Illusion Report

If they designated the floor from 2019 as ’Floor 0,’ then going up, Floor 1 was ’Tian Xi with the left-sided braid,’ and Floor 2 was ’ten minutes left in the tryouts.’ It was at that moment, it seemed, that everyone realized the dull, heavy, hard labor had only just begun.

Outside the wall of Floor 3 was a dark night, with howling wind and torrential rain. It was as if the entire city block had been abandoned by the world, with not a single Kai Family Hunter in sight.

The Tian Xi outside the wall on Floor 4 was a woman. Her features still bore a resemblance to Tian Xi, and she even wore her long hair in a braid to the left. Robert took a few extra looks.

The timing for breaking through to Floor 5 was particularly, exquisitely coincidental. Just as they broke through, they saw five prospective Hunters leaving Annie’s Warehouse with three Kai Family Hunters, heading home. They could only see a group of small figures from behind. After arguing for several minutes, they still couldn’t be sure if those five were them.

But whether it was them or not didn’t seem to matter. In any case, they definitely weren’t going out there.

When the wall to Floor 6 cracked open, they saw nothing but cardboard cutouts standing under a gray, hazy sky.

Cardboard cutout buildings, cardboard cutout trees, a cardboard cutout of Tian Xi.

The moment the Tian Xi cutout saw them, it immediately began to slide toward the hole in the wall, as if on a hidden track. As the cutout drew closer, the printed smile on its face seemed to grow larger and more sincere.

As the five of them staggered back, Mai Mingle nearly fell into the stairwell. With the balusters smashed and removed, the handrail had become unstable. Her back bumped against it, and the rail tumbled into the void below, nearly taking her foot with it.

’If Suo Beihua hadn’t reflexively grabbed her, would she still be falling right now?’

They had smashed through nine walls in a row. The blisters on their hands had all burst, and their ammunition and stamina were severely depleted, yet there was still no sign of rescue. Driven by blind, helpless desperation—by the need to try *anything*—they turned back to Floor 0 and began to break through the wall leading down.

The Tian Xi on Floor -1 advised them to stay put, saying she had already sent two residents in to rescue them.

"Don’t worry, those two are some of the few harmless residents in the Nest. We at the Kai Family cooperate with them. We ask for their help when we encounter difficult traps," the Floor -1 Tian Xi said gently. "But you absolutely must not run around anymore, understand? ...Chebri? Sha Xue? Our Family Faction has no one by those names."

The scenery and date on Floor -2 were completely normal, but the Tian Xi there insisted that Suo Beihua was not one of the prospective Hunters.

The moment a crack opened in the wall on Floor -3, Li Stan moved to peer through it. A long, flesh-red phantom suddenly shot out from the fissure, scraping viciously across the countless antennas on his head. At least dozens of antennas were bent and snapped off. Li Stan’s pained screams seemed as endless as the stairwell itself.

What was more unsettling was that Emily hadn’t made a sound in a long time.

Every time Mai Mingle urged her to speak, she would only manage a grunt from her throat. Her movements were sluggish. Once, after seemingly losing her balance, she’d bumped into the wall and left a shallow dent. This discovery was, of course, very helpful for their wall-breaking efforts, yet Mai Mingle couldn’t understand how Emily, who was still flesh and blood, could dent a solid wall.

Then there was Suo Beihua, whose height seemed to fluctuate, as if she really could stand on her snake tail.

’And Robert, of course, could only use his left hand to break the walls. Weren’t Li Stan’s antennas supposed to be an illusion? But when that "illusion" was broken, he’d howled in pain for so long...’

’And what about her?’

’What changes were happening to her own body?’

’If she was changing, she, like the others, had no way to stop it... She didn’t even seem to know how to begin checking herself for changes.’

"Enough. Let’s not waste any more energy."

Suo Beihua was the first to say what no one else dared to. "Each floor seems to lead to a different reality. Infinite floors, infinite realities... I’m afraid we’ll never find our way back."

