Pay Full Price

Three seconds earlier, Su Bai had been pushing a shopping cart, tucked into a blind spot behind the chilled-food case.

He had chosen the spot carefully.

He could keep Xiaoxiao and Xia Ning in sight while watching the yellow stickers in the stock clerk's hand.

Teriyaki chicken-leg boxed meals: 15.80 each, or 7.90 after eight.

Buy four, save 31.60.

He and his sister were counting on that purchase for two days of breakfasts.

The plan was perfect.

Until a toad ruined his calculations.

Su Bai moved.

He kicked the cart into a gap between shelves and slipped into the blind spot between two rows.

"Master! The calories! You only just replenished them with five bowls of oden!"

"0.01 seconds. That's enough."

Dark-gold light flared in the shadows of the shelves, enveloped him, then swiftly died.

No chant, no special effects, no entrance music.

Transformation complete.

The long tongue was only half a meter from Su Xiaoxiao's face.

Frosty saliva coated it, and white frost formed in the air wherever it passed.

The next instant, a dark-gold arc appeared from nowhere.

No magic circle, no incantation, no dazzling light.

Just a blade.

Slice—

The tongue was severed at the root.

The cut was smooth, and blue blood sprayed across the ceiling.

"Croak—!!"

The Frost Toad's agonized cry pierced the entire fresh-food section.

Its millstone-sized body lost its balance and crashed sideways into a seafood tank.

Glass shattered. Water and frozen hairtail spilled across the floor.

"A monster! There's a monster!"

"Run! Hurry!"

The aunties dropped their reusable bags and surged toward the exit, screaming.

One of them ran three steps, doubled back for her bag of eggs, then kept going.

The Frost Toad wasn't dead.

F-rank, third stage. Magic Power Scale: 210.

Even a trainee from the Monster Hunting Bureau could handle something like this.

But the ice-crystal lumps covering its body were bursting one after another, and white freezing mist spread along the floor.

"Master! It's about to release a freezing wave!"

Kabi spun frantically in midair.

"These refrigerated cases are connected to a compressor! If they freeze solid, they'll explode one after another!"

"It wouldn't dare."

A tall figure emerged from the shadow of a refrigerated case.

Purple-gold hair fell to her waist, and her lace Magical Armor did not stir in the freezing mist.

A dark-gold Great Scythe trailed behind her, its edge scraping the floor tiles and throwing up a trail of tiny sparks.

Someone poked half their head out from behind a shelf.

"Wh-who's that...?"

"Purple-gold hair... Could she be the one from online...?"

Ziwei raised her foot.

Her boot came down.

Crack.

The Frost Toad's swollen jawbone shattered on impact.

That single step forced its half-charged freezing wave back down.

Cracks spread through the concrete floor in a spiderweb centered on the toe of her boot.

"Guh... croak..."

The Frost Toad's eyes bulged.

With the last of its dying ferocity, it made one final struggle.

Every lump on its back opened, launching more than a dozen deep-blue ice spikes into the air.

Corrosive frost poison clung to their tips, raising white smoke even from the air.

"Watch out!"

Xia Ning tackled Su Xiaoxiao to the floor.

Ziwei didn't even activate her protective magic.

She flicked her wrist, reversing the Great Scythe.

The blunt back of the blade faced outward.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

More than a dozen dull impacts ran together.

The back of the blade knocked every ice spike back the way it had come, driving them all into the Frost Toad's own body.

The last pierced its left eye and came out the back of its head.

The Frost Toad's limbs jerked once, then went still.

"All that filthy water you sprayed around."

Ziwei lowered her scythe and looked down at the corpse.

"You got the boxed meals dirty. You'll have to pay full price."

"Master, it's already dead. It can't hear you."

"Dead or not, it still has to pay."

Ziwei crouched, slipped the scythe tip into the Frost Toad's chest, and gave it a light flick.

A deep-blue crystal core the size of a fingernail flew out.

An F-rank, third-stage Abyssal Core. Market price: fifteen thousand.

She caught it between two fingers and casually flicked it into the Storage Bag at her waist.

Extract, catch, bag. One fluid sequence.

"You're smoother than a slaughterhouse production line."

"Too kind."

The fresh-food section fell quiet.

Shattered ice covered the floor, and the wreckage of the seafood tank was still dripping.

Su Xiaoxiao sat where she had fallen, staring blankly at the purple-gold figure three meters away.

Her heart pounded like a drum.

This was the second time.

Lady Ziwei had saved her a second time.

"Ningning! Are you okay? Did any ice hit you?"

She reached for Xia Ning beside her first.

"I'm fine... What about you, Xiaoxiao?"

"I'm great!"

Su Xiaoxiao wiped her face, pushed herself into a kneeling position, and raised her clasped hands above her head. Her eyes were red.

"Thank you for saving us again, Lady Ziwei!"

