Get off work and become a magical girl

Chapter 364 Mint's Frustration

"Yes, your guess was correct."

The next day at noon, Mint was in a café in the Emerald Green district, with one hand supporting her cheek and the other holding a cup of colorful, exotic drinks. She was biting on the straw and slurping her words.

Lin Xiaolu naturally had to keep her promise to treat everyone she had made to lunch. So, on the day off before the second assessment, she found a highly-rated coffee shop based on online recommendations. The three of them then had lunch together in a corner of the coffee shop.

"Although I can find many excuses if you nitpick the wordplay, from the most fundamental point of view, I am indeed one of the people you call 'Dawn of the Ashes'."

Lin Xiaolu thought the other party might not be willing to tell the truth, but to her surprise, halfway through the meal, Bohe quite bluntly revealed her secrets to the two of them: "Why do you even need to ask me this question? Aren't you two already?"

"Huh? Me? Black Ash Dawn? What nonsense are you talking about?"

Lin Xiaolu was completely baffled, and her voice involuntarily rose half an octave. However, considering that the coffee shop was a public place, even though there were no other customers around, she still tried to lower her voice and said somewhat warily, "When I first became a magical girl, I was almost killed by you several times! What are you thinking? Do you really think I'm one of your people? I'm actually thinking of calling the sheriff right now. What are you Black Dawn doing in the magical kingdom?"

"Stop pretending. I, the beast, have already laid my cards on the table. What are you two sacrificial offspring still doing to me?"

Mint sipped her drink nonchalantly: "Just like you can sense me, any two members of the Ash Army could feel the fluctuations of the remnant beast magic on you two. Not to mention, in the eyes of the Beastmen, you are simply walking human light bulbs, impossible to mistake."

"You came to me because you wanted to ask about the Beast Child and whether the higher-ups had any plans, right?"

She spread her hands: "There were surveillance cameras in the maze, which is why I didn't want to say much. Now that we're out of the maze, what's there to hide? If you're not even willing to admit this, then there's no way we can continue talking."

Lin Xiaolu was speechless for a moment.

It wasn't that she couldn't argue with Mint, but rather that the amount of information revealed in just a few words was simply too much.

Neither Lin Xiaolu nor Bai Jingxuan had heard the terms "beast cub" or "sacrifice cub" for the first time. As early as last year, during the attack on the Fangting City Welfare Institute by Black Dawn, the soldier named "Bingchu San" had already used this term to describe Bai Jingxuan.

Now that things have come to this, Lin Xiaolu and the others are no longer completely ignorant about the so-called "Holy Son Project," and naturally know that all these names are extensions of this project. However, she never expected that by coming to the Magic Kingdom to participate in an assessment, she would actually encounter the very person in charge.

"You said...you're that beast?"

Trying to sort out her somewhat chaotic thoughts, Lin Xiaolu decided to start with the more important question: "Could you explain what these so-called sacrificial offspring and beast offspring are?"

"You really don't know?"

Lin Xiaolu's puzzled expression seemed genuine, and Bai Jingxuan beside her also looked bewildered. Both of them clearly lacked understanding of these concepts, which finally convinced Bohe a little: "Wait a minute, are you two both unnaturalized?"

What is "unnaturalized"?

Bai Jingxuan's question finally defeated Bohe.

She gave a look that said, "This is troublesome," her expression shifting, and she even stopped drinking her beverage. After a while, she spoke again: "Unincorporated, literally, means not returning to the embrace of the Beast Lord... or rather, it means not joining the Black Dawn, a sacrificial child who has been left out in exile."

“But generally speaking, ‘unincorporated’ sacrificial children are often ordinary people. The Ember Army will quickly find those children who are suitable to become sacrificial children and bring them back to the interior of the Black Ember Dawn so that they can learn and adapt to their rightful power.”

"I mean, people like the two of you..."

She pointed at Bai Jingxuan and Lin Xiaolu, then hesitated, saying, "Not only were they not found by the organization, but they also became sacrifices to magical girls. Theoretically, they shouldn't exist."

"Aren't you a magical girl too?" Lin Xiaolu asked, somewhat puzzled.

“No, we’re not like you…” Mint’s expression was a little strange: “No, you two are serious? You really don’t know anything? I, uh, oh dear… I was actually quite happy because I just happened to run into two sacrificial children left behind by the moth, but now I’m in trouble.”

Clearly, she seemed to have mistaken Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan's identities for some reason, which is why she was so annoyed now that she realized her mistake.

However, Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan obviously couldn't understand her suffering, so the two could only look at each other, puzzled by Bohe's reaction.

Mint's inner turmoil continued; she not only talked to herself but even began to wallow in self-pity, frantically scratching her hair.
"No, so can you two answer me first? What's going on with you? Isn't Moth supposed to be in your city? Why have you really become magical girls? Isn't anyone going to do anything about this?"

"Even if you say so..."

Lin Xiaolu blinked: "It's not like nobody came looking for us, is it?"

"Yes, there have been, and more than once," Bai Jingxuan echoed in reply.

"That makes sense, someone must have come looking for you. So what? Why didn't you go with them? You should be asking why they let you go?" Mint asked, looking puzzled.

"Because it was killed by the larkspur."

"Because I killed him."

Lin Xiaolu and Bai Jingxuan continued their back-and-forth banter.

"Huh...huh? Kill him?"

Mint looked at her as if she were listening to gibberish: "Is this something that can be killed? No, your city has magical girls who can kill moths, so it's normal that the other Ember Army and Ember Guards can't beat them, but what you're saying is..."

She clapped her hands suddenly: "You two aren't Moth's sacrifice children? You were chosen as magical girls from the very beginning? I swear... I was wondering how Moth managed to hide two sacrifice children right under Cornflower's nose. So she really didn't accomplish anything in your Fangting!"

Now she finally understood that she had been too clever for her own good.

The reason she was so distraught actually dates back to before the maze assessment began.

When she was first assigned to Squad 629 and noticed the residual beast magic fluctuations on her two teammates, she thought she had discovered the hidden truth: that Moth had not died without accomplishing anything; although she was killed by Cornflower, she had successfully hidden two sacrificial children.

Upon realizing this "truth," Mint's mind began to work. Although she really wanted to confess her identity to the two priestesses, they were in the examination hall at the time, and there were bound to be eavesdroppers. So she devised a story, using the excuse that she was from the Central City and had heard about Fang Ting to fool them.

However, as a Beast Child, her control over the residual beast magic far surpasses that of a Priest Child. If she so desired, she could subtly reveal her magical fluctuations to her two teammates on a small scale. In Mint's mind, since these two were both Priest Children, they would naturally recognize her identity once they sensed her residual beast magic.

However, things didn't go so smoothly at all.

Of the two teammates, the one codenamed Snow White did indeed detect her magical fluctuations, but it was completely different from what Mint had expected. When Snow White discovered her magical fluctuations, she didn't show any kindness; instead, she became even more hostile towards her.

As for Bai Mei, she was an idiot, completely oblivious to her own magical fluctuations. And no matter how much she tried to subtly hint at it, she didn't react at all.

Mint had been subtly hinting at the assessment throughout, but she felt like she was flirting with a blind man. As a result, towards the middle and later stages of the assessment, she started to get anxious and deliberately amplified the range of influence of her magical fluctuations.

As a result, his two teammates didn't react much, which attracted a dart.

(End of this chapter)