Chapter 1: Landing and Immediately Turning into a Box?

“Hey, look! Is this little girl a witch?”

Two Nosen Town guards stared at the petite girl before them. She wore a small witch hat tilted slightly on her head, and her long silver hair was like winter frost. The rare cherry-white tips of her hair further emphasized her uniqueness. Her eyes, like sky-blue agates under a clear sky, were currently filled with panic and unease.

Currently, on the first continent, the Desorian Continent, under the theocratic rule of Pope Dussell, the God Race of the old era had been redefined as the Demon Race.

In the eyes of the Pope, females of the Demon Race were considered far more dangerous than the males. Under the Pope’s name, highly trained elite knights would likely join the Witch Hunting Group.

They posted bounties for witches everywhere among the common folk, publicly claiming that the Pope had heard an oracle from the Creator God, Adomili:

[The past annihilated in a sea of fire, is it betrayal or loyalty? It will eventually bring destruction.]

Her name was Iris Omnia. As memories of the past slowly flooded into her mind, the girl immediately remembered her own name.

Due to intense emotional fluctuations, the characteristics of the God Race manifested, and a Divine Mark surfaced on her forehead. The guards had initially thought Iris was just an ordinary person, but this obvious feature exposed her completely.

‘Titan Chronicles: Star Wish? Eleonora? One of the MMORPG heroines?’

If Ai Lei remembered correctly, he and his childhood friend, Su Xiaoya, had been participating in the game’s closed beta until 3:00 AM last night. While taking her home on his motorcycle, he ran into a stroke of luck — or rather, he was hit and transmigrated.

And the world he was in right now was precisely the world of the game *Titan Chronicles: Star Wish*.

The good news was that he had transmigrated as one of the protagonists. The bad news was that he was an 8-year-old girl.

‘What is going on?? Where exactly did they send me?’

‘Where in the modern world can you find an otherworldly village… I, Ai Lei, am a 1.8-meter-tall sigma man. Why is my body now a 1.2-meter-tall white-haired loli??’

‘I was a twenty-four-year-old corporate slave, and now I’m like this? My height is gone, and what’s down there is gone too… Ah! Is this how reincarnation works these days? Someone explain this to me…’

“What do you want? I… I-I’m just a harmless little girl who happened to be passing by! What witch? I’m a real man!”

The young girl spoke, but the sweet, delicate voice coming from her throat was completely at odds with the words she used.

The guards’ lips twitched slightly. They truly hadn’t expected to encounter a witch in a remote place like this.

“A real man? Hahaha! Little girl, there should be a limit to your jokes, right?”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about in broad daylight? Your features and that Divine Mark are clearly described in the bounty notices from the Pope’s Witch Hunting Group.”

“Sorry, kid. As a member of the Demon Race, you should have stayed hidden instead of coming to a human village to wander around. We’ll just have to send you to the Witch Hunting Group to claim the reward!”

‘Dammit! In my memory, Iris was just nearby looking for alchemy materials. How did this dummy end up on the main road? …’

‘Wait, insulting her now is just insulting myself. It’s like I have some kind of mental illness. Also, this voice is way too girly. Argh, let’s not talk about that for now. Is there any skill that can save me?’

Iris swiped her finger in front of her, and two magical combat skills appeared: [Novice Fireball] and [Novice Heal]. There was also an auxiliary skill: [Intermediate Alchemy].

‘Huh? Was she entirely focused on alchemy? Doesn’t she know that alchemy ruins lives?’

Ai Lei felt quite emotional. He was a die-hard fan of Japanese alchemy RPG series and had spent countless amounts on game consoles and DLC expansion packs.

Regardless, he prioritized action over thought. Iris picked up her small apprentice staff and greeted the two guards with four or five casts of [Novice Fireball].

The two guards reacted instantly, taking defensive stances and raising their swords in front of them.

Small spells of this level were completely ineffective against the standard anti-magic armor of town guards. They couldn’t even break the defense.

Iris’s brows furrowed slightly. Though she tried to appear calm, her feet kept shuffling backward, and her hands gripping the staff wouldn’t stop trembling.

One of the guards stepped forward quickly, reaching her in an instant, and swung his sword downward.

*Crack!* The small staff used to block the strike bore a pressure it shouldn’t have at its age and snapped clean in half…

‘Is this the legendary landing and immediately turning into a box!? Do I even get a chance to restart?’ Clearly, this new world was all too real. Ai Lei was now living in this reality.

Ai Lei felt as if the body didn’t belong to him. As a real man, he would never do what happened next.

The white-haired loli began to cry, her tears falling like pearls and soaking her short skirt as she sat paralyzed on the ground.

“Waaaaahhh!!!” Because the body was too young and female hormones were likely dominant, Ai Lei’s mind resisted the display of a “stupid loli,” but his physical form could not stop sobbing.

