Apocalypse, then transforming into a magical girl

The two took off again, flying further north to the northern suburbs of the city, where the huge, useless power transmission tower rapidly shrank.

"Are you going to the crematorium?" the wolf's voice rang out beside Little Green.

"Yes," Little Green replied succinctly.

There's no point in hiding this; in fact, the other party clearly already knew the answer.

Driving all the way from the ring road, where else can you go besides the crematorium after getting off at this ramp?

"Over at the crematorium, the aura of bad guys... it's so strong, so very strong," the wolf said, his eyes fixed on that spot.

The word "bad person," when spoken by her, always carries a pure, fairytale-like quality, as if it doesn't belong to this world.

"What I want to say is that the world is about to be destroyed. Good people, without power, will not be able to survive in the apocalypse."

She carefully considered her words, trying to probe the other person's moral boundaries in a tone that was as gentle as possible and not as didactic.

"I know." The wolf's voice held no hint of offense, sounding like that of a well-behaved child discussing a math problem.

"Minor misdeeds and evil deeds are normal, even before the end of the world. I won't get too angry about them."

The two flew over a forest, where the wolf tried to straighten a long-dead tree, returning it to a relatively correct position.

"After all, you can't say that everyone who does petty evil is a bad person," Wolf added.

She wouldn't kill such a person. Her heart told her that if people weren't completely corrupt, then killing them would be a great evil.

If that's the case, you'd have to do a lot of good deeds to make up for it. Before that happens, you'll definitely feel very, very sad.

"Petty mischief in the apocalypse...so you won't react to things like theft and robbery?"

Seeing that the other party seemed to be able to communicate normally, Xiao Lü decided to follow the other party's logic and try to figure out where her deadline was.

"No, they will be disciplined, but they won't be killed."

"So, what kind of person did you kill?" she asked the most crucial question.

"He wants to kill all sorts of people in front of him," the wolf replied simply and directly.

"...That's a madman, not a bad person."

Then, she immediately added another sentence.

"However, it's better to kill him."

The immense danger posed by madmen, or madmen fused with deformities, has been proven.

From any perspective, eliminating them in advance is not a bad solution. This is not discrimination, but rather based on the most basic survival strategy.

"No," the wolf said, shaking its head firmly.

"A broken person is a bad person." There was no trace of confusion in her eyes; she was quite stubborn about this issue.

"Okay, so, what's the story behind it?" She changed to a more direct way of asking.

"It might take a while."

As the wolf spoke, it adjusted its flight posture so that its hair could be blown in one direction by the wind.

"When I arrived here, I found the survivors over at the crematorium. They were facing a water shortage."

"The broken man controls the only water source."

Xiao Lü nodded, signaling the other party to continue.

A classic post-apocalyptic start, with the powerful oppressing the weak—a cliché and logical premise. But why the madness?

"He forced someone he had a conflict with to eat insects. He said that only after that person had eaten a certain number of insects could he give him water."

"...Huh?" Little Green's brain went blank for a moment.

"Why...eat bugs? And most importantly, why eat them 'together'?"

This was completely beyond her conventional imagination of the evil of humanity in the apocalypse.

"Because he's a contracted competitive eater with a company. And the person he had a conflict with... I think he's some kind of... high-level executive at this company? I can't remember the title."

"That competitive eater said that the executive in the company forced them, the livestreamers, to eat all sorts of strange foods."

"Earthworms, sea cockroaches, and something called... giant isopods."

He said that eating these things would generate more... "traffic"? But they didn't get much of the money they earned.

"A ruthless livestreamer." She immediately understood.

Moreover, this was a hardcore livestreamer involved in a labor dispute, and the location of the appearance was a crematorium.

The way this apocalypse unfolds is getting more and more creative.

"The competitive eater said that the reason he and that guy came to the crematorium was because one of his colleagues suffocated to death during a live broadcast."

"That person doesn't seem to have any family, so the two of them came to help with the funeral arrangements."

It seemed that no one in that sweatshop-like live broadcast setting knew the Heimlich maneuver. A thoroughly unscrupulous company, she thought.

"But that still doesn't explain why they had to eat 'together'. Why not just force that higher-up to eat?"

"The competitive eater said that because he has been making those videos for a long time, he has developed the ability to eat insects without feeling nauseous."

"So he told everyone to continue eating normal food, while he and that high-ranking official were responsible for eating the insects that were brought from the crematorium as a supplement to save food."

...They've got some skills, actually.

By using moral blackmail, one can generously spend the money of one's enemy while suffering almost no physical or psychological loss.

It can create a glorious (?) image of selflessness among the survivors, while simultaneously disgusting the enemy. To put it another way, it can be considered clever.

"If that's all there is to it, then it's completely understandable," Xiao Lü said.

"In a post-apocalyptic world, this doesn't even qualify as revenge; it's more like a twisted sense of humor, and in some ways, it could even be considered merciful."

"Yes, that's what I think too." The wolf nodded, agreeing with her analysis.

"But what happened next? Why did he go insane?"

"That high-ranking official was forced to eat insects. But he died while eating them."

They could already see the iconic chimney of the crematorium in the distance.

"The cause of death... was also choking on vomit," Wolf continued. "There was a survivor at the crematorium who used to be a forensic pathologist; that was his diagnosis."

"An eye for an eye... No, that can't be it." Little Green blurted out.

"Forensic doctors are also doctors. If a forensic doctor was at the scene, it's impossible that they wouldn't know how to handle this situation. It's definitely not a simple case of death by suffocation."

"He wasn't at the scene. He was only called over by the 'big eater' to perform an autopsy after the incident."

The wolf calmly added this information, which made sense.

"So, the competitive eater himself was terrified and burst into tears on the spot, repeatedly emphasizing that he had no intention of killing anyone. He... cried there for a very long time."

"After that, he locked himself back in his room."

"Were you spying on him?"

"No." The wolf shook its head.

"I just felt sorry for him and didn't go to see him again."

"But...and then not long after, he went insane and started killing people."

The wolf paused here, and his tone became somewhat unpleasant.

"So I killed him."