Illusion Report

"...Not great."

When the other Hunters, especially the Kai Family Hunters, asked about her experience after landing, this was the only answer Mai Mingle could muster.

Partly because she wasn’t used to complaining to people.

For instance, the burn on her foot never had a chance to heal. Every time she thought things were finally settling down, Mai Mingle had to throw her full weight onto it, pounding it against the ground step after step just to escape.

Fortunately, she’d had the foresight to put a sanitary pad in her shoe before entering the Nest today. It absorbed the pus and blood oozing from the wound and added a layer of cushioning, which made it a little more comfortable—or at least, more bearable.

The other reason was her inability to focus.

She kept warning herself not to look at the sixth face—no, with the three of them joining, she should be calling it the ninth face—but she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at it. When the Kai Family Hunters questioned her about her experience like it was a job interview, Mai Mingle could only give them distracted, perfunctory answers.

’...Besides me, can no one else see that face?’

To call it a face wasn’t entirely accurate. It was more like someone was hiding behind the air itself, deep within the space, poking just their head out to press up a facial silhouette.

In empty areas, you could only faintly perceive the distortion where space was being pushed up, a translucent crease, when the light hit it just right. But when the "face" drifted behind a building wall or between leaves, the once solid, three-dimensional object would seem to become a thin sheet of cloth, pushed out into the shape of a face.

Mai Mingle secretly observed the face for a while. Aside from its high, hard nose and brow bone, which created such a stark relief that its eye sockets became two deep, black holes, she couldn’t make out anything else.

"...Yes, we just escaped together," Li Stan, who had now completely returned to normal, said to the Kai Family Hunter.

The moment he saw the Kai Family Hunters, his steps had faltered, as if he was reluctant to let them see him while the signs of his bodily disarray still lingered.

But by the time the groups inevitably met, there was basically no trace that he had been afflicted—except for the navel on the back of his neck, which was still inching its way down his collar, searching for its proper place.

It wasn’t a huge deal. After a warning glance from Mai Mingle, Li Stan covered the back of his neck with one hand, pretending to be stretching his shoulder and neck muscles, and managed to hide it.

"She looked out for us a lot," Emily said with a nod. "She’s a respectable Hunter."

As for what Mai Mingle had actually done, the two of them were very vague and understated.

This was, after all, still an interview.

Telling the interviewer that you almost died and were only standing before them now thanks to your competitor wasn’t exactly a winning strategy.

"You lost your supply bag?" Tian Xi noticed Mai Mingle’s empty hands.

Mai Mingle looked down at her own hands. "Uh... the situation was a bit desperate. I used the supply bag as a weapon..."

Tian Xi considered this for a few seconds.

"Hm, unexpected situations are unavoidable... Our requirement was to hold on to your orange tag. You’ve done that, so you pass. Once we’re out, you can give us the full details."

’The Nest wasn’t interested in her tag,’ she thought. ’The Nest was more interested in her life.’

"When are we getting out?"

Even though she knew it wouldn’t be that simple, Mai Mingle couldn’t help but feel a sliver of hope.

Just as the others couldn’t see the face, the face, it seemed, couldn’t see them clearly either.

But it was constantly drifting back and forth, sniffing the air, as if searching for something. It probably wasn’t her imagination; whenever she spoke, the face seemed to swim a little closer to her.

To avoid being touched by the face, Mai Mingle endured the pain in her foot and pretended to be stretching her legs, already having walked in a few circles.

"Everyone rest for thirty minutes, then we’ll enter Annie’s Warehouse."

Tian Xi had clearly made this decision on the spot after hearing how much trouble the group had been through. "Once you successfully pass this trial, you can return to Blackmoor City."

’Of course... inside Annie’s Warehouse is the real test the Kai Family prepared for the Hunter interviews.’

Mai Mingle sighed internally.

Her goal of successfully infiltrating the Kai Family to get her lipstick back seemed to be getting further away the harder she tried. For every step she took, the road ahead seemed to lengthen by three, now so distant it filled her with anxiety.

She could only focus on what was right in front of her, concentrate on—

Mai Mingle leaped back as if electrocuted, whipping her head to the side with a loud CRACK from her neck.

Everyone around her turned to look.

"What’s wrong?"

Through the air before her, which was faintly distorting and pushing out a face, Emily’s own features were warped, but her alarm was still perfectly clear. "What did you see?"

Mai Mingle steadied her breathing and took a step back, putting a little more distance between herself and the face behind the space.

"Nothing... a bug just fell on my face," she said, risking being seen as overly dramatic, and patted herself down. "I’ve already slapped it away."

"This is a Nest," the burly man named Robert complained. "Don’t be so jumpy."

But not everyone accepted her explanation. Besides the three Kai Family Hunters, another female Hunter was still scrutinizing the air in front of Mai Mingle, as if trying to see through its disguise.

She looked to be in her thirties. The top half of her hair was tied in a bun, while the bottom half was shaved short. It was a strange hairstyle—Mai Mingle really couldn’t understand some of the trends among young people these days.

Suo Beihua had a sharp chin and delicate, slender features. Her gaze was always soft, but that softness was like layers of thin cotton gauze, deliberately wrapped around a hard diamond underneath.

They had been waiting at the entrance for over half an hour without noticing the face in the air. Now, even with Suo Beihua’s careful observation, she naturally saw nothing.

This was actually one of the reasons why Mai Mingle, after some hesitation, had decided not to mention the "transparent face."

The five people at the entrance not only couldn’t see the transparent face, but they had also coexisted with it peacefully for this long. It was highly likely it was only after Mai Mingle and didn’t care about the others. If she told everyone there was a transparent face, they would definitely take action against it, which might just make the face treat them as enemies too.

’Ugh, forget it. Better to keep the battlefield confined to just me,’ Mai Mingle thought, averting her gaze from the transparent face.

The current situation fit that old saying: "What you don’t know can’t hurt you."

"While everyone is resting, Chebri will give a brief introduction to the trap inside the warehouse."

Tian Xi clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention, then nodded at the young, platinum-haired male Hunter. Chebri took a step forward, a crooked smile playing on his lips.

"I discovered this trap. Our Family Faction has already used it to test and screen many Hunters."

The young man’s face was slightly asymmetrical. His smile was always lopsided, and his blue eye was a little narrower than his green one, but you couldn’t say his looks lacked charm.

"The first thing to remember is that when you step into the trap, you will find that your form has changed. There’s no need to panic; all of us will change.

"Your normal human appearance will temporarily disappear. What will be presented in the trap’s space is the Nest’s summary of you."

Chebri glanced at the main gate, his eyes sweeping over the crowd again.

"Before a person joins the Kai Family, we must be clear on what kind of person they are, what principles and beliefs they hold—or don’t hold—and what their purpose is."