Illusion Report

Brianna turned the Black Cube over a few times in her hand.

She slowly ran her thumb over each face of the cube, pausing for a second or two on each one—just long enough to whisper a single sentence: "Input command, check countdown."

As she touched the fifth face and repeated the command for the fifth time, the Black Cube finally responded.

On the face parallel to the one she was touching, a line of dark, vaporous text suddenly projected outward. It hovered in the dim alley, almost like an illusion.

"Countdown: 4470 days, 12 hours, 34 minutes"

Brianna kept her finger pressed firmly against the fifth face. She waited patiently for a few seconds as the text was sucked back into the Black Cube and vanished.

She actually knew exactly how much time was left on the Black Cube’s countdown.

The reason she checked again was simply to find this specific face—the only one on the Black Cube that would provide an informational result to a command.

The concept was a little hard to grasp at first. Back then, in that warehouse by the docks, Westley had to spend a long time explaining it to Brianna before she finally understood.

"For example, say I have a command: ’I want to eat an apple.’"

Westley explained, holding the Black Cube as he spoke to the six- or seven-year-old Brianna. "Only when you input the ’eat an apple’ command to this specific face will the opposite face give you an informational result."

As he spoke, he demonstrated. Sure enough, a line of black, smoke-like text projected from the corresponding face:

"Apple: A plant of the genus *Malus* in the subfamily *Maloideae* of the family *Rosaceae*, also known as *linqin*. Highly nutritious and suitable for consumption; widely consumed.

May hold mystical significance in major religions, and may even be considered a forbidden fruit. Please assess your surroundings (do you see only one naked human male named Adam nearby?) before consumption."

There were several more long paragraphs below, perhaps because there was a great deal of information to convey about apples.

Brianna was young at the time and only half-understood. She didn’t have the patience to read all the text—especially since there were many words she didn’t recognize. But under her father’s intense stare, she felt she had to nod and say, "I understand."

"Good. You’re not stupid," Westley said. "Now, I’ll teach you how to find the face that outputs informational results."

The Black Cube had six faces in total: three for inputting commands and three for outputting results, corresponding in pairs.

Each face was identical and couldn’t be marked. The slightest movement was enough to lose track of which was which.

To find a specific face, one had to use the "countdown inquiry" command and test them one by one. Only the face that outputted informational results would display the countdown.

"Memorize this orientation. Hold it with your palm up, your left thumb on the ’information command’ input face and your left index finger on the ’information result’ output face, with your thumb pointing toward you."

Westley didn’t hand the Black Cube to Brianna—in fact, she wasn’t allowed to touch it all night. It seemed less that he was worried for his daughter’s safety and more that he was worried for the Black Cube’s.

He held the Black Cube up in his left hand, had Brianna stand beside him, and pointed to it. "The face to the left of your thumb is the ’comprehensive command’ input face. So, I ask you, what will appear on the face opposite it?"

The fine hairs on Brianna’s arms stood on end. When she was with her father, he would suddenly test her without warning. Even when she knew the answer, she would still feel the panic of a young animal suddenly falling into a trap.

She stammered for several seconds before finally blurting out her guess. "The... the ’comprehensive result’ output face?"

It was hard to tell if Westley’s expression was one of disappointment or satisfaction.

"Correct," he said. "If you say ’I want to eat an apple’ to the ’comprehensive command’ input face, what do you think will appear on the output face?"

’...An apple?’

Not an apple created through some sleight of hand, but one appearing out of thin air. Brianna thought this was an incredible enough guess as it was; Illusions were just that inconceivable.

"Then let’s try it."

...What happened in the next twenty to thirty minutes gave Brianna nightmares for years. She would always wake up screaming, drenched in a cold sweat, and retch over the side of her bed.

Her mother secretly took her to a child psychologist, but she knew she couldn’t tell any psychologist what had crawled out of the Black Cube. Otherwise, it would escalate from a simple nightmare to a serious problem that would get her sent to an asylum—and then her father would find out.

Westley never knew she had nightmares for years afterward. But even if he had known, Brianna could guess what his response would have been.

’After all, when you’re dealing with Illusions and Nests, what’s a little thing like that?’

’If you can’t even handle that, aren’t you just useless?’

That Illusion—no, every Illusion—should never have entered the Human World.

