Chapter 506 - 447: Mai Mingle: These 19 Hours Are Anything But Wasted

Chapter 506: Chapter 447: Mai Mingle: These 19 Hours Are Anything But Wasted

’...Why?’

’Why would the chief of police want to kill me?’

Mai Mingle stared blankly at Ashley Page, their eyes meeting.

The bus swayed gently. In that brief, empty moment, only the sound of the engine and the tires on the road filled the air—a repetitive sound of sticking, pulling away, and rolling forward.

Ashley’s face was flat and emotionless, as if she were wearing a long, narrow stone mask.

No, perhaps it wasn’t a mask. There are people in this world who, when they deem it necessary, suddenly stop belonging to the same species as you.

Mai Mingle had become a tightly shut clam. Ashley was the customer at the counter.

She was just calmly sizing her up, contemplating how to pry open the shell and pluck out the soft meat inside.

"You were the one shooting at me just now?"

Even though she already knew the answer, Mai Mingle still found it unbelievable. A police officer trying to kill a civilian like her was something she never would have expected in her entire life. "Why? Are you a player too?"

"I’m not,"

Ashley was wearing a tracksuit tonight, with a toothbrush tucked into her waistband for some reason. "But I’m trying to become one. Since you’re in the Nest Dominance Game, me hunting you is just part of it. You don’t have to blame me."

"That toothbrush... was that your gun from before?"

"Yes,"

Ashley raised a hand, showing her the colorful gummy candies wrapped around her fingers. "These were originally my boxing knuckle dusters. All the weapons I brought with me tonight have turned into harmless things. It seems physical conflict is forbidden on this bus."

"I still don’t get it," Mai Mingle asked. "What’s the logical connection between you wanting to become a player and you hunting me down?"

"Your death will open up a spot," Ashley explained, almost patiently.

’Is that really how it works?’

Mai Mingle had never heard of such a thing, but given the nature of the Nest Dominance Game, a rule designed to make people kill each other didn’t seem that surprising.

"Why do you want to become a player?"

Ashley glanced at her as if she couldn’t understand why Mai Mingle would even ask. "The winner gets whatever they want. What’s not to understand?"

Mai Mingle opened her mouth, paused, then changed the question. "What do you want to get?"

This time, Ashley just smiled slowly, staring at her without a word.

Brianna wanted to be saved, Chaisi wanted to resist the Nests, and Fu Tailan said he wanted freedom... but Mai Mingle felt that Ashley was different.

Her goal was probably similar to Kai Luonan’s.

"You... you knew my location because of my phone?"

Mai Mingle recalled the strange things happening with her phone and the two children’s warning. "Did you do something to my phone back then?"

"A police-exclusive tracking software," Ashley answered bluntly, not trying to hide anything. "I didn’t have a warrant, so installing it on your phone was illegal on my part."

’She doesn’t hesitate to do things she shouldn’t, yet she still remembers she’s breaking the law.’

"So, what’s with the bus? This is a Nest trap, isn’t it?"

Mai Mingle gestured around the bus with her baguette. "Shooting me didn’t work, so you switched to another method? How did you manage that?"

There was just something magical about a baguette. Once you held it, you just wanted to swing it around a bit.

It wasn’t that Mai Mingle didn’t understand the gravity of the situation; it was just that being hunted down during the last nineteen hours of her life struck her as utterly absurd.

"Yes,"

Ashley had just said that one word when her eyes flickered upward slightly. Though it was just for an instant, Mai Mingle sensed that her attention had been divided, as if something had caught it.

’Did something... just happen on the bus? I don’t think so.’

After a pause, Ashley continued, "The specifics don’t make a difference to you. Whether it’s a gun or a Nest trap, the goal is the same."

’...To kill Mai Mingle.’

The Nests were already hanging upside down in the sky, so a trap falling from one wasn’t some bizarre event that she absolutely had to figure out. Right now, Mai Mingle simply found it both amusing and infuriating. She felt more frustration and helplessness than she did fear.

"You don’t have to do anything. In another nineteen hours, I’ll be dead anyway."

She certainly wasn’t going to tell Ashley about the Extracellular Telomeres. She sighed and said, "Just consider me... afflicted with some terminal Nest disease. Believe it or not, I don’t have much time left. And now the last precious moments of my life are being wasted by you hunting me."

Ashley froze. "What?"

"Believe it or not," Mai Mingle said, feigning nonchalance as she swung the baguette.

As the baguette swayed, she shot a quick glance at the chief of police.

A person’s eyes change with their focus. It doesn’t take much training to notice this; you just have to observe people in your daily life.

Mai Mingle had been observing people for eighty-six years.

She was almost certain that Ashley wasn’t just distracted. She was processing and digesting some kind of continuous stream of information, as if she were... as if she were listening to someone speak.

Ashley wasn’t wearing an earpiece, and the only sound on the bus was the background noise of it moving.

