A Sapphic Dream Girl

"No idea." Kabi shook his head honestly. "We energy beings don't have genders, or legs. As far as I'm concerned, your body is freakish enough already, Master. Your pelvis is so narrow just so you can walk upright that giving birth is like surviving a heavenly tribulation."

"You don't know shit."

Su Bai couldn't be bothered to explain it to an energy French fry.

He was about to offer a few expert observations on how a sock cuff dug into the thigh when a muffled squeal came from beside him.

"Ahhh, look at this! Lady Ziwei did it again!"

Three high school girls huddled around a phone, their heads pressed together.

"The vault! Tianhai Savings Bank's vault! She took down the whole gang by herself!"

"Those legs, that waist, the way she swings that scythe—I'm dead!"

"Look at her face! They only caught the lower half, but that jawline, those lips—perfection!"

"And that purple-and-gold hair is just unfair. She's gorgeous and badass. What kind of dream woman is she?"

The short-haired girl clutched the phone, her cheeks bright red.

"I'm calling it: Lady Ziwei is my ultimate sapphic crush! A strong, cool older woman like that? The sapphic vibes are off the charts. I'm so into her!"

Su Bai stopped in his tracks.

Sapphic vibes?

The ultimate sapphic crush?

He slowly turned toward the three girls squealing in each other's arms.

No.

Hold on.

I'm a man.

A manly man. Straight as an arrow. The kind of straight guy who was discussing the finer points of exposed thigh between a skirt and thigh-high socks three minutes ago.

And you're calling a man's transformed form sapphic?

Su Bai felt his entire worldview take a hit.

Kabi started laughing like a pig inside his head.

"Pffft, hahahaha! Master! The ultimate sapphic crush! Hahahaha!"

"What happened to the romance of a manly man? To your masculine aesthetic? That girl wants a lesbian romance with you!"

"Shut up," Su Bai said through gritted teeth. "Laugh again and I'll stuff you into a pot of oden."

"Hahahaha, sorry, Master. I can't help it..."

Kabi laughed so hard he rolled off the lamppost.

Su Bai glanced at his watch, his face dark.

Seven forty-three.

"Oh, crap."

He broke into a run.

"Master? What's wrong?"

"Huimin Supermarket marks down its fresh food at eight," Su Bai said as he ran. "Get there late and there won't even be a boxed meal left. You haven't seen how fast those aunties move."

"...You just ate five bowls of oden."

"That was tonight's dinner. The half-price meals are tomorrow's breakfast and lunch. How are those the same thing?"

Kabi fell silent.

He was beginning to understand why the Will of the World had picked the wrong person. This obsession with money really did transcend species.

Huimin Supermarket, fresh food section.

The air-conditioning was on full blast.

Su Bai pushed a shopping cart into the perfect spot to watch both the prepared-food counter and the boxed-meal shelves.

Seven or eight aunties had already gathered nearby, each armed with a reusable bag. They scanned the shelves again and again.

The tension was palpable.

At seven fifty-five, a stock clerk in a red vest approached with a stack of yellow stickers.

Every auntie leaned forward five degrees at once.

Su Bai tensed too.

Just then, he caught sight of two familiar figures out of the corner of his eye.

By the snack shelves, Su Xiaoxiao and Xia Ning stood with their heads close together.

Su Xiaoxiao wore that old star-shaped hair clip and held up two new ones for comparison.

"Ningning, which looks better? The blue one or the purple one?"

"The purple one, I think," Xia Ning said softly. "Purple is Lady Ziwei's fan color."

"Good point!"

Su Xiaoxiao clipped the purple one into her hair and checked herself in the shelf mirror.

"Oh, right, Ningning. Did you see the news? About Tianhai Savings Bank just now!"

"I did." Xia Ning nodded and lowered her voice. "I heard Lady Ziwei handled it all by herself. More than a dozen armed thugs, all taken out."

"That's not all!" Su Xiaoxiao waved her arms excitedly. "Someone in my group posted photos from the scene. The vault ceiling was three meters of alloy plating, and she stomped right through it!"

"One stomp! So that's how powerful a Magical Girl is? That's terrifying!"

Listening from the fresh food section, Su Bai's mouth twitched.

"Xiaoxiao, do you think..." Xia Ning hesitated. "When will we be able to become people like Lady Ziwei?"

"We will, we will!" Su Xiaoxiao thumped her chest. "I'm already writing the second version of my Transformation Guide! I've added loads of new details this time. Transformations need their own background music, and entrance lines have to rhyme... This time I'm definitely going to transform into a Magical Girl!"

The two girls chattered as they headed for the refrigerated display.

Su Xiaoxiao made straight for the row of discounted boxed meals.

"Ningning, I'm telling you, the teriyaki chicken-leg meal here goes half price after eight. It's my brother's favorite—"

Crack.

Without warning, a crack appeared in the glass door at the far end of the refrigerated display.

White mist seeped through and settled into a thin layer of frost on the floor.

Su Xiaoxiao's hand froze halfway to a boxed meal.

"Huh? What's wrong with this display—"

Bang!

The entire pane of glass shattered.

A gray-blue toad the size of a millstone sprang from the back of the display. Its skin was covered in crystalline bumps, its cheeks bulged round, and half a pack of frozen hairtail still dangled from its mouth.

An F-rank monster: a Mutated Ice Toad.

Judging by its size, it was third tier at most, with a Magic Power Scale reading just over two hundred. Any trainee from the Monster Hunting Bureau could have dealt with it.

But within twenty meters, there were only two unarmed high school girls.

And a cart full of Chinese cabbages.

The ice toad's cheeks swelled and shrank. Its scarlet eyes locked onto the closest prey.

Su Xiaoxiao still had her hand outstretched toward the boxed meal.

"Xiaoxiao!!"

Xia Ning's scream cut through the supermarket's background music.

The ice toad kicked off with its hind legs. Its millstone-sized body shot into the air, bringing a blast of bone-chilling cold as it lunged straight at Su Xiaoxiao—