Chapter 207: Chapter 171: Jin Xueli: Creative Ways to Court Death
It was unclear if the resident had originally intended to attack, but when it saw Jin Xueli, it suddenly froze.
Its forehead, eyebrows, and eyes, visible above the curtain’s sliding track, stared fixedly at Jin Xueli.
The lower half of its face grew longer and longer, like a ball of dough being slowly stretched out. Unable to bear the strain, the doughy flesh tore open with wisps and strings, revealing a long, narrow black hole.
A sentence emerged from within the black hole: "...What is that in your hand?"
Jin Xueli glanced at her secret weapon. She had paid a high price to have someone gather the materials, then had it custom-polished and forged. The fabrication alone had taken two months. She had just received the package after returning from the Nest, and this was the first time she was putting it to use.
’Who would have thought that something meant for dealing with residents would be needed in Blackmoor City?’
’Does Morando even know what it’s doing? What if this thing gets outside?’
"This... is a toy I brought for my cousin," Jin Xueli said after a moment’s thought. "You see, he’s a big guy, but he’s a kid at heart. I thought he could play with a toy while he was in the hospital..."
’As if. Who would tell a resident about their secret weapon?’
’Besides, I still have to assess the situation before deciding whether to fight. Even with my cooperation with Chaisi, I’m not about to throw my life away.’
"Such a little girl, and already such a liar. No wonder you’re a Hunter. You’re all bad news."
’Eh? It figured out my identity already? Is it because I wasn’t surprised when I saw it?’
’No, that doesn’t seem right.’
A normal person would pay attention to their opponent’s reaction, analyzing it to predict their next move, but residents rarely thought that way.
Their attitude could basically be summed up as, ’My existence is the natural order of things, so I do as I please.’ In other words, extreme egocentrism.
If a resident paid attention to a human’s reaction, there was only one reason: it could derive pleasure or gain an advantage from it. Otherwise, no matter how turbulent the human’s emotions, it would ignore them completely.
Jin Xueli thought for a moment and lowered her secret weapon.
"Take what you want. I won’t stop you."
"You couldn’t stop me anyway."
’...I really want to smash that arrogant, ugly face to pieces.’
"I have a question for you. What’s the name of this hospital you’re in?"
The resident’s lower body was lying flat on the bed, but its upper body was slowly getting off.
Yet the two parts remained connected, forming a tall, slender figure—though it was impossible to tell how.
Just a glance at the middle of its body made you feel as if your own consciousness was being bent, like a spoon in a bowl of water. Your mind, disoriented and dizzy, became displaced. No matter how many times you looked, you still couldn’t make out the true shape of its body.
"...Saint Louis Hospital."
The slender patient’s upper half slowly glided over to Chaisi’s side. The moment its long, thin fingers touched Chaisi’s chin, Jin Xueli snatched her hand back like a bolt of lightning.
"Saint Louis Hospital? You’re not lying to me?"
She recalled that hospital being a high-traffic entry point. Although she had never been there, she’d heard that people often ended up in Saint Louis Hospital after opening a Path.
’It thinks it’s still in Saint Louis Hospital, which means...’
’It’s not that a resident entered Blackmoor City, but that Morando connected a part of a Nest to the back of a hospital room door in Blackmoor City?’
’It seems only this one room is connected. I probably can’t enter the wider Nest from here.’
’So that’s how it is... The resident thinks it’s still in the Nest, which is why it assumes every human it sees is a Hunter.’
"Did anything happen here before you saw him?" Jin Xueli asked. "Did another Hunter come by? A young woman with short hair—hey, I’m talking to you!"
The slender resident ignored her. Its fingers had already taken her place, pinching Chaisi’s chin.
The moment its skin made contact, the unconscious Chaisi’s entire body convulsed as if electrocuted. His lips trembled, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and it seemed even his coma couldn’t suppress the urge to vomit.
Jin Xueli even started to worry. ’The great second-in-command of the Kai Family... if he chokes to death on his own vomit, what will they even write on his tombstone?’
The resident slowly lowered its face, which was about as long as a baseball bat. It took a deep breath just above his mouth.
"This is the taste yes yes this is it so stupid I love it so simple to control human minds simple minds mud-like cognition cognition cognition what cognition you have no fucking cognition so full of yourselves oh"
It was like the stuff that comes spewing out when a person gets drunk on a case of booze, bends over, and goes "BLEGHHH"—Jin Xueli even suspected she’d been splattered in the face.
It suddenly raised its hand and shoved the entire thing into the long, vertical black hole with jagged edges on its face.
Stunned, Jin Xueli watched as it pulled a tiny human head out from the depths of the hole in its face.
The head was the size of a quarter, complete with facial features and ears, and was attached to a tiny body. It was completely bare, with no hair or sexual organs, making it impossible to tell if it was male or female.
Held between two long, thin fingers, the little person thrashed about, screaming horribly. But because it was so small, even its wretched cries sounded like high-pitched cartoon sound effects:
"Let me go, I’m begging you, let me go! I’ll never try to steal your Illusion again! I have a wife and kids, let me go home—"
"Nonsense."
