Chapter 463 - 405: Mai Mingle: The Old Lady Is Online Again

Chapter 463: Chapter 405: Mai Mingle: The Old Lady Is Online Again

"We’ve known each other for so long. Why act like this? Honestly."

The resident let go of the corner of its long robe. It began to drag its feet, SPLASHING through the standing water as it walked toward the two of them, one step at a time.

"What’s all this talk about who strikes first? We’re all good friends here. Whether I kill you or you get killed by me, it’s just a life, right? Good friends don’t need to keep score like that, I don’t think."

It walked slowly. By the time it strolled over to where Mercury had been standing, she had already retreated a good distance away. Not only that, but as if to test it, she unloaded a few seconds’ worth of bullets into its body.

The resident was surprisingly cooperative. It was as if it had been suddenly caught in a slow-motion movie scene. Its hands swung high in the air, its body jerking with the impact of the bullets as it staggered back one step, then another. Amidst the white splashes kicked up by countless shell casings, it finally crashed heavily to the ground.

Mai Mingle and Mercury both fell into a brief silence.

The resident pretended to be dead, its tongue lolling out as it mumbled, "Are you done shooting?"

No one said a word.

"If you’re done, I’m getting up," it said, scrambling to its feet. "I mean, who gets it? Getting shot is even more painful than getting dumped out of the blue."

Mercury let out a sudden laugh. ’She’s probably just furious,’ Mai Mingle thought.

"Listen up,"

She stared at the resident and shouted, so loudly that it took Mai Mingle a moment to realize she was talking to her. "From now on, do not use your phone. You don’t have a second one, do you?"

"Just the one, and you have it," Mai Mingle said.

"Good. There are no computers here, so I don’t need to remind you about that." The resident didn’t move, so Mercury didn’t either, just kept her eyes fixed on it. "Even if it casts its Nest network, as long as you don’t use a terminal with a data connection and don’t connect to the Nest network, it can’t invade you."

’...Mai Mingle didn’t understand a single word.’

"But that doesn’t mean we’re safe."

Mercury spoke quickly, clearly wanting Mai Mingle to memorize the information as fast as possible. "From now on, you also absolutely cannot run around randomly. It has another way to force a connection to the Nest network: by physically setting up ’APs’—wireless local area network access points—in your immediate environment. A router is a type of AP."

’My head is full of question marks,’ Mai Mingle thought. ’I recognize every word, but put them together and it’s just gibberish.’

She only understood the "don’t run around randomly" part. But if they couldn’t run, what were they supposed to do?

Could they possibly kill the resident?

Mercury was far away, the night was dark, and in the heavy rain, she couldn’t see Mai Mingle’s confusion. She continued to explain.

"I’ve never seen it set up a physical AP before because it never needed to and never had the chance. It’s different now. I don’t know how long it’s been lurking nearby, how many APs it’s set up, or even what they look like. If we step on one, we’ll be forced to connect to the Nest network, and then it’s over."

The resident, which had been standing still, now turned its head toward Mai Mingle and asked with great concern, "Get it?"

’So it just means there are traps nearby!’

"Don’t you know how to avoid them?"

As Mai Mingle shouted, the resident began walking toward her again, one step at a time, just as leisurely as before.

She didn’t dare to move recklessly, but she also didn’t dare to stand still. So, for every step the resident took, she cautiously took one step back, the two of them locked in an intense staring contest the entire time.

’Why isn’t it in a hurry?’

"What if it attacks us with brute force? If we can’t recognize the AP and can’t run, what do we do?"

Mercury was silent for two seconds. "We have to find at least one AP."

She didn’t elaborate, but Mai Mingle understood.

Mercury didn’t have a better idea. But if they could find one AP, it meant they would know its form. And if they knew its form, they could avoid more of them while escaping.

But right now, in the vast, dark rain, everything between heaven and earth seemed submerged. It was hard enough just to see each other’s positions—how were they supposed to find something on the ground when they didn’t even know its size or shape?

What’s more, the phone was with Mercury, who had now turned on its flashlight. Mai Mingle had nothing.

’...I might not have one, but the driver should, right?’

Mai Mingle held up a finger at the nearby resident and said, "You, wait a minute."

"Oh, okay. I respect my elders and cherish the young."

The resident actually stopped, ever so cooperatively. Sometimes, Mai Mingle couldn’t even get angry at this thing. All she felt was a sense of powerlessness mixed with amusement and anxiety.

’There definitely isn’t an AP near the driver.’

When the resident first appeared, it was standing opposite the driver and never got close to him. Of course, that didn’t mean it hadn’t secretly blanketed the area with traps beforehand. It was just that if there had been an AP on the ground then, the driver, who was still human, should have been caught in it.

That being said, Mai Mingle still tried to minimize the number of times she touched the ground. She must have looked ridiculous, like the lead swan in a Ballet, stretching out her legs and leaping again and again. When she finally landed next to the driver, she nearly slipped and fell into the rainwater.

