Chapter 55 – The Stage of Fate No One Can Predict

As they ate and held their meeting at the same time, Shi Yu mainly brought up two matters.

First: their robbery of Jinrui Bank had failed to net them whatever was inside the safe.

Second: the recent frequent Dark Realm Disasters in Z City were due to damaged barriers in certain areas.

Lin Xi had thought Shi Yu was going to dump the blame for the first matter on her, but Shi Yu did no such thing.

“The second matter is thanks to Lin Xi,” Shi Yu said. “She learned it from Xia Xun.”

Zheng Mo, the Captain, stated that Lin Xi would be credited for her contribution.

You could actually get promoted and get a raise in ZERO? Lin Xi, a professional slacker at heart, felt her enthusiasm for work rise by the tiniest little bit.

“Lin Xi, you really are amazing!” Qin Ling praised her without holding back. “We Dark Realm Immigrants run for cover the second we see a Magical Girl, but you actually managed to get on good terms with one. Your mental fortitude is insane.”

Lin Xi was pretty scared of Magical Girls too, just not to the point of fearing for her life. Maybe it was because her soul was human, or maybe it was because the Cuddle Witch was just that bold when it came to pretty girls. After all, Xia Xun was on her cuddle list.

But the biggest reason was:

“Xia Xun is a really good person,” Lin Xi said. “A perfect, all-around beautiful girl warrior.”

“Wait, don’t tell me you’ve become a Xia Xun fan?” Qin Ling asked.

“Uh, I also became the vice president of Xia Xun’s fan club…”

“No waaay!” Qin Ling cried. Sitting in her chair, she angrily kicked her little feet. “Lin Xi, I was planning to have you follow my channel and become my fan! I wanted you to be my fan club’s operations manager!”

Lin Xi: “…”

Qin Ling said, “Because I’m going for Z City’s Annual Moe Queen this year!”

“If a Magical Girl can sit upon the throne of Moe Queen, then why can’t I?!”

“Uh,” Lin Xi said, struggling to keep a straight face, “as Dark Realm Immigrants, shouldn’t we maybe keep a low profile?”

Lin Xi admitted that Qin Ling was indeed incredibly cute. She was a virtual idol, so she definitely had plenty of fans, but her identity was a major problem.

“It’s fine,” Qin Ling said, pointing at her own head. “Can you see my fox ears? I don’t have a tail either.”

“Just like Lu Yi, I used Dr. Qian’s potion. While it’s in effect, I’m completely human in appearance.”

Honestly, Lin Xi really, really wanted to see Lu Yi’s Neko form and Qin Ling’s fox-person form. Hopefully she’d get the chance someday…

“I understand,” Lin Xi said. “Then I’ll take on the role of your fan operations manager too.”

“Lin Xi, are you planning to two-time us?”

“Huh? That… How does that count as two-timing?”

“You have to support only me! Only me!”

Shi Yu stepped in to smooth things over. “Qin Ling, Lin Xi becoming vice president of Xia Xun’s fan club was necessary for her spy mission. Understand?”

Seeing this, Lin Xi nodded along cooperatively.

In truth, it wasn’t entirely because of the mission. Lin Xi wanted to be Xia Xun’s fan, and she also wanted to be Qin Ling’s fan.

That definitely couldn’t count as two-timing.

After all, this kind of liking wasn’t romantic.

The Cuddle Witch planned to cuddle ten people. If she liked every single one of them in a romantic sense, wouldn’t that be like having ten boats under her feet and becoming a sinful queen of the sea?

Though perhaps the Cuddle Witch really did want to open a harem, Lin Xi had no such outrageous ambitions.

If she could meet one person she truly liked, that would be enough…

“Fine,” Qin Ling said. “But Lin Xi, you have to do everything you can to help me ascend the throne.”

“No problem! By the way, how many fans do you have?”

“I’m about to break five million.”

“Whoa, that’s amazing!” Lin Xi praised out loud, though she wasn’t optimistic on the inside.

Xia Xun already had ten million fans, not to mention Misaka Shirai, who had won Moe Queen two years in a row. Her follower count was probably even more terrifying.

“Ling, you can talk to Lin Xi about your personal business in private,” Zheng Mo said. “Let’s get back on topic.”

“As for the damage to Z City’s barrier, I’ll report it to Sister Lin. When the time comes, the organization will send people to secretly assist Magical Girl Su Tang in repairing the barrier.”

First they were helping rebuild S City, and now they were planning to help Z City repair its barrier. Lin Xi couldn’t help thinking that ZERO really was greatness beyond words.

No one present could do anything about the barrier for now, so the discussion returned to the first matter.

“In the near future, we may launch a second operation against Shuguang Technology,” Zheng Mo said.

Lin Xi immediately asked, “Which of their banks are we robbing next time?”

Zheng Mo: “…”

“Um, Lin Xi, robbing a bank isn’t the point. Our target is what’s inside the safe.”

Lin Xi felt a little awkward.

Zheng Mo continued, “At the moment, we still don’t know where they’ve moved the item. The investigation team is working on it, so our operations team is on standby.”

“Investigation team? Why are they so slow?” Qin Ling sounded dissatisfied. She badly wanted to show off her skills, pull off something big, build up her accomplishments, and seize the position of Captain. “The investigation team is useless. Time for me, the Genius Hacker, to step in.”

Zheng Mo did not object. “Just don’t let Shuguang Technology trace you back. They are Z City’s top tech group, after all. They definitely won’t be short on cybersecurity experts.”

“Those corporate drones working 996 in office buildings could never compare to me,” Qin Ling said haughtily. “By the way, Mo, what exactly are we stealing?”

Zheng Mo shook her head. “I don’t know yet either. In any case, this is an important mission.”

“Today is the day our new operations team is founded. Does everyone have confidence that we’ll complete this mission successfully?”

“Yes!” the girls answered in unison.

From this day on, they would be active upon the unpredictable stage of destiny that was Z City…

…

In a villa a thousand miles away from the Zheng family mansion, a young girl was eating dessert.

“Miss, I have bad news and even worse news. Which would you like to hear first?” asked the maid attending at the girl’s side.

The girl: “…”

She lifted her cup of hot Earl Grey tea. “The bad news.”

The maid said, “The bad news is that the strawberry cake you just ate was severely over the calorie limit. You will get so fat that you won’t fit into the dozen-plus dresses you bought today!”

“How rude!” the girl protested. “Don’t you know dessert goes into a separate stomach? It won’t make me fat at all!”

The maid retorted, “Why do you believe that self-deceiving nonsense humans say?”

“Mind your own business,” the girl said willfully.

The maid shook her head helplessly, then brought up the even worse news.

“Your pet was injured by someone.”

“Huh?!” The girl nearly sprayed out her tea. “Doesn’t Kun float way up in the sky like a kite? Who hurt it? A Magical Girl?”

“No,” the maid said. “Kun was injured by flames. That is not the ability of those three Magical Girl users.”

Bang!

The girl slammed her teacup down and snapped angrily, “In other words, some fire-wielding bastard burned my pet?”

“Yes.”

“That really is super-bad news. Go investigate this thoroughly. I’m going to ruin that bastard.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll make him understand that provoking our Dark Realm Alliance means he picked a fight with the wrong people.”

…

Lin Xi, who was happily eating dessert at Zheng Mo’s home, inexplicably sneezed twice.

It must be Shi Yu cursing me in her heart because I ate the strawberry on her cake.

Tch. How petty…