Chapter 384 - 334: Mai Mingle: Guaranteed by the Experience of 3 Hunters

Chapter 384: Chapter 334: Mai Mingle: Guaranteed by the Experience of 3 Hunters

At 5 AM, the streets of Blackmoor City were as clear as an emergency lane. By the time they floored it all the way to Little Italy and hauled the half-dead Ivan upstairs, the clinic’s main door was shut tight, with no one around to let them in.

"You’re here already?"

Dr. Nate picked up his phone, his voice muffled, but his surprise was crystal clear. "Just put him on the bed in the examination room. I’ll be right there. I’m brushing my teeth."

"But the door’s locked..." Hai Luwei, hunched over from the weight of Ivan’s corpse-like body on his back, struggled to say into the phone.

"Hang on," Dr. Nate said, his mouth full of toothpaste foam.

There was a rustling on the other end of the line, the sound of his footsteps and movement. After a moment, the clinic’s main door suddenly went CLICK, and the lock opened.

Mai Mingle found the switch and flipped it. The vast darkness fled into the walls as a sterile, harsh white light, thick with the smell of dust, illuminated the not-so-spacious clinic.

There was one and only one examination room, and its door was unlocked.

They placed Ivan on the same bed Mai Mingle had once sat on. He was unstable, and he slid off, landing with a THUD. All three of them grimaced involuntarily.

In literature, a dead person is sometimes described with the phrase "he looked as if he were sound asleep." That description absolutely did not apply here.

Ivan’s head was lolled to one side, half his face buried in the pillow, surrounded by a thick, fishy stench like that of rotten seafood.

How to describe the feeling this scene evoked?

He was clearly a person, yet he gave off the impression of something that had grown in a dense, lumpy layer on the hull of a ship left uncleaned for years. You couldn’t tell if it was algae, tiny sea creatures, or a swath of barnacles. It just made you feel that if you reached out to clean him, your hand would come back covered in something slick and writhing.

Mai Mingle realized she had been holding her breath, as if subconsciously refusing to share the same air as Ivan.

’That’s not right of me,’ she thought, a little ashamed. ’The poor young man has been through enough...’

"Let’s wait outside," Hai Luwei suggested in a low voice.

Emily agreed immediately. She had already turned and was heading for the door. "Okay, let’s wait outside. Mai Mingle?"

Holding her breath, Mai Mingle carefully placed her hand under Ivan’s nose and felt for a moment. She was genuinely afraid that after being pulled from the water and dragged all this way, the young man had died from the ordeal.

...He was still breathing.

’Even if he looks like he’s been dead for a long time, it’s just an appearance. He looks so awful... probably... probably from being submerged.’

She fought the urge to wipe her hand on her pants, nodded, and said, "Let’s go. I’ll go out with you."

As Mai Mingle walked out, Emily pulled the door shut.

No one discussed it, but they all instinctively chose the chairs farthest down the hallway. Hai Luwei, not as quick as Emily, ended up sheepishly taking the seat closest to the examination room.

When Dr. Nate walked in wearing casual clothes and carrying a cup of black coffee, he couldn’t help but stare.

"What are you all doing huddled over here?"

The three of them looked at each other, realizing none of them could come up with a decent excuse.

You couldn’t very well tell the doctor, "The guy you’re about to treat makes me sick to my stomach," could you?

"You didn’t bring me a dead body, did you?" Dr. Nate slammed his coffee cup on the table, spilling a little. He wiped his hand, his face a mask of irritation. "If he’s dead, get him out of here right now. Don’t cause me this kind of trouble!"

"He’s not dead, really," Mai Mingle quickly explained. "I checked his breathing just now. He’s still breathing, and it’s steady."

It took some effort to convince Dr. Nate, but he finally pushed open the examination room door with a suspicious look on his face.

"God, it stinks. Smells like the damn sea," he muttered as he went inside, closing the door behind him.

Mai Mingle sighed in relief, her heart settling back into her chest. ’As long as the doctor treats him,’ she thought, ’and he can be saved, that’s all that matters.’

None of the three spoke, not knowing what to say. After two minutes, Emily broke the silence.

"I don’t have to wait here the whole time, do I?" she said. "You’re the one who really saved him this time. I didn’t help much, so this doesn’t count as repaying—"

She couldn’t finish her sentence. A sudden, muffled CRASH came from the examination room—it sounded like a chair had been knocked to the floor.

Dr. Nate let out a muffled cry of some kind; the sound started, then was abruptly cut off.

Through the door, it was hard to make out what he had shouted.

Mai Mingle was the first to stand up.

She looked toward the examination room and called out from the end of the hall, "Dr. Nate?"

The examination room was silent. No one answered.

She turned her head and met two faces that were just as bewildered as they were alert.

"Dr. Nate?" Mai Mingle started toward the examination room, but after just one step, Emily held her back.

"Where’s your fork?" she asked in a low voice.

’I can’t just carry a fork with me everywhere I go.’

Mai Mingle glanced back at the examination room.

’What could have happened? Dr. Nate is basically in there alone... He probably just knocked something over by accident.’

