Mai Mingle hadn't actually thought the red-haired man would stop in his tracks and not go out just because she shouted.
Hope for escape was right in front of him. Who wouldn't take that final step?
So what happened next caught her completely by surprise. The red-haired man yanked back the foot he was about to plant in the hallway. The movement was so abrupt he almost lost his balance. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall, hopped back twice on one foot, and stopped between the doorway and the round heads, cursing under his breath.
"How did you know?" His gaze passed over the round heads and landed on Mai Mingle.
The room was crammed with "residents" ready to attack them, but this moment was a brief respite, a rare chance to exchange a few words.
Mai Mingle answered immediately, "I don't know what's going on. I just know we can't go out. What did you see? You didn't stop just because an old lady told you to, did you?"
"Don't get all high and mighty." The red-haired man wiped his face in annoyance. "There's a resident at the door."
The ward door was wide open, revealing an empty, brightly lit hallway. In the corridor's light, not a single shadow fell on the floor tiles.
"Really? That's incredible. Does it have an Invisibility Technique?" Mai Mingle couldn't help but exclaim in amazement. "Did they actually perfect that technology? I remember back in '75 or '79, some scientist was saying something about using electromagnetic waves..."
"Stop rambling about nonsense," the red-haired man cut her off, his expression darkening. "How did you know we couldn't go out?"
Mai Mingle glanced at the Slender Patient first.
In her youth, she'd stood 1.72 meters tall, but even then, she would have only come up to the Slender Patient's navel. Its hospital gown was far too short, hanging around its chest and revealing a dark, gaping hole in its stomach. She didn't dare look for long and quickly averted her gaze.
Mai Mingle hadn't forgotten that strange step she'd taken against her will.
The Slender Patient was still reluctant to give up, but just as the round head had said, it didn't seem to dare enter as long as she was surrounded by them.
She had a moment to breathe, but she didn't know how long it would last.
"These things are all here to hurt people, right?" Mai Mingle explained. "If they're so eager to help me get out, then it must mean I absolutely can't go out."
The red-haired man paused, as if Mai Mingle's words were a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth. "...That's it?"
"Well, I do have a couple of other reasons," Mai Mingle said, a bit sheepishly. "I don't know if you'll agree. You seem familiar with the Nest. Take a look. See all those lines on the faces of these round heads?"
The red-haired man nodded. He was only giving Mai Mingle half his attention. The other half was constantly shifting, warily watching the round heads, the Slender Patient, and the empty doorway.
"Same principle as stretch marks," he said in a low voice. "But they grew on their faces."
The red-haired man didn't look like he was married, yet he knew a thing or two about that. Mai Mingle couldn't help but recall that in the past, it was considered almost shameful for a man to know too much about women's matters.
'Young people seem different now,' she mused. 'I wonder how much has changed.'
"Right. Their heads are stretched as if from a ten-month pregnancy, so it's not strange for them to have lines like a pregnant woman's belly. But those marks only appear when the fibers of living skin are torn from stretching."
"So I was thinking, these residents in the Nest aren't human. Why would they go to the trouble of growing stretch marks? If the round heads were originally living people... then what turned them into this?"
A blister-like eyeball swiveled to look at her.
The red-haired man stared at the doorway and nodded. "Makes sense. It means the resident that turns people into... this... hasn't shown itself yet. It's lurking somewhere."
Even though they couldn't see it, the thing was right there at the door. Thinking about it now, it was no wonder the round heads were all standing in the middle of the room, leaving the doorway open instead of blocking it.
If Mai Mingle hadn't rung the bell four times, and if the thing hidden at the door was the only resident she had summoned, she would have surely bypassed the figures in the room and run straight for the exit. In that scenario, she would have inevitably run right into its clutches.
From near the ceiling, the Slender Patient's voice drifted down. "Are you done with your little deduction game?"
The voice slid into her ears like something thick and sticky. A wave of dizziness washed over Mai Mingle, and she felt a nauseating urge to vomit—the biological instinct to expel invading germs and toxins.
The Slender Patient slowly bent down, its face about to emerge from the dimness and into the light of the doorway.
The red-haired man suddenly shouted, "Don't look at it!" Mai Mingle immediately turned her gaze away and retreated behind a round head. Her heart started THUMPING wildly again, and she realized her mouth was dry and bitter, though she couldn't say for how long.
"Give it to me,"
The Slender Patient was bent over, its head hovering above Mai Mingle. Its voice echoed, dripping down as if laced with mucus and bits of flesh.
Its hand circled over the crowd a few times, as if wanting to grab Mai Mingle, but it never reached down. It just howled, "Give it to me! Give it to me give it to me give it to me!!"
Mai Mingle doubled over as stomach acid surged uncontrollably up her throat, SPLASHING onto the floor.
