Illusion Report

’She hadn’t seen the resident make a call, so how did it get in touch with the library and arrange for that Hunter to meet me?’

’It can’t have that much authority, can it?’

Of course, she had her doubts. Mai Mingle wasn’t a fool; she suspected the resident was just trying to trick her into giving back the eye.

But on second thought, she took the eye out of her pocket and handed it to the resident. "Alright, it’s a deal. Here you go."

"That easily? Aren’t you going to say a few words over it?"

The resident was surprised, but its arm moved quickly, whipping up behind its back to snatch the eye.

Just then, a deep, utterly disappointed sigh emanated from outside the restroom door, as if someone had pressed their mouth to the crack. It sounded completely listless. "How annoying. It’s over—let’s go back, let’s go back. The fun’s over."

Judging by the voice, it seemed to be the husband.

"I can leave through the restaurant’s main entrance now, right?" Mai Mingle asked.

"You can," said the resident. The hand that had been holding the eye vanished in front of its body for a moment. When the arm dropped back down, the hand was empty. "Aren’t you afraid I was just tricking you?"

"If you weren’t lying, then no one will be maimed. If you were lying, still, no one will be maimed. Since that’s the case, why not agree? I can leave the restaurant either way, after all."

As she spoke, Mai Mingle pulled open the restroom door and found the short hallway outside completely empty. The diners who had crowded around moments before had vanished in the blink of an eye.

She glanced back at the resident.

It was hard to tell if her next words were for it or for herself. "Besides, how many things in life are really worth taking so seriously? It’s good to try things. Even if you end up looking like a fool, there’s nothing wrong with that."

She was speaking to a resident, who probably couldn’t understand her anyway. Shaking her head with a smile, she started to walk out.

The resident remained silent, watching her leave the restroom from behind a thick curtain of hair.

The waiters and diners in the restaurant had all vanished. The glass front door stood wide open, revealing what seemed to be an overcast day. She had no idea what time it was. The light hovering over the sidewalk was a dull, muted white, as if it were just going through the motions.

Just before stepping out, Mai Mingle instinctively glanced back—and found the resident standing right behind her, silent and unseen. She almost screamed.

"What are you doing?"

"The nearby landmarks are on the road sign. Follow it and you’ll find the library. It’s not far." Its back was to Mai Mingle as it raised an arm, seeming to point at an angle toward something outside the restaurant. "Good luck."

’Good luck with what?’

’It even chased after her to give directions... Are residents supposed to be kind and polite now?’

The glass door SLAMMED shut behind Mai Mingle.

The buildings on both sides of the sidewalk seemed to bend and tilt their heads, their eye-like windows watching as she walked hesitantly toward the intersection. In the direction the resident had pointed, a pole stood by the crossroads.

The pole was covered from top to bottom with a dense, overlapping clutter of signs—so many that she worried it might collapse under their weight. Each sign pointed in a different direction; some were separated by a mere finger’s width.

’I’m supposed to rely on this thing for directions? It doesn’t seem very precise.’

After sifting through at least fifty or sixty signs, Mai Mingle finally found the one that read "Brooklyn Public Library"—it was about ten kilometers away.

’Even at a fast walk, that’s at least a two-hour journey.’

’Good thing I got some rest at the restaurant.’ She didn’t know how long she had slept, but judging by how her body felt now, she could handle the walk.

’The resilience of youth is really something,’ she mused. ’A little rest and you’re full of vigor again.’

As Mai Mingle set off in the direction indicated by the sign, she initially walked with the curiosity of a tourist, looking all around at a world that was both familiar and strange.

This was her first time seeing the Nest by day.

At first glance, she might have thought she was still in Blackmoor City—the buildings, roads, subway stations, footbridges, and plazas... It was as if a grand framework had been sketched between heaven and earth, giving the Nest a silhouette that was a near-twin of Blackmoor City.

Sometimes she would turn onto a familiar street and, before even reaching the corner, recall that there should be an Asian Market there. And when she turned the corner and looked up—it would be that exact same Asian Market.

But just because it had the same sign didn’t mean Mai Mingle dared to go inside for a look.

