“Urgh… Cough, cough, cough…”
The suffocating pain felt like an invisible pair of iron hands gripping Su Ruanruan’s neck tightly.
In the dim, moldy attic of the slum, a petite silver-haired girl hung from the beam, struggling violently.
Her small legs clad in white knee-high socks kicked helplessly in the air as she tried to reach the rickety wooden stool that had already been kicked over.
The rough hemp rope dug deeply into her tender skin, burning painfully.
Waves of dizziness from oxygen deprivation washed over her, a buzzing rang in her ears, and the edges of her vision darkened rapidly.
Su Ruanruan opened her mouth, gasping futilely like a fish thrown on dry land, but she couldn’t draw in much air.
I’m going to die.
This time… I’m really going to die.
But I don’t want to die.
Su Ruanruan gripped the rough rope around her neck with both hands.
Her body, which normally couldn’t even unscrew a bottle cap, instinctively squeezed out the last trace of weak magic power under the threat of death.
A faint pink magical glow lit up at her pale, trembling fingertips.
Though it was only a tiny amount, instead of pulling at the rope, she precisely directed the magic toward the dilapidated wooden beam overhead that held the rope in place.
Creak—snap!
Under the erosion of the weak magic power, the rusted iron nail securing the rope—along with a chunk of rotten wood—was finally yanked free by the weight of her violent struggling.
Thud.
Su Ruanruan crashed heavily onto the floor full of wood splinters, rope and all.
She clutched her burning neck, curling up on the ground like a dehydrated fish while greedily gulping down the moldy, murky air.
Tears and snot uncontrollably smeared across her face.
“Hah… Haah… Cough, cough, cough!!”
She had survived.
She had intended to hang herself, yet even her suicide attempt had failed in such a muddled, haphazard way.
…
After lying on the dusty floor for several full minutes, Su Ruanruan finally propped herself up shakily, her eyes rimmed red.
She looked down at herself.
Incredibly slender wrists, a flat chest, a petite body less than one and a half meters tall.
And that exquisitely delicate fair little face that remained strikingly beautiful even now, streaked with tears and dust, her silver hair as messy as a bird’s nest.
Su Ruanruan remained silent for a moment before raising a hand to cover her face.
A small, embarrassed sob slipped through her fingers.
“Even committing suicide failed… Just how useless am I…?”
…
This was no exaggeration. She truly felt she was hopelessly worthless.
This was a world where magic existed.
More precisely, it was a world that belonged to Witches.
Honestly, in the known multiversal cross-dimensional civilization system, the term “Witch” usually represented the most dangerous, most powerful, and most unreasonable predatory apex race.
All female, all yuri, and all intensely possessive.
Textbooks described them as noble, beautiful, lustful, and dangerous, born with an extremely strong desire to dominate.
When a normal Witch passed through a dark alley, even the monsters lurking in the shadows would tremble.
If a normal Witch took a liking to someone, that person could only accept their misfortune and be captured to be kept as a canary, toyed with at leisure.
In the propaganda of any universe, Witches were inextricably linked with “absolute oppression.”
But Su Ruanruan—
She looked down again at her thin arms and legs.
This appearance didn’t resemble a natural predator at all.
Instead, she looked more like the soft little cake in comics destined to be completely devoured by evil big sisters, leaving not even a bone fragment behind.
The especially easy-to-bully kind.
Yet she was indeed a Witch.
A registered first-tier Witch currently attending Astraea Outer Ring Junior Witch Academy.
Her magic power was pathetically weak, her combat spells were consistently terrible, and her personality was as soft as cotton.
Even saying a few extra words to strangers would make her unconsciously step back half a pace.
And her seemingly impressive Innate Authority, the [Authority of Beauty]—
It couldn’t burn people, couldn’t slash people, and unlike other high-tier Authorities, it couldn’t shatter opponents with a single word.
What exactly it could do, even Su Ruanruan herself wasn’t entirely clear.
She only knew that because of this damned Authority, the way people looked at her always became strange.
Witch big sisters would often secretly want to tease her, bully her, or even gaze at her like prey, wanting to grab her in their hands and squeeze hard.
They only held back because she was also a Witch.
Even so, it shouldn’t have escalated to the point where she resorted to hanging herself to escape reality.
