Chapter 173: Names

"I saw it."

That same evening, after the magic girls of the Fang Ting City squad finished their day's patrol and gathered in the living room of the secret base, Lin Xiaolu, rather presumptuously, started a conversation. She glanced left and right at her teammates' reactions, as if waiting for something.

Unfortunately, her out-of-the-blue remark made it impossible for anyone to understand what she meant, so all she received were the blank stares of Xia Liang and Bai Jingxuan.

"Saw... what?"

"A strange girl, a new magic girl."

Lin Xiaolu said solemnly, "Although I don't know where she's from, she has already mastered the magic armor, so her ability is definitely above the Sprout level. She's not a novice."

She announced this fact with such gravity, expecting her teammates to react with the same shock. Unfortunately, neither Xia Liang nor Bai Jingxuan showed any change in expression upon hearing her words.

"What's wrong? Where's your reaction?"

She couldn't help but say disappointedly, "This is a strange magic girl, you know? Shouldn't that be quite a rare occurrence?"

"You say it's rare... well, I suppose it is rare?"

Reluctantly admitting Lin Xiaolu's point, Xia Liang tentatively raised her hand and asked with a dry laugh, "But is this something that needs to be said with such a serious expression?"

"You don't get it!"

Lin Xiaolu shook her head: "When a strange magic girl appears in a city, in magic girl anime, it's often the beginning of a new event! It means something is about to happen!"

"Putting aside the fact that reality can't be referenced by anime, I think your statement is fundamentally illogical and incomprehensible..."

"Even without mentioning anime, this situation looks very strange right now! A strange magic girl has come to Fang Ting City, yet we know nothing about it. That's against the rules!"

Lin Xiaolu said earnestly, "When a magic girl goes to a strange city to carry out a mission, she should contact the local stationed colleagues as soon as possible. This is something Senior Cuique taught us!"

"What if she's not here to carry out a mission in our city?"

Xia Liang countered, "If she's just passing through Fang Ting City or visiting for tourism, there seems to be no immediate need to notify the local stationed squad, right?"

"Hmm, if you say that..." Lin Xiaolu was suddenly stumped.

"... Um, about what sister said, Mokou and I encountered that today as well."

Just as Lin Xiaolu was momentarily speechless, Bai Jingxuan suddenly spoke up from the side: "During this afternoon's patrol, Mokou suddenly ran over and told me it had found a new child with magic girl potential."

"A new magic girl?"

Bai Jingxuan's words immediately caught the attention of the other two, causing them to turn their heads together. Lin Xiaolu also conveniently dropped the embarrassing question and looked at Bai Jingxuan, asking, "You met her? Is there really potential?"

"Could what I sensed be false?"

Being questioned so directly by Lin Xiaolu, Mokou rolled its eyes in dissatisfaction, then spoke in a pretentious tone: "If I say it's a new magic girl, then it's a new magic girl. Absolutely true, no deception!"

"So did you make contact with her? Is she willing to become a magic girl?"

Xia Liang, obviously thinking further ahead, asked, "Or did the person you found get snatched away by the 'magic girl from another city' that Xiaolu mentioned?"

"Not exactly that."

And as soon as they reached this point, Mokou immediately stammered: "We did find that child with potential, and there was no one trying to snatch her away, it's just that..."

"Just that?" Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang said in unison.

"Just that when we found that child, she said she was already a magic girl."

Mokou's voice gradually weakened: "She said she came from another city and had already partnered with another Sower... and she even apologized to me very seriously."

"That sister was very nice. She even bought hot milk tea for me and Mokou."

Bai Jingxuan added, "She just said she had other matters to attend to, so she left very quickly."

Now it was Lin Xiaolu and Xia Liang's turn to look at each other in silence.

"So, it turns out she wasn't a new recruit with magic girl potential, but another genuine magic girl..."

After a long pause, Lin Xiaolu finally spoke to summarize, then asked Xia Liang with some confusion, "Under normal circumstances, would a Sower make such a mistake?"

"Probably not?"

Both of them cast a scrutinizing gaze onto Mokou.

"Why did you draw conclusions without asking me at all! The mana fluctuations were similar; getting confused is the normal situation, right!"

Mokou immediately became unhappy: "And under normal circumstances, when sensing a strange magic girl's mana fluctuation in a city, everyone would assume it's a new recruit with potential! Who would know that a magic girl from another city would suddenly come running over!"

