Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 264

"Oh no!" Ai Yin slapped her forehead.

She felt a sense of guilt for defiling a pure young girl.

"What's over?" Xiangzi didn't understand.

"Alas... the little master is going away and will never return."

"What do you mean?"

"Means nothing."

"Hey, explain yourself!"

All work-related matters have been settled; the remaining issues are some personal matters.

[Once I've entered the barrier, it's not convenient for me to leave. There's someone I need to ask you all, anyone, to look after her for a bit. I'm a little worried about her.]

As the height of summer draws ever closer, you can hear the chirping of cicadas everywhere you go.

The lamp walked alone on its way to school, looking up at the chirping cicadas.

Normally, she would think that the cicadas in summer are praising their own lives, which is a beautiful thing, just like flowers falling, blooming at their most beautiful moment, and then leaving themselves to the world contentedly.

When people are pessimistic, everything they see becomes pessimistic.

She could no longer see the singing cicadas; all she could see was a pitiful creature that had spent three years in a dark place, yet only saw the sun for less than one summer.

The summer sun is dazzling and scorching, as if it could take away a person's life.

Are magical girls like the cicadas singing their praises, living anonymously in this world for over a decade, only to become magical girls the moment they burst forth from the earth, offering their voices to the world with their last remaining moments, and then...

She gave birth to offspring (a sacrifice of despair), and died silently before the next season arrived.

Living under the sun, their lives are so short that they cannot even choose their own death.

Even death...

Suddenly, Deng felt dizzy, his legs were so weak that he could barely support his weight, and he swayed and fell forward.

She gripped the railing and breathed softly.

Did the sun get too strong today and you suffer from heatstroke...?

For some reason, the tip of my nose felt sore.

If Ai were here, if Riki were here, they would care about me, they would say the same things as that day... It shouldn't be like this, magical girls shouldn't be like this.

why.

Why do you care about me so much?

What's so good about me...?

He wiped away the tears welling up in his eyes, clutched his notebook, and continued walking.

I walked through deserted alleys, across busy zebra crossings, past the school gate filled with Haneoka school uniforms, and through the school's stairwells.

I walked to my seat.

Ding-dong-

The class bell rang.

But at this moment, the seat in front of the light was still empty.

Oh, right, there's something else I wanted to say.

To each and every one of you.

[Mumu, I guess you'll be the first one to arrive. You probably haven't played the game before. When you register your account, remember to choose "Survive - Sacrifice the World," that way I should be able to pick you up as soon as you land.]

"..."

Mu opened his eyes and found himself lying on a vast grassland that looked like a strange, barren plain.

White clouds, green grass.

besides......

Auspicious blue.

Xiangzi sat beside her, hugging his knees, resting his head on his knees, quietly watching Mu, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned.

"Long time no see, Mu."

Looking at Xiangzi's face, Mu felt as if he himself hadn't seen Xiangzi for a long time.

She propped herself up, shifted her weight towards Xiangzi, rested her head on his shoulder, and took a wistful breath.

"Long time no see, Xiang."

[Next is Hailing. Judging by your personality, you'll probably be in the second batch, and you'll bring someone with you.]

[It's best not to involve unrelated people in this—do you think I would say that?]

No, I wouldn't be such a spoilsport.

[I asked Aine, and Lixi originally had an account in this game. Her chosen location was the Diligent World, which corresponds to the world within the barrier, so it should be Lazy.]

I can't guarantee that different user locations won't result in different landing spots, so I suggest you create an account that shares the same user location as hers.

Also, remember to bring enough Lament Seeds.

“A world of laziness…” Hailing looked at the gloomy scene that resembled a tomb, with tombstones standing everywhere. “Death is eternal sleep, and also another level of laziness.”

She turned her gaze to Lixi, who stood ahead on the edge of the cliff, overlooking the world that belonged to the eternal sleepers.

Directly below them, countless skeletons and half-rotten zombies crawled out of their graves, piled up in layers, forming a mountain that climbed up the cliff.

Those were demonic creatures, spirits of the dead, transformed from those who should have been in eternal slumber.

"So, are these guys who refuse to lie quietly in the cemetery also part of Su Shi's inner self?"

Lixi ripped off the bandages wrapped around her face, exposing her mostly healed skin to the decaying air. Flames ignited in her palms, burning away the bandages and revealing her tender, pink skin.

"Maybe."

"Even if you're trapped in eternal sleep, clinging to the past is laziness." Li Xi clicked his tongue and threw the fireball off the cliff.

boom--

The small mountain of zombies was instantly blasted down, but was immediately covered by new monsters.

"Tsk, why do we have to fight as soon as we get here? How troublesome."

"Try to use possession less often," Hailing said.

“I know, I’ll have to ask you for help a lot,” Lixi said.

"Hmm." Hailing drew her katana from her waist.

