I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

Without sufficient intelligence, Duke would not act rashly, even with a supposedly simple witch game.

He glanced over and noticed the witch Amber's movements, but Duke didn't make a fuss. Although it wasn't common for witches to enter the game with players, it wasn't entirely unheard of—for example, in the large game he completed by "living off a woman," the high-ranking witch had brazenly joined the game.

After confirming that the witch Amber had quietly stayed in the corner after entering, Duke shifted his attention away from her and began to observe the area where the game of "Statues" was being played.

“Strange, this room is significantly larger than it appears from the outside, with the interior space being more than twice the size of the building itself. Moreover, the interior materials are completely different from the exterior; the exterior is made of stone, while the interior is entirely constructed of wood.”

This was Duke's first impression of it.

From the outside, the game house appears to be a single-story stone building with only one entrance. However, once inside, the floors, ceilings, and even the four walls are all made of wood, making it look like a log cabin. On the other side of the room, puppets dressed in comically simple clothes stand in front of the conspicuous exit.

At this moment, the puppet's head is facing away from the players, indicating that it only turned its head when the game started.

While one could explain it away with the excuse that "you don't need to know so much about the magical world," Duke is a meticulous person, and even if it really was the work of magic, he wanted to know the game creators' thoughts. If the goal was to increase the game's difficulty, they could have built it much larger, instead of just doubling its original size. Wouldn't it have been better to place it outdoors in a spacious area? It would also have been a nod to a certain popular Frankenstein's monster TV series.

"Why are you worrying about this? Some games even lead you to a whole new world once you enter the game room!"

The adventurer next to Duke seemed to have heard his mutterings, rolled his eyes, and said irritably.

He seemed to have utter contempt for the man in front of him who was famous for living off a woman, to the point that he couldn't stand Duke's every word and action.

"Shouldn't we be speculating about the 'game creator's' thoughts... if a 'game creator' really exists?" Duke wasn't angry at his attitude; he just smiled and held up the large shield in front of him. "And haven't you thought about it? Why do the witches neither ban the game nor make any adjustments to it when there's such an obviously cheating way to pass it? Is it really a benefit for newbies?"

Definitely not, because most witch games are discontinued after players have completed them. For example, the original large-scale game where Duke beat it using his witch ex-girlfriend was discontinued after he finished it. There were also games simpler than this "Red Light, Green Light" game that were discontinued after being completed.

Why is this game being given special treatment?

The adventurer, who was asked a question by Duke, was stunned for a moment, and after stammering for a few words, he did not give a clear answer.

As the two were talking, a countdown began, "One, two..." The voice sounded like a deep male bass. The adventurer simply lowered his head and pretended not to hear Duke's words, then quickly ran towards the exit.

Duke, who remained where he was, shook his head and muttered to himself:

"Because leaving the room through the exit does not mean you have truly completed the game."

None of the adventurers, who were rushing to complete the game, heard his answer. Only the witch Amber, who had been standing still since the start of the game, heard it. She showed a surprised expression and stared at Duke.

Duke remained where he was and did not act rashly. Instead, he hid behind the door panel and shield and silently observed the entire game room. The empty wooden room contained nothing but puppets. A third of the three-minute game time had quickly passed. Even as other adventurers left one after another, Duke was not in a hurry.

However, a dozen seconds after the second minute, Duke suddenly raised his eyebrows in surprise. After waiting for several dozen seconds, he picked up the large shield and strode towards the puppet.

Halfway through the three-minute game time, Duke finally peeked out from behind the large shield and saw what the puppet looked like.

It was as simple as its clothes, its body thin, its limbs like uncarved tree branches. Even its features weren't carved from wood, but rather made of small objects pasted on; for example, the puppet's eyes were a pair of black buttons, and its mouth was decorated with a comical little flower. Even a scarecrow made by a farmer in the field would look far more refined than this puppet.

Without hesitation, Duke easily reached the puppet after repeating the process two or three times. The simple puppet looked fragile, but he had heard that some reckless adventurers had attacked it before and were instantly killed by the puppet. The counterattack from attacking the puppet was much stronger than the attack from being seen moving by the puppet in the game of "Statues". Many experienced adventurers could withstand the latter, but the former was not something that ordinary adventurers could withstand.

He was unwilling to take any completely unknown risks without sufficient intelligence.

Duke stopped blocking the door in front of him and instead stood quietly in front of the puppet, observing something.

