Witch Redemption

"Earth?"

"Yes, this is Earth, the territory ruled by my Lord, or more precisely, the entire Milky Way galaxy as you may know it, is under my Lord's jurisdiction."

"..."

Hearing such strange words from a seemingly down-on-her-luck peasant woman, Lana felt a strange sense of unease, but these words also quickly stirred up Lana's memories.

That is, as Karen Elf once mentioned, there is a type of supreme intelligent being in the universe, who can be called the ancient creator, that is, the true god who can create all things in the universe, or understood as "God".

If this setting is followed, then the galactic world will also have a supreme true god.

In other words, behind this strange aunt might be an ancient creator!

This ancient creator knows everything that is happening, and if he really wanted to eliminate them from the beginning... Lana felt a strange fear, and for a moment she was somewhat glad that she hadn't acted recklessly when she first returned.

The strange aunt, whose name was unknown, flipped through the contract in her hand and said, "Since you know where this place is, let me first explain what this so-called anomaly is."

"Whether it is Earth or the entire galaxy, it is a paradise created by my Lord. It can be compared to a magnificent garden, but what surrounds this garden is not an insurmountable wall, but a fence. The fence can keep out large animals, but there are gaps in the fence. These gaps are the so-called spacetime loopholes, through which countless small animals and insects can endanger the flowers in the garden."

“Animals are divided into harmful animals and harmless animals, and insects are also divided into harmful insects and harmless insects. When harmful animals and harmful insects appear in a garden, it can be called a ‘mutation’. In severe cases, these harmful things can destroy the entire garden.”

"And we guardians can be understood as gardeners. Our task is to protect this garden and get rid of all the rats and pests. Of course, we gardeners will consider keeping beneficial insects like bees."

“Originally, only small creatures like rats and insects could enter this garden. However, more than two months ago, on February 14th, an accident occurred in this garden. Two forces, seemingly similar to my Lord, invaded this garden, located their coordinates in the Earth world, forcibly widened the entire spacetime rift, and directly pushed down the fence, thus sending you here.”

It must be admitted that these creatures sent over were not rats or anything like that, but large, ferocious beasts that could threaten these guardians.

That day, in order to kill one of the beasts, a guardian perished along with it. Even the strange aunt sitting in front of Lana and Lorina initially approached them with the idea of ​​mutual destruction, but Lana and the others did not fall for it.

“Originally, if only you were sent here, it would be easy to solve. The problem is that the current spacetime glitch is temporarily unmanageable, causing more and more mutations to enter this spacetime glitch, directly threatening this world.”

After a moment of contemplation, the strange aunt who called herself the "Guardian" pointed to the corpse of an unidentified creature that had been dead for some time on the ground. "As you can see now, this is the culprit of the 'mutation,' one of the lowest-ranking dark creatures. On that day, with your arrival, the number of such creatures has been increasing, creating an enormous workload for us."

Although there was no hint of blame in his tone, it seemed like Lana and her friends were the ones in the blame.

Lana asked hesitantly, "Is this really Earth? I remember Earth is..."

"They are like flowers in a greenhouse. They have no idea how much effort the gardener has put in to make them grow strong and resilient."

The eccentric aunt understood Lana's meaning; she knew he meant that Earth didn't possess any supernatural powers. This was indeed true. Not only on Earth, but the Great Lord had restricted supernatural powers across almost the entire galaxy, simply because the stronger the power, the easier it was for intelligent beings to lose their way.

Once a civilization breaks free from the constraints of lifespan and possesses supreme power, it may not necessarily be able to ignite a dazzling display of brilliance.

"Yes, have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?"

The eccentric aunt suddenly asked.

“Yes, this is a thought experiment about quantum theory, and it’s quite philosophical,” Lolina agreed.

"Yes, this is a theoretical concept from the perspective of human science, but we are not talking about science today."

The idea of ​​a guardian and two intruders living under the same roof is inherently illogical. The strange aunt continued, “Our Lord intends to protect this garden, so from the very moment civilization was born, He set up an insurance policy for it, dividing the world in two: the real world and the world in the fog.”

