The village appeared like a painting someone had forgotten to finish.
One moment, empty mountain trail. The next, houses materialized through the trees—not gradually, the way real settlements revealed themselves, but all at once. As if they'd always been there and Taro's eyes had simply refused to see them until now.
"That's not right," Mika breathed beside him.
She was right. Nothing about this was right.
The houses were too perfect. Thatched roofs without a single gap or sag. Walls of white plaster that showed no weathering despite the mountain's constant rain. And the smoke Jiro had spotted rose from chimneys in absolutely straight lines, untouched by wind that bent the surrounding trees double.
"No one's outside," Kenta observed, shifting Sora's weight. The shrine maiden stirred against his shoulder but didn't wake. "Middle of the day and not a single person visible."
Jiro pulled out his prayer beads, fingers working them like a lifeline. "Could be abandoned. Some mountain villages get emptied when the mines run dry or the young people leave for cities."
"Abandoned villages don't keep their chimneys smoking." Taro's hand found his sword hilt. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around, find another path, sleep in the woods if necessary. But Sora's breathing had turned ragged, her skin hot with fever that had nothing to do with natural illness. They were out of time and options.
"We go in careful," he decided. "Stay together. No wandering. No accepting gifts. And if anyone offers us food—"
"We politely decline and get the hell out," Mika finished. "Got it."
They walked down the dirt path into the village proper, and Taro felt the world shift around them. Not physically—the ground stayed solid under his feet—but something in the air changed. Thickened. Like walking through spider silk that clung to everything it touched.
The houses watched them pass with dark, empty windows.
"Hello?" Kenta called out. His voice fell flat, dead, as if the village itself swallowed sound. "We're travelers. We need shelter. Is anyone here?"
Silence. Then—
A door opened.
The woman who emerged was beautiful in a way that made Taro's teeth ache. Porcelain skin without a single flaw. Hair that fell in perfect cascades like ink poured into water. Kimono of silk so fine it seemed woven from moonlight. She smiled, and her teeth were too white, too even, too much like a predator's display.
"Travelers!" Her voice was warm honey laced with something sharp. "How wonderful! We so rarely get visitors this high up. Please, you must be exhausted. Come, I'll prepare rooms. And food—you must be starving."
Every word was exactly what Taro wanted to hear. Which meant every word was a trap.
"We don't want to impose," he said carefully. "Just a place to rest for a few hours. We can't pay much."
"Pay?" The woman laughed like bells chiming in a funeral procession. "Don't be absurd. Mountain hospitality demands we care for travelers. It's tradition." Her eyes—black as tar pits—fixed on Sora. "And your companion looks ill. We have medicine. The old kinds. The ones that really work."
"She just needs rest," Kenta said, but his voice wavered. Sora had started shivering despite her fever, small tremors that ran through her whole body.
"Of course, of course." The woman gestured toward the largest house at the village center. "This way. My husband will be so pleased. We've been so lonely since the others left."
"Others?" Jiro's voice was barely a whisper.
"Oh yes. The village used to be quite lively. But one by one, people found reasons to leave. Better opportunities in the lowlands, they said. Though I never understood why." She glanced back, and for just a moment, Taro saw something flicker behind her perfect face. Something ancient and hungry and patient as stone. "This mountain has everything one could need."
They followed because stopping meant sleeping in the open with Sora burning up and pursuers potentially still hunting them. But Taro's hand never left his sword, and he saw Mika's fingers dance near her dagger with each step.
The house's interior was worse than the exterior. Too clean. Too organized. Cushions arranged with mathematical precision around a hearth where tea water boiled without anyone tending it. Scrolls on the walls depicting scenes that looked almost normal until you noticed the figures' eyes all pointed the same direction—toward the door, watching whoever entered. And the smell. Underneath incense and cooking rice, something else lurked. Sweet and rotten, like flowers left too long in a sealed room.
"Sit, sit!" The woman busied herself with tea cups, moving with fluid grace that never quite looked natural. "My husband will join us shortly. He's been working in the back. We make silk, you see. The mountain's climate is perfect for it."
Silk. Taro's stomach dropped. He glanced at Mika, saw understanding dawn in her eyes too.
Spiders made silk.
"Here." The woman pressed a cup into Taro's hands before he could refuse. The tea inside was pale green, almost luminescent. "Drink. It'll warm you."
Taro held the cup but didn't drink. Beside him, Kenta and Mika did the same, their cups untouched. Only Jiro lifted his halfway to his lips before Taro caught his wrist.
"Not thirsty yet," Taro said pleasantly. "We should tend to our friend first."
"Of course!" The woman's smile never wavered, but something in her posture went rigid. "Let me show you to a room. She can rest while I prepare a meal."
She led them down a hallway lined with doors—too many doors for the house's exterior size—and opened one to reveal a small room with a futon already laid out. Too convenient. Too ready.
Kenta laid Sora down gently, and the shrine maiden's eyes fluttered open. When she saw the room, saw the woman standing in the doorway, her pupils dilated to pinpricks.
"Jorogumo," she whispered. "Spider woman. Don't eat. Don't sleep. Don't—"
"Shh." The woman's voice turned sharp. "You're delirious with fever. Rest now." She backed out, sliding the door shut. But through the paper screen, Taro saw her shadow linger. Listening.
"We need to leave," Sora breathed, barely audible. "Now. Before sunset. After dark, she'll—"
Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy ones. Multiple sets.
"My husband!" the woman called out cheerfully. "And he's brought friends. They're so excited to meet our guests!"
Taro moved to the door, peered through a gap in the screen. What he saw made his blood freeze.
