Give children a little self-destruction shock to their worldview.

Page 193

This is a terrifying ability, so the little bear faces many restrictions when trying to use it. Not only does it consume several times the magic power, but he can only use the toy magic once a week, and the borrowed power is much weaker.

But this move has another advantage: it can transform into the appearance of the enemy being devoured.

After flipping through his memories for a while, the little bear's face scrunched up in a troubled expression.

She couldn't see all the memories, not because she was jealous that the strange man was wary of her, but because she was jealous that the strange man's memories had been rewritten, and she couldn't see the whole picture of the attack from the remaining parts.

The Jealous Man is indeed now involved in a dark magic society; he's here to be a henchman for those dark wizards.

However, based on Little Bear's understanding of his older sister, she shouldn't be the kind of weirdo who would obediently serve as a subordinate.

From a young age, the jealous freak wanted to become a formidable villain like the young Abyss Gentleman. But becoming a member of a dark magic society was not the path she was meant to take.

Was it because the memory was altered, or...?

The little bear couldn't find a real reason, so he scratched his head and decided to ask his older sister later.

However, she at least obtained enough intelligence.

With a quick thought, the little bear transformed into the appearance of the Jealous Monster under the watchful eyes of Hitomi Tono and Mayumi Haga.

"Hey, where did that jealous monster go?" Hitomi Tono exclaimed in surprise as she watched the little bear shrink from a huge plush bear to look exactly like the jealous monster.

The little bear explained obediently, "It's magic."

Mayumi Haga, who was standing next to him, felt that the conversation was a bit hard to understand no matter what, so she simply stopped thinking about where such a jealous weirdo had gone.

Asking is magic.

Since Little Bear could transform into the Jealous Monster, it was advantageous for her to actively gather intelligence. Through the latter's memories, she learned that other members of the Black Magic Society were active in the area, so she decided to play along and infiltrate the area disguised as the Jealous Monster.

As for Hitomi Tono and Mayumi Haga, just pretend you're under their control.

The bear gave a brief explanation and placed voodoo dolls on their shoulders to indicate that they were under his control, this "jealous weirdo."

Mayumi Haga originally intended to place her voodoo doll on her right shoulder, but because Karasu protested strongly that her spot was being taken, she had no choice but to move it to the left.

The little bear quickly told the two the information he had gleaned from his memories: "It's a black magic society that wants to seize this city, so they've taken control of a key figure in the festival organizers and intend to forcibly acquire the rights to mine the city's spiritual veins..."

As she spoke, her expression grew increasingly serious.

Because she saw information about the dark wizard in charge of this operation.

"...Using weirdos as tools? And Weird City has the most weirdos in the city. During the process of this plan, there will definitely be a lot of weirdos who mysteriously 'disappear'..." This is something that Little Bear can analyze even with a rough reading of memories.

Why would a jealous weirdo, being a weirdo, participate in such an operation?

Although the eldest brother wouldn't stop his younger siblings from going out and making their way in the world, and it wouldn't hurt if they did some bad things, it's still wrong to do something that clearly puts them in opposition to the weirdo, even if the eldest brother didn't teach them to.

And I even saw something called "Calamity"... It's impossible to just randomly get involved with that.

Has the Jealousy Monster completely abandoned the moral bottom line of being a monster in pursuit of power?

Little Bear was a little confused. Her intuition told her that the truth might not be like that, but the key memories of the jealous freak were always shrouded in mystery, so she couldn't come to a completely credible conclusion.

However, Mayumi Haga, upon hearing the word "calamity," merely pricked up her ears slightly, her expression eerily calm.

She said, "So you were researching calamities? That takes real courage."

Hitomi Tono and the bear that had transformed into the appearance of the Jealous Monster both shivered.

Text: 311. You choose not to take the road to heaven.

Tono Hitomi could tell that Haga Mayumi wasn't in a good mood, so she quickly comforted her, "We absolutely won't let this kind of reckless person get away with it!"

But after she finished speaking, she suddenly realized how awkward it felt:

Huh? Why did the Sad Monster include his untransformed self in his fighting power?

After realizing what was happening, Tono Hitomi cautiously asked the little bear, "Um... Miss Sadness, should I come along too?"

Although a magical girl's identity must be kept secret, it's not impossible to make an exception in a critical moment.

However, the sad, strange man's demeanor seemed to suggest that he had known something for a long time...

