Chapter 347: Bohe's Annoyance

"Mm, your guess isn't wrong."

After a night, at noon the next day, in a coffee shop in the Emerald District, Bohe propped her cheek with one hand while holding a cup of a colorful, bizarre drink with the other, her teeth biting the straw as she mumbled incoherently.

Previously, she and Lin Xiaolu had agreed on this "treating," and Lin Xiaolu naturally intended to fulfill it; thus, on the rest day before the second assessment, she found a well-regarded coffee shop based on online recommendations. At this moment, the three were sharing lunch in a corner of the coffee shop.

"Although I could still find many excuses if I nitpicked the wording, starting from the most essential relationship, I am indeed one of the 'Black Ember Dawn' you speak of."

Lin Xiaolu had thought the other party might not be willing to speak much truth, but she didn't expect that, halfway through the meal, Bohe quite straightforwardly revealed her background to the two: "Rather, don't you two need to ask me this question? Aren't you two the same?"

"Huh? Me? Black Ember Dawn? What nonsense are you talking?"

Lin Xiaolu felt utterly baffled, her voice involuntarily rising half an octave, but considering the coffee shop was a public place, even though there were no other customers around, she still tried to lower her volume, sounding somewhat wary: "When I first became a Magical Girl, I was nearly killed by you guys several times, you know? What exactly are you thinking, to think I'm one of yours? Rather, I want to call the constable right now; what are you Black Ember Dawn doing in the Magical Realm?"

"Stop pretending. I, a Beast Child, have already laid my cards on the table; what are you two Sacrifice Children pretending for?"

Bohe sipped her drink from the cup with an indifferent expression: "Just as you can sense me, any two Ember Soldiers you pick up could feel the fluctuation of your residual beast magic; let alone in the eyes of a Beast Child, you two are simply walking human lightbulbs; it's impossible to mistake it."

"You came looking for me, didn't you? Just to ask about matters related to Beast Children, and whether the people above have any schemes?"

She spread her hands: "There were surveillance cameras in the maze, so I wasn't willing to say much; now that we're out of the maze, what's left to hide? If you aren't even willing to admit this, then there's no way to continue the conversation."

Lin Xiaolu was momentarily speechless.

It wasn't that she couldn't argue with Bohe, but rather that the information revealed in the other's few words was simply too vast.

The terms so-called "Beast Child" and "Sacrifice Child," whether Lin Xiaolu or Bai Jingxuan had heard them before; as early as last year, during the incident where the Fuli Academy in Fang Ting City was attacked by Black Ember Dawn, an Ember Soldier named "Bing Chu San" had already used this title to describe Bai Jingxuan.

And by now, Lin Xiaolu and the others were no longer ignorant of the so-called "Holy Child Plan," naturally knowing that this series of titles were extensions of that plan. It was just that she hadn't expected that coming to the Magical Realm for an assessment would actually lead her to encounter the real deal.

"You say... you are that so-called Beast Child?"

Struggling to organize her somewhat chaotic thoughts, Lin Xiaolu decided to start with the more important question: "Then can you first explain what exactly these so-called Sacrifice Child and Beast Child are?"

"You really don't know?"

Lin Xiaolu's expression of confusion did not seem feigned; Bai Jingxuan beside her also looked utterly bewildered. The two clearly lacked knowledge of these concepts, and this display finally made Bohe believe a bit: "Wait a minute, are you two both 'Unassimilated'?"

"What is 'Unassimilated'?"

Bai Jingxuan's question finally made Bohe give up.

She wore an expression of "this is trouble now," her face changing repeatedly, and she stopped drinking her beverage. After a while, she spoke again: "'Unassimilated,' literally means not having returned to the Beast Lord's embrace... or rather, Sacrifice Children who haven't joined Black Ember Dawn and are wandering outside."

"But generally speaking, 'Unassimilated' Sacrifice Children are usually ordinary people; Ember Soldiers will quickly find those children suitable to become Sacrifice Children, bring them back into the interior of Black Ember Dawn, and let them learn and adapt to the power they should possess."

