Illusion Report

Chapter 168: Chapter 136: Chaisi: The One Who Died on the 18th

An impulse to twist and crush the world with his bare hands. It was a dark, dark feeling, like the roaring waves of a typhoon that could swallow heaven and earth whole.

Was he doomed in this life to lose anything he ever wanted?

When the black, wave-like emotions finally receded, Chaisi found himself still standing in the middle of the room.

His hands trembled slightly for a moment before falling still again.

Other than that, the room and the person in it were surprisingly unharmed.

There were no bodies at his feet, no furniture smashed to pieces... Considering the impulse that had just blackened his vision, even Chaisi himself was a little surprised.

Although he had controlled his anger, the black, stormy emotion of that moment had clearly been too intense. So intense that it had even struck the Hunter across from him.

Chaisi pulled out a chair, dropped into it, and crossed one leg over the other.

Only then did he lift his eyes. "Put the gun away. You won’t need it."

The middle-aged man sucked in a sharp breath. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but seemed unable to find the words.

The gun in his hand drooped, hovering in mid-air. It trembled as if wanting to rise again, but was finally slammed onto the table with a sense of defeat.

"It’s not our fault," the middle-aged man said, wiping his face with a bitter smile. "We just made a deal, sold an Illusion. Isn’t that what Hunters do?"

"Tell me from the beginning," Chaisi said, looking at him. "Start from when you received the commission."

The man, named Havier, didn’t seem to dare take his eyes off Chaisi. He fumbled behind himself for a few moments before finding his chair, pulling it over, and sitting down.

He hesitated for a moment from across the table, then unexpectedly asked, "...Was the client you, Mr. Monroe?"

Chaisi shot him a look from under his eyelids.

"D-Don’t tell me... I sold your thing to Fu Tailan?"

"You don’t know who the client was?"

’Westley wouldn’t use his real name.’ That, Chaisi had already anticipated. He just thought Westley would have used a third party to issue the commission. He hadn’t expected Havier to not even know who the client was.

Havier stared blankly for a moment, then took a deep breath.

"So it really wasn’t you... All right, everything I’m about to tell you is the truth. I have no reason to lie anymore."

He lowered his head and stared at the tabletop. "I never met the client. In early March this year, I received a phone call. The man on the phone called himself ’Ouma.’ He gave me some intel and asked us to find an Illusion in a Nest. He also promptly wired us a down payment."

Chaisi already had many questions at this point, but he continued to listen in silence.

"Intel involving Nests is pretty valuable. The fact that he could get his hands on intel about an Illusion meant he was no small fry. The down payment was also three times the usual amount. At first, I didn’t understand why he’d approach a small Family Faction like ours, with only six or seven members."

Havier paused, his fingers subconsciously stroking the phone on the table.

The phone was face down, its back case printed with a pink, round cartoon character that seemed to be called Gerbo.

"We’re short on people, so we can’t take turns constantly entering the Nest. Each trip is exhausting and takes a real toll. That’s why we didn’t finally find the Illusion until the end of October."

"It was strange, though. At first, Ouma called frequently, every few days, asking about our progress. But after September began, he didn’t even call once a month."

Havier frowned. "When I called him to say we’d found the Illusion, Ouma’s reaction was very cold... No, cold might not be the right word, um..."

After a moment of thought, Chaisi interjected, "Scared? Wary?"

"Yes, yes!"

Havier was taken aback. "How did you know? That’s exactly how it felt. He was the one who commissioned us to find the Illusion, and he was so impatient at the start. But when we actually found it and called him—"

"It was as if your call was his death warrant, wasn’t it?"

"Did you overhear that call?" Havier’s face was full of disbelief.

’...So that’s how it was.’

’Ouma was most likely Westley himself.’

His reaction to Havier’s good news wasn’t entirely unexpected.

The Illusion Report had clearly stated one sentence—"Please be extremely careful. On the path to becoming a ruler, the closer you get to the end, the more dangerous and difficult it becomes."

Westley probably understood the meaning of this sentence back in September, when he discovered a power strip had inexplicably appeared in the swimming pool. And now, Chaisi understood it too.

The more one collected, the closer one came to completion, the greater the danger to the participant’s life.

The Illusion that transfers Paths wasn’t one of the seven objectives of the ruling game, but its arrival had a 95% chance of bringing with it an "Illusion Report" containing information on a target Illusion...

In a time of such paranoia, where every rustle of leaves sounded like an enemy soldier, it was perfectly normal for Westley to react coldly to Havier’s call.

"The last time I spoke with Ouma was in early November. He said that since we had the Illusion, we also knew its function. He couldn’t just take our word that we’d found what he wanted. He told us to take the Illusion and test it once... Once we had actually taken a Path from someone else, he would fulfill his promise to me."

He hadn’t said "settle the payment," but "fulfill his promise."

