My Infinite Gacha In Another World: Surrounded By MILFs

Chapter 49: Chapter 49 — The Neighbor’s Eyes

The road to Oakvein was a dead man’s vein.

It wound through the eastern forest like an afterthought, narrow and rutted, with tree roots cracking through the packed dirt like knuckles. The birds had stopped singing about a mile out of Prusna. One minute the forest was full of the usual morning chatter, and the next it was silent. The kind of silent that pressed against your eardrums and made your own footsteps sound like intruders.

Odessa noticed it first. She’d been walking with her grimoire open, muttering under her breath, but when the silence hit she stopped mid-sentence and snapped the book shut.

"We’re inside the perimeter," she said.

"Perimeter of what?" I asked.

"The pressure Karina mentioned. The weight." She tilted her head, like she was listening to something just below the threshold of hearing. "Think of it as a web. Thin threads of dark mana stretching between the trees. Dormant, for now. But if something touches them..."

"They wake up," Samira finished.

Odessa nodded. "And whatever’s at the center knows we’re here."

We kept walking. No one suggested turning back. Chimera had taken point, her massive frame pushing through the underbrush with the easy silence of a predator. She hadn’t spoken since we left the gate, but I’d caught her flexing her right hand more than once—the one with the mouth. Like it was itching.

I walked beside Samira. She hadn’t said much either, but her posture was different from usual. Straighter. Sharper. The way a soldier carries herself when she knows the battlefield is just over the next hill.

"You’ve done this before," I said.

Her eyes stayed on the road ahead. "Scouting corrupted territory. Mapping the edges of a rift. Looking for survivors who probably aren’t there anymore." She paused. "Yes. I’ve done this before."

"How many times?"

"Enough to know that the first village is always the worst."

"Why?"

She didn’t answer. But her hand drifted to the hilt of her weapon, and that was answer enough.

---

Oakvein appeared around midday.

The village sat in a shallow valley, a cluster of maybe thirty wooden houses arranged around a central square with a stone well. Fields of wheat and barley stretched out to the east, golden and ready for harvest. A thin stream curled around the northern edge, feeding a small mill with a waterwheel that turned in slow, lazy circles. It looked like a postcard. The kind of place where nothing bad was supposed to happen.

And that was the problem.

The fields were full of workers. Men with scythes, women with baskets, children hauling bundles of cut grain. They moved with the steady rhythm of people who knew their jobs and did them well. The miller stood in his doorway, wiping flour from his hands. A blacksmith’s hammer rang out from somewhere near the square. A dog slept in the sun outside the tavern.

Everything was normal. Everything was exactly, perfectly, impossibly normal.

"There’s a pillar of demonic light half a mile from this village," Odessa said, her voice flat. "And they’re harvesting wheat."

"Maybe they don’t know," I said.

"Everyone knows." Samira’s hand was still on her weapon. "Even from here, that thing is visible. You can feel it in your teeth. They know. They just don’t care."

Chimera inhaled deeply through her nose. Her pupils dilated. "They smell wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"Like old meat. Not fresh. Something that’s been sitting in the back of a pantry for years." She bared her teeth slightly. "I don’t like it."

"Neither do I." I adjusted the strap of my quiver and started down the slope toward the village. "Stay close. Stay alert. And don’t eat anything they offer you."

---

The villagers greeted us with smiles.

A woman with a flour-dusted apron offered us fresh bread. A farmer with sun-weathered skin and friendly eyes asked if we were travelers from the capital. The blacksmith—a barrel-chested man with a soot-stained face—waved at us from his forge and shouted something about the weather. The dog that had been sleeping by the tavern trotted over, sniffed at my boots, and wagged its tail.

I watched them as we walked toward the square. I watched the way they moved, the way they talked, the way their eyes tracked us with polite curiosity. I watched the children carrying grain through the streets, their small faces blank with concentration. I watched the baker slide loaves into an oven with the mechanical precision of a clockwork doll.

And then I saw it.

A boy of about ten, walking past the well. He was carrying a basket of apples. His face was calm, his steps were steady, and as he passed us, he blinked.

A second later, the woman with the flour-dusted apron blinked.

A second after that, the farmer with the friendly eyes blinked.

They blinked at the same time. Exactly the same instant. Not a fraction of a second apart. Not the natural, scattered rhythm of a group of people going about their day. A single, synchronized pulse. Like shutters clicking shut on a row of windows.

I grabbed Samira’s arm. "Did you see that?"

"The blinking. Yes."

"It’s a synchronization pattern," Odessa murmured, her grimoire already open in her hands. "Common in hive-minded entities. When a central intelligence is controlling multiple hosts, biological rhythms can align. Breathing, blinking, even heartbeat."

"They’re all breathing together," Chimera said. She wasn’t looking at the villagers. She was looking at the ground, her nostrils flared. "I can hear it. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Like a single lung."

