"Eric? What about Nicole—how is she?"
It was Samantha's voice.
"It's me. She's gone," Eric replied, her voice hoarse and low.
Samantha, drenched and dripping, approached with water still streaming from her clothes.
She checked again, confirming Nicole's death with silent resignation.
"Let's go back for now," she murmured, exhaling heavily. "We'll come and gather her remains at dawn."
"All right."
Splash!
Someone else surfaced from the river.
One after another, Jason, Kevin, and Timothy emerged as well. They waited, but Ronald never appeared. With grim understanding, the group returned to the courtyard together.
The worn clock in the living room marked the hour—4:30 a.m.
Utterly exhausted, everyone withdrew to their rooms in silence.
Eric's room was thick with dampness, the air heavy with the scent of river water. It reminded her of the underwater weeds she had seen in her dream.
Samantha opened a window to let the night air in. "Try to sleep," she said quietly. "I think we'll be safe for today."
Lying in bed, Eric found herself unable to rest. She could sense that Samantha was equally restless beside her.
At first light, both women rose. The male players in the next room did the same.
After washing up, breakfast arrived.
It was a bucket of plain rice porridge, accompanied by a dish of salted vegetables.
"The culinary standards have really dropped now that we've cleared the starving ghost stage," Jason muttered.
"I'd take salted vegetables over braised pork any day," Timothy said, chewing a large mouthful with exaggerated satisfaction.
The players couldn't help but glance at Timothy's abdomen. Eric did too.
Among them all, Timothy's belly was now the largest.
"What are you staring at?" Timothy said, trying to stay upbeat. "I'm fine! I didn't eat that much the day before yesterday. Yesterday, yeah—I did kill a few NPCs. But I didn't kill Ronald, okay? If he's missing, it's not on me. And I didn't drag any kids into the water last night either. Look, my belly *looks* bigger than yours, but it's really not that bad."
He spoke lightly, but the frustration in his eyes betrayed him. If only he had restrained himself yesterday—then maybe someone else would've taken the lead in this grotesque race.
After breakfast, they began tending to the fallen. Eric and Kevin carefully wrapped Christine's remains and carried her to the hillside. A new grave was dug.
They waited for the others to return with Nicole's body.
Soon, they arrived—but Nicole's corpse had changed beyond recognition.
"She was submerged when we found her," Samantha said quietly.
They hadn't come back with just Nicole. Ronald's body was with them too—also waterlogged, disfigured beyond all human likeness.
He had likely died the night before, never resurfacing—explaining why the others had waited in vain.
A heavy silence fell. Wordlessly, they buried the two, covering the graves with only a thin layer of earth.
No one spoke it aloud, but all understood: the shallow graves would save them the trouble of digging anew when the next player fell.
"Come on. Let's head down the mountain."
As if fate offered them a reprieve, the rest of the day passed without incident. In the afternoon, Eric finally caught some sleep and didn't wake until past seven in the evening.
But as night fell, anxiety returned.
At midnight, they would enter the fifth day of the game—and no one knew what new horror awaited them.
As the hour neared, Eric's belly began to stir. The thing inside kicked now and then, a chilling reminder of what grew within her.
"Samantha, what do you think we'll face next?" she asked, voice taut with dread.
Samantha shook her head. "It depends," she said softly, "on what this village once did to its children."
Eric's heart sank.
A village with no living children.
A shrine roofed with infant bones.
A grotesque goddess who accepted baby offerings and bowls of boiled birth soup.
Ghost fetuses with unnatural cravings swelling within their hosts…
As the minute hand crept toward midnight, Eric grew increasingly tense. Her belly throbbed with sharp pain. It wasn't imagined—Samantha clutched her stomach too, her expression twisted with discomfort.
They sat side by side at the edge of the bed, hands pressing against their distended bellies, bracing themselves for the torment yet to come.
The moment midnight passed, Eric felt reality twist—her perspective lowered drastically. Her body had shrunk. Her gaze now aligned with the world from a child's height. She realized she was kneeling and hastily rose to her feet.
"Where... are we?"
"Whoa, why did you get so small?"
"We've all turned into children."
The other players were there too. Eric turned and saw several children around her, their features faintly echoing the adults she knew—they were her companions, transformed.
Timothy stared at Eric, astonished. "Why do you look so...?" He reached out to touch her face.
Eric frowned and backed away. "What are you doing?" she snapped, unsettled by the strange expressions on the others' faces. Why were they looking at her like that? Was there something wrong with her childhood appearance?
There truly were no photographs of her before the age of ten. Not in her home, not at any relatives' place. She'd once asked about it, and her uncle had said that a great flood one year had destroyed many of their possessions.
