Chapter 514 - 455: Ashley and Mai Mingle’s Ending

Chapter 514: Chapter 455: Ashley and Mai Mingle’s Ending

"...This is one of the traps in the Nest with the highest death rate."

It was as if the folds of her brain had become winding cracks, and through them, a voice—doing its best to pass for human—leaked in like a draft.

Ashley now knew that it was one of the creatures from the Nest known as Residents.

Ever since it had extended a hand from her eye socket, she had been slowly turning into a door panel that had been shattered and then taped back together.

When Ashley sat in the bathtub, water would leak through the cracks. When she walked down the street, she always felt the tape would suddenly snap, her shell shattering and collapsing... She would be paralyzed, able to do nothing but watch as the Residents crawled out, one by one, from the wreckage of her body.

She could only tell herself, again and again, ’This is just temporary.’

"Without a bit of luck or courage, a Hunter could die without ever figuring out the rules of this bus... Even I can’t claim to know all the rules. What’s more, every single stop has its own dangers."

’The tone, the choice of words, the way it spoke—it was all human... and yet, it didn’t sound human at all.’

It was like a foreigner speaking your hometown dialect with perfect pronunciation. No matter how close they got, there was always something subtle that just wasn’t right, something out of sync.

"If you don’t listen to my guidance, you’ll definitely never get off this bus. According to our statistics, out of all the humans who get on this bus, not even one in ten makes it off alive."

The Resident had told her this shortly after she’d gotten on the bus.

"I know," she said to the Resident in the cracks of her mind. "Just tell me what to do."

"Such a smart one," the Resident said appreciatively.

Ashley sneered inwardly.

"The first thing you should tell me is how I can get off this bus," she said calmly.

Any fool could see that the Nest Residents wanted to use her to kill Mai Mingle. They certainly hadn’t had a sudden change of heart and decided to help Ashley take more from the world.

’But what happens after I kill Mai Mingle?’

Ashley could almost predict it. As soon as Mai Mingle was dead, the voice in her head would suddenly vanish, perhaps never to be heard again. She would be left on this bus, struggling in terror from one stop to the next, until she too turned into a Resident.

"I’m no fool," she added.

"My, you humans... always judging a noble heart with your own suspicious minds," the Resident in her head complained. "If you want to get off, you have to wait for a ’Human-Friendly Stop.’ When the bus reaches a Human-Friendly Stop, only humans will get on. And only at those stops is it safe for you to get off and return to Blackmoor City."

"How do I know which stop is a Human-Friendly Stop?"

"I’ll let you know when we get there." The Resident didn’t seem too sure itself. "The route seems to have changed tonight. I’m trying to find out for you which specific stop is the Human-Friendly one..."

When Ashley turned her head, she found Mai Mingle staring intently at her profile, though she couldn’t tell what she had noticed. Ashley resisted the subconscious urge to cover her ears, as if to hide them from view, and just snapped, "Stay away from me."

She walked past Mai Mingle, quickly putting distance between them.

But in that instant, the look on Mai Mingle’s face had been seared into her memory like a branding iron, leaving a swollen, painful welt. It was a memory Ashley didn’t dare recall, and it even stirred a faint hatred for Mai Mingle within her.

...She didn’t want to just go with the flow, to be pushed around and used up by human society, only to look back at the end and find she had empty hands and had lived her entire life as a tool.

’But at what point would she stop being human?’

’Whatever.’

’It didn’t matter. Human, alien, Resident—it was all the same. As long as she was still Ashley, she knew what she wanted.’

And what she wanted right now was the contestant slot that Mai Mingle’s death would open up.

"The bus has now resumed stable operation. Passengers who need to stand up and move around..."

The lights had just flickered on and the bus announcement had barely begun when Ashley leaped from her seat and strode toward Mai Mingle. She didn’t forget to scan her surroundings, noticing that most of the "unidentified persons" who had been sitting near her had gotten off at the last stop.

The "Living Person’s Designated Seat" that Mai Mingle had occupied had gotten off with them.

"Looks like our luck is pretty good,"

the Resident in her head chirped with a high-pitched laugh. "Truly worthy of being one of the Nest’s deadliest traps. You have to be on guard everywhere; even the most careful can capsize. Who would’ve thought she’d be taken care of by a few unidentified persons who got on halfway through, coming from who knows where? Go take a look! What’s become of her now?"

When the "Living Person’s Designated Seat" had said goodbye to Mai Mingle, its voice was especially loud, echoing through almost the entire bus.

’Thinking back, it must have been overjoyed, right? It hadn’t told a single lie, yet it had successfully sent a living person to their death.’

In contrast, Mai Mingle’s voice was low and frantic. Ashley had strained her ears in the darkness but couldn’t make out her pleas or protests. All she could hear was the reply from the "Living Person’s Designated Seat."

"What? I never lied to you. Did I tell a single lie? Didn’t I tell you from the start that I’ve come onto this bus to *be* the designated seat many times? Let me ask you, what does ’come onto this bus’ mean? If I can come, then I can leave, right?"

Mai Mingle’s frantic words were unintelligible, like a palpable cloud of scorching heat in the darkness.

"No way. Don’t be ridiculous. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to get off? Honestly! I did you a huge favor, and now you’re getting greedy, giving you an inch and you take a mile? That’s enough. Let’s part on good terms. Bye!"

After that, all sound from it vanished completely from the bus.

’...The mobile designated seat must have been replaced.’

The bus announcement didn’t come on, but Ashley wasn’t surprised.

The last time Mai Mingle broke a rule, she still had some fare that could be deducted, so the announcement had only told her to go to the alighting door for punishment. But for a passenger with no fare left, the penalty for breaking a rule and the consequence for sitting in the wrong designated seat were both immediate and fatal.

This had already been proven by the man in the pajamas and the woman who was being followed.

She rushed to the front of the bus. For a second or two, she almost thought she was in the wrong place. If it weren’t for the pile of human legs arranged by Mai Mingle, and if Mai Mingle’s clothes hadn’t been the same, Ashley probably wouldn’t have recognized her.

"What is..."

Ashley stared at Mai Mingle in the designated seat, her mind a complete blank. "What happened? Is... is she still alive? How did she end up like this?"

The Resident in her head paused, seemingly trying to understand the situation as well. "Oh... so she’s been ’restored to her original state’?"

’Restored to her original state? What does that mean?’

Mai Mingle’s head was tilted to one side, her skin-and-bones body barely hanging onto the seat.

Beneath layers of slack eyelids, her eyes were still half-open, but her cloudy eyeballs seemed unable to see anything, showing no reaction to Ashley’s arrival.

Her desiccated lips, devoid of flesh, were the center of deep wrinkles that radiated outwards. Her mouth hung half-open, a black hole, like an abyss where all sound had finally been annihilated.