Miss Hell

Taiping Prefecture · Tianhe International Middle School.

Bai Xiaoxiao searched the abandoned school building with her senior, checking the classrooms one by one.

Before long, the girl with deep violet eyes found some traces left by the missing girls.

"Help me..."

"I don't want to die..."

The words had been carved into the crumbling walls, as if they had come from another time and place.

At the same moment, Mo Zhen had just arrived at the abandoned school building on the hill behind the school when the system gave him the details of the incident.

[Random event: "The Witch of the Abandoned School"]

[Description: Girls at Tianhe International Middle School have been disappearing frequently of late. Three victims have been killed. After the school reported the incidents, the Taiping Prefecture Ministry of Magic made a preliminary determination that a witch was responsible and dispatched the nearest magical girls, "Nightingale" and "Morning Star," to investigate.]

[Mission: Kill the witch born in the abandoned school.]

[Reward: Random.]

"There are two magical girls? Perfect."

Mo Zhen had come here mainly to find a magical girl to practice against, so he could complete his main quest and get the entry reward first.

As for the witch, if she could beat her, she would finish her off while she was at it. If not, the witch couldn't blame her for turning tail and running...

Whoosh!

Before Mo Zhen had even entered, the surge of magical power shooting up from the third floor made him look up.

"A fight already? No, it looks like the Witch Domain was triggered."

Seeing this, Mo Zhen stepped into the building. In the blink of an eye, everything around him fell into decay, as though it had weathered a hundred years of wind and frost.

Third floor.

Inside a dance studio, the Witch Domain, which had been in a subspace, suddenly manifested.

After swallowing Bai Xiaoxiao and her companion, it noticed Mo Zhen's arrival and swallowed him too.

Relatively speaking, once the Witch Domain manifested in the real world from subspace, its exterior was fairly fragile.

By contrast, the inside of the Witch Domain was incredibly tough. Usually, the only way to escape was to kill its owner.

"Senior...?"

In the corridor, Bai Xiaoxiao looked around worriedly. She had been forced apart from her companion after entering the domain.

Classrooms lined the corridor, stretching into the distance as though it went on forever.

"Transform first, Xiaoxiao. This is the witch's domain. It's very dangerous, and there could be a deadly monster hiding behind any door."

A little white dove alighted gently on Bai Xiaoxiao's shoulder. It was her companion spirit.

"Okay!"

Bai Xiaoxiao placed her left hand over her chest and softly recited the words to release her magic: "Heavenly Light, release!"

Whoosh!

As magic flowed around her, a magical girl appeared in the corridor, holding a pure white staff and wearing a pure white Gothic dress.

And seemingly because it had sensed her presence...

Crash!

A classroom door ahead burst open, and a bloated giant baby slowly crawled out, crying out with difficulty:

"Mommy...!"

"Don't leave me...!"

The giant baby looked like a giant bloated from drowning. It crawled toward Bai Xiaoxiao, wailing all the while.

"Wh-what is that thing?!"

Bai Xiaoxiao went deathly pale, her hands and feet numb. Clearly, the thing had given her a terrible fright.

Seeing this, the white dove on her shoulder hurriedly warned her, "Careful, Xiaoxiao! That's a familiar, one of the witch's minions."

In this world's magic system, low-level familiars and witches were usually born from an accumulation of human suffering and resentment.

High-level witches were different. The strongest among them could even influence and destroy the world.

Among them, witches transformed from fallen high-level magical girls were far stronger than ordinary ones and classified as extremely high-risk disasters.

Fighting for the first time, Bai Xiaoxiao was at a loss. She raised her pure white staff to gather magic while practically running for her life.

As a newcomer, she had no technique to speak of in her magical attacks. She simply released her magic and hurled it at her target.

Attacks of that level could hurt the giant baby, but not kill it.

The giant baby paid no attention to the attacks coming its way and kept chasing Bai Xiaoxiao.

"What do I do? My attacks aren't working at all...!"

