Law-Abiding Male College Student Magical Girl

On the balcony, Ziwei watched the three positions in chaos.

"Master, they have retreated."

Consider them wise.

She tapped her toes, and a purplish-gold stream of light pierced the clouds, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye.

In the stands, three Night Watchers operatives slumped near the broken guardrail, their backs soaked in cold sweat. No one stopped her, and no one looked up.

On the third floor of the teaching building, in the restroom.

The stall door was bolted, and the purplish-gold radiance faded away in the cramped space.

Su Bai leaned against the partition, sliding down onto the toilet lid while rubbing his hollow stomach.

This transformation had lasted less than ten minutes, yet a layer of his fat had been sucked away, and his stomach felt agonizingly empty.

He spread his hands. Lying in his palm was a black card—unregistered, non-replaceable, and funded by the Brotherhood's clearing team's public account: eight hundred thousand.

Adding the other seven cards whose passwords matched, he had brought in close to two million.

"Money earned by digging out source cores." Su Bai tucked the black card into his pocket. "I was just upholding justice on behalf of the heavens."

"Master, you even casually recruited a new rookie on the side."

"An extra harvest." Su Bai used the partition to steady himself as he stood up.

"What about the student loan?"

"That's a matter of life and death."

When Su Bai pushed open the back door of the lecture hall, the roster on the podium was right in the middle.

"Su Bai."

The head of the department didn't even lift his head.

Dozens of gazes in the classroom instantly converged on the back door.

Su Bai braced himself against the door frame, wiped away a cold sweat, and shouted with full breath, "Here!"

"Mm." The head of the department made a tick on the roster. "Next time you go to the restroom, don't stay gone for half a class."

"Got it, professor."

He slipped back to the third row from the back and collapsed into his chair.

Lin Guoguo leaned over, looking him up and down. "Why does your complexion look so bad? Did you fall into a pit?"

"Squatted too long, my legs went numb."

"Here." She pushed half a compressed biscuit toward him. "Leftover from this morning, don't mind it."

Su Bai stared at that half biscuit for two seconds.

Compressed biscuits were calorie bombs. At this very moment, not even delicacies from land and sea could tempt him.

"Lin Guoguo."

"What?"

"You're a good person."

"Get lost! Who's handing out good person cards early in the morning?!"

Su Bai swallowed the biscuit in two or three bites, slumped over the desk to listen to the head of the department lecture about the Abyssal Beast's third gastric sac, and spoke faintly in his consciousness.

Kabi, let me ask you something.

"Go ahead, Master."

Me, a law-abiding male college student. Attending classes on time, paying back loans on time, not even daring to miss an attendance check.

"Mm-hmm."

How come in the eyes of those high school girls and the authorities, I'm looking more and more like a ruthless, reincarnation-defying supreme demon king?

Kabi thought about it seriously.

"Master, is there a possibility—"

"What?"

"—that they're really accurate judges of character."

...Tonight's magic surplus for demon hunting, deducted.

"Master, I was wrong!!!"

The end-of-class bell rang.

The head of the department closed his textbook. "The digestive enzyme spectrum of the third gastric sac will be spot-checked next week, nobody run off."

Sounds of books being packed and bags being zipped filled the classroom. Lin Guoguo stretched as she stood up, but the direction of the back door had already descended into chaos.

Two operatives in dark blue uniforms stepped into the corridor, each carrying a half-meter-high Magic Disturbance Detector with antennas sticking up, its green light scanning back and forth across the screen.

Yellow warning tape was pulled across after them, sealing off the area from the top of the stairs all the way to the end of the corridor.

"Sealed again?" someone in the front row wailed. "Dorms sealed this morning, teaching building sealed right now—are we even supposed to live?"

"I heard three people were carried out of Building Three, their stretchers covered in blood..."

"Shh, stop spreading wild rumors."

The PA system immediately blared: Per the Monster Hunting Bureau's directive, all campus teaching buildings are locked down with immediate effect; entry is permitted, but no exit. Students and faculty are requested to remain in place and cooperate with the screening.

The head of the department adjusted his glasses. "Everyone sit tight and cooperate with the inspection."

