Illusion Report

Even Mai Mingle had an animal nature.

In a daze, she recalled the Black Heart Restaurant—how she’d snatched up a chair and swung it, a blurry, brown-wood shadow arcing through the air. She’d been driven by a muscular rage, carried on a torrent of violence, and had shattered the chair into flying splinters on someone’s head.

In a daze, she realized she had already kicked open the glass door. Just as the old woman spread her hands, about to reveal its mouth, she pressed the gun’s muzzle to its forehead and unleashed a ring of bright white fire.

The old woman’s head snapped back again. Its hands flailed in the air as if trying to regain its balance.

Before it could regain its footing and lift its head, Mai Mingle swept its legs, knocking it to the ground.

Adrenaline melted away all thought, anxiety, and fear, washing away everything superfluous. All that remained was the purest, most animalistic of instincts: to fight for survival.

"Go now!" she roared.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Li Stan scrambling out of the doorway, half-crawling and half-running. He was surprisingly still clutching the supply bag. He rushed toward the intersection, leaving a trail of wet squelches behind him, like the sound of waterlogged shoes on a rainy day.

Mai Mingle knew she couldn’t look at the old woman’s mouth.

By some small, merciful miracle, she had yet to truly see the lower half of the old woman’s face. Perhaps that was why she was still alive; even having her neck squeezed until it felt as thin as a straw was less dangerous than seeing the old woman’s full face.

The old woman’s head was pinned beneath its own shoulder. All that was visible was one ear and the side of its face.

Its face scraped along the pavement as it tried to pull away. Mai Mingle quickly averted her gaze, fixing her eyes on Li Stan’s retreating figure. At the same time, she blindly shoved the Old Port Map in her hand onto the old woman’s face.

Through the twitching, struggling map, her fingers suddenly sank as if plunging off a cliff. She quickly pulled her hand back, grabbed the map, and shoved it fiercely into the darkness below the old woman’s nose—a void she had never seen and suspected didn’t even exist.

The Old Port Map couldn’t scream like a person or even howl, but in that instant, Mai Mingle thought she heard the sharp, ripping sound of paper grain being torn apart, magnified tenfold.

’Residents eating residents... It must be painful for everyone involved, huh?’

From within the old woman’s face, a heavy hangover-like headache emanated—no, not a sound, but the actual feeling of a splitting, alcohol-fueled hangover that suddenly slammed into Mai Mingle’s brain.

She didn’t dare linger. Enduring the pain, she staggered toward the intersection.

The billposter was gone, but it would probably get its hands on the second sheet of rules soon. When that happened, it wouldn’t come back here—at least, not where Mai Mingle could see it and have another chance to destroy the rules.

They had less than a minute to escape.

"Did you let her out?"

The moment Mai Mingle reached the entrance of Number 01, the Tourist Information Center, she knew her question had been pointless. Li Stan was the only one there, and his barely-formed fingers hadn’t even touched the theater troupe poster on the door.

’...Hadn’t I just given him clear instructions?’

On the theater troupe poster, Emily was still pressed against the iron bars, one hand reaching out, holding a cell phone.

But the message on the phone had changed.

Yeah, you guessed it, my face was cut off and locked in the poster

I was hit the moment we got to this street, my face has been locked up ever since

Just tap RELEASE on the keyboard

My face will go back on my head

Quick, we’re running out of time

"A trap. It’s a trap," Li Stan’s voice trembled in time with his undulating body. "That’s not the real her. It’s obviously a trap... I know it. What comes out won’t be Emily."

He crawled forward as he spoke.

"I-I’m not letting the thing in the poster out. That’s not Emily anymore. I have experience with this, I know... She’s beyond saving. It’s not my fault..."

Mai Mingle shot a glance across the street.

Emily was still squatting on the sidewalk, one arm thrust into a crack in the ground, showing Mai Mingle only the back of her head. Unlike before, however, the figure—unmistakably Emily’s—was now trembling.

From afar, her voice could be heard, spattering the air like fine droplets of spit. "Why am I stuck? Why can’t I move? Where’s my face? Didn’t you say you’d save me? Where did you go?"

On the road behind her, the old woman was shakily getting to her feet. Her limbs seemed uncoordinated, unsure of which way to turn. One hand propped up her head, which was dangling down her back. One foot pointed toward two o’clock, while the other was turned backward, heel-first.

Half of the Old Port Map jutted out from its mouth, trembling in the air.

Mai Mingle looked back again. She was wrong. She didn’t even have a minute.

