Chapter 5: It’s Already Over!

Inside the useless armor, Ren Huazhi had completed the magical girl transformation. His voice was concealed by a voice modulator, but his physique had unavoidably shrunk by a size.

The feel of a year of constant battle hadn’t faded. Coincidentally, she was the type whose power was negligible but whose stats were monstrous, and coincidentally, this Nightmare was the type whose stats were unremarkable but whose mechanics were tricky… The result was a one-hit kill.

‘Good at deflecting force, are you? Go tell that to my stats panel.’

The Countermeasures Division agents didn’t know the secret. All they saw was the white knight rise up and one-shot the Nightmare.

The magical girl, The Flower Arranger, coming back to life on the day of her own funeral—this comedy that unfolded in the suburbs of Nancheng was a secret to all.

Ren Huazhi’s reason for becoming a magical girl was: his handwritten novel manuscript was distorted by a Nightmare, so he embarked on a path of revenge. He didn’t see himself as a hero, so he fabricated everything about this identity, hiding the true codename “Guyu” bestowed by the Owl, and deliberately distanced himself from the police so he could walk away once his revenge was complete.

Receiving the Owl’s gaze for the second time didn’t feel particularly special. The blessed ability he received… was as useless as ever, capable of making a little mood-setting rain fall in the vicinity.

‘What’s the use of that?’

The Owl God said nothing.

The gods of the wilderness return to their slumber after granting their blessings, but the Owl is sleepless. It was probably watching Ren Huazhi make a fool of himself.

“Sigh…” Ren Huazhi sighed.

‘Now it’s never-ending. Kidnapped by the slogan “with great power comes great responsibility,” a future where my writing time is completely stolen awaits her…’ After lamenting her tragic fate, Ren Huazhi felt the questioning gazes from behind her and managed to force out a line:

“It’s raining.”

—This was to feign profoundness.

If the police officers (especially the most troublesome one, Officer Si) discovered that she wasn’t sure what had happened and suspected she was a rookie who didn’t know the situation, they would try to persuade her to join the police department.

Then she’d have to show her ID.

And then—she’d never be able to escape.

The great grudge of the manuscript had been avenged, and she had collected enough material from a magical girl’s first-person perspective. There was no point in continuing to fight.

It should have been that way—

But half an hour ago, she still couldn’t refuse Meng Qiuxu.

[Communication restored! Is the battle over there finished?]

The voice of the woman who had nearly gotten Ren Huazhi killed crackled back to life in her earpiece.

Ren Huazhi said listlessly, “Yeah, look what you’ve done. The Nightmare punched a hole right through the armor’s chest…”

[Whoa, that strong! Then how are you still alive?]

“Just consider me dead. You should find someone else to test your belt.”

[Whoa, don’t—]

The rain gradually subsided. Before the Countermeasures Division could react and try to talk to her, Ren Huazhi hurriedly ran to the shared bike, didn’t even sit on the seat, and pedaled away for dear life.

Soaked to the bone, Xiao Huang and Officer Si wiped the water from their visors and looked at each other.

“Sir, that magical girl…”

But Officer Si said, “You fool, that wasn’t a magical girl! Could it be a new faction? We must report this when we get back.”

“Why?” Xiao Huang was surprised. “Didn’t you just say that a magical girl could also be a tin-can knight?”

“Didn’t you see his chest? The armor was broken, and his skin was showing. That chest had no curve at all!”

“So that’s how it is…”

Xiao Huang was impressed by Officer Si’s meticulous powers of observation and couldn’t help but admire him.

Riding along the suburban greenway through a small wood, Ren Huazhi stopped his bike, ducked into the bushes, and dispelled his transformation.

“This feels like hiding to take a crap in the wild… Huh?”

The armor was successfully dispelled.

But her voice…

Her voice was still a girl’s. It hadn’t changed back.

Ren Huazhi blinked blankly, not understanding what had happened. She had been a magical girl for a year. The Flower Arranger was famous, yet her true identity had never been discovered, precisely because after every fight, she would find a corner, change back, and slip away. No one would ever have guessed that the first magical girl of Nancheng was a male high school student who usually skipped class.

She had been doing this identity-switching gig for a year and was an old hand at it. How could she have made a mistake and not changed back?

[Haven’t you realized yet?]

The venerable Owl God suddenly spoke in her mind.

“W-What?”

[A magical girl’s transformation is a magic that superimposes the dream world onto reality. By wearing a layer of armor over your transformed state, you subconsciously treated the magical girl form as the “true body” concealed by the armor.]

“…So?”

[What you thought, became reality.]

“Bullsh*t,” Ren Huazhi cursed at the empty air. “As the saying goes, ‘Brothers are like limbs, women are like clothes.’ I just wore the transformed state like a piece of clothing. How could I possibly confuse it with my true body!”

[Things are not always as they seem. Perhaps you have long considered “The Flower Arranger” to be another self. How interesting! The last time, you did not accept the name “Guyu.” This time, I shall name you again—from now on, you shall be called “Ren Huazhi”!]

The Owl laughed heartily and departed from her mind.

Ren Huazhi sat in the grass, a look of dejection and unease on her face. She unfastened the cursed belt and tossed it aside.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’

Long, fluffy, naturally curly golden hair hung down on both sides of her vision, tickling her.

Her true body had become that of a magical girl. If she walked down the street with this face…

Huh? It seemed like it wouldn’t be a problem.

After all, she had always been very good at keeping her secret. The Nightmare’s anti-tech field would even help her block any secret filming. Apart from a few old acquaintances, no one knew what The Flower Arranger looked like. At most, people would just exclaim about a blonde foreign girl.

Once again grateful for how wise her decision to be violently uncooperative had been, some color returned to Ren Huazhi’s cheeks.

She rented a place to live by herself, so she didn’t have to consider her family’s issues for now. As for school, since she was fully engrossed in writing her novel, she barely went to class anyway. At most, she’d spend a whole day in the school library and bring a couple of books home.

This was the advantage of being a social outcast.

Even if she rotted away alone in her rented room, no one would notice for a while. At worst, readers would curse her in the review section for abandoning her story… that should count as an advantage, right?

Just as Ren Huazhi had finished psyching herself up and felt that life had hope again, the belt she had thrown aside suddenly flashed twice, and the voice of the source of all evil, Meng Qiuxu, came through:

[Come to my lab to submit your combat report!]

“…”

She almost started cursing out loud.

Ren Huazhi didn’t even want her to hear the voice she used to shout “Transform.” She took out her phone, typed a few words, and played it back using an AI voice:

“I have social anxiety and a daily limit on how many sentences I can speak. Give me your QQ number, we’ll communicate by text from now on.”

[What limit? Texting? Ah, well, that’s fine I guess. To be honest, I thought you were a bit of an airhead back at the funeral home. The Japanese have a special term for people like you, ‘hana-onna’. But you’re not shy at all when you’re being sarcastic!]

…Ren Huazhi silently typed.

She deliberately added spaces to make the AI draw out the sound, then pressed her phone’s speaker against the belt and enunciated a perfectly clear sentence:

“Go—f*ck—your—mother.”