The main house was silent.
Night gradually blanketed Stardew Valley, signaling the end of another day.
"Little Abi, are you asleep?"
Suke took a carton of gold-star milk from the fridge and walked to the bedroom where he had settled Abigail, giving the door a light knock.
There was no response from the other side. While children her age usually went to bed much earlier than adults, Suke felt a strange tension in the air.
Creeeeeak—
After a moment of hesitation, Suke decided to push the door open. He felt exactly like a parent terrified of waking their child, making every movement with extreme caution.
Rustle—
"Abigail...?!"
A sudden, biting gust of wind carrying a few stray leaves surged from the corner of the room, clashing with the warmth of the fireplace in the hallway. Shivering from the cold, Suke almost thought he was hallucinating.
Where was the little blonde girl? She should have been fast asleep, hugging the life-sized teddy bear he had specifically placed in the room.
Instead, a clear, cold moon hung high in the sky. Shadows of trees from a distant forest flickered against the floor, illuminated by the moonlight. The howling night wind raced through the woods, carrying a chill that did not belong to the harvest-scented air of Stardew Valley.
Peering as far as he could see, the faint, flickering lights of a village were visible in the distance.
"I must have opened the door wrong."
Rubbing his temples, Suke closed the door and opened it again. However, the unchanging scenery before him served as a grim reminder: this wasn't a hallucination brought on by the excitement of having guests.
"Damn. Abigail's probably been taken by the Bubbles."
Suke wasn't slow. Almost instantly, several possibilities flashed through his mind. Given Abigail's unique nature and the abnormalities she showed at the dinner table, the world connected to this bedroom door was most likely that place where the forbidden had descended—
The Sub-Singularity: Salem.
Good grief. She truly was the Witch beloved by the Key and the Gate. He had been trapped behind the air walls of Stardew Valley for three years without making an inch of progress, and yet, on her very first day, she had opened a whole new map for him.
Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. Even if it was isolated from the outside world as a Singularity, it was still many times larger than this tiny town of Stardew Valley.
"First, I need to confirm something—"
There was no time to mourn his missing bedroom. Suke scrambled out of the house and ran to the coop, grabbing the black Void Chicken that had been sleeping after their argument the day before.
Under the chicken's "what is this stinking farmer doing now?" gaze, Suke carried the bird to the door leading to Salem. He carefully set it down and nudged it across the threshold.
He watched as the chicken walked onto the dirt, looked around, and pecked at an earthworm on the ground.
"Alright, no problem. Blackie, go back to sleep."
Void Chicken: "?"
Human, you better have a good reason for this.
"It seems the Demon God Pillar's surveillance of the Singularity isn't absolute. Makes sense; if it could truly control every inch of Salem, Chaldea wouldn't have been able to come in and mess things up."
"However, living things from Salem can't enter Stardew Valley. That's unexpected... but good. At least I don't have to worry about any 'unclean things' wandering in."
Suke performed a series of experiments. He confirmed he could safely step onto the soil of Salem. Then, he watched as a small mouse tried to scurry into his house; the moment it crossed the threshold, it withered into a skeletal frame.
Abigail was his first guest in three years. Suke was determined to bring her back. Since the Abigail of Salem had come to Stardew Valley, she was his Abigail now. There was no way he'd let them just take her back halfway through.
As for the Singularity? Wasn't it just a Demon God Pillar?
As the farmer of Stardew Valley, Suke didn't possess any particularly powerful supernatural abilities, but he had one trait that had kept him sane for three years.
He had discovered it two years ago during a bout of depression. He had gone to the Secret Woods next to Cindersap Forest and intentionally let the Green Slimes attack him in an attempt to end it all.
No matter how he tried to embrace death, the moment his consciousness faded, he would wake up exactly on time in his bed in Stardew Valley to the sound of a rooster crowing.
Other than dropping a few items from his pockets, his body suffered no ill effects. In this town governed by game logic, he was the farmer who performed repetitive labor day after day for some unknown goal...
Or perhaps, a prisoner?
"Welcome to 1692."
Suke muttered to himself and stepped through the door.
Biting cold instantly pierced through his thin shirt, but Suke didn't feel the chill. The constitution granted to him by the game's rules made him immune to heat and cold.
The digitized rules of Stardew Valley had not vanished despite crossing worlds. Vaguely, he could feel the game traits etched into his soul still functioning.
As the sensation under his feet changed from warm floorboards to slippery, rotting leaves, Suke lowered his posture. Using the pale moonlight, he sprinted through the forest toward the distant lights.
As long as he wasn't performing a specific 'job'—like tilling or chopping—Suke didn't feel fatigue. No matter how far or how long he ran, he didn't even need to catch his breath.
Emerging from the woods, the deathly silent Puritan town finally revealed itself.
Under the 17th-century night sky, a few scattered, dim oil lamps flickered in the cold wind, looking like they were keeping a wake for this suffocating, dying town.
Relying on his farmer's agility, Suke easily avoided the townspeople of the night watch who were patrolling with torches. He slipped into the town.
There stood a mansion that looked significantly more grand than the surrounding houses—the residence of Randolph Carter, which was Abigail's home in this Singularity.
It was very recognizable. Even though Suke had forgotten most of the plot details from his previous life, finding the mansion didn't take much effort.
"Looks like Abigail is here."
Suke hid behind a lush, leafy tree outside the manor and held his breath.
A faint light glowed from the first-floor window. Suke crept closer, peering inside through a dusty crack.
Inside, a fire blazed in the hearth. He saw Abigail. The little girl who had been enjoying chocolate cake in his house just a short while ago was now kneeling on the floor. Her head was bowed, her body trembling like a child who had done something wrong, enduring a guardian's punishment.
Sitting in a high-backed chair before her was a middle-aged man with a grim expression. He wore a dark grey gentleman's suit and held a walking stick. His back was to the window, obscuring his face.
But the aura radiating from him...
With just one look, Suke was certain of his identity.
"The Demon God Pillar, Count Raum."
Suke whispered the name in his mind. He didn't even know what he was feeling—rather than fear or anxiety, it was a strange sort of excitement.
After three years of the same daily farm routine, perhaps he had been longing for some new variables to shake things up.
"If I remember correctly, under Salem's special anti-magic rules, even the Demon God Pillar who built the Singularity can't use magic at will."
"Which means, I have a perfect chance to catch him off guard. I can hack him to death with pure physical attacks, and the combat won't even drain my stamina..."
Suke quietly pulled the Neptune's Greatsword from his backpack. Staring at the back of the gentleman behind the window, he was itching to move.
If one swing didn't kill him, he'd take a second. If the second didn't work, he'd take a third. He wondered what kind of loot a Demon God Pillar would drop. A heart? Or maybe a dragon claw?
Suke shifted his position, planning to move directly under the window to break in.
But at that moment, he felt a sudden coldness in his chest.
He looked down. A cold, bloodless, monstrous claw had pierced straight through his chest cavity.
His consciousness went black.
___
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