"So, like you two..."

She pointed at Bai Jingxuan and Lin Xiaolu, hesitating to speak: "Not only were you not found by the organization, but you also became Sacrifice Children of Magical Girls; theoretically, this shouldn't exist."

"Aren't you a Magical Girl too?" Lin Xiaolu asked somewhat strangely.

"No, we are different from you..."

Bohe's expression was somewhat strange: "No, are you two serious? Do you really know nothing? I, uh, oh my... I originally thought I had just happened to encounter two Sacrifice Children left behind by the Moth, and I was quite happy, but now this is trouble."

Clearly, for some reason, she had mistaken the identities of Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan, so now that she realized something was wrong, she was extremely annoyed.

But Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan clearly couldn't feel her suffering, so the two could only look at each other, confused by Bohe's reaction.

Bohe's struggle continued; not only did she talk to herself, but she even began to lament and complain, scratching her hair in some frenzy:

"No, so can you two answer me first? What is your situation? Isn't the Moth in your city? Why did you really become Magical Girls? Didn't anyone come to manage it?"

"Even if you say that..."

Lin Xiaolu blinked her eyes: "It can't be said that no one came looking, right?"

"There were, and more than once," Bai Jingxuan also chimed in to answer.

"That's right then, someone must have come looking, and then? Why didn't you go with them? I should ask, on what grounds did they let you go?" Bohe looked completely puzzled.

"Because Senior Cuique took them out."

"Because I took them out."

Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan continued their call-and-response.

"Huh... huh? Took them out?"

Bohe wore an expression as if listening to a heavenly scripture: "Is that something that can be taken out? No, wait, if your city has a Magical Girl capable of taking out the Moth, it's normal for other Ember Soldiers and Ember Guards to be unable to win, but this means..."

She suddenly slapped her hand: "You two aren't the Moth's Sacrifice Children? You were chosen as Magical Girls from the very beginning? I damn... I was saying, where did the Moth get the ability to hide two Sacrifice Children under Cornflower's nose? Turns out she really accomplished nothing in your Fang Ting!"

Now she finally understood completely; she had been outsmarted by her own cleverness.

And the reason she was acting so collapsed actually started before the maze assessment began.

When she was first assigned to Squad 629 and sensed the residual beast magic fluctuations on her two teammates, she thought she had found a hidden truth: that the Moth hadn't died accomplishing nothing; although she was taken out by Cornflower, she successfully hid two Sacrifice Children.

After sensing this "truth," Bohe's mind became active. Although she very much wanted to reveal her identity to these two Sacrifice Children, she was in the examination field at the time, and inevitably, there were ears behind the walls. So she still managed to concoct a story, using the excuse that "I am from the Central City and have heard of the Fang Ting incident" to muddle through.

However, as a Beast Child, her control over residual beast magic far exceeded that of Sacrifice Children; if she wanted, she could use a very subtle method to display her magic fluctuations to her two teammates on a small scale. In Bohe's thinking, since these two were both Sacrifice Children, as long as they felt her residual beast magic, they would naturally know her identity.

The result, however, was not smooth at all.

Among these two teammates, the one with the codename "Thin Snow" did indeed sense her magic fluctuations, but it was completely different from what Bohe had thought. When Thin Snow discovered her magic fluctuations, she didn't show any friendly attitude; instead, she became even more hostile towards her.

As for the one named Bai Mei, she was even more of a fool, as if she hadn't sensed Bohe's magic fluctuations at all. And no matter how Bohe hinted with words, she didn't have a single bit of reaction.

Bohe tried to probe indirectly throughout the entire assessment, but felt as if she were winking at a blind person, so that by the middle and late stages of the assessment, she began to get anxious and deliberately expanded the influence range of her magic fluctuations.

The result was that her two teammates had no reaction, but instead attracted a Arrow-Root Potato.