Book of the Night Sky

There really wasn't much to agonize over about wearing Hayate's clothes.

They were just clothes, after all.

A nine-year-old child didn't have much awareness of gender to begin with. Although she also had memories of a previous life, after reincarnation, those memories felt more like things from a dream.

Sometimes she couldn't even tell whether they were real. Or had it all simply been a dream?

Thinking about it carefully, quite a few things about her previous life really hadn't made sense. Especially after he went to Tokyo to study abroad.

During his freshman year alone, he had celebrated Christmas more than ten times, and New Year's just as many. Was that even possible in a single year?

When he enrolled, people were still using phones with physical keypads. By the end of the year, they had already switched to smartphones.

Yet nobody had noticed anything wrong at the time. That was the biggest problem of all. It made no sense whatsoever.

Wasn't that stranger than magical girls existing?

A few minutes later, Huolin finished changing in her room.

"Do I look weird dressed like this?"

Wearing a skirt for the first time made Huolin feel a little uncomfortable.

It was chilly and felt like she wasn't wearing anything at all. She was even a little embarrassed to walk, constantly worried that the skirt would flutter up. It didn't feel secure.

"Not weird at all," Hayate said. If anything, it was like looking in a mirror. Naturally, Hayate didn't find it strange.

"If you're not used to it, you can put on some safety shorts."

"Then I'll pass."

Those were Hayate's safety shorts, which practically counted as underwear.

Hayate spoke with a slight Kansai accent because that really was where their family came from. Their parents had only bought a house in Tokyo because of work.

Their family had spoken that way since they were little, so they were both used to it.

Huo Lin's accent was more standard. Although she could speak with a Kansai accent too, she had no trouble using a normal intonation when she wasn't deliberately doing so.

It was worth mentioning that Huolin had stayed home these past few days-at least during the daytime. After awakening her magic, she couldn't resist trying it out at night. This was her first daytime outing since her cheat ability had activated.

The weather was lovely, and the mid-June sunshine was intense.

"Should we use a parasol?"

"Yeah, let's."

And so the two identical twin girls opened a parasol.

They could have taken a taxi, but the train was naturally much cheaper. Their family really didn't have much money.

Most of the inheritance their parents had left them was tied up in this house in Tokyo. It was a fixed asset, and of course they couldn't sell it.

There wasn't much cash beyond that. Over the past few years, money had only gone out, never come in, and covering their living expenses had already become something of a struggle.

Although they could ask their uncle for help, neither Huolin nor Hayate wanted to trouble anyone if they could avoid it. After all, he was already a fairly distant relative, and they had imposed on him enough over the past few years.

Their uncle had even argued with his wife over it. That was when Huolin and Hayate had chosen to move out of his home.

Huo Lin had actually considered whether she could make money by creating something from her memories of her previous life, such as the universally familiar "Masked Superman."

"Masked Superman" didn't exist in this world. In her previous life, it had made a fortune off who knew how many children. Printing trading cards alone had brought in vast profits. Masked Superman cards could even circulate as hard currency among elementary and middle school students. The foil cards in particular were practically worth an oceanfront home.

Unfortunately, all she could do was think about it.

"Masked Superman" was a live-action special-effects show. Even if she knew some of the plots and setting details, she had neither the capital nor the crew to film it.

That left novels as the lower-cost option. Detective novels, for example-the "Baron of the Night" series by Yusaku Kudo, a renowned author in her previous life, had never appeared in this world.

Because she had read them several times during her freshman year, Huolin still remembered some of their plots. Although she couldn't reproduce the books word for word, she could write down most of them.

The only problem was that submitting manuscripts was difficult for a minor without a guardian. Besides, an elementary schooler writing detective novels like these really wasn't very believable and might invite trouble.

So the completed "Baron of the Night" trilogy was still sitting in Huolin's drawer, waiting for a chance to be published.

The subway station wasn't far from their home. It was Takadanobaba Station. But in Huolin's memories of her previous life, the station here should have been called "Beika Station." The other station names were subtly different too. For example, Inuzuka Station had become Otsuka Station, and Sawabukuro Station had become Zawabukuro Station.

In short, everything was familiar, yet not quite the same.

So becoming a magical girl really wasn't anything strange.

There had originally been a vacant lot beside the station. Now it was completely enclosed by construction fencing.

Something strange had happened here two weeks earlier. A tremendous bang in the middle of the night had turned the vacant lot into a pit more than twenty meters deep. Fortunately, the subway was on the other side and hadn't been affected.

According to the official reports, the cause was unknown, and government agencies were investigating.

As for the unofficial accounts, rumors came in every variety. A fallen meteorite, an exploding gas pipeline, or perhaps an American military exercise that had accidentally dropped a missile. The most implausible of all was that someone insisted they had seen a magical girl. That was a fantasy even the trashiest tabloids wouldn't bother reporting.

As they passed the site, Huolin instinctively hugged the book in her arms a little tighter.

Yes, she had done this.

More precisely, the "Book of the Night Sky" had done it.

That night, after awakening as a magical girl, she had immediately detected the source of the illness that had plagued Hayate for half a year.

Huolin didn't remember when Hayate had acquired that book. Even Hayate herself didn't remember. It seemed to have been beside her since childhood. But after Huolin's awakening, she could sense that the book was continuously absorbing Hayate's mana.

Hayate had little mana of her own, so it had started absorbing her life force instead.

After Huolin grabbed the book, the "Book of the Night Sky" began absorbing her mana.

The book was configured to require the mana of 666 people to activate. Huo Lin's mana, however, was at MAX.

And so everything followed naturally. In just a few breaths, she filled the "Book of the Night Sky" directly with her mana. Despite its supposedly requiring the mana of 666 people, Huolin hadn't felt even the slightest drain.

Her mana bar had become infinite. That was real.

But contrary to her expectations, the "Book of the Night Sky" didn't resolve the crisis once it finished absorbing mana.

Instead, after it finished absorbing the mana, it went berserk!

In the heat of the moment, all Huolin could do was clutch it and fly out the window.

The deep pit in this vacant lot was the result of the "Book of the Night Sky" going berserk that night. Fortunately, Huolin had suppressed it with her mana in time.

Yes, Huolin still didn't know any spells whatsoever. She had only raw mana.

In theory, she was a complete novice and couldn't possibly suppress a rampaging magical device. But sometimes theory needed to account for "quantity."

For instance, in theory, fire couldn't burn a stone to destruction. But if an entire star crashed into it, everything would be reduced to dust.

So no technique was necessary. With an infinite supply of mana, Huolin had enveloped this grimoire in raw mana, suppressed it, and then sealed it.

It remained that way even now.

It was under the suppression of raw mana at every moment.

And so, from that moment onward, Huolin had never let the "Book of the Night Sky" leave her side.

Other people's grimoires were useful aids. Hers was nothing but a burden. Keeping it sealed required consuming enormous quantities of mana every single moment.

But since her mana was infinite, it didn't matter. She could just treat it as an extra accessory.