"All civilizations are born in the real world, but all invaders who exploit spacetime loopholes cannot directly access the real world. They must pass through the first line of defense, the 'world in the fog,' and successfully kill the corresponding guardian before they can invade the real world. In other words, the place you are in now is, strictly speaking, the world in the fog, and the flowers in the real world cannot observe you."

"Whether you invaders or us guardians, in the eyes of humans in the real world, you are like Schrödinger's cat, whose very existence is unknown."

After tidying up the paper contracts in her hands and placing them in front of Lana and Lorina, the strange aunt slowly explained, "However, although you are also intruders, according to my Lord, your souls are connected to this world. Therefore, humans in the real world can observe you to a certain extent, but their awareness of your existence will gradually weaken until they forget you. This process can be described with one word in Earth's terms: disappearance."

“Strictly speaking, we guardians would prefer that our Lord take the initiative to eliminate these threats, but our Lord seems to be short of time lately,” the strange aunt said, finding it a little difficult to say, so she didn’t reveal what her master was actually doing. “So she’s considering having me recruit you to help deal with these large numbers of invaders. Of course, in the past, this kind of job wasn’t called ‘magical girl,’ but had a very special name.”

"Investigator!"

Lana and Lorina barely understood, "Investigator?"

"Yes, investigators. As I just said, intruders are divided into harmful and harmless ones. Occasionally, some humans from the real world will mistakenly enter the Fog World. In order to properly accommodate these special individuals, we Guardians can assist them in becoming investigators and work together to protect the real world in the Fog World. Of course, few investigators have a good ending, and I hope you are prepared for that."

To put it bluntly, this statement is roughly equivalent to inviting Lana and the others to become colleagues.

"I understand. So, according to what my lord said, if we sign a contract and become magical girls, will we have abilities like transformation?"

Lana's expression was somewhat serious, even eager to try.

"That's not the case... of course not."

"Huh?" For a second, both Lana and Lorina showed a hint of disappointment.

In particular, Lolina added, "Then how should we deal with this mutation?"

In fact, from the moment they returned to this world, Lana and Lorina unexpectedly discovered that their bodies were severely restricted, and they could no longer exert the full power they once possessed as witches. Their original grimoires were also sealed away.

At this stage, the two witches, in terms of physical abilities alone, are roughly at the level of gold-level adventurers, making them stronger than the humans of this world.

"I don't know either. In the past, the investigators' duty was only to find the location of the anomaly and the truth behind it. How to deal with the anomaly was left to us guardians. And now that you have become the magical girls that my lord spoke of, it's probably similar."

The strange aunt got up and walked to the corner of the room, which should have been a kitchen. She picked up a kitchen knife in one hand and a crowbar in the other. "Hmm, you could actually consider using these magical girl-specific tools. Dealing with these low-level mutated creatures would be a piece of cake."

The art style gradually became a bit off, and Lana and Lolina were speechless, almost doubting that they were still living in a dream.

They looked at the contract again. The terms listed on it were similar to the employment contracts they had seen in their previous lives. It even included basic salary, except for the lack of social insurance and housing fund.

Furthermore, the contract did not contain any mention of "magical girl," and the stated profession was "investigator." It seems that the person behind the scenes simply made up a title based on their own assumptions.

"Both Party A and Party B confirm that Party A's hiring of Party B does not imply the existence of a labor relationship or employment relationship under the Labor Law between Party A and Party B..."

Hmm, this seems a bit like an unfair contract, doesn't it? Besides, the other party can choose to terminate the contract and leave at any time.

Even recent graduates who can't find jobs probably wouldn't sign such a contract.

"After signing the contract, what do we need to do next?" Lana asked again.

"Come with me, let's hunt down those who have fallen into darkness... no, let's resolve this anomaly!"

Very serious, the strange aunt's face was extremely serious.

"..."

