Running Around for a Living

The next morning.

What woke Su Tianqing was her eight o'clock alarm.

A wriggling lump of blanket squirmed across the bed. A small hand swiftly poked out from within to turn off the alarm, as if some fox demon were hiding underneath.

The fox demon rolled over in bed, then suddenly let out a strange cry:

"Gwaa! That hurt!"

The golden-furred Fox Fox had squashed her own tail.

.

Su Tianqing sat up in bed, her messy hair falling around her. Her eyelids and ears drooped listlessly, and only the pain at the base of her tail reminded her—she absolutely could not sleep flat on her back again.

"Mmm... mmh—~"

Fox Fox stretched to her heart's content, straightening her tail and ears and shaking every last trace of fatigue from her body as she welcomed a brand-new day.

"Good morning, world! Villainous Fox Fox is back!"

After silently reciting that slightly cringe-worthy line, Su Tianqing habitually felt around for her phone on the bedside table. As she headed toward the bathroom, she opened a video app and checked the Hero Association channel she had followed yesterday.

A newly posted announcement video caught her eye.

"An announcement? Something about Magical Girl Hyacinth?" Su Tianqing muttered in surprise.

An ominous thought surfaced in Fox Fox's mind, along with a recollection of what had happened yesterday:

She had gone to Greenheart Park to enjoy nature, and while she was at it, ambushed Magical Girl Hyacinth and given her a little surprise—in the form of an enhanced monster.

After playing a spinning-top game with Hyacinth for a while, she had quickly left. Fox Fox needed sleep too, after all!

On the way back, she had deliberately tried out a magical girl's flight ability and all sorts of miscellaneous magic. She played until midnight before returning home, taking a quick shower, and collapsing onto the bed like a sleepy ball of fur. The moment she opened her eyes, it was already the next day.

"Could she have had a mental breakdown after all that and decided to graduate from being a magical girl and quit for good?"

Su Tianqing pinched her chin as she pondered.

That shouldn't be possible. It really shouldn't.

She had set an absolute rule forbidding the tentacle monster from getting lewd. At most, it had tickled Hyacinth's soles and armpits. How could that provoke such a huge reaction?

It couldn't be that the soles of her feet had some strange reaction too, could it?

Su Tianqing opened the video.

"Last night, a monster attack occurred in Greenheart Park, Rongcheng. Magical Girl Hyacinth went to suppress it, but unexpectedly fell into the monster's trap and was not rescued until three in the morning."

"Hyacinth has made no statement regarding the incident."

"Three in the morning?... Heh, hehehe..." Villainous Fox Fox wore a sinister grin.

She had specifically checked the time before leaving. It had been eight in the evening, which meant Hyacinth had been hung up there for a full seven hours.

Although she had strictly limited how far the lewd scenes could go, being toyed with for that long... must not have felt good.

Whatever! She should claim her mission reward first!

Fox Fox hurriedly finished washing up, ran into the living room, picked up the ancient book, and opened it to the page for daily missions.

[Daily Mission 1: Pick a fight with a magical girl, completed]

She had completed it!

One hundred Divine Codex Stones had been credited to her account. After deducting the Enhancement Drug A she had bought yesterday at great expense, she had made a net profit of fifty!

But when she looked closely at today's mission, Su Tianqing froze for a moment.

[Mission: Obtain a magical girl codename]

[Every magical girl should have a codename uniquely her own]

[Reward: 200 Divine Codex Stones]

A magical girl codename? What was that?

After doing a quick search online, Su Tianqing understood.

Every magical girl was registered with the Hero Association and assigned an identifying codename based on her fighting style or personal request.

For example, after Hyacinth first appeared half a year ago, Hero Association staff had approached her. With her consent, she had been given the codename [Hyacinth].

"It's like a stage name," Su Tianqing commented.

Since the Codex had arranged it this way, she would find a nice-sounding codename for her magical girl identity too.

Fox Fox's gaze fell upon another mission.

[Mission: Wish]

[Gain 200 followers]

[Become a shining magical girl. Let everyone remember your name, and live on carrying her share as well.]

It looked simple, but it was actually quite difficult.

