Illusion Report

If Jin Xueli weren’t so easily distracted by curiosity, she might have given herself away the moment she heard her name.

Even as the hairs on her arms stood on end and she prepared to bend down for the hammer, a tiny thought lingered in a corner of her mind. It was like a single hair on her skin—a faint touch, yet impossible to ignore.

’...The resident is staring at my chest.’

’Why?’

’It’s just the left side of the vest. Nothing unusual about it, is there?’

In that instant, her curiosity became the most pressing mystery in the world, one that pushed even "fleeing for her life" to the back of the line. So, Jin Xueli followed the resident’s gaze and looked down at her own chest.

A name tag that had no business being on her chest was emitting a faint white glow.

’Huh?’

’Didn’t I rip off the clerk’s name tag?’

"Even the name is human," the stooping resident said, rolling one eye up at her while the other remained fixed on the name tag. "You’ve even taken care of the fine details."

"Ah... ah, yes. It’s to make humans let their guard down..."

Jin Xueli seized the opportunity to flip the name tag up for a look. ’No way, I’ll be damned.’ It really said "Jin Xueli," and in human script, no less.

’Good thing I didn’t just grab the hammer and bring it down on the resident’s face...’ she thought, a wave of fear washing over her as she gently patted her pocket.

It was empty.

’The name tag I just took off the vest not only reappeared on my chest, but the name changed to my own?’

Putting on the vest was one thing, but having her name spelled out by the Nest convenience store... that was something else entirely.

Jin Xueli wasn’t just unsettled now; that scare had made her legs go soft.

"Oh my, your scent..."

The resident opened its mouth, presumably to speak, but it had barely started the sentence when a waterfall of saliva gushed from between its lips. Jin Xueli leaped back. A bizarrely inappropriate thought surfaced: ’At least the drool looks pretty clear. It’s not *that* disgusting.’

"Oh dear, how embarrassing."

The resident slurped loudly, pushing the drool-soaked hair from its cheek and tucking it behind its ear. "Your scent is just too lovely..."

Jin Xueli had no desire to be complimented on her body odor by a resident.

"I so want to take you apart, spread you out, grind you into a fine powder, add water, and distill you into a bottle of perfume..." The resident shook its head. "When you die, you must let me know. I’ll be sure to give you my business."

Those words raised at least a thousand questions, none of which she could actually ask.

Her curiosity unfulfilled, Jin Xueli felt like a turkey with its neck being wrung. The words struggled out of her. "Th-thank you... And you are?"

She had to change the subject. It would be a disaster if the resident got more and more excited and decided not to wait for her to die.

"I’m an English teacher," the resident said cordially. "It’s a pleasure to meet you."

’Don’t ask, don’t ask, if I ask I’ll blow my cover—’

"An English teacher? Do you teach somewhere?"

Jin Xueli regretted it so much she wanted to shove her fist in her mouth.

Yet her luck tonight didn’t seem to be all bad. The resident let out a tolerant laugh. "You really are new here. Just crawled out of a human body not long ago, right?"

"Uh, yes..."

"The Nest just generated it last week."

The resident gestured in a vague direction. The black robe swished, flipping up and settling back down, making it impossible to tell where it was pointing. "Over there, there’s a night university. I teach there."

’The Nest has all the facilities, huh? What happens after graduation? Do you submit a resume to a Nest corporation and get a job? Does the Nest even have corporations? Hey, wait, it does. Isn’t "Nest Permanence" one of them—’

Jin Xueli managed to rein in her runaway train of thought.

She nodded. "Er... um, so, you..."

Considering that anything she said might give her away, she really couldn’t come up with anything more intelligent to say.

"I’m here to redeem my points," the English teacher said.

Jin Xueli watched blankly as it pulled a card from within its black robe.

Jin Xueli stared, even more baffled, as it turned its head and pointed outside the store.

The English teacher seemed to feel it had already explained everything perfectly clearly. The human and the resident stared at each other in silence for a very long ten-odd seconds.

"Didn’t they train you?"

The resident seemed to have come up with an explanation on its own and once again uttered that unpronounceable-for-humans syllable—presumably the name of the clerk who was currently still dead in the bathroom.

"...Didn’t explain the points card to you? No matter. It’s your lucky day you ran into me, a teacher who loves to teach. Allow me to explain."

Tonight was increasingly going completely off the rails.

If she had to say for sure that she wasn’t under some spell or dreaming, she’d have to admit she wasn’t even ten percent certain.

Jin Xueli braced herself, leaned over, and watched it place the card on the checkout counter.

...It was, indeed, a points card.

There were two rows totaling eight squares, four of which were stamped—with a cartoon stamp, of all things.

The cartoon stamp was a drawing of a human face. The eyes were X’s, and the tongue lolled out of the corner of the mouth, seemingly to indicate that the person was dead.

"You get one stamp for every delivery of recycling materials,"

the English teacher explained. "I’ve already made four deliveries, and today is the fifth. Once I’ve collected all eight stamps, I can redeem them for any single item in the store... Isn’t that great?"

