Chapter 421 - 366: Brianna: Special Guest

Sweet dreams never last, and neither do salon makeovers.

Brianna had never stared into a mirror with such focus. She pinched her ear, touched her eyelid, and gently tugged a strand of hair. Then she opened her mouth, inspecting her teeth and throat.

...Everything was so natural, so real. It was as if she had died looking just like this.

It was as if she'd accidentally stumbled into a kaleidoscope, a house of mirrors, where every reflection she had seen before was just an illusion. Then, amidst the dazzling confusion, she had turned and, completely unprepared, caught a glimpse of the real Brianna.

'This is how I'm supposed to look, isn't it?'

But the beautician said, "Now, don't you start crying again. You'll ruin the styling, and it won't last very long to begin with."

Brianna lifted her head in a daze. She heard the words, but for a moment, they didn't make sense.

"As for the styling, it's a miracle if it even lasts a few days." The beautician's eyes crinkled between their bandages. "If you like it, how about buying this portable kit? Just slap it on your face for an instant new look. It's my own exclusive product."

"Does it... does it look like this?" Brianna asked, pointing to her face.

"Without my personal touch, the effect won't be nearly as good."

Brianna lay on the ground and was quiet for a while. She thought she would feel disappointed, resentful... but she felt nothing of the sort.

She had already crawled such a long, long way.

Like an exhausted traveler, she could finally close her eyes and drift off to sleep for a little while, beneath the stars and upon the waves. That was enough—even if she woke tomorrow to find herself still a castaway, lost at sea.

She said, her voice quiet and gentle, "In that case... please make the styling product's effect closer to Jin Xueli."

The comfort of a dream couldn't smooth the coarse road beneath her, nor could it sweep away the sharp gravel and hard bricks that scraped and cut her body as she crawled.

Brianna knew perfectly well that it was only a styling. In the long run, it was useless. What needed to be done still had to be done.

As she hung the kit around her neck, had the Vulture hoist Jacqueline's body onto its back, and prepared to leave, Brianna still didn't dare look at the mirrors on either side. They were full-length mirrors, and they would show more than just her face.

In her peripheral vision, a faint, flesh-colored shadow rustled past, slithering like a long worm.

And yet, a breath of something almost gentle lingered in Brianna's chest. 'Perhaps this is what people call 'solace,'' she thought.

She couldn't bear to get rid of the "Brianna" styling so soon, so she moved very slowly.

The Vulture had nothing better to do, so it didn't rush her. Having only recently gained consciousness, it was still new to and curious about everything. Whatever Brianna did, it just tagged along to watch.

By the time the one and a half residents finally crossed half the Nest and returned to the red brick building where Jin Xueli was staying, it was already December 2nd. Brianna sat on the roadside and interrogated the Vulture again. Seeing that she really couldn't get anything about Jin Xueli's past out of it, she heaved a frustrated sigh.

"Is my styling still okay?" she asked. She wanted to touch her face but didn't dare, afraid she might mess it up.

"It's holding up," the Vulture answered, sizing her up. As it spoke, its own face began to subtly morph into Brianna's.

"Change it back," Brianna said. "Don't make me punch your face into the back of your skull."

The Vulture's face, like shifting sand, froze with a crooked eyebrow and half a mouth.

She looked up at the red brick building and sighed again.

'If the styling were ruined, I could just bite the bullet and slap on the kit that looks more like Jin Xueli,' she thought. 'But it's not ruined, and I just can't bring myself to do it...'

From a dark window on the first floor, a shadow resembling a ball of white dough gradually emerged.

The thing tilted its head, seeming to study Brianna from a distance.

'What's it looking at me for?' Brianna thought, raising an eyebrow slightly.

'Fine, don't let me in. But you can't even let a person sit on the street outside?'

The thing stared relentlessly, stepping closer to the window until it pressed itself against the glass. It cupped its hands around its eyes, its White Dough-like face flattened against the pane. Jin Xueli's features flickered over it like a hesitant shadow, wavering one moment and vanishing the next.

An idea sparked in Brianna's mind.

She glanced at the dim sky, the hazy streetlights, and then back at the White Dough in the window. For a moment, she was at a complete loss.

The Nest had a habit of suddenly adhering to common sense in the most inexplicable ways—as if it would randomly pick a few anchor points in the human world's framework and then continue to twist, contort, and warp everything else into a chaotic mess...

'So... could it be that the thing in the house can't see me clearly because the light is so bad?'

'Does Jin Xueli know her own safe spot? That would be so ridiculously logical... Probably not, right?'

'Otherwise, she wouldn't have dared to hide an Illusion in here.'

Her resolve set, Brianna immediately turned, crawled into the garden, climbed the steps, and knocked on the door.

The thing from the window moved to the door and lowered a face—Jin Xueli's face—toward her. "Jin Xueli" stared at her, its expression full of confusion.

"Open up," Brianna said, tilting her chin toward the door. "I need to get something inside."

