The Defeated Magical Girls

Time rewound to the afternoon.

Members of the Armed Machinery Department began recovering the mechs. The guards who had cordoned off the park for public viewing were merely ordinary officials.

Piloting the highest-performance light mechs, they swaggered into the crowd and retrieved the damaged prototypes.

Ordinary people could not fly like Magical Girls, but with mech energy, they could briefly glide through the air and escape the officials' encirclement in the blink of an eye.

Two Magical Girls appeared atop a high-rise building some distance away, their gazes fixed on the Abyss Return members recovering the mechs.

They were the veteran Magical Girl Feiyan and the newly promoted Magical Girl Yuyan.

"Yuyan, you still have one chance to back out. Are you sure you want to come with me?" Feiyan asked bluntly.

"Since I promised you, Senior, how could I go back on my word?" Yuyan shook her head and answered firmly.

Even though she felt uneasy, she could not break her promise and let the other girl venture into danger alone.

"Then let's go!" Feiyan said eagerly.

The moment she finished speaking, she impatiently kicked off the parapet and shot into the air.

Yuyan suppressed her unease and stopped imagining all sorts of terrible outcomes, hurriedly flying after her senior.

Beforehand, she had asked Yalin that if she and Senior Feiyan had not returned by their usual dinner time and had sent no message, Yalin should find other Magical Girls to rescue them.

Filled with beautiful hopes for the future, the overconfident Feiyan was defeated, just as expected.

If Abyss Return were truly so easy to infiltrate, it would have long since been wiped from the world by other Magical Girls.

Feiyan and Yuyan followed the Armed Forces Department members to a recovery passage designated by the Evil Organization.

Their luck was poor. They ran into Zhao Xueshan, who was in a hurry to recover the mechs, as well as Karina, who had accompanied her along the way.

"Who's there?!"

Succubi were exceptionally sensitive to all kinds of auras. Karina sensed an extremely unfamiliar presence that she had never encountered within Abyss Return.

The instant she entered the recovery passage, Karina blurted it out, and the atmosphere immediately turned tense.

The recovery personnel, who had yet to report on the mechs' condition, faced a great enemy. They instantly realized they had made a mistake and turned around following their superior's gaze.

"So you can detect me. There are still powerful people here after all." Feiyan stopped hiding and revealed herself in midair.

"Magical Girl Feiyan, reporting for duty!"

"Magical Girl Yuyan." Yuyan cooperatively revealed herself as well.

"What? Magical Girls?!"

Everyone, including the higher-ups, was shocked—especially... Karina.

She covered her cheeks in embarrassment, lowered her head halfway, and muttered to herself.

"It's over, it's over. I'm not wearing makeup right now. Running into Magical Girls bare-faced—no, no!

What if the Magical Girls think I'm ugly? Should I hurry back and put on some makeup? Otherwise, bad rumors might get out!"

"Abyss Return, your end has come. Magic Dress Fusion!"

Feiyan issued a pre-battle threat, extending both hands as a massive crimson gunlance materialized in her grasp. Her outfit also underwent subtle changes.

Magic Dress—the armed form of a Magical Girl.

It consumed more magic power than the Normal State, but its destructive force and lethality were vastly increased.

"Now that we're outside the city, I have nothing to hold back for!"

Feiyan raised her massive Magic Weapon gunlance as astonishing magic power radiated from her body.

Her pale red hair fluttered in the wind, and a confident, dazzling smile appeared on her lovely face.

Her smile seemed to carry heat, while even the wind driven by her magic power was scorched blazing hot.

Her skirt armor grew ever more crimson, and her magic power flowed across it like starlight.

Terrifying energy gathered at the muzzle, and every decorative-looking opening along the weapon's body lit up with blinding light.

Suddenly, Feiyan raised the muzzle and aimed it at the ceiling overhead.

"Magic Armament Art: Skywide Fireworks!"

Flame-like magic bullets shot into the air, bursting like fireworks and unleashing explosive flames that threatened to fill and consume the entire passage.

"Scatter!" Zhao Xueshan reacted swiftly and ordered the personnel to evade.

The personnel were unharmed, but she could only watch as the flames destroyed the passage.

"My research funding!" Zhao Xueshan cried mournfully.

Part of the passage's construction costs had come out of her experimental budget.

"Magical Girls, you bastards!"

Zhao Xueshan glared at them with bloodshot eyes, pulled out an unknown button, and pressed it.

Several pits opened in the passage, and all kinds of mechs flew out, charging straight at the rampaging Feiyan.

"I won't let you get close to Senior Feiyan! Magic Dress Fusion!"

A thin layer of gloves covered Yuyan's hands, and her appearance immediately changed noticeably from her Normal State.

Her inner clothing transformed into an oversized vest patterned with flowing-water designs, while she wore a roomy hooded jacket over it.

Her lower half became high-waisted hot pants suited for movement, exposing her aesthetically pleasing waist and its distinct abdominal lines.

Plain and unadorned, she looked even more like an ordinary person than in her Normal State. If not for the magic power swirling around her, no one would have recognized her as a Magical Girl.

"Magical Martial Skill: Water Flow."

Yuyan punched upward, and a surging stream of water formed a barrier that blocked the charging mechs.

"Hey, Yuyan."

Hearing the name of the Magical Martial Skill, Feiyan lowered her head and shouted at her hopeless companion not far below her.

"Didn't I teach you that Magical Girl move names need to sound more extravagant?!

Your Magic Dress Fusion is already so inconspicuous, and now your move name is too. It'll be hard for you to become famous! Not many people will like you!"

"I'm bad at naming things," Yuyan explained, her face faintly flushed.

She was no longer a teenager going through her chuunibyou phase.

She was over twenty, had graduated, and was working. She had no desire to shout out some "appropriately" flashy Magical Girl move name every time she threw a punch.

Reality weighed on her shoulders.

"No, I really like this kind of plain Magical Girl."

A mature, pleasant woman's voice rang out as Karina, who had secretly gone off to apply light makeup, made her reappearance.

She appeared before Yuyan in an instant, startling the latter into hurriedly leaping backward to open the distance.

"The contrast between a Magical Girl's glamour and simplicity is so appealing too." Karina covered her flushed face.

A chill ran down her spine.

Yuyan was overwhelmed by a chill.

"Enough nonsense. You must be an Abyss Return executive. Die!" Feiyan swung her gunlance around and aimed it at the newly appeared Karina.

The battle fully erupted.

Only two Magical Girls dared to infiltrate the notorious Evil Organization. That was not courage worthy of praise.

It was foolishness and ignorance.

Magical Girls might have been powerful, but their magic power could not withstand the endless stream of mechs and foreign races.

The moment their magic power ran dry, Karina captured them alive and brought them into an enclosed space.

Using the rope-binding technique Ye Qing had taught her, she tied the two Magical Girls up tightly.

"Stop struggling!"

"Damn Abyss Return, always using such filthy tricks!"

"No, no more!"

Amid Feiyan's bizarre, meaningless cries and Yuyan's quiet acceptance of the restraints,

the two were thrown, still bound, into the laboratory deep within the base by Karina, who was following the BOSS's orders.