"A genuine magic girl, not to mention the nature of the mana fluctuation, is simply hundreds or thousands of times stronger than an ordinary person, right?"

Lin Xiaolu looked at Mokou with the eyes one would use for an idiot: "How careless would you have to be to make such a mistake?"

"W-what if it's an unparalleled genius born with super-strong mana and talent vastly different from others!" Mokou argued with reason.

"If such a person truly existed, and you missed them until now, wouldn't that also count as negligence on the part of the Sower?"

"Hmm..."

"Forget it, let's just assume that's the case. You two stop arguing."

Seeing the two about to start quarreling over a trivial matter again, Xia Liang hurriedly called a halt from the side: "Anyway, based on the eyewitness reports from Xiaolu and Xiaoxuan, it is indeed certain that a magic girl from another city came to Fang Ting today. Xiaolu must have encountered her after school during patrol, while Xiaoxuan met her in the afternoon. These two should be the same person?"

"Probably?"

Reminded by Xia Liang's words, Lin Xiaolu said somewhat uncertainly, "There shouldn't be several magic girls running to our small place together, right? If they came, wouldn't it be like declaring war... Ah, could it be that 'Claw Mark' thing?"

As soon as she said this, everyone in the living room fell silent together. Because no one could deny this possibility.

Just half a month ago, an uninvited guest who called herself 'Fairy Immortal' had broken into the secret base and told them of signs of the Claw Mark's appearance. That is to say, the intrusion of a 'Claw Mark' into Fang Ting City had already definitely happened. Even though the magic girl they met today had a relatively friendly attitude, it couldn't be ruled out that this was merely a disguise.

And just as this topic had stalled, the sound of a door closing suddenly came from the entrance hall.

Senior Cuique returned to the secret base, her steps unsteady and her face exhausted.

The time was now nine o'clock in the evening. The reason she returned so late was not only because she accepted a duel with Yuan in the evening, but also because there was unfinished work after the duel.

Previously, she had received notice from the city government. Since the major safety accidents in Fang Ting City had occurred repeatedly since the Full Moon Festival, and the Bureau of Anomaly Control had nearly been breached during this process, Lin Yun, as the new director, needed to go to the city government to make some commitments to the higher-ups to quell the officials' concerns.

As time progressed, the day for the report was drawing near. Even though it was far past normal working hours, Lin Yun had to stay at the Bureau of Anomaly Control to continue perfecting his report documents.

Furthermore, the cleanup work of the Black Ash Dawn had entered its final stage, with various written reports following one after another and meetings of all sizes happening constantly every day. After returning to the secret base, he still needed to provide tutoring and teach the magic girls. The current Lin Yun was busy as a top spinning all day long, with no space to rest from morning to night.

Drooping her eyelids, she tidied up her shoes. Senior Cuique sighed listlessly. Looking towards the living room not far away, considering her image in front of her juniors, she had to force herself to perk up.

Raising her hand to pat her cheeks to make her expression appear more relaxed, she straightened her back, struggled to maintain a indifferent expression, and walked into the living room as if nothing had happened.

Then, she discovered that three girls and a fairy were gathered together, silently staring at her.

Had they noticed something odd in her behavior?

Such a thought arose in her heart, but Senior Cuique still maintained a calm demeanor and, keeping her basic aura intact, asked, "Why are you all looking at me like this? Is something wrong?"

She failed to realize that although she maintained surface-level calm, the exhaustion of body and mind combined with the aggression from her recent fight simply could not be concealed.

To the girls, this looked like a sign of a bad mood.

And while the appearance of an unidentified Living magic girl in the city was not necessarily something to worry about, combined with the claw-mark incidents from a while ago, it was hard to believe it was anything good. Bringing such news to a moody Senior Cuique at a time like this was, by any measure, a surefire way to invite bad luck. For a moment, no one was willing to speak up and explain.

The girls and the fairy in the living room looked at each other, then all turned their gaze to Lin Xiaolu. Lin Xiaolu first pointed at herself in disbelief, then quickly shook her head and pointed at Xia Liang, but Xia Liang only smiled and waved her hand, saying nothing.

In the end, Lin Xiaolu was pushed to the front.

"Um... we were just discussing it because we met a strange Living magic girl today."

She clasped her hands in front of her, unconsciously pinching her fingers: "Well, since we don't know where she's from, we're trying to guess."

"A strange Living magic girl?"

