Even if you're a corrupted magical girl, you still have to try to redeem yourself.

So why did things turn out this way? We have to go back a few days.

No, there's really nothing to say. Yuuki En felt that since Koumori and Kuroba Ryouse had already created such an awkward situation, a real conflict between the two sides was only a matter of time. So she needed to hurry up and improve her combat power so that she wouldn't be able to fight back when the battle started.

When sparring with Tomoe, both of them were worried about hurting each other, so they held back. Moreover, Tomoe's combat strength was slightly weaker than Yuuki Yuuki's, so she could not provide as much help to Yuuki Yuuki.

However, this issue doesn't need to be considered when training with Hong Moli and the others.

Moreover, the two became magical girls around the same time. It was only because one was a stat monster and the other a talent monster that they were able to catch up with the rest of the magical girls, but there is still a lot they need to learn.

For example, Yuuki Yuki needs to better control her magic power so that every drop can be used effectively; and Inuyama Tomoe needs to increase her magic power reserves so that she doesn't run out of magic power after firing a few shots.

Magic replenishment, special training—basically, everyone had finished their summer homework, and the second half of summer vacation would likely consist of this repetitive daily routine.

Even if Yuuki didn't finish her summer homework, her choice wouldn't change. After all, it was a matter of life and death, and Yuuki could still distinguish between the importance of her studies and her own safety. As long as she practiced more and became stronger, she would have a better chance when facing Kuroba Laisei.

To Yuuki Yuuki's surprise, Herika had been unusually quiet lately, only engaging in normal conversations in the group chat and not trying to force everyone to do anything together.

At first, Yuuki Yuuki didn't have any strong feelings. After a week, Helica was still very well-behaved, just like a normal person.

The fact that Helica acts like a normal person is already quite abnormal; for details, please refer to Helica's past experiences.

Yuuki Yuuki specifically messaged Yuuki Tamaki to ask why he insisted on taking Helica home that night, and what they talked about on the way home. Yuuki Tamaki's answer remained unchanged.

"At the time, I just wanted to vet my younger sister's future girlfriend."

"I talked to her about the band's past and asked her what she thought of Xiaoyuan."

Despite Yuuki Yuki's repeated insistence that Helica was not her future girlfriend, Yuuki Tamaki's thoughts and actions at the time were not entirely without fault.

After all, everything Yuuki Tamaki said was the truth, and Yuuki Yuki really couldn't find fault with it.

Unbeknownst to Yuuki Yukina, Helica was also secretly beginning a frantic training regimen to improve her strength.

As for Mizuno Yu, she spent the entire holiday learning how to manage her company. When no enemies appear, Mizuno Yu generally doesn't actively improve her strength.

For example, right now, Mizuno Yu is sitting in one of the top-notch buffet restaurants in Tsukishima City, desperately stuffing her mouth with steak that she can no longer swallow.

At the next table, a tall woman with short hair and a red highlight on her forehead was also wolfing down the food on the table.

The person at the next table was none other than Laughter Mountain, the woman who fought Mizuno Yuu for three hundred rounds in the hot spring and ultimately won.

To understand why they were indulging in such a feast, we need to go back a little bit.

Today is payday for Rongshan Deng. After receiving his salary, while checking his payment information, Rongshan Deng happened to see a daily limited-edition coupon for a high-end buffet restaurant on his phone. He clicked on it and, by sheer luck, managed to snag this unique coupon.

So she used the coupon to pay for a regular rice bowl at this upscale buffet.

As luck would have it, Mizuno Yu happened to see the back of Laughter Mountain as she walked into the buffet restaurant, and followed her into the restaurant.

"I've come to ask for the secret to becoming powerful!" Mizuno Yu said, sitting down at the table next to Lava Mountain Lantern, who had just taken his seat.

Laughter Mountain glanced sideways at Mizuno Yu, who was sitting at the next table, and tried to recall if he had seen her somewhere before.

Although Mizuno Yu was dressed up compared to last time, the stark contrast between her blue hair and her serious, icy expression as she delivered her passionate lines immediately reminded Lava Mountain Lantern of her identity.

"Hmph, so it's you. Then prove with your actions whether you've grown since our last meeting." Lancelot wrapped a disposable napkin around his neck and slowly raised the knife and fork in front of him.

“No problem!” Mizuno Yui confidently gripped her knife and fork. “Is dining here also a necessary step towards becoming stronger?”