The hallway was full of men. Dozens of them, crowding the narrow space, standing with perfect stillness. But their movements, when they shifted, were wrong. Jerky. Puppet-like. And their eyes—their eyes were white as boiled eggs, no pupils, no iris. Just blank white marbles set in gray faces.
"Former guests," Jiro said from behind him, voice cracking. "She's been collecting them. Probably for years."
"What does she do with them?" Mika asked, though her expression said she already knew.
"Feeds on them." Sora tried to sit up, failed. "Jorogumo trap travelers. Keep them docile with enchanted food and tea. Then slowly drain their life force over months until there's nothing left but empty husks she can puppet around to make the village look occupied." Her breath hitched. "We can't fight her. Not directly. She's too strong, too old. Our only chance is to break her web."
"What web?" Kenta demanded. "I don't see any—"
"You're standing in it." Sora pointed at the floor, and now that Taro looked closely, he could see them. Threads. Impossibly thin, almost invisible, stretched across every surface. The walls. The ceiling. The futon. Coating everything like a second skin. "The whole village is her web. That's why sound dies here. Why everything feels wrong. We're already caught."
The door slid open.
The woman stood there, still beautiful, still smiling. But her teeth had lengthened. Sharpened. And behind her, the puppet-men pressed close, their blank eyes fixed on Taro and his companions with the intensity of the starving.
"I'm sorry for the deception," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "But you understand, I'm sure. A woman gets lonely on the mountain. Hungry. And you all look so... nourishing." Her tongue—too long, split at the end—flicked out to taste the air. "Especially her." She pointed at Sora. "That amulet. I can taste its power from here. Divine essence mixed with human bonds. Delicious. I'll save her for last, I think. Make it last."
"Over my dead body," Kenta snarled, drawing his katana.
"That can be arranged." The woman's form rippled, and what emerged made Taro's mind rebel against seeing it clearly. Too many legs. Too many eyes. A body that was woman on top and something else entirely below—segmented, chitinous, massive. Her true form, massive as a horse, barely fitting in the hallway.
The puppet-men surged forward.
Kenta's blade took the first one's head off, but no blood flowed. Just dust and dried silk strands. The body kept coming, hands outstretched, until Mika buried her dagger in its chest and it finally collapsed.
"The threads!" Jiro was chanting, throwing talismans that burst into flame. Where they landed, the silk threads burned, releasing puffs of acrid smoke. "We have to burn through the web!"
"This whole house is wood!" Mika shouted, ducking under a puppet's grasp. "We burn the threads, we burn ourselves!"
"Better than being dinner!" Taro slashed at another puppet, his sword clumsy in the confined space. They were being pushed back, deeper into the room, and the jorogumo was laughing—a sound like breaking porcelain.
Then Sora screamed.
Not in fear. In fury. The amulet exploded with green light so bright it seared afterimages into Taro's vision. The threads throughout the room ignited all at once, burning with cold fire that consumed silk but left wood untouched.
The jorogumo shrieked, her spider body convulsing. "What are you doing?! That's MY web! MINE!"
"Not anymore." Sora was standing now, supported by nothing, her eyes solid white like the puppet-men's but blazing with inner light. "You made a mistake, spider. You thought I was prey." Her voice echoed with harmonics that weren't human. "I'm a vessel for divine power. And right now, I'm very, very angry."
The amulet pulsed, and threads throughout the entire house ignited. The jorogumo's scream rose to a pitch that shattered tea cups and cracked wooden beams. Her puppet-men collapsed like cut strings, whatever magic animating them severed.
"RUN!" Sora gasped, the white fading from her eyes. "I can't hold this long! Run NOW!"
They ran.
Through the hallway as it filled with burning threads. Past the jorogumo thrashing in agony, her spider body smoking. Out the door into the village where every house was igniting simultaneously, cold green flames racing up walls and across roofs.
Behind them, the jorogumo's final scream cut off abruptly.
They didn't stop running until they'd left the village behind—if it had ever truly been there. Taro looked back once and saw nothing. Just empty mountainside. No houses. No smoke. Just scorched earth in the shape of buildings that had never existed.
"Did we—" Kenta couldn't finish the question.
"She's dead." Sora collapsed against a tree, blood pouring from her nose, her ears. The amulet was dark, drained. "Or banished. Or—I don't know. But she won't trap anyone else." She looked at them with exhausted eyes. "I'm sorry. I couldn't warn you faster. The fever—it was part of the trap. Making me weak so I couldn't resist her magic."
"You saved us," Mika said quietly. "That's what matters."
"Did I?" Sora's laugh was broken. "Or did I just doom us by using that much power? The amulet's almost empty. And we still have two more trials before the temple."
Taro looked at the sky. The sun was setting, painting the mountains in shades of blood and gold. They'd survived the Village That Shouldn't Exist. But according to the Collector's warning, that was only the second trial.
The Bridge of Reflection came next. And they couldn't cross it at night.
"We make camp," he decided. "Rest until dawn. Then we find this bridge and get across before sunset tomorrow."
"And if we don't make it in time?" Jiro asked.
Taro didn't answer. Because he didn't have a good one.
They'd been lucky twice. Lucky with the onryō, with the Collector, with the jorogumo.
But luck ran out eventually. Especially on roads that demanded payment in blood and choices you couldn't take back.
The Twilight Band settled in for a cold camp as darkness claimed the mountain, and Taro took first watch with his sword across his knees and the memory of blank-eyed puppet-men burned into his thoughts.
Somewhere ahead, a bridge waited.
And beyond it, a Guardian that would offer them everything in exchange for everything.
The road wasn't getting easier.
It was getting impossible.
And they were running out of strength to walk it.