Apocalypse, then transforming into a magical girl

Xiao Lü didn't hear their conversation and didn't care about Xia Zhaozhao and Lao Qian's strange expressions. She simply turned to the five survivors and said directly:

"We have our own things to take care of, and we can't stay here to protect you forever."

"However, there's no reason to only save half a life. We will escort you to a relatively safe temporary shelter."

She paused, then asked, "Are there any suitable places around here?"

"A shelter?" Old Wang spoke first. "There are monsters and floods everywhere outside..."

"How's my workplace? Dafeng Industrial Park—no, that won't do." Old Qian had barely entertained the thought when he immediately dismissed it, "Too many entrances."

The remaining survivors also offered their opinions, but most of them were rejected.

However, Feng Yue seemed to have thought of something.

"Magical Girl...you said...you came from an unfinished building? How was it there?" Feng Yue suddenly asked, her voice filled with a hint of hope.

"Wait a minute." The veteran looked up, a thought forming in his mind. "Wei Yuan mentioned before that there's a bank building next to that building that could serve as a landmark, right?"

"Yes, the headquarters building of Xinmao Bank," Wei Yuan replied. "I'm quite familiar with that place."

"Bank buildings are better," the veteran replied bluntly. "These types of buildings only have one or two entrances, and the main structure is very sturdy, making them ideal refuges."

"Besides... it's close to where you came from, so after you drop us off there, you can go about your business as soon as possible." Wei Yuan glanced at the two of them, his eyes filled with gratitude.

He understood that these two couldn't stay by his side for long, and he would have to rely on themselves from now on.

Little Green made the decision: "Okay, let's go to that building. The monsters will only come from the ground floor and the rooftop. If we choose a middle floor, the only place we need to defend should be the stairwell."

"Since this place is so ideal and so conspicuous, could there already be other survivors?" Old Wang expressed his concern. "If there are too many people... I feel like it could cause some trouble."

"The disaster has only just begun," Little Green replied calmly.

"I think people's moral bottom line should still have inertia and won't completely collapse so quickly."

"And... even if we prepare for the worst, we're still here."

"Okay, let's go to the bank building then~" Xia Zhaozhao agreed to the plan.

"But... isn't the building still quite far from here? And there's that black stuff in the water and rain outside..." Feng Yue said with some concern.

"Don't worry about that." Now that the target was set, Xiao Lü stopped talking nonsense. She walked to the edge of the subway entrance blocked by the ice wall, raised her hand, and aimed it at the dirty puddles on the street.

As a chilling aura swept through, the murky water condensed at a visible speed, and half a minute later, an extremely simple, even ugly, small boat appeared out of thin air in front of everyone.

"Pfft—what the hell?" Xia Zhaozhao couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"As long as it works, it's fine." Little Green ignored her. "Go on up, everyone. Don't worry about it sinking or breaking, I'm here."

The five people carefully helped each other onto the cold little boat.

After everyone was seated, Xia Zhaozhao looked at the empty bow of the boat, then at Xiao Lü, and suddenly had a bad feeling.

Sure enough, Little Green looked up at her, then waved her hand, and the rain in the air condensed again, turning into an extremely simple and aesthetically unappealing... paddle.

Then, she smiled and tossed it in front of Xia Zhaozhao.

"Hey, why do I have to row the boat?!" Xia Zhaozhao protested.

"Because I used up too much magic and got tired, and they got tired too," Little Green replied innocently, her face expressionless.

"Nonsense! You look perfectly fine! I think you're just taking revenge!"

"So you know it's a grudge, huh?" The wicked grin finally shifted from Xia Zhaozhao's face to Xiao Lü's.

"Ugh... Just you wait, or I'll expose your secret—ah!"

Old Wang paid no attention to the interaction between the two, staring at the subway station where he had worked for who knows how many years, until it disappeared from sight.

……

Have a safe journey.

Or rather, everything along the way that might have caused unrest was eliminated by the two of them.

Finally, the ice boat glided for hundreds of meters on the puddles and arrived at the tall bank building.