“…Miss Crimson, the magical girl, actually, your identity wasn’t hidden as well as you thought,” the little bear whispered.

At this point, hiding each other's identities would only drag each other down, so Little Bear subtly indicated that he had known about the true identity of the magical girl Crimson from the very beginning.

However, she told a small lie. Under the protection of the cognitive confusion magic, Tono Hitomi's identity was not so easy to discover. She only knew Tono Hitomi's identity when she was close to Haga Mayumi.

Aside from the little bear who clung to Mayumi Haga for a series of reasons, only the Abyss Gentleman knew the identities of all the magical girls.

The latter might be due to his long-term dealings with magical girls, which is worthy of his considerable experience among monsters.

As for the other oddballs, they only vaguely guessed which school the magical girls attended.

Hitomi Tono was struck dumb: "What... I thought I was hiding it well... Could it be because I dragged you here to find Mayumi a few days ago?"

Little Bear really wanted to say that the cognitive confusion magic still couldn't completely eliminate her unique cheerful tone, but since Hitomi Tono herself had found a fix, she might as well just accept it.

The group finally reached a point where they knew each other quite well, so Hitomi Tono no longer needed to hide her identity. She could transform directly if anything happened later.

The little bear rubbed his temples and quickly retrieved the next route from his memory: "The Black Magic Society should have already hacked the surrounding surveillance cameras and is preparing to raise a high wall on the edge of the Strange City to cut off all contact with the outside world."

The entire live stream will be cut off within half an hour, and the players' shots on Mayumi Haga's side have already been cut off by Jealousy Monster.

The jealous weirdo may have wanted to attack Mayumi Haga, but now he has made things easier for the three of them.

"Let's go." Yuga Mayumi, who had been standing silently to the side, now urged the little bear to lead the way to the black wizard.

Tono Hitomi and the bear exchanged a glance:

—Mayumi looks really angry.

--Wow.

Mayumi Haga's personality has indeed changed a lot recently. She occasionally shows a small smile, which is completely different from what she was like six months ago.

However, when faced with things related to disasters, they become as gloomy as evil spirits.

However, Hitomi Tono isn't someone who wouldn't dare approach Mayumi Haga just because she's in a bad mood. Mayumi Haga's anger doesn't scare her at all, after all, the Guardian has the best temper in the world.

Hitomi Tono walked past Mayumi Haga, grabbed her hand, and pulled her between the teddy bear and herself while she was startled and stunned.

"Let's go, let's go kick that bad guy's ass!" Hitomi Tohno said excitedly. "I was still in the transformation-ban period before and couldn't help much with that big guy, but I can definitely come in handy this time, so leave it to me!"

She just finished special training! Although she hasn't mastered polarization yet, she's much stronger than before!

The little bear grumbled and squeezed to the right of Yuga Mayumi, looking up at her slightly, a little unsure of himself: "I... I'm very strong too."

Crow perched on Mayumi Haga's shoulder, cawed twice, and nuzzled against her neck.

Sandwiched between Tono Hitomi and the bear, with a crow feather perched on her shoulder and two of her seniors' Haga Mayumi hanging around her neck: "...So crowded."

What's going on? This road is so wide, why do you have to squeeze in with yourself?

Haga Mayumi once again had the illusion that she was covered in people.

Despite always being used to fighting alone, I've unknowingly acquired so many allies.

Haga Mayumi: ...Sigh.

Although this is somewhat troublesome for her, it is also a happy kind of trouble.

Mayumi Haga actually likes her current life a little bit.

If she hadn't met these people, she would probably have lived a completely different life.

They were like zombies, completely oblivious to their pathetic state.

Her current life was enough for her... happiness. The mere thought of that word made her feel alienated and inexplicably ashamed.

She has become accustomed to her ascetic life, but there are also those who feel she deserves a better life and fight for it for her.

This is why Mayumi Haga has more initiative than before.

Mayumi Haga, who has always passively accepted the trials of fate, now wants to bring hope to her friend who is still suffering.

It wasn't enough for her to live a peaceful life; she wanted these spirits who had placed all their hopes on her to also have a future.

Therefore, she cannot stop; she needs to keep moving forward.

But this time, she didn't feel that the inability to stop was torture.

Suddenly, Mayumi Haga noticed a gaze from behind.

Someone is watching you from the shadows.