Although they still didn't quite understand many things, Lana and the others seemed to have no better choice. After thinking about it, they finally decided to sign the contract.

Our immediate priority is to leave this place and see if we can find Karen and the others as soon as possible.

"By the way, the names needed to sign the contract are our real names?"

Lolina picked up the pen the strange aunt handed her, somewhat bewildered.

"Your real names, your real names. You are no longer human beings of this world, but have new identities, so the contract will be signed using your new identities."

Although it may sound harsh, in the eyes of the guardians of this world, these witches are all intruders and do not belong to this world.

"Understood. If the opportunity arises, we'd like to search for our accomplices. I wonder..."

"When the time is right, you will see that they are doing better than you are now."

What the guardian didn't say was that many guardians were now closely monitoring the other group of intruders, and none of them dared to make any rash moves.

The reason is simple: there are two supreme beings there, and no one can do anything about them unless their mastermind intervenes.

Just like that despicable bald man who lorded it over everyone for so many years, as long as he doesn't cause trouble, we can only turn a blind eye.

Chapter 9 The Life of a Homebody

"Servant, I want a Coke!"

A hoarse voice, as loud as boiling water, came from the old wooden bed not far away, and the tone was lazy and dejected.

Li Lan, who had finally taken a day off, was sitting by the window, looking at relevant information on her phone, when she looked up and saw her two little darlings enjoying themselves, living as delicately as pigs.

Indeed, Hei Fa Yu Hui and Leviathan were lying motionless on the bed, each holding a mobile phone connected to the charger on the bedside table, their eyes fixed on the screen, which was filled with dense text.

It seems to be a novel. These two little guys are reading it in a very "couch potato" way, as if they've become useless.

"Uh, didn't we just buy a big bottle yesterday..."

"I finished it yesterday, can you buy me another bottle?" Yu Hui's tone began to sound a little guilty.

“Rejected,” Li Lan said helplessly. “Shabu, money isn’t so easy to earn. Although soda isn’t expensive, drinking it every day might… well, it’s bad for your teeth?”

"Waaah..."

"Are you a child?" Li Lan was clearly not buying into this act of cuteness; he had long seen through these two drama queens.

"Tsk, there's no other way. Things have come to this point, we should go out and do some work to ease the burden on the servants. Leviathan, you previously identified a wealthy family, why don't we kill them and divide their wealth..."

Upon hearing this, Li Lan felt a slight pang of anxiety. "What are you trying to do?"

Whenever money is mentioned, these two ancient creators always come up with terrible ideas, such as burglary and Robin Hood-style redistribution, using the most direct and dirty methods possible.

Li Lan never thought these two people with abnormal thought processes were joking. In any case, for them, working was out of the question, they would never work in their lives, and they didn't know how to do business. They just wanted to kill and set fires to make a living.

Well, these two guys came into this world to enjoy themselves. If they were working, how would they have time to enjoy themselves?

Li Lan knew this, so she treated them like ancestors to prevent them from doing anything rash or causing more trouble later.

"Tsk, behave yourself, we'll buy it tomorrow."

"Long live! The servant is the best!" came the voices of those reading aloud; the two were busy engrossed in their novel.

Li Lan felt he might be spoiling them a bit. He was silent for a while, then couldn't help but mutter, "First it was TV, now it's novels. At this rate, they'll probably finish enjoying them soon, won't they?"

"How could that be? We feel like we can enjoy this forever!"

Black-haired Yu Hui immediately retorted. For these advanced beings with endless lifespans, they never liked to use their brains when doing things, just to alleviate boredom. Reading novels was no exception; if you didn't use your brain, you'd get tired of the same old tropes and enjoy them every time.

If you remain a novice forever and never become an old novice, then the joy of reading novels will continue endlessly.

No matter what, this is the Celestial Empire in 2048 AD. The number of online articles is already astronomical. If these two ancient creators were to see them, they probably wouldn't be able to finish reading them even after a hundred years. That's too exaggerated.

"By the way, what kind of shows are you