A green city bus with hospital advertisements on its side drove steadily along the concrete road, weaving through streets lined with tall buildings and staggered three-story shops.
The ceaseless buzzing of cicadas in the roadside trees cried out the scorching heat of summer.
Apart from the bus, there wasn’t a single private car in sight on the four-lane road.
Sitting by the window in the back row, Luo Shiyin leaned against the seat, tilting her head as she stared out from a perspective just barely above the window frame.
She gazed thoughtfully at the edge of the pedestrian sidewalk, where no cars were parked, and at the occasional coin-operated vending machine that popped into view.
Due to the recent shock of suddenly being transported to another world and becoming a girl, she had only confirmed she was still in a modern world before rushing off to deal with work matters.
She hadn’t delved deeply into what era she was in, but now…“Hey, kid.”
“Eh? Y-Yes, senpai?”
Startled by the sudden voice behind her, Mitsuba Ren—who was treating the plush ball on her lap like a cat—froze.
After quickly confirming no one nearby was paying attention, she turned her head with a flattering smile and whispered a reply.
Luo Shiyin didn’t seem to mind and casually asked: “Does our company have its own car? If there’s ever an emergency, surely we won’t have to waste time taking the bus like this?”
“A car? Muxiang mentioned buying one before, but after a meeting we decided against it. It would draw too much attention, and besides, in a real emergency, running is actually faster.”
“…Tch.”
Her eye twitched involuntarily, but remembering a certain plush creature’s terrifying 13-point, dump-truck-tier strength, she chose to remain silent and simply nodded.
At the same time, she began to form a clearer picture of this world’s societal structure—a bizarre blend of eras that made no scientific sense.
There were high-rise buildings made entirely of glass, yet most of the city consisted of three-story structures.
The buses were air-conditioned, but private cars were a luxury item.
Large modern shopping centers existed, yet coin-operated vending machines hadn’t been phased out.
It felt as if an invisible hand had forcibly capped society’s development at a mid-level point—high enough to be modern, but still strangely limited—allowing only a few technologies to break through the cracks and evolve 10–20 years ahead of their time.
Still, it wasn’t all bad.
At the very least, her 50,000-yuan monthly salary seemed far more valuable here than she had originally thought.
It took them three full hours to travel from the city center to the outskirts, after which the trio disembarked at a lonely bus stop by a dirt road and walked for another thirty minutes.
Eventually, they arrived in front of a large, undeveloped forest.
The middle-aged man with dead-fish eyes leading the way finally stopped.
“We’re here.”
He spat out the words indifferently, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting the last one with a match.
Luo Shiyin immediately walked over to a wooden stump nearby and sat down, tapping her aching, numb legs.
“I really think we need a car. Drawing attention is better than being bedridden the next day.”
“Huh? Senpai, your constitution is really that weak?”
Mitsuba Ren, hugging the plush creature in her arms, blinked in surprise.
The black-haired loli’s answer was self-assured: “Researchers don’t need good stamina. As long as we don’t catch a cold from the AC, we’re fine.”
“You shouldn’t say that~” Just as Mitsuba Ren was about to retort, a cheerful female voice suddenly rang out from between the trees.
A tall woman emerged from the shade, wearing a white tank top under a brown leather jacket. Her long golden wavy hair shimmered in the sunlight, and a mysterious smile played on her lovely face.
“Even researchers need their bodies to back them up. Especially in our little organization—what, we’re five people now?—we’ll need you weirdos to carry the team during group events, little newbie.”
Hearing the deliberately stretched tone and babying tone, a vein popped on Luo Shiyin’s forehead.
But before she could reply, the man smoking a cigarette cut in abruptly: “Muxiang—where’s the monster?”
“It’s inside. Give it about three minutes—it should appear. This time the negative fluctuation is pretty mild. At most, it’ll draw in one person.”
Brushing her hair behind her ear, the golden-haired woman named Muxiang tilted her head and gestured toward the forest.
“But it’s enough to let the newbie go through the motions.”
“What exactly is this ‘process’ you keep mentioning?”
Unable to hold back her curiosity, Luo Shiyin asked from her seat on the stump.
Muxiang looked momentarily surprised.
“Oh? Boss didn’t tell you? I thought he always dumped a ton of info whenever a newbie joined.”
Maybe… I scared him?
Recalling how the giant suit of armor had behaved so cautiously back in the office, Luo Shiyin’s mouth twitched.
“That’s why I told you to ask all your questions back then.”
Blowing out smoke, the man known as Wansui glanced at the black-haired girl seated like a giant doll.
“Did Boss tell you we have to fight magical girls for monster kill credit?”
“He did.”
“When monsters are defeated, they leave behind special energy crystals—only we can use them. For example, they’re used to make your monsters. Magical girls also need them to strengthen themselves.”