"Are you planning to spend the rest of your life in this stairwell?" Robert immediately scoffed. "Or do you plan to just pick a random reality and walk out?"

"Cut the crap," Suo Beihua said, her words like daggers. "For now, all we can do is wait for the Kai Family to rescue us."

Mai Mingle had no such intention, but an image of a ’life in the stairwell’ involuntarily formed in her mind. From a certain perspective, it was entirely possible.

Infinite floors, infinite Tian Xis. Surely among them, many would be willing to provide them with essential supplies: food, water, sleeping bags, axes, bullets... One of them had even just asked if they needed a portable charger.

Anything dropped into the endless stairwell would never land, so they’d never have to worry about the stench of falling excrement or breeding germs. It would just take some skill in aiming and balance when it came to taking a shit.

Even the seven-day limit for staying in a Nest didn’t seem entirely unavoidable. If they could just find a floor where the world outside the wall wasn’t the Nest but Blackmoor City, they could stick their bodies out and then pull back in. There was a chance it might prevent the worst from happening.

’No, that idea is ridiculous. Who would want to spend their last nine months here?’

Mai Mingle shook her head vigorously, trying to sling the string of uninvited, unpleasant thoughts away. But that very motion caused Suo Beihua to glance at her.

"That door on your face can open... What’s the deal with the mirror behind it?" Suo Beihua asked, slowly descending from the ceiling.

Mai Mingle then realized what had happened. When she fled from the transparent face in the mirror, she had slammed the wooden door on her face shut. After meeting up with the others, she’d had no reason to open it and had forgotten to even mention it. The vigorous headshake must have accidentally knocked it open.

"I don’t know either,"

Mai Mingle thought for a moment, then asked the group, "Is the scene reflected in my mirror the same as what you all see?"

Li Stan, who had collapsed on the floor, immediately understood her hidden meaning. He scrambled up and positioned himself between the mirror and the wall. He didn’t need to turn his head back and forth; it was as if his antennas were already receiving the visual signals for him.

"It’s the same," he said, disappointed, and flopped back onto the ground. "Good thing I don’t have any antennas on my ass. *Cough*... You’ve got quite an imagination. Got my hopes up for a second."

’So it’s true, I overestimated my luck...’ Mai Mingle closed the door again.

Already exhausted, their bodies aching and heavy, the group collapsed onto the stairs, some lying down, others sitting. It seemed that even if they spread out across two floors, the infinite stairwell wouldn’t throw them to a random level. So, Suo Beihua dragged her long, snakelike tail, slithered up to the landing of Floor -6, and sat beside Mai Mingle.

A moment ago, to escape the phantom reaching out from Floor -3, they had fled three floors down in one go. Now, no one suggested breaking through another wall.

"...What are your thoughts?" Suo Beihua asked in a low voice after sitting in silence for a moment.

"Me?" Mai Mingle asked, a little surprised.

Suo Beihua nodded. "You’re the calmest and most level-headed one among us. You were also the first to suggest we go up and keep breaking through walls. If I had to trust anyone’s judgment... it would be yours."

Mai Mingle gave a wry smile and patted Suo Beihua’s hand reassuringly.

"After we rest a bit, we can try taking down that emergency exit sign to see what it is. Then go back up... and use my mirror on one of the cracks. Other than that, I really don’t have any other ideas... While we wait for rescue, we might as well do something instead of just sitting around, right?"

Suo Beihua leaned back against the wall and let out a long breath.

"If I’d known, I never would have come to this tryout. I’ve only ever heard of inescapable traps in a Nest, I’ve never actually been in one... How did I manage to get stuck in a no-win scenario?"

’As the "Nest Dominance Game" contestant whom the Nest’s residents most wanted to kill, Mai Mingle herself was likely the biggest reason this warehouse trap had suddenly mutated into something so vicious. But with things as they were, she couldn’t possibly voice that suspicion.’

