20:47.
Having finally finished a day of work—supervising those kids as they cleaned up their rooms—Bai Qiuchen sat in front of his computer, chatting with a friend he had happened to meet during a livestream, who was also a streamer and a freelance magical girl.
[You’ve already sunk to the point of buying yourself commercial gigs? Haki Bai really is such a small fry~]
Even though it was just text, the mockery overflowed from the screen.
She was also one of the few people who knew Bai Qiu’s true identity.
[You think I want to be stuck with the nickname “Commercial Gig Killer” for life?]
[Isn’t it kind of cool~]
[Cool how?]
[So, did anyone come knocking?]
[Yeah, and five showed up all at once.]
[Let me guess, those five juniors of yours?]
[Spot on.]
Bai Qiuchen sighed again—he had lost count of how many times he had sighed by now.
[The Emperor issued an order for me to take care of them.]
[Seriously, why come to me to babysit? I’m not a nanny.]
[Them taking care of me would be more like it.]
[It’s a sign of trust in you, cheer up a little.]
[I can’t cheer up at all. I just feel it’s troublesome.]
[You’re fine letting kids take care of you, and you still call yourself an adult.]
[So what, so what, so what? Six years old plus over two hundred months doesn’t count as a kid anymore?]
[You’re so cringe, bro.]
[Seriously, I don’t know why, but I keep having this bad feeling.]
[I hope it’s just my imagination.]
[You’re planting flags so fast it’s like an old general on the opera stage.]
[Do you think it’s possible that your identity was exposed long ago, and the entire Association is just playing along with you?]
Bai Qiuchen raised an eyebrow.
Judging from the behavior of those few, he couldn’t quite draw that conclusion.
[I don’t think so. I think I’ve been hiding it pretty well.]
[And if I really were exposed, I should have been called in for a talk long ago.]
[Is it worth the whole Association putting on an act for me?]
[Then pretend I never said that.]
[Anyway, be honest with me—what do you really think of <Magic Girl’s Deep Sin Dungeon>?]
The other party shifted the topic to the game.
Speaking of games, the hottest one was undoubtedly <Magic Girl’s Deep Sin Dungeon>, made using the latest generation of the most popular magical girls as the prototypes.
Currently, this game’s reception online was mixed.
Those who praised it were branded as simps, those who criticized it were branded as haters and rival company water armies, and those who pointed out both flaws and merits were simultaneously branded as simps and haters.
Those who stood in the middle piping both sides had their parents sent to heaven by both sides at the same time.
[If I’m being honest, it’s actually okay.]
[It’s not at the level of a garbage game, but the problem is this thing costs me over 200 yuan.]
[The gameplay experience feels… worse than P3R… Tartarus climbing.]
[For those two hundred plus, I could buy snacks for half a month.]
Now that he thought about it calmly, the game was expensive, but at least the art and music were beyond reproach.
The story was incomprehensible but didn’t have any obvious poison points.
Except the optimization really wasn’t great, and there were quite a few bugs, making it feel like a half-finished product put out for sale.
Thank goodness the internet was forgiving enough toward magical girls.
Otherwise, its reputation would have dropped even further.
In Bai Qiuchen’s view, the biggest issue was still the completely broken character balance.
A buy-to-play game with no online multiplayer shouldn’t have those kinds of extreme wheelchair characters—and the same applied to reality.
Magical girls should fight monsters for thirty thousand rounds with neither side winning, and finally achieve victory through a beam clash.
How could you just instantly kill a monster?
Of course, if you asked Bai Qiuchen which one he would pick, he would choose the wheelchair without hesitation.
‘I oppose it is not equal to I don’t use it.’
‘If you can play on easy mode, who would go play on hell mode?’
‘I’m not a masochist.’
[I played it and thought it was okay.]
[Not excellent, but not that terrible either.]
[Anyway, I’ll probably make a review video for it later.]
[I already trashed it once during a livestream.]
[I’m not going to wade into these troubled waters this time.]
Bai Qiuchen could imagine the spectacle in the comments section if he posted a video about this game.
‘To keep my parents from being sent to cyber heaven for the umpteenth time, I’d better give up on this piece of cake.’
Besides, he had just personally torn up a commercial gig.
Just as they were chatting enthusiastically, his phone suddenly lit up.
The magical girl-exclusive app “Magic Guild” popped up a message:
[Curse of Calamity has appeared in District Four, District Five, and District Seven of Dust Fate City!]
[All magical girls currently available, mobilize and protect the safety of the citizens!]
Bai Qiuchen quietly picked up his phone and went to the balcony.