The farmer with the friendly eyes noticed us standing in the middle of the road and walked over. His smile was still there. It hadn’t moved since we arrived.

"Can I help you folks with something? You look a bit lost."

"We’re from Prusna," I said. "The guild sent us to check on the village. With everything that’s happening..." I gestured vaguely at the pillar in the distance.

The farmer glanced at it. His smile didn’t waver. "Oh, that. Yeah, it’s a bit odd, isn’t it? But it hasn’t caused any trouble. We’ve just been carrying on as usual. No sense letting a funny light in the sky stop the harvest, right?"

"The harvest," Samira repeated.

"That’s right. The wheat won’t cut itself." He chuckled, a sound that was almost genuine. "You’re welcome to stay for supper. My wife’s making stew. Plenty to go around."

"Thank you," I said. "We might take you up on that."

The farmer nodded, still smiling, and walked back toward the fields. His gait was normal. His posture was normal. But as he walked away, his neck twitched—a quick, spasmodic jerk, like a horse shaking off a fly.

And for just a moment, the skin at the base of his skull sagged, revealing something dark underneath. Not a wound. Not a scar. Something that moved.

Then it was gone. He kept walking. The skin smoothed over like nothing had happened.

"We’re not eating the stew," Chimera said.

I looked at the farmer’s retreating back. "No. We are not."

---

We spent the afternoon exploring the village.

Everywhere we went, the same story. Smiling faces. Friendly words. The harvest was going well. The weather had been kind. The pillar was a curiosity, nothing more. No one was worried. No one was scared. No one had tried to leave.

That last detail came from the miller, a thin man with flour in his hair and dark circles under his eyes. When I asked if anyone had considered evacuating, he tilted his head like I’d asked him to solve a geometry problem.

"Why would we leave? This is our home."

"Because of the giant pillar of death magic half a mile away," I said.

"It hasn’t hurt anyone. It just sits there. It’s actually quite pretty at night."

I looked at Samira. She looked at me. Neither of us said anything.

---

The sun set behind the western hills, and the pillar’s light grew brighter.

We gathered in the square, near the well, watching the villagers retreat to their homes for the evening. They moved in perfect silence. No one called goodnight to anyone else. No one lingered to chat. They simply stopped what they were doing, turned, and walked through their front doors in a single, coordinated wave.

A minute later, the village was empty. The street was dark. The dog that had been sleeping by the tavern was gone.

"We should find shelter," Odessa said. "Preferably somewhere defensible."

"The inn is still open," I said, pointing to a two-story building at the edge of the square. "I saw the innkeeper earlier. He didn’t try to offer us anything. That’s probably a good sign."

"Or a worse one."

We took a room on the second floor. Two beds, a small table, a window overlooking the main road. Chimera wedged a chair under the doorknob. Odessa traced a warding circle on the floorboards with chalk from her satchel. Samira stood by the window, watching the pillar.

"Someone should stay awake," I said. "Take shifts."

"I’ll take first," Samira said.

"I’ll take second."

"I don’t sleep much anyway," Chimera said, settling into a corner with her back against the wall. "I’ll keep watch all night. My eyes work better in the dark than yours."

I didn’t argue. I was too tired to argue. I stretched out on one of the beds, still in my boots, and closed my eyes.

Sleep came fast. Dreamless. Heavy.

---

A scream tore through the inn—a man’s voice, raw and wet, like someone was drowning on dry land.

I was on my feet before I was fully awake, the bow materializing in my hand from the System’s inventory. Samira was already at the door. Chimera had the chair out of the way in one fluid motion. Odessa’s warding circle flared once and went dark.

We descended the stairs in formation. Samira first, then me, then Odessa, with Chimera covering the rear. The inn was pitch black, but Chimera’s night vision guided us through the common room and into the kitchen.

A man was lying on the floor.

He was the farmer from earlier. The friendly one with the sun-weathered skin and the easy smile. He was convulsing, his back arching off the floorboards, his mouth open in a silent scream. His eyes were wide and wild and, for the first time since we’d arrived in Oakvein, fully awake.

"Get it out," he gasped. "Get it out, get it out, please—"

Samira knelt beside him. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency, checking his pulse, his pupils, the temperature of his skin. "He’s fighting it. The possession. It’s trying to take full control."

"Can you help him?"

"I can try. But if the entity has already seeded itself in his core—"

The farmer screamed. His spine bent backward at an angle that should have been impossible, and when his mouth opened again, the voice that came out was not his own.

It was deep. Wet. A voice that sounded like it was crawling up from the bottom of a well.

"You are not supposed to be here."

Samira didn’t flinch. "We came anyway."

"You are not part of the design. The design is perfect. The design is beautiful. You are a stain."

