Layers of green filled the forest as far as the eye could see.
The dark-ink green of the canopy, the vivid emerald of tangled shrubs and vines, and the fresh, bright green of moss coating stone walls and rock faces…
Wind brushed past the leaves with a soft rustling sound. A few clear bird calls drifted through the air here and there, only deepening the forest's quiet.
And in such a primeval woodland, an ancient stone house stood abruptly in the depths of the trees, looking completely out of place.
A jet-black crow cut through the branches and finally landed on a wooden rack in front of the house.
"Caw, caw, caw!!"
Its beak spat out a shrill, dried-out, skin-crawling cry.
Not long after, the stone house's front door swung open.
A "person" wrapped head to toe in strips of cloth stepped out from within.
He wordlessly walked to the wooden rack and picked up the envelope clamped in the crow's beak.
In passing, he set a few small, still-bleeding scraps of meat beside the bird.
Then he turned, shut the door, and went back into the house.
"Thud!"
The door closed.
The spacious entry hall inside was piled high with all sorts of junk.
The strange man moved through the clutter with practiced ease and eventually stopped before the door leading down to the cellar.
"Kh-kh-kh!"
He didn't go down the stairs. Instead, he stood at the top of the passage and let out a rasping, wind-torn croak.
"Come down."
Given the command, the puppet-like man stiffly turned and began descending toward the cellar.
The staircase was pitch-black; only at the far end, in the cellar itself, did a faint blue candle-glow seep through.
It was clearly light, but because of that eerie blue hue, it offered no warmth or comfort. On the contrary, it carried a bone-deep chill and a crawling sense of unease, as if one had stepped straight into an icehouse.
In contrast to the messy main hall, the cellar space was quite orderly.
A large bed sat in the center. Right beside it stood a workbench, and on that workbench lay all sorts of instruments: small knives, bottles and jars, hand saws, pliers…
On the other side of the bench, several glass jars were lined up in a neat row. Their transparent bodies were filled with murky, dark-green liquid. In the gloom, you could just make out twisted, twitching organic tissue and body parts floating inside.
A few hefty tomes bound in some kind of rough parchment were scattered nearby.
On the walls, dozens of meticulously drawn yet faintly disturbing anatomical diagrams and rune circle charts were pinned up. The ink was so dark it almost looked like dried blood.
The air was thick with the sharp, stinging reek of preservative chemicals.
The strange man walked to the workbench and carefully placed the letter on the tabletop.
"Go back out and keep watch."
"Kh-kh."
The woman speaking was wrapped head to toe in a dull, lead-gray robe, but the way the fabric clung to her frame made it easy to see the full, voluptuous curves beneath. The dissonant part was that this youthful, tempting figure was topped by a face covered in age spots and wrinkles.
She tore open the envelope and scanned the contents quickly.
Then she held the letter over a nearby candle flame and burned it to ash.
"That Chloe woman is trying to find me again. But I'm at a critical phase right now—where would I find the time to go out? Don't you agree, my little Abby…"
She turned toward the cage in the corner of the cellar.
Inside, a young girl sat on the cold floor.
When she realized the woman was speaking to her, the girl's pupils shrank in naked terror.
Tap—tap-tap—
The prematurely wizened woman walked over to the cage.
She leaned forward to look down at the golden-haired girl, then unconsciously licked her lips again, eyes full of greedy anticipation.
Once she transferred into this healthy, beautiful, vibrant body, she'd finally be free of this withered husk.
And this body's affinity for magic was even better than she'd expected.
Perhaps it would last her far longer than an ordinary vessel could.
"It should almost be time."
She silently calculated.
If not for the fact that this body needed a period of "cultivation" before the operation could begin, she'd have already been unable to bear staying in this decaying shell a second longer.
"You'll like this body of mine, won't you, little Abby?" the woman rasped out a laugh.
As she spoke, she let her gray robe slide off her shoulders, revealing the figure beneath.
Her curves were still voluptuous, but her skin was covered in dark brown blotches, like some unknown disease had eaten away at her.
"This body is getting less and less usable."
The woman sighed.
Barely ten years had passed since her last operation.
By all rights, the original owner of this body had not yet been twenty at the time. She should be far from old age now—yet her physical condition was closer to that of someone nearing a hundred.