Bai Xiaoxiao ran down the endlessly stretching corridor, gasping for breath, while the giant baby pursued her relentlessly.

The enormous baby was about to catch up to her.

In the corridor around the corner ahead,

a delicate-featured girl with gray hair came strolling leisurely around the bend and met the fleeing Bai Xiaoxiao's gaze.

Who is that??

Bai Xiaoxiao wondered, but she had no time to dwell on it. Clutching her staff, she took a deep breath and shouted, "Run!!"

The gray-haired girl showed no intention of running. Instead, she blinked, stopped, and raised her right hand, aiming it at Bai Xiaoxiao as she ran toward her.

"Dismantle."

The girl spoke softly.

Whoosh!

Two invisible slashes shot outward from in front of the gray-haired girl, spreading rapidly ahead before grazing past Bai Xiaoxiao, one on either side.

Bai Xiaoxiao, caught between the slashes, had yet to react when she heard two crisp squelches behind her.

The sound... was like an incredibly sharp scalpel slicing open a huge hemorrhoid full of pus and blood, which then burst all over the operating room.

"Aaagh!"

The giant baby behind Bai Xiaoxiao was sliced through its left and right arms by two slashes, lost its balance, and fell to the floor.

Only then did Bai Xiaoxiao get a chance to stop. Gasping weakly, she looked back.

Her stomach clenched, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, nearly vomiting at the disgusting sight.

The giant baby was still struggling, crying out amid blackish-yellow pus and blood, "Mommy...!"

"Don't leave me...!"

As it screamed, the gray-haired girl walked slowly past Bai Xiaoxiao.

She showed no reaction to the disgusting sight before her.

"So this is a familiar? It's disgusting." There was a trace of distaste in the girl's voice.

But... upon seeing the magical girl who had been chased by the familiar, an idea occurred to Mo Zhen.

Still, picking a fight out of the blue would make her look very rude, wouldn't it?

So...

"Also, are you really a magical girl?"

"You're way too weak."

The gray-haired girl looked back at Bai Xiaoxiao, her tone arrogant and her eyes holding a trace of contempt.

Before meeting Bai Xiaoxiao, she had already come up with a persona for her magical-girl identity.

To keep people from digging up her real-life identity, the greater the contrast with her real self, the better. That way, no one would recognize her by her personality.

Bai Xiaoxiao fought down her churning stomach and retorted, "I... I just haven't learned my own Magic Cursed Technique yet!"

The little white dove on her shoulder hurriedly protested too. "Don't talk about our little Morning Star like that! She's only a newcomer!"

"A newcomer?"

Hearing this, the gray-haired girl smiled disdainfully. Without looking back, she raised her hand and snapped her fingers at the giant baby.

Squelch!!

An invisible slash shot out instantly.

Since she no longer had to worry about Bai Xiaoxiao, this slash split the giant baby neatly in two.

Pus, blood, and bloated, rotting organs spilled across the floor. The smell was like meat that had rotted in a sewer for a month.

"Blergh!"

Bai Xiaoxiao could no longer hold it in. She turned away and began retching.

Watching Bai Xiaoxiao retch, the gray-haired girl swept the long gray hair off her shoulder and said disdainfully:

"Your code name is 'Morning Star'? Newcomers these days really need to toughen up. And where's your companion? I distinctly sensed two sources of magic."

Bai Xiaoxiao was probably naturally rebellious, too. Covering her mouth, she actually shot back at Mo Zhen, "Y-you still haven't told me who you are."

"Me?"

The gray-haired girl thought for a moment beneath the dark red moonlight, then tilted her head and smiled.

"My code name is 'Hell.' You should be grateful you get to learn your savior's code name, so remember it."

Magical girl: "Hell"?!

Bai Xiaoxiao froze. Clearly, she had not expected the other girl's code name to be so... unconventional, completely different from every magical girl she had met so far.