In the few seconds she was lost in thought, Hai Luwei had already snatched the coffee cup Dr. Nate left behind, turned it over, and dumped the contents into a potted plant in the corner. He shoved the cup into Mai Mingle’s hand and said, "Weapon."

Her weapons were getting progressively more harmless.

"Dr. Nate, are you okay? That was a loud noise just now. What happened?" Holding the cup, she walked toward the examination room door. Emily stuck close by her side like a personal guard.

No one in the room answered, but there was another muffled thud. This time, it was impossible to tell what it was, but something heavy had hit the door. The doorframe shuddered faintly, shaking loose a bit of plaster.

’Something is definitely wrong.’

Clutching the cup, Mai Mingle strode to the door. Just as she was about to grab the handle, the door opened on its own. Through the crack, Dr. Nate’s face slowly appeared, followed by his neck, his chest... and then it stopped.

She glanced down and saw an overturned chair on the floor behind the door.

"Dr. Nate, are you okay? What was that noise?"

"It’s nothing," Dr. Nate replied, looking at her. "I don’t have a nurse to help. I was trying to move him by myself, lost my footing, and knocked over the chair."

Mai Mingle studied him, her gaze sweeping back and forth a few times, unable to pinpoint the source of the strange feeling in her gut.

"You knocked it over twice?"

"The second time, I tripped on the chair and hit the door," Dr. Nate said without blinking. "What else could it be?"

Mai Mingle really couldn’t think of anything else it could be, either.

"Well... you carry on then," she said reluctantly. "Are his injuries serious? Can he be saved?"

She hoped Dr. Nate would say a few more words, even though she felt an uncontrollable wave of unease every time he spoke.

But Dr. Nate’s face and body were clean, with no signs of injury. He looked exactly the same as before. Mai Mingle just couldn’t figure out where this feeling was coming from.

"He’s not going to die. After I give him first aid today, you can take him home to recover."

’That’s it? Those looked like injuries that would require a hospital stay... No, wait. If Ivan goes home to recover, there’s no one to take care of him, is there?’

’And whose home? He doesn’t even have keys or a driver’s license on him. Where does he live?’

"Isn’t there you?" Dr. Nate stared directly at Mai Mingle, his lips moving as he spoke. "Aren’t you two friends?"

Mai Mingle froze for a moment.

’The action item in the *Illusion Report* did indeed require her to save Ivan and "help his life get back on track"... Maybe just pulling him from the water wasn’t enough. She might have to nurse Ivan back to health before she could get the clue for the next action item.’

"Alright, we’ll talk about this later. The patient is waiting."

With that, Dr. Nate slammed the door shut. The puff of air hit Mai Mingle’s nose, and her vision was once again filled with the gray-white of the door panel.

The three of them sat back down on the chairs farthest from the examination room. This time, the silence was heavier, as if it had been folded and compressed into layers.

"Um..." Mai Mingle began.

She paused again, thinking.

"I heard in the Nest before that the waters of Central Bay are connected to the Nest."

Her sudden statement clearly startled the other two.

Mai Mingle recalled the conversation between the couple at the Black Heart Restaurant. "Things that sink here... apparently some of them fall into the Nest. But the reverse isn’t true, right? Things from the Nest shouldn’t be able to surface from Central Bay?"

The residual information about the Nest in her mind didn’t include Central Bay.

The other two’s expressions grew grim. As expected of Hunters, she didn’t need to spell it out for them.

"Assuming that person fell into the water here and ended up in the Nest, that’s the same as dying in the Nest," Emily said, her hands tucked away. "The residents he spawns can’t enter the human world. Not from anywhere."

’But Chaisi’s mother seems to have been—’

The thought had just begun to form in Mai Mingle’s mind when Hai Luwei spoke.

"You’re being too absolute," Hai Luwei said, his face glum. "I’ve heard that a very, very small number of residents seem to have a Path into the human world."

"Have you seen one?"

"There are lots of things I haven’t seen. I’ve never seen air, have I?"

Emily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if trying to calm herself.

"First, that’s an urban legend in Hunter circles. No one has ever seen a resident enter the human world. Second, even if it were possible, the chances are extremely low. Most importantly, you all know what residents are like. They have no inhibitions, they do whatever they want, whatever feels good. They say whatever’s on their mind, so they can’t hide it. Even if they tried to pretend to be human, they couldn’t pull it off, and certainly not for long."

"That’s true," Hai Luwei grumbled.

All three of them had gotten a close, careful look at Ivan. The revulsion he inspired was likely due in large part to his miserable, ugly appearance and the thick, fishy stench—anyone would feel sick and uncomfortable at the scene of a car crash, too.

No matter how they looked at Ivan, he didn’t seem to have any connection to residents.

Except for Mai Mingle, they were all experienced Hunters. If there had been even the slightest sign of something abnormal, a group of Hunters would never have carried him all the way to a clinic.

Mai Mingle thought for a moment.

"Whatever the case may be... I have to take him home," she said quietly. "If he’s a person, he needs a place to recover, and I have to take care of him. If he’s really... well, I’m the one who pulled him out. It’s my responsibility."