A Job Came Up

"What happened?"

Looking at the pink-haired girl holding her hand, Zhou Mo's mind went blank for a moment.

H-How did they suddenly end up holding hands?

So soft...

Meeting the girl's sincere, passionate gaze, Zhou Mo hurriedly pulled her hand back.

"Um, I just remembered I have soup simmering at home. I need to go! Bye!"

Zhou Mo rattled that off at top speed, then ran off in a flash.

"Huh? Wait..."

An Xia tried to stop her, but Zhou Mo had run too fast.

"W-Wait for me..."

The pink fairy slowly floated over from afar, panting in midair by the time it reached An Xia.

"Phew, I'm exhausted. Why did you suddenly run off so fast?"

Ignoring the fairy's complaints, An Xia looked after the silver-haired Magical Girl's retreating figure and made up her mind.

"I have to get her to join us!"

"What is this?"

When Zhou Mo entered her room and saw the scene inside, she thought she had gone to the wrong place.

The walls were covered with soundproofing panels. A sleek-looking computer tower sat on the desk, alongside recording equipment and fill lights, with a green screen in the background.

"Rabi, get out here."

There was no need to think about it. That Bai cat had definitely done this.

As soon as she spoke, the Bai cat Rabi jumped in from the windowsill and walked up to Zhou Mo.

"These are for livestreaming. As a Magical Girl, livestreaming is also a basic skill."

"I've never heard of that!"

Zhou Mo looked at the livestreaming equipment taking up most of her room and huffily declared:

"I'm not doing it!"

"According to the contract, refusing work requires you to pay a five-million breach-of-contract penalty."

"You should've just said so from the start."

Zhou Mo cleared her throat, sat down at the desk, and put on an earnest, enthusiastic expression.

Rabi jumped in front of her and said:

"Of course, livestreaming also brings in income. Tips are split fifty-fifty with the company, and there's also a guaranteed minimum."

"How much?"

"More than enough to cover your living expenses."

Zhou Mo considered it for a moment and became less resistant.

Although the village covered her living expenses, city life was surely expensive. It would be good if she could earn her own expenses and ease the village's burden.

Besides, she had already signed the contract. Transforming into a Magical Girl couldn't be helped anyway.

Rabi continued, "Livestreaming is just extra income. Of course, there have been Magical Girls who became Top Tier influencers through livestreaming."

"However, the main path is naturally idol performances. The income from a single performance by a Top Tier idol can exceed what an ordinary person earns in an entire lifetime."

Zhou Mo sucked in a breath.

She didn't know much about the outside world, and she hadn't expected Magical Girl idols to make this much money.

Thinking about it that way, transforming into a Magical Girl didn't seem like such a huge price to pay.

"Anyway, every transformation is only temporary. It's not like I won't be able to turn back, haha."

Zhou Mo continued, "Are there any requirements for these performances?"

"Well, to hold even the smallest-scale idol performance, you need at least thirty thousand fans. As your fan count grows, the scale of the stage will grow larger too."

Rabi answered.

"Of course, you can also perform on the street. That's the main way most rookie idols build up fans in their early days."

"Why not choose to fight Monsters? Defeating a Monster gives you a Victory Stage, right?" Zhou Mo asked in confusion.

"A Victory Stage only appears when there are a large number of witnesses. Besides, not every Magical Girl idol has the strength or courage to face Monsters when they first debut."

Rabi continued in a calm tone.

"So your first appearance in the public eye as a Magical Girl was during a battle against a Monster. That was quite novel to many people, and some people are paying attention to you now."

"Really? How many?"

"Around two thousand."

"...You call that a lot?"

Hearing Zhou Mo's question, Rabi glanced at her with its red eyes.

"Girl, if you hadn't stood there like you were being punished on the Victory Stage, 'punishment-standing idol' wouldn't just be a joke."

"What could I do? It was already pretty good that I didn't run away on the spot."

Zhou Mo shrugged helplessly.

"Since you're more suited for combat, I'll notify you if a powerful Monster appears."

"No, no, no!"

Before Zhou Mo could refuse, Rabi nimbly leaped out the window and left without looking back.

After several quiet days of ordinary life, Zhou Mo's daily routine had basically settled into place.