Unlike Bai Xiaoxiao, the white dove on her shoulder was thinking quickly. It had noticed that the magical girl before them seemed to have unfriendly intentions.

The dove hesitated before speaking.

"Uh... esteemed Miss Hell, may I ask, were you also sent by the Ministry of Magic to eliminate the witch?"

Miss Hell blinked gently at the question.

She instinctively wanted to ask what the Ministry of Magic was, but quickly realized that would make her look stupid. So she changed what she was about to say to...

"The Ministry of Magic? They aren't qualified to order me around."

The girl's tone was arrogant and disdainful.

Hearing this, the little white dove immediately began brainstorming and told Bai Xiaoxiao through telepathy:

"This is serious, Xiaoxiao. That young lady looks terribly arrogant. She probably came from some secluded magical family."

"Let me think. Taiping Prefecture is a city that emerged this century, so there aren't any long-established families entrenched here. But I think someone new was recommended to the Taiping Prefecture Ministry of Magic recently. Still, they should be operating out of a branch in another region."

While the little white dove searched the records in its internal library, a little crow slowly alighted on Mo Zhen's shoulder.

It communicated telepathically, keeping it brief:

"Master, that damn pigeon is secretly digging into your identity. That's very disrespectful to you. I want to kill it."

The companion spirits of all magical girls shared a single magical library located in subspace. It contained all kinds of secrets and information about the magical world, which they could access according to their permissions.

As a result, Mo Zhen's companion spirit caught the white dove secretly searching and hurried out to warn her.

But for the moment, Mo Zhen did not actually want to make an enemy of an official organization like the Ministry of Magic, which sounded powerful just from its name.

She merely asked quietly:

"So, what level of organization is the Ministry of Magic in this world?"

The little crow felt it was finally of some use and immediately answered, "The Ministry of Magic in this world is an organization that cooperates with the Earth Alliance. It specializes in managing matters related to the magical world, and magical girls are one of those matters."

"Ah... I see."

Hell pondered this, her thoughts inscrutable.

Meanwhile, Bai Xiaoxiao finally stood up, gripping her staff. "Um, whatever the case... thank you for saving me, Miss Hell."

"Call me senior."

Miss Hell put one hand on her hip and ordered her to correct herself.

Bai Xiaoxiao had no choice but to comply. "Senior Hell..."

"Oh, right. Senior, did you see any other ordinary people inside the domain? My friend went missing here."

"Ordinary people?"

Hell blinked gently, an idea forming in her mind. "I did."

"That's great! Can you tell me?!" Bai Xiaoxiao immediately asked.

To her surprise, Hell promptly added, "Fight me, and I'll tell you."

"Huh...?" Bai Xiaoxiao froze.

She had never imagined the other girl would make such a demand.

Miss Hell raised a slender, pale finger and gently wagged it in front of her.

"One move. If you can withstand one move from me, I'll count it as your win, help you save your friend, and get rid of the witch here for you while I'm at it."

Bai Xiaoxiao hesitated. "But... how can magical girls attack each other?"

The little white dove on her shoulder was worried too. "Uh... Miss Hell, the Ministry of Magic doesn't allow infighting."

Hell's gaze turned cold. "I'll say it again. The Ministry of Magic has no authority over me."

"All right, stop wasting my time. Make your decision."

In fact, if Bai Xiaoxiao had not been young and a newcomer, Hell would have gone all out long ago.

Sigh, I'm still too kind.

Thinking of her friend, Bai Xiaoxiao could only grit her teeth and declare, "All right! I accept, Senior, but you have to keep your word."

Squelch!

The moment Bai Xiaoxiao finished speaking, an invisible slash flashed across her neck like a dividing line.

A satisfied smile appeared on Miss Hell's face.

When magical girls suffered fatal injuries, they automatically reverted from their transformed state without retaining their injuries. Their magic was merely depleted, and they would not die.

As a comparison, a magical girl being knocked out of her transformation was a little like Kamen Rider reverting to human form.