Something's off about this magical girl.

Chapter 10 Today's Aspiring Magical Girl is a Little Sad

Disaster Zone 047, 10:00 AM.

When Gu Bai pushed aside the temporary isolation zone, Tao Zhuo had already obtained the tools.

The girl was wearing a fluorescent orange vest with the logo of the Qixin Academy Volunteer Team printed on it. Her hair was casually tied into a high ponytail. She was holding a broom in her hand and was staring silently at the magical girl street in front of her with her back to him.

Gu Bai followed her gaze.

Yesterday, the commercial street was quite tidy, but now it looks completely different.

Broken glass from shop windows was pushed to the side of the road. Cracks in the ground left by the beast's charge were still there. Broken bricks, broken flowerbed edges, and various goods that had flown out of some shop were scattered all over the ground. The whole street looked like it had been turned upside down.

Looking deeper in, the building from which the third strange beast broke out had one of its load-bearing walls completely collapsed and was temporarily fenced off.

The staff from Qixin Insurance were not far away, but they were clearly not related to the soon-to-be magical girls who were about to start their work.

"..."

Tao Zhuo was silent for a moment before sighing, "It's numb."

She slammed the broom handle into the ground with a dull thud, then turned to look at Gu Bai, her expression somewhere between utter despair and resignation to death.

"It would be great if it were a permanent position."

"What's wrong?"

"Once we reach five stars, we'll sign a contract with Qi Xin and won't have to put up with anyone's attitude anymore." Tao Zhuo sighed, hoisted the broom onto her shoulder, and waved her hand. "Just you wait, teacher, today you'll see what kind of treatment we 'quasi' magical girls get."

The volunteer team's equipment station was set up on a street corner, with a folding table, a few boxes of garbage bags, and two handcarts parked nearby. The administrative auntie in charge of registration, upon seeing the visitors and confirming the list, immediately lifted her previously droopy eyelids, her tone dripping with obsequiousness:

"Oh, are you Teacher Gu? Are you in charge of supervising and patrolling this area today?"

"Okay." Gu Bai lowered his head and signed.

"Please sign in here—"

The aunt took the pen, lowered her voice, and gestured with her chin towards the girls who were sweeping the floor:

"Teacher Gu, there's really no need to come see these prospective magical girls. Apart from Tao Zhuo, none of them have a chance of becoming full-fledged magical girls."

After signing, Gu Bai handed the pen back: "Shall I go back?"

The aunt took off her glasses and wiped them, her tone somewhat flattering: "That's fine too. After all, they just use ordinary brooms and ordinary garbage bags, just like street sanitation workers. You can easily give a few more pointers to the magical girls on campus. Now that you've signed in, it won't be a problem if you leave."

Gu Bai paused for a moment.

He went through the rules in his mind, and roughly understood them: yesterday, magical girls used magic to fight monsters, and today, aspiring magical girls use ordinary brooms to clean up the mess.

This is not punishment; it is a public image project for the residents of the disaster area, proving that they are rooted in the community just like ordinary people and do not seek special treatment.

"I understand." Gu Bai pushed the register back, picked up a bamboo broom, and left. "But it's not necessary. I'm free today."

After Gu Bai walked away, the aunt breathed a sigh of relief and muttered, "Tsk tsk, although I had heard about it, I didn't expect it to actually be a male teacher. He must have a lot of influence."

Less than twenty minutes after Tao Zhuo started scanning, the first unexpected situation arose.

An older woman in floral pajamas, carrying two bags of foul-smelling garbage, walked past Gu Bai and Tao Zhuo and went straight to a green-haired magical girl who was cleaning up broken glass. She threw the garbage bags into the area that the girl had cleaned.

"Hey, take this with you, I'm in a hurry to talk to someone from Qixin Insurance about compensation."

The green-haired girl paused for a moment, but before she could speak, the older woman clapped her hands, turned, and walked into the building, muttering to herself:

"You guys made such a commotion yesterday, shattering all the windows. Didn't you come and clean it up last night? You're all lazy and incompetent!"

The green-haired girl stood there, looked at the bag of trash, then at the old woman's disappearing figure, and her breath clearly paused for a beat.

Tao Zhuo moved closer to Gu Bai without anyone noticing, and whispered:

"Calm down, the word 'accurate' is what it means."

