Chapter 46: Retirement

“East direction, one Grade-Ghost level. Lady Xingyu, I’ll trouble you to take care of this again.”

“Lady Xingyu, is something wrong?”

“Uh?! No, nothing. Estimated two minutes. Please cooperate on your end and try not to damage the surface structures.”

Xingyu pressed her palms against her cheeks, bracing herself mentally.

This was a tumultuous time.

If even she, the Third Seat, showed signs of distraction, it would hurt the morale of her subordinates.

“Detected Grade-Ghost dimensional aberration beast, prepare defenses.”

“Understood.”

Vice Captain Sanyuecao and the team instinctively moved to the lower level.

“Mana type α, second-tier large-scale defensive magic construct, model B3!”

A massive light barrier enveloped two square kilometers below, completely isolating the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ sides.

And at the moment the large-scale linked defensive magic was completed—

A gigantic mirror appeared in the void, radiating dazzling light that stretched to the horizon.

It was as if all things were melting away within it.

“Innate magic, second-tier spell Flash Burst, coupled with second-tier Mana Recovery and fine Mana Manipulation… To see so many advanced techniques used in a single attack, no wonder she’s one of the Ten Seats.”

Vice Captain Sanyuecao looked up at the sky with envy, watching the powerful figure who swiftly ended the raid in an instant.

Within the Magic Alliance, learnable magic is divided into five tiers, ranked ‘One’ through ‘Five’.

Only the Ten Seats can learn first-tier magic, so it’s almost negligible; but once a magic girl masters even one second-tier spell, she is considered top-tier.

The stronger the magic, the harder it is to acquire.

Therefore, magic girls generally get stronger with seniority—there are almost no cases of a newcomer suddenly crushing all veterans and rising to the top.

Especially the Ten Seats at the pinnacle—their innate magic is extraordinarily powerful.

They master a quantity and quality of magic far beyond other magic girls, creating a massive gap in overall combat ability.

This is why the Ten Seats remain distinct; even today, two of the seats remain unfilled.

However, being a magic girl does not guarantee perpetual improvement.

Most magic girls, after serving for a certain number of years, undergo psychological evaluation by the Magic Alliance to decide whether they should retire.

Some are arranged to retire in less than a year; most around six or seven years; few surpass ten.

Outstanding magic girls who retire may be retained by the Magic Alliance to teach others.

Average ones return to society and resume normal lives.

“Lady Xingyu, you’ve been a magic girl for over nine years, right?”

Sanyuecao murmured.

Then she self-deprecatingly smiled, “What was I thinking? The Ten Seats are such precious combat power, they probably won’t retire unless something unusual happens.”

Better to worry about oneself than others—she was already in her fifth year and had just undergone a psychological assessment a week ago.

She didn’t know the result yet.

“Disband the team.”

Xingyu’s cold voice came through the earpiece.

“Understood.”

***

Operations Duty Room

Xingyu’s expression was grim as she sat alone on the bench, her mind recalling the conversation with Xingyue from a few days ago.

“Unable to transform into a magic girl anymore?”

“Yeah, my little sister… Liyun said that.”

“…I heard Liyun hasn’t returned for over seven years, but I didn’t expect it to be this serious.”

“So I want to ask, Xingyue, do you have any solution?”

“All I can do is buy you some time. If it still doesn’t work after a while, then… arrange her retirement.”

Xingyu pressed a hot towel against her face.

After waiting so long, the result was her sister was about to be forced into retirement.

“How am I supposed to tell her when I get back…?”

“It’s all that woman Erila’s fault… she’s the one who turned my sister into this! (gritting teeth)”

Knock knock.

“Lady Xingyu.”

“…Come in.”

Xingyu adjusted her posture, restoring the demeanor befitting a Ten Seat.

Sanyuecao entered.

“Lady Xingyu, regarding the joint operation with the UN Dimensional Sea Special Operations Division two days from now, there’s additional information. Please review.”

“Dimensional Sea Special Operations Division…”

Xingyu’s impatience showed.

The UN’s Dimensional Sea Special Operations Division was an international task force unrelated to the Magic Alliance.

The Dimensional Sea held countless secrets.

Where there are secrets, there are spies.

If these secrets fell into the wrong hands, it would cause instability.

Thus, countries strictly crack down on third-party access to the Dimensional Sea; the Special Operations Division was established for this purpose.

This division gathered elites from various nations, their foundations rivaling those of the Otherworlders’ organizations, equipped with the most advanced weapons—a truly formidable force.

Yet Xingyu found this force irritating.

“Cracking down on illegal trafficking… but they won’t tell me the details, just want me to personally go there. I don’t want to deal with them.”

No details given, only wanted her as muscle—a complete outsider in their eyes.

