Illusion Report

Mai Mingle’s gaze swept around the bathroom before settling on the back of the makeup-applying woman’s head.

"Why?" she asked out of the blue.

The back of the woman applying makeup remained perfectly still. "...What ’why’?"

"I don’t understand."

Mai Mingle had never heard of anything like this before. "I want to leave. What gives you the right to stop me? And what’s all this about rules and clues? I never agreed to play along, did I? Doesn’t this sort of thing require mutual consent? Since when is it okay to force a deal on someone?"

The back of the head fell silent.

"Also, you’re the one who lost her face. Why do I have to find it? What does that have to do with me leaving? It’s not like your face is the key to opening the door for me, is it?"

After nearly ten seconds, the woman applying makeup slowly asked, "Have you... never been to a Nest before?"

"Of course I have," Mai Mingle said, wagging a finger at the woman, though she had no idea if the creature could see her. "So don’t you go trying to trick me like some kind of newbie."

"You must find my face to leave," the woman applying makeup repeated, emphasizing the point.

"And that’s why I’m asking you *why*," Mai Mingle said with a sigh. "What’s the connection between the two? What gives you the right? Look, I could tell you that you have to wash my feet before you’re allowed to eat. Would you be happy about that?"

"N-No, I wouldn’t..."

"So there you have it."

A chilly silence descended upon the bathroom for a long while.

"Have you never... played a game?" The woman applying makeup finally seemed to find the right words. "For a game to progress, you must accept a quest—"

"You mean a game like tag?"

"No, I mean video games, console games, escape rooms—"

"Never heard of any of them."

The woman applying makeup fell silent again.

"...You know what epic fantasy novels are, right? *The Lord of the Rings*?"

"Ah, I’ve seen that one." Mai Mingle was genuinely surprised she could discuss human cultural works with a woman who was nothing but a back inside a Nest. "You’re a fan?"

"No... Frodo accepted the quest of the Magic Ring and began his journey..."

"I get it," Mai Mingle said. "But I’m not Frodo, and I don’t want to accept the quest to find a face."

She didn’t make it a flat refusal. ’What if I said, ’I refuse,’ and this resident flew into a rage?’

"No! You must go find it!" The woman’s tone hardened. "If you want to leave, you have to find my face."

"Why? Why not borrow one from the lady in the stall? I don’t think she’s using hers."

Mai Mingle wasn’t just trying to be difficult; she genuinely didn’t understand. Besides, she felt that if she could figure this part out, it might help with the whole "finding a face" task.

After all, it seemed like finding this stupid face was unavoidable.

The woman’s back remained frozen for several seconds before she finally spoke again, her voice thin. "I’ve already told you. This is a restaurant. It can operate by the rules, or it can operate without them. Your choice activated the rules, the logic, and the clues. That’s why my face was forced to part ways with me. It’s a consequence of the rules."

Mai Mingle’s attention—and her ears—perked up instantly.

"Let me ask you, how am I supposed to eat without a face? Isn’t a restaurant a place for eating?" The woman’s thin voice suddenly became high, shrill, and rapid. "MY FACE MY FACE MY FACE I NEED TO EAT I NEED TO EAT I NEED TO EAT—"

Mai Mingle instinctively took half a step back and was about to cover her ears when the back of the woman’s head became calm once more.

"I must eat enough food in time," she said slowly. "Because on this restaurant’s territory, there are several other diners. I need to eat enough food before they do so I can continue to occupy this territory... Once you’ve found my face, I will begin eating in earnest to show my gratitude. After I’ve pushed the other diners aside, I will allow you to leave this restaurant alive."

"Wait a minute. You mean after you get your face back, you *still* have to ’push the other diners aside’ before I can leave? What if you can’t push them aside?"

"Then you have all the more reason to find my face as soon as possible. The sooner I start eating, the sooner I can let you go."

’Even if this is a lie, I have no way to verify it.’

Mai Mingle’s nerves tensed. She asked, "You said ’find my face.’ What, is there more than one?"

"I only have one face," the woman said from the back of her head. "There’s a themed event happening in the Nest recently... In response to this event, my face shattered into seven pieces and fell in various places around the restaurant. Your task is to follow the clues and collect all seven pieces of my face."

"What themed event? The Nest holds events?" Mai Mingle knew she should be hurrying, but her curiosity was piqued.

’Besides, it’s not easy to find a resident you can actually communicate with; how can I not try to dig for as much information as possible?’

"It seems you aren’t one of the Hunters who received a special summons from the Nest. Ha. Ha. Ha." The woman’s thin voice spoke. "Since the Nest did not issue you a ’summons,’ you are not qualified to know. Don’t worry, not understanding the themed event won’t affect your search. Now, will you go find the face?"

Just a moment ago, she thought she only had to find one face. Now, in the span of a few sentences, the difficulty had multiplied by seven.

"You have to at least give me some clues, right?" Mai Mingle sighed. "Please, just tell me everything you’re supposed to tell me."