Lin Guoguo didn't make a sound. She silently sat back down, pulled her schoolbag into her arms, and zipped it shut all the way.

"Playing thief?" Su Bai glanced at her.

"Get lost." She lowered her voice and leaned in. "I'm telling you, with all the city-wide panic lately, you didn't run into a patrol team on your night runs, did you?"

"No, I took the side roads."

"I almost got caught last night." She patted her chest, panting heavily. "The boss sent me to make a delivery, and I crouched in the back alley with a box for forty minutes while the patrol car sat right at the intersection with its lights running the whole time."

"What about the cargo?"

"Delivered. After checking it, Black Crow even gave me two extra points." She gritted her teeth. "It's so weird, the patrol teams are cracking down on supernatural smuggling. Holding that box, my heart felt like it was about to jump out."

Su Bai leaned back in his chair, tore open an energy bar, and maintained a blank expression.

That box contained the spine of a Rift-Splitting Dreadbeast. The patrol teams were running all over the streets because Ziwei was trending on the hot searches again.

They were arresting him, and they were investigating him too.

"Master, she says you're weird."

"I heard."

"Aren't you going to show some appreciation?"

"I'll add two hundred to her hazard pay later."

"Generous!"

Su Bai chewed on his energy bar as his gaze drifted out the window.

In the northeast corner, toward the direction of the Third Women's Dormitory, that cyan fluctuation surged higher and higher with every wave.

"The Wind Element is breaking out of its cocoon," Kabi said seriously. "Much faster than anticipated."

You said two hours left this morning.

"The Demon-Attracting Incense burned through a cycle, and her threshold was forcibly stretched wide, which is equivalent to someone giving her a push ahead of schedule." Kabi paused. "Master, if she awakens right under the Monster Hunting Bureau's nose today, she'll be taken in on the spot. Following the vine to dig up the melon, your entire contact network from this morning's run will be exposed."

Su Bai folded the wrapper into a small square. "Got it."

The front door was pushed open at that moment.

Liang Bing walked in, followed by two enforcers. They wore black trench coats, with a compass wound around their wrists, crystals the size of fingernails embedded in the dials.

The crystals lit up the moment they entered the classroom, their needles spinning into blurry afterimages.

"Enforcer Liang, the interference is too strong..." The enforcer beside her stared at the compass.

"The array can only box in the campus; the source is too close, and the compass is fighting for direction." Liang Bing raised her wrist. "Nobody move, wait for it to stop."

The needle spun frantically for a few rounds before slowly decelerating, trembling as it finally came to a halt and pointed at the row by the window.

The few students sitting by the window froze on the spot.

"You, you, and you." Liang Bing pointed at three people. "Where were you this morning from eight to nine?"

"I, I was in class in the classroom..."

"I skipped class to sleep in the dorm, my roommates can vouch for it!"

"My stomach hurt, I went to the infirmary, I have registration records..."

After questioning them one by one, nothing came up. Liang Bing walked down the aisle toward the back, her leather boots making rhythmic thuds.

When she reached the third row from the back, she stopped.

"Su Bai?"

"Enforcer Liang." Su Bai swallowed the last bite of his energy bar. "Long time no see."

"Why does your complexion look so bad?"

"Ran a night run, sleep-deprived. I'm a child from a poor family, what can I do?"

Liang Bing looked him over for two seconds. "Where were you this morning from eight to nine?"

"Had an upset stomach, squatted in the restroom." Su Bai fished a crumpled receipt from his pocket and spread it out on the desk. "Eight-seventeen, campus convenience store, bought hand soap. My hands were covered in water when I came out, the receipt got soaked and blurred."

The ink had smudged into a patch, but the store name and time were still legible.

"And this." He fished out another piece of paper folded into quarters. "Leave request form, signed by the counselor."

"Weren't you in class? Where'd you get a leave request form?"

"I originally asked for the morning off to run rush-hour deliveries." Su Bai sighed. "But missing three of the department head's classes cancels your loan eligibility, so how could I actually rest? Dragged myself to class, only to end up with a bad stomach and squatted for half the period."

"I can vouch for him!" Lin Guoguo raised her hand. "His face was green when he came back, and I even shared half a compressed biscuit with him."