater after getting slapped by a branch.
The chief sighed and muttered, "This was the Dragon King's will."
The son stared, astonished. "That Dragon King sure has a lot of rules. We have to prepare the offerings, and now he's dictating how we treat them too? What a joke."
"You don't understand."
He rolled his eyes and didn't press. The soaked forest was already testing his patience.
Suddenly a shout came from afar.
"Chief! Something's happened!"
The chief's heart sank. "I'm here! What is it?"
"The ancestral hall — the harpoon's been stolen!"
He staggered. "What?!"
Charging toward the messenger, he seized the man's arm, his nails digging deep. The terrified messenger dared not resist.
"T-the harpoon's gone. The guardian was knocked out — there's a huge gash on his head, so much blood…"
"Who took it?! Which offering stole it?!" the chief roared.
He never even considered a villager could be responsible — from youth, they'd all been taught that the ancestral hall was sacred, untouchable.
But as he questioned further, dread settled in. It had to be Brooks and Delilah. His son was chasing Erik deep into the mountains, and the other two had vanished entirely. No other explanation.
"Alert the village! Bring back the offerings and the harpoon — no matter what!" Veins bulged across his forehead.
Meanwhile, hidden high among the branches of a massive tree, Erik held his breath.
Moments earlier, he had finally created some distance from his pursuers. After smearing his scent on several different trees, he'd chosen one and used every climbing technique he knew to ascend quickly.
On the branch, he donned a raincoat, removed his soaked clothes, and smeared himself with thick mud — the same kind he'd extracted from a swamp in the Rainforest Anaconda instance, specifically for masking scent. He had ten buckets stored in his inventory just for emergencies.
If it could block the tracking senses of a giant anaconda, perhaps it could fool dogs too.
Then Erik tossed several fabric scraps wrapped around pebbles far into the distance.
To her relief, it worked.
When the black hound reached her tree, the rain had already washed away most of her trail. Combined with the masking mud, the dog sniffed around, then turned away and followed the planted trail of cloth scraps.
The NPCs cursed loudly, furious that Erik had scattered so many scraps to confuse their prized hound.
With the danger temporarily drawn away, Erik finally exhaled. She would remain hidden here for now.
And so she stayed — until nightfall.
Though the villagers scoured the forest through the storm, their energy was waning. Hidden in a tree thick enough to require three adults to encircle it, Erik nibbled on a small bun to restore her strength.
Rain still leaked through the canopy, and her body temperature continued to drop. She shoved warming garments inside her coat.
She had no idea that Brooks and Delilah had stolen the harpoon.
But she *had* been thinking about the harpoon.
Fishing nets. Harpoons.
Tools for capturing fish.
Brooks had said the ancestral hall's stilted structure resembled a scoop net. Clues were accumulating — this entire instance was steeped in motifs of water and fish.
The players were offerings. That much was clear.
The fishnet-like building, the human-headed fish fed to players, the sacrifice to the Dragon King...
But why make the players *eat* the human-headed fish? What did it do to them?
Aside from Weston's constant drowsiness, no other changes were obvious.
It was like seeing through fog — a veil over the truth.
"Nothing's going smoothly," Erik sighed to herself.
How *was* one supposed to clear this instance?
The unending sound of rain battered the leaves and her patience. She gave up trying to think and simply stared into the void.
A sudden itch at her neck — Erik reached up and pinched a large spider. She'd long grown numb to such creatures.
Flicking it away, her fingers brushed what might've been silk. She paused — then had a flash of insight.
Spiders weave webs to hunt. Their webs are tools for trapping prey.
Villagers used nets to catch the human-headed fish. Then what about the harpoon?
The villagers ferried players across the river. So what was the harpoon for?
The Dragon King?
That had to be it.
Her imagination raced. If the villagers dared to *hunt* the Dragon King, why bother offering sacrifices at all?
She silenced her thoughts, listening only to the rhythm of her idea.
Maybe — just maybe — the villagers weren't reverent at all. Maybe their worship masked something else.
Why build a house shaped like a fishnet, with only one wooden ladder for entry, locked from both sides, and windows like net-holes?
But Delilah had overheard NPCs say the human-headed fish came from the Dragon King's domain — the heart of the river.
If the villagers used offerings to lure the Dragon King, then caught him — and he *allowed* them to fish from his territory — wouldn't that be self-sabotage?
The tangled threads of this mystery also included someone named "Yinghua."
The Dragon King. The villagers of Dahe. Yinghua. The human-headed fish. The Festival.
What bound them all together?
She hadn't gleaned much from the NPCs. Back then, she hadn't dared stir them too much and had relied on indirect probing.
But now, the NPCs had turned openly hostile.
It was time to take the risk — to return to the village.
Who should she approach?
Nora had said she lived alone in one room — just her and her parents. Two adults — Erik could handle them.
The best source might be the boy's grandmother — the main cook behind the fish soup. She likely knew the truth about the Festival.
Then there was the mother of the brothers Delilah had tracked — it was from her mouth the name "Yinghua" first surfaced.
Those two brothers were troublesome, but based on the ruckus the villagers were making in the mountains, it was likely that all able-bodied adults had gone out to search. That old woman might be alone.
Only problem — Erik had no idea where her house was.
After weighing the options, she decided to target the first two.
Night deepened, and the sounds of pursuit gradually faded. Scouring the forest in this weather drained even the hardiest NPCs. By midnight, exhaustion overtook them. Even the dogs panted helplessly, too spent to continue.
An opportunity like this wouldn't come again.
Erik seized it — and silently began her descent down the mountain.