Artifact Report

Chapter 417 Mai Minghe - The First Answer

"Stay there, don't come any closer."

Jin Xueli stopped in her tracks at her words. She shivered twice in the rain before asking Mai Minghe, "...What's wrong? She saved me once..."

"I know,"

Mai Minghe softened his tone, his eyes still fixed on Brianna on the street, and said in a coaxing tone, "Wait a minute, let's finish talking before you come over, okay?"

Jin Xueli's face and lips were blue from the cold. She looked at Brianna, hesitated for a moment, and finally got back into the car, but left the door open.

When McMurphy turned to look at her, Brianna had already stood up from the ground.

She had no feet; her feet had been abandoned somewhere in the world. So Brianna stood silently in the black rain, supporting herself on her arms. Blood-like hair meandered down her pale face.

The two stared at each other for a few seconds—Mai Minghe resisted the urge to turn around and grab a machine gun from the car.

Brianna may not be a full-fledged resident yet, but she probably will be soon.

Mere eye contact felt like fishing line was being wound around Mai Minghe's mind; the longer it went on, the tighter the line became, as if it would tear apart the soft, grayish-white stuff inside her head.

Mai Minghe couldn't help but lower his eyes and take a couple of deep breaths to suppress the waves of dizziness and palpitations in his heart.

"Stand a little closer,"

Brianna suddenly laughed, a dark, gaping smile spreading across her face. "Why are you backing away so far? Weren't you going to chat with me? Why did you make Kim Seolli avoid me? What do you think I'm going to do to her? Tell me, I'm curious, after seeing me like this, what do you think I'm going to do to Kim Seolli?"

"No... not really."

When Mai Minghe speaks now, his tongue seems to be a little unresponsive, as if someone has just loosened their grip on his language center. "It wasn't because of your appearance that Jin Xueli avoided you."

Brianna stood motionless and silent in the black rain, her dark smile fixed on her face; it was almost a frozen scene from a horror movie.

“I don’t understand why, but I can sense that she seems to be causing you… a lot of pain.” Mak Ming-ho lowered his voice so that Kim Shirley inside the car wouldn’t hear. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to bear the pain and will lash out… so I hope she can step aside first and give you some time to recover.”

She was prepared that even such gentle and calm words would drive the residents mad—judging from Brianna's behavior just now, it wouldn't be surprising if she went completely insane.

However, to Mai Minghe's surprise, Brianna only uttered a sluggish, almost numb nasal sound.

Its meaning is unclear, and it seems to have no meaning at all.

It was as if he was a person covered in wounds, and when he was cut again, he no longer had the strength to struggle or cry out in pain, and could only make a low nasal sound.

Mak Ming Ho has always been very perceptive of others, but this was the first time she had felt empathy for the residents.

“Briana?” McMurray asked softly, “Can you talk to me now?”

Brianna made no attempt to hide her thoughts.

She ignored him and first turned to look at the car. Mai Minghe had placed both machine guns on the seat, so that the gun barrels could be seen through the passenger-side window.

Then, Brianna used her gaze to assess the distance between the machine gun and Kim Selena, the distance between it and Mak Ming-ho, and the distance between herself and the car—what she was thinking was obvious.

So... is Kim Seol-ri the source of her pain?

Mai Minghe couldn't help but mutter to himself. According to Jin Xueli's account, the two had only met once, when Brianna was already a resident and had even saved Jin Xueli. No matter how you looked at it, that didn't seem right.
"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

Brianna licked her lips; her tongue, a deathly gray, flashed and disappeared in an instant. "Everything you've said is something I don't know. What else do you want to tell me?"

She must have realized that if she made the first move, she could at most kill Mai Minghe in front of her.

With Mak Ming-ho dead, the enemy was alerted, and Kim Suet-lai, in a state of panic, had countless opportunities to escape, whether by taking a gun or driving a car.

"Can you tell me what happened tonight?" Mak Ming-ho asked as gently as possible.

She didn't want to be harsh with someone who was in so much pain—she didn't dare go up and hold Brianna's hand, but could only imagine that her voice was like a hand, able to tuck Brianna's hair behind her ear.

Brianna glanced at her; after a moment of surprise, suspicion and wariness arose.

“Just say what you want to say, stop with that fake, nauseating tone. If you do it again, I’ll slap your mouth off your face and see what you have left to pretend with.”

Mai Minghe sighed inwardly, without reacting.