The woman’s explanation took a worrisomely long time.

Mai Mingle firmly believed that the faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory. The moment the woman finished saying, "All resources are available for use," she immediately went to the makeup bag on the counter, rummaged through it to find the woman’s light brown eyebrow pencil, and went back into the bathroom stall. The female mannequin’s head turned on its shoulders to watch her tear off a few squares of toilet paper.

As she leaned over the counter, gently writing on the toilet paper, the back of the other "Mai Mingle" at the far end of the counter remained standing perfectly still.

Under the gaze of the back of her own head, Mai Mingle jotted down row after row of keywords on the paper.

"The rules maintain a certain fairness. The seven pieces of the face are all hidden in places that you, as an ordinary restaurant patron, would be able to see. They won’t be hidden under the floor tiles behind the bar, inside a refrigerator in the back kitchen, or on the ceiling... And unless you get a specific clue, they won’t be hidden in other patrons’ clothes or bags either."

The woman seemed to feel this point was important, because she emphasized it again. "Generally speaking, they are in places that an ordinary patron could spot just by taking a careful walk around the restaurant. Do you understand?"

’Those are some much-needed restrictions. Otherwise, with the face shattered into seven small pieces in a place as big as this restaurant, it would take forever to find them.’

The first piece of the face is the forehead, including both eyebrows.

The second piece is the entire nose.

The third and fourth pieces are the left and right eyes, respectively. The fifth piece is the section from the philtrum to the chin, including the mouth.

The left and right cheeks are the sixth and seventh pieces.

Clues and hints are scattered throughout the restaurant. They might come from the text on a menu, or from the conversations of dining patrons... It would be up to Mai Mingle to unearth them one by one.

During the search, Mai Mingle possesses "priority." In other words, she can search however she wants without worrying about restaurant staff or other patrons stopping her.

"The restaurant is my place of residence to begin with," the woman chuckled thinly. "I’m asking you to find something inside my own home, so of course no one will stop you. However, the longer you take, the weaker your priority becomes. If you can’t find all the pieces within thirty minutes, the other diners who want to take my territory can start taking measures to hinder you."

’Your hold on this territory doesn’t seem very strong, then,’ Mai Mingle thought, but she swallowed the words and only asked, "What kind of measures?"

"For the first thirty minutes, every word they speak will have one of only two qualities: it will either be a clue or a hint, or it will be useless nonsense.

"However, starting from the second half-hour, the words they speak will become nonsense, lies, and traps. They will no longer provide clues or hints.

"Starting from the third half-hour, their actions will be unrestricted. They cannot kill you directly, but they can use indirect methods to set ’bombs’ and ’dead ends’ in the restaurant, or they can commission a proxy to act against you."

Mai Mingle never expected that she would have to risk her life to escape what seemed like a relatively non-critical environment. "Bombs? Dead ends? A proxy?"

"As for bombs, you can imagine them as places you shouldn’t touch, words you shouldn’t say, things you shouldn’t do, and so on. You’ll need to discover the specific forbidden zones from the clues and hints. They will try to lure you into touching a forbidden zone. Once you fall for it, it’s the same as detonating a ’bomb’... I don’t need to tell you what happens after it detonates."

The back of the head let out another thin laugh. Even though Mai Mingle was finding its face for it, the thought of her death seemed to bring it great pleasure.

"Dead ends are easy to understand. If you had crawled out from under the stall door just now, you would have been on a dead-end path. There will always be a warning on a dead-end path. For example, didn’t you just see a reflection of your own back moving away from you? However, the warnings on dead ends set by other patrons may not be as obvious as that one, so you must be very careful."

’So, if I leave the bathroom and don’t find all seven pieces within an hour, I’ll have to face ’bombs,’ ’dead ends,’ and... ’ "What’s a proxy?"

"You are my proxy," said the woman applying makeup. "The other diners might also find other Hunters to act as their proxies. If there happen to be any unlucky Hunters nearby, that is."

’So I might end up in a confrontation with other Hunters?’

’I hope I don’t run into the Morgan Family’s Hunters face-to-face. If they’ve been out in the restaurant this whole time, this could get interesting.’

Seeing that the woman applying makeup was nearly finished with her explanation, Mai Mingle sighed inwardly, carefully folded the pieces of toilet paper, and put them away.

The woman didn’t even have a photo of herself, so Mai Mingle would have to search without a reference.

"Alright, I guess I’ll go find your face now."

After saying a sentence she had never once uttered in her eighty-six years of life, Mai Mingle asked, "Are you just going to wait for me here? What if I have a question? Can I come back and ask you?"

"Yes, I’ll be waiting right here for you. Every time you find a piece, bring it to me immediately. You can come back and ask questions, but don’t forget, the more time you waste going back and forth, the worse it will be for you."

The woman applying makeup gave a thin laugh. "I’m so looking forward to our collaboration. You want to go home early too, don’t you?"