The Infinite World of Weapon Girls

That's all—thank you to all the Tina fans who finished reading! (A sentimental and weak-willed person like Yue-chan)

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I have the courage to be your wings

Because I possess magic that makes me unafraid of any trial.

Offering a bouquet to the world we encounter for the first time

In this instant, you and I are connected.

Even if the answer is irrelevant

It doesn't matter

World peace begins tomorrow.

【Ta54, in accordance with the Loli Protection Law, you are hereby punished with the extreme penalty!】

(Sorry, yesterday I said 'afternoon update - extra chapter', QAQ)

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Rentaro went out first, followed by J and his group.

When J saw Rentaro flip onto his bicycle, he feigned surprise: "Hey! Rentaro, by the time you get there on your bicycle, your body will probably be cold. Shall we take a taxi together?"

Rentaro certainly didn't have the money for a taxi, but the mission was extremely urgent, so he hesitated for a moment: "Um... this..."

His gaze swept over J, the one who made the suggestion, with a mixture of closeness and distance.

"Don't look at me, of course you're the one paying."

However, Uncle J was deeply moved by the suggestive glances that Rentaro kept giving him and refused.

"Then I'll just ride my bicycle. There are 325 households on the street. You guys better try to get there quickly!" Rentaro pushed his bicycle out and then leaned into the house to call out, "...Enju, let's go!"

"Oh... I'm coming!"

This rabbit-type Initiator loli, who likes to refer to herself as "this humble servant," leaped out like a rabbit with amazing jumping power, tracing an arc through the air, and landed steadily on Rentaro's neck.

After a long while of shouting and damned flirting, Yeonjoo obediently sat back on the back of the bicycle, and then the bicycle shot straight out like an arrow, as if riding the wind.

At this moment, Wu Teng also slowly walked out of the house.

J watched Rentaro and his companion disappear rapidly at the end of the roadside slope and muttered to himself, "Let's hurry up too. In the anime, Rentaro can ride his bicycle at a speed that leaves Enju off the road without him even noticing... it might actually be faster than a car."

"You have money?" The girl glanced at him.

When traveling, Tina's identity would cause many inconveniences, and bringing along an unknown species like Kuriboh would likely make her even more vulnerable to being targeted. So, the girl asked Konan to use Shadow Step to follow her invisibly.

"Of course not, but who says you can't take a taxi if you don't have money?"

Faced with Tina's look that seemed to say, "Why are you so good at taking free rides?", J quickly retorted, "Hey! Don't look at me like that, okay? I'm a law-abiding citizen, a law-abiding citizen who pays for rides."

Wu Teng, being J's close friend, quickly came over to explain, "Tina, don't misunderstand. J has never ridden in a taxi for free. Really, he always kicks the driver out and steals the car."

"...Don't take my words out of context! I've only ever stolen cars in the GTA5 world where 'it's abnormal not to steal cars!'"

"..."

Not long after, a white taxi pulled up to the side of the road at J's hailing. The driver was a young man who, despite being only thirty, already had a full beard and looked quite weathered.

Upon seeing the only girl among the three, the perceptive driver immediately noticed her beautiful, crimson eyes. He quickly turned around and said nervously, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, this vehicle does not carry any of the Cursed Children."

Then, it decisively shifted gears and accelerated, and the four wheels started turning.

When the cursed child is emotionally agitated and unleashes their power, their pupils turn red, just like those of a Gastrea.

—This is often seen as a mark of curse, and a cursed child is despised by everyone like a rat in the street.

...Therefore, children born with red eyes like Tina are easily subjected to undeserved misfortune. Being prevented from taking a taxi is the least of their worries; some might even run them over.

Suddenly, a blow with the force of a thousand pounds slammed into the front of the car with a loud thud.

J slammed his foot hard on the metal hood of the car, the terrifying force causing the entire vehicle to jolt and the metal hood to dent significantly... The four tires underneath were spinning rapidly, only kicking up dust on the ground, while the car remained completely still. The driver inside stared wide-eyed in terror.

This is a leg prosthesis...?!

Only prosthetics have this kind of power.

The driver who had this thought immediately chickened out; he couldn't afford to mess with this kind of person.

"Hey salty fish, let me ask you something." J, the owner of this long-legged creature, put one foot on the hood of the car and asked casually, "In what year did the Gastrea catastrophe break out?"

The driver happened to be a member of the "looted generation," someone who had personally experienced that unprecedented annihilation disaster. They would never forget that era that plunged all of humanity into a nightmare of despair.

"2... What happened in 2021?"

“It’s 2031 now, exactly ten years have passed.” J pointed at the quiet Tina with his thumb and asked the driver, “How old does she look to me?”

"12... or 13?" Hesitant.

"That settles it. Have you ever seen a cursed child older than 10 years old?"

"That's true... but... but we can't rule out the possibility that she's precocious."

Click-click—!

The driver's biggest regret in his life was saying "precocious" in front of this girl; he should have said "grown up quickly"!

He will probably never forget the moment after today when the massive, black-holed gun barrel, exuding an aura of death, was pointed at him, no more than a centimeter from the tip of his nose.

Gastrea might infect or dismember themselves at most, but at this distance, a single shot would likely cause their entire head to explode into a cloud of blood.

Tina held the anti-materiel sniper rifle steady with one hand, unmoved, while the driver beneath the gun was trembling like a leaf.

