Summer Night Study Session

To ordinary people, Magical Girls were synonymous with the extraordinary. Though some saw them as part of a conspiracy or a fraud, most were willing to believe that Magical Girls were mysterious, powerful, and radiant.

They drove terrifying monsters away from humanity and never demanded anything in return. Their existence was so pure and beautiful.

If surveys were handed out at any elementary or middle school asking girls about their dreams, "Magical Girl" would surely rank among the most popular answers.

Admiration and longing were the main reasons behind this, but there was another unspoken reason:

Once you became a Magical Girl, you had an excuse to convince yourself not to study.

I was already a hero protecting humanity and fighting such dangerous battles. Did studying really still matter?

There was no shortage of Magical Girls who abandoned their studies while thinking that way.

Although retired Magical Girls still could not reveal their identities publicly, some speculative rumors online were enough to prove that Magical Girls who retired normally lived quite comfortably after returning to ordinary life.

Defeating Aberrant Beasts could earn contributions and rewards through Echo, and after completing ten years of service and retiring normally, they could receive a huge financial subsidy. This meant that retired Magical Girls could live quite well even without working.

Larkspur's unusual circumstances had prevented her from enjoying such benefits, but that did not mean she could not imagine them.

The reason she wanted Lin Xiaolu to study hard was because she believed this: Lin Xiaolu could choose not to work after returning to society in the future, but she absolutely could not lack the ability to work, much less become an uneducated, broadly defined illiterate.

It was the simple hope of a parent.

She had once seen just how depraved the life of the most decadent shut-in retired Magical Girl could become.

That was a retired senior Magical Girl she had once visited, living in a luxurious single-person apartment filled with strange odors. It was piled high with every kind of garbage: takeout containers all over the floor, beer cans, and dirty clothes tossed everywhere.

Unable to find a suitable marriage partner because her standards were too high; addicted to video games all day, enjoying the flattery she received online as a wealthy woman; using a virtual avatar resembling her transformed appearance from the past to stream for an audience of barely anyone—her entire life had become like a puddle of sludge.

Just imagining Lin Xiaolu becoming like that, and recalling social news about shut-in young people treating their parents like servants, made Larkspur feel as though she were about to suffocate.

"You can't solve for this angle?"

Sitting beside Lin Xiaolu's desk, Larkspur saw her pointing at a problem with a troubled expression and leaned over to look.

Lin Yun had kept her grades fairly good during her student years. Though she had not gotten into a prestigious university, she had still completed a master's degree, so handling middle-school-level science subjects was no challenge.

After briefly reading the problem and thinking for a moment, she put pen to paper and began solving it, carefully writing out every step so her reasoning would not skip too far ahead and leave the two girls unable to follow.

She was not worried about her handwriting being recognized. It was only slightly different from usual. Besides, Lin Xiaolu had hardly ever seen anything written by Lin Yun herself while growing up, so she would not make any associations based on handwriting.

The gel pen tapped intermittently against the workbook with soft "tap, tap" sounds. Lin Xiaolu rested her chin in both hands, while Xia Liang stood behind her with a hand on the back of her chair. The two maintained that posture as they watched Larkspur solve the problem.

"Hmm... Come to think of it, why are angle AOE and angle DOE equal?" After watching for a while, Xia Liang suddenly asked.

Larkspur's hand paused. She lifted her pen and traced along OE in the air. "Because OE bisects angle AOD."

"Why?" Xia Liang pressed.

Larkspur looked up at her and pointed to a line in the problem with her pen. "Look, it says so here. That's one of the given conditions."

"But these two angles clearly aren't the same size, are they?" Xia Liang pointed at the diagram, still confused.

"...That's just a problem with the way the question was drawn. They're actually equal," Larkspur explained patiently.

"But they're obviously different?" Xia Liang looked utterly baffled, and this confusion was unlike her usual playful act of pretending to be dumb. She genuinely did not understand.

Realizing this, Larkspur could only say helplessly, "Yes, in situations like this, go by the text."

Now she finally understood how Xia Liang had gotten such a single-digit math score.

She was not deliberately fooling around, nor had anything unexpected happened. She really did not know anything at all. And it was bad enough that she did not know; her head was also full of particularly strange ideas.