“So… we’re interfering with magical girls to benefit ourselves?”
Luo Shiyin raised an eyebrow.
Just from that alone, their side sounded ever-so-slightly villainous.
But Wansui just glanced at her blankly and said: “If that’s how you want to think of it, go ahead.”
“Alright, enough chit-chat. That thing’s coming out.”
At that moment, as the two talked, the golden-haired woman seemed to sense something.
She turned to look into the forest.
Almost simultaneously, a torrent of dark, tar-like sludge erupted from within the trees—like black mud rising from a sewer—and quickly piled into a hill over ten meters high in a nearby clearing.
“I don’t eat… cilantro!”
With a shout that sounded like hundreds of children yelling in unison, the ten-meter-high mud hill exploded.
Pitch-black gunk rained down from the sky.
Luo Shiyin’s face turned visibly grim as she stared at the scene.
Fortunately, just before the black sludge came raining down, the pink-haired hottie quickly stepped over with her long legs.
In just a few strides, she reached Luo Shiyin’s side and pulled out a folding umbrella from her arms, popping it open.
In an instant, a flurry of wet splattering sounds followed.
The spilled black sludge nearly covered the entire ground around them.
“Don’t worry, senpai. Those black substances are condensed negative emotions. They don’t have any real smell, and they dissipate quickly once they hit the ground.”
Noticing the unpleasant look on the black-haired loli’s face, Mitsuba Ren immediately offered a considerate explanation, hoping it might help her forget the frustrations from work.
After hearing that, Luo Shiyin’s expression eased a little as she shifted her attention to the bizarre creature that had just emerged from the sludge, screaming odd slogans.
But upon closer inspection, her face became a bit… complicated.
“That thing… is the monster?”
“Monsters are essentially conceptual entities born from the buildup of negative emotions in ordinary people. So their forms tend to reflect those emotions in the most… expressive ways,” Muxiang explained calmly, holding an umbrella herself.
She was smiling as she looked at the creature not far away—a thing that looked like cilantro had married scallions, both of whom then cheated with a salted fish, and somehow dragged squid and crabs into a weird party.
Muxiang wasn’t even remotely surprised.
Mitsuba Ren, holding the umbrella for her as well, chimed in comfortingly:
“Honestly, this one looks pretty decent. Once you’ve seen more monsters, you’ll get used to it.”
“…So if monsters are born from negative emotions, then during finals week or company layoffs?”
“Yep, those are usually peak monster outbreak periods.”
At that moment, a pale purple light circle had appeared at their feet without them even noticing, enclosing all four people within.
The dead-fish-eyed middle-aged man stated flatly:
“It’s here.”
“…Huh?”
The sudden shift in topic caught Luo Shiyin completely off guard.
Before she could ask more, a crimson streak of light streaked in from the distance, smashing violently into the freshly born food-fusion monster.
The impact rang out like a grenade explosion.
As the light dissipated, Luo Shiyin finally realized who the man meant by “it’s here.”
It was a woman dressed in a fluffy crimson battle-dress armor, wielding a giant axe the size of a door.
Her peach blossom eyes were bright, and her long hair flowed dramatically…An auntie?
…
The hell?
“Wait a minute, didn’t you say a magical girl was coming!?”
Watching the scene unfold, Luo Shiyin felt a wave of suffocating disbelief and couldn’t help turning to the pink-haired girl beside her.
Mitsuba Ren, however, remained completely unfazed: “Magical girls don’t stay girls forever, you know. Even if magic chooses a baby, forty years later she’s gonna be a full-grown magical lady.”
“And in a way, the older a magical girl is, the stronger she tends to be. Against newborn monsters like this one, they usually wrap it up pretty fast.”
Muxiang smiled as she explained, watching the magical auntie skillfully slice massive chunks of ingredients off the wild monster like she was prepping a meal in her kitchen.
From Wansui’s perspective, however, it was clear there was mockery in Muxiang’s eyes.
“As long as we stay within the light circle, no matter how many people show up, no one will see us.”
Wansui said it casually—maybe to reassure Luo Shiyin, maybe as a subtle warning to Muxiang.
Muxiang simply nodded with a smile, but the mocking glint in her eyes didn’t fade in the slightest.
Not far away, the battle was going exactly as the golden-haired woman had described.
The food-hybrid monster stood no chance.
In a matter of moments, it was chopped into chunks by the red-haired magical auntie—her movements as smooth as dicing vegetables.
Just as she was about to deliver the final blow, a ringtone suddenly sounded from her battle skirt pocket.
At the sound, the magical auntie—who had remained expressionless up to that point—suddenly looked panicked.
She completely forgot about finishing off the monster and frantically pulled out her phone to answer:
“H-Hello, boss? I’m in the restroom right now, I’ll be right back for the meeting!”