"Why are the numbers jumping around like that?" The painted woman leaned over to take a look.
"If they're jumping around, something's wrong." Xu Huo put the device away. "The magnetic field here is chaotic, and several forces are interfering with each other. Those figures that suddenly appeared might just be our imagination."
The painted woman squeezed the doll hanging from her backpack and asked, "When will we find somewhere people live?"
"Let's keep going," Xu Huo said. "If we still haven't found anywhere by dark, we'll find a place to rest here."
The item that created the space was too large, but the cabin would do.
They hurried on for another hour before they finally spotted some buildings. Unlike the information they'd found on Dimension Below, all the buildings were made of wood. The little cabins stood apart from one another, with a few large trees scattered between them. There was some space between each house, but if you looked up, you could still see the neighbors next door.
The buildings were hard to make out through the fog, but the light shining through their windows showed that people lived there.
Xu Huo slowed down, deliberately making some noise as he headed toward the cabins. Soon, figures appeared in the windows of the two closest houses. The people inside didn't open the windows; they watched from behind iron bars and curtains.
It wasn't just the people in the nearest houses who knew someone had arrived. Once they started moving, people in cabins hundreds of meters away stirred as well.
No one spoke, and Xu Huo didn't see them use any communication devices, but by the time he approached the first house, everyone in the area knew strangers had arrived.
"I'll knock!" The painted woman ran over happily. The people