Chapter 515: Ashley: An Appearance Unchanged by the Years

“She has an Illusion wrapped around her. Go on, feel for it. See if it’s still there.”

The resident in her brain’s deep understanding of Mai Mingle surprised Ashley again and again. The more it revealed about Mai Mingle, the more Ashley realized its true target was Mai Mingle alone—but regardless, ‘if she dies, I can take her place as a player, right?’

Through the fabric of her clothes, Ashley felt a long, serpentine object coiled around Mai Mingle’s suddenly, frighteningly thin body.

“It’s still here. There is something,” she said. “What kind of Illusion is this?”

The resident in her brain was silent for a few seconds.

“It’s an Illusion that can restore her to her peak condition. It expires in nineteen hours. I was thinking that if the Illusion had been removed, it might have meant she wasn’t actually hit—that she just took it off to fool us… But since the Illusion is still there, and she’s ended up like this, it’s most likely not an act.”

Mai Mingle’s eyes, like they were submerged in murky milk, stared at her but saw nothing.

When the passenger with the “Living Person’s Special Seat” disembarked, less than fifteen minutes had passed, and the mobile tag had clearly followed right away—half of the paper was now clutched in Mai Mingle’s hand; the other half had struggled free, slicing a bloody line across her palm as it stuck fast to the chair.

Ashley glanced at it.

‘Mobile Special Seat, Unoccupiable Special Seat, Randomly Roaming… That’s right, it’s definitely the trap that unknown person set for Mai Mingle.’

‘Mai Mingle must have been trying to stop the mobile tag from sticking to the chair, right?’

Too bad it was useless, even though she’d managed to grab the tag.

It seemed that even if a tiny piece of the tag touched a chair, it would turn it into a special seat.

In the end, Mai Mingle couldn’t stop the special seat from claiming her. She was still breathing, ever so faintly, but one look was enough to know she wouldn’t be getting off this bus alive.

“How could anyone fake aging like this in an instant?” Ashley said softly.

“Tsk, you wouldn’t understand even if I explained,” the resident clicked its tongue. “Perfect. She has no strength to resist. Why don’t you hurry up and kill her now? Once she’s dead, you’ll be a player, you know.”

But Ashley didn’t move.

“No rush.” She smiled slowly and said, “Mai Mingle ending up like this is actually an unexpected boon for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want her dead, yet she’s hanging on by a thread.”

Ashley scanned the other passengers and unknown entities on the bus. Some pretended to be uninterested, sneaking glances at her from the corners of their eyes; others were expressionless and motionless.

“Mai Mingle has already been punished by the special seat, so no one else will make a move on her. Which means, right now, I’m the only one who can.”

“Right, so what—oh.” The resident in her brain wasn’t stupid. “What do you want?”

“You still haven’t told me which stop is a human-friendly station,” Ashley said. “By the definition you gave me, ‘Reflections in a Puddle on the Road’ was a human-friendly station, since only humans got on… but you didn’t bother to mention it at the time.”

‘No wonder the death rate on this bus is so high.’

‘Without the resident’s advance warning, by the time a Hunter realized only humans had boarded at the last stop, the human-friendly station would be long gone, and it’d be too late to get off.’

“I was still looking into it at the time,” said the resident in her brain. “Who would’ve thought we’d hit a human-friendly station so suddenly? Besides, even if I had told you, you couldn’t have gotten off. Your mission wasn’t finished.”

Ashley just grunted in response.

“Tell me what the next human-friendly station is, what the bus fare is for, and how I get off.”

“But Mai Mingle—”

“I’ll take care of her when I get off,” Ashley said. “But not a second sooner.”

The resident in her brain laughed, sounding quite impressed.

“You’re worthy of being my chosen one! I get it, no problem. But… can you really bring yourself to strike down such a frail, withered old woman?”

“Of course.”

‘Doing it won’t be easy,’ Ashley knew.

She’d killed before, but only as a necessary accident while on a mission. The thought of killing a helpless, dying old woman made even Ashley feel a great knot of writhing snakes in her stomach.

But just because something felt bad didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it.

‘Perhaps she should be grateful for her luck. All she had to do was kill an old woman for a chance to become a substitute player.’

Seeing they were just one step away from the final result, the resident in her brain became much more proactive. Before the next stop arrived, it had gathered all the information Ashley requested.

“You have plenty of fare, it should be enough to get off,” the resident in her brain said. “I found out for you. Two more stops and there’s a ‘Birthday Party’ station. That’s a human-friendly station. Aiya, I wonder which birthday boy or girl will get sucked up here…”

Ashley reminded it, “Don’t get sidetracked. The fare is for getting off the bus?”

“Yes, and for buying a special seat, but that only lasts for one stop. Besides, you don’t need one; there are plenty of regular seats right now. Every human-friendly station has a different fare, but by the time you reach the ‘Birthday Party’ station, you’ll have saved up five fare points. That’s enough to get off.”

‘So… all I have to do now is sit in a regular seat and wait to get off?’

