Illusion Report

The hope for a rescue from the Kai Family that everyone had felt forty minutes ago was now being fulfilled a thousandfold by the Nest—or more accurately, infinitely.

The real problem wasn’t that each rescue team came from a different reality; the real problem was that it wasn’t just rescuers who were coming.

The group soon discovered that in the endless parallel realities, there were also endless reasons for all sorts of difficult-to-define things (or were they people?) to enter the stairwell with endless motives—but they all shared a single target: Mai Mingle’s group.

The first pair of rescue Hunters, Chebri and Connie, were easy enough to deal with, at least. They seemed to have genuinely come to save them.

"...You’re not coming out?"

As Chebri spoke, he was already climbing up the stairs below and into their line of sight. His appearance, clothes, and tone of voice were all identical to the Chebri that Mai Mingle had seen before entering. Perhaps the Kai Family knew how to bypass the trial, because he hadn’t been transformed, and the surprise and confusion on his face were perfectly clear.

"You’re voluntarily choosing to stay trapped in this stairwell?"

The woman next to Chebri, named Connie, asked Suo Beihua for confirmation again, her voice full of disbelief.

She was a complete stranger, not a disguised Sha Xue. But Connie still just looked like a healthy, mature human woman. Both of them spoke and acted rationally and normally, even behaving in a way that was consistent with Kai Family Hunters.

"Have you been afflicted by something? What reason could you have for not leaving?" Connie was quite displeased. "If you all die in here, no one will believe you stayed voluntarily. In the end, it’s the Kai Family’s reputation that will be affected."

In that instant, a faint but sweet thought seemed to flow like water from one person’s mind to the next.

Mai Mingle never confirmed it, but she felt that everyone must have sensed that silent proposition.

’...These two are from Floor 0.’

The group of five had asked Tian Xi from Floor 0 the most questions. From what they knew so far, the reality on Floor 0 was no different from their own, aside from the year.

’If everything is normal, then wouldn’t going back with these two to a reality that’s still in 2019 be better than being trapped in this stairwell forever?’

But no one said it out loud.

Floor 0 wasn’t far above them. If it really came down to it, they still had the option of climbing out from there... right?

After being repeatedly refused by Suo Beihua and told to leave again and again, Chebri and Connie finally stopped insisting. Chebri shrugged, turned, and started walking downstairs. "I don’t care. Whether you’ve been afflicted or not, I don’t have the moral character to force a rescue on anyone. Hey, Connie, let’s go."

Connie was silent for a few seconds, gave the five of them one last look, and also turned to follow him down. As the group stared, the pair grew smaller and smaller until they disappeared. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up.

It was at that exact moment that Connie’s shriek, a mixture of terror and anger, shot straight up the stairwell. "Chebri? Chebri! Chebri! Where are you? Where did you go—"

Her vocal cords suddenly stopped vibrating, unable to produce another sound. All that was left was the dying echo of her voice, circling the stairwell as it slowly faded into silence.

Mai Mingle was sure she wasn’t the only one whose back was rigid and palms were sweating.

The first rescue pair, Chebri and Connie, seemed to have simply vanished from the stairs right after being sent away.

None of them suggested going downstairs to look, not because the five of them were of one mind and all equally cautious, but because at that moment, on the floor above, someone seemed to cover their mouth and let out a snort of laughter through their nose. It was Chebri.

"Don’t be scared. I didn’t disappear, I’m playing hide-and-seek."

He was standing at the top of another upward flight of stairs, just around the corner, whispering in a breathy voice. When the group looked up, they could only see his pant legs and feet. "Don’t tell them I’m here."

’...This is a Chebri sent from another reality, not the one from Floor 0.’ That much was obvious.

"Ah, I forgot. We don’t have to play hide-and-seek after entering the Nest... Old habits die hard. I was just wondering for a second, ’I already found you, so how come all five of you haven’t turned into ghosts yet?’"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Robert demanded angrily. His anger seemed forced.

"The ones who are found turn into ghosts," this Chebri said vaguely. "It’s the most important rule in Blackmoor City. You can’t be found..."

Deep below, there seemed to be something that had silently devoured the first rescue team. And on the floor above, another Chebri stood, slowly recounting the history of hide-and-seek in Blackmoor City.

Everyone had to play hide-and-seek, everyone had to hide, everyone had to conceal their identity. In that version of Blackmoor City, anyone who liked to post updates on social media had died out long ago, after the "hide-and-seek" disaster struck.

Suo Beihua looked at Mai Mingle and mouthed a question: *Go down?*

Mai Mingle glanced down.

She shook her head frantically, jabbing her finger insistently at the air below to get the others’ attention. They all looked down.

Climbing up the stairs were two residents—instantly recognizable as such because one’s hoodie was printed with "RESI" and the other’s with "DENT."

Additionally, their faces were caved in at the center, as if they were lumps of dough that had been punched and then collapsed in on themselves. It was, in its own way, an honest proof of identity.

The two of them tilted their heads up, their gaze seemingly meeting the group’s from within the sunken crevices of their faces. They immediately began to speak in a rhythmic call and response.

"We," said the resident on the left.

"Are, are, really are," said the resident on the right.

"Harmless," sang the one on the left.

