Illusion Report

'Why didn't you leave?'

Jin Xueli could almost hear the furious shriek in her own mind. She knew she had no real reason to be angry, but in that instant, she came dangerously close to screaming curses at the bushes.

'Did the residents eat her brain?'

Three hours. It had taken her three hours to get to this phone booth. Jacqueline had all that time—she could have gone anywhere. Why did she have to stay here?

'Why did she have to talk to me?'

'Why did she have to let me know where she was?'

"You—you're human," the woman's voice from the bushes gained a hint of certainty, as if she were grasping at a rope. "I can feel it... You're human... Please, help me."

"Don't come out!"

Jin Xueli hissed. A hint of flesh-colored skin, peeking from behind the trembling leaves, froze in the gloom of the bushes. Only with great effort could one faintly discern the shape of a hand.

"I'm not one of those monsters, I swear…"

She was wrong. Jin Xueli wished the woman *was* one of the residents.

She wished those words had just been an act, a trap to make her lower her guard.

If the person wasn't Jacqueline, just a resident, she could still deal with the gnawing disappointment. But if the one who stepped out of the bushes really was Jacqueline…

The payphone was right behind her.

"Just don't come out, or I'll treat you like one of the residents," Jin Xueli said through gritted teeth.

'As long as I can't see the woman in the bushes, I can't be one hundred percent sure she's Jacqueline.'

'And if I'm not sure, I can't just go claiming that bounty, can I?'

"Residents? You mean those monsters? I'm really not a resident,"

The woman sounded like she had been crying, her voice still thick with congestion. "I don't know why, but I was suddenly dropped into this place. At first, I thought this was Blackmoor City—"

"Stop talking," Jin Xueli murmured.

The other woman didn't hear her. She was still talking about how her back hurt terribly from the fall, and how she must have hit her head too since she couldn't remember how she got here. Jin Xueli had to raise her voice, nearly roaring, "I said stop talking!"

The woman's voice caught in her throat, and she went silent.

Jin Xueli stared blankly at the bushes. Now that the other woman had fallen silent, she found herself at a loss for words.

She didn't know what to do.

She couldn't turn and walk away. She couldn't tell the woman to get lost. And she certainly didn't want to come face-to-face with her...

And deep within the chaos of her thoughts, one idea pulsed like a strong, crimson heart—beating, leaping, clenching and releasing, sending torrents of blood rushing through her.

Nine million, nine million, nine million...

One hundred million.

Jin Xueli's eyes burned.

"...I get it. I must have scared you, approaching you so suddenly." The woman in the bushes took a deep breath, seemingly forcing down her panic. "I'm a person. And I'm a rich person."

...Huh?

'Could she actually be a resident? Did she read my mind and is now giving me exactly what I want to hear?'

The guess seemed absurd, but things far more absurd were not uncommon in the Nest.

"You seem to know this place well, and you move around with ease. How about I make you an offer?"

The woman's panic had clearly subsided. It was as if anything related to "money" was her own familiar, comfortable backyard.

Now Jin Xueli was thinking she wasn't a resident after all.

"Tell me what's going on with this place, and I'll give you fifty thousand dollars. If you can get me out of here and take me home, I'll give you another two hundred thousand. How about it? As long as this isn't hell, money still has value, right?"

Any other Hunter would have found the price more than fair—two hundred and fifty thousand was an excellent offer.

But Jin Xueli couldn't bring herself to nod.

"You don't trust me?" The woman misunderstood her silence and chuckled. "A measly two hundred fifty thousand. You think I can't afford it?"

"No…"

"Then what other reason could there be?" the woman said. "I'm not like other rich people... Two hundred fifty thousand, ha."

As she spoke, the leaves in the bushes rustled. Jin Xueli's back muscles had just tensed when a small object was suddenly tossed out. It spun in the beam of her flashlight, glinting brilliantly, before falling to the ground with a CLINK.

It was a ring.

Jin Xueli remembered that the radio broadcast for the bounty had described Jacqueline as wearing a wedding ring.

"Consider this collateral. I don't know if you know anything about jewelry, but this ring alone is worth more than two hundred thousand. Once you get your payment, you can give it back to me. How about it?"

Jin Xueli didn't touch the ring. She decided to test the woman.

"What if... what if I asked for more? Could you still afford it?"

"...How much are you asking for?"

"Nine million."

The woman in the bushes was silent for a moment. "Are you insane?"

She seemed to have lost her patience with hiding in the bushes. She shoved the branches apart and, before Jin Xueli could say a word, ducked out and stood up straight.

Jin Xueli's flashlight beam lingered on the woman's face for a few seconds, forcing her to squint and frown. Before the woman could protest, Xueli lowered the beam, then froze.

Back when she was on the scaffolding, she had been too far away to make out the face of the woman by the payphone, so she couldn't make a comparison now.

But Jin Xueli remembered the radio bounty clearly stating that Jacqueline was wearing yoga pants. The woman before her, however, was wearing a baggy, ill-fitting long dress.

