The situation was urgent—at least more urgent than finishing the BBQ in front of him. The problem was, if he just paid the bill and ran all the way to the battlefield, would his true identity be discovered?
“Can I not go?” Yuan Qing asked.
“Do you want to owe me money that badly and become my financial slave?” Mizuho countered.
“I’m going,” he said.
He would go.
“Raven can teleport you,” Mizuho said. “Just make up a temporary excuse to slip away, and then make it quick.”
Yuan Qing raised one eyebrow. ‘Still quite versatile…’
Fine, if he couldn’t eat, then he couldn’t eat.
Yuan Qing immediately clicked off his phone, shoved it back into his pocket, and stood up abruptly.
“Sorry, something urgent came up.” Yuan Qing pulled out the cash he had prepared—not a penny more, not a penny less. “Bag up the leftovers for me; I’ll be back for them soon!”
Ignoring the reactions of the others, he quickly dashed out the door, shutting the sounds of their discussion outside.
He ran to a deserted alleyway, where pitch-black raven feathers suddenly surged out of thin air, flooding a section of the narrow passage.
First came a sense of weightlessness, and then, when the soles of Yuan Qing’s feet touched solid ground again, the scent of asphalt replaced the greasy smoke of the BBQ restaurant.
This was near a construction site that had yet to be completed. The streetlights were dim, and yellow caution tape was stretched around the perimeter.
In the center of the restricted area was the monster. It was currently attempting to flip an excavator with its horns.
This monster was, broadly speaking, a deer, but with many more dangerous, jagged edges added to its silhouette.
“Is this the monster this time?” Yuan Qing shook out his legs, which felt a bit restless from the teleportation. The black robes had already finished forming during the flurry of feathers, and the raven feathers first outlined the silhouette of wings before gradually filling them in with pure darkness.
Raven descended from the sky and perched on Yuan Qing’s shoulder.
“Careful with its horns; they’re sharp,” Raven said, her voice unusually low. “Even though you’re very talented, getting poked by those horns will still leave a hole in you.”
“Huh? I’m talented?”
Yuan Qing caught the key point.
Then Raven raised her voice again. “We won’t know after just one battle! Hurry up and face your second battle! Don’t forget to make a heart after the fight; Mizuho requested it!”
Before Yuan Qing could reply, the monster sensed a new presence. It stopped its harassment of the excavator, and its sturdy head turned with a series of clicks, locking onto Yuan Qing.
“Mooo — “
Accompanied by a piercing screech of hooves scraping the ground, the monster lunged. The concrete cracked instantly as its massive body shot straight toward Yuan Qing.
Fast. It was much faster than the Bat Monster from last time.
‘Something like being talented…’
Yuan Qing stood his ground. Just a split second before the antlers could touch his black robes, he moved.
There was no panicked retreat, no clumsy roll. He simply tilted his body slightly, tapped the ground with his toes, and spread his wings. He was lifted by the rushing airflow of the monster’s charge, sliding past those lethal antlers by a mere fraction of an inch.
At the same time, his right hand emerged from beneath the black robes, fingers spread wide.
“Over there!” Raven shouted.
Without needing the reminder, Yuan Qing flicked his wrist. Several pitch-black feathers shot out, and then, like some kind of liquid metal, they instantly elongated and hardened in mid-air, turning into several extremely fine black silk threads.
These threads wrapped precisely around the branching antlers. Borrowing the massive momentum as he and the monster crossed paths, Yuan Qing slammed his fingers shut.
*Crrr-ack — *
A piercing sound of fracturing echoed. Those incredibly hard antlers were actually snapped off by those seemingly soft threads.
The monster lost its balance and fell heavily to the ground, sliding for 15 meters and crashing into a pile of building materials.
Yuan Qing squeezed his fist. ‘I feel… much stronger.’
“After all, I didn’t have any Popularity Points during the last battle, so you could say I was still sleeping,” Raven said, keeping her eyes fixed on the battlefield. “Now, it’s about time to show off Miss Raven’s morning crankiness!”