As an extreme sports athlete, his control over his body is no less than that of the adventurers in this magical world. He remained still in front of the puppet for two or three rounds without anything abnormal happening, until he and the puppet made eye contact.

The eyes made of buttons shimmered with a strange light. Although they lacked the whites of the eyes, pupils, or other structures that an animal's eye should have, Duke felt that he could see something in these buttons that only life could possess.

A feeling called loneliness.

The puppet turned its head again, and at the same time, the game's call to action rang out once more: "One, two..."

Finally, Duke has found the answer to one of his questions.

Who is saying this phrase with its constantly changing rate?

Is it the puppet that keeps turning its head in front of me? Or is there someone else hiding in this room talking?

"It's a recording! It's playing a recording! The recording loops three times within three minutes. The frequency changes exactly the same in the first and second minutes, and it's already on the third loop, with no change. And the recording is indeed coming from the puppet, but not from its mouth, but from its chest."

As he spoke, he acted swiftly, reaching out to grab the puppet's comical and shabby clothes. He pulled open its shirt and revealed the structure hidden beneath—the puppet's chest was empty, revealing a semi-open box-like structure that appeared to perfectly match the length and width proportions of the game room.

In this empty chest space, a lifelike wooden heart is beating, and the voice of "One, two, three, wooden man" keeps ringing out from this heart.

"That's it."

Duke reached out without hesitation, but at the same time, the puppet, which should not have turned around yet, suddenly moved.

A piercing whistling sound rang out, followed by...

"Boom—"

Chapter Four: The Serious Decryption

"Boom—"

The puppet, which had been standing still, suddenly moved. It raised its crudely made right arm and slammed it heavily onto the ground in front of it, creating a noticeable crater. If Duke had remained where he was, he would have been smashed into a pulp by this powerful blow. But at the critical moment, someone saved the weak Duke.

"Are you crazy?" The witch Amber, who had teleported over, grabbed Duke by the collar, dragged him to the exit of the game room, and made him "complete" the "Statues" game before exclaiming in surprise, "You have to cause trouble in such a simple game? Cecil and the others spared your life, not so you could die in the game!"

Amber meant well. She had high expectations because of Duke's words, but she didn't expect him to suddenly rush to the puppet like a madman and even reach out to touch it!

Damn it, doesn't he know that several high-level adventurers were instantly killed by that evil puppet?

However, Duke, whose life had been saved by Amber, shook his head in dissatisfaction.

The original owner of this body was a seasoned adventurer who could come to the floating city, far stronger than his previous body. In addition, the puppet's attacks, though powerful and fast, were easy to predict in terms of trajectory, so Duke was at least 70% confident that he could dodge the attacks.

After witnessing the puppet's sudden attack, he was even more confident in dodging it.

If it weren't for the witch Amber's sudden intervention, he could have obtained the wooden heart. Even if he couldn't finish the game, he would at least have obtained a crucial clue. But Amber ruined everything.

Sure enough, after "passing" the test, the system's task did not show as completed.

Duke curled his lip, annoyed that her plan had been interrupted, and deliberately dropped another bombshell on Amber: "These 'witch games' weren't created by you witches, nor are they under your control, are they?"

Amber was completely stunned.

The reasoning is simple: if the game were truly controlled by a witch as the public believed, she wouldn't have needed to use teleportation to save people.

Of course, there are other reasoning processes involved, but they have nothing to do with the witch Amber.

Duke didn't offer Amber any further explanation, but instead headed straight for the main entrance to the game room.

After leaving the game room, they returned to the proof entrance, where the players who had "cleared the level" were also waiting for the witch leader to distribute their rewards. They had seen Amber carrying Duke out earlier, and their expressions were somewhat strange.

—Does this pretty boy really need the witch's help even to complete the "Statues" game?

These idiots are only thinking about this kind of thing.

But Duke no longer cared what the passersby were thinking. He strode toward the open front door and entered the game room of the "Statues" game once again. Seeing this, the witch Amber hurriedly chased after him.

After entering the game room one after the other with Duke, Amber quickly asked, "What are your thoughts on passing the 'Statues' game?"

"I don't have any ideas," Duke sighed regretfully. "We'll just have to get to the decryption."

Amber glanced at him and asked mischievously, "Oh, you can actually do serious decryption?"

"Shhh."

Duke made a shushing gesture, and at the same time, the puppet's repeated "One, two, three, freeze!" began to ring out again, and he started moving quickly. Having memorized the speed and rhythm when he entered last time, he didn't hesitate for a moment, and didn't wait long before smoothly moving around to the repeated commands.