The building is twenty-five stories high, and its black glass curtain wall reflects the reddish skylight, making it impossible to see the interior from the outside.

"These are all special bulletproof glass, very hard," Wei Yuan explained.

The building's glass doors were wide open, and the inside was pitch black, making it impossible to see what was happening.

The group carefully made their way ashore.

The most vigilant veteran took the lead, picking up some odds and ends from the ground and throwing them inside. All that could be heard was the sound of the items hitting the ground; there was no other noise.

He pressed himself against the wall, peering slightly inside. After confirming there were no unusual phenomena, he relaxed slightly, indicating that he could enter.

The group entered the empty lobby, passed through the deserted customer waiting area, and then entered the internal office area through the still-open security checkpoint.

"Will there be a vault up there? I've always wanted to take a bath in banknotes," Xia Zhaozhao asked Xiao Lü excitedly.

"...The vault is usually underground. And if you forcibly break it in, the banknotes will be dyed with a special dye. If you bathe in this stuff, your color will become very, very vibrant, like a poison dart frog."

For some reason, there was no one here, and there didn't seem to be any monsters either.

The group went up the stairs to the second floor and entered a room that looked like a VIP reception room.

"Wow—this is so luxurious? Banks really have money." Xia Zhaozhao looked around at the high-end furniture in the room and couldn't help but exclaim.

"This place mainly caters to high-net-worth clients, so naturally we have to be more particular about it," Wei Yuan explained.

……

Feng Yue suddenly screamed, her voice filled with terror: "Ah! How disgusting!"

The group tensed instantly, turning to look at her, and discovered several strange creatures huddled in a corner of the hall.

It was still the kind of monster made up of black, thread-like things, but it looked much smaller than the usual monsters, like several water-soaked, ant-shaped sponges.

The monster was limp and its body was also grayish-black. It kept wriggling towards the group.

Xia Zhaozhao shielded the group, thrusting her greatsword straight forward.

With a soft "plop," the monster was easily pierced through, turning into a lifeless, black, viscous mass.

"Tch!" Xia Zhaozhao scoffed and sheathed her sword.

It seems to be just a monster baby that hasn't eaten enough black thread-like things. It's not a threat and doesn't provide any experience points, Xia Zhaozhao thought.

Continuing their exploration of the second floor, they discovered that all the monsters there looked like this.

The survivors felt relieved to see that the monsters here were relatively weak.

"Hmm...it feels so quiet, there aren't any monsters that are even slightly powerful. It's so different from outside," Xia Zhaozhao complained.

"Yeah, it's probably because not much rainwater was poured into the bank building, so the black threads weren't enough to coalesce into a formed monster," Little Green offered a possible explanation.

"Um... Magical Girl?" Feng Yue hesitated for a moment before asking.

"You said... you still have your own things to do."

"Oh right, Little Green, why don't you go check over there first? It's very close by anyway."

Xia Zhaozhao remembered that they had indeed been tracking the escaped fleshy monster.

Xiao Lü thought about it and realized that it was indeed very close. If there were any unusual phenomena, she could fly over to provide support in less than half a minute, so she agreed to the decision.

Although she still felt a vague unease, the escaped monster posed a greater threat.

She thought for a moment and then said simply, "You can rest on the second floor for now. I won't take too long. If anything unexpected happens, please let me know via walkie-talkie."

"Alright." The veteran was also somewhat wary. "Just because the monsters here aren't strong doesn't mean the monsters up above are weak too."

"...By the way, you don't need to call us 'sirs'. We have our own code names. I'm 'Mayfly,' and that guy is 'Shrike,'" Little Green added.

After confirming that the frequencies of the four walkie-talkies were consistent, she didn't delay any longer. Her body floated into the air, she slipped out of the bank building, and flew towards the unfinished building she had seen earlier.

She returned to the fourth-floor landing, where the subway employee's body still lay. Once again, she felt that familiar, faint presence.

The aura continued to extend upwards. It seemed that the delay hadn't been inconvenient; the deformed monster he was tracking was still moving upwards.