“… Don’t say something so chuunibyou.”
Before Yuan Qing could finish his sentence, the monster climbed back up in a rage. The horns on its head began to gather energy, flickering with a red light.
Yuan Qing simply took a light hop on the spot. “Eagle.”
In the next moment, Yuan Qing had already leaped in front of the monster. Scattering a few raven feathers, he threw a punch, completely shattering the antlers.
But the monster took advantage of the antlers breaking to detonate the gathered energy, intending to take him down with it.
Yuan Qing used his wings to shield himself from the explosion. As the dust cleared, the two sides pulled back to a distance once more.
“Less roughness! Use more cool skills!” Raven pecked at Yuan Qing again.
“Alright, I get it…” Yuan Qing shook the scorched feathers on the surface of his wings. “Eagle, Crane.”
He lunged forward and delivered a sharp thrust.
Even though he had become stronger, such a sudden and massive change in power required a corresponding amount of mental strength to adapt. However, Yuan Qing completely skipped the adaptation process, appearing quite seasoned in his manipulation of power.
***
Elsewhere, Mizuho had already returned to her home. She was lying on her bed, her phone playing the live stream of “her” battle.
“I didn’t expect him to be such a genius!” Raven’s clone hopped around Mizuho. “Even though I looked down on him at first because he couldn’t provide Popularity Points, looking at it now, it’s really great!”
“…”
Mizuho ignored the clone for a moment, simply pouting as she opened the comments section, watching the reactions of the viewers in the stream.
“Miss Mine is using a new skill!”
“The battle ended so fast!”
“When is Miss Raven merchandise coming out?”
Most of the comments were full of nothing but praise, and Mizuho unreservedly took them all in.
“This way, Miss Raven’s popularity will soar even higher,” Mizuho said with a smile toward the clone. “And then he will become stronger, which in turn will let us gain even higher popularity in the Magical Girl world. It’s a three-way win.”
The clone shook its head affectedly. “Tsk, tsk, tsk… A genius Magical Girl and a cool-type idol gathered in my Miss Raven alone—the future is simply brilliant!”
Mizuho mimicked some of Yuan Qing’s small movements from the stream. “Speaking of which, just letting him fight out there like that… won’t he be exposed?”
“How could he be?” the clone answered Mizuho’s concern. “After obtaining your Popularity Points, I’ve regained my skills. A little disguise is easy!”
“Is that so… As long as the one fighting is Mine Mizuho, there’s no problem.” The phone screen in Mizuho’s hand faintly reflected her and the clone. “I really want to take a stack of cash and slap it across his face.”
Raven: “?”
***
Back at the battlefield, as the monster collapsed with a roar and turned into black ash that scattered into the sky, Yuan Qing landed lightly.
Although the battle was over, for him, the hardest moment had just begun.
“Quick! Do it now!” Raven urged urgently in his ear. “Make a heart!”
The corners of Yuan Qing’s mouth, hidden under the black robes, twitched. ‘Do I really have to do this?’
“If you don’t do it, I’m docking your pay!”
So Yuan Qing took a deep breath, suppressed his sense of shame, and turned to face the media and onlookers who had already swarmed in the distance.
Expressionlessly—or rather, with the cold indifference of an Ice Queen—he made a standard finger heart next to his cheek.
“For everyone’s safety, please step back.”
He finished the line in a deliberately lowered voice. After being processed by Raven, the sound was identical to Mizuho’s voice.
Then, before the camera flashes could freeze that moment of awkwardness, he swept his black robes.
“Goodbye, everyone!” Raven shouted, ducking into the robes.
Pitch-black raven feathers surged out of thin air once again, swallowing Miss Raven’s figure.
The scene was left with only screams of wonder and the countless lenses capturing that cold, world-weary, expressionless heart.
On top of another tall building not far away, a slender figure stood in the wind, witnessing everything.
It was a girl wearing an outfit completely different from Miss Raven’s dark style. It was filled with pink and white lace, and she held a shimmering wand in her hand.
Her name was Sakuma Seidai, and she was a trainee Magical Girl.