The resident looked at the little person with an almost loving gaze. "You have a terrible personality and you’re ugly. Who would have kids with you?"
"Wh-what are you doing?" Jin Xueli stammered.
She looked at the unconscious Chaisi, then at the tiny person descending toward his mouth. ’Is it going to put the little person in his mouth...?’
’I feel like I should do something, quickly, to help Chaisi.’
But amidst the fear, confusion, dizziness, and a strange sense of amusement, a powerful feeling of unreality washed over her. ’No need to force myself to be brave. Maybe if I wait a little longer, I’ll just wake up.’
"This Illusion isn’t easy to get."
Seeing that she was indeed obediently staying out of the way, the resident actually started chatting with her. "After it was captured by a human, it only recognizes humans. Isn’t that forgetting its roots? It can only jump from one human to another using a specific conversation as a bridge. So disobedient. It’s not as easy to get as the thing that old woman had. Ah, what a pity."
’I get it now.’ No wonder Morando had to connect to the Nest and use a resident to snatch the Illusion.
’Never mind that Chaisi is unconscious and can’t speak; even when he’s awake, he’d never cooperate with me to finish a specific conversation. There’s no normal way to get that thing out of Chaisi’s mouth. Morando plans to double-cross him.’
"So how are you going to get the Illusion out?" Jin Xueli asked, tightening her grip on her weapon. "Make the little person talk to him? What will it say?"
The resident, holding the constantly screaming and begging little person, brutally shoved him into Chaisi’s mouth like a wad of rags.
Amidst the shrieks, the little person struggled and thrashed violently, bumping and crashing against Chaisi’s teeth, its head breaking and bleeding. Chaisi’s teeth were splattered with tiny flecks of blood.
"I’m the best at catching Illusions. Even an Illusion that only recognizes human speech can be tricked by the little people I command..."
The resident spoke as it happily lowered its head, aiming its eyeballs—which looked remarkably like heels—at Chaisi. "Quick, find the Illusion, catch it, and bring it out to me."
Its hands were still pressed to Chaisi’s face. Pinkish foam, mixed with blood, gurgled and bubbled from the corners of his mouth. Even if Jin Xueli wasn’t a doctor, she could tell that if this continued, Chaisi wasn’t going to make it.
The decision to save him wasn’t because of the mutually beneficial partnership between her and Chaisi—or at least, not just because of that.
It was because she and the man lying on the hospital bed, Chaisi, were both human. And the thing opposite them was not.
"You’re so patient, chatting for this long."
She complimented the resident. Why not?
"By the way, let me ask you something else. Did you believe in any religion when you were alive?"
"Hm?"
The resident rolled up its heel-like eyeballs. Surprise seemed to seep from the calluses around their edges. "...Religion? You mean religion? What a boring thing. Hmm... the flesh I was born from, I think it believed in Christianity?"
’Good, a major one.’
Gritting her teeth, Jin Xueli twirled the weapon in her hand, suddenly raised it high, and swung it horizontally at the resident’s face.
"What are you doing, little girl? So naiv—"
The resident spewed out eight words with extreme speed, but before the ninth could come out, the weapon smashed into one of its heel-like eyeballs.
"A hammer? A toy hammer can’t do anything to m—"
The resident suddenly stopped.
In the dead silence, the callus above the other eyeball folded down, like an eyelid, and blinked.
It turned toward the adjacent eyeball, looking at its companion.
The other eyeball had been struck squarely by a dark, heavy, hammer-like weapon and was now slightly caved in.
The next second, the hospital room was completely filled by the resident’s howl.
Hearing its howl was a suffocating kind of terror: like waking up one morning and finding you can’t open your eyes.
You’re disconnected from your body, your thoughts trapped in absolute blackness. You can never see the world again, you can’t utter a single word, your body is paralyzed. Yet you know you will live on forever, buried alive in an eternal, ruin-like darkness.
...Panting sounds, seemingly her own, finally began to seep through the ruin-like darkness.
The resident’s howl, weaker than before, was still spewing out words:
"What is this what is this what is this"
Jin Xueli struggled to regain her vision, only to find she had fallen to the floor at some point, knocking a hospital bed askew.
Her secret weapon had been flung halfway across the room by the resident and now lay in a corner by the door. Up near the ceiling, the resident was twisting and shrieking—"What did you use? It hurts it hurts it hurts I hate it it’s an indescribable discomfort like the feeling of being insulted made physical so weird it hurts I hate it I’m definitely going to turn you into a little person to catch Illusions too"
’...You’ll have to catch me first.’
Gritting her teeth, Jin Xueli pushed herself up, lunged onto Chaisi’s bed, and grabbed the human foot dangling from his lips, preparing to yank it out with all her might.
SWISH.
The curtain of the opposite bed was suddenly ripped open, revealing a face that had apparently reached its limit.
"Are you done messing around?" Morando roared furiously. "You really have a lot of ways to get yourself killed!"
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