Chapter 27: A Grand Welcome

"Yes, yes, I understand, I'm very sorry."

In the dim sewer, a man's voice, carrying a hint of fatigue, came from above.

"Yes, alright. If your maintenance personnel cannot resolve it, we will come to your door first thing tomorrow morning to provide service..."

It was 11 PM. Lin Yun held his phone, standing by an open manhole cover, expressionless yet speaking with sincere tone as he promised the person on the other end of the call.

Then he hung up, opened the messaging interface, edited and sent a message, only then putting away his phone and letting out a long sigh.

Investigating various locations rumored to be hotspots for urban legends, receiving customer complaints late at night about his subordinates' calls, and being scolded because he had no signal in the sewer earlier—truly exhausting for both body and mind.

Fortunately, only a few spots remained. If pupa-stage remnant beasts truly existed in the Fang Ting City sewers, he could drag them out from their hiding place tonight.

Gripping the Heart Flower, she transformed once more into a Magical Girl, and Senior Cuique flew through the night toward the next rumored location.

"The Song of the Sewer," an urban legend recently popular online, though divided into many versions, traces its origins mostly to claims by content creators who insisted they personally experienced it in Fang Ting City.

The legend's content is roughly this: late at night, when passing a manhole cover, one might occasionally hear an ethereal, very strange yet beautiful song. Though not human language, it seemed to convey some emotion. Like the sirens of legend, it lured passersby, stirring a desire to investigate.

Once someone was captivated by this song, they would involuntarily want to approach the source, even lifting the manhole cover to listen to its lovely melody from a closer distance. Eventually, hands would reach out from the hole, grab them, and drag them directly into the darkness.

If someone ignored the song completely, showing no interest at all, they would become trapped in the same area as if encountering a ghost wall. The song in the sewer would grow louder and closer until they were completely immersed in it.

Only those who showed sufficient appreciation but were not completely bewitched could safely leave the area where the song was heard.

Later in the spread of this strange tale, some serious-sounding claims even appeared, stating that seeing an open but un-closed manhole cover meant someone had been harmed, and one could surely find news of a nearby disappearance.

But Senior Cuique had not seen any such thing.

Each time she endured the sewer's stench to search within, let alone missing persons, she hadn't even seen a few rats; the dim, oppressive sewer held only the sound of flowing water and wind.

Recalling the legend's descriptions, Senior Cuique kept her attention focused on hearing, trying to capture traces of the so-called "song," yet from start to finish found nothing.

Thus, she floated and flew through the maze-like pipes for a full half hour.

The gray-yellow walls and dense network of pipes constantly repeating before her eyes were wearisome, yet Senior Cuique still forced herself to continue searching. Regrettably, this journey yielded nothing.

Having failed to find what she sought, Senior Cuique had to choose to proceed to the next location, but just as she prepared to pick a path to leave, she suddenly realized something was amiss:

—Half an hour, she had flown for so long, yet encountered not a single exit?

Her previously somewhat drowsy consciousness instantly became clear, and her dormant magic grew restless. Senior Cuique moved her hands, tracing several patterns, then released her magic, spreading outward in concentric circles like sound waves. Waiting motionless on the spot, after a round of investigation, she realized: she might have finally found the right place.

Not only did she sense extremely faint traces of residual magic, but also the obviously abnormal spatial structure here: this was not a normal city sewer, but one that merely looked like a sewer, actually possessing a structure like an ant hill, a spatial maze of layered, nested spaces.

This was precisely the symbol of a "pupa"-stage remnant beast's nest, distorting the space that reality originally possessed.

Adjusting her flight state to lower her floating height, several magic light orbs flew from Senior Cuique's sleeves, illuminating the surrounding view. Her hands moved without pause, quickly slashing through the void. Accompanying these movements, several Favo runes leaped from her fingertips, flying outward to form a faintly visible magic barrier; moments later, the light extinguished along with the runes.

This entire sequence of actions consumed half of the spells Senior Cuique had mastered; the spells she learned were mostly auxiliary abilities related to investigation and protection, and one could never have too many when facing powerful enemies.

Having completed this series of preparatory steps, Senior Cuique mustered her full spirit to welcome any enemy that might arrive at any moment.

Pupa-stage remnant beasts were considered relatively rare enemies for her in the past; now, nineteen years later, her current strength had indeed declined considerably compared to before. For enemies she could not guarantee victory against, a cautious mindset was most important.

Moving through the crisscrossing channels, Senior Cuique would first have the magic light orbs illuminate the environment at every intersection to avoid ambushes by enemies lurking in the dark.

This instinctive vigilance soon paid off—she discovered a lurking remnant beast on the ceiling of a channel at a certain turn.

Like a piece of rotten meat smashed against a wall, scattered minced flesh clung to the walls, with flesh tendrils like tentacles fixing its form; without doubt, this was an egg-stage remnant beast.

"Thud!"

Within a few breaths, it was pierced by a magic beam fired by Senior Cuique, who was in a hurry; the threatening roar it had yet to emit was forever stifled in its mouth, falling heavily onto the water surface and splashing up a mess of filth.

Extending her hand, points of starlight gathered within it; after collecting these egg-stage echoes, Senior Cuique continued forward.

From the moment she encountered this remnant beast, the number of enemies she met along the way increased.

A large number of egg-stage remnant beasts, and even a few caterpillar-stage remnant beasts, surged toward her from all directions of the tunnels. It was as if something was commanding them, enabling them to accurately locate Senior Cuique's position.

Senior Cuique felt no fear whatsoever.

Enemies of this caliber, if not for demonstrating to newcomers, would not require much effort from her. The magic armor materialized, deadly magic threads spreading everywhere; many charging remnant beasts collided head-on before they could react, directly sliced into piles of fragments by the blade-sharp fine threads.

She moved forward expressionless, with remnant beasts occasionally collapsing with screams along the way.

The sewer tunnels had transformed into a slaughterhouse, except the slaughtered were not livestock but remnant beasts. The smell of blood even overpowered the rotting stench the sewer should have had; the yellow water was dyed into a red river by the remnant beasts' blood.

Senior Cuique did not count how many remnant beasts she had killed; she only remembered that by the end, she had grown too lazy to even collect the egg-stage echoes.

Until finally, she heard the song.

It was not the faint, intermittent solo singing mentioned in rumors, but a grand, magnificent chorus, like a splendid performance.

Before her appeared no longer the narrow, cramped tunnels, but a vast cavern that normally could never exist in a sewer.

One could not see the top; only winding, interlaced pipes and bricks and tiles were visible. Countless sewer outlets extended from the cavern's surroundings, with massive amounts of sewage flowing down from all directions, converging into a bottomless pool.

Above the pool was the entity emitting the song.

It was neither a siren nor a mermaid; without doubt, it was a remnant beast.

Senior Cuique looked up; the first thing that met her eyes was flesh, chunks of meat, fleshy limbs.

Flesh and blood resembling intestines hung in midair, covering the entire cavern ceiling like a string of colorful flags, like a festival celebration. At the center was a huge remnant beast dangling from the air, its entire body only the pink and red of flesh and blood, like a fish stripped of scales and skin, yet lacking a fish's eyes and gills, possessing only a massive mouthpart.

That huge mouthpart now opened and closed, writhed like a human, and the exquisite song spewing from it echoed through the surrounding corridors; strong echoes mixed together, forming a chaotic chorus that sounded sacred and solemn.

There was no human language in this, yet Senior Cuique seemed able to discern its meaning:

It was welcoming, welcoming the arrival of the Magical Girl.