Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 163

The so-called golden hour is the thirty minutes before and after sunset, when the light is soft, three-dimensional, and the effect is the best. Therefore, anyone in the industry who uses a camera will try to take advantage of these thirty minutes, a practice generally known as "catching the daylight".

Chu Hua and her team arrived at the best time of day and successfully completed all their work before the sun set over the sea.

The rest of the time can be used to enjoy the scenery.

"The scenery here is beautiful," Mana said with a smile.

"Hmm..." Chu Hua nodded absentmindedly.

Mana turned her head slightly to look at Hatsuka's profile.

Although her professionalism allowed Chu Hua to wear a cool yet gentle smile during the shoot, that forced smile almost instantly disappeared when she wasn't facing the camera.

"Chu Huahua," Mana called her again.

"Huh?" Chu Hua finally realized what was happening and looked at her.

“Tell me about your childhood, about this island, this village, and…” Mana turned her head to look at the hillside covered with flowers under the setting sun, “and here.”

Here...

Chu Hua turned around and looked at the hillside behind her with Mana. This was the place where they had just filmed, and it was also the place that appeared most frequently in Chu Hua's childhood and left the deepest impression on her.

Chu Hua hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded.

"Actually, this sea of ​​flowers is the place I visited most often when I was a child."

If Xiangzi was a star that accidentally fell into her world, leaving an indelible impression on her before returning to the sky.

So this sea of ​​flowers is the gentlest cradle that will forever remain in her memory.

The remote and underdeveloped fishing village had no entertainment facilities, and Xiao Chuhua's only form of entertainment was running around the island.

The flower sea is located on the west-facing coastline, starting from the beach at the foot of the mountain and extending southwards, covering the entire cliffside as you climb the hillside.

The children discovered this deserted flower field and made it their secret base.

Chu Hua spends most of her time playing outside here.

"Were there many children on the island?" Mana asked. "I mean back then."

"Not many. Back then, there was only one other person my age I could play with." Chu Hua shook her head. "The island has always faced population loss. At that time, there were only two of us my age. In our childhood, she was the only one I could play with."

"So, Chu Huahua has a childhood sweetheart?" Mana blinked.

"Ah."

"Never heard of it."

"Because there's no need for it."

Chu Hua sat on the edge of the cliff, dangling her legs outside.

Listen to the sound of the waves below.

His expression was gloomy.

"We have broken ties."

=========

"Xiangzi, what are you doing?! This is not the time for you to be spacing out!"

Hailing's cries finally brought Xiangzi back to his senses.

Xiangzi finally realized how ominous his surroundings were and that he shouldn't have been thinking at this time.

"Sorry, I was daydreaming earlier."

Xiangzi used the Soul Gem he was holding in his hand to complete the transformation, and a pump-action shotgun immediately appeared in his hand, while a large-caliber revolver was prepared in the holster on his waist.

She glanced one last time at the spot where Lin had been standing before looking away.

"Mu, you don't need to protect me anymore, go ahead and do as you please," Xiangzi said.

"Mm." Mu nodded and jumped back a short distance.

Having always been by Xiangzi's side, Da Jian had to hold back a bit to avoid hitting him, which is why she had been somewhat restrained. Now, however, she could act freely.

Mu raised his hand, and the binding threads, emitting a faint glow, pulled up the greatsword.

Xiangzi produced another piece of equipment in his hand and attached it to the shotgun.

Just then, several villagers approached Xiangzi from the side. Since Xiangzi had not shown any fighting ability before, they naturally regarded him as an easy target.

boom!

Xiangzi pulled the trigger only once, and the legs of the demon charging at the front were simultaneously shot off.

Click.

Bang!

With a crisp click of reloading, a new bullet was loaded into the barrel. Xiangzi fired another shot at the familiar that was approaching him, severing both legs once more.

Thick smoke billowed from the muzzle of the gun, which was equipped with some kind of additional gear.

It's a duckbill choke that reduces the upward recoil of a shotgun while converging the ejected projectiles into a horizontal shape.

The projectiles fired horizontally are perfect for severing limbs; they're practically a weapon designed for these immortal familiars.

Xiangzi continued to reload and fire until all the villagers in that direction lay on the ground, crawling slowly toward Xiangzi with their hands on the ground. Then she crossed the gun and fired a shot at each of their arms.

The villagers lying on the ground all turned into writhing chunks of flesh and were swept away by tentacles not far away.

She had already killed a group of them, but the villagers seemed to emerge endlessly from the darkness.

"Hey, tell me, how many have we killed? Is there really that many people in this tiny village?" Meow Dream shouted.

“No, we’re not just facing familiars turned from the people of this village.” Xiangzi swallowed. “This is her stronghold. It’s possible that all the familiars she’s killed are on this island.”

Xiangzi took a deep breath, the smell of gunpowder mixed with the fishy smell entering his lungs.

"We're in her stronghold."

"Then how do we break through?" Hailing asked, looking at the seemingly endless stream of familiars. "I'll charge in, you guys follow, how about that?"

"No, we don't know how many familiars are waiting for us in the darkness ahead. That's too risky..." Xiangzi changed to new bullets. "Let's find another way. The four of us, back to back, head towards..."

She looked around, seemingly searching for a direction to retreat.

Xiangzi turned around and saw a reflective spot flashing on the roof of the planetarium.

She squinted and took a closer look.

It was a girl, holding up a vanity mirror and waving at them.