Kevin pulled Timothy back. "Seriously? We're in the middle of this mess, and you're groping female players?" He had noticed the peculiarity in Eric's appearance too—but unlike Timothy, he knew better than to make it obvious. That was her private matter.
"I was just curious!"
"Curiosity is fine, but keep your hands to yourself." Samantha drew Eric to her side. "Focus—we need to figure out what's going on."
Before them stood a towering altar table, and they had all awakened kneeling on the cushions before it.
"This place looks... familiar."
Eric scanned her surroundings. The more she looked, the more certain she felt—it was the ancestral shrine, only enormous in scale.
No, not the shrine made larger—the players had become smaller.
This was the village shrine.
"It's the shrine. I can hear voices outside," Jason said, pressing his ear to the door. Eric leaned in too. Sure enough, there were villagers speaking beyond the threshold.
"…Just two hours till sundown. Are we really doing this?"
"What are you afraid of now? This is the master's instruction. Don't you want a healthy child?"
"Of course I do! But I'm scared. One of them in there… she's my cousin's daughter."
"One of them's my nephew. Quiet now—the village chief is coming!"
Hearing this, dread churned in Eric's chest.
They were going to be burned alive.
She thought of the bones on the hillside—some were unmistakably scorched.
An aged voice spoke: "Are the children behaving?"
"They're quiet, Chief. All kneeling nice and proper."
"Good. Just two hours more. When the sun sets, we'll begin the rite. No mistakes allowed. I know what's in your hearts. Do you think I feel nothing? Those children are ours too. I ache for them. But we have no choice! It's been nearly a decade since a healthy boy has been born in this village. Even the girls are few! The master gave us the ritual to end our curse. We must offer up these flawed children as sacrifice to drive out the wicked ghost-babies. Only then can we birth healthy ones again!"
"…We follow your lead, Chief."
"I'm glad you understand. Stay alert. I'll return shortly."
The chief made a round and left. He didn't even glance at the "children" inside the shrine—a blessing in disguise.
Soon after, the guards outside began to chat again.
"Did you hear? The ones we starved, strangled, drowned before—none of it worked. The master says this time, all the surviving problem children must die at once. After the rite, their bones will be set into the shrine's roof. That way, the true fire of the sun will suppress the evil daily. The ghost babies will never return, and our children will finally be born healthy."
"I know, I know! That's what everyone says! But before, it was newborns—now, these ones… They've lived. Some can talk. Work. It feels wrong."
"It's for the future. I've been married seventeen years. Thirteen babies—all with problems…"
Eric and Timothy remained by the door, listening, while Jason and the others searched for an escape. Rage surged in Eric's chest. So it was true—the players' fate mirrored that of the sacrificed children.
"We have to get out of here," Timothy whispered, backing away from the door.
"Did you find a way out?" Eric asked as Kevin approached.
"No exit. There's no back door, and the windows are too small—even as children, we won't fit through them. Uncle Lu said we should check the roof. Come help."
A gap yawned at the shrine's center, letting moonlight stream down. After hearing Eric and Ronald's earlier report, Jason said, "They plan to burn us and use our bones to seal this hole. We have to get out—now."
Together, they moved the altar table beneath the opening. The remaining five players began forming a human ladder.
Had they been in their original bodies, Eric could've climbed the roof with ease. But now they were all the size of four- or five-year-olds—Kevin the tallest, Timothy the shortest. Escape would only be possible through cooperation.
Eric couldn't help but feel grateful they still had five players left. Any fewer, and they wouldn't reach the top.
The male players formed the base, the women climbed atop. Samantha said, "Eric, your limbs are longer than mine. Get on my shoulders—I'll hold you."
"All right," Eric answered solemnly.
They stacked themselves, one atop another. Eric was the last to climb.
The human tower trembled under her weight. Everyone gritted their teeth and held steady.
Feeling the instability, Eric hastened her pace. She stood atop Samantha's shoulders, slowly straightening her body. She reached out—
Too far.
Samantha, using all her strength, gripped Eric's legs and pushed, placing her feet atop her head.
In that moment, Eric wished her arms were just five centimeters longer.
Teeth clenched, she finally grasped the edge.
Her arms and waist strained—her body curled upward in an arc.
With that force, her upper half made it over. Using her elbows, she dragged herself up and finally clambered onto the rooftop.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A crash echoed from inside the shrine. Eric turned immediately and leaned over the edge to look.
The human tower had collapsed. Everyone except Jason at the bottom had fallen to the floor.
A villager stood abruptly. "What was that noise?"