socalfunplaces Page 186
Page 186
For example, what exactly happened to the spiritual veins... something like that.
Hoshino Yui rolled her eyes at her: "I was just about to say that."
There are many branches of the spiritual veins, and in the course of the world's development, some branches have dried up, or perhaps they have been targeted by villains who want to seize the power of the spiritual veins.
Just like a naturally formed river, there can be pollution or over-exploitation.
The Tower of Stars is actually the river management department appointed by the gods, responsible for managing and cleaning up river debris.
"The Tower of Stars... doesn't seem like such a diligent organization," Terasaki Ayasa couldn't help but remark.
Specifically, the Tower of Stars does appear when faced with a crisis of world-destroying magnitude, but most of the time it is magical girls or monsters who solve the problem.
Although there are only five Jewel Beasts, magical girls are not limited to Miracle City and Strange City.
Aside from magical girls using the Jewel Beast system, there are many other magical girls who use other systems of magic.
While most of them cannot compare to the magical girls of Jewel Beasts, there are some magical girls who are just as capable as those from Miracle City.
These magical girls are occasionally supervised by the Star Tower, but only children with pure hearts can become magical girls in this world, so there's no need to worry about any problems arising.
The idea of magical girls saving the world is not just a casual remark; miracles, love, and stories are born all the time in this world.
So what is the purpose of the Star Tower? Is it just for show?
“The Star Tower has limited manpower,” Hoshino Yui muttered. “And who do you think made the magical girl gadgets besides the Jewel Beasts?”
Terasaki Ayasa understood: "So it was coming from the Star Tower."
"...Are you deliberately making kids do free work?" Mayumi Haga gave a very low rating. "Terrible."
She had been wanting to say this for a while: Aren't the magical girls in this world a little too young?
I initially thought it was just that Jewel Beasts preferred to choose young and promising children, but looking at it this way, is the Star Tower casting a wide net to find children to do free work?
"No, no, no... that's not it." Hoshino Yui said, a little embarrassed, "Actually, it's because..."
Because the Star Magician who creates transformation items seems to be cursed so that the items will always be stolen... Every time he makes an item, it mysteriously disappears!
The security of the Tower of Bright Stars must be as impenetrable as a fortress, after all, those who live there are all magicians who are famous throughout the history of magic...
But it will always get stolen, no matter who made it or where it's hidden!
This infuriated the Star Mages, who tried everything from changing the location and security to even placing the Star Tower in the subspace, but it still got stolen every time.
Then it mysteriously ended up in the hands of ordinary people, where it was found by a qualified child.
The star mages soon realized that this might be some kind of incomprehensible world law.
After all, due to the tastes of the gods, the strange and bizarre rules of this world are so numerous that it's almost despairing.
A portal to another world that opens every six months, a magical rule that prevents bleeding and injury...
Now, another magical transformation item needs to be added, as it will almost certainly end up in the hands of ordinary people once it's created.
The Star Mages were furious during that time, so they put all their effort into creating many different types of items. They couldn't keep any of them, and the wicked gods distributed them to the mortal world as toys.
Star Mages: "..."
Several master mages were nearly driven mad with anger, and in a huff, they chose to go into slumber, refusing to work for the gods for free anymore. The Star Tower then went completely invisible.
It's said that some idiot wrote the after-sales address on it, and they came knocking on the door.
The child felt the maker's aesthetic sense was disastrous and wanted to change it to a design he liked.
This immediately broke the latter's defenses: "What?! How is this ugly?!"
"...But this bright red and bright green combination is really..."
The creator angrily kicked the person out and hid the location of the Star Tower, making it impossible for the child who had found the transformation item to act innocent.
Although a lot of after-sales issues arose in a rather confused manner, the Star Tower mages also realized the benefits this brought.
Simply put, since the transformation items only choose kind and righteous children, who are generally also very enthusiastic, they don't need to keep an eye on the maintenance of the spiritual veins.
There aren't that many geniuses who can enter the Star Tower to begin with, and there are so many spiritual veins in this world that need to be maintained, it's simply impossible to keep up.
But after the profession of magical girl became popular, with the help of magical girls, the star magicians suddenly became much more relaxed.
“Isn’t this still working for free?” Terasaki Ayasa said.