"Residents!" the one on the right continued. "Harmless, pleasant, and eco-friendly,"

The one on the left said, "What a rarity!"

Robert swore.

"They’re only four or five floors away," Li Stan said, also panicking. "They’re climbing too fast—"

"Don’t be afraid," the right resident consoled.

"Come with me," said the left one.

"Don’t scream no, no, no—" the right resident mimicked the shrieks of a struggling human with frightening accuracy.

"Saying no just means you’re willing!" the left one declared, as if finishing a musical measure.

The color drained from the faces of those who still had visible ones.

Suo Beihua bit her lip hard, then jerked her head up and said to Chebri’s feet upstairs, "You have to play hide-and-seek here too, you know?"

"Hm?"

"Go hide now. We’re coming to find you!"

Mai Mingle instantly understood what she was doing. ’But can she really trick him?’

"Those aren’t the rules..." Chebri said.

Suo Beihua glanced at the two residents rapidly approaching from below. "The rule in this stairwell is that the larger group seeks the smaller group. It’s the exact opposite of Blackmoor City."

It seemed she had actually absorbed some of what he’d said earlier. It was unclear if Chebri was truly convinced or had other plans, but he let out a laugh, and his feet turned and went clattering up the stairs.

The moment his feet disappeared, Suo Beihua lowered her voice and ordered, "Run! Up!", then was the first to slither up the steps.

No one wanted to stick around to find out if the two residents were actually harmless.

The first three waves of "rescue teams," despite arriving one after another, weren’t the most difficult or deadly group. Chebri had vanished somewhere to hide in the blink of an eye, and while the residents were fast, their attention was luckily diverted by other humans they encountered on the way.

No one knew who they saw.

Mai Mingle and her few temporary companions, all holding their breath, leaned over the railing and listened as the two residents, who had stopped moving, spoke in their rhythmic call and response:

"Little friend,"

"All alone?"

"The two of us,"

"Are good people."

It was most likely a Hunter sent from another reality. Whether they were there to rescue someone, who they were, or what happened to them afterward, the group of five had no idea.

After the residents’ voices disappeared, the stairwell seemed to return to a state of tranquility.

In their flight, they had long since passed Floor 0 and made it all the way to Floor 6 in one go. Mai Mingle’s muscles felt like their fibers had snapped. She was exhausted and empty, trembling faintly, unable to summon any strength.

"Let’s... rest... for... a... bit," Robert said, and began winding himself up again. Mai Mingle was already sick of the sound of the metal disc winding.

All of Li Stan’s antennae were swaying back and forth, trying to catch any movement from above or below. Emily slowly fell behind, leaning silently against the wall.

Suo Beihua buried her face in her hands.

"You know," she said out of the blue, "I didn’t have to come to this interview at all."

Mai Mingle was stunned for two seconds before she realized Suo Beihua was talking to her.

Li Stan must have heard, as a few of his antennae twitched slightly, but he didn’t turn around, seemingly pretending he hadn’t. Given Robert and Emily’s current states, it was hard to imagine they had the spare energy to pay attention to Suo Beihua’s hushed words.

"I’m not a freelance Hunter at all." Suo Beihua lowered her hands and looked down at her coiled snake tail, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "I have a Family Faction."

SHHH.

Mai Mingle watched her snake tail slowly coil up and suddenly understood. "You—you were trying to go undercover in the Kai Family? Is that why you’re in the form of a snake?"

*Snake* wasn’t a good word. That was why, when she first saw Suo Beihua’s snake tail, she had avoided probing too deeply into its meaning. Now, she finally had her answer.

"It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?" Suo Beihua murmured, her face ashen. "I just wanted to investigate Chaisi Monroe’s movements... I knew it was a dangerous mission, but I never expected the danger wouldn’t come from the Kai Family. To think I’d screw up during a damn interview trial."

SHHH.

"It wasn’t worth it... It really wasn’t worth it."

Suo Beihua laughed softly. "Investigating the Kai Family... it really wasn’t worth it. We have no hope of getting out now, unless we just pick a random ’reality’ to climb into and get toyed with by the Nest until we die. Or we stay here and slowly turn into something that’s neither human nor ghost."

She turned to glance at Mai Mingle, but it was as if she couldn’t see her at all.

Whether the person sitting before her was Mai Mingle, a cat, or a dog seemed to no longer matter to her.

SHHH.

Suo Beihua stopped stroking her snake tail, her expression vacant, her voice barely a whisper. "What about you? Do you regret it? You just wanted to find some support, a backer..."

"I didn’t actually come to the Kai Family to join a Family Faction either..."

Mai Mingle stopped mid-sentence.

It wasn’t because she was afraid a member of the Kai Family would overhear their conversation. Her apprehension and worries about the Kai Family had now become a distant, shadow-like fog.

It was like how, after your mom is diagnosed with terminal cancer, you suddenly stop obsessively checking if the stove is off or making sure the front door is locked over and over. That kind of concern for your physical safety is a luxury for those who are certain they’ll go on living.

She stopped talking because she suddenly noticed that Suo Beihua was no longer stroking the scales of her snake tail. But amid the rhythmic winding sounds, she could still hear...

SHHH.

Mai Mingle turned her head.

From a crack in the wall, a thin, humanoid backdrop had already squeezed halfway through.