As a professional extreme sports athlete, execution is his greatest weapon. The pre-planned action pattern must be executed flawlessly; any mistake will lead to utter ruin.

Duke reveled in the thrill of dancing on the edge of a knife, moving with the scent of death in his breath. The long-lost atmosphere gave him a real sense of being alive again. Duke, who always considered himself lazy in his daily life, realized that even without this mishap, he would eventually return to this life-or-death struggle.

Soon, Duke stopped in front of the puppet again, took something out of his pocket, and covered the puppet with his hand.

Duke took out a black cloth, which he used to completely cover the puppet, obscuring its vision. Whether the puppet turned its head or turned back, it wouldn't attack because it couldn't see anything.

Thanks to this, Duke and Amber were able to move freely within the room.

"Huh?" Amber, who was following behind him, was dumbfounded and asked subconsciously, "Won't it attack?"

"I wasn't attacked when I took off its clothes, so why was I attacked when I covered it with a black cloth?" Duke said matter-of-factly, "Simply touching the puppet won't trigger its defense mechanism; I just tried that. The puppet only attacked me when I tried to remove its core."

Then Duke recounted his previous discovery to Amber in detail, including the wooden heart and the box-like structure on the puppet's chest that held it. Upon hearing this, the little witch's lips immediately trembled—only now did she truly realize that her good intentions had backfired. But Amber, inexplicably indignant, with a childlike "If you're so amazing, why didn't you say so sooner?" mentality, stubbornly continued, "Then why are you covering it up now?"

“The simplest way is to go in and get the heart, but since we didn’t get it last time, it won’t be easy to get it this time.” Duke shook his head, and Amber felt a little apologetic when she heard the regret in his tone. “Judging from the puppet’s combat power settings, the creator of this wooden puppet game doesn’t want us to pass the level by defeating the puppets.”

"What should I do?"

Duke was silent for a moment, then took two more things out of his pocket.

A wine bottle and a tinderbox.

"If it doesn't work, just burn this place down. Anyway, the room and the puppets are all made of wood."

amber:"?"

You call this "Serious Decryption"?

"Just kidding." Duke chuckled, but Amber keenly noticed that he hadn't put away the bottle and tinder. "If we're talking about serious decryption, then we're serious decryption. Miss Witch, I'm not the same person I used to be. Now I'm a heartless strategy machine... cough, a strategy game machine!"

Amber looked at him suspiciously, but didn't say anything.

Duke didn't care whether Amber believed him or not, and walked towards a certain direction in the wooden room: "The box-like structure on the puppet's chest is very similar in length and width to this room, but there's nothing in the place where the heart is, which caught my attention. Since it was designed this way, there can't be no foreshadowing, okay."

As he spoke, he stopped in a certain spot, lightly stomped his foot, and discovered that there was a hollow space under the wooden floorboards. Duke quickly squatted down and tried to move the floorboards to retrieve what was hidden inside.

[Quest item discovered: Pinocchio's Old Leg]

[Item Description: Pinocchio's former legs were replaced after being burned.]

[Item Effect: Touching it might cause past events to replay.]

It was a pair of charred wooden legs, almost completely burned to a crisp, but to Duke, they still looked lifelike, like the limbs of a living thing—just as vivid as the heart.

The moment Duke pulled out Pinocchio's old legs, a violent whooshing sound rang out again, and the voice of "One, two, three, wooden man" stopped without him noticing. When Duke turned around, the puppet had already crossed the distance between them and was standing in front of him, raising its right arm at him.

"Duke!!!"

Chapter 5 *Elf Swearing*

Thanks to Amber's reminder, Duke dodged the puppet's first attack.

He had no problem controlling the strength of this body; after all, he was a seasoned adventurer who could infiltrate the floating city, and he could still struggle for a while against this puppet. However, its attacks were clearly not just a single strike. After being triggered by Duke's actions, it launched attacks at an extremely fast speed, and each attack made it even faster, as if it was also adapting to controlling its own body.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The puppet's heavy hammer pounded the ground, leaving the wooden floorboards pitted and uneven. At first, Duke was able to dodge with a flourish, but as the puppet's attacks became faster and faster, he had no choice but to scramble and roll to avoid them.

"Duke!" Amber, who was being ignored by the puppet, stamped her foot anxiously and let out a series of rhythmic screams in sync with the puppet's attacks. After a long while, she finally shouted, "What should we do?!"

"Can't you just kill it with a fireball?"

"I...I don't know how!"