Her tearful shout echoed through the fresh-food section.

Xia Ning sat beside her, a large patch of her school-uniform skirt soaked.

Her hand still rested on her backpack. The zipper was halfway open, revealing a section of mint-colored staff handle.

She glanced at Ziwei, then at the handle, and silently zipped the bag shut.

"Thank you..."

Xia Ning lowered her head.

"Sorry to trouble you again."

Ziwei's gaze lingered on her backpack for a second.

"If you have a trump card, don't be afraid to use it."

"Keep it hidden, and someone could die."

Xia Ning jolted and straightened her back.

"Yes!"

Su Xiaoxiao looked from one to the other.

"Are you two... speaking in code?"

"Girl stuff. Don't pry."

"Oh..."

Su Xiaoxiao tilted her head and thought for a moment, then scrambled to her feet and pulled out the little notebook she carried.

"Lady Ziwei! Do you remember me?! You saved me in the shopping district last time!"

"I even smelled the flowers on you!"

"Don't remember."

The answer was quick, clean, and merciless.

"Ah..."

Su Xiaoxiao's face fell, but she rallied at once.

"That's okay! I'm the president of Lady Ziwei's Fan Support Club! We have three hundred and seventy people in our group!"

"Oh, right! What's the name of that move you used to bat the ice spikes back with your blade? I want to put it in the battle report!"

"Playing Baseball."

"P-Playing Baseball?!"

Su Xiaoxiao's pen froze in midair.

"Such an... understated name..."

"Master, could you at least put some thought into making up names?"

"Quiet. She can write it down."

Su Xiaoxiao scribbled it down. Then she remembered something, and her expression changed.

"My brother!"

She turned in a circle.

Su Bai was nowhere to be seen in the fresh-food section.

"Hajige was right over there! Bro—! Su Bai—!"

"The one in the hoodie?"

Ziwei tipped her chin toward the storage room.

"He vanished before the monster smashed through the case."

"His escape speed deserves praise."

"That rotten Hajige!"

Su Xiaoxiao stamped her foot in anger.

"His little sister was in danger, and he ran off first! Just wait till I get home!"

"Master, you're really throwing yourself under the bus?"

"What else?"

Ziwei's expression did not change.

"Should I tell her he and I transformed together?"

In the distance, sirens grew louder.

Their wailing rolled down the street toward them.

"Patrol Team. Arrival in forty seconds."

Kabi gave the countdown.

"Time to go."

Ziwei pushed off the floor with her toes.

"Wait! Lady Ziwei!"

Clutching her little notebook, Su Xiaoxiao hurried two steps forward.

"Our support club is having an in-person meetup next week! Would you do us the honor—"

Purple-gold light shot upward.

The airflow blew open the ventilation duct's louvers, and the tall figure swept through the duct, out the skylight, and vanished into the night.

All that remained was shattered ice scattered across the floor and a crowd still trying to process what had happened.

"She... she left again..."

Su Xiaoxiao stood frozen in place, her little notebook raised in her hand.

After a long moment, she turned toward the refrigerated display case.

The row of teriyaki chicken bento boxes was untouched. Not even a lid sat crooked.

"She even saved the bentos for me..."

Tears welled up in the girl's eyes.

"Lady Ziwei, you really are the kindest person in the world!"

At the other end of the aisle, the supermarket manager sat slumped beside the wreckage of the seafood tank.

"My display case... my seafood tank... that's the third time this month..."

An older woman walked over and poked his arm.

"Manager, are the bentos still half price?"

"...Half price."

The manager sounded drained.

"Everything's half price. Just buy what you want and leave, please."

"You got it!"

Three minutes later, two Monster Hunting Bureau patrol cars pulled up outside the supermarket.

Four trainee agents rushed into the fresh-food section, standard-issue long blades drawn.

Then they all stopped short.

Shattered ice covered the floor.

The Frost Toad's corpse lay in the middle of it, pierced through the back by its own ice spike, with a clean cut across its chest.

"The monster... is already dead?"

The lead agent crouched to examine it. The longer he looked, the more his hands shook.

"Tongue severed at the root, jawbone shattered, killed with its own ice spike..."

He reached into the cut and felt around.

Empty.

"The Abyssal Core's gone too. Whoever took it picked this thing cleaner than Logistics would've."

"It was her, wasn't it?"

The agent beside him swallowed.

"The one with purple-gold hair and a scythe."

"Who else could it have been?"

The lead agent stood and looked around.

The older women had already come back to fight over the bentos. The manager was tallying his losses, and two high school girls clung to each other, crying and laughing.

People came and went, but there was no sign of anyone with bright purple hair.

He pulled out his recorder, pointed it at the empty ventilation duct, and delivered the line he had repeated more than a dozen times this month.

"That Magical Girl has vanished again!"