Upon hearing this, the first person to come to Senior Cuique's mind was Yian. Considering that the other party did indeed wander around Fang Ting City every day, bumping into the girls was not impossible, so she asked, "Did you see her? What exactly did she look like?"

"She was a girl wearing yellow clothes, looked quite young? Her Living magic seemed to be shoes." Trying hard to recall the image she had seen before, but all she could remember was a flash of light and a black dress soaked through with the slime from the Remnant Beast's body. Lin Xiaolu spoke with considerable uncertainty.

"She was a sister wearing glasses, about the same height as Sister Xia Liang." Bai Jingxuan gave a completely different answer: "She looked a bit serious, but actually she was very nice."

Undoubtedly, these two descriptions had no overlap with Yian at all. As for whether they were talking about the same person, no one could make a judgment.

Listening to the girls' descriptions, Senior Cuique first breathed a sigh of relief, relieved that the girls had not directly encountered the Claw Marks; and also relieved that Yian had indeed kept her promise and not actively sought trouble with the children.

However, immediately after, she had to be on guard again. After all, if what Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan said was true, Fang Ting City had probably seen the appearance of another strange Living magic girl.

It was no wonder her first reaction was alertness; after all, since her return, Fang Ting City had seen only three incoming Living magic girls: besides one instance being the Cat Tail Squad from the Investigation Bureau, the other two were Sparrow and Yian from the Claw Marks, and undoubtedly, the latter two were all enemies.

Out of this consideration, she pulled the girls to sit down and seriously asked for various details of the incident, repeatedly confirming the behavior and possible motives of these Living magic girls. And upon hearing that these strange Living magic girls had not only helped Lin Xiaolu defeat the Remnant Beast but also bought a gift for Bai Jingxuan, her judgment in her heart began to waver.

So friendly, it didn't seem like the Claw Marks?

And for some reason, even from just a few words, the Living magic girl in Lin Xiaolu's description gave Senior Cuique an extremely strong sense of familiarity, as if she had seen this person somewhere before.

Was it an old friend she knew?

She couldn't help but ponder inwardly, trying to search her memory for a Living magic girl in yellow clothes using roller-skate Living magic, but it seemed there was no candidate that matched.

And in the end, having considered it to no avail, she could only set aside this thought for the time being, deciding that after going to the Strange Strategy Bureau tomorrow, she would use the bureau's resources to investigate and uncover the identities of these two Living magic girls.

Having made this decision, she put the matter aside, simply had dinner, then gathered the three girls, preparing to go to the underground training ground for today's lesson.

Just at this moment, Lin Xiaolu seemed to suddenly remember something, and sharply clapped her hands:

"Ah, right, I might not have time to patrol on Saturday afternoon and evening; can you cover my shift for a day, Senior Cuique?"

"Cover your patrol?"

Thinking over her schedule for Saturday and finding she could indeed squeeze out a little time, Senior Cuique nodded: "I can, but do you have something to do?"

"Going out to play with friends."

"Boys or girls?" A slight warning sign rose in Senior Cuique's heart, but she feigned casualness.

"Girls, my classmates."

Not realizing the intent behind Senior Cuique's question, and not noticing the slightly amused expression on Xia Liang's face nearby, Lin Xiaolu spoke the truth: "They said a very famous singer is coming here on Saturday for a tour concert, so they dragged me along to listen."

"... I see, then go ahead, I'll cover your patrol."

With the warning sign in her heart gradually subsiding, Senior Cuique's expression softened somewhat: "Patrolling is quite busy usually; it's rare to go out with friends, so having fun is more important."

"Mm! Thank you!"

Having received Senior Cuique's promise, Lin Xiaolu nodded lightly: "Although I don't pay much attention to popular stars, since she's very famous... what was the song called again? Her concert surely won't disappoint."

"The Song Empress..."

A name flashed through her mind in an instant; Senior Cuique was dazed for a moment, but quickly shook her head and cast that name out of her mind.

It was all in the past, and that person only liked singing as a hobby.

Thinking this, to fill the silence in the conversation, she casually asked, "What's her name? Does she have any famous works?"

"What was it called again, Ma... Mari... Maki..."

Struggling to recall the name she had heard from Jiang Yuan that afternoon, Lin Xiaolu pondered hard for a long time, not noticing Senior Cuique's eyes gradually widening nearby; finally, a flash of inspiration struck, she raised her finger, bared her fangs, and shouted out that name which was particularly hard for her to remember:

"Ah, right, it's called Asou Enka?"

(End of this chapter)