"Do you take rich people for idiots? I know what nine million is worth, but it seems you don't. Even if I agreed to it now just to get home, do you really think I'd pay you afterward? No chance. I'm just being honest."

The woman shook her head and muttered, "The poorer people are, the less they understand what big money really is."

'Could she not be Jacqueline at all?'

For a moment, Jin Xueli didn't know whether to be relieved or not. She stood stunned for a few seconds before tentatively calling out, "...Jacqueline?"

Unexpectedly, the woman's head shot up. She stared fixedly at Jin Xueli. "You know me?"

Jin Xueli's mouth fell open. She was speechless.

It was agonizing. The relentless, conflicting waves of hope and fear, pulling and pushing against each other, crashed over her.

Countless contradictory thoughts twisted together, forming inseparable, warring pairs.

'There's a human life at stake—so what? In the Nest, human lives are worthless.'

'Reporting Jacqueline's location might get me the bounty, but it might not be nine million. Still, if I don't report it, I'm guaranteed to get nothing, right?'

'If I betray her, my conscience will kill me. But if I let her go, how do I know I won't be eaten alive by regret later on?'

'In the end, all I want is the Original Liquid. I don't necessarily have to go through Jacqueline. But without her, how am I supposed to find the Original Liquid? Go ask the residents one by one?'

"...Hello? What are you spacing out for?" Jacqueline snapped her fingers.

Jin Xueli realized Jacqueline had been talking for some time, but she hadn't heard a single word.

"Did... did you change your clothes?"

She finally managed to speak, only to ask about such an insignificant detail.

"How did you know?" Jacqueline looked suspicious, but she explained anyway. "I got here a few hours ago. This park doesn't seem to have as many monsters."

Her powers of observation were pretty sharp. No wonder she'd managed to survive in the Nest for two or three days.

"But staying out in the open was making me nervous... I wanted to find a place to spend the night, but on the way, I saw a billboard."

Jacqueline sniffled hard; the fear she'd suppressed was slowly creeping back. "It was a clothing ad... for Levi's jeans. But... but the model was wearing the pants upside down. A human head was poking out of the open fly, and two hands were coming out of the cuffs... It looked like it was doing a handstand, but there was nothing above the waist."

She subconsciously clutched her neck.

"I saw it, felt sick, and started walking faster... A-and then..." Jacqueline swallowed a dry heave and whispered, "I... don't think I'm crazy, I'm not. I really... I really saw a hand slowly emerge from my pant leg and gently rest on top of my shoe."

Inside the tight yoga pants, the shape of an arm would have been even more distinct and jarring.

She said the thought of a human head slowly forming inside her pants brought her to the brink of a breakdown. In a panic, she screamed and kicked for her life, but she couldn't shake the hand off. Finally, she ripped the pants off, threw them away without a second glance, and just ran.

"I found this dress in a clothing donation bin. It feels gross to wear someone else's old clothes, but it's better than having bare legs. At least... things can't grow out of a dress."

Jacqueline rubbed her face vigorously.

"Anyway, let's get back to the point. I don't know what this place is, exactly, but I do know one thing."

She took a breath, her confidence returning.

"In this world, money is the foundation for solving any problem, sometimes even the ultimate solution. I'm willing to raise my price, but let me be clear: I'm not stupid. I know money is valuable not just in Blackmoor City, but here, too. Even if you try to jack up the price and refuse to cooperate, I'm sure there are other people here who would be willing to help me get out."

Jacqueline wasn't wrong. If she ran into any other Hunter, getting back to Blackmoor City would be no problem at all.

Then Xueli realized something Jacqueline had said sounded strange.

"Money is valuable here, too?" Jin Xueli remembered the hundred million in the dumpster. "Who told you that? Money is completely useless here."

Jin Xueli was easily distracted. In any given piece of information, she would grasp the main point, the part that was most clearly explained, and then promptly discard it.

It was the small, seemingly insignificant details on the periphery that, if left unexplained, would capture her full attention. This often led people to believe that Jin Xueli couldn't grasp the main point.

From the look on her face, Jacqueline now seemed to be one of those people.

"Impossible. If the goal wasn't money, why would they run ads?"

Jin Xueli froze. The countless, roaring thoughts that had been churning in her mind seemed to freeze in midair. She couldn't help but laugh.

"You've misunderstood. The goal of that jeans ad wasn't money." She pointed to her own pant leg. "Making a pair of hands slowly crawl out of your pants—that was its goal. Or one of them, anyway."

Jacqueline's face went pale. She shook her head vehemently, as if in disbelief.

"But... that was just one ad," she said with a frown. "What about the others? I saw personal billboards for fortune tellers and massage parlors, and I even heard a radio ad inviting listeners to join some kind of sweepstakes... If there are commercial activities like that, it must be because they want money."

Jin Xueli stood frozen. After a few seconds, she licked her lips.

It turned out that succumbing to temptation was, in itself, an overwhelming temptation.

She couldn't help but ask.

Not a single bone in her body, not a single memory in her mind, not a single experience in her twenty-eight years of life could give her the strength to stand her ground, keep her mouth shut, and not ask that one question.

"...You know how to call the radio show?"