“Then I did a backflip right on the spot! I jabbed the long stick I’d picked up into the ground, tip pointing up, pressing it firmly in place, planning to pull off a defensive counterattack, but then…”
Chang Hansui slapped her thigh with profound regret.
“But then that Left Hand Monster fought dirty. He pulled off a forced mid-air double strike, like one of those double jumps in video games, and I couldn’t defend against it, and got knocked out cold. When I woke up, I was like this.”
“…”
The living room fell into ten full seconds of silence.
Chang Hansui silently pressed her palms together in her mind.
‘Sorry, Left Hand Monster, I’m pinning this one on you. After all, you’re the villain, and villains exist to take the blame. Heh heh, there’s no way to verify it anyway, so even if you deny it, I’ll insist you’re the one who hit me, and then some bizarre reaction happened.’
‘Though the excuse is a bit of a stretch, I wonder if she’ll buy it.’
Liang Hai stared at Chang Hansui and let out a sigh.
“Alright, I understand. If anything feels off over the next couple of days, you can go to the hospital for a check-up. I can recommend a good hospital I know.”
Chang Hansui wiped the cold sweat from her forehead with relief.
“Okay, thank you, Miss Liang Hai.”
“Hold on, I need to take a call.”
Liang Hai stepped onto the balcony, and only after confirming the balcony door was shut did she press the answer button.
“Liang Hai, this time it was a diversion. The monster’s experiment base is empty—the intel was probably fake from the start. They also left a bomb behind.”
“I see…”
“Sorry to make you work overtime, I really apologize.”
Liang Hai gazed at the city nightscape outside the floor-to-ceiling window.
“It’s nothing. I can’t just sit by and let monsters wreak havoc on the city. Since a monster appeared right in front of me, this is my duty.”
In reality, the reason the other members of the Magical Girl Association couldn’t rush to Mizuki Hana’s side in time tonight was that the main forces had all been pulled away to carry out this raid operation.
No one had expected it to be a trap designed to lure the tiger from the mountain.
“But we do have a few leads, don’t worry, no one got hurt. Ah… I’m getting another call…”
Before Liang Hai could respond, the call was hurriedly ended.
Composing herself, Liang Hai pushed open the glass door and returned to the living room.
She looked at Chang Hansui, who sat on the sofa looking somewhat restless, and spoke slowly: “Miss Chang Hansui… I can call you that now, right?”
“Mhm…”
Chang Hansui nodded.
“Regarding that engagement our respective elders arranged on their own,” Liang Hai’s gaze turned serious.
“I find it truly too abrupt.”
Hearing those words, Chang Hansui’s heart clenched, and she instinctively gripped the borrowed white dress she was wearing.
“Yes…”
Yeah… after all, she has turned into a girl now…
Chang Hansui laughed bitterly inside, ‘Yeah, after all, I’m a girl now, so we can’t exactly have two girls marry each other, can we?’
‘The two of us were never a good match to begin with, and she probably never thought much of me anyway. And now, thanks to that damned goat! I’ve turned into a girl, and most likely can’t change back.’
‘She now has a reason to reject me that’s so legitimate and irrefutable. It’s fine, Chang Hansui. Take a deep breath.’
‘This is the time to self-deprecate, to embarrass yourself on purpose, so you don’t die of social awkwardness. (Lihua City Hikikomori Social Anxiety Association Survey)’
“Yeah… after all, I’m a girl—”
Liang Hai’s crisp, ethereal voice cut Chang Hansui off.
The elegant young lady gently tapped her chin with a slender, fair finger.
“How about we get to know each other first? For example, let’s start by exchanging contact info.”
“…”
All the self-deprecating lines Chang Hansui had prepared got stuck in her throat.
Her eyes went wide.
“…What?”
‘What on earth is happening?’
***
After returning home, Chang Hansui stared at the avatar on the Green Bubbles app.
Chang Hansui collapsed into the familiar gaming chair in her rented apartment, blankly staring at the newly accepted friend request on the Green Bubbles app on her phone screen.
Why did Liang Hai suddenly have a change of heart?
She had thought this blind date was over, because when she’d proposed leaving earlier, the other party hadn’t even offered a single polite word to stop her.
She’d even casually whipped out a black card to pay in that understated, no-frills way, thoroughly humiliating her!
Yet on their second meeting, not only did the other party change her into new clothes, she also gave her contact info and expressed a desire for further interaction…
The radar in Chang Hansui’s mind spun wildly.
‘Could it be…’
The truth is only one!
‘She, she, she… could she actually be into this sort of thing?! Forget it… I’ll just treat it as making a friend.’
She pulled her focus back to the computer screen.
The newly purchased server had completed boot-up and underlying data migration, and all CDN node caches had been fully pre-warmed.
Chang Hansui deftly typed on the keyboard, hanging a bold, flashing red announcement on the homepage: [Technical Explanation Regarding Recent Server Fluctuations].
Perfect.
The First Magical Girl Forum was back at full strength—keep the music playing, keep the dance going!
With the server stable, next up was dealing with the mastermind who’d screwed her over to the point of even changing her gender—posting the clarification announcement about the “Grey Ivy” garbage hype articles.
Then an account whose avatar was obviously that damned goat sent a message.
Though for a two-dimensional hikikomori like Chang Hansui, using your own face as your avatar was either the mark of a hardcore normie or a middle-aged man. (Lihua City Hikikomori Social Anxiety Association Survey)
Anyone could blind Chang Hansui’s eyes with that.
However…
“I’d advise you not to clarify so quickly, baa. Your form isn’t stable yet. If you clarify now, your current body might just drift away on the wind.”
“Hmph, who are you trying to fool? I’ll post it, and I’ll post it now.”
Chang Hansui typed with hurricane speed on the keyboard.
<Official Statement Severing All Ties with External Grey Ivy Hype News> was pinned to the top of the forum’s general discussion section.
The core message boiled down to a few lines:
I am by no means some depressed, loveless, pitiful bottom-tier magical girl desperate for affection!
I am merely an ordinary hikikomori, addicted to the internet and fully unemployed!
I am not pitiful either, nor am I some poor wretch desperate for friends.
There, I’ve given you a hikikomori tag to mock me with.
Are you happy now?
As for ads… Well, the current internet commercial system is very mature.
As the site owner, Chang Hansui only needed to license out the forum’s ad space and collect money per click or per impression.
As for what specific ads go inside, it’s all determined by the alliance merchants through algorithms, as convenient as a mall leasing out its storefronts.
However, Chang Hansui was a site owner with standards.
To avoid ruining the browsing experience for those magical girl fans, her phone app absolutely couldn’t have that kind of garbage like “shake to open ads,” “turn your phone to redirect,” or “open-screen activation to trigger the phone’s vibration motor.”
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