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There are many inequalities in the world.

There is inequality among humans, inequality among Aberrant Beast, and indeed, inequality among Fairy as well.

Born in the Magic Kingdom, the Fairy enjoy tranquility and beauty in a world full of flowers from the very beginning of their lives. They are loved by magical girls and employed by the Royal Court, playing key roles in various fields within the Magic Kingdom.

Many of the Fairy born in the Interrealm are trapped in this desolate and barren world for their entire lives. The sky here is dirty, the earth is cracked, life is withered, and the moon is blue. There has never been a "spring" in their lives.

For Fairy who are naturally fond of nature and close to flowers and plants, such a world is no different from a death trap. Therefore, their lives in the Interrealm are always filled with confusion and pessimism.

Semi was also one of these Interrealm Fairy.

For it, the "meaning of life" is a false proposition, because Fairy like it have no meaning to life at all. The vegetation and forests that Fairy love are nowhere to be seen here.

Even so, the heavens showed no mercy to this world. Frequent and terrifying natural disasters and rampant Aberrant Beast made every Fairy in the Interrealm struggle to survive, only to gaze at the Blue Moon in the night and face the hopeless tomorrow.

Do I really need to live such a boring life?

Semi once expressed this question to Big Jack.

Big Jack is the leader of the Fairy in the Interrealm, or rather, their common patriarch. He is a pure-blooded Fairy of enormous size, several meters tall and several meters wide, a being that blots out the sky in the eyes of ordinary Fairy. He always said that his name was "Jack", but because he was so big, the name eventually became "Big Jack".

"Do you find life boring, child?" Big Jack countered Semi's question with a question of his own.

"It's so boring. I want to frolic happily among the flowers, and enjoy peace and quiet in the shade of the trees, but there's nothing here. I feel depressed every day," Semi said.

"It sounds like you don't hate 'being alive,' you just hate this boring world."

Is there any difference?

"Hehe, of course there are."

Big Jack patted his belly, making a deep "thump" sound, "Perhaps one day, when you're able to leave this land, you'll discover there are many wonderful things you haven't experienced. At that time, you'll probably feel that your life has meaning."

"But we can't leave here at all; we can never go to other worlds."

"Who says you can't?"

Big Jack said in a deep voice, "If I want to, child, I can take all the Fairy and leave this world anytime I wish."

"Then why do we have to keep living here?" Semi asked, puzzled.

"Because this is our home, the very foundation of us Fairy."

Big Jack chuckled and said, "No matter how dilapidated this world is, we can't abandon our home. If we leave here, we'll just be a bunch of wanderers, and we'll never find another place to settle down."

"I hate this kind of 'home'," Semi said.

"It's no use hating me." Big Jack said indifferently.

"I want to leave here."

"Whatever, if you can really walk."

"Help me."

I won't help.

Semi ultimately failed to persuade Big Jack.

It can only continue to stay in this disgusting world, day after day, year after year, repeating the same disgusting life.

Until one day, something unexpected happened.

Seemingly due to some conflict with the Magic Kingdom, the Fairy of the Interrealm began a massive and protracted war with the Magic Kingdom.

The intensity of this war was unprecedented. Countless Fairy from the Interrealm rushed to the battlefield one after another, as if to vent their frustrations and anger in the Interrealm, burning their lives out on the battlefield.

However, compared to the desolate world of the Interrealm, the Magic Kingdom is far too rich in resources and far too powerful in combat. Moreover, Fairy are not particularly good at fighting, and compared to magical girls, Fairy war skills are far from excellent.

As the war progressed, even Big Jack was seriously injured and fell into a coma, while the remaining Fairy were deeply entangled in the war and caught in a dilemma.

Just then, a group of strange humans who called themselves "Apostles" appeared.

The Fairy were no strangers to these humans, as they had actually been lurking in the Interrealm for a long time. However, they had always focused on dealing with Aberrant Beast and had kept to Fairy, with little interaction between the two sides.

These people appeared just as the Fairy were about to be defeated, offering the remaining Interrealm Fairy another option.

"Borrowing the power of Aberrant Beast."

At least that's what they say.

Since Fairy themselves are not good at fighting, they can use the magic of the Aberrant Beast to fight against the Magic Kingdom, thus making up for their lack of individual strength.

Semi joined them.

In its mind, since defeat and retreating to the Interrealm would only lead to a meaningless life like a rat in a gutter, it might as well burn everything to the ground and perish together with the enemy.

Thus, with the help of those humans, it and its companions mastered the power of the Aberrant Beast, and could even transform into the Aberrant Beast, unleashing combat power far exceeding that of the past.

This group of Fairy, with a death wish, together with the Aberrant Beast brought by humans, launched a surprise attack on the power center of the Magic Kingdom — the Royal Court.

Semi, at the time, probably never imagined that such a surprise attack would become the end of the war between the Kingdom and the Interrealm.

Twenty years have passed, and this war has been recorded in the history of the Magic Kingdom, known as the "Garden Defense War".

The war resulted in a Pyrrhic victory for the Magic Kingdom and a crushing defeat for the "Resistance Army," namely Semi and her group of Interrealm Fairy.

Semi couldn't remember when he lost consciousness on the battlefield.

It only remembered charging forward relentlessly, trampling over the corpses of countless comrades, all to cross the "Garden" and reach the Rose Palace, desperately wanting to unleash its claws on the figure on the throne. Yet, its consciousness sank into silence amidst the seemingly endless battles.

Later, it woke up in the arms of a magical girl.

It knew that she was a magical girl who had fought alongside it in the war, because it vaguely remembered slashing her true True Form before it lost consciousness. This caused her to suffer an injury that even a magical girl's abilities could not heal, resulting in the permanent loss of an arm.

