Chapter 20: A Scrappy Feast and a Noble’s Fury

The midday sun cascaded down, its radiant beams piercing through the cracks and bullet-scarred fissures that riddled the ruins, scattering bundles of light across the interior.

It had been a long while since they had celebrated anything, and today marked the arrival of a new team member, celebrated alongside Dal.

Though it was proclaimed that supplies were now freely available, their feast consisted merely of meager scraps pilfered from magical girls’ provisions, specifically chosen for their ability to be stored without refrigeration in their electricity-deprived environment.

Ultimately, their celebratory spread amounted to little more than a platter of sliced luncheon meat, a few bowls of instant noodles, and some steamed egg cake, artfully arranged to masquerade as a proper dessert.

“If you hadn’t sliced up that box of meat earlier, we might have had something more substantial.”

“Ah, haha… it’s perfectly fine even without meat. Do I really seem like such a materialistic girl?”

“Yes, Ling Xing, the main thing is to celebrate our new member’s arrival, after all! And this new member was once a magical girl, you know!”

Ling Xing retorted, yet her words seemed to fall flat.

The two girls, their hearts set on finding joy in the moment, beamed at her, utterly delighted even by their sparse meal.

‘Well, they weren’t really at fault, I suppose.’

“Alright, you stupid magical…”

“Combatant.”

“Stupid combat… wait, that sounds like I’m talking about myself. Forget it. Chao Wu, do you truly grasp the gravity of your decision? This isn’t an organization one can join on a whim or abandon at leisure. This is hardly a playground for girls.”

She switched to using her name, albeit with evident reluctance.

Yet, Chao Wu seemed to possess an uncanny ability to filter out anything she didn’t wish to hear. Far from being disheartened by the scolding and interrogation, she simply beamed even brighter, thrilled to finally be addressed by her given name.

“Mhm, I know. I’m fully prepared to lend you a hand and join forces to fight against the nefarious magical girl organization—”

Chao Wu declared, grinning widely at Ling Xing, a substantial chunk of luncheon meat still actively being chewed in her mouth.

Ling Xing found herself struck by an inexplicable sensation, as if Chao Wu were regarding her as a delicious accompaniment to her meal, a feeling that stirred a distinctly physiological unease within her.

“You still have family, don’t you? If you follow us…”

“If we don’t deal with the magical girl organization, then forget about family; as a wanted person, I’ll have nowhere to go, will I? Does Ling Xing truly believe it would be better to abandon me in the wilderness, left to evade pursuit and fend for myself?”

This only intensified Ling Xing’s discomfort.

‘This idiotic magical girl, in just a few short hours, had somehow grasped the dark organization’s most guarded secrets…’

‘To maintain her composure in front of Dal, she couldn’t unleash a truly fierce retort, yet she found herself subtly overwhelmed by Chao Wu’s sheer audacity!’

‘That despicable magical girl! Even as a combatant, she’s utterly brazen!’

“I never said that… but you’re no longer a magical girl. What exactly do you bring to the table now that you’re a combatant?”

Ling Xing, grumbling, took an indignant bite of her egg cake.

Watching Ling Xing’s cheeks puff out as she mumbled a rejection of the egg cake, Chao Wu’s smile seemed to widen even further, her eyes twinkling as they darted playfully towards Ling Xing.

“Oh, I have plenty to offer! My physical stamina is quite good, so I can assist with any strenuous tasks, and what’s more…”

The young woman blinked, then slid the egg cake from her own plate across the table, directly in front of Ling Xing.

“I have intel on that machine, you know? Not just about the machine itself, but also… its intended location.”

“Hmm, that’s certainly crucial information, but don’t you think we currently lack the capacity to act on it? Those two Japanese magical girls are watching us like hungry tigers…”

“Heh, they’re merely two D-rank magical girls! With Ling Xing by our side, they’re utterly nothing to fear!”

‘…Was this truly Chao Wu?’

‘Somehow, she felt utterly transformed from her previous self.’