The Lost Tale: The Spirit of Youth: Chapter 200 The Pit (Part 2)

Xiangzi's eyes met those of the girl holding the small dressing mirror.

Who is she, and what is she doing in a place like this?

Besides the hemispherical dome, the roof of the planetarium also has a large, flat open space, where the girl just waved to him.

The planetarium is located at the very top of the small hill, facing the sea on one side. The side facing the sea is the same as what they see from other parts of the island: a dark cliff. Now, familiars are attacking from three directions, but not from behind.

But inside the planetarium... is the witch's house, and nobody knows what will happen if they get any closer.

But now someone is standing on the roof waving at them, so where did she come from? Besides the fact that she is already in the planetarium, the only other possibility is that she came from the other side of the cliff.

Should we go up, or not?

A multiple-choice question was placed before Xiangzi.

She no longer had time to think it over carefully; this wasn't a multiple-choice question at all, all they could do was go up.

Taking one step back and advancing two steps forward is a better option than retreating and maintaining the status quo. Advancing, regardless of success or failure, can yield more. Even worse consequences are better than remaining stuck in this stalemate and regretting it later.

Regardless of who the girl with the vanity mirror is, things will definitely change once you go up and see her. Whether it will change for the better or for the worse is something to be seen after you go up.

"Hey, Xiangzi, have you decided where we're going to retreat to?" Miaomeng urged anxiously. "Why do you always leave things unsaid?"

Xiangzi glanced at her and continued speaking, finishing what he had just said.

"Let's go up, to the roof of the planetarium!"

She pointed in the direction where the flash had just appeared.

"Go to the roof?" Miao Meng's eyes widened. "Although the pressure will be less if we go up, there's a cliff behind the house. It doesn't seem like we can escape. If we go up, the space we can move around in will get smaller and smaller."

"Let's get up there first and then think about it."

Xiangzi loaded his bullets and shot off the legs of the villagers blocking his way, intending to take advantage of the gap to move towards the planetarium.

"Hailin will be in front, Miaomeng and I will be in the middle, Mu, can you take the rear?"

boom----!

Just as Xiangzi was speaking, a giant anemone, like a truck at full speed, hurtled towards Xiangzi and his group, with Mu, who was at the very back of the group, bearing the brunt of the attack.

With a clang, Mu grabbed the binding thread at his fingertips and slammed it in front of him, the greatsword plunging vertically into the soil, the blade aimed at the sea anemone traveling at least sixty kilometers per hour.

Having already accelerated to its maximum speed, the sea anemone had no room to brake and crashed directly into the blade standing in front of it.

Pfft!

The sea anemone split in two, and its foul-smelling, bluish-black blood sprayed into the sky like a fountain and then fell like rain.

Even though Mutsu's greatsword, which he had commissioned at the gathering and was as heavy as a block of iron without any sharp blade, was still capable of slicing the anemone's body along its midline at a speed of over 60 kilometers per hour.

No, strictly speaking, it was the sea anemone that cut itself open.

Mu's body was covered in the blood of sea anemones.

She wiped the blood from around her eyes and nodded gently to Xiangzi.

"I'm OK."

"..." Xiangzi touched Mu's face tenderly and wiped away some of the blood from her wound. "Thank you for your hard work."

"It's not hard."

Mu shook his head, turned around, his back to Xiangzi, and once again manipulated the binding silk to pull up the giant sword stuck in the ground.

"We just need to survive, this isn't so hard."

Xiangzi nodded silently, turned around, and followed the footsteps in front.

The corpses on the ground had piled up into a small mountain, and the flowing blood was enough to make one slippery, but even so, the familiars summoned by Lin continued to emerge from the depths of darkness as if they were endless.

The setting sun on the horizon was completely swallowed up by the night, and without light, they couldn't even see the exact direction of their familiars.

Xiangzi pulled out a signal flare again, which was the only way he could barely see the enemies around him.

Hailing even drew her wakizashi from her waist, wielding the swords with both hands, in order to carve a path through the sea of ​​familiars.

Xiangzi and Miaomeng were in a relatively safe middle position, but it wasn't easy for them either. They still had plenty of enemies on their flanks and had to face high-threat familiars like the giant anemone that could appear at any time.

The path leading to the planetarium's entrance is only a few dozen meters long, but it seemed to take them several hours.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance of the planetarium.

Hailing, who was walking at the front, used her long knife to block a crab claw, and with the short knife in her left hand, she cut off the legs of the crab claw's owner, kicked it aside, and was just about to push open the planetarium door.

"Hailing, wait a minute!" Xiangzi stopped her. "Don't go inside, they might block our way. Let's go up the wall directly."

She casually patted Miaomeng's cat's butt.

Snapped!

"Meow?!"

"Meow Dream, you go up first, and then pull us up."

"Just tell me to work, why the need for harassment!" Miao Meng blushed, touched her sore bottom, and swung the whip at her.

whoosh-

The whip with the hammer on it spun around a few times on the openwork iron frame of the planetarium dome and got stuck firmly.

Miaomeng tested the sturdiness, then grabbed the whip and jumped up, lightly touching the edge of the window, which was less than a centimeter wide, with her toes. When there was nowhere to get a foothold, she grabbed the whip again, swung to the other side where she could stand firmly, and quickly got to the roof.

There was a reason why Xiangzi let Miaomeng come up first; only she could climb to the roof of a several-story building so quickly.

Miao Meng steadied herself on the eaves next to the hemispherical dome and called out to the three people below.