Before the old woman staggered after her—’How much time do I have? Ten seconds? Five?’—Mai Mingle had to decide whether or not to release the Emily in the poster.

In other words, was the person in the poster really Emily?

’"I was hit the moment we got to this street, my face has been locked up ever since"?’

’But that wasn’t true, was it?’

Mai Mingle remembered. After seeing Emily’s plea for help on the poster, she had gone back across the street. Emily had noticed her, spoken to her, and even shown her the video on her phone.

At that moment, two of Emily’s faces had existed on the street simultaneously.

One was perfectly fine on her head; the other was printed behind the iron bars of the poster.

’How was that possible?’

’Which face was the real Emily’s back then?’

Mai Mingle glanced back again. In just a few short seconds, the old woman’s limbs had coordinated themselves. Every arm and leg was now pointing in the correct direction—toward Mai Mingle.

Even if she wanted to put a few more rounds into it to delay its recovery, she couldn’t. She had already emptied Emily’s handgun a moment ago.

She turned back to find the text on the poster’s phone screen had changed again.

What are you hesitating for?

If you don’t let me out, we’re both going to die here.

Quick, tap RELEASE on the keyboard.

We’re running out of time. Save me.

Indeed, there was no more time for hesitation. Though its head was still bent backward, the old woman was determined despite its broken body; it had already taken a step forward.

Mai Mingle tore her eyes away and forced herself to focus on the poster again.

’...The Nest always insisted on common sense and logic, albeit in the strangest of ways. Even if its version of common sense and logic was like a chopstick in a bowl of water, appearing warped and bent.’

’Logically speaking, the face on Emily’s head should have been her own, right?’

’Following that logic, the face on the poster at the time couldn’t have been Emily’s.’

’So where was the real Emily’s face right now?’

Mai Mingle watched the phone screen as the text changed again—still more pleas for help, cajoling, and reminders to tap the keyboard.

At the intersection not far away, Li Stan twisted around and glanced back at her.

"Get out of there!"

His voice was growing steadier, as if he were slowly reverting to a more human form. "Even though you saved me, I’m not sticking around to keep reminding you! This is the last time: don’t release what’s on the poster—"

His final word turned into a shocked gasp as Mai Mingle’s hand touched the phone on the poster.

Li Stan turned and fled.

Mai Mingle could barely see his retreating figure in her peripheral vision; cold sweat was stinging her eyes. She desperately forced herself not to look at the old woman staggering toward her, step by step, and pressed her finger on the blue arrow in the top-left corner of the poster’s phone screen.

She decided to take a gamble.

’...The Nest is very reasonable, in its own strange way.’

’If tapping the letters R-E-L-E-A-S-E on a printed image of a keyboard could interact with the phone... then couldn’t she tap somewhere else?’

As it turned out, the Nest was indeed reasonable—albeit in a twisted way.

It was clearly a phone screen printed on a poster, but at the touch of Mai Mingle’s finger, it exited the messaging interface and changed to a list of messages from various contacts.

Mai Mingle was incredibly thankful that she had learned how to use a smartphone before entering the Nest this time.

She tapped the arrow again, returning to the phone’s app menu, and quickly opened the photo album.

There was no specific, logical reason why she thought to open the photo album—it was just that the last time she’d seen Emily’s normal face, Emily had been about to record another video.

Tapping the newest icon in the printed phone’s photo album opened a video just three or four seconds long.

The old woman’s shadow fell over the road just a few steps to Mai Mingle’s right.

The phone screen went black for a second, then Emily appeared. The camera was shaky. She seemed to pause for a moment, bringing the phone closer to her own face.

Then, her voice came from the printed phone. "...Huh? Why’d it switch to the front-facing camera?"

She suddenly tilted her head up, pressing her face against the camera. For a moment, the entire screen was a blur of flesh-tone.

In the instant before Emily pulled the phone away, before the flesh-tone faded and the shot cut back to the pavement, Mai Mingle saw it.

After pulling the phone away, Emily no longer had a face.

Her head was like a meaty jelly, with a third of it sliced off, leaving a smooth, flat surface.

’...It was as if by pressing her face to the camera, she’d made it fall into the phone, trapping it in the video. But Emily herself was completely unaware.’

’But did that logic even hold up?’

’Was this really the way to save her?’

Mai Mingle’s finger hovered over the small trash can icon. She hesitated for a moment.

’If I delete this video and Emily can never get out—’

The old woman’s face pressed against Mai Mingle’s.