Wu Teng could clearly sense the murderous intent emanating from beneath the girl's calm expression, and quickly advised, "Tina... no, no, no! Young people are naive and ignorant, don't take it personally. If we cause a murder, our mission will be in serious trouble..."

"Turn off the engine, turn off the engine, think about the bigger picture... think about the bigger picture..." Uncle J also put his feet off the hood of the car and urged him with the same trepidation.

……

A minute later, the three of them, who had finally calmed Tina's anger down, boarded the car.

"Driver, you've upset my sister. Is it too much to ask for a free ride?"

J, sitting in the back, shouted to the driver in front, who nodded hurriedly, his forehead still covered in cold sweat, not daring to disobey in the slightest.

"Have you found out?" J asked Wu Teng in a low voice.

“Hmm.” Wu Teng nodded solemnly, “...Besides Wang Gaosi, Nata, the last one, like the Death Knight, is a member of the Twilight Council, named [Antusheng], ranked 230th on the ladder, bloodline ability... unknown.”

Even though Tina was sitting in the passenger seat, she heard everything clearly. She wondered why she could instantly associate such a familiar name with his general abilities...

—Andersen…writing stories?

While it may not be entirely reliable, just like in the past when playing games, there were quite a few people who had the ID "I am a warrior" but were actually assassins or mages.

“230 people…that doesn’t sound like much of a concern.” J put aside what he considered unimportant for the time being and continued, “Let’s talk about the mission. The main objective is to prevent the Tokyo mass extinction, but assisting in killing Aldebaran has become an optional mission?”

Upon hearing the word "mass extinction," the girl's gaze calmed and unconsciously turned forward. She saw a continuous stretch of buildings of all shapes and sizes, but the buildings obscured her view of Tokyo.

But only by raising one's gaze can one see, at the far end of the horizon against the azure sky, encircling the entire Tokyo area, a dozen towering, black, lacquered stone monuments; the sheer scale of their presence is beyond description.

Each megalith is identical in size, 1.618 kilometers high and 1 kilometer wide. They stand on the outskirts of the ruined city, forming a region. The powerful magnetic field network formed by their interconnections keeps out the huge and ferocious Gastrea, allowing the humans who live within the barrier of the megaliths to have temporary peace.

The so-called "mass extinction" refers to the event where, due to the emergence of the "final form of Gastrea" "Stage 5" or other reasons, the megaliths collapse, and all the covetous Gastrea invade human areas in large numbers, causing a bloody massacre that turns paradise into hell.

"So, besides Aldebaran, there are other things that could cause the Tokyo mass extinction?"

The more Wu Teng analyzed, the more frightened he became.

"Although there is Scorpio...didn't Scorpio appear before Aldebaran?"

Scorpio refers to the Gastrea, a Stage 5 gastrea that appears early in the anime.

Wu Teng's two sentences immediately made the atmosphere in the car freeze, and the car happened to be stuck at a red light and slowly came to a stop.

"Let me go! Let me go! What right do you have to arrest me?!"

Through the rolled-down car window, everyone's gaze simultaneously turned to the wide sidewalk at the edge of the road.

Two men in police uniforms were dragging a little girl, dressed only in thin clothes and filthy both in appearance, into a secluded alley.

"Waaah... You clearly don't even know what I did, so why are you arresting me?!"

She had long, red hair that reached past her shoulders, but her bright red eyes, gleaming with intense emotion, highlighted her status as a cursed child. At this moment, she resembled a small animal being easily lifted, her scarred and thin ankles dangling in the air, kicking wildly. Her expression and eyes were filled with anger and deep helplessness.

"But we know all about what you're about to do, huh, you cursed children... You're as evil as Gastrea!"

One of the policemen let out a sinister laugh and dragged the little girl even more roughly.

The streets were bustling with people, but what was terrifying was that some pedestrians walked by expressionlessly, while others stopped and watched with glee as two policemen roughly escorted the cursed son into a deserted alley leading to an abandoned factory, whispering to each other and wearing expressions of great satisfaction.

The dust that rose and covered the ground was simply from two spilled, expired cans of beverages.

……

This scene was clearly witnessed by everyone on the bus. The driver simply lit a cigarette as if it were commonplace: "Some of the cursed children living in the outer districts just want to steal or scavenge for food to fill their stomachs, but this kind of thing always seems to happen. Sigh..."

He also disliked the Cursed Children, but only because he saw that the Cursed Children would subconsciously recall the fear of being dominated by Gastrea, which was why he hated them. As for the two unfriendly-looking policemen, they were obviously extremists in the camp against the Cursed Children.

There have been more than one or two news reports about the discovery of little girls' bodies in abandoned factories.

"A bunch of bastards..."

Unexpectedly, the first one to be so righteous was Wu Teng, who slammed the car door shut and got out.

"Tina, we still have a mission to complete."

Despite having learned about the distorted reality of this world through anime beforehand, J still felt heavy-hearted upon witnessing such a thing firsthand: "...As for this matter, let Wu Teng handle it."

"I gonna go see."

There was no time to stop her; the moment the words left her lips, the girl's figure had already disappeared from her original seat.

J gave a wry smile and had no choice but to get off the bus as well.

Seeing the three ruthless men disappear in an instant, the driver didn't feel relieved. He casually turned on the radio while the light was red.