Illusion Report

Chapter 218: Chapter 181: Mai Mingle’s Answer Under the Brilliant Starry Night

Even if she couldn’t clearly form the thought ’I’m saved,’ hope was an instinctual fuel that set her blood racing. But in the next second, the driver did something unexpected, yet perfectly logical.

It reached out again and, with a CLICK, turned the radio back off.

Mai Mingle sat stunned in her seat.

Her thoughts were still ricocheting like a ping-pong ball between four high walls.

After being pulled back into the car, she was no longer leaning against the window. Instead, her body was slumped toward the driver’s seat, bringing the car radio right into her line of sight—so close, and yet so far.

The driver was mumbling, "I’m in the car. I can just drive away... You can keep looking. By the time you find me, she’ll have already melted in my seat. I wonder what kind of resident will be born..."

It was a creature of action. The taxi immediately started up again, driving silently into the night ahead.

The car radio remained silent.

She didn’t know how long they had been driving—Mai Mingle couldn’t perceive or even guess at the passage of time, so it could have been a few minutes or a few hours—when a dark shadow suddenly loomed over her. The driver was leaning in close.

"Hmm? Why hasn’t her body started melting yet?"

It reached out, as if to touch Mai Mingle, but its hand stopped in mid-air. "The time should be long past... Do humans have shells? Maybe her shell is too hard..."

’My connection to my body isn’t completely severed.’

’My connection to my body isn’t completely severed.’

Mai Mingle thought it again and again.

The driver seemed to make up its mind. "How annoying. So stubborn, just sitting in my car like a big lump. It’s been so long, and you still refuse to melt. So shameless. I can’t wait for you. Since you won’t melt, I’ll just have to start a—"

Its voice suddenly stretched and slowed, like a summons cast into the vast, hazy darkness outside. At the same time, the taxi accelerated.

"Car..."

The taxi entered an intersection ahead and screeched to a halt right in the middle of it. Inertia threw Mai Mingle forward, and she slammed into the control panel.

’Was it luck? Did the taxi not stop properly? Or had her will to survive finally spurred some last remnant of her body’s functions into action?’

She couldn’t process any of it. All she knew was that as the driver drew out the next word of its summons, two things happened at once.

"...crash..."

From the road to Mai Mingle’s right, two piercing white lights cut through the darkness. Another car, having appeared from nowhere, was speeding toward the taxi’s passenger side. In an instant, the intense glare bleached her entire field of vision. She thought she could hear the sound of metal striking metal, twisting, and crushing bone.

But she hadn’t truly heard it.

What Mai Mingle truly heard was the faint crackle of static from the car’s radio.

The radio had turned on again.

"Car crash, car crash, car crash, car crash, car crash, car crash!"

The driver suddenly shrieked, its voice rising in a frenzy. The two words "car crash," echoing repeatedly through the cab, drowned out the crackle of the static.

The next second, everything stopped dead.

The driver’s cries ceased.

The car hurtling toward the passenger seat froze just inches away, as if a movie had been suddenly paused.

The headlights poured in like a torrent of white, a powerful flood that washed away a patch of the night, revealing every last detail in the darkness.

In the corner of Mai Mingle’s vision, a figure stood within that torrent of white light between the two cars, a hazy, indistinct silhouette.

The driver turned its head to the right.

The figure walked toward the passenger side, step by step. Its shadow grew, looming over the window.

Mai Mingle’s forehead was still pressed against the control panel. She could only barely catch the figure in her peripheral vision, unable to make out any details. Suddenly, the passenger door was pulled open. A blast of cool night air and blinding light rushed in, making Mai Mingle shudder.

"Well done,"

a low, gentle male voice said from outside. "I’m impressed. Even in this state, you refuse to give up."

The driver spoke up hesitantly from the side. "...Thank you?"

The male voice—the same one from the radio that had sounded so composed—paused. For a moment, it seemed he didn’t know how to respond.

"...I was talking about her."

"Oh."

The driver seemed to turn and look at Mai Mingle, then suddenly asked, "Why isn’t she melting? If she had melted earlier, it would’ve been too late by the time you got here. Is there something special about her? Is that why you value her so much?"

"Be quiet."

The man’s voice from outside sounded almost amused. "You muddle-headed, senseless things... You know only how to wander the Nest, driven by desire and instinct. There’s a certain naive charm to it."

Mai Mingle felt someone grip her shoulder and begin to pull her from the car—but the location of the man’s voice didn’t change. He didn’t sound like he had moved at all.

The driver seemed to stare, unblinking. For some reason, it made no move to stop them. Perhaps it knew that any resistance now would be a futile struggle.

"Failing to kill her this time doesn’t mean anything."

It mumbled, "As long as she enters the Nest again... all of us will hunt her down with everything we have... No, even if she doesn’t enter the Nest, we’ll do everything in our power to kill her first..."

Mai Mingle was half-carried, half-supported out of the car and laid down on the side of the road.

She never got a clear look at the man who had been speaking. Now, her eyes could only gaze up at the star-dusted night sky of the Nest.

...The night sky of the Nest was terrifyingly beautiful.

"You don’t want the Nest to be ruled, yet she is the only candidate with no interest whatsoever in ruling it... And still, you’ve designated her as your primary target, the one you must kill first at all costs."

The man’s voice held a hint of a smile as he continued, "In your absolute stupidity, you’ve paradoxically made a brilliant move."

"That’s because we know! The moment she dies, you’ll—"

SLAM! The taxi door was slammed shut, cutting off the driver’s words.

The man from the radio clearly didn’t want the driver to finish. It was impossible to know what he did, but after the door was shut, the taxi fell utterly silent, as if abandoned.

Mai Mingle heard footsteps approaching her.

They were footsteps that sounded completely human: steady and calm, one step after another. She could even make out the distinct sound of heels striking the pavement. This meant the person approaching had feet—a noteworthy detail here in the Nest.

"You’ve been through a lot,"

The man from the radio was now standing right beside Mai Mingle, yet she still couldn’t see him. "You’re human again now. Do you still want to join the ’Nest Dominance Game’?"

’I can’t answer him,’ Mai Mingle thought. ’I only have four thoughts—’

Wait a minute.

’Haven’t I had more than four thoughts for a while now?’

’When did I become able to think again?’

"Still can’t speak? Then let’s just watch the night sky for a little longer... Such a brilliant, vast universe. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?"

The man’s voice came closer, and with a rustle of fabric, he seemed to sit down beside her. "The night sky in the Nest, just like the sky over Blackmoor City, has no visible stars."

’What? But the sky before my eyes is clearly full of stars—’

"The stars you’re seeing are from my childhood memories. I’ve rearranged the starlight from my memory. If you watch them for a while, you’ll gradually recover."

The Milky Way tilted, reflecting in Mai Mingle’s pupils like the image of another brilliant, boundless universe.

"...I’ll join."

After what felt like an eternity, Mai Mingle heard herself answer in a hoarse voice.