Something's off about this magical girl.

Chapter 22 Half-Body Beast

"So you gave all the supplies to that magical girl stationed in the village?"

"Oh dear, I originally wanted to take it camping to improve our meals, but it's just too heavy to carry. Using levitation magic the whole time would be too exhausting."

Tao Zhuo walked along the mountain path, raised her hand to tap her head, and playfully stuck out her tongue:

"Why not do me a favor? If you're hungry, Teacher, I can ask Winter to pick some wild berries for you!"

"It's not the season yet," Dongchun, who was walking at the front, added without turning her head.

But for some reason, those words touched a nerve with Tao Zhuo, and her little hands began to wave wildly:

"Wait a minute, teacher, if you're into R18G survival movies, I have to warn you beforehand: magical girls don't exercise much, so they're definitely not tasty!"

"I'm just an intelligent character with no physical strength, how could I possibly be a match for you magical girls?"

Gu Bai shrugged and replied to the conversation with a somewhat speechless expression.

He had only shown his strength to Xia Zhi, so now he would let her fill in the blanks with her own imagination.

"Ee~" To everyone's surprise, Tao Zhuo's voice rang out triumphantly at the end of her sentence:

"Don't worry, teacher! We're like brothers. I, Tao Zhuo, the soon-to-be five-star magical girl, will protect you on this trip to the deep mountains and forests!"

"Okay." Gu Bai didn't object.

Tao Zhuo is such a cheerful girl, she'll brighten up at the slightest opportunity. But perhaps that's just how magical girls are supposed to be—full of energy!

—If we could just get rid of the dregs of capitalism in her mind, like constantly thinking about making money, speculating on cryptocurrencies, and leveraging.

The relaxed atmosphere of their casual conversation didn't last long. As the three ventured deeper into the mountains, the surrounding environment began to subtly change.

There was no flat dirt road, only knee-high weeds and moss-covered pebbles.

The higher you go, the more chaotic the flow of magic becomes.

"Little Winter Sister..."

Tao Zhuo wiped the fine sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, her breathing noticeably heavier.

"Tell me, why not use flight magic? If I could master flight magic, I could fly high into the sky and avoid this humiliation of walking!"

"Conserve your mana." Dongchun walked quickly, nimbly avoiding a piece of rotten wood, and passed by Taozhuo: "We cannot be careless about the issue of the alien beasts."

"Hey, hey, hey, saving money is fine, but if we keep going like this, our stamina will be completely depleted before we even encounter any monsters!"

Tao Zhu followed with a bitter face.

Gu Bai looked around, and the dead branches he stepped on made a dull snapping sound.

Although he couldn't sense any magic, even the air seemed to be getting thicker.

Still moving.

Dongchun walked in the lead.

She moved slowly, without stepping on a single weed. Her feet landed precisely and naturally, as if her body was instinctively following an old path that was deeply etched in her memory.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky was tinged with a dark orange-red by the setting sun, the winter jasmine finally came to a halt.

"We've arrived." She pointed to the valley ahead.

As Gu Bai stepped up the last natural stone step, he discovered that what he was stepping on was not soil, but a layer of grime made from the broken pieces of withered grass, which was filthy.

Looking down from a high vantage point, the entire village is built in a depression on the mountainside.

The village was small, with only about ten stone brick houses. Most of the gray tiles on the roofs had collapsed, exposing the rotten wooden beams.

In the middle of the road at the village entrance, a lone, unclaimed orange tree stands. A few small, unripe fruits still hang on the tree, standing quietly in the wind, silently proclaiming that the past still exists.

But the people are all gone.

"Which building do you live in?" Tao Zhuo's voice unconsciously softened.

Dongchun raised her hand and pointed to a section of stone brick ground at the end of the village that had been completely reduced to ruins. Not even the walls remained; all that was left was a pile of rubble overgrown with weeds.

"Sorry." Tao Zhu shrank back.

"A person can find home anywhere." Dongchun looked at the ruins, her red eyes showing no emotion, her voice as calm as ever.

"I was wrong..."

Tao Zhuo pinched her index finger together, her tone soft, and she understood the unspoken meaning in Dong Chun's words.

"Let's get down to business. There used to be some night-blooming cereus growing in the village, let's look for it first. If we don't find it, we'll go to the 'Grass Valley' at the top of the mountain."

Dongchun turned around and looked at Taozhuo again: "Taozhuo, have you learned [Sensory Recall Magic]?"

"Reporting to Lord Dong, I have studied this matter seriously!"

Tao Zhuo made an awkward gesture by bringing her right hand together near her temple, then glanced at Gu Bai with a shifty look:

"But teacher, you can't trust me too much. We still need to rely on Dong-mei. I just beg you not to climb the mountain anymore, and it would be best if we could find clues in the village!"

"It's up to you." Gu Bai didn't add any more pressure.

He walked to the side, casually brushed aside the grass stems that stretched out from the roadside, and glanced at the empty houses.

A rusty iron lock rested on the door latch. When the mountain wind blew, the iron ring knocked against the wooden door, making a soft "knock, knock" sound, which seemed particularly eerie at the moment.

Tao Zhuo and Dong Chun closed their eyes and began to circulate their magic, attempting to unleash their [Perception Magic].

But as soon as it was activated, that intense sense of strangeness instantly backfired.

"Ugh!" Tao Zhuo groaned, her face turning pale.

The white magical light that had just appeared on Dongchun's right fingertip flickered for only a second before vanishing without a trace, like a candle flame being extinguished.

"This is so chaotic."

Dongchun opened her eyes, her brows slightly furrowed, as if reporting unusual experimental data: "The rate of mana loss is faster than expected. Large-scale detection spells cannot be formed; compress the range and try again later..."

Tao Zhu shook her slightly numb right hand, biting her lip without complaining.

The three of them, enduring that eerie sense of oppression, basically surveyed the entire village.

Finally, they stopped in front of a house at the highest point of the village. Beside it was a wooden door still locked with an iron lock, the red paint long since peeled off, revealing the swollen and blackened wood grain underneath.

It was located near the mountain path, overgrown with grass. Gu Bai squatted down and quickly realized that it was not the right one.

Dongchun stood beside him, looking at the rugged mountain path leading higher, and said softly, "It seems we can only continue upwards. The valley at the summit is full of epiphyllum. If the person you're looking for has special significance to her, then she must have been there—"

"—BoBo."

A very strange sound, similar to a bubble bursting, abruptly interrupted Dongchun's words.

Without the slightest hesitation, Dongchun, sensing the presence of the troops, raised her hand and unleashed an instant low-level fire spell, slamming it directly into the stone wall on her right.

"Bang!"

The already fragile stone wall collapsed with a deafening roar. Amidst the billowing dust, a round, bizarre beast about half a meter tall appeared in the three people's field of vision.

This thing looks extremely disgusting.

It was a whole size smaller than a normal gray-lead-level alien beast. Its shell was a dirty, pale white color, with a pitted and uneven surface, like a wad of old cotton that had been soaked in rainwater and gone bad, emitting a fishy stench.

After being discovered, it first emitted a low-frequency buzzing sound, which caused the vibration to penetrate directly into the soles of everyone's feet through the ground. Then it turned around as if it was about to leave.

"Don't even think about escaping!"

Tao Zhuo was the first to launch an attack.

She suddenly exerted force with her feet, leaped onto the broken wall, and using the momentum of her fall, delivered a powerful right punch that whistled through the air, slamming it hard into the back of the strange beast.

boom--!

The beast staggered forward half a step after being hit, and a clear crack instantly appeared on its pale shell.

She landed a successful blow, but Tao Zhuo's expression turned even uglier; something seemed off.