Davin did not answer the repeated greeting. He simply remained silent, staring straight at Barnaby, who still wore a warm, unblinking smile—a smile that now felt far more terrifying than the glare of any monster in his original lab.

Without paying attention to the village chief, who continued to stand rigidly waiting for a response, Davin slowly turned and stepped away from the crowd of villagers frozen in awkward positions. His footsteps led him down a cobblestone path dividing the village of Oakhaven. He needed to find a quiet place to think, to comprehend what was truly happening to his body and the world where he had landed.

On the left side of the road stood an open-air tavern with a thatched roof and sturdy old mahogany tables. The atmosphere around the tavern was dead silent, as though the pulse of life in this village was controlled by an invisible switch.

Davin approached one of the wooden tables, its surface smooth and polished glossy by time. On the table were several wooden cup rings and circular natural wood grain patterns.

What on earth is this place? And what does this new power on my right hand have to do with all this strangeness? Davin thought.

He raised his right hand. The hourglass eye symbol on the back of his hand emitted another extremely faint, barely visible flash of silver light, as though responding to the curiosity brewing in his mind.

Davin took a deep breath, then pressed his right palm flat against the wooden table's surface.

Instantly, the world around him vanished.

No, his physical world did not disappear; rather, his consciousness was dragged into a massive vortex of information. Inside his head, a visual explosion occurred. It felt like thousands of worn-out film reels being played simultaneously at high speed.

Davin saw a flash of blinding white light—time spinning backward at a dizzying pace. He saw the wooden table no longer inside the tavern, but returned to its original form: a giant pine tree towering deep within an ancient forest, its roots gripping the damp soil, its leaves rustling in the wind hundreds of years ago.

Then, the memory shifted rapidly. The deafening roar of a sharp saw and the impact of an axe thundered inside his head. Davin felt the vibration of pain from the tree trunk as it was felled, dragged through the mud, chopped up by someone whose face was blurred, and finally shaped into wooden planks and assembled into the tavern table.

All those details flooded into his brain not as ordinary memories, but as a living, direct experience. He could smell the scent of fresh pine resin, feel the cold drops of morning dew from centuries past, and hear the scraping sound of an axe striking wood fibers.

Massive data flow... Davin groaned in pain.

A soft yet resonant voice, cold and mechanical, suddenly whispered directly into his consciousness, as though originating from within his own soul's blueprint:

"Object memory detected. Processing existence history archives... [Echo] ability activated."

The name echoed in his head: Echo.

An ability granting him the privilege—or curse—to read, absorb, and replay any informational history in the universe simply through physical touch.

Yet, human brain capacity has limits, even for a former Memory Architect. Having spent too long and too deeply absorbing centuries of history from the wooden table, Davin's head suddenly felt as though it might split open. An overwhelming wave of dizziness struck him square in the head. His vision blurred, and his breathing grew rapid. His legs weakened, making him nearly collapse to the ground.

Davin hastily pulled his palm away from the table's surface, panting heavily as he gripped his head with both hands. Cold sweat beaded on his temples.

"Damn..." Davin muttered in a raspy voice, his eyes tightly shut to withstand the residual information hum still vibrating against his eardrums. "This power... if I'm not careful controlling it, my head might explode before I even manage to get out of this world."

He stood up unsteadily, leaning against the edge of the table to stabilize his balance. After a moment, the roaring in his head began to subside, leaving a dull, throbbing sensation at the base of his skull.

Davin stared at his slightly trembling hand. The ability was real. The Ledger had not only brought him to another dimension, but provided him with a tool to dissect reality itself. If he could read an object's past history, he could find out what lies this Oakhaven village was hiding.

Driven by a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, Davin stepped away from the tavern toward the center of the village.

In the middle of Oakhaven lay an open plaza flanked by ancient wooden-architecture town hall buildings. At the center of the plaza stood a tall stone monument shaped like a large slab carved with intricate ancient script reliefs. The monument was surrounded by sturdy, weathered stone pillars covered in thick green moss, as though they had stood firmly in that spot for thousands of years.

This must be the center of this village's memories, Davin thought, approaching the monument.

Villagers could still be seen wandering in the distance, moving in the exact same rigid patterns as before, entirely indifferent to Davin's presence.

Davin extended his right hand, spread his fingers, and pressed his palm directly against the cold, mossy surface of the stone monument.

He closed his eyes, bracing himself to receive a wave of long historical memories regarding the founding of Oakhaven, ancient wars, or past rituals perhaps carved onto it.

Yet, what the Echo ability streamed through him this time was far beyond his wildest guesses.

Instead of showing past recordings of centuries of history, thick moss, or ancient stone weathering, Davin's mind was struck by a starkly contrasting flash of imagery. Inside his head, time spun backward not to the distant past, but merely hours behind.

Davin saw a sterile white empty room. He saw glowing red lines of digital data flowing like a waterfall of information. And most shockingly, he saw that the stone pillars and the monument he currently touched were not carved from ancient stone thousands of years old.

Those stones had just been "created" out of nothingness—instantly condensed from digital matter and empty-air energy—just hours before he landed in this valley.

No ancient history. No long past civilization.

Davin opened his eyes wide. His breath hitched in his throat. He stared intently at the stone monument before him, realizing a terrifying truth: Oakhaven's old buildings, giant trees, smiling friendly villagers, even the green grass beneath his feet—all of them were merely fake replicas printed out of thin air to deceive anyone who came here.

This world was not a real dwelling place. It was a digital stageplay built just last night.