She initially rejected Lena's offer because she thought magical girls would have to work for free. Later, she discovered that magic was a convenient way to be lazy and quite fun, which is why she agreed to the contract.
That being said, there are indeed quite a few children who would want to become magical girls even without the money. It's purely out of desire, purely out of love.
As for why adults are not chosen, it's because adults generally don't have as much time and face more pressure.
When magical girls can't handle things, star mages step in to clean up the mess. However, the magical girls' abilities are truly beyond imagination; for many years, they haven't needed the mages' help.
Therefore, the vast majority of Star Mages have been dormant deep within the spiritual veins for many years, and there has been no sign of them waking up.
However, recently, the Star Tower detected that many of its predecessors showed signs of awakening.
Hoshino Yui believes there is a problem deep within the spiritual vein, and Sugiyama Rika needs to help resolve it.
Text: 297. This was still my responsibility.
The fourth race was a classic obstacle course race.
Mayumi Haga has lived in this world for many years, so she must know the rules of the competition.
At the start of the competition, contestants will draw a slip of paper with the required item written on it. They need to find the item on the slip of paper as quickly as possible and transport it to the finish line.
The race with borrowed items is not just a competition of speed, but also largely a matter of luck. If you're lucky, the item will be not only nearby but also light, allowing you to transport it to the finish line with minimal effort.
If you're unlucky, you might not be able to find what you need to borrow no matter what you try.
Magic is prohibited in this competition, and the arena is enormous, almost covering the entire city. The finish line is roughly the same distance from the starting line, running from one side of the city to the other.
Because the original difficulty of the race using borrowed objects was too low for the weirdo, a marathon element was added, making it essentially a long-distance running competition.
Furthermore, to enhance the competition experience, the entire city was transformed into a series of checkpoints using the magic of a prankster. Participants not only had to run a long distance but also dodge numerous traps along the way.
If you're lucky, you might even find a shortcut... That's the Easter egg that's been added in a perfectly legitimate way.
Fortunately, the monsters from the children's world are also quite physically fit—except for a few weaklings who are too fragile due to insufficient magic power—so they were not completely wiped out in this competition.
However, it was clearly visible to the naked eye that the vast majority of people looked increasingly grim after hearing the rules announced by the host:
How can a race with borrowed objects be so difficult? Who can win?
Even if a weirdo can use magic as physical strength, few can withstand such a simple and brutal endurance test.
Will I even survive the race...?
While the strange people whispered amongst themselves with livid expressions, Mayumi Haga, standing in the crowd, did not show any distress like the others.
It wasn't that she was confident of victory—though she's never been afraid of endurance events like this—but rather that she was distracted.
The black-haired girl casually lowered her eyes, her gaze fixed on the crowd, clearly lost in thought.
She was still thinking about what Hoshino Yui had said.
One by one, those ancient relics sleeping deep within the spiritual veins awakened, perhaps because of her.
To be precise, it's because of Mayumi Haga's original Alamo world.
Mayumi Haga has been using her intuition much less frequently lately, but in many situations, intuition is indeed more accurate than knowledge, experience, and hidden information.
The changes deep within the spiritual veins... are due to [impurities].
Within the spiritual veins that should have been clear and pure, miscellaneous substances belonging to this world appeared.
A little thought reveals that these are likely fragments of the Alamo world that didn't end up in the inner world, as well as remnants of the calamity that haven't been completely purified.
Originally, according to the hospitable setting of this world, these things related to the other world shouldn't have been classified as "trash." But the Alamo has been completely destroyed, and its legacy is of no use to this world, so it naturally became trash floating in the river.
As for the remnants of the calamity, they were only recently discovered by the magicians of the Star Tower.
Those insidious insects had already made preparations for their next step when they first chose Miracle City as their invasion target.
The undigested food obtained from the Alamo world was discarded by Him into the spiritual veins before His death, and it drifted to the depths of the spiritual veins.
Because it involves a global issue, it's not something that ordinary magical girls can handle; it has to be dealt with by the Star Tower mages.
However, even they cannot enter and exit the spiritual veins as if they were in an empty place, especially since the spiritual veins of Miracle City have been sealed off recently due to some events.
We had no choice but to let Sugiyama Rikka lead the way.
Mayumi Haga vaguely knew from Raven Feather that the place where Rania dug out Raven Feather was deep within the spiritual vein.
