"...Director Liu."
Seeing the topic in Liu Wenqin's words gradually veering off course, Larkspur had no choice but to remind her, "This isn't part of the planned conversation."
"Oh, sorry. It's my first time seeing a magical girl up close, so I said a few too many unnecessary things."
Liu Wenqin stopped, smiling apologetically. "I've finished asking what I wanted to ask. Let's get back to the main topic."
Reining in her excessive enthusiasm for conversation, the elderly director rummaged through a stack of documents on her desk, pulled out more than a dozen stapled forms, and handed them to Larkspur.
Taking the small stack of papers with some confusion, Larkspur gave them a brief read and discovered that they were Bai Jingxuan's medical reports, along with numerous documents and certificates from before she had been taken in by the orphanage.
They described Bai Jingxuan's experiences in relatively detailed and official terms: why she had entered the orphanage, as well as her current circumstances.
Gently pinching the papers between her fingers, Larkspur said nothing and simply read through the documents in silence.
She learned many things from them. She learned of Bai Jingxuan's congenital illness; learned that she had lost her parents and her sight in an Aberrant Beast attack; and likewise learned that no one had adopted her after three years at the orphanage.
Larkspur did not consider herself an excessively sympathetic person, but she possessed the most basic empathy of an adult. Holding such a file, she felt as though even the palm of her hand had grown heavier.
Aberrant Beast attacks had never been mere weightless numbers. Although magical girls and the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau were responsible for keeping the city safe, casualties were inevitable.
Every casualty was just a tally of black words on white paper