Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 11

boom!

Xiangzi pulled the trigger, and 20 lead bullets flew out of the muzzle, hitting Miaomeng's feet. A few of the ricocheting bullets grazed Miaomeng's skin, but almost the instant the bullets grazed her, the wounds on Miaomeng's body healed automatically.

Magical girls heal much faster than ordinary people, but definitely not that fast.

Super-regeneration... Xiangzi squinted.

No wonder he's such a capable intelligence agent; he's the kind of person who can't die.

"What the hell?! Why are you shooting me the moment we meet?! I don't even know your name! Isn't it basic etiquette to introduce yourself when you meet someone? I already told you!" Miao Meng was so frightened that her true voice came out.

"Are you MeowDream MeowDream's parent?"

"Yes, it's me! Are you my gachi?" Meow Dream looked down and noticed that her clothes had been torn in several places by bullets. "My new clothes! Being a gachi isn't like that, you know?! I'm not John Lennon, nor XXX, and I'm not Batman's parents!"

She showed absolutely no reaction to being hit by the bullet. Could it be that she has blocked all pain sensation? Is she very afraid of pain?

“You have quite a diverse range of interests, including rock and roll, hip-hop, and superheroes,” Xiangzi said.

She writes and releases songs on the internet cafe's computers every night. She gets a lot of songs online. In order to get people to buy her songs, she tries out all kinds of styles. She knows all the hellish jokes that Miaomeng tells.

"Can you understand?"

"Whether you understand or not is none of your business." Xiangzi held up his gun and approached Miaomeng step by step. "I'm looking for you for only one thing—candy."

"So, what exactly is Candy—" Meow Dream shrank further and further towards the corner of the wall, "You mean the Candy Witch? Ah, I get it! You're the one who made me lose my credit points!"

boom!

Xiangzi pulled the trigger again, aiming at Miaomeng's head. This time, Miaomeng reacted and used her right hand to block in front of her, while the Soul Gem shone brightly.

The No. 20 shotgun shell shattered Meowmon's hand, but it also gave her time to transform. After the light faded, Meowmon's right hand had grown back.

It's impossible to tell what weapon she's using; she probably hasn't summoned it yet.

"Hey! How can you be so uncommunicative? We're supposed to be magical girls, for goodness' sake!"

“There’s no need to communicate with someone like you,” Xiangzi said coldly.

In Miaomeng's ears, this sentence means: I'm just here for revenge.

"Boss, I'm just someone who makes a living by doing intelligence work. I don't deserve to die."

“You won’t die. How could an intelligence agent who relies on super-regeneration to gather information die so easily?” Xiangzi said.

Miao Meng frowned, her voice turning somber.

"You have very good eyesight."

"Not as good as you."

"What exactly do you want? If the Candy Witch's information is wrong, I can apologize to you. I did not see anything abnormal when I walked around the barrier twice."

"The most important thing for intelligence is reliability." Xiangzi took another step closer and casually loaded two bullets into the gun.

“I’m reliable most of the time.” Miao Meng took another step back, this time back to the wall.

"Are you saying I deserve to be unlucky?" Xiangzi raised the muzzle of his gun and pinned Miaomeng against the wall.

"Of course it is—no, haha..." Miao Meng glanced to the side. "You came to me because you want compensation, right? I can compensate you, but can you help me remove the bad review?"

"Didn't you post this anonymously?"

"You still know I'm anonymous?! You really are having an affair with the administrator!"

"Enough talk, five seeds of lamentation."

I'll return three to Chu Hua and keep two for myself.

"Five? I only use one a month, where would I get five in stock?" Miao Meng looked at the dark muzzle of the gun pressed against the Soul Gem above her collarbone, cold sweat pouring down her face. "Please, have mercy, I have three."

Five.

"Even if I had them, I wouldn't carry so many valuables with me. Four, fine. I'll give you an extra 200,000 yen..."

boom!

The bullet shattered Miaomeng's shoulder.

"ah----!"

