“Does your stomach still hurt?”
“It hurts a lot. It feels like a little knife is slowly slicing inside my belly.”
On the gray wasteland, the two girls leaned on each other for support, inching forward step by step.
After making a deal with Little Butterfly, Luo Shuangyue finally gained the right to stick close to Xia Mo without worrying that, in the middle of cuddling, her head would suddenly heat up and she’d bite Xia Mo’s face.
And since she’d eaten a Projection from her Mother, she definitely wouldn’t feel hungry for the next few days, nor did she have to worry about searching for food in this utterly lifeless place.
Well, that was some good news at least.
The two of them were now following the direction that the White Phantom had pointed out to Xia Mo, looking for the exit to leave this Exile Space.
But with Luo Shuangyue in such poor condition, their progress was agonizingly slow.
“Does your body still sweat now?” Seeing the fine beads of sweat on Luo Shuangyue’s forehead, Xia Mo asked curiously.
She’d never heard of Monster Girls sweating before.
“It normally wouldn’t, but monsters are basically idealistic creatures anyway, so if I think I should, then I do.”
When she was still human, Luo Shuangyue couldn’t have answered Xia Mo’s question, but now as a Monster Girl, she could.
Her body was a mass of goo on the inside, but the goo had still formed some organs…
Of course, these organs were purely for show; to other monsters, these things were just a waste of magic energy.
Other monsters made organs for fighting or running away, but the organs inside Luo Shuangyue’s body seemed more like a symbol of how she still clung to her human identity.
“But they’re all just for appearances. My heart doesn’t beat, my lungs don’t need to breathe. Only when I feel pain and sweat do I almost feel like I’m still alive.”
There was no more warm blood flowing in her veins. She wasn’t even considered human anymore.
“If we really manage to get out of this place, I’ll probably be locked up right away, right?” Luo Shuangyue sighed softly, already guessing what her future would look like.
Her current identity was just too sensitive.
She was a Demon Emperor, the greatest enemy of humanity and Magical Girls alike.
For someone like her, the Magic Department allowing her to live was already a kind of mercy.
Freedom was something she didn’t even dare to hope for.
“If you’re locked up, I’ll be locked up with you,” Xia Mo mumbled.
She didn’t want to think about the future, nor about whether the Magic Department was right or wrong to treat Luo Shuangyue this way.
Because she knew very well, for the Mentors of the Magic Department to allow Luo Shuangyue to live as a Demon Emperor was already the best possible outcome.
The Mentors weren’t wrong; no one could guarantee that the current Shuangyue was the real Shuangyue, or just the Demon Emperor disguised as her.
To be safe, it was best to keep Shuangyue under control.
But knowing the Mentors weren’t wrong didn’t mean Xia Mo would abandon her lover. After all, there was no rule saying someone couldn’t visit Luo Shuangyue in prison, or stay by her side.
Xia Mo didn’t want to argue about right and wrong; she just wanted Luo Shuangyue to live, and to be able to stay with the girl beside her. That was enough.
“We might be locked up for a very, very long time. Maybe once the Mentors retire, the Magical Girls who come after will execute me.”
“They won’t. I believe any Magical Girl who can inherit from the Mentors wouldn’t be so ungrateful.” At least on this point, Xia Mo could promise with a pat on her chest.
Any Magical Girl who knew what Luo Shuangyue had been through wouldn’t believe she deserved to die as a monster. She’d never harmed humans—on the contrary, she’d made countless outstanding contributions in battles where humanity fought monsters.
Besides, “White Night is your mother, Shuangyue.”
“Don’t make me sound like some kind of spoiled villain. And wasn’t it my Mother who sent us here?”
It was her Mother’s magic that exiled the two of them to this place. Luo Shuangyue had no idea what scheme her Mother was plotting.
But it probably wasn’t anything bad.
If her Mother really wanted to eradicate her, wouldn’t using Purification Magic disguised as Attack Magic be more effective?
Why go through all the trouble to use Exile Magic? The technical difficulty of that was way higher than any Attack Magic. Hah.
“Maybe Mother wants me to find her? Or she thought I couldn’t survive in the old world looking like this, so she wanted me to live here instead?”
“No idea, but White Night Mentor must have her reasons. Maybe when we get to that place, we’ll see White Night Mentor waiting for us,” Xia Mo said with a soft smile.
Being able to walk side by side with Luo Shuangyue in a world where only the two of them existed—honestly, she was pretty content.
Spending their whole lives together here… That didn’t sound so bad, right?
“Shuangyue, if you don’t want to go back, then let’s not go back,” Xia Mo said, half-jokingly, taking a deep breath.
The sky here might be gray, there might not be any living creatures or a hint of vitality, but at least there was freedom.
If Luo Shuangyue chose to stay, Xia Mo was willing to stay with her.
After all, Magical Girls could use Magic Power to replace food and water, and Luo Shuangyue had already become a Monster Girl—if Xia Mo just fed her a little Magic Power, there’d be no risk of Luo Shuangyue starving to death.
The two of them could live here until the end of the world.
“…I don’t really want to stay. It’s too lonely here, just like hell.” Luo Shuangyue stared into the distance, her voice trailing off.
“Besides, Shuang Xing is still waiting for us. She’s already lost her parents; if we left her too, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
If Luo Shuangyue was just a lonely drifter, staying here might be a good option.
But she wasn’t. She still had family to look after. She couldn’t just leave her alone to enjoy herself.
“You too, Xia Mo. You still have so many juniors who like and admire you. You can’t stay here forever.”
But “your fans are much more devoted than mine. You have no idea how popular you are now.”
