You Chose Hardcore Mode the Moment You Put on a Skirt

Time passed in fits and starts.

At least none of those delightfully clichéd plots happened during class.

No transfer student suddenly appeared.

No unidentified flying object drifted past the window.

And no classmate suddenly awakened some bizarre power.

It was just an ordinary day.

Ordinary enough that Chen De nearly forgot he had chopped up a lump of black, unidentified creature last night.

When the final bell signaling the end of school rang,

Chen De let out a breath of relief.

He grabbed his backpack and headed out.

He still had important things to do.

First, buy a new phone.

Only then would he go hunt monsters for money.

He could not get the priorities mixed up.

After all, the screen on his phone was so cracked that he could barely read the bank deposit notifications.

What was the point of earning so much money if he could not see the confirmation that it had arrived?

"Hey, Dezi?"

Jiang Ping called out from behind him.

Chen De paused for a moment.

But he did not stop.

He simply waved and walked out of the classroom.

Jiang Ping stood there, his face full of confusion.

"Why does he seem kind of weird today?"

He scratched his head and muttered to himself.

"He is not even going to the internet café."

Outside the school gates.

Chen De walked briskly down the sidewalk with his backpack on his back.

A white cat that no one else could see lay sprawled across his shoulder.

"What, you do not even want to say goodbye to your good friend?"

There was a hint of schadenfreude in Qubi's voice.

"Whenever he comes looking for me, it is just to go to the internet café or something."

Chen De spoke expressionlessly.

"It does not matter."

"You make it sound easy."

Qubi stretched lazily.

"Have you figured out how to deal with that Calamity tonight?"

"The chance of that Calamity being a Fierce Calamity has now risen to fifty percent."

Chen De stopped dead in his tracks.

"?"

"Say that again?"

"Fifty percent."

Qubi patted his neck.

"Relax, relax."

"With me here, you will not die."

"Every time you say that, it gives me the creeps."

Chen De started walking again.

"Can you not use a different line?"

"Like?"

"Like, 'I have already prepared a comprehensive battle plan.'"

"Then would I not be lying to you?"

"You mean you do not have a battle plan?!"

"I do."

"What plan?"

"You fight. I watch."

Chen De took a deep breath.

He resisted the urge to throw the cat on his shoulder into a roadside trash can.

He turned into a phone store.

The clerk was a young woman wearing glasses. The moment she saw him walk in, her face lit up with a professional smile.

"Hello, sir. What can I help you—"

"The cheapest one that works."

The clerk's smile froze for 0.3 seconds.

"Uh... we have an entry-level model here for 2,799—"

"Anything cheaper?"

"Anything cheaper would be an older model."

"Can it make calls and read texts?"

"It can, but—"

"Fine. Give me one."

Qubi sighed from his shoulder.

"You are a magical girl who can earn eighty or a hundred thousand per job. Is using a phone for old people not a little..."

Chen De replied under his breath.

"I have only received forty thousand so far. As long as the phone works, it is fine."

"Once I finish off tonight's one, then I will consider getting a better one."

"That is assuming you survive long enough to finish it."

"Shut up."

The young clerk handed him a new phone.

Seven hundred yuan.

Anything cheaper would be a flip phone.

Chen De paid, swapped over his SIM card, and slipped the phone into his pocket with practiced ease.

After leaving the store,

Qubi could not help speaking again.

"You know, you are the first magical girl I have ever seen who still lives this frugally after making money."

"You are making history."

"I am honored."

"You are not honored at all."

"I really am honored."

Chen De ignored it.

He glanced at the sky.

The sun had already begun sinking toward the west.

Orange-red light spread across the streets.

There were less than two hours until eight o'clock.

"Qubi."

"Yeah?"

"What exactly does a Fierce Calamity look like?"

Qubi thought for a moment.

"You have seen an End Calamity. It was just a mass of black fog."

"As for a Fierce Calamity, it will have a physical body."

"What kind of physical body?"

"It is not fixed. Every one is different."

"It might be humanoid, beast-like, or some form you have never seen before."

"But they all share one trait."

"What?"

"They are all ugly."

"How is that useful information?"

"Aesthetic warnings are still warnings."