This wasn’t the first time; many past operations had been like this.

Sanyuecao sighed, “Yeah, they say they’re cracking down on Dimensional Sea smuggling, but it’s basically their private playground. Who knows what dangerous research they’re doing there…”

Xingyu frowned, “Sanyuecao, watch your words. This isn’t something to say lightly.”

“Ah! Sorry, I spoke out of turn! I’ll leave the files here, please review at your leisure!”

Sanyuecao hurriedly exited.

***

Xingyu pulled open the drawer in front of her.

Inside was a file—Sanyuecao’s psychological evaluation.

She silently flipped to the last page, eyes fixed on the result:

—“Evaluation indicates Sanyuecao is unfit to continue as a magic girl. Asked about retirement consent; this document will take effect in ten days.”

Below was Xingyu’s signature.

—Approved for retirement.

“Sigh, I don’t even know how to tell her… she’s clearly a capable and good kid.”

Unlike her sister Liyun’s situation, Sanyuecao was fully capable of continuing frontline service, but was being forced to retire over a psychological evaluation.

Still, Xingyu only sighed; she had no intention of disputing the Magic Alliance’s decision.

She had handled retirement files before and knew such efforts were futile.

The Magic Alliance’s decisions were absolute.

As for the criteria for retirement, even she didn’t know exactly.

The true standards probably only Xingyue and Manjusaka knew.

Those two were clearly different from the other Ten Seats and must know more of the Magic Alliance’s secrets.

Xingyu had more worries.

She pulled out the recent attendance records.

“And the increasing appearances of dimensional beasts lately… it feels like someone’s deliberately letting them in…”

“Another magic girl retiring.”

Luoyou watched the news broadcast on TV, casually grabbing a handful of sunflower seeds and cracking them one by one.

Though the magic girl’s name and appearance weren’t revealed—only briefly mentioned in the news—Luoyou knew she was likely a top-tier magic girl.

Only frontline magic girls’ retirements were summarized so tersely.

If it was those second- or third-tier magic girls who both defended the city and acted as idols, their retirements would dominate trending searches for days.

“What exactly are the standards for magic girl retirement? Zining, you work at Zhouxi’s entertainment company. Do you know anything?”

“No idea.”

Luozining answered gloomily.

Luoyou sensed her bad mood and wisely didn’t press.

Well, after all, they were magic girls.

Age must be a strict standard; otherwise magic girls would eventually become magic middle-aged or magic married women.

But to Luoyou, none of that mattered.

Being pretty was all that counted.

Magic married women were fine too—the older, the more alluring.

[Speaking of which, the thing Yue told me about is tomorrow.]

Tomorrow, the Otherworlders’ organization would conduct a transaction with an overseas force inside the Dimensional Sea.

Their leader, Yue, asked Luoyou to go and maintain order so the deal could proceed safely.

The coordinates and timing had been given to her earlier, and with her speed, she could arrive anytime, so there was plenty of time.

But of course, Luoyou didn’t think it would be as simple as just keeping order.

If all went as expected, there would be some ‘black eats black’ drama.

She didn’t want to get involved in such trouble, but since some Ten Seats were participating, she had to at least join the feast!

Back when she worked for Erila, she had at least three magic girls to enjoy every month.

Now that Erila was back, she only had Zhouxi once—her suppressed desires were building up!

“Hopefully Xingyue shows up. This time I want to really kill♀ her… Manjusaka would be nice too; I’ve never enjoyed her before. She’s my type of big sister…”

Those two were the top choices.

And the bottom of the barrel, as expected…

Luoyou glanced at Luozining beside her.

If they ran into Luozining’s sister—Jimeng—should she enjoy her or not?

“Zining, a question.”

“What is it?”

“Are you and your sisters related by blood?”

“Nope.”

“Eh? Really—?!” Luoyou let out a surprised scream.

She asked casually, but it really wasn’t the case?

Luozining looked displeased, “You clearly don’t know anything about my family!”

“I really don’t, so tell me.”

“Listen carefully. My two older sisters’ parents died long ago. We’re sisters only because after that, we were adopted by the same foster mother. But after that, even our foster mother…”

Luozining’s voice grew lonely.

Luoyou pursed her lips, thought hard, then approached her daughter and slightly tugged down her collar.

“Want to relive the feeling of being in mommy’s arms as a baby?”

“Go dieeeeeee————!”

Luoyou was suddenly bombarded with pillows flying everywhere.

Amidst the chaos, Luoyou shouted, “Stop! Since none of your sisters share your blood, what about your aunt?”

“She’s my foster mother’s sister, so no blood relation either.”

“Oh~~~”

Today, Luoyou opened the door to a whole new world.