As the saying went, top students' solutions all led to the same destination, while failing students' mistakes came in countless varieties. Every failing student had plenty of unique interpretations of the things they did not understand.

Fortunately, although Xia Liang was a genuine failing student, under Larkspur's supervision she at least had some desire to learn. She was also quite smart, and as long as Larkspur explained the issue clearly, she could understand it quickly.

As for Lin Xiaolu, her grades had always been better than Xia Liang's. Though she was comparatively not very quick-witted and clearly took longer to understand things, she had a somewhat stronger foundation, so studying with Larkspur was not difficult for her.

Larkspur sat at the desk and urged the two of them to start from the beginning with every subject. Whenever they encountered something they did not understand, she explained it herself. Things went fairly smoothly.

Her voice was cool and crisp, like a robin singing softly. Even when she explained math problems the two normally could not bring themselves to look at, she still sounded quite pleasant.

The moon hung in the clear blue sky. The girls listened to Larkspur's voice, sometimes pondering, sometimes suddenly understanding. The nighttime study session gradually found its rhythm.

And so, after ten o'clock, Larkspur noticed Lin Xiaolu beginning to get sleepy and yawn. She closed the textbook in her hands and said softly, "All right, that's enough for today."

"Ah, it's finally over..."

"I'm exhausted."

As though she had announced their release from prison, her words made the two girls, who had looked serious only moments ago, immediately begin groaning in misery.

Seeing their gloomy expressions, Larkspur could not help sighing, even though she knew they were probably trying to look pitiful on purpose. "If you could really keep up this level of efficiency every night, you wouldn't need to study like this every day."

She had already gone through both of their middle-school textbooks. If she only covered the key and difficult points, one summer vacation would be more than enough to finish explaining everything.

The moment she said that, the two girls' sorrowful faces brightened again. The speed with which they changed expressions made it clear they had not been trying to hide their feelings at all.

But never mind. They were both her "juniors," after all.

Larkspur looked at them and thought this, her gaze softening slightly.

The long night of teaching and studying had ended. Lin Xiaolu also needed to wash up and rest, so it was time for them to part ways.

After smiling and saying goodbye to the other two, Xia Liang left the apartment building where Lin Xiaolu lived by herself.

Looking at the road lit only by a few dim yellow streetlights, Xia Liang's ever-present smile gradually faded, and a somewhat lost expression appeared on her face.

If there was nothing else to do, she should have transformed into a Magical Girl and flown straight home. That was what she had always done after leaving Lin Xiaolu's home, but now she did not want to do that.

She wanted to take a walk along this nighttime road.

The study session with Larkspur and Lin Xiaolu had not felt bad, but it had made her notice a subtle sense of irritation.

She had become a legendary Magical Girl as if in a dream, gained like-minded companions, and found a senior willing to guide her wholeheartedly. For the person she once was, that was happiness she would never have dared imagine. Yet these past few days, she had felt the emptiness in her heart more and more keenly.

The hollow in her heart remained unfilled. It was still yearning for something, and as time passed, it continued to expand, asserting its existence and making it impossible for her to ignore.

What exactly was this feeling of emptiness?

Xia Liang walked down the night road with her head lowered, constantly examining herself. As she moved forward, her shadow beneath the streetlights lengthened, shortened, and repeated the cycle.

She silently passed several intersections. Just as she was about to enter another block, she suddenly sensed something and stopped.

"Um... I've been wanting to ask since earlier."

She turned around in confusion, then smiled helplessly. "Little Senior, why have you been following behind me this whole time?"

Under a streetlight not far away, Larkspur stood there openly and without a care. In the darkness, bathed in the light, she was impossibly conspicuous.

She should have left in another direction, yet she was now following behind Xia Liang, without even intending to conceal her tracks.

Hearing Xia Liang's question, she did not seem bothered in the slightest. She merely said in an even tone, "I'm planning to go to your house."

"...Why?" Xia Liang was slightly stunned.

"If you have to ask why, there's nothing special about it." Larkspur stood with one hand on her hip, her face devoid of any extra expression, as though what she was about to say truly was not worth mentioning.

But when she actually said it, Xia Liang's heart suddenly began racing:

—"It's just that I suddenly want to run away from home too."