Jin Xueli could only nod.

The resident closed its mouth and looked at her expectantly.

’What? Does it think that’s a complete explanation?’

If Jin Xueli’s questions were a mountain, its explanation was the equivalent of scraping out the dirt from under a fingernail.

’Looks like I can’t bluff my way through this by staying silent.’

’As long as it thinks I’m a resident disguised as a human, it should be fine to ask a few questions... right?’

"Um... the recycling materials..."

"You’re not very bright, are you? I suppose everyone has their own unique talents. You’re clearly so good at camouflage, yet your reflexes and comprehension are so poor."

Even knowing it was pointless to get angry at a resident, Jin Xueli still felt a prickle of annoyance.

"The recycling materials are just outside."

The English teacher’s black robe billowed again, snapping toward the store entrance. "Take the keys, go open the gas pump, add the materials, and then come back and give me my stamp. Honestly, which one of us works here? How do you know less than I do?"

’Open the gas pump?’

But she didn’t know how— ’Wait. This might be a godsend.’

Her biggest problems right now were, one, not knowing how to get her hands on the Original Liquid, and two, not being able to find an excuse to leave the convenience store while a resident was watching her.

If she had to go outside to open the gas pump, couldn’t she potentially solve both problems at once?

’Looks like today really is my lucky day, huh? Every urgent problem seems to be solving itself.’

Jin Xueli’s spirits lifted. Even the resident before her didn’t seem so ugly anymore. If not for it, she really wouldn’t have known what to do tonight.

’But how do I open the gas pump?’

’As a customer, the English teacher probably doesn’t know, right?’

As the clerk, however, she knew nothing and had to ask about everything. That, combined with her human scent, was bound to be suspicious... Jin Xueli had to keep her questions to a minimum to avoid arousing the resident’s suspicion.

’It did say "take the keys," though...’

’Is it the set I took from the clerk?’

Jin Xueli did recall a keyhole on the side of the gas pump... ’Okay. While my luck is holding, I’ll go for it.’

"Then I’ll just go ahead and stamp your card," she said, pulling open the drawer under the counter.

Sealed beneath the drawer’s transparent bottom was a face so twisted by fear that its gender was unrecognizable. It was obscured by miscellaneous junk, fragmented into patches of flesh-toned color. Only its mouth was clearly visible, stretched wide as it let out silent screams at her.

A few scattered items had been tossed haphazardly into the drawer. Whenever the person pounded hard on the transparent bottom, some small object would be jolted into the air. The person below thumped THUMP THUMP, which actually helped Jin Xueli—her eyes immediately caught sight of a stamp that had just jumped.

"There, stamped. The fifth one." She tossed the stamp back and SLAMMED the drawer shut. The face vanished once more.

"You’re surprisingly efficient," the English teacher complimented her.

Jin Xueli glanced at the backpack by her feet. ’Taking it outside with me would be hard to explain. I can always come back for it after the English teacher leaves...’

"You’re much better than that other fellow. Far more decisive." The English teacher repeated the previous clerk’s name. "As it happens, there’s one more thing I need to ask of you."

Jin Xueli was already pushing the door open. "What is it?" she asked.

"This." The resident plunged a hand into its black robes, rummaged around somewhere, and pulled out a stack of papers.

Jin Xueli and the chicken wings, which had once again stood up in the warmer, both eyed the stack of papers it set down with suspicion.

"Our school’s recruitment flyers. It should be fine to leave some here, right?"

The resident rubbed its hands together. "Our school doesn’t practice admissions discrimination. Both humans and residents can attend our classes. But to be honest... we’re mainly hoping to recruit more Hunters. After all, they have so many things we want on them..."

The English teacher slurped up more drool.

"There have been a lot of Hunters wandering around the gas station lately, haven’t there? Do me a favor and put these flyers around... help us boost our enrollment."

’What kind of Hunter would take classes at a resident school?’

A sideways glance revealed to Jin Xueli that the flyers were handwritten. The script was crooked, and it looked like for words the writer couldn’t spell, they had cut out letters from magazines and newspapers and pasted them on. It looked less like a flyer and more like a ransom note.

"Sure, just leave them here." Wanting to get the resident out the door as soon as possible, she agreed readily. It was easy to be generous with someone else’s property, after all. "I’ll put them up in a bit."

"You’re so kind," the English teacher said, overjoyed. "So kind it’s almost as if you have ulterior motives."

"...Are you sure you teach language?"

Feeling a little guilty, Jin Xueli gestured for it to go first. She followed the resident out, tidying the magazine rack on her way and unplugging the drink cooler, which had somehow been secretly plugged in again.

The English teacher stood outside in the hazy darkness. Its black robe melted into the night, leaving only a blurry face floating in midair.

"I put the recycling materials over there." A hand emerged from the darkness, pointing to a spot beside one of the gas pumps. It stared at Jin Xueli, as if waiting for her reaction.

The most shocking thing for Jin Xueli, the moment she saw the "recycling materials" clearly, was the discovery that she felt calm. She wasn’t even that surprised.