She hadn't even bothered to keep track of how many times she'd performed brain-switching surgeries.
But she distinctly remembered that after her very first operation, there had been no such side effects; she'd lived until nearly her seventies or eighties before showing noticeable signs of aging.
With every subsequent surgery, the onset of aging grew faster and faster.
She'd tried countless methods to maintain youth and vigor, but nothing had worked. The aging felt like a curse born from the procedure itself, rooted deep in her soul, stubbornly following her from body to body no matter how often she changed.
"Looks like once this operation is done, I'll have to keep searching for a way to deal with the side effects."
"But I imagine the compatibility between us as mother and daughter will be quite high."
The woman's smile widened at that thought.
It truly was a stroke of luck even she hadn't expected.
Half a month ago, when she visited that village pulsing with bloodline similar to her own to select her next body, she happened upon this little treasure. The girl had excellent magical affinity.
And by sheer coincidence… she was the direct offspring of the body the witch currently inhabited.
That meant the upcoming surgery would go even more smoothly.
Closer blood ties drastically reduced rejection; that was a precious lesson she'd learned through repeated experimentation.
It was also why she'd chosen to shelter that birthplace of hers.
So long as the village kept breeding, she, as a "Mind-Swapper" witch, could continue stringing her life along, body after body.
"You… you monster!"
The girl in the cage suddenly forced out the words one at a time through clenched teeth.
Her voice was hoarse, each syllable hard-won.
The witch took no offense at the curse and seething hatred in the girl's eyes. Instead, her lips curled even higher, and she laughed in delight.
"To think you can still briefly break the restraints… looks like you're just about ripe, Abby."
By all accounts, Abby shouldn't have been able to move her own body at all by now. Perhaps it was the surge of emotion, but she'd actually torn free of the holding sigils for a moment.
That, too, was proof that her body had reached the perfect stage for surgical transformation.
"Don't worry, don't worry. We'll begin tomorrow."
The woman swallowed.
Most of her power lay in her over-developed brain, but the process of swapping bodies was the moment when she was at her weakest.
It was like an insect molting its shell—utterly vulnerable.
She yearned desperately to get the swap over with, to shed this frail, decaying skin.
And now, that moment was nearly here.
The more she thought about this treasure trove of a vessel, the more she couldn't help herself.
"It's practically a gift from fate."
The woman let out a raspy, satisfied sigh. That wrinkled face slowly melted into something like obsessive ecstasy.
Suddenly, from overhead, the puppet's wheezing "kh-kh-kh-kh" echoed again.
Her brow furrowed; she understood its message.
Someone had come near the house!
Her expression darkened, annoyance creeping over her features at this intrusion.
But…
At such a critical moment, who would come calling?
The village chief?
Unlikely. She'd already warned that little brat not to bother her for the time being.
So was it a chance passerby? Or… an enemy?
Her eyes narrowed.
She stooped to grab her robe from the floor and pulled it back over her body.
Then she walked to the cellar door and pressed a button there. The sigils on the walls began to glow faintly.
In the blink of an eye, the entire cellar room seemed to shift—fading from view as if it had never existed at all.
…
"This is the place," Shadow said quietly.
The Gauss party squinted through the thinning afternoon light at the stone house that practically reeked of wrongness.
It stood both abrupt and obscure.
Abrupt because it sat alone, deep in the forest—a place where most ordinary people simply could not survive on their own.
Obscure because if Shadow hadn't brought them here specifically, they'd be hard-pressed to find it. It was like the whole structure sat under some perception-dampening haze, the kind of place you could walk right past and never truly notice.
"Stay sharp," Gauss said, raising his guard.
He knew this house absolutely had problems.
Suddenly, a chill energy ran over his skin.
"We've been spotted. There is someone inside," Gauss murmured.
He'd wanted to scout a little more first, but hadn't expected the owner's detection ward to reach this far out.
"Want me to sneak ahead?" Shadow asked, looking over.
"No need—we'll all go together," Gauss shook his head.
"Get ready for a fight."
They approached the stone house as a group.
"Knock, knock, knock?" Gauss rapped lightly on the door.
Since they'd already been discovered, he had no intention of sneaking around.
There was still a possibility this was just the secluded home of some retired old adventurer.
"Coming."