Leaning over the railing, he looked up at the sky and, sure enough, those five juniors had already completed their transformations and were heading to the battlefield.
“Young people really are great—working this hard even at a job.”
He sighed with emotion.
Looking back at when he was eighteen, five years had already passed.
‘You ask why he was looking back at eighteen?’
‘No reason.’
‘Just simply looking back.’
At that moment, he suddenly really wanted to make a video of <Magic Girl’s Deep Sin Dungeon>.
Bai Qiuchen returned inside.
He’d pretend he never saw that message.
He wasn’t streaming right now anyway, and the Association didn’t know whether she was free or not.
Four thousand yuan a month—why work so hard?
Rather than fighting monsters for thirty thousand rounds to a draw, he’d rather stay home playing games, checking the FX exchange rate, chatting with friends, and shooting the breeze in the fan group.
Fighting monsters could be left to those juniors who were more cheat-like than actual cheats.
Monsters, officially called “Curse of Calamity,” are born from the negative emotions of humans—monsters that match humanity’s imagination.
They cannot directly harm humans.
They can only pollute humans through the mind, the psyche, and other mental planes.
Magical girls are the opposite.
They are warriors of hope born from the beautiful, pure wishes of humanity.
Each magical girl has her own unique ability, which they call “Miracle.”
Similarly, because they are born from the beautiful, pure wishes of humanity, “Miracles” also cannot harm any living being other than monsters.
Actually, aside from magical girls, there originally existed many superheroes with superpowers.
But ever since the first magical girl appeared—perhaps because people are more receptive to cute things—people’s love for magical girls instantly surpassed that of other superheroes.
This led to a situation where superheroes became fewer and fewer while magical girls became more and more numerous.
It even reached the point now where superheroes had gone extinct, and magical girls had become so numerous that they had turned into a proper profession.
Incidentally, becoming a magical girl doesn’t depend on age.
As long as you’re a magical girl, you can join the “Magic Association.”
Also, precisely because enemy and self share the same origin, only magical girls can eliminate the “Curse of Calamity.”
Only when defeated by a magical girl will they transform from monsters endangering human mental health into priceless “Calamity Hearts.”
As for why they’re called monsters—well, of course it’s because when there’s such a simple and memorable name, you might as well use it.
A towering flower stood in District Four, waving its claws and fangs.
Its roots and stems wrapped around skyscrapers, countless flowers spewing burst after burst of golden pollen.
The flower’s root-stem grew out one root after another extending outward.
Each root bore an identical flower, and those flowers on the roots in turn grew new roots, endlessly extending outward—it was a multi-headed monster.
People lay sprawled in all directions on the street.
Even those still walking looked weak and listless.
He Xi swung her blade to cleave open a safe zone through the pollen mist, landing in it together with Zhen Hong.
“Are you all right?”
He Xi approached a middle-aged office worker and asked.
Judging from their vitals, the pollen seemed only to knock people unconscious, with no other effects.
The people within the safe zone that He Xi had carved out slowly regained consciousness and climbed up from the ground.
Upon closer look, they were all office workers.
“Ah… ah, how did I get here? Wasn’t I at the company?”
“Overtime… I need to work overtime.”
“I haven’t finished my overtime yet…!”
“Work, work, work! Work my ass! I quit!”
“What are you doing overtime for?! After today’s overtime, there’s still tomorrow’s!”
“This pollen makes people lazy.”
Zhen Hong deduced.
“It seems this monster was born because the resentment from overtime work was too great.”
“How pitiful. This unreasonable overtime system should be eradicated.”
Zhen Hong sympathetically patted one of them on the head.
Zhen Hong looked at the buildings tangled in roots around her and said to He Xi:
“My ability isn’t well-suited for debuting here.”
“I’ll leave it to you, He Xi.”
“This ends here. Leave it to me.”
He Xi took a deep breath and stepped forward, lowering her body into an iaido stance.
Though she hadn’t made any movement yet, the bell hanging from her sword’s hilt was already ringing clear—
The sky light bent, and before anyone could even see the draw, He Xi had already released her blade and exhaled.
The flower monster seemed to be bent apart along with the sky itself—split vertically from the base in a single stroke.
An invisible force tore at all the roots, dragging the collapsing monster, roots and all, into the void, leaving only the “Calamity Heart” floating on the ground.
“Great job, great job.”
Zhen Hong stroked He Xi’s head with satisfaction.
“L-Let’s hurry to the next place.”
He Xi, her face slightly reddened, extricated herself from Zhen Hong’s patting.
She flew to the Calamity Heart and collected it, then flew with Zhen Hong—who wore a motherly smile—toward the next location.