He blamed himself for playing too many GALGAMEs recently. Others wished to be the male protagonist, but he got his karmic retribution. Now, he was about to unlock a “defeat CG” and become the heroine.

The following plot would surely involve being taken back to the Holy City, where everyone would do those “you-know-what” things to her.

‘The Pope is so honorable… more, more… no, I can’t take it… how can you not satisfy someone with just this much… truly a small fry… such a small fry.’

‘Su Xiaoya, where are you? We agreed to be gaming partners for life… Please, help me…’

Just then, two tall figures gradually approached.

The broad shadows of the two unremarkable guards loomed over her. Little Iris felt as if the sky had turned dark.

‘Ah? Don’t tell me! Is this going to be the plot where a goblin-like middle-aged man destroys a bratty girl…’

‘This is so weird. Dammit, no! Even if I turn into a loot box, I don’t have any gold coins to drop!’

The only valuable thing Iris had was her apprentice staff, and it had already been sacrificed.

Her backpack contained some cheap dried rations and a bunch of freshly gathered alchemy materials. If there was anything valuable, it was only the clothes on her back.

A sense of crisis instantly washed over her. With tears still glistening in her eyes, she used one hand to protect her skirt and the other to cover her chest. She bared her teeth and glared at the two guards with fierce eyes.

However, in the eyes of the guards, she didn’t look “fierce” at all. To use a metaphor, she looked like a small white kitten hissing.

She scrambled to her feet and turned to run, her physical instincts driving her to escape.

However, before she had even run 100 meters, her unsteady feet caused her to trip and fall flat on her face.

…

“Ugh, my knees hurt, and my clothes are dirty.”

Little Iris quickly cast [Novice Heal]. The tears that had been in the corners of her eyes spilled out again, wetting her cheeks.

The two guards didn’t actually have as much internal drama as Iris. They weren’t members of the strictly dogmatic Witch Hunting Group; their job was merely to guard the town.

“Hey, do we really need to go that far? My daughter looks about the same age as this little girl. To be honest, we aren’t the Pope’s rigid followers, right, Wade?”

The other man also softened his heart. “Sigh, forget it. Forget it, little girl. Just go back to wherever you came from.”

“Don’t go wandering around human settlements lately. The mayor said a while ago that the Pope’s lackeys are causing trouble again.”

She slowly stood up, patted the dust off her clothes, and bowed slightly to the two guards with some etiquette.

“Thank you for the warning, Uncles. I won’t run around everywhere next time.”

‘Wait? Something feels wrong. Why am I giving off the vibe of someone who would help their kidnapper count the money after being tricked!’

The white-haired loli’s cheeks instantly flushed red. She pointed at the guards and shouted petulantly, “What the hell? You broke my only valuable staff! Shouldn’t you pay me back? If you trashy adults don’t let me go, is there no justice in this world?”

“Tsk!” one of the guards clicked his tongue. “Little girl, if you’re smart, you’ll leave now. If you don’t go, we might change our minds!”

***

Ai Lei’s brain was recalling Iris’s eight years of memories. Fortunately, she remembered where her home was.

It was right inside the Arden Forest. If she followed the country road south from Nosen Town, it would only take half a day.

Having participated in the game’s closed beta for two months, she wasn’t sure if the previous bugs had been fixed.

Before the cliff to the southwest of Nosen Town, there was an irreversible, hidden one-way teleportation channel. Players could use a bug to teleport directly from Nosen Town into the depths of the Arden Forest.

In the depths of the forest, there was a barrier invisible to the outside world, likely a protective screen for the witch.

Iris was now just a few steps away from the cliff.

While she was hesitating whether to continue south along the country road, she was unaware that danger was approaching.

“Shh, be quiet. We did indeed find a witch in Nosen Town just now. She fought with the guards.”

“Those two old guys actually let her go. We’ll deal with those incompetent fools later!”

Three regular soldiers from the Witch Hunting Group, fully equipped in standard gear, were searching for Iris. They were about to run into her at the next corner.

The young girl could no longer afford to hesitate. Clenching her teeth, she pushed her body to its maximum potential.

She was sprinting toward the cliff with all her might.

When she reached the cliff, the hunting soldiers spotted her and quickly closed the distance.

A strange sensation came from her fingertips. Little Iris’s palm passed through the barrier-like screen in front of her.

‘It works!’ She had successfully utilized the map feature she knew as a beta player.

The little loli disappeared atop the cliff. The soldiers who arrived with large strides found no trace of the witch.

Assuming it was due to the height difference between the top of the cliff and the ground below, a soldier at the back of the group spoke up.

“Captain, the witch probably jumped off the cliff!”

At that moment, the captain standing on the cliff pulled out a mana detection compass. No mana traces were detected.

“Go back and report to the Knight Princess. An unexpected witch has appeared. Perhaps the prophecy is about to pass.”

The fierce man with a scar on his face stared thoughtfully into the hundred-foot abyss ahead…