After a long moment, the door creaked open.
What Gauss saw was the hunched figure of an old woman.
Her face was lined with deep wrinkles, but her eyes were unusually bright, none of the cloudiness typical of the very old.
"And you are…?"
She peered at them in confusion.
"We're adventurers passing through. We've nearly run out of food, and while traveling through the forest we happened to spot your home here. We were hoping to trade for some provisions," Gauss said pleasantly.
"Food? Ahh, this old crone doesn't have much left—what I do eat usually comes from kind neighbors in the village. I'm afraid…"
"No matter. Could we at least trouble you for some water? I'm a bit thirsty," Gauss said, letting his gaze ease past her into the house.
Inside was dark, but his superb vision still caught the outline of the interior.
Junk and clutter crowded the hall—firewood, old clothes, scattered books…
On the walls hung portrait after portrait of young women, all different, each framed and displayed.
It was… uncomfortable.
"Well then… come in," the old woman said.
Gauss and the others shared a subtle look.
Then they stepped over the threshold.
Overhead, Shadow's split-off shadow form had already slipped silently in through cracks and eaves, trailing the group from above.
Her true body stayed outside, ready to jump in if needed.
"Cough, cough!"
Gauss coughed twice.
The house carried a strong, cloying smell.
Following it to the corner, he saw a pile of dolls there.
"Granny, were you once an adventurer too?" Gauss asked casually as she turned toward what passed for the kitchen with a pitcher.
"Heh, that was… a very long time ago," the old woman rasped. "Now I'm just an old hag waiting to die—nowhere near as spry as you young folks, able to roam the world."
She came back with several cups of water and set them on the table.
Gauss didn't pick his up.
Instead, he looked at the portraits on the wall.
A row of women's faces.
On the far end, beside the painting of a golden-curled woman, was an empty frame.
"Granny, did you paint these yourself?" he asked.
"Yes I did, heh." Nostalgia softened her tone. "Back in my traveling days, I spent some time with a very famous troupe. Now that I'm old, I wanted to paint all the colleagues I remember from back then."
"Old folks always end up thinking about their youth."
"And this one—this is you, isn't it?" Gauss asked, eyes on the portrait of the curly-haired blonde. Up close, he could just make out the old woman's current features beneath the youth.
"Heh, you've got good eyes, young man."
"Time is cruel, isn't it? So pretty when young… and now I'm just a rotting sack of skin," she muttered.
"Everyone goes through it," Gauss said softly.
Crunch—
Alia's foot landed on a small paper bundle by accident.
A few small, syrup-coated kumquat candies rolled out across the floor.
"Sorry, ma'am, I didn't see the candy there," Alia said.
Gauss's gaze followed the scent of citrus.
Golden syrup glistened on the floor, releasing a faint kumquat aroma.
Something tugged at his memory; his expression turned slightly pensive.
"It's fine, it's fine—probably something a villager dropped off. Old women like me don't have much use for sweets anymore."
"Didn't you say you were thirsty?" the old woman prompted, nudging the cups forward.
"Better drink while it's still cool."
Gauss looked down at the clear water.
The surface in the dark brown clay cup trembled slightly as she slid it toward him.
"Thank you, ma'am."
He reached out, picked up the cup.
The old woman blinked, watching him.
But just as he brought it near his lips, he stopped again.
"What's wrong?"
"Granny, it just came to mind… our horses are still tied up outside the forest. I'm suddenly worried something might've happened to them," Gauss said mildly.
"Don't fret. It's safe around here—no wild beasts. The good folks from the nearby village always scatter beast-repelling powders when they deliver me food," she said.
"Then I'm relieved," he nodded.
He slowly lifted the cup again.
The old woman blinked, a faint glint of anticipation flashing in the depths of her eyes.
Just then, a shadow slithered in like a living snake, flowing across the floor and climbing up Gauss's right leg.
"As I thought…" Gauss said, face expressionless.
In the next instant—
He crushed the clay cup in his hand and drove his right fist forward.
His punch tore through the air. Muscles swelled mid-swing, and shimmering dragon-scale energy flowed across his skin, blazing in the dim room with a blinding light.
Time seemed to slow.
Gauss watched the old woman's face flicker in shock, the sagging, wrinkled skin shuddering in the pressure of the incoming blow.