Ashley was about to retort, ‘Is it that simple?’ but she swallowed the words before they escaped.

‘Even though the ‘Living Person’s Special Seat’ was the thing that trapped Mai Mingle, she still had to do the dirtiest work with her own hands…’

But beyond that, she still felt a vague sense of unease and couldn’t relax, feeling like she might have overlooked some risk.

‘No, that’s not right. After fifteen minutes, the mobile tag will start roaming randomly,’ Ashley thought, realizing she’d nearly missed a key problem. ‘If I’m sitting in a regular seat, there’s a chance I could get hit.’

She glanced at Mai Mingle. “It would be an absolute joke if I ended up dying with her.”

To be cautious, Ashley decided to spend two fare points before the next stop to buy the rights to a special seat—the option to buy one only appeared when you scanned the card reader en route to a “Transaction-Type Station.”

The Mental Hospital Cafeteria / Train Dining Car / Highway Gas Station was one such “Transaction-Type Station.” Ashley bought the “Mental Patient’s Special Seat” from the “Mental Hospital Cafeteria” option and a child’s seat from the “Highway Gas Station.”

One special seat lasted for one stop. By the time the bus was approaching the “Birthday Party” station, she still had three fare points.

Ashley took a deep breath and walked over to the exit door.

“I want to get off,”

she murmured, even though she knew the bus announcement system wouldn’t respond. It was as if saying the words out loud was a way of reassuring herself that she would definitely be able to get off.

Ashley pressed her hand against the card reader. With a BEEP, a few lines of text lit up on the screen.

Birthday Party Station, Exit Fare: 3 points

Passenger Ashley, Remaining Fare: 3 points

Disembark?

Ashley hesitated, glancing back at Mai Mingle a short distance away. The old woman’s pale, coarse hair was draped limply over the top of the seat, like the desiccated corpse of some animal.

Gritting her teeth, she pressed the green checkmark.

“Passengers not disembarking at this station, please remain seated and do not move about,” the bus announcement chimed in right on cue. “Passengers preparing to disembark, please wait by the exit door for it to open. This bus is now arriving at the station. New passengers will be boarding shortly.”

‘Is it because I’m getting off?’

The darkness that had descended each time the bus arrived at a station didn’t come this time. The interior remained brightly, starkly white. Ashley’s reflection in the glass of the bus door looked like a weary corpse, its face a roadmap of deep lines.

“Ten—”

As the bus announcement began its countdown, the entrance and exit doors finally started to slide open.

‘They’re really opening!’

Outside the doors was a pitch-black night. A fresh, damp, cold wind suddenly gusted through the slowly widening gap, striking Ashley in the face. In that instant, all doubt vanished. The human world was waiting for her outside—she couldn’t fathom for a moment why anyone in the world would willingly enter a Nest.

“Alright,” the resident in Ashley’s brain urged, practically bursting with impatience. “Do it now!”

‘Of course.’

Ashley had even found a weapon already—below the side window in the back, just like on a normal bus, there was a red emergency hammer. While she was a passenger on the bus, she couldn’t physically harm another passenger. But what about the moment before she got off?

The bus doors would only close again when the countdown ended, which meant she had ten seconds to act.

Ashley had already rehearsed the scene in her mind several times: at the eight-second mark, she would rush to Mai Mingle’s side, drag the old woman who was like a bundle of dry sticks from her seat, and pull her to the exit door.

With one foot off the bus and one still on, all she had to do was swing the emergency hammer—

“Nine—”

Ashley twisted around, but before she could rush back into the aisle, her eyes caught an image she couldn’t comprehend.

But she didn’t get the chance to understand it.

A massive force slammed into her waist. She didn’t even have time to raise the hammer before she was sent tumbling out of the bus. The lights inside were instantly torn away, and she fell back into darkness, landing hard on the wet road.

Only a single BEEP from behind her, seeming to drift faintly through a thick fog, reached her ears—Ashley recognized the sound at once.

It was the bus’s card reader.

Ashley scrambled to her feet. The abrupt switch from light to dark left her blind, and she could only fumble around for the emergency hammer. As she heard footsteps approaching, her fingers finally closed around the cold handle.

“Mai Mingle?”

She snatched up the hammer and shouted angrily, “Was that you? You weren’t punished by the special seat? What’s going on?”

The figure in the gloom, a few steps away, stopped.

Ashley’s vision gradually adjusted to the darkness. When she squinted and got a clear look at Mai Mingle, she froze.

“Oh, there was a punishment, all right,” Mai Mingle said slowly. Her voice was slightly hoarse—brittle, heavy, and hollow. “As you can see, my appearance has…”

She let out a low, sighing laugh.

“I don’t know if I should say this, but I’ve returned to my original form.”

In the darkness, Mai Mingle watched Ashley quietly, a hint of sadness in her gaze. “In my heart… I never felt like I looked like this. No matter how many years passed, in my mind, I always had black hair, strong arms and legs, and a straight back.”

She shook her head and said no more.

In the night, her white hair looked like a wisp of thin fog, about to drift away.