“Heh, that was before. Now I’m a Demon Emperor. If they see me, I’d be grateful if they don’t hit me with a Magic Artillery on the spot.”
“That’s not certain. If you can prove who you are, I don’t think anyone would turn on you like that. They’d still joke around and chat with you like before.”
Like before? Luo Shuangyue gave a wry smile. That really was wishful thinking.
But those were thoughts for later. Whether they could get back at all was still a big question.
In this bizarre space with no day or night, it was easy to lose track of time. After wandering for who knows how long, they finally spotted another kind of living thing in this world.
It was a huge Black Monster, as tall as a mountain. Ugly, radiating a repulsive aura.
Even the drifting Spirits on the wasteland seemed to avoid it, detouring around whenever they got close.
The Black Monster didn’t pay much attention to the Spirits, but sometimes a black tentacle would burst from the ground, crush a Spirit, and absorb it—showing it wasn’t harmless.
It was preying on these Spirits, but its hunger didn’t seem all that strong—like it was fishing one day and lazing the next.
“It’s kind of like a Demon Emperor, but the Demon Emperor isn’t this dumb…” Luo Shuangyue muttered, looking up at the Black Monster filling the sky.
This creature gave her a strange feeling. She didn’t feel disgusted or nauseous by monster aura anymore; to her now, monster scent was like the delicious aroma of food.
That was one of the biggest differences between Magical Girls and monsters.
Though Magical Girls could use monsters to strengthen themselves, they couldn’t devour them raw like proper monsters.
“Let’s go around it,” Xia Mo tugged at Luo Shuangyue’s shoulder.
“Yeah.”
If her stomach weren’t still tormented by Magic Power, Luo Shuangyue was sure the Little Butterfly in her head would be nagging her to eat the Black Monster.
Luckily, that dose of Magic Power made her lose all appetite for anything else, sparing her from having to bargain with Little Butterfly.
As they started to detour, a streak of white light shot from the distance, punching a massive hole through the monster blocking their way.
“That’s…” Luo Shuangyue jumped at the sudden flash. Looking closely, she saw it was yet another Projection of her Mother.
Compared to the previous Phantom she’d fought, this one was more solid, with more varied techniques and even some magic use.
If she’d run into this Phantom before, she’d have been purified down to the last speck.
Instinctively, she ducked behind Xia Mo’s back, peeking fearfully at the battle between the White Phantom and the Black Monster, terrified of being noticed.
Fortunately, the Phantom’s target seemed to be only the Black Monster, ignoring everyone else.
Once it was attacked, the Black Monster snapped out of its playing-dead act, turned, and bolted without even thinking of resisting.
The White Phantom chased close behind, swinging its longsword over and over, hacking the monster to pieces.
Too brutal.
Too terrifying. Luo Shuangyue was shivering in fright.
For her, this was straight out of a horror film.
For Xia Mo, maybe more like a superhero movie?
“Has Mentor been here fighting these monsters all along?” Xia Mo’s eyes sparkled with admiration as she watched the distant chase.
So White Night Mentor had been gone all this time—alone in this wasteland, fighting monsters?
That was such a lone hero!
So cool!
As Xia Mo was all fired up and Luo Shuangyue was trembling, a nearby Spirit suddenly shimmered and distorted.
Then, a girl with a silver unicorn horn crawled out from the Spirit’s body and dashed toward where the Black Monster had just been.
“She’s alive!” Luo Shuangyue’s eyes went wide. This was the first living person she’d seen in this strange world!
If they wanted to know more about this world, it all depended on this living girl!
“Go catch her!” Luo Shuangyue herself wasn’t up to grabbing anyone, so she could only shout for Xia Mo to do it.
But Xia Mo wasn’t about to leave Luo Shuangyue behind either, so their speed together was, frankly, pitiful.
Luckily, the girl just squatted down where the Black Monster had been and started fiddling with something on the ground, so Xia Mo and Luo Shuangyue managed to catch up, panting.
As soon as the girl sensed them approaching, she spoke something they couldn’t understand without even looking back.
It was a rapid, odd-sounding language—totally incomprehensible to Xia Mo and Luo Shuangyue.
Of course, the girl clearly wasn’t human. How could she speak a human language?
In the past, when humans and Yi communicated, it was only possible because Yi had used her powers to quickly learn human speech.
But now, with the language barrier, there was no hope of communication.
Xia Mo tried saying two things to the girl—hello, and asking her name. But the girl clearly didn’t understand her at all.
And from the way the girl just kept digging at the ground, it seemed like she couldn’t care less about Xia Mo.
“Should we get closer and take a look?” Luo Shuangyue whispered to Xia Mo.
“Mm.”
Step by step, they moved beside the girl.
Luo Shuangyue found that although the girl looked somewhat human, she definitely wasn’t, at heart.
Half her face was covered in fine scales, her eyes were golden and slit-pupiled, and she had a big snow-white tail swaying behind her.
The hands she dug with weren’t human hands, but beast-like claws.
Yes, this girl looked even more like a Dragon Girl whose transformation hadn’t fully succeeded, straight out of an animated show.
Seeing that the girl didn’t mind her presence, Luo Shuangyue boldly squatted down and studied her curiously.
Her hair was silver-white, her face childlike.
If not for the scales and nonhuman aura, her looks wouldn’t lose out to the Magical Girls Luo Shuangyue often saw.
As for her figure… Luo Shuangyue glanced at her.
The girl’s body below the neck was just wrapped in a rag, and even then, what was wrapped wasn’t a delicate maiden’s body, but a beast’s.
Honestly, even if she wore nothing at all, probably no one would feel interested.