She attended Bai-day classes. After school, she would always run into the short-haired girl who invited her to join a club. At night, she trained on her own. Occasionally, the pink-haired twin-tailed girl would come chat with her, and after a few encounters, they gradually became familiar with each other.

Since that first battle, she hadn't been called out again.

Based on her impression of Rabi, she had thought it would make her fight Monsters ten times a day.

Looks like I wronged it.

Or maybe it was cooking up something big behind the scenes.

One afternoon.

"Have you heard? Apparently, a really powerful Monster has appeared near the school. Several Magical Girls fought it and lost."

Sitting in the classroom, Zhou Mo listened idly to the chatter around her.

She glanced at an empty seat beside her. It belonged to one of the other three Magical Girls in the class.

That girl had not come to school for two days, having taken sick leave.

But how could a Magical Girl get sick?

She had probably been defeated fighting a Monster and was still recovering from her injuries.

Scrape!!

Just before class began, two chairs scraped against the floor in quick succession. A black-haired girl with long straight hair and a braided girl named Lan Yue stood from their seats at the same time. After exchanging a glance, they immediately left the classroom.

The people around them merely glanced over before continuing with what they were doing, apparently finding nothing strange about it.

Watching the two girls hurry away, Zhou Mo frowned slightly.

It was the first time she had seen the two of them mobilize at once.

A troublesome Monster had probably appeared.

But that had nothing to do with her. She didn't want to get involved with the Magical Girls in her class. Being exposed would be social death.

During class, Zhou Mo was taking notes in her notebook.

A familiar voice exploded in her mind.

"A job came up."

"...I knew it."

At a business center in East District, plumes of black smoke rose into the air. Amid piles of scattered rubble, two petite figures—one black, one blue—were locked in fierce battle with a three-meter-tall wolf-headed Monster, while crowds fled in all directions.

The blue-haired Magical Girl wielded a pair of aqua twin blades, while the black-haired Magical Girl used a handgun. One attacked from the front and the other from behind, launching a coordinated assault on the wolf-headed Monster.

Despite fighting two against one, the two Magical Girls still struggled against the wolf-headed Monster.

A chunk of collapsed rubble fell toward an unlucky passerby, but before it could hit, a curtain of light blasted it aside.

It was a protective barrier deployed by the Magical Girls during battle.

The barrier had been cast by the blue-haired Magical Girl, so she was unable to use her full strength at the moment.

The wolf-headed Monster's eyes glowed red. The instant the protective barrier activated, it caught the blue Magical Girl slowing down for a split second.

"Roar!"

Seizing the opportunity, the Monster endured the black-haired Magical Girl's attack head-on. Its metallic wolf claw swung fiercely at the blue-haired Magical Girl.

Unable to dodge in time, the blue-haired girl's delicate body was ripped open by the incoming claw. She was sent flying as blood sprayed everywhere, then collapsed on the ground unconscious.

"Azure!"

The black-haired girl cried out anxiously.

But in the next instant, the three-meter-tall wolf-headed Monster had already appeared before her.

The girl's eyes trembled. Without thinking, she drew her gun and tried to fight back.

But the Monster was faster. With a single raised paw, it slammed her to the ground.

"Weak. Magical Girls. Too weak."

The Monster spoke, raising one claw to deliver the final blow to the Magical Girl.

Whoosh!

A sharp whistle suddenly sounded beside the Monster's ear. It turned its head, only for a pink-Bai light bullet to arrive and explode across its face.

The Monster howled in pain and looked in the direction the light bullet had come from.

A pink-haired Magical Girl with twin tails stood not far away.

Her staff glowed with pink-Bai light, while several spheres of light floated around her.

The Monster roared angrily at her and prepared to charge, but the next instant, it was met by one pink-Bai light bullet after another.

Volley Fire

The Monster was blasted back step by step. Only after taking more than a dozen light bullets did it retreat, its entire body smelling scorched.

Xia Ya did not rush after it. Instead, she went to the blue-haired girl and picked her up.

"You're... Magical Girl Xia Ya?"

The black-haired girl rose to her feet, walked up to Xia Ya, and recognized her.

"Mm."

Xia Ya nodded, then handed the blue-haired girl in her arms over to her.

"Take the injured away. Leave this place to me."