Although she had completely blocked out the pain, she was still startled. She almost thought her Soul Gem was about to be shattered!

"Five," Xiangzi said coldly.

"...What about the bad review?" Miao Meng weakly raised her hand.

"Five, including the money."

Half of it will go to Chuhua for accommodation, and the rest... will at least improve the situation a little bit, even just a little bit, so I'll treat Deng to a meal.

After all, she had been with him unconditionally for so long, but he hadn't given her anything in return.

"Deal?" Miaomeng said with a forced smile.

"..."

“If you don’t say anything, I’ll take that as a yes. Could you…” Miao Meng raised her hand and gently poked the barrel of the Remington M11 with her finger. “Could you…move it a little? I need to get something.”

Xiangzi took a step back, making room for him.

"call......"

Miao Meng breathed a sigh of relief, took out three Lament Seeds, and tossed them to Xiangzi.

"Where's the rest?"

“I already told you I didn’t bring that much. How about I give you an IOU?” Miao Meng suddenly raised her eyes, a sarcastic smile in them. “If you’re still alive to get it.”

? !

The dark alleyway instantly transformed into a magnificent golden palace. Before Xiangzi could react, Miaomeng swung out the leather whip she had been hiding behind her waist, hooked it onto the beam of the palace, and soared into the air.

With a long whip in each hand, Miaomeng moved freely between the beams, reaching a place that Xiangzi could not reach in an instant.

"you--?!"

It wasn't just that Miaomeng had run away; Xiangzi also heard a deafening sound of footsteps approaching him from afar.

"Aren't you being too careless, little kitty?" Miao Meng squatted on the beam, looking down at Xiangzi. "Why do you think I led you into a dead end? This is the entrance to the witch's barrier. You were too focused on me to notice, weren't you? It seems your eyes aren't as good as I thought."

How do you know the structure inside the barrier?

Miaomeng's quick reaction just now must have required a very thorough understanding of the witch's barrier structure.

"Because I've been here before, many times over. It's my pet witch. The administrator probably hasn't even noticed how long its 'Unknown' status has been hanging there~"

Miao Meng stood up and strode along the beam.

"Witch's name: Money. Her nature is greed. She possesses a living golden city and tries to devour any creature that enters her barrier. If we were to rate her, she would be Hard. However, because the entrances are few and narrow, and the amount of magical power that leaks out is small, she never takes the initiative to attack, so no one has ever noticed her."

Miaomeng looked at Xiangzi with a smile.

"See those familiars running towards you? Oh dear, there seem to be so many~"

The rumbling footsteps surrounded Xiangzi, and countless golden armors surrounded him, their plates all made of glittering gold coins.

Miaomeng walked to a comfortable spot, sat on the crossbeam, crossed her legs, and admired Xiangzi, who was surrounded by countless golden armors.

"Seeing how hard you're trying to collect your debt from me, I'll make an exception and tell you a secret~" Miao Meng's smile was particularly unrestrained, "Money is powerful but brainless, greedy but doesn't know how to give. It's like a dragon that only knows how to hide its spoils in a room."

Miao Meng pointed to herself.

"I am the only one who can sneak into its treasure vault."

"Let them treat you well. I'll go back to the treasure vault and get your inheritance and my things back."

"The poor thing whose soul gem is cracked."

The Tale of Nirvana: Where Did You Sleep Last Night: Chapter 16 Rather Till the End of Your Life

Golden armor, golden spears, a colossal golden palace—beneath the helmet of the golden armor were portraits printed on Japanese yen bills, their texture resembling paper lanterns or models. Everything within the Money Witch's barrier perfectly matched Xiangzi's stereotypical view of "money."

The air was thick with the smells of printing ink and gunpowder. The ink smelled like money, emanating from the face of the man in the golden armor, while the gunpowder smell came from Xiangzi's weapon.

In an attempt to escape, she recklessly threw out a lot of grenades and smoke grenades, weaving between spears and armor, carefully avoiding the spear tips, for fear of being accidentally impaled.