A market in Blackmoor City would sell things like meat, vegetables, and fruit. But in the display window of this market in the Nest, instead of roast ducks, hung bunches of wet hair.

"How disgusting..."

Though she was genuinely disgusted, sometimes you just can’t look away from a train wreck. Mai Mingle stopped in her tracks and stared for a moment.

Perhaps because it was an "Asian Market," every bunch of wet hair was jet-black. They varied in thickness, and each was attached to a patch of pale, bluish scalp, with the display hooks pierced right through the skin.

The bunches of hair hung side-by-side, forming a curtain.

Mai Mingle stared blankly for several seconds before she realized that two of the bundles in the corner were being slowly parted. From behind the hair, a face as pale as a rice cake—like a waxing moon—was gradually rounding into view before her.

She didn’t dare linger for another half-second. Before the eyes of the person behind the wet hair were fully revealed, she turned and fled.

"Stop running,"

A face suddenly jutted out from the shadows on the roadside, like a mushroom popping up after a rain, flashing in the corner of Mai Mingle’s eye. "You’re going the wrong way!"

’If I fell for a trick like that, I’d have wasted all eighty-six years of my life.’

Mai Mingle turned a deaf ear and kept running straight along the sidewalk, only to take a step and find herself plunged into night.

It wasn’t that she’d run for so long that she lost track of time; she had literally plunged headfirst into darkness. Suppressing her shock, she took a gasping step back and was once again in the dim daylight. Ahead of her, the lighting was normal, still a cloudy afternoon.

But when she tentatively took another step forward, the entire city was instantly shrouded in night: streetlights cast down pools of orange light, and windows and neon signs flickered on.

...How did it get dark in a single step?

Utterly astonished, she looked up at the night sky.

The cloudy night sky revealed no stars. An occasional gust of wind parted the dark clouds, revealing a pale, somehow familiar moon that was gradually rounding into view from behind them—

Mai Mingle shuddered as it all clicked into place.

She cursed under her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and scrambled back several steps, flailing her arms wildly. THUD. Her hand slammed against what felt like glass, and she sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.

When she peeked her eyes open, she found herself, as expected, standing right in front of the Asian Market’s display window.

The frantic sprint of the last few minutes had apparently been nothing but a figment of her imagination.

At some point, a round, head-sized hole had appeared in the window pane, just large enough for Mai Mingle to stick her head through.

Judging by her position, her head must have been inside the hole before she pulled back—right in front of that swollen, moon-like face gradually revealing itself from between the curtains of black hair.

"You look that disgusting, and you still have to trick people into becoming customers?"

Frightened and furious, Mai Mingle wanted nothing more than to grab a brick and smash the window. But on second thought, she decided it was best not to start trouble. Covering her eyes with one hand, she felt her way back, taking a wide detour to finally give that Asian Market a wide berth.

She didn’t know it, but the Asian Market was only the beginning.

What should have been a two-hour walk ended up taking Mai Mingle a full four or five hours, thanks to a series of accidents, illusions, and traps. It was deep into the night before she finally spotted the silhouette of the Brooklyn Public Library in the distance.

The library was a sizable building, its main entrance marked by a flight of steps leading up from a plaza. For some reason, a car was crumpled against a lamppost, already covered in a thin layer of dust.

As Mai Mingle dragged her sore, aching feet toward the library, a figure sitting on the steps suddenly leaped to their feet, giving her a start.

"You got here already?"

The speaker was a young man. He was too far away for her to make out his features, but she could tell he seemed very nervous, his arms wrapped tightly around himself as if for protection. "Weren’t you coming from ten kilometers away? How did you get here in less than half a day?"

’What? Does he mean ten kilometers is supposed to take longer?’

Mai Mingle wanted to ask, but she couldn’t summon the strength—even a young body couldn’t take this kind of abuse. She staggered to the bottom of the steps and collapsed onto the first one, giving the young man a weak, listless wave.

Hesitation was evident in his footsteps as he started down toward her.

"Um... I thought I was doomed this time. I never expected the punishment would turn out to be this." He stopped a few steps above her, pausing for a moment. "I thought only one person needed a guide. Did the two of you enter the Nest together?"

Mai Mingle sat frozen on the step. For several long seconds, her neck was too stiff to move.