Brianna seemed a little uncomfortable, shifting and adjusting her position. She remained silent for a while, as if in despair, then suddenly burst into laughter. "The host used me, you know that? The Abyss, you know that? It used every means at its disposal—no, perhaps fate used every means at its disposal—to send me step by step into the Abyss, and then the host lured me out step by step, bringing me into the human world."

She raised her arm, stretching her body endlessly behind her.

"Do you see it? Do you see this body of mine? It's because I'm exceptionally gifted, unique, rare, and incredibly remarkable! I've stitched the human world and the Nest together! The Nest has entered the human world! You see it, right? You see it, right? She saw it too, she saw it too, and everyone in the human world will soon see it. As soon as dawn breaks and the rain stops, the whole world will see me, see me, see me, see me!"

The instant Mai Minghe was hit by the sound waves, he wanted to turn and run away, to keep shooting at her, but he also wanted to hold Brianna tightly in his arms.

“Do you know what I wanted to do in the first place?” Brianna kept laughing, shouting, and yelling. “I wanted to come back. I wanted to walk back into the world on two feet, two women’s feet. I wanted to erase what had happened. I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to be seen.”

When she finally stopped panting, Mai Minghe realized that she had been shaken and fallen to the ground.

“Go find the host,” Brianna said, her breathing heavy, but she seemed to have finally calmed down a bit. “I told you, the host went to Chess Munroe. You go to Chess Munroe too, and you’ll catch the host. Have you heard enough? Get lost.”

"...What I need to do is not just find the host."

Mai Minghe stared at her blankly and said in a low voice, "You said that the lair has already entered, haven't you? It's too late to find him; what's done is done."

"So you've been rambling on for so long just to act cute with me?"

"No... what I mean is, there's only one way to turn the tide and eliminate all the damage."

Looking at her, Mai Minghe really didn't know how to be more sincere: "'The Nest Domination Game' may have been distorted and manipulated by the host, but its essence has not changed. You are at least half of the residents, so you should also know. 'The Nest Domination Game' is a natural disaster in the nest. As long as someone wins, they can use the nest's power to do anything."

Brianna had already guessed what she was going to say. At this moment, she covered her face with one hand, bent over, and laughed so hard that her shoulders shook – her exaggerated and intense expression made her look exactly like a resident.

"You spoke so righteously, but after all this time, you're still up to this! Are you trying to say that as long as all the contestants gather their target illusions together, preferably handing them over to you, and jointly elect you as the winner, then you can close the nest, and the world will be safe? And things will return to normal?"

Mai Minghe looked at her intently and said, "Yes."

Brianna laughed for another half minute, until her face suddenly fell, turning into a long, expressionless expanse of white.

"How many target decoys do you have?" she asked almost calmly.

“Not a single one,” Mai Minghe said honestly.

She expected to be ridiculed, but Brianna remained unmoved, as if she were not surprised.

"Then why don't you ask other contestants to gather all the target artifacts into my hands? I already have at least two. Why don't you go find target artifacts yourself and hand them over to me?"

“Because I don’t know anyone else.” Mak Ming-ho still tried to be as candid as possible, saying, “But I’m sure that if I had everything, I would save the world and banish the nest back.”

Brianna just scoffed.

"You make it sound so grand, but you're really good at flattery," she said slowly. "But you're right... you really don't understand me. Why should I save the world?"

She looked so young, she must still have parents and relatives in this world. Even for the sake of her parents and relatives, she should—but the words were swallowed back by Mai Minghe.

I feel like I shouldn't have said that...

That leaves only one reason.

The only, real reason, and one that probably no one but Mak Ming-ho would agree on.

“Because everyone in Blackmore City is a person,” Ma Minghe said softly. “They are born with worries, hopes, concerns, and dreams…they are all living, breathing human beings. So why not save them?”

Brianna stared at her without moving, as if she wanted to crawl out of those black hole-like eyes, climb onto Maming River's face, and then drill into her mind through those eye holes.

"Why?" she murmured. "You ask me why I don't save humanity?"

Mai Minghe remained silent.

"Oh, thank you so much."

Brianna spoke softly, rain streaming down her face as if it would never end. "Only now do I understand the answer to this question. Why not save humanity? The answer is so simple. It has always been right in front of me, but I couldn't see it before."

"If all I can do is struggle and sink deeper, then let this world come down and keep me company."

(End of this chapter)