"Of course, there are opportunities to become stronger everywhere in life, but you also need a pair of eyes to spot them!" Lungshan Deng tapped his fist holding the knife and fork lightly on the table.

“Opportunity…” Mizuno Yu repeated what Rokuzan had said in her mind thoughtfully, but she couldn’t connect eating with becoming stronger at all.

But Mizuno Yu's strength lies in her willingness to ask questions: "Please tell me the secret to becoming strong! I want to be as strong as you!"

"The secret to becoming strong is to put your all into practice and to put your all into eating. That's what makes you healthy. If you want to become stronger, try to keep up with my pace."

The molten mountain lamp exhaled a puff of hot air from its nostrils and, with great vigor, waved to the approaching waiter.

"Ten thick-cut steaks, please." Lancelot's confident and natural tone caught the waiter and Yuu Mizuno off guard, preventing them from immediately grasping just how astonishing her words were.

Ten, ten portions.

As expected of a strong person, this is the magnanimity of a strong person. Truly extraordinary.

“Me too,” Mizuno Yuu retorted, not to be outdone.

"Ten more sea urchin sashimi, please." Lava Lantern's order wasn't finished yet. (Chat Part 2 (4))

“Me too,” Mizuno Yuya chimed in.

"Okay, five more servings of salt-grilled saury, please."

Me too.

"Five glasses of fresh beer, too."

"I also……"

"That won't do." Akari interrupted Mizuno Yu for the first time: "You're still a middle school student, you can't drink alcohol. Getting stronger takes time. You won't get stronger if you do things you can't do right now!"

"Oh!"

Soon after, the endurance contest between Mizuno Yu and Lava Mountain Lantern officially began, allowing Mizuno Yu to once again experience the power of Lava Mountain Lantern.

When he could no longer hold on, Lava Lantern asked the waiter to add ten tomahawk lamb chops and capelin.

This time, it was another failure on my part.

Mizuno Yuu will remember this day and will strive to live by it as her life's motto in the days to come.

When Mizuno Yu first recounted her experiences of that day to her friends, they seemed deeply moved as well.

Her close friend, Helica, commented on this as follows:

"So this is why you, idiot, ended up in the hospital because of a stomach ailment?"

Chapter Sixty-Two Visiting the Sick

When Yuuki En saw Mizuno Yu again during this holiday, she was already in a hospital bed.

It is only right and proper to visit a friend from the same club who is hospitalized due to illness.

When Yuuki heard the news, she was very worried. She even fantasized that Mizuno Yu's family business rivals might have poisoned her, the future heir to the family business. She imagined a melodramatic business war in her mind.

The original storyline of Mizuno Yuu also included a business battle element, but the content was too melodramatic and too disconnected from the main plot. At most, it could only be attributed to Shizuka's influence. When a real business battle actually occurred, the original protagonist, Nishio Ryū, had nothing to do with it. Ryū was mostly just a bystander who offered comfort and was a tool for Shizuka.

Yuuki Yui and Mizuno Yui are currently just ordinary club friends, and Yuuki Yui has no plans to pursue Mizuno Yui, so those storylines are dispensable to Yuuki Yui.

But when she heard that Mizuno was ill, she was genuinely flustered, since this world was different from the game world she knew.

She was perfectly fine the day before, but the next day Mizuno Yuu was suddenly hospitalized, which made Yuuki Yuuki's imagination run wild.

The other members of Nijisanji breathed a sigh of relief when they entered the ward and saw the small card on Mizuno Yu's bedside table that said she had gastrointestinal problems caused by overeating.

"I tried to improve my endurance by eating, but I still couldn't compete with others... I can't be like General Yumimoto..." Lying on the hospital bed, Mizuno Yu weakly raised her hand, which was receiving an IV drip, but Herika grabbed it and pressed it back down.

Please, stop thinking about that General Yumimoto at a time like this, okay? Yuki Yuki breathed a sigh of relief, but her head started to ache.

Fortunately, Mizuno Yu's stomach problems were simply caused by her own clumsiness and overeating...

What's good about it? It's not good at all. Why are all the teammates I'm trying to clear my name so abstract?

Before this, Yuuki Yui had only heard of people vomiting from eating too much at buffets, but she had never heard of anyone developing stomach problems from eating there.

It's hard to imagine how Mizuno Yu managed to do that.

Furthermore, neither Herika, Yuuki Yuki, nor Hayashi Mustardo had much experience visiting patients. They hesitated for a long time about what to bring when they went to see the doctor, otherwise they wouldn't have arrived at Mizuno Yu's ward so late, almost at noon.