"The design," Odessa repeated. Her grimoire was open, pages flipping rapidly. "It’s talking about the synchronization. The hive. The entire village is part of a single organism."

"The herald will be pleased. The herald loves stains. Stains can be cleaned."

The farmer’s body convulsed again. His own voice broke through the monster’s, desperate and terrified. "Kill me. Please. It’s still inside—it’ll take me again—I don’t want to be—" His face twisted. The other voice returned. "—a perfect vessel. A beautiful vessel. A—"

"Shut up," Samira said.

She drove her blade through his heart.

It was fast. Clean. A single thrust, angled upward beneath the ribs, straight into the left ventricle.

I’d killed before. Monsters, mostly. People who were already gone, like the crab-children in the dungeon, their human eyes pleading through the chitin. But Samira moved like this was muscle memory. No hesitation between the farmer’s plea and the blade. No pause to weigh alternatives. She’d made the decision before her sword left its sheath. It was the motion of someone who’d done this so many times the moral weight had worn off years ago.

The farmer gasped once. His eyes focused—really focused—on Samira’s face. And then he smiled. Not the mechanical, empty smile of the possessed. A real one. Exhausted and terrified and grateful.

"Thank you," he whispered.

And died.

---

Samira withdrew her blade and wiped it on the dead man’s shirt. Her hands were steady. Her breathing was even. The kitchen fell silent except for the faint drip of blood pooling on the floorboards.

Chimera stayed in the corner, her nostrils flared, watching the body. Odessa closed her grimoire with a soft thud. Samira looked at the blade in her hand, then at the dead man’s face.

I didn’t speak. Neither did she.

Outside the window, the pillar’s light pulsed once. Twice. Then settled back into its steady, silent glow.

---

"How many times?" I asked.

Samira looked up. "What?"

"How many times have you done this? Killed someone who was possessed. Someone who begged you to do it."

Her jaw tightened. "Too many."

"During your war."

"During my war. And after." She sheathed her blade. "When the Andawas take a village, the lucky ones die in the first assault. The unlucky ones become vessels. Puppets. They look like the people you knew, but there’s nothing left inside except the thing wearing their skin. They beg you to kill them. And if you hesitate—if you wait too long—the thing inside them learns. It adapts. It uses their memories to make you doubt." She met my eyes. "I learned not to hesitate. It cost me people I loved."

I thought of Almira. Of the master she’d killed by accident. Of the thousands who’d died in Rotteline because she’d been too arrogant to stop and think.

"I’m not judging you," I said.

"I know."

"I’m just... understanding. For the first time. What you went through. What you’re still carrying."

She looked at the dead farmer. Then at me. "It’s not a burden I wanted you to see."

"Too late. I’ve already seen it." I stepped over the body and put a hand on her shoulder. "And I’m still here."

She didn’t say anything. But her hand came up and covered mine. Held it. Tight.

---

The farmer’s body went still. The dark energy inside him dissipated with a faint hiss, curling up from the wound like smoke from a snuffed candle.

Then his lips moved.

One last time. One last word, in his own voice, dredged up from somewhere the entity hadn’t reached.

"The pillar," he whispered. "It’s a cage. They built it to hold something. And the thing inside... it wants out."

His eyes went glassy. His chest stopped moving.

Chimera stepped forward and knelt beside the body. Her right hand was trembling. The skin over her palm rippled, like something was moving beneath it.

"What is it?" I asked.

She didn’t answer. Her eyes were fixed on the dead man’s face, her breathing shallow and rapid.

"Chimera."

"I know him," she said.

"The farmer?"

"No." She turned her palm over. The mouth was visible now, a faint outline of lips pressing against the skin from the inside. "The thing that was inside him. The voice. I know it. It’s the same voice that spoke to Dollmun in the dark. The same one that laughed while they opened his skull and planted something inside." Her fingers curled into a fist. "It remembers me. It recognized me."

Odessa tucked her grimoire under her arm. "If the entity recognized you, then it knows we’re here. It knows who we are. And it knows what we’re capable of."

"Good," Samira said. She was already walking toward the door. "Then it knows to be afraid."

Chimera stood up. Her hand stopped trembling. She didn’t look back at the body.

We left the inn and stepped into the empty street. The pillar pulsed against the night sky.

Halfway to the village gate, Chimera stopped. Her right hand twitched. The mouth under the skin pressed against her palm, and for a second, I thought it was going to open. She clenched her fist until her knuckles went white.

"What is it?" I asked.

She stared at the pillar. Her lips moved, but the voice that came out wasn’t hers. It was the farmer’s. No—it was the thing that had worn the farmer’s skin. One word, dragged up from somewhere deep.

"Host."

Then her voice snapped back to normal. "We need to leave. Now."

We left. The pillar pulsed behind us.