The mission description was heavier than a bassist from some other production. Coupled with the memories of the original owner gradually resurfacing in her mind, Su Tianqing finally understood just how bleak Miss Original Owner's life had been—so bleak that even getting two hundred followers had to be called a "Wish"—

"Su Tianqing" spent roughly a thousand yuan every month. After subtracting the five hundred yuan subsidy she received from the Mutual Aid Society, there was still a shortfall of around five hundred yuan.

So this Miss Fox Fox had chosen to write webnovels online. Magical Girl Crisis told the story of a Slime protagonist and magical girls having adventures in another world.

She updated ninety thousand words every month, had single-digit subscriptions, and earned nothing besides the five hundred yuan attendance bonus.

And now it was the end of the month. The original owner had probably stayed up late rushing manuscripts to secure her attendance bonus, on top of catching beastman flu, and suddenly died from fulminant myocarditis.

What? You were asking why every loli protagonist used writing novels as a source of income?

Come on, it wasn't like anyone could expect this soft, delicate little fox to go out and work, especially when she was such a withdrawn social phobic.

"...Wait."

Su Tianqing suddenly realized a fatal problem.

If the original owner had relied entirely on that trashy novel's five hundred yuan attendance bonus to make a living... then since she had not written a single word yesterday, didn't that mean the five hundred yuan was gone just like that?!

Fox Fox rushed to the bedroom desk in a few strides, opened the laptop, entered some obscure fiction website, and clicked into the author dashboard.

The bright red words "2 days without updates" sat glaringly in the attendance-bonus section, nearly making Su Tianqing pass out.

The Mutual Aid Society had helped rent this apartment near Rongcheng Medical College, so she did not need to worry about rent. But losing five hundred yuan in attendance bonus all at once made Fox Fox feel her financial pressure skyrocket.

That was a whopping five hundred yuan! Enough to buy five hundred buns!

Fox Fox hugged her tail and whimpered in front of the computer.

At this moment, missions no longer mattered.

Securing her future living expenses came first!

Should she go out and hand out flyers? Find a nearby restaurant and wash dishes? Or perhaps use the classic trick from an urban reincarnation story—

—copying a book.

Su Tianqing recalled her previous life.

She had been a doctor in her previous life, and she liked writing webnovels in her spare time to pass the time. She had written quite a few books over the years.

Though none of them had performed particularly well, opening up an entirely new niche in this unfamiliar world would not be a problem.

Did copying her own books count as plagiarism? Of course not!

Once she made up her mind, Su Tianqing immediately logged out of Miss Original Owner's account and registered a new one.

Her pen name... One Hundred Thousand Mercury.

She would use her old title for the book: The Abyssal Lord Is My Loli Wife.

Relying on memories from her previous life, she wrote twenty thousand words in one smooth flow. By the end of the morning, she had enough words to apply for a contract, so she casually sent it as an unsolicited submission to an editor's email.

It was nearly noon by the time Su Tianqing stretched and walked out of the bedroom. Only the empty, gnawing hunger in her stomach pulled Fox Fox back from the digital world to reality.

As she soothed her rumbling belly, she thought about the future.

She hoped her book would be approved soon. That way, she could receive next month's five hundred yuan attendance bonus.

So next...

Fox Fox picked up the Codex from the table.

She had no idea how to complete either of the two missions: two hundred followers and a magical girl codename.

Then Su Tianqing noticed today's daily missions.

[Daily Mission 1: Record a magical girl's embarrassing predicament]

[Reward: 100 Divine Codex Stones]

[Daily Mission 2: Make at least 100 people witness a magical girl's embarrassing predicament]

[Reward: 100 Divine Codex Stones]

...Huh?

Fox Fox's brain began spinning at high speed.

Record an embarrassing predicament. Let people witness an embarrassing predicament.

If she connected that with two hundred followers... Su Tianqing hurriedly flipped to the intelligence page and looked at the section on Magical Girl Hyacinth.

Sure enough, several new lines had appeared in the information box below.

[Magical Girl Hyacinth]

[Real Name: Nan Xiaofeng]

[19 years old, attends Rongcheng Third College of Arts and Sciences]

[Currently distressed over cramming her summer homework]

[Home address...]

Holy crap! She got doxxed!

After being thoroughly shaken by this sudden doxxing, a brilliant idea suddenly popped into Su Tianqing's mind.

Su Tianqing closed the Codex, a smile curling across her lips.

Fox Fox had an idea.