"Even if the Kai Family is powerful, can they really find us?" Suo Beihua said with a cold laugh. "And even if they find us, how will *they* get out? The ones coming in are just Hunters who rely on their Family Faction’s resources. In essence, how much stronger than us can they be?"

’The ones coming in are just Hunters who rely on their Family Faction’s resources...’

Those words stirred a faint, fog-like unease in Mai Mingle.

’Was she afraid that, in the end, she couldn’t even count on a rescue?’

Mai Mingle was lost in a daze for so long that Suo Beihua had to call her name several times before she finally snapped out of it. "...What?"

"What’s wrong?" Suo Beihua asked, giving her a searching look. "I was asking why you came to the tryouts. Newcomers don’t usually try to get into the Kai Family right off the bat."

With the tryouts now a failure, getting her lipstick back had become a distant, drifting dream... Mai Mingle sat there blankly, unsure if the profound exhaustion in her body came from breaking walls or from something else entirely.

’It didn’t seem to matter anymore.’

"I have my reasons for wanting to join the Kai Family," Mai Mingle said vaguely, unwilling to lie but also unwilling to tell the truth.

Suo Beihua didn’t press.

"It’s not like we can get in now anyway," she said with a sigh. "We can only hope they manage to get us out."

Mai Mingle felt a flicker of restlessness—for some reason, those words made her faintly afraid.

’Why?’

"Huh?"

Li Stan suddenly raised his head. In the momentarily silent stairwell, every antenna on his body stretched downward, pressing nearly flat.

"Footsteps," he said, scrambling to his feet. "About twenty-something floors down, I hear footsteps—more than one person. It’s the rescue team, right? The rescue team has to be here!"

Even though the others couldn’t hear a thing, they were all stirred by a rush of excitement. They leaned over to look down into the abyss, and Robert even roared, "Is anyone down there? Who is it?"

A few seconds later, a voice from a small, indistinct figure echoed up from the depths of the stairwell.

"Are you the ones from the tryouts?"

It was a man’s voice, probably Chebri’s. But it echoed and ricocheted up the stairwell, the sharp edges of the sound worn away as it scattered and blended between floors. It was impossible to make out the unique characteristics of Chebri’s voice. "We’re the rescue team! I’m Chebri!"

A whimper escaped Li Stan’s throat. Even Suo Beihua couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief.

It was in that precise moment of collective relief that Mai Mingle suddenly understood the source of her own unease.

She backed away from the railing, her gaze sweeping over the others as she asked in a low voice, "...Which floor sent this rescue team?"

It was as if someone had grabbed the other four by the throat.

Robert whipped his head around so fast he seemed to forget about his clockwork mechanism. "What are you talking about?"

"If the worlds outside each floor aren’t illusions," Mai Mingle said, "then on every floor, there’s a version of the Kai Family Hunters who think we failed the tryouts and will come in to ’rescue’ us. So, which floor’s Chebri is this one coming in now? In other words, if we leave with them, which floor’s reality will we be entering?"

Robert laughed.

"Are you an idiot?" he said casually. "Do you really think each floor opens to a separate reality? Parallel realities don’t exist. Obviously, it’s all an illusion to trick us into leaving."

’A trick?’

’If it’s a trick, why not create an illusion that’s indistinguishable from reality? Or at least make the world outside every floor identical?’

’The very fact that every floor is different is what’s keeping us from going out, isn’t it?’

"Of course, it’s because the Nest has to maintain a degree of fairness," Robert had an answer for that, too.

’...Since when was there anything fair about this stairwell?’

Mai Mingle’s eyes met Suo Beihua’s. They held each other’s gaze for a second before Suo Beihua leaned over the edge and shouted down, "Chebri, who did you come in with?"

"With Connie, of course!"

The words seemed to rise like a vortex, spiraling up the stairs and into their ears.