No... not behind me.

Just before turning around, Mayumi Haga realized the incongruity of the dark gaze.

She looked down and saw her shadow surging wildly at her feet.

……shadow?

Upon seeing the shadow, Mayumi Haga immediately pictured the face of the shadow monster in her mind.

While the face itself wasn't particularly distinctive, the magic related to shadows made it incredibly recognizable.

But the Shadow Monster doesn't have that much power.

Mayumi Haga could feel the nauseating power contained within the shadow wrapped around her feet.

"Well done! Jealousy!" A hoarse male voice boomed from above, shouting at the bear that had transformed into the Jealousy monster, "You've captured two ordinary people!"

The little bear mimicked the jealous monster's tone: "...What do you want to do to them, dark wizard?"

She stared speechlessly at the disheveled black wizard who had appeared above her, vaguely alarmed that Mayumi Haga had been suddenly entangled.

Wait... wasn't the agreed time half an hour later? How did this guy end up here?

The dark wizard still held the core of the Shadow Monster corrupted by the calamity in his hand. After seeing that the "Envy Monster" had captured the experimental subject, he finally felt much more at ease.

Asking him to deal with monsters is too much to ask; he prefers to have some fun.

"I'm just here to expand our manpower," the dark wizard chuckled, "and use the [Darkening Magic] I just developed to draw the possibility of corruption into this world..."

Text: 312. Hey, I like this real bow, fire it quickly!

The dark wizard has developed the "Darkening Magic".

Although this seems abrupt, it was indeed achieved by combining the core of the Shadow Monster with the power of calamity in a short period of time.

This brings us to the matter of the dark wizard exhausting the magic power within the core of the Shadow Monster.

After the magic power in the core is exhausted, the monster core will enter a long dormant state.

In its dormant state, the engraved attribute magic cannot be used, meaning that once the magic power is exhausted, the hard-won core is practically useless.

Even if a monster is buried in a spiritual vein, it will take at least five years for it to recover even a little bit of its magic power before a new monster can be born.

But the dark wizard couldn't wait that long; the research materials he used for experiments were becoming increasingly less active.

Seeing that he couldn't obtain the core of the Abyss Gentleman in the short term, and that the core of the Shadow Monster had already gone dormant, he decided to take a risk in his anxiety.

Anyway, the core of the Shadow Monster came easily, so it wouldn't hurt to destroy it. Besides, although he successfully sent several big shots away, they seemed to be coming back soon. The Black Wizard had to come up with some more trump cards for himself.

It's quite normal for the villain to reveal a new trump card midway through the story, isn't it?

So the dark wizard took advantage of the spare time to make a preliminary attempt to fuse the cores of the Calamity and the Shadow Monster.

However, the fusion was not very effective. Calamity could not penetrate the core of the monster at all. Even though the Shadow Monster was very suitable for accepting this foreign power and was weaker than other monsters, the result was the same.

This was actually within the dark wizard's expectations. After all, the world consciousness's protection of life forms is watertight. It would be strange if they could merge together so easily.

The strategy of directly integrating the two failed, but it did not completely fail.

The black wizard ground off some powder from the core of the Shadow Monster and fused it with the Calamity.

The monster's core is relatively fragile and can be destroyed by physical means. The powder that was removed also has shadow properties, but because it is separated from the whole, it is not strongly protected by the rules.

When the powder is mixed with the Calamity preserved in the magic concentrate, the two quickly solidify into an irregular, pitch-black crystal. The magic lines inside constantly collide and entangle, and just holding it in your hand, you can feel the dangerous aura emanating from it.

[Dark Magic] – A corrupting force that should not exist in this world has been successfully created.

However, this is not simply a forced catalysis of the dark side of the recipient's heart, but rather has a summoning aspect.

Calamity itself is not a resident of the world, but comes from the void beyond countless worlds. It is a conceptual species outside the void with aggression as its instinct.

The calamity that Mayumi Haga encountered in her original world and that that Kojima encountered in her new world was the same one. Although the race had unlimited potential, in the end, what they encountered was just one of the less developed races.

The remains left after its defeat were also torn apart and dug up for research, so it can hardly be called a formidable enemy.

However, even such a weak branch possesses the potential to become an extraterrestrial race.

Therefore, after it was added as material, the influence of [Dark Magic] further expanded to parallel worlds.