"The same to you?"

"I'm alright, the residents in this area are worried that I might become a permanent employee, otherwise they would probably have left the job to me."

Tao Zhuo, broom in hand, spoke in a voice as flat as if reciting a textbook: "First step, endure the insults. Second step, calm yourself down; third step, keep smiling—this is the code of conduct for aspiring magical girls!"

Gu Bai watched as the green-haired girl bent down, silently picked up the bag of trash, and put it in the shopping cart. He was also a little angry.

"Is there any way?"

"Oh dear, in the past, aspiring magical girls actually had a certain status."

Tao Zhu switched hands to hold the broom and continued working while chatting with Gu Bai: "But the more there are, the more bad people there will be, and the more trouble there will be. In order to avoid affecting Qi Xin's reputation, we might as well just cut off all the trouble."

She paused, glanced at the green-haired girl's back in the direction of the handcart, and said, "The predecessors cut down the trees, and the successors are exposed to the scorching sun."

The work is still ongoing.

At noon, we can go to the volunteer cabin to rest.

This is a temporary prefab house that Qi Xin set up for the aspiring magical girls who are volunteering. It has a few folding chairs, two water dispensers, and a small window with the curtains drawn. Before entering, it is a public area, but once inside, it becomes a private space.

The only advantage is that the soundproofing is excellent, which everyone knows.

When Gu Bai followed Tao Zhuo through the door, there were already seven or eight people inside, some sitting and some leaning, crowding the small lounge.

"It's alright, we're all on the same side, everyone continue." Tao Zhuo introduced them diligently.

"Who said we're on the same side as you?" Gu Bai thought to himself, but ultimately didn't say it out loud.

"You said before—hello, well, let's not talk about teachers here, after all, we're not exactly good students."

A short girl took a sip of water, glanced at Gu Bai, crumpled the paper cup into a ball, tossed it into the corner, and spoke calmly and clearly:

"The troublemakers I encountered today were truly outrageous."

"Is it that old man trying to scam people again?" a girl nearby asked.

"You know what?" the short girl said expressionlessly, "He said that the aftermath of yesterday's fight scared his cat so badly that he wanted me to pay for it. I said it was caused by a monster, and if all else failed, I could go to Qi Xin. He said he couldn't find her, and since we're all magical girls and our income is so high, he could just give me a little something."

"You really gave it to me?"

"Of course I didn't have any money, and then he started cursing at me for seven minutes. I didn't say a word the whole time. In the end, he complained that my attitude was bad and said he was going to complain to the Qixin Inspectorate—"

At this point, she took a breath: "I really want to blow the two tufts of hair off his head with a firecracker!"

"No, no." Another person chimed in, "I thought you were alright, but using magic is a big deal. If you dared to use magic on ordinary people this morning, the Inspectorate could have arrested you and put you in there to work on a sewing machine by noon."

"Heh, then we've been eating for free." The short girl propped her head up with her hand. "Those people aren't that slow; they should be here in about twenty minutes."

A few suppressed laughs erupted from inside the room.

After laughing, they fell silent again.

Gu Bai leaned against the doorway, saying nothing and making no attempt to join in.

"Does swearing a couple of times make you feel better?" someone asked.

"I'm feeling better." The short girl kicked the broken paper cup into the corner. "But actually, I'm happy sometimes..."

She didn't finish speaking.

However, no one inside asked any further questions, as everyone's reasons for becoming a magical girl were different.

"Yeah, I guess I'm happy sometimes, because I'm a magical girl." Someone chimed in softly from the corner, their tone calm, as if they were talking about something they had figured out a long time ago. "Keeping the pressure to yourself and bringing smiles to others is probably a normal thing, it's just that it's really hard."

The cabin was quiet for a few seconds.

"Forget it."

The short girl lowered her head: "In the end, we're just aspiring magical girls. Look at all the official magical girls, which one would do this kind of work like us?"

Tao Zhuo stood next to Gu Bai, and the topic became somewhat realistic.

She unscrewed the cap, took a sip from the bottle, lowered her eyes, and didn't say anything.

Gu Bai glanced at her, and this usually talkative girl noticed him too, before taking a step closer to him:

"Dreams are sold by magical girls to those outsiders. The mess of reality, filled with shards of broken glass, is what belongs to us aspiring magical girls."