"Father, I've trained for so many days, when will I finally be allowed to follow you into the Black Forest to hunt?" Karen carefully probed.
If the entire village now possessed human awareness, there was no reason for his parents to still maintain their naive and rigid appearance as before.
"It's still too early, son!" Mr. Blackwood burst into laughter, shaking his head in refusal. "Even I had to spend a full five years of bitter training in the past before daring to step foot on the mountain to hunt monsters!"
"Five years?!" Karen widened his eyes. "Wait a minute... five years is too long! I don't necessarily have to go up the mountain right away. I just want to go out of the village gate for a little walk, is that not allowed?"
"That's simple. As long as you can defeat a Spiked-Back Rat with your own hands, you will be allowed to step out of the gate. But remember well, you are only permitted to stand and observe from the terraced fields, absolutely do not wander up the mountain!"
He reached out and vigorously rubbed his son's messy hair. "Furthermore, when facing a Spiked-Back Rat, you are only allowed to rely on your own physical strength and Swordsmanship Skills. The use of Alchemy potions or setting traps is strictly forbidden!"
The boy was dumbfounded. Spiked-Back Rat?!
Since ancient times, this damn Oakstone village couldn't even produce a normal sewer rat, where would a Spiked-Back Rat come from for him to fight?!
But after pondering for a moment, Karen suddenly realized the existence of that low-level monster was actually completely unimportant!
The important thing was that Mr. Blackwood was finally able to converse, debate, and assign him conditional tasks! That's right! His family, and this entire village, had finally come "alive"!
Theoretically, Karen should have celebrated this change. However, that joy lasted a mere two days before he discovered a new fatal flaw.
"Karen! Go exploring with me! Come on! We're best friends from childhood, comrades-in-arms through life and death!" Lily blinked her large, round eyes, heavily patting his shoulder in excitement.
"Hey Karen, everyone in this village knows the Blackwood family has top-tier cooking skills. If you want to learn alchemy or cooking, just ask your mother to teach you!" A woman called after him.
Strange, hardly anyone in this entire village had ever stepped foot into his house to taste his mother's cooking, so why was everyone suddenly praising her like a Royal Chef?
"I don't care to play with that Thomas guy! You know perfectly well how much he and I clash!"
Wait a minute... Didn't this little girl used to stand blankly under the ancient Oak tree every day with that boy Thomas? Since when did the two of them turn into sworn enemies like this?
"Don't be foolish enough to associate with that guy! Quickly find a way to refuse! That Thomas looks elegant, but in reality, he's a tyrant who likes to bully others!" Yet another absurdity.
The "tyrant" the old woman was referring to originally just sat huddled up counting ants under the tree every day, where would he find the time and energy to go bully others?
... And dozens of similar absurd stories.
Gradually, Karen coldly realized the core of the problem.
The villagers indeed no longer behaved like soulless machines, but instead, their heads had been suddenly stuffed with a bunch of fake Memories, intertwined relationships, and incredibly unreasonable Character Settings!
The most typical example was the fact that the whole village suddenly assumed Lily was his "childhood friend and loyal comrade"! Karen felt it was extremely ridiculous!
Previously, Lily was rooted to the threshold every day, the number of times the two of them stood together could be counted on one hand, yet now they were set up as a duo stuck together like glue?!
But the misery was, he couldn't argue against this "common knowledge" that had been implanted into everyone's heads.
Another example: according to the old tradition, as soon as children turned five, they were dragged away by their parents to be taught a trade, disappearing for the whole day. However, ever since the villagers acquired so-called "souls", the children's study time was drastically reduced; for the majority of the day, they just ran around the streets like wandering NPCs.
Because the entire village was suddenly imposed with these shared memory systems and novel social operating rules, Karen had no choice but to carefully scout around everywhere.
He had to gather information to "update" himself on what personality traits he was assigned, what his hobbies were, and who he had grudges or favors with.
If he didn't clearly grasp his own new "settings", he could easily be suspected of being a heretic.
In the afternoon, the sky was clear without a single cloud.
"Karen! Hey Karen!"
An excited call rang out from afar.
Karen broke out of his hazy train of thought, looking up to see his pre-set "best friend" - Lily Miller - running frantically toward him.
The little girl charged over like a runaway horse, panting heavily. After stealthily glancing around to ensure no adults were paying attention, she covered her mouth with her hand, whispering in a highly mysterious manner:
"Karen, do you know where Thomas disappeared to?"
"Where to?"
"He snuck out to the wheat fields!" Lily's face lit up with extreme excitement mixed with admiration: "He is truly amazing! While the adults in the village absolutely forbid us from wandering outside the borders..."
"Everyone is curious to know what the world outside the village gate looks like. Thomas racked his brains for two whole days, and finally found a way! He asked some other kids to cause a distraction to divert the adults, then secretly squeezed through a gap in the wooden fence behind the small alley by himself! How clever! No one discovered he had sneaked out!"
Looking at Lily's idolizing expression, Karen's mind began to calculate...
Perhaps, he should also find a way to sneak out to those fields to scout around? He always had a strong premonition that the outside area contained some core secret. Otherwise, why would the adults have to establish such an unreasonably strict prohibition?
That guy Thomas was already nine years old yet had never once seen a wheat field! If one didn't know better, they might think he was a noble Young Master living in a fortified castle in the Kingdom's Capital!
Recalling his past life, when he was only four or five years old, Karen could already waddle after the adults to the fields to glean grain, and by the age of nine, he was proficient at harvesting!
This Oakstone village was truly too wrong!
It was clearly an agricultural village, yet the children born and raised here had never once set foot in the fields! How could such an absurd thing happen?!
Karen spent some time wandering a lap around the village, silently memorizing the terrain map and the blind spots of the Militia Patrols, before cheerfully returning home.
However, just as his hand touched the wooden door latch, a scream tearing through the quiet atmosphere suddenly rang out from the direction of the central square.
"Ah!"
Karen jolted, a chill running down his spine.
Something bad had happened!