She frowned.

Just as Xiangzi had said, most of his power was indeed blocked.

but.

The sealing of one's power does not mean that the swordsmanship one has honed through experience has also been sealed away.

"It seems that rejoining the main force won't be as easy as we thought." Hailing licked her lips, then drew her wakizashi downwards.

“That’s perfect.” Li Xi grinned, revealing a bloodthirsty smile. “I’m just bursting with anger right now and have nowhere to vent it.”

A mountain of monsters, as numerous as the sea, climbed the cliff and surrounded them.

The two stood back to back, facing the impending surge of the dead.

[The last one to come in should be Chu Hua.]

I've told you everything I needed to. I believe you, Chuhua.

[For you, it may only be a few days, but for me, by the time you arrive, three or four months will have passed. I'm really looking forward to the day we meet again.]

Chu Hua carefully folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. The whole process was done with utmost care, as if the envelope bearing the Mujica emblem were some kind of sacred object.

"So it's your turn tonight?" Miao Meng sat to the side, her long legs propped up on the coffee table.

"Okay, it's my turn tonight." Chu Hua nodded.

"Sigh, now I'm all alone." Miao Meng sighed. "It's pitiful that I have to do the work of all five of you."

"Thanks a lot."

"It's been hard work, of course it's been hard work." Miaomeng shook her head nonchalantly. "But are you planning to tell Xiangzi about that?"

She rarely showed a serious expression.

"Regarding the resumption of the Witch's Night event."

=====

P.S.: There will be another chapter tonight. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

The Lost Story: The Lost Child - Chapter 327 Failure

Ding-dong-

As the school bell rang, the students lingering in the corridor scattered like startled birds, heading towards their respective classrooms. The bustling corridor instantly became empty. Conversely, the classrooms, where quiet students would rest or study during breaks, were now bustling with noisy, youthful girls returning to their seats like birds flying back to their nests. They sat down, but their chatter never stopped, instantly turning the quiet classrooms noisy again.

This scene usually continues until the teacher of the class walks into the classroom.

Amidst the noise, Deng stared blankly at the empty seat in front of him.

She had been looking at this empty seat since the first class in the morning, and waited all day, but Ai-yin never appeared.

This is true today, this was true yesterday, this was true the day before yesterday... and it was true the day before yesterday as well.

She hasn't seen Aine since they had that fight, or as Deng unilaterally believes they did.

Deng specifically asked the teacher about this, and it is said that such a proactive behavior startled many of his classmates.

The lamp is usually like a platypus, clumsy, quiet, easy to talk to, and cute, but—it never takes the initiative to start a conversation, and it doesn't fit the word "initiative" at all.

They had never seen such a proactive light.

As a result, even with the courage the lamp had never shown before, it still received no response.

The teacher said that Aiyin was on sick leave, apparently due to acute appendicitis, requiring surgery and hospitalization, and she wouldn't be back at school for a while. When Deng pressed for details about which hospital Aiyin was in, the answer was: "I don't know."

Ai-yin didn't say anything, and the teacher couldn't do anything about it.

This is probably what they mean by "I can't help you".

The lamp lost hope and returned to its seat in despair. It spent the day in a daze and then went to the club activity room in a daze.

The club activity room was cluttered with miscellaneous items; it was practically a storage room. Given that no one had joined the club for several years, it was understandable that it had become like this.

Deng found a corner to sit down and looked around at everything with nostalgia.

She hasn't been here for a while.

The whiteboard was covered with Roselia posters. Roselia in the posters looked much younger than she does now, so they must have been posters from her middle school days. The posters were covered with the marks of time, indicating that they had been there for a long time.

Deng guessed that it was left behind by the previous president of the Astronomy Club, the student council president who used his privileges to keep this club, which should have been abolished long ago.

She must be a huge Roselia fan.

The lamp blinked, shifting its gaze elsewhere.

A simple little desk, a few chairs, a blackboard, a whiteboard for posters, a pile of odds and ends, and a window—that's all the equipment the astronomy club has.

The astronomy club, which consisted of only one person, was her own little world.

Before he met Xiangzi, Deng would always carry his notebook and find a secluded corner to spend a long time there.

A person, a pen, writes down some incomprehensible words and phrases.

Then, I put them in the notebook basket, along with other notebooks filled with meaningless sentences, and left them to gather dust at home forever.

It wasn't until she met Xiangzi that those notebooks, which she thought she would never open again, finally saw the light of day again... After that, she didn't want to recall anything.

As for the astronomy club's classroom, it is said to have been left behind by the former student council president, and no one has participated in it for several years.

Deng is the only newcomer in recent years.

Before meeting Aine, this was the new little corner that Akari found where no one could bother her. In the short month since Aine transferred schools and joined the club, the astronomy club has become much more lively.