Chen De rolled his eyes.

"Tell me something useful. How do Fierce Calamities attack?"

"Mostly physical attacks. Some individuals have special abilities."

"For example, releasing poisonous fog, creating illusions, or—"

"Wait, creating illusions?"

"Yeah."

"Making you see things that do not exist."

"I know what an illusion means!"

Chen De's voice rose slightly without him noticing.

An old man by the roadside turned and glanced at him.

Chen De immediately shut up, lowered his head, and hurried on.

Only after reaching a stretch of road with no one around did he lower his voice again.

"Can you not tell me all the information at once?"

"Every time, you squeeze it out like toothpaste."

"I already told you everything."

"Physical attacks plus special abilities. That is it."

"Your intelligence is way too vague, is it not?"

"You do not even have specific data?"

"Like how fast it is, how high its defense is, where its weakness is?"

Qubi shook its head.

"No."

"Every Fierce Calamity is different. There is no way to give you standard data."

"Just treat it like fighting a boss. You will know once you test it out."

"In a normal game, there is at least a strategy guide before a boss fight."

"This is hardcore mode."

"I did not choose hardcore mode!"

"You chose hardcore mode the moment you put on a skirt."

Chen De fell silent.

He had realized that he would never win an argument with Qubi.

Because this cat simply did not reason with anyone.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Chen De ate a bowl of instant noodles at home for dinner.

Qubi crouched beside the noodle bowl, its emerald-green eyes staring at that cheap brick of noodles.

"Your diet really needs improvement."

"We will talk after I make money tonight."

"If it is a Fierce Calamity, you will get one hundred and twenty thousand."

"You are already calculating the money?"

"If I do not calculate the money, what should I calculate? Whether I look good in a skirt?"

Seven forty-five.

Chen De left home.

Eastside Industrial Zone was not far from his house. It took twenty minutes by shared bike.

"Why do these Calamities always like appearing in remote, deserted places?"

Chen De complained as he rode.

"What else would you prefer?"

Qubi asked in return.

"Would you rather wake up one day to find a Calamity respawned right in your face, giving you a nice surprise?"

"I don't like it."

"Then that settles it."

The evening wind poured into his collar, carrying the chill of late autumn.

There was basically no one around this part of the industrial district at night.

Abandoned factories and warehouses stood in rows along both sides of the road.

More than half the streetlights were broken, leaving the whole road as black as if someone had spilled ink over it.

Chen De parked by the roadside and took a deep breath.

"Where's Warehouse No. 3?"

"Turn left at the third intersection ahead."

He walked in the direction Qubi pointed.

His footsteps echoed across the empty road.

The silence was enough to make his scalp prickle.

"Qubi."

"Yeah?"

"Is it inside?"

Qubi's ears twitched.

"It is."

"It's already hatched."

"What level?"

Qubi fell silent for two seconds.

"Congratulations."

Chen De's heart sank.

"Fierce Calamity?"

"Fierce Calamity."

Silence.

Wind slipped through the gaps in the abandoned factories, making a low, mournful howl.

Chen De stood at the entrance to Warehouse No. 3.

The rust-covered iron doors stood half open.

Inside was pitch-black.

But he could feel it.

Something was inside.

And it was completely different from that mass of black mist yesterday.

This feeling was heavier.

Like a stone pressing down on his chest.

"Qubi, one last question."

"Go ahead."

"I won't die, right?"

"You won't."

"Good."

Chen De clenched his fists.

"Transform."

White light exploded in the darkness.

Pure white radiance enveloped his entire body.

His height shrank.

His bones reshaped themselves.

When the light faded.

A pure white girl stood where he had been, dressed in a white long-sleeved top, a short skirt, and white thigh-high stockings.

A sword in one hand, a gun in the other.

Chen De—or rather, she in this form—took a deep breath.

She looked down at her skirt.

"One day, I'm going to settle this score with you."

"Survive tonight first."

Qubi jumped down from her shoulder and landed atop the warehouse entrance.

"It's coming."

Deep inside the warehouse.

A dull sound came from the darkness, like bones snapping.

Then.

A pair of dark red eyes lit up in the dark.