Ye Xingling trudged off the railcar with her backpack slung over her shoulder, glaring at the words “Satellite City Sixth High School” carved into the stone monument by the school gate with resentful eyes.
‘How did those senior magical girl predecessors, who were still high school girls when they debuted, manage to fight against monsters and protect Satellite City while dealing with life’s struggles at the same time?’
At least her weekend…
‘I’m so tired.’
Ye Xingling yawned, dragging her feet as she slowly inched toward her classroom.
Her classroom, Class 21, Grade 2, was near the stairwell on the fourth floor. Her pace was neither fast nor slow, and just a few seconds after she stepped through the door, the morning bell rang over the loudspeaker, marking the start of the 8:00 AM class.
Unlike high schools in Zhongzhou from over a decade ago, today’s high school education was quite relaxed. There were only five classes a day—three in the morning and two in the afternoon—each lasting sixty minutes, with a break of a full twenty minutes between classes.
After the two afternoon classes, it was club activity time. Although it was called club activity, it was basically the same as free time. Even if someone snuck out of school and went home, the school would turn a blind eye.
Of course, getting caught or causing some trouble was a different story. After all, this was Zhongzhou—as long as nothing went wrong, anything was fine. But if something did happen…
Even though Ye Xingling hadn’t joined any club, she used this time to do homework or rest. Her rest time at home was so—so precious! How could she waste it on mere homework?
She planned to keep “goofing off” until the day the university offered a Magical Girl major!
Ye Xingling plopped down into her seat, greeted the girl next to her, shot a glance at the teacher, and then listlessly flopped onto her desk.
There were only about thirty students in the entire classroom, and they still kept the youthful seating arrangement of having deskmates, which made the aisles and space feel quite large.
Ye Xingling’s seat was by the window, roughly in the middle of the room—a perfect spot for someone who wanted to listen when they felt like it, zone out when they didn’t, or even sleep comfortably when they were tired.
It was the ideal location for someone like her, who was half-diligent and half-slacker.
Satellite City’s education system had also upgraded from the old nine-year compulsory education to twelve-year compulsory education. Students in Satellite City barely had to worry about graduation. Even if high schoolers didn’t study very hard, they could always find a path in life after graduating… probably.
First period was Chinese literature, a class as traditional as it gets. The teacher energetically lectured about how traditional literature had declined about a decade ago while online literature gradually moved toward mainstream script-based forms, and how literary masters and writers of that era sought new forms for literature.
Unfortunately, Ye Xingling wasn’t interested.
Just as she was dozing off, hugging her backpack, and about to drift into a dream, the girl next to her poked her arm.
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
Ye Xingling opened her eyes and was about to say something when she suddenly realized she was in class. She lowered her voice and whispered back.
“Hey, Ye Xingling, did you see what happened last night?”
The girl next to her glanced at the teacher, who was enthusiastically lecturing on stage, then tilted her head and covered her mouth with her hand as she quietly asked.
“Last night? What happened last night?”
Ye Xingling furrowed her brows. ‘There’s no gossip to dig into right now. Even if there were, the Human Alliance’s big hands would quickly delete anything unfavorable to them.’
She… last night she seemed to have been too worried about Miss Jin Ming and her brother and sister to really scroll through her phone.
“Huh? You don’t know?”
The girl next to her looked at her with a surprised expression, making Ye Xingling uncomfortable.
“Jiang Nan, I hope that when I’m interested, you don’t ask me with that kind of ‘What, you don’t know?’ nonsense, but instead tell me what happened!”
Ye Xingling pouted, somewhat annoyed.
“Are you some kind of young lady who lives in the deep boudoir without internet access… Not knowing about such a big thing… Fine, fine, don’t look at me like that. I’ll forward it to you in a second.”
The girl named Jiang Nan glanced at the teacher again. Seeing that the teacher was shooting them a half-displeased look, she quickly shut her mouth. Instead, she pulled out her phone from her desk and started sending messages as if the teacher didn’t exist.
Ye Xingling was a bit confused by her actions. She set her backpack on the chair and looked around. She noticed that the students who usually barely listened to Chinese class were now all bowing their heads, fiddling with their phones, including the few who used to at least pretend to pay attention.
Curious, Ye Xingling took out her phone, dimmed the brightness, and opened the messaging app. Her heart suddenly sank.
‘Oh no, I forgot to log out of this account after chatting with the seniors from the Magical Girl Society last night…’
She nervously glanced sideways at Jiang Nan out of the corner of her eye. Seeing that the other girl was fully absorbed in her phone, she relaxed and calmly switched accounts. Immediately, three or four new messages popped up from a contact labeled “Jiang Nan (High School Deskmate).”
Ye Xingling opened them curiously.
‘I hope she actually woke me up for something important, and not just to bother me while I was trying to sleep…’
Hmm?
Ye Xingling’s eyes widened. She started to wonder if she was still dreaming. She rubbed her eyes with her small hand and looked again…
The headline remained unchanged.
She moved her fingers stubbornly and clicked into the article.
A Forest Elf appeared at a banquet? That Forest Elf controlled monsters to attack the banquet, causing casualties among many upper-class figures…
A magical girl also appeared at the banquet? She immediately thought of the things Miss Jin Ming had mentioned last night. ‘So it was this big? Even the Human Alliance couldn’t suppress it…’
Thinking about it, it made sense. Causing such a scene in front of so many big shots from commercial and political centers, threatening their lives… No one would just accept compensation and stay quiet.
‘Looks like the Human Alliance is under a lot of pressure this time…’
But then again, Miss Jin Ming could attend a banquet of that level. Could that tsundere senior who always calls herself “this young lady” really be a young mistress from some wealthy family…
‘It’s… not impossible to accept, actually. Even though Miss Jin Ming is a little sharp-tongued and a bit of a hypocrite on a daily basis, her choice of words is still quite refined. Besides her habit of “this young lady,” she’s actually a person with good manners.’
‘Hmm… I’m starting to get curious about what kind of people those magical girl seniors are in everyday life…’