The White Dough pointed to its own face and gave a thumbs-up. Then it pointed at her and turned its thumb down.

Brianna's heart sank.

Halfway down, however, the White Dough's hand froze. It hesitated, its hand bobbing in mid-air a few times before it slowly pulled back, as if unable to make a final judgment.

'Maybe there's still hope?'

"I'm Jin Xueli. After successfully clearing the Nest's 'Sliding Screen' scenario, my promised reward was a room here."

Brianna didn't know if it could hear her or if it would be fooled, but it wouldn't hurt to try. "Didn't I just get placed here a few days ago right after entering the Nest?"

A look of acknowledgment appeared on "Jin Xueli's" face, and it even nodded. It seemed to feel it had agreed too quickly, because it couldn't help but glance behind Brianna.

She knew exactly what it was looking at.

"I was careless and got hit," Brianna said. "So I need to get inside quickly and use the Illusion to save myself."

"Jin Xueli" looked at her and finally began shaking its head violently.

'...So it didn't work after all.' Brianna watched it retreat and disappear from the window, unable to suppress her disappointment. 'I couldn't fool it... I'm still not similar enough to Jin Xueli.'

Just as she was growing frustrated, she heard a CLICK from behind the door. The lock had opened.

Brianna stared in a stupor as the door swung open, revealing a deathly still, empty, and dim side room. It didn't seem very large—not the first-floor living room she had imagined.

'I can go in? But wasn't the White Dough, now nowhere to be seen, just shaking its head?'

She slowly and tentatively crawled through the door, sliding silently into the hazy darkness like a snake.

...The darkness was filled with people.

Brianna's heart slammed against her ribs. For an instant, every hair on her body stood on end. Then she remembered she was already dead and had no reason to be afraid.

She crawled forward one step andtherewerestickyfilthynailsyellow-blackinstepspressedtothegroundheelsandanklesdraggingandscrapingscrapescrapescrapingtorethehemofadresssheoncelovedtheskirttornlikethecrackedfaceofkinandfriendstakeastepback.

Brianna squeezed her eyes shut, steadying her mind.

There were too many things in the darkness.

Every one of them was shrieking and wailing in the dead silence, at a frequency just beyond the range of human hearing.

'No wonder... No wonder the entry requirements for this room weren't so strict. No wonder Jin Xueli felt safe hiding the Illusion here.'

Any other Hunter would have been finished the moment they walked in—because humans can barely perceive the things in the darkness.

The entire room seemed to be heaving, screaming, utterly disappointed, hatingBriannabecausesshehadcrystallinelensesthatcouldperceivelightwhydidn'tsheturnonthelightwantsthelighttoseetobeseentheyonlywantedtobeseenonceseenneverto becleansed.

'Get out,' Brianna thought. 'Stop crowdingmecrowdingmecrowdingme!!'

Even though they didn't physically obstruct her, they still crammed themselves into every corner of her mind, making even the simplest thought feel difficult and sluggish.

She endured it, fumbling her way forward inch by inch.

Her body was blocking the door, preventing it from closing, yet the light from outside failed to illuminate the room.

The room was cool and dark, sprouting countless light switches that panted and slithered, acting coy, tappingpressingrubbingagainstherbrainaskingifshecouldjustflickoneofthemjustonceoncewouldbenicejustoncepleeeeeeease.

'The Vulture said... Jin Xueli hid an Illusion in a cabinet and locked it.'

Brianna didn't have a key, but she didn't need one. She found the cabinet's hinges and, with a bit of force, ripped the entire door off. 'As for whether Jin Xueli will notice... what a joke. Forget the Illusion; Jin Xueli herself will be mine sooner or later. Why would I care about this?'

Sure enough, there was something inside.

She reached in and felt it. It was square, cold to the touch, and had... huh?

'An old-fashioned antenna?'

'What kind of thing has... wait, what's this I'm touching now? Are these speaker holes?'

A jolt of excitement blew Brianna's mind completely blank. It took her several seconds to finally recover her senses.

'...The target Illusion, the "Radio," is in Jin Xueli's possession?'

'In all of Blackmoor City, out of all the contestants, not a single one realized that the seemingly harmless Jin Xueli was actually holding the target Illusion, the "Radio"?'

'No wonder Jin Xueli, with no resources or support to speak of, was drafted into this game...'

Now she also understood why the White Dough had shaken its head. It wasn't refusing her entry; it was indicating that this Illusion couldn't save her.

But it was wrong. The Illusion itself might not be able to save her, but it was a part of her path to salvation.

Brianna's mouth felt a little dry. Just as she reached out to grab the radio, it suddenly crackled with static—ZZT-ZZT—as if picking up a signal.

"Welcome to Nest 173 Radio,"

The radio waves slowly coalesced into a man's voice, which drifted eerily around the room. "You're listening to 'A Virtual Guide to the Infinite Illusion Realm.' I'm your host. Today is December 5th, 2026, and our show features a special guest by the name of Brianna."