"Pfft."

The resident was right beside her, clearly enunciating the onomatopoeia for a snicker. "Pfft, pfft."

’When did it catch up to me?’

Mai Mingle whipped her head around. The face, covered in eyeballs, was almost pressed against her own.

Her reaction in that instant was more akin to instinct.

Knowing full well bullets were useless against it, Mai Mingle still fired a long burst of white muzzle flashes at it. The resident was sent flailing, stumbling backward, and even shouted over the gunfire, "So painful, so painful! It’s kind of a masochistic thrill, you know? Like when you start picking at your skin and just can’t stop!"

Although the bullets couldn’t harm it, their kinetic energy still knocked it back a short distance.

Taking advantage of the distance she’d created, Mai Mingle quickly reached out and rummaged through the driver’s pockets. Luckily, he hadn’t left his phone in the truck but had stuffed it into a side pocket.

Although she hadn’t understood Mercury’s explanation, one thing was clear: it was safe to just turn on the flashlight.

The sudden beam of light was like a tunnel opening in the darkness, guiding her gaze to the road, the sidewalk beside it, the nearby shops... and to the resident, which was once again walking toward her, one step at a time, within the column of light.

The reason it hadn’t just used brute force to swat Mai Mingle dead was likely because it found that boring. It was far more amusing for it to "invade" and torment them with that Nest network thing.

At least, according to the information in Mai Mingle’s head, countless residents disliked using direct, crude force.

For a Hunter, the choice of "to toy with or not" could sometimes mean the difference between life and death—like right now.

But how long could this sliver of a chance last?

"Oh, you’ll never find it," the resident said, laughing in the beam of the flashlight.

There was limited real estate on its face. When it opened its mouth, the eyeballs that had been there now dangled behind its teeth, peering at Mai Mingle from inside its oral cavity. "Because you’re standing on it."

In Mai Mingle’s peripheral vision, Mercury, who had been searching the ground, froze.

"Who are you trying to fool?" Mai Mingle said, her voice lacking confidence.

She still didn’t know what an AP was, but she at least knew there was nothing under her feet.

"It’s true, it’s really true."

The eyeballs on its face and in its mouth all stared at Mai Mingle. The phone was still hanging from its ear, and the eyeball in its ear seemed unable to look away from the screen for even a second. "I anticipated your anticipation, so I put an AP next to this man ahead of time. It’s the old lady’s first time on the internet! Welcome to the Nest network!"

’...Huh?’

Mercury had now stopped completely. She turned her head, staring blankly in the direction of Mai Mingle and the resident. The driver stood silently in place.

For a brief moment, the four figures in the rainy night were all motionless—until the resident was the first to break the silence. It slapped its thigh, laughing, and turned to yell at Mercury, "Sweetheart, see how good I am to you? I’m only grabbing her! Isn’t this the perfect chance for you to escape?"

Mai Mingle heard every word it said clearly.

’But... why can’t I move? Did I really step on a trap?’

Unless the trap was formless and colorless, there was clearly nothing but flat ground beneath her feet.

Yet she could only stand frozen on the spot, watching the resident in the beam of light grin, revealing a mouthful of teeth and eyes...

It felt as if someone had begun peeking and poking around in the dark depths of her spine and skull.

"Where is the AP?" Mercury snapped, simultaneously sweeping the flashlight beam over the ground at Mai Mingle’s feet.

"Honestly, young people these days don’t even know."

The resident suddenly said with a laugh, "You don’t necessarily need a wireless router to get online. Setting up an AP is a huge hassle; you have to meet all sorts of conditions. Besides, why would you think my methods are so limited? I think big. I’m an old-timer on the web. There are other ways to connect, you know? Through matter, physical phenomena... Oh wait, I remember now."

It laughed with great delight. "Turns out, when I first met you all those years ago, I kept the other connection methods a secret and never told you! Look at that, I’m only just remembering now."

’What does that mean?’

’Where did I connect with it—wait.’

Mai Mingle stared motionlessly at the resident in the column of light. Even though she felt nauseous, she couldn’t look away. In the flashlight’s beam, every detail on its face was crystal clear.

...The light was shining from her own hand and falling upon the resident.

Or rather, it had deliberately walked into the light.

When Mercury turned on her flashlight earlier, it had pretended not to care, as if the light had nothing to do with it, and instead turned toward Mai Mingle—probably because it knew at that moment that Mai Mingle didn’t have a phone and couldn’t turn on a flashlight.

If it had revealed its trick too early, Mai Mingle would have just run away.

But now...

Now, Mercury’s beam of light was also connected to Mai Mingle.

And connecting to Mai Mingle meant connecting to the resident.

Mai Mingle couldn’t move her eyes to look at Mercury, but she thought that if Mercury could still move, could still speak, she would probably tell her one thing.

The two of them had been caught by the Nest network.