What truly drove her to despair was—
Su Ruanruan’s hand trembled as she fished out a cracked “Witch Crystal Terminal” from her skirt pocket.
On the screen, a glaring red collection notice stood out prominently.
***
Debtor: Su Ruanruan
Loan Purpose: In-app purchases for the mobile game Abyssal NuanNuan, consumption of magical ceremonial outfits, dream realm donations
Total Principal and Interest: 2,500,000 magic crystal coins
Please repay in full before 6:00 PM today.
Failure to repay by the deadline will result in legal enforcement of collateral recovery.
Enforcing Party: Axel Nightmare Financial Services Company
***
Staring at that string of zeros, Su Ruanruan felt her vision darken once more.
Two and a half million.
In Witch society, it wasn’t an astronomical sum—it was merely the down payment for a small apartment in the main city district.
But for a good-for-nothing Witch living in the slums of the Seventh Ring outer area who frequently defaulted on her tuition fees, this figure was no different from “a billion.”
Either way, she couldn’t repay it.
What made it even more despairing was that she hadn’t accumulated this debt overnight out of nowhere.
It had started when a seemingly enthusiastic junior from the academy kindly recommended a “loan platform specially for young Witches.”
That junior had been particularly patient, slowly dismantling her hedgehog-like defenses and teaching her step by step how to apply, how to pay in installments, and how to “consume rationally.”
At first, Su Ruanruan had been quite wary.
But the problem was—
She really wanted to look like a “proper Witch.”
Her old uniform, she wanted a new one.
Cheap accessories, she wanted exquisite ones.
Her shabby terminal case, she wanted to replace it.
In that false sense of security from being treated like a friend, she had muddled her way into the trap.
By the time she snapped out of it, the number had ballooned to a point where, upon seeing it, she immediately wanted to hang herself right there.
“Actually, I’m not completely brainless…”
Su Ruanruan hugged the terminal as her delicate little face gradually turned ashen.
“Thinking back now, it’s obvious someone set a trap for me…”
Yes, she realized belatedly.
That junior had specifically targeted bottom-tier little Witches like her—poor, weak, without any backing, and desperately craving recognition.
She offered a bit of sweetness first, pretended to be a friend, and ultimately let her tie the noose around her own neck.
Literally.
Su Ruanruan glanced at the broken piece of hemp rope lying nearby, and tears welled up in her eyes again.
So what if she knew she had been scammed?
She had no evidence and no backing.
In the legal sense, Witches were indeed noble.
But in the harsh reality of the outer rings, she was just a soft pushover that anyone could step on.
…
For instance, under normal circumstances, races like werewolves, succubi, and elves should feel intimidated upon seeing a Witch.
Because dominant Witches were simply too terrifying.
They hunted.
They toyed with their prey.
They dominated.
They made their victims too afraid to even resist.
The multiverse had already been invaded and conquered by Witches in several parallel worlds.
The non-human residents there either surrendered or fled.
There was no third option.
It was said that the only time the Witches had truly suffered a major setback—
Was against an unreasonably powerful evil universe known as “Magical Girl 466.”
But this topic was taboo in Witch society; no one wanted to bring it up.
Su Ruanruan had only vaguely heard that the Witch Federation had taken a loss in some universe.
The specifics were classified at too high a level for a first-tier good-for-nothing like her to access.
She only knew the official propaganda regarding that side went like this:
“Magical Girls are extremely ferocious.”
“They possess unreasonable power-up abilities and will charge forward shouting strange phrases about friendship and bonds.”
“If encountered, retreat immediately and report it. Do not engage alone.”
Su Ruanruan had never seen a Magical Girl, nor did she particularly want to.
She couldn’t even handle the Witches in her own universe.
To her, cross-universe monster-level enemies were no different from the dragon maid Witch back at the academy who always bullied and teased her for being weaker.
Right now, there was only one thing on her mind.
How to scrape together two and a half million before six o’clock this afternoon.
The answer was: She couldn’t.
Su Ruanruan stared at the terminal screen for a long time.
Then she slowly flipped it over and placed it face-down on the ground, as if she didn’t want to look at those numbers anymore.
“…What should I do?”
Her voice was thin and small, like a little animal huddled inside a cardboard box, speaking into the darkness where no one could hear.