When they emerged from the smoke, they saw the exact same scenery again.

She had to squander the magic that was a luxury for her, unleashing even greater firepower. The corruption of the Soul Gem was increasing at a visible rate, but Xiangzi was still a long way from breaking through the encirclement.

Now she has bad news and good news.

The bad news is that the Soul Gem's corruption level reached the dangerous 70% threshold during the battle just now. The good news is that she still has three Lament Seeds given to her by Meow Dream.

Let's splurge just this once. I'm sorry, Chuhua, the debt will have to be repaid later.

Xiangzi gripped the Seed of Sorrow tightly, first using up two Seeds of Sorrow to reduce the filth level to below 10%.

Then she turned around, facing the mountains and seas of golden armor, and with a wave of her hand, her favorite Remington 11 transformed into an M249 light machine gun.

The turbidity level instantly rose to over 20%.

Since becoming like this, Xiangzi has been keeping her energy consumption as low as possible. This is because not only has the purification efficiency of the Seed of Lamentation decreased, but the magical power she needs to recreate her weapon has also increased. As a result, her energy consumption has increased eight or nine times.

To hell with that, now is not the time to worry about consumption.

Xiangzi gritted his teeth, pulled the trigger, and the gun spat fire. The golden armor that had been surging up fell down like wheat being harvested.

New bullets kept being generated in the ammunition box, and the taint of the Soul Gem rose with the release of bullets, making the smell of gunpowder in the air increasingly strong.

The gunfire continued unabated.

When she was almost out of bullets, Xiangzi lengthened the ammunition belt. When the muzzle overheated, she pulled out another gun. There were a lot of familiars swarming in front of her, so she simply threw a grenade at them.

The intense barrage of firepower continued for a long time until the familiar that filled the lines was finally torn open.

The smoke bomb exploded at his feet. Xiangzi weaved through the piles of corpses of familiars, turned a corner of the palace, and crawled into a ventilation shaft before the rest of the familiars could catch up.

The rumbling footsteps passed by, gradually fading in volume until they disappeared completely.

Xiangzi could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Covered in bruises, she changed her position, leaning against the wall, curled up in a ventilation duct just big enough to fit a person, and took out the Soul Gem.

60%

"What a waste of two Lament Seeds, how wonderful." Xiangzi laughed.

The cramped ventilation ducts reminded her of the internet cafe where she slept at night, and her small workstation at work. That dark, damp, and cold feeling clung to her like a bone-deep infection, seeping into the gaps between her bones and dampening every neuron.

Every single day, facing roaring customers and background music with zero purchases, her mood remains almost exactly the same as it is now.

She didn't even dare to make a sound, and had nowhere to vent her frustrations.

Because the person on the other end of the phone is a customer, and because making a sound would attract the familiar.

“You’re a complete waste, Toyokawa Shoko.” Shoko buried her face between her knees and whispered, “You don’t even deserve to live.”

Two days passed without a single good thing happening. Xiangzi knew she was unlucky, but attributing all the bad things to bad luck only highlighted her weakness.

She hated herself for being unable to do anything.

She misses the carefree days of the past.

My nose feels sore.

Xiangzi could hear his own breathing trembling.

Trembling breaths mingled with the flowing air in the ventilation ducts, drifting out of the grille, where a pile of fallen familiar corpses lay.

"Xiangzi, you must be strong."

Xiangzi told himself that.

He rubbed the tip of his nose to suppress the soreness and took a deep breath.

"You can only rely on yourself now. The lamp is still waiting for you. Even if it's just to survive, you have to survive."

Just survive.

She couldn't stay in the ventilation duct forever; she had to get out. The light was still waiting for her in CiRCLE, and she couldn't die here, even if it meant dying.

If she really did die quietly in some corner, given Deng's personality, he might very well go to CiRCLE every day to wait for her, day after day, until his hair turned white, until a lifetime had passed.

We can't waste Deng's life. Let's leave here first. Once we're out, everything will be easier.