The Hunters who brought them into the Human World for money were all sinners. On that point, her past self and Morando were no exception.

And Nests should never exist in this world at all.

If there were no Nests, no Illusions, perhaps Westley would just be a department manager at some ordinary company now. And she wouldn’t have become this thing that was neither human nor ghost.

But that was another life, another fantasy.

’...I have to seize it to shut it down for good.’

Brianna used her left thumb to press the "information command" input face, her thumb pointing toward herself, palm up.

They were not the slender fingers she had looked at for twenty-some years; these knuckles were thick, the hairs on them distinct.

She tried not to look at the hand in front of her.

Just as Westley had taught her years ago, she located the "comprehensive command" input face, and from there, the "personnel command" input face.

She placed her thumb on the "personnel command" input face, walked quietly to the side of the bar, and aimed the Black Cube’s "personnel command" input face at the back door.

Commands had to be both concise and precise, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Back then, the command "I want to eat an apple" could have been interpreted in countless bizarre and twisted ways.

This posed a considerable challenge for the user. A command that seemed perfectly fine could produce an entirely unknown result after being entered into the Black Cube.

Fortunately, Westley had left behind a command book, compiled through trial and error. Following it was a surefire way to get the results she wanted.

"Input command,"

Brianna stood in the alley, feeling a fine, illusory drizzle that seemed to be falling under the cover of night.

"...form ’personnel disassembly space’ at this location."

The Black Cube vanished from her hand. Brianna hastily took a few steps back.

No one but the user could perceive with the naked eye that anything was amiss in the alley. A motion-sensor light above the back door cast a pale beam across the dim shadows. In a damp corner of the alley, a few cigarette butts soaked in a puddle next to a crushed soda can.

Only Brianna could see the Black Cube swell and expand, becoming a three-meter-high black cubic space. Its "personnel command" input face was pressed tightly against the bar’s back door.

Anyone who pushed open the back door of the bar and took one step forward would walk right into the Black Cube, becoming a "personnel command" input into it.

The next step was to call her driver, have him go into the bar, and ask a server to pass a message to Chaisi Monroe, telling him to meet someone at the back door.

He was using himself as bait to lure her here, so there was no way he wouldn’t accept an invitation to the back door...

Brianna looked down and pulled her phone from her pants pocket, but her fingers were trembling slightly. The phone slipped and fell to the ground.

’Useless,’ she cursed herself inwardly as she bent down to pick up the phone.

This was the first time she had enlarged the Black Cube and used a personnel command since that night in the warehouse. The moment she saw the Cube expand, the memories from years ago rekindled from dead embers, rushing back into her mind and searing every neuron.

Even this male body, which had never experienced the inside of the Black Cube, couldn’t help but tremble.

She had personally experienced the feeling of being turned from a living person into a "personnel command input"—though not in this current body.

That night, a very strange light had gleamed in Westley’s eyes.

His neck was craned forward as he stared intently at the enlarged Black Cube.

Perhaps because he was holding her hand the whole time, Brianna could also see the Black Cube, and the "personnel command" input face that was pointed right at the two of them.

"Dad," she wanted to take a step back, but her wrist was held fast. She couldn’t move. "What... what does this one do?... Dad?"

Her clothes were still soaked. The terror from the "I want to eat an apple" command, along with the black blood all over her, still hung thick in the air. Brianna had to use all her strength not to scream, cry, and run away.

"Don’t be afraid. It’s not lethal," Westley said. "I’ve already tried this function once."

Brianna said nothing. She didn’t dare speak, nor did she know what to say.

"It can disassemble a person into... resources, or reassemble them into a new form. It seems you can also make desired modifications to a person... though my last attempt at modification was unsuccessful. Oh, right."

He said the last two words stiffly, as if deliberately pretending he had just remembered.

Westley slowly bent down. His sallow face grew as large as the moon, looming in the corner of Brianna’s vision.

She didn’t dare turn her head to look at her father.

"Bree, you walk inside. Let Dad see if he can change a little something."

...The black drizzle soaked her hair and shoulders. When Brianna came to her senses, she found herself bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air.

The phone was drenched in sweat. This male body sweated at the drop of a hat.

She had been delayed by the childhood memory and hadn’t called her driver right away. But in that short span of a minute or two, someone had already pushed open the back door and walked into the Black Cube.

...It wasn’t Chaisi.