"You don't know? You were on the news!"
"The news?"
"Yeah! They ran a special report yesterday. I never thought I'd see a classmate on TV. You've made our whole class proud!"
"Oh, right..."
Only after Meng Yu mentioned it did Huali remember to check the news.
He had heard about it yesterday. The Octopus Monster had appeared in a busy part of the city, where plenty of people had seen it, so it was no surprise that it made the news.
He had only glanced at the report then. As soon as he spotted himself in the footage, he hurriedly turned it off.
Seeing himself on TV was embarrassing. Besides, he had been so foolish at the time that he had no desire to watch his most humiliating moments again and again.
He had thought it was just an ordinary news report, but he hadn't expected everyone to be so interested in it. He had no choice but to watch the whole thing in secret.
By the end, he felt relieved.
The report hadn't shown how he got caught. The camera angle captured him directing the evacuation and protecting everyone from the Octopus Monster's attacks. As for the moment it grabbed him, the side view made it hard to tell what had happened. It looked more as though the Octopus Monster had suddenly struck with a tentacle before he could react.
He watched it several more times to make sure he didn't look too embarrassing. Only then did he relax a little.
As a Magical Girl, Huali remembered the situation very differently from how everyone else saw it. He hadn't been far from the Octopus Monster. Even though he knew the range of its attacks, he had deliberately approached it. To an outsider, it looked as if he had