I don't know how Rania got in, or how she dug the Raven Feather out of the rubble to open a passage for her to leave.
But what Mayumi Haga was certain of was that Rania probably hadn't left yet; she needed to enter the spirit veins of the Strange City as soon as possible...
However, the festival competition will not end for another two days.
The only consolation for Mayumi Haga was that she was at the top of the leaderboard, and considering today's obstacle course race and tomorrow's resuming hide-and-seek game, her chances of winning were very high.
She couldn't possibly lose in an endurance contest. And she was confident she could win first place in the hide-and-seek competition.
However, the specific rules of the hide-and-seek competition have been leaked, and given the festival's competition organizers' track record, the competition format is very likely to be changed.
That would create even greater uncertainty.
Mayumi Haga closed her eyes, suppressing the vague unease in her heart.
She has never liked things that are full of uncertainty, but now that things have come to this, she has no choice but to be even more ruthless in her pursuit of victory.
“…Your child’s expression is a bit scary,” Hoshino Yui nudged Sugiyama Sataka and whispered, “His personality is completely different from yours.”
Seeing Mayumi Haga's expression so calm it was almost gloomy under the live broadcast of the festival competition, Hoshino Yui felt a little incredulous.
Is this really the kind of child that idiot Sugiyama Rika could raise?
She left Miracle City after breaking her contract with Jewel Beast Bernie and hasn't returned for many years, so she's not familiar with the situation of her old friends.
Except for Hanaya Rika, who has never broken her contract with Jewel Beast Lily.
Because both Hanaya Rika and Jewel Beast Lily have overly innocent personalities, this pair of partners are completely unaware that they forgot to terminate their contract and are still staying together as before.
But this forgetful duo will run into big problems without their teammates who remind them of essential things.
Normally, when magical girls are in service, the status of their contract partners or transformation items is checked every year on the assessment day.
If the contract is terminated, the Gem Beast and the item will enter standby mode. The Star Tower can sense their status and will not come to inspect them when no one is using them.
But if the contract isn't terminated, and the person disappears on the assessment day and can't be found... this is a big problem.
Moreover, this is one of the five cornerstones of the Magic Foundation, the Jewel Beast Lily. Its disappearance would be even more serious.
In short, the Star Tower has spent a great deal of effort searching for Hanaya Rika and Jewel Beast Lily.
As it turned out, Hanaya Rika transformed in Miracle City a while ago... and everyone realized that this girl was too naive and forgot to terminate her contract.
Lily the gem beast also naturally became a pet bird for ten years.
Hoshino Yui harbored deep resentment: "I was the one in charge of investigating this matter..."
Text: 298. Find your mother.
"Participants will see balloons containing pre-prepared slips of paper along the way. They need to pop these balloons, retrieve the slips, and run to the finish line with the required items as instructed on them," the Microphone Man said. "However, our competition is a completely upgraded version."
In a typical race where items are hidden, the course is very short. You only need to find the hidden item in a track or school and reach the finish line.
However, the festival competition covers the entire city of Strange City within the arena, and due to the nature of the race, the use of magical flight by the participants is also restricted.
You must rely on your own two feet to run to the finish line.
The arena was ridiculously large, after all, the contestants were not ordinary people, and the physical abilities of ordinary people in this world were beyond imagination.
Therefore, to match the difficulty, the number of slips of paper prepared by the organizers was not increased due to the extremely large area, and they were quite scattered, greatly increasing the difficulty of finding them.
After finding the item or person they need to carry in the bizarre city, the contestants must rush onto the rainbow track built by the organizers on the sea.
Rainbow Track is an uphill road leading to the airship in the sky, and it is also aided by the mischievous monsters, with many traps and obstacles along the way.
If you step on the wrong step, you will fall directly into the sea. Flying magic and any ability to stay airborne are prohibited in this game.
It's a more difficult project than you might imagine, but you'll also get more points.
Before the race began, Mayumi Haga looked towards the rainbow track to the south and squinted slightly to measure the height.
...Wouldn't you die if you fell into the sea from a height of 5,000 meters?
She herself can survive, but is this really a competition standard based on the physical condition of an ordinary person?
While she was still in a daze, Mayumi Haga heard Hitomi Tono on the judges' panel talking enthusiastically with the others about the prepared notes.