Dizzy and weak-kneed, she reached out and grabbed the arm of a round head. The creature immediately began to groan. "Hurts... it hurts..." it whispered.
'Your skull being stretched apart didn't hurt, but me grabbing your arm does?'
Panting, Mai Mingle straightened up and let go. The round head fell silent.
"Damn it, that thing is dead set on the Illusion." The red-haired man stood by the wall, staring at the Slender Patient. "Not many residents in the Nest actually want the Illusion. You just had to run into one of the difficult ones."
Even without looking or getting close, just listening to the Slender Patient's constant howling was unbearable. If Mai Mingle kept throwing up, she'd soon be dehydrated and unconscious, a sitting duck.
The red-haired man wasn't just experienced; he probably had a way to handle this. Just as she was about to ask him what to do, she heard him speak again. "...Rock, paper, scissors."
What?
A RUSTLING sound came from near the ceiling. Even the Slender Patient seemed to turn its head toward him.
"Are you casting a spell?" Mai Mingle asked with a bitter smile.
"No, the game just occurred to me." The red-haired man was pressed against the wall, far from Mai Mingle and the other residents. "Think about it. Why does the beanpole want to grab you, but won't actually reach out and do it?"
"It's... wary of something?"
"Right. It doesn't dare touch the round heads. The round heads said they counter it. That's also why it won't attack the resident at the door—the moment it turns its back, the round heads behind it could pounce." The red-haired man continued, "I don't know the exact reason why. And then the beanpole counters you, no doubt about that—"
Hearing this, Mai Mingle understood.
"It's like how rock, paper, and scissors counter each other in a cycle," she said, tentatively reaching a hand toward a round head. "So next is... I counter the round heads?"
The moment she touched its arm, the round head began to hum and groan, its legs even starting to tremble like a sieve.
"I don't get why they're afraid of you, either," the red-haired man said.
"Oh, it's not fear..."
The Slender Patient began to laugh, segment by segment, as if it realized it could torment Mai Mingle with its voice. It had to be said, it was on the right track.
"These humans were caught by the one at the door, filled with its bodily fluids, and turned into flesh tentacles. They stand upright, one by one, specifically to deal with other residents."
Mai Mingle wanted to hear more, but she wasn't sure if she had any guts left to spill.
As the Slender Patient spoke, she was bent over, feeling as if a great beast was churning deep in her belly, trying to force its way out of her throat. She could do nothing but curl up and spasm like a shrimp.
"A person has to be alive to be a flesh tentacle. When stimulated by another living person, the anesthetic effect of the fluids wears off. The flesh tentacle then risks regaining consciousness, detaching from the main body, and dying," the Slender Patient explained with an almost-patient tone. "When you touch them, you are reawakening them and plunging them into unimaginable pain."
"Shut up," said a round head at the very front, its voice flat.
Mai Mingle saw eye to eye with it. 'Yes, please shut up.'
"So that's it. It's a stalemate." The red-haired man breathed a small sigh of relief. "If the flesh tentacles want to attack the beanpole, they have to move, and if they move, they expose you. If the beanpole seizes the chance to grab you, it can use you to make the flesh tentacles awaken and fall off, leading to them taking each other out. But this has nothing to do with me. It's really unfair that I got dragged into this."
No one, human or resident, paid him any attention.
'...He's probably just waiting for the residents to make a move on me so he can escape, isn't he?'
Mai Mingle was angry, nauseous, and envious all at once. She wished she could trade places with him.
"We can learn from humanity's spirit of negotiation. The person is yours," the Slender Patient said, utterly unconcerned with whether Mai Mingle would vomit up her own stomach, "the Illusion is mine."
'This is bad.'
"How will you give her to us?" a round head asked.
"You have the flesh tentacles part," the Slender Patient said. "Once I take the Illusion from her, I'll toss her to the doorway, right into your mouth."
"Do you guarantee it?"
"Of course. I have no interest in her."
The round head was silent for a moment before replying, "Deal."
Mai Mingle did not think it was a deal at all.
But a cold sweat broke out on her back, and she had no idea how to stop it. So what if she could counter the round heads? Was she really going to destroy her only line of defense?
Seeing the round heads actually part before her, the only thing she could do was scurry after them. Wherever they retreated, she followed, and for a moment, it was like a deadly game of cat and mouse.
"If you had given me the Illusion from the start, I might have let you live to be a ripe old lady." The Slender Patient was completely unfazed by her delay tactics and resistance, letting out a flat, toneless laugh. "But you had to try and outsmart me, and now you'll pay with your life..."
It wasn't even halfway through its sentence when Mai Mingle involuntarily bent over, dry heaving again. She'd already thrown up everything she could. Her consciousness swam, and she could feel the round heads hastily backing away from her.
'No, I have to stay with them—'
Before she could straighten up, the Slender Patient had already reached down and clamped a hand tightly around her calf.