"How much longer you have to live is irrelevant. Nothing that happens on this bus takes up any time in the outside world," Ashley spoke again. "The point is, the act of ’me killing you’ is what will allow me to obtain your player slot."

Mai Mingle nodded.

’As long as it doesn’t use up the little time I have left, that’s fine.’

"So, if we can’t use physical force, how do you plan on killing me?" Mai Mingle asked.

Ashley spread her hands. She didn’t speak, but her meaning was clear: ’Why would I tell you?’

She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms as if waiting for something. While she waited, Ashley carefully examined every corner of the bus. It seemed this bus trap wasn’t something she had activated, nor was it her "property." She was clearly unfamiliar with it herself.

"Are you a Hunter, too?"

Mai Mingle asked casually as she also began observing the bus.

"I’m not."

"Then you should have kept shooting at me. You might not be able to beat me in a Nest trap," Mai Mingle said with a smile, a flicker of pride surfacing. "I haven’t been dealing with the Nests for long, but I think I’m a pretty good Hunter."

Ashley didn’t respond.

Since the bus was a Nest trap, it naturally had its own set of rules...

Setting aside Ashley’s strangeness for a moment, Mai Mingle’s first step was obviously to figure out those rules.

It was a medium-sized bus with, by her estimate, about thirty seats.

The bus driver was enclosed behind dark glass, impossible to see clearly and completely motionless.

The only screen was mounted behind the driver’s seat, facing all the passengers. It cycled through one ad after another, only occasionally displaying the bus route and station names.

None of the station names belonged to Blackmoor City—no, rather, none of them belonged to the Human World.

"Next Stop: Pregnant Woman Under an Antonym Spell"

"This Bus is Bound For: The Ultimate Void"

’...What the hell?’

Mai Mingle had just managed to read those two station names before the screen switched back to an advertisement.

She didn’t know if the ads contained vital information, so she patiently watched for a while. A man sat in a bar, seemingly mustering the courage to hit on a beautiful woman.

Well, let’s call her a beautiful woman.

It had all the elements of a "beautiful woman," just without the actual beautiful woman.

A massive denizen, its entire body squeezed into sausage-like segments, was coiled on a high stool, sipping a drink.

A pair of thick, black false eyelashes were stuck to the sausage, which was also slathered with bright red lipstick. A curly wig, earrings, a bra, a miniskirt... even the tip of the sausage was squeezed into a high-heeled shoe.

The human male gazed at it, his face a picture of infatuation.

The Nest ad was like an amateur who’d been suddenly inspired to write a novel: it rambled on and on, meandering until it completely lost its way. Mai Mingle watched for nearly thirty seconds, by which point the man and the sausage had bought a house in the suburbs and the sausage denizen was pregnant, ready to start a new human-sausage family, and she still had no idea what it was an ad for.

’Is this even an ad?’

’The "pregnant" element has appeared twice now, hasn’t it?’

’I’d better make a note of it anyway, even if I have no idea what it is I’m noting.’

In the back, Ashley suddenly stood up. Mai Mingle tensed, her baguette at the ready—but Ashley just walked briskly over to the rear exit door and began carefully inspecting the cracks, corners, card scanner, and other details.

Mai Mingle, baguette in hand, also stood up and began scrutinizing the bus.

She hadn’t realized how many details and pieces of information there were. For example, next to the exit door was an empty space, probably meant for a wheelchair or bicycle, but the decal on the floor was the white chalk outline of a human figure, the kind used to mark a body at a crime scene.

Judging by the position of its limbs, it looked like a gruesome death.

’...What does that mean? Only dead people can use this space?’

Mai Mingle carefully avoided the empty space.

In addition, there were many signs and notes posted around the bus: "Cheap Concert, Monday 9 a.m.," "Boycott Israel," "Please do not beg on the bus," "Suspect you’ve encountered a denizen trafficker? Please dial Nest 911..."

’Who would want to traffic denizens?’

The more Mai Mingle saw, the more confused she became.

She periodically glanced at Ashley out of the corner of her eye and saw that she, too, was frowning deeply. Judging by her expression, she didn’t understand any more than Mai Mingle did.

The two of them passed each other several times on the bus, each secretly observing the other’s reaction. Mai Mingle almost had the illusion that they were just two ordinary Hunters who had unfortunately been caught in a Nest trap.

The bus’s PA system suddenly blared to life, shattering the silent act and making both women jump—

"Attention passengers. In thirty seconds, we will be arriving at our next stop: ’Pregnant Woman Under an Antonym Spell.’"

the PA system announced cheerfully. "Passengers not getting off at this stop, please be seated in an appropriate seat. If you need to stand, please ensure you have obtained permission. Be sure not to stand by the exit door unless you have reached your stop, or you will be forcibly removed from the bus. The bus is now arriving at the station. New passengers will be boarding shortly. Ten—nine—eight—"