"Back then, I went to great lengths to hand over the Illusion to Ouma as soon as possible... We couldn’t take a Path from an existing Hunter, so we had to target an ordinary person who didn’t know about Nests. You have no idea how much effort I spent before I finally found an old woman in the hospital records who I thought was very likely to have a Path."

That old woman was the clue that had led Chaisi here.

"But we failed at the last second... That old lady fell into her own Path. She must be dead by now."

Havier’s face twitched, as if he wanted to give a self-deprecating smile but couldn’t manage it.

"I haven’t been able to contact Ouma since early November. Now his promise has come to nothing, we got an ordinary old woman killed, and all we were left with was an Illusion I couldn’t even stand to look at... So when Fu Tailan came knocking, I heard his offer, saw the price was right, and gave the Illusion to him."

Chaisi forced himself to loosen his grip on the armrest, lest he crack it.

Before asking about Fu Tailan, there were a few other questions he needed answers to first.

"You should know the significance of an Illusion that can transfer Paths, right?" Chaisi asked in a level voice.

"Of course,"

Havier seemed to have expected this question, and he also understood the unstated meaning behind it.

"It was only when I realized the thing I was looking for was an Illusion that could transfer Paths that I understood why Ouma came to me."

"Oh?"

"If this job had been given to any other Hunter Family Faction, that down payment would’ve been like throwing a meat bun at a dog—gone for good... Even if they found the Illusion, not many people would have obediently handed it over to some Ouma who came out of nowhere."

Havier gave a bitter smile and gestured toward Chaisi.

"Setting aside everything else, Mr. Monroe, if I had brought it to you first, how much would you have paid for it? Probably far more than what Ouma could offer, right?"

He didn’t know that Ouma was Westley, so it wasn’t surprising he had this misunderstanding.

"For something like this to appear in Hunter circles, it’s no exaggeration to say it would cause a huge stir. I can imagine the immense profits it could bring, as well as the immense danger."

"So, commissioning any Hunter in the world besides me couldn’t guarantee Ouma would get it. Only I... only I would guard his secret with my life."

As he said this, he involuntarily stroked his phone case again.

Chaisi waited for him to continue.

"I have a four-year-old daughter. Last year, she was diagnosed with congenital nephrotic syndrome." Havier lowered his head. "Besides a kidney transplant, there are no other treatments."

Chaisi understood.

"Ouma’s promise to me was a ’kidney’."

He spoke slowly. "He had the ability to fulfill his promise; he’d already proven that to me. So, no matter who it was, whether they offered a sky-high price or threatened my life, I would never have given the Path-transferring Illusion to anyone else. I guarded the secret to the death and didn’t let a single word leak out. The person who went to take the old lady’s Path was one of the kids I trust most."

The room was quiet for a while.

Chaisi finally spoke. "Is she still alive?"

Havier said, almost numbly, "Her condition suddenly worsened... She passed away on the 18th."

Chaisi said in a low voice, "...I’m sorry." freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Havier shook his head.

After several seconds, he said, "I don’t want to go home, and my wife doesn’t want to see me either. So I came to the office... planned to crash here for a couple of days. To be honest, when Fu Tailan showed up, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where he got his information."

Fu Tailan hadn’t obtained Westley’s memories, so it was impossible for him to have followed Chaisi’s trail here. And Havier would never have gambled with his daughter’s life by leaking information about the Illusion.

’Then how on earth did he find out?’ freēwēbηovel.c૦m

"Are you sure it was Fu Tailan?" Chaisi asked.

"It must have been," Havier said, his attention shifting away from his phone case. "Although I’d never met him in person, I’ve heard plenty of rumors. A very young boy, seventeen or eighteen, right? So beautiful it even dazed me for a second."

The description of the visitor that followed could indeed only belong to Fu Tailan. As much as Chaisi despised Fu Tailan, he had to admit that looks fitting that description were rare in all of Blackmoor City.

"Besides, he’s backed by the Morgan Family, so his financial resources are nothing to sneeze at. Such a large sum of money was transferred instantly." Havier said, "It was definitely Fu Tailan, no doubt about it."

’The only one who could beat me to the punch and ruin my plans would be Fu Tailan.’

"What time exactly did he arrive?" Chaisi asked.

"I had drunk a lot and was about to go to sleep... I just remember it was in the early morning." Havier frowned, thought for a moment, and suddenly picked up his phone. "The liquor I drank was delivered from a nearby shop. Let me check the call time."

The liquor store’s delivery time was about thirty minutes after the call, which was 11:30 PM on the night of the 19th.

"I drank all the liquor, and just as I was getting ready to sleep, I heard the doorbell... At least two hours must have passed since I got the delivery."

Havier rubbed his chin, the stubble making a scratching sound.

He looked at his phone and said, "In other words, Fu Tailan’s visit should have been between 1:30 and 2:00 AM on the 20th."

"He didn’t tell you to keep it a secret?" As Chaisi asked this, he already knew the answer.

"Ah, no." Havier paused, surprised. "On the contrary, he told me that if anyone came looking for me, it was fine to tell them the Illusion was in his hands."