Based on Yuuki Yuuki's experience before her transmigration, bringing some oranges when visiting a sick person is always a good idea.

With its peel, strong flavor, and rich nutrition, it's a perfect gift for a sick person. So, Yuuki Yuen reluctantly bought a whole bag of oranges from the exorbitantly priced fruit market and made a pure orange fruit basket.

Herlica's idea was similar to Yuuki Yuuki's; she wanted to send something easy to eat and nutritious, so she brought a whole case of milk.

After they brought these items to the ward, the nurses told them that Mizuno Yuu could not eat any of these things for a period of time.

Since they had already taken them and couldn't take them back, the four members of Nijisanji chatted in the hospital room while eating oranges and drinking milk.

To be precise, the other three people were eating, while Mizuno Yu, who was a patient, was watching.

However, this kind of passive play seems to be enjoyed by Mizuno Yu, and she herself has no objection to it—Yuki En guessed.

Of the three, only Lin Jiezi brought something relatively normal—Lin Jiezi brought a box of towel cakes, the kind of towels decorated to look like cakes, which at least Mizuno Yu might actually need.

This visit did dispel some of Yuuki Emi's preconceived notions. Before, she had always thought that wealthy people had private doctors and that they could just stay home and recover from illness.

It seems that nowadays, no matter who is sick, they will go to the hospital.

However, the ward where Mizuno Yu stayed was really nice; in a single room, one person doesn't have to worry about being disturbed by others.

The biggest disturbance to Mizuno Yui right now is the Nijisanji members who are eating oranges, drinking milk, and chatting.

Once again, Yuuki witnessed Helica's volatile temper firsthand. She seemed much more normal than she appeared online, but Yuuki still keenly noticed that as the group chatted in the hospital room, Helica kept glancing at her intentionally or unintentionally.

Whenever Herlica's gaze inadvertently overlapped with hers, Herlica would quickly turn her head away to deliberately avert her gaze.

It's very strange, extremely strange. Ever since that day when the two of them kissed to replenish their mana, Helica has become very strange.

Having undergone mana replenishment and being interrogated—or rather, questioned—by her own sister as if she were her future girlfriend, it's understandable that she would feel shy about interacting with her.

Therefore, upon seeing Helica, who was still as irritable as ever, Yuuki Yukino stopped thinking about it.

The group didn't stay in the ward for long. Despite keeping their voices down, the nurses reminded them several times not to disturb the patient. After a brief farewell to Mizuno Yu, they left the ward.

"Seriously, this idiot, has he never been to a buffet before!" Herika muttered to herself as she walked down the corridor of the inpatient ward after leaving the house.

For some reason, the ceiling in the hospital ward corridor was very low, so low that Yuuki Eri could reach it by standing on tiptoe. It was covered with a white material that was hard to tell whether it was plastic or metal, and there were posters with patient instructions hanging on the walls.

The corridor was entirely white, and if it weren't for Helica and Lin Jiezi walking beside her, it would have been quite eerie.

The quiet corridor was deserted except for a few of them. A square monitor hanging from the ceiling displayed the time as morning.

The corridor reeked of disinfectant, creating an incredibly oppressive atmosphere. Even Herika, after shouting a couple of times outside, unconsciously lowered her voice and said a few more words before shutting up.

Yuuki Yui disliked this kind of place, and she believed that no one could like such a depressing place as a hospital.

After going around the stairs and down floor by floor, the smell of disinfectant gradually faded, and the fresh air that greeted me after leaving the hospital ward building came into view.

Between the inpatient ward and the outpatient building is a fairly spacious small square, which could also be called a garden. There are a few benches and flower beds filled with various flowers and plants, which barely alleviates the oppressive atmosphere in the hospital.

"Hoo—" Helica took a deep breath of the fresh outdoor air and exhaled a long breath of stale air. She seemed to be healed, and her solemn expression relaxed. She also became more talkative, as if she wanted to vent all the unpleasantness that had been building up in the hospital building.

"It's so much better outside. I'm going to suffocate in the hospital. Hmph, I really don't know how that idiot Mizuno Yu can endure this long. Wait, does she think being hospitalized is some kind of trial?"

"Maybe that's just Mizuno's personality," Yuuki Yui replied casually.

Yuuki skipped her morning practice in order to see Mizuno Yu.