Illusion Report

In what seemed like just a few steps, Morando flickered and vanished into thin air.

But her words had unleashed a thunderous avalanche in Chaisi’s mind: countless thoughts, worries, anxieties, guilt... and a deluge of fragmented memories that resurfaced for no clear reason.

For a brief moment, he stood rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle, like a victim buried under a massive avalanche.

’Did that person go after the Kai Family just because I found Westley’s Illusion? If I hadn’t found it, would Uncle Kai be safe?’

’Is this a coincidence? For a dead man, why does Westley’s name keep coming up over and over?’

’Why would Morando go to such lengths for that person, even making an enemy of me?’

’...Is Uncle Kai still alive?’

’How am I going to get out of here?’

Chaisi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

’When a thousand thoughts are tearing at your mind, the most important thing is to pull yourself free from the tangled knot of emotion and logic, to distance yourself from it all.’

’The worst-case scenario is simply this: Kai Luonan is dead, and after I charge up the hill, I’ll die too.’

’Accept it, and you’ll find a sense of calm.’

’Don’t think about whether Kai Luonan is dead. Kai Luonan is already dead. I am already dead.’

’Since the end result is both of us dead, any anxiety or anger I feel right now is just meaningless noise before the finale.’

’There was only one clear path forward. Whether each step I take leads to the finale, to death, or to hope—that’s in the hands of fate.’

When Chaisi opened his eyes, the blizzard in his mind had subsided, leaving behind a vast, endless expanse of silence and pristine white.

In his Family Faction, he often had to evaluate and appraise the Illusions that Hunters brought back, so he had seen and understood a great many of them.

Illusions were wondrous things, but once you’d seen enough, you started to realize that these objects, which perhaps had no business existing in the human world, were not entirely inscrutable. They followed certain patterns.

The one Morando used on him must be a "separation-type" Illusion. As the name suggested, the body of the Illusion and its effect could be separated.

She had used the Illusion to create a "cage" that perfectly mimicked the surroundings. Once Chaisi had unwittingly walked into it, she was free to take the Illusion’s main body and leave. For the user, this type of Illusion was more flexible and safer, since they didn’t have to remain in one spot. The drawback, however, was that its effects were also very limited.

For instance, Morando herself had admitted she couldn’t kill him from outside the Illusion’s effect.

Another point... was that the "effect" left behind wasn’t very powerful, especially when compared to a major weapon like the "Nest communication network." In fact, most of the time, there was even a "key" to breaking the Illusion.

It was like a room; all Chaisi had to do was find the "door."

He spent half a minute carefully surveying his surroundings.

This was the most expensive cemetery in the entire state, covering a whole hillside. The main road, the one he had just stepped out onto, wound its way up toward the peak. Thin woods flanked both sides of the road, casting mottled shadows on the green turf.

Chaisi’s gaze traveled past the nearby trees to a wide, gentle slope of dark green grass in the distance. There, beneath a thick, dim gray cloud cover, stood rows of tombstones that seemed to be scowling.

’Looks like it’s about to rain again.’

He glanced back. The modified truck he had abandoned was still parked askew on the roadside, almost on a collision course with a tree. Everything was dead silent. The sound of cars from the distant highway had, at some point, been shut out by the Illusion.

"It’s too quiet," Chaisi murmured, as if speaking to the long-gone Morando.

"You were surprised earlier that I immediately realized I’d walked into the Illusion’s trap. It’s because I couldn’t be more familiar with this cemetery. I know exactly what sounds should be audible from every single corner."

"To you, this place has probably always been just a quiet cemetery."

He listened to his own voice echo in the air. "But for me, walking into the trap was like someone suddenly hitting pause on a movie. All the subtle sounds that were supposed to be there vanished in an instant. That, of course, was the biggest warning sign of all."

Back in college, after discovering her Path, Morando, his junior, had always come to him—a person with no Path—and another friend who wasn’t a Hunter for advice on all sorts of problems. It seemed that ever since then, he had developed the habit of answering her questions.

’...So that habit hasn’t died, huh. Even with her long gone, I still feel the need to answer her question.’

Chaisi let out a soft, humorless chuckle.

Roughly estimating, his line of sight extended for a few hundred meters before being blocked by the distant terrain and trees.

A few hundred meters was more than enough. A simple separation-type Illusion couldn’t possibly have a range hundreds of meters across.

’In other words... if there’s a "door" in this Illusion, then I must have already seen it.’

’I just don’t know which of the things I’m looking at is the door.’

’Alright then, first I’ll test the boundaries of this Illusion.’

Chaisi raised his gun and fired a shot toward the cemetery behind the trees. BANG! The report was far louder than it should have been, making his ears ring nonstop—it sounded nothing like a gunshot fired in an open, outdoor space.

The moment the thought occurred to him, Chaisi had his answer.

The instant the bullet hit the air between the trees, it began to slow, as if it had plunged into a thick jelly. Its progress grew more and more sluggish until, with a faint shudder, it lost all momentum, hung in the air for a moment, and then dropped onto the grass.

Chaisi repeated the process, firing bullets in several other directions, including toward the sky. Even after stuffing two pieces of cloth torn from his shirt into his ears, the ringing was still deafening—but at least he had managed to define the boundaries of his cage.

He was trapped in an independent space, a little over ten meters square. Whatever he did within this space could not affect the outside world.

The Illusion’s effect was quite simple: it was a large, transparent box, impervious to external force, that had trapped him inside. It probably had a time limit. If it had any special advantage, it was the ability to project a false image of its user at their true location—meaning the user could act as bait to lure a target into the invisible box.

If a Household Hunter had brought this back to the Family Faction, Chaisi would have offered sixty thousand for it, tops.

’But for all its simplicity, it’s pretty damn effective. I’m trapped, aren’t I?’

’...Where the hell is the door?’

He scanned his surroundings again, then walked over to one of the "walls" and felt along it carefully. If not for the transparent, flexible barrier in the air, there was nothing his naked eye could have detected.

The scent of trees and grass, the rustle of his clothing as he moved, the low clouds pressing down on the earth... everything was—wait.

Chaisi spun around abruptly, as if subconsciously trying to snatch a thought that was just about to slip away.

’Something’s not right.’

’Something that shouldn’t be here *is* here... Does that mean I’ve found the door?’