‘That burning gaze, bordering on outright adoration, that overconfidence completely disregarding their actual strength disparity—despite claiming to be a combatant, her eyes held no regard for Dal, the actual executive, but were fixed solely and intensely upon Ling Xing herself.’

‘Should… should a new member really be like this?’

****

At the school, midday signaled the rush of dismissal.

After half a day of chaos and commotion, the Magic Science Squad finally retreated, utterly exhausted and, predictably, empty-handed.

Beyond terrifying students and teachers for an entire class period and sparking numerous panic-induced incidents, they achieved nothing of substance.

Ultimately, unable to withstand the mounting pressure, the school proceeded with its regular dismissal.

The moment the dismissal bell shrilled, students surged out of the campus in a desperate scramble, an unknown number of them dragging and jostling one another in their panic, creating further incidents.

Meanwhile, several blocks away, within the private dining room of a remarkably upscale restaurant—a rare sight in this city—the true orchestrator of the chaos, the magical girl Kuonji Mashiro, harbored not a single shred of remorse.

“Useless!”

The dignified young lady unleashed a furious tirade, utterly abandoning all pretense of decorum.

Her scathing words were directed at the Magic Science Squad, who were attempting to deliver their report from the other end of the phone line.

Objective reasons, speculative possibilities, target intelligence—all of it.

All were nothing but futile words, mere excuses for their incompetence, all were—

“Useless! Absolutely useless! You couldn’t even deal with a single combatant who lacks magical power!?”

‘Who cares about such trivialities?! If her orders weren’t fulfilled, then it was incompetence, it was futility, it was utter uselessness!’

The young lady’s fury knew no bounds.

The elegantly arranged, exquisite dishes on the table before her remained untouched.

Without a single bite consumed, she furiously yanked the tablecloth, sending the entire spread of fine dishes crashing to the floor in one swift motion, the tableware shattering with a cacophony of ceramic and glass.

The elegant decor lay in utter disarray, her phone having been flung to an unknown corner. Kuonji Mashiro continued her rampage, destroying everything within reach: liquor bottles, dishes, furnishings, glass—

“Ugh, ahhh! A pack of useless fools!!! I’ll summon my samurai to kill them all! Kill the dark organization, kill all of you too! No, no, leave that one alive… ah, kill them! No, no, keep them alive…”

Madness, agitation, and fury converged into an extreme frenzy.

Driven by her escalating rage, even coherent thought became a luxury for the young lady; she merely continued to vent the turmoil within her seething mind.

It wasn’t until more than ten minutes later that her feverish brain finally began to cool, allowing her to reclaim a sliver of rationality.

Only when her sanity had fully returned did she notice the young woman standing silently behind her amidst the wreckage, her presence having gone unnoticed until now.

It was her attendant, Hane.

“Hmph, hmph… How did things go, Hane?”

“As anticipated, she rejected the proposition.”

The attendant offered a slight bow, her head lowered in a gesture of deference and compliance.

“However, also as expected, what a dark organization combatant can never truly shed…”

Hane gently traced her finger, then activated a holographic projection before them.

The projected city map revealed a blinding red signal light pulsing from an ancient, forgotten ruin, a location that typically drew no attention.

“It is greed; greed will be her eternal undoing.”

‘Just as it had once been for herself.’

Having once been a combatant herself, the young woman understood everything about their kind with perfect clarity.

Thus, she was utterly convinced that Ling Xing could never escape her predestined fate.

“Oh? Hmph… Hmph-hmph-hmph-hmph, hahahaha—Excellent, truly excellent! The Kuonji family samurai will arrive tonight. Without those useless fools getting in the way, finally, this young lady can finally…”

The high-born young lady haphazardly pawed through the devastated room, retrieving an exquisite travel case from a nearby sofa.

“Sever her limbs, pierce her tongue, blind her eyes, then stuff her into this case and carry her away… Ah… it’s magnificent. I can barely wait for tonight…”

The young lady, a morbidly twisted smile spreading across her face, pressed down on the case, gripping it tightly as if Ling Xing were already confined within, ready to be tormented at her leisure.