Illusion Report

As she left the makeshift theater, right before closing the main door, Mai Mingle caught a snippet of what the speaker was saying:

"...I shouldn’t say ’the last one standing.’ How about ’the survivor’? Hmm, or ’the one who lived after killing all the others’?... Or maybe ’the Gu King’?"

It was focused on refining its script, seemingly determined to prevent the next Hunter from making it out alive.

The traps and residents in the Nest were as vast and countless as the sea.

’The speaker seems to be—wait, is it a resident? Or is it part of some other indefinable, unclassifiable chaotic danger within the Nest?’

In any case, the speaker didn’t seem to be one of the entities opposed to the "game of domination," one that was dead set on killing her.

Otherwise, it probably wouldn’t have followed the rules and allowed Mai Mingle to live after she solved the puzzle.

There were many "traps" and "scenarios" in the Nest, much like the game at the Black Heart Restaurant she had participated in. As long as a Hunter followed the rules and solved the puzzle, they could usually survive—"usually," that is.

If a resident went back on their word and decided to kill someone, it seemed the Nest wouldn’t intervene.

She gently closed the door, shutting the speaker’s words behind it. Through the wood, she could only hear a muffled sound, the words now indistinct.

The supplies the Kai Family had prepared were comprehensive; they included basically everything a Hunter would normally bring into a Nest. She opened her bag, found a pen, and hastily scribbled a few sentences on the large door. The ballpoint pen left faint marks on the lacquered wood, but she had no better option.

Warning:

Trap inside. Many versions of you will appear. Once you’re tricked into fighting and killing yourself, you will die in the end too.

Whatever you do, don’t kill yourself! Try accepting and embracing instead.

Resident is a speaker (?)

’Would anyone even believe a message that sounds so... hippie-ish?’

Mai Mingle slung the supply bag over her shoulder and walked away. Even after a while, she still glanced back uneasily, half-afraid that the speaker-pretending-to-be-a-speaker would follow her.

The speaker didn’t follow. The streetlights, railings, theater posters, and trash cans... everything looked identical to its counterpart in Blackmoor City. Nothing seemed to have scrambled back into place to maintain its form when she’d whipped her head around.

After a few minutes of walking, Mai Mingle realized her biggest problem was no longer the residents, but a much more practical one—

Where was the rendezvous point, Annie’s Warehouse?

’This warehouse district, built in the early 19th century, is huge, isn’t it?’

Standing at an intersection and looking around, she saw nothing but red-brick warehouses, row after row. ’Do I really have to check them one by one?’

Sha Xue had said the Kai Family Hunter would wait at the warehouse entrance for three hours. Any Hunter who failed to arrive within that window would be considered to have failed the interview and could go straight home.

Mai Mingle hadn’t been delayed in the theater for long; only about forty minutes had passed since she’d arrived. But to fail just because she couldn’t find the way would be incredibly frustrating.

Just a moment ago, she’d been praising the Kai Family for providing such comprehensive supplies, but now she felt differently. ’Why didn’t they include a map?’

’Then again,’ she thought, ’they couldn’t really include a map to the rendezvous point. If someone had an accident and the map fell into the hands of a resident, everyone at the meeting spot could be wiped out.’

The last time Mai Mingle had been to the Old Port was probably decades ago. Standing at the intersection, she had no idea which way to go first. She was completely stumped.

Her gaze swept across her surroundings, passing over the road, the overpass, the street signs, and a pole at the intersection hung with several directional signs.

’Why isn’t there a single directional sign around here?’

Mai Mingle paced back and forth a few steps, craning her neck to look up and down the empty road in every direction, over and over.

This area was no longer used as a warehousing pier; instead, it had become a popular spot for theater troupes. There should be plenty of tourists, which meant that—at the very least—the corresponding location in Blackmoor City ought to be full of tourist-friendly signs.

Mai Mingle walked a dozen or so paces down the sidewalk, scanning past the coffee shop, the ticket booth, and the signs pointing to the Tourist Information Center, but still, she didn’t see a single signpost.

...Wait.

She spun around.

On the pole in front of her was a poster for a touring African theater group. The poster was old and faded from the rain, its surface warped and bumpy.

Perhaps because the poster wasn’t completely dry, the lead actor’s eyes were slowly sliding toward the sides of their chin.

’I feel like I just saw something important... but it wasn’t that pair of eyes barely being held up by the chin.’

Anomalies like this were not uncommon in the Nest.

Mai Mingle looked at the sign on the pole that read "Tourist Information Center, 350ft," a restless anxiety growing inside her. ’Why didn’t the Nest copy the signs from Blackmoor City, too?’

It didn’t have to be one pointing to Annie’s Warehouse; any sign at all would have given her a little confidence. But in a place this big, there wasn’t a single one.

She looked up again.

Below the sign pointing to the Tourist Information Center hung another plaque, pointing in the opposite direction. It read, "Suicide Art Troupe, 550ft."

She lowered her head, feeling a surge of irritation.

’No... Something just feels wrong.’

’It’s like my brain just skipped a beat, but I can’t put my finger on what it missed.’

Whatever it was, the source of this strange feeling was right here, born from the moment she’d searched for signposts and found none.

Mai Mingle thought for a moment, then pulled her phone out of her pocket.

’Don’t horror movies always have that kind of scene?’

’The kind where you can’t see anything with the naked eye, but when you take a picture and look at it, there’s suddenly a ghost in the crowd.’

Even though it was still an overcast day in the Nest, as Mai Mingle channeled her inner horror movie protagonist and pressed the shutter button, she couldn’t deny a flutter of apprehension.

But the photo on her phone was just as empty; everything looked normal. The electrical box, the storefront, the tree, the signposts... but there were no signposts.

Mai Mingle sighed. "Forget it. I’m done wrangling with signposts. If there aren’t any, there aren’t any."

She picked a random direction and started walking. She had only taken a few steps when an idea struck her. She quickly glanced down at the photo on her phone again—and in the next second, Mai Mingle whipped around and shouted at the empty street, "I see you!"

The signpost stood there, stock-still.

It was like a lover caught climbing out of a closet, ambushed and with no time to pull on his pants.

Even if she lived for another eighty-six years, Mai Mingle would have trouble putting the feeling of that moment into words:

The image of a signpost was clearly imprinted on her retinas, yet it felt as if it were shrinking away, slowly receding from her mind.

"I already saw you, so stop! It’s too late to run."

If anyone had heard Mai Mingle shouting like that at an empty street, they would have thought she was insane.

The signpost finally stopped moving—no, that wasn’t right. The signpost had never moved at all.

It was right in the center of her vision, yet it felt like it was in the periphery of her mind, ready to shrink back and vanish at any moment.

"What is this thing?" Mai Mingle was so exasperated she almost laughed. "How can there be something so childish in the Nest? Are you a kid playing hide-and-seek? Let me see what you’re pointing to."

Under her gaze, the signpost seemed to tremble in agony, like a sensitive plant about to fold its leaves—no, that wasn’t right. The signpost hadn’t moved at all. ’Why do I keep having these hallucinations?’

But Mai Mingle still snapped, "Don’t move."

There were five signs on the pole in total. Aside from the four plaques for the restrooms, the Suicide Art Troupe, the subway station, and the ferry port, there was one more sign pointing southeast that held the most meaning for her.

Tourist Information Center, 700ft

feet. A little over 200 meters. Not far.

’Since it’s a Tourist Information Center, it should have a layout of the nearby buildings. This gives me a real shot at finding Annie’s Warehouse.’

There was another line of small text beneath the sign.

"Please be discerning. Don’t be fooled by a fake information center."