The revelation delivered by the Echo ability on the stone monument left a creeping chill sliding down Davin’s spine. The village of Oakhaven was not an idyllic ancient settlement; this place was merely a staged facade, an instantaneous simulation freshly printed out of thin air.

Knowing that fact made the bright morning atmosphere in this village shift drastically in Davin’s eyes. The beauty of the giant trees, the scent of pine, and the smiles of the villagers now resembled terrifying masks concealing a broken, tyrannical mechanism.

Davin decided against acting rashly. As a former Memory Architect accustomed to dealing with high-level psychological manipulation in isolation labs, he knew the best way to understand a flawed system was to observe its operational patterns from a safe distance.

Throughout that day, Davin chose to hide behind dense bushes covering a small hill slope at the edge of the village. From behind the lush foliage, he carefully watched every movement of the Oakhaven villagers. He logged their timing, activities, and interactions, hoping to discover a loophole or weakness within the simulation.

What he witnessed throughout that day slowly turned his curiosity into a gripping psychological tension.

At 8:00 AM, the village farmers went to the fields with laughter and warm greetings identical to the ones they gave Davin the previous morning. At 12:00 PM, a group of women sat by the waterfall, washing linen cloth while singing a cheerful song with matching tunes and lyrics repeated at the exact same tempo. There was no improvisation. No spontaneous chatter about today's weather or life's grievances. Everything ran rigidly, precisely like an automated video cassette playing on loop without the intervention of free will.

Davin pressed his body tighter against the bushes, his eyes alertly monitoring every detail. His heart beat faster than usual. There was something deeply terrifying about watching humans—or entities resembling humans—move soullessly, trapped in an endless cycle programmed by an unseen force.

Time crept upward. The sun slowly shifted toward the western horizon, casting an orange-red glow across the entire valley of Oakhaven.

A piercing chill began to bite into his skin as the imaginary clock hand in the air touched 5:55 PM.

Instantly, the village atmosphere, which had just been bustling with activity, transformed into silence. Absolute silence. All the villagers who had previously been walking, chatting, or working in the fields simultaneously froze in their tracks.

No commands were given. No countdown was heard.

Their movements were synchronous, rigid, and mechanical. The farmers holding hoes instantly dropped their tools to the ground. Children who had been running near the plaza halted their steps, standing completely straight with hollow gazes staring straight ahead.

This is it... the time has come, Davin thought, holding his breath tightly behind the bushes. He didn't even dare to blink, afraid his motion would shatter the chilling silence.

Right at 6:00 PM, every villager moved simultaneously. With heavy, rigid, and orderly footsteps like lines of puppet strings pulled by an unseen master, they turned around and walked toward their respective wooden houses.

Not a single conversation echoed. Only the sound of hundreds of pairs of feet striking the ground at the exact same time—tap, tap, tap—like a giant clock ticking across the entire valley.

They entered their homes, closed the wooden doors without locking them, and lay down on their respective beds in identical positions. Within seconds, the entire village transformed into a silent ghost town.

Davin exhaled a long breath he had been holding. Cold sweat dampened his temples. He rubbed his face with one hand, trying to digest the terrifying sight he had just witnessed.

"A broken vinyl record..." Davin muttered softly to himself, repeating the analogy that had crossed his mind earlier in the afternoon. "They are forced to live the same single day over and over without end, until the memories within this system saturate and rot from within."

He prepared to emerge from his hiding place, intending to comb through the empty houses to look for an exit or other clues regarding The Ledger.

Yet, before he could lift his foot from the damp earth, a strange sensation rippled through the air.

The gust of night wind that had been blowing gently suddenly stopped completely. The sound of crickets or rustling leaves in the pine branches vanished, leaving a heavy silence so dense his ears rang.

Click... krik...

The sound of snapping twigs echoed right near the bushes where Davin hid.

Davin's survival instincts screamed loudly. As a former Memory Architect who frequently faced perilous situations, he knew full well when he was not alone. He tensed, slowly turning his head sideways.

Behind the dense ferns and the thick trunk of a giant pine tree, a pair of small eyes stared sharply at him.

It was the same village child he had seen this morning—a young boy with messy hair and simple linen clothing. Yet, there were no more friendly smiles or innocent gazes on the child's face.

The boy's face looked rigid, expressionless, but his eyes flashed with a dim bluish light, closely matching the color of the symbol on Davin’s right hand. The child stood rigidly behind the brush, arms hanging limply by his sides, staring straight through the darkness of the night right into Davin's eyes.

Davin swallowed hard. He did not move an inch, trying to assess the situation. Was this child part of the village's automated defense system? Or a remnant of remaining memory consciousness?

Before Davin could formulate a logical reason, the child opened his mouth.

The sound emerging from the boy's mouth was entirely unlike a child of his age. It sounded heavy, multi-layered, as though dozens of adult voices were speaking simultaneously from deep within the boy's throat, producing a raspy echo that pierced straight into Davin's eardrums.

"You are disrupting the rhythm of our song, Intruder," the child said coldly.

The air around them suddenly froze. The child's shadow on the ground slowly lengthened and writhed, shifting into a dense silhouette staring threateningly right at Davin.