Incident Over...?

"Another expert?"

Everyone's attention shifted in unison to the mysterious girl who had suddenly appeared.

"Black★Rock Shooter?"

Liu Yaowen murmured under his breath, repeating the girl's name for Black Rock Shooter.

"Black Rock Shooter? Is that her name...? No, it sounds more like a codename."

Standing closest to her, Liu Yaowen studied the inhuman girl who had suddenly appeared as he pondered this.

She had a pretty face that neither the bright light nor the shadow of her hat could conceal, purplish-red hair, pointed, elf-like ears, and emerald eyes with rectangular pupils like a goat's.

She wore a short jacket over a black crop top, very short shorts, and knee-high socks. Both her hat and her clothes bore closed-eye motifs.

Her look was intensely distinctive. In a game, one glance would tell you she was an NPC crucial to the plot-or a member of the main cast.

...She looks young, but inside, she might be some ancient monster who's lived for who knows how many years.

Liu Yaowen had heard plenty of senior colleagues complain that certain secret missions came with a chance of encountering some old relic who had decided to come out and "play" on a whim.

If you actually treated them like children, you could hardly complain when those petty old fossils made your mission a living hell.

So, unlike when he had questioned Black Rock Shooter, Liu Yaowen did not boldly ask the girl's name. Huang Qingque and the others behind him breathed a sigh of relief.

"Isn't that Mari? Even she can materialize now-and while Black Rock Shooter is already materialized!"

Chen Xiao was astonished as well.

But this was no time to dwell on that. With two superhuman figurines materialized at once, who knew how much of his materialization time had been used up!

"Black Rock, let's go home."

Black Rock Shooter: ... (Nodded)

To the onlookers, a girl with spatial powers-she could open doors-had suddenly appeared, called Black Rock Shooter's name with easy familiarity, and told her to come home.

Black Rock Shooter merely fell silent for a moment before nodding.

They clearly knew each other. They might even be partners.

Then, as though mounting a fine steed, Black Rock Shooter gunned the throttle and sent her combat motorcycle into a high wheelie. It slammed back down onto the ground before speeding into the glowing doorway Mari had opened.

The glowing doorway closed. Mari turned and went back through her own doorway, casually shutting the wooden door behind her, and the passage vanished from the wall.

It was as though it had never been there.

From beginning to end, the mysterious girl-Mari-never spared Liu Yaowen and the others a second glance.

"...Pull out."

Liu Yaowen wiped away his sweat and raised a hand, giving orders to the team members and armed police officers behind him. Before the news reporters could catch wind of what had happened and swarm the scene, he took Luo Yuan-the hooded man-to the Anomalous Incident Management Bureau.

Rather than pursuing those two extraordinarily mysterious girls, their priority now was to uncover more secrets from the criminal, along with the mastermind behind the incident.

For everyone else, especially the spectators at the scene, tonight would be a sleepless night.

And with Magic City being an international metropolis, footage of the incident quickly spread across the country and overseas.

It was a celebration across the global internet.

As it turned out, men and women alike loved dark-themed characters. And since the villain in this incident had been a textbook "monster," people naturally imagined Black Rock Shooter as a demon-hunting knight roaming a shadowy world.

Or perhaps a beautiful-girl version of Ghost Rider?

Not only was she gorgeous and badass, she was aloof and quiet without being hostile toward ordinary people.

For a while, Black Rock Shooter became one of the hottest figures on the internet. Almost everyone was talking about this unusual "superpowered individual."

Mari, on the other hand, had done little to show off, and the light behind her doorway had been so bright that neither the recorded footage nor the livestreams had captured her appearance clearly. As a result, she received little attention.

Of course, there were also some "different" voices beneath the various videos of the incident.

"Haha! A beast really is just a beast! Covered in stinking fur, howling all over the place, making a laughingstock of itself in front of the whole world."

"What idiotic nonsense is the commenter above spouting? Look at those ugly wings that got ripped off and that flat pig nose. No matter how you look at it, that thing's a close relative of certain bats~"

"Then what about those dog claws that couldn't even scratch that little girl's skin? Was a puppy trying to tickle her?"

"Hilarious! Did lying in coffins all day make you blind? Aren't those hooked claws obviously bat claws?"

Oh dear, just who could the two sides in this argument be?

Such a difficult guess~

While Black Rock Shooter was sending internet users around the world into a frenzy, what was Chen Xiao doing?

Answer: he was "harassing" the girl herself.

"Whoa..."

After his mind returned to his body, Chen Xiao got out of bed and first let Alice and the others, who had turned back into figurines, know he was safe. Then he walked over to Black Rock Shooter, his face full of curiosity, and circled her several times while looking her up and down.

Like a certain Trasharagi seeing Shinobu Oshino in her young-girl form for the first time, he was utterly absorbed in Black Rock Shooter's unique charm.

Faced with Chen Xiao's overly heated gaze, Black Rock Shooter remained completely unmoved. She stood there without the slightest sign of shyness, like an exquisite, life-sized doll.

Touching her a little should be fine, right?

A bold idea surfaced in his mind.

The next moment, Chen Xiao slowly raised his right hand toward Black Rock Shooter, who showed no sign of resisting.

He had never done anything so forward to any of his other materialized figurines before. Quite the opposite-the materialized figurine girls would take liberties with him from time to time.

So there was something of a reversal of roles in what Chen Xiao was doing now...

Probably?

But before Chen Xiao could reach out and touch her, the expressionless Black Rock Shooter eagerly lowered her head and pressed her face into his palm.

She was like a cat that seemed aloof toward everyone and difficult to get along with, but was actually a clingy little thing that would come over and rub against your hand the moment you held it out.

Yet that striking contrast was soon eclipsed by the wonderful sensation against his palm.

"Whoaaa..."

Her little face was slightly cool and silky smooth. The feeling of it settling into his hand made Chen Xiao reluctant to let go. Growing bolder, he brushed his thumb over Black Rock Shooter's lips, parting them like plucking a string to reveal the moist white teeth within.

If I slipped my finger inside...

"Pervert!"

Just then, a voice interrupted Chen Xiao before his behavior could spiral out of control.

He turned to find Mari standing behind them with her arms crossed and a disgruntled look on her face.

"Mari! Ah, this-I can explain..."

Chen Xiao hurriedly withdrew his hand.

He insisted that he was absolutely not a pervert. The mood had simply been too good, and he had reached out before he could help himself.

Black Rock Shooter: ... (Dejected)

"Tch! I don't want to hear any of that! I helped this time too-I opened the doors and brought you both back-so why is Black Rock Shooter the only one getting rewarded?"

Chen Xiao: R-rewarded?

Then Mari turned her head slightly aside and spoke in a small voice.

"Pet me a little too..."

Chen Xiao stood dumbfounded for a while. Only after Mari snapped in embarrassed anger, "Quit stalling! Hurry up and pet me!" did he raise both hands and stroke the two figurine girls' little faces, one on either side.

Or should he have called it... rewarding them?

Yet, immersed in the joy of "petting cats," Chen Xiao failed to notice the suffocating aura of displeasure steadily emanating from the direction of his bedroom.