But this one-armed magical girl secretly hid Semi, who was unconscious on the battlefield, and took her away from the Garden.

The one-armed magical girl hid it in her home, evading the Royal Court's search, and raised it like a real pet. She knew Semi's name, but insisted on giving Semi a nickname. "Kitty."

Semi didn't understand.

It couldn't understand why, despite being her enemy and having even injured one of her arms, they should have become enemies. Yet, this one-armed magical girl didn't kill it; instead, she chose to protect it.

It had asked the same question before, but the magical girl's answer was "I don't know."

The magical girl and the Fairy, who should have been enemies, lived together peacefully in the Magic Kingdom.

This period was probably the happiest time of Semi's entire life.

The one-armed magical girl is a girl who appears somewhat aloof, but is actually very gentle and delicate. She takes great care of Semi, not only meeting her needs for food and drink, but also taking Semi to various parts of the Kingdom, where they witness many landscapes that cannot be seen in the Interrealm.

They climbed every mountain they could see and crossed every river they passed. Then, upon reaching their destination, the girl would always hold Semi in her only remaining arm and sit with it in each of the enchanting scenic spots, quietly gazing at the sky in a daze.

Whenever this happens, Semi remembers what Big Jack told him years ago, and Big Jack was right. Here, he discovers many wonderful things that he is experiencing for the first time, and his life is full of meaning for the first time.

But happy times are always short-lived. Soon, another change occurred, this time affecting the one-armed magical girl.

--Due to an incurable and severe injury, she became disabled, which greatly affected her combat abilities as a magical girl. After research by the Magic Affairs Institute, it was decided to retire her.

Retirement essentially means taking away the Heart Gem and completely ending her career as a magical girl.

Because the girl was injured in the Battle of the Garden and had made meritorious contributions in protecting the Royal Court, the Magic Affairs Institute gave her very generous retirement benefits: not only inexhaustible wealth, but also a stable job in the rear; and even if she had children in the future, they could have priority to become magical girls.

For a normal person, this might not be a problem: after all, being severely injured and disabled means they can no longer fight properly, so they might as well retire and enjoy life. However, the one-armed magical girl doesn't think that way.

She doesn't want to give up her identity as a magical girl.

No one knows what she was really thinking; all that is known is that she rejected the Magic Affairs Institute's proposal and refused the retirement process.

However, the Kingdom rejected her refusal, insisting that she should retire, and after several unsuccessful attempts to communicate, chose the most drastic measure—forced retirement.

When Semi watched from home as the one-armed magical girl was taken away by the Kingdom's personnel, there was nothing it could do, because it had already been instructed to hide well and not show itself.

It watched as the girl was escorted away, and only after the footsteps faded into the distance did it dare to climb to the window and gaze at the remaining traces of magic in the sky.

Semi sat by the window for three days, neither eating nor drinking, like a statue.

These three days may seem long, but they weren't actually long for it, because during that time its mind was completely blank, it didn't think about anything, and its whole body was like an empty shell.

Three days later, the door to the house was opened.

Semi rushed to the door as fast as she could to greet the other girl, wondering how to comfort the magical girl who had lost her magic and how she should live her life from now on.

Then it saw that the figure it knew so well was standing in the doorway, but the sleeves that had been empty were now filled again.

The one-armed magical girl—or rather, the one who was once one-armed—stood at her own doorstep. Her once simple, even somewhat childlike, magical girl attire was now covered in eerie patterns, and a pair of vertical pupils floated silently in her dark sclera.

She carried a scent that was both completely unfamiliar and strangely familiar to Semi.

That's the smell of Aberrant Beast.

On that day, the girl abandoned her original magical girl codename and received a new one called "Black Cat".

For Semi, that day also marked the end of his not-so-long peaceful years, his return to the Interrealm, and the start of a new life of wandering.

This time, however, he has companions on his wandering journey.

The girl joined an organization called "Claw Mark," whose leader was the former Gem Scepter of the Magic Kingdom, a figure of astonishing origin. The girl herself became the deputy leader thanks to her powerful talent and combat strength.

The girl would still often hold Semi, and they would just sit there quietly, lost in thought. But now, she was no longer gazing at the beautiful, azure sky of the Magic Kingdom. Instead, all she could see were the endless yellow sands of the mortal Interrealm and the Blue Moon that floated there quietly every night.

Only at times like these would the girl whisper her dream to Semi —she wanted to build a truly beautiful and equal homeland, where there would be no war, no oppression, and no distinction of status, where everyone except the Aberrant Beast could live in peace and prosperity.

And at that time, Semi would listen quietly to her story.

Despite the many hurts she has suffered, the girl still harbors many beautiful fantasies about the world, and she hopes to build an ideal Kingdom.

Semi hated the Interrealm, hated this desolate place from which it could never escape, its so-called "homeland"; it hated the Kingdom, hated the Royal Court that had hurt Big Jack and the girl, yet remained high and mighty.

However, another voice lingered in its heart. It still cherished the Interrealm, the land that held the emotions of countless Fairy; it still yearned for the beautiful and moving natural scenery of the Kingdom; it still wondered about the unique civilizations created by humans in the Material Realm.

It also wants to make everything better; it wants to transform this withered and desolate homeland into a place that carries dreams.

Therefore, the girl's dream and its dream had somehow become one.

Thinking of this, Semi opened his one eye.

Yellow sand gathered at its feet, the pitch-black night mixed with the sandstorm, like a canvas smeared with ink and trampled, leaving only filth.

And that Blue Moon, the Blue Moon that had become synonymous with the homeland, was now also soaked into this dirty canvas.

This is its "Nest" after it transformed into Aberrant Beast. However, even as Nest, it is as if it has been branded, deeply imprinted with the marks of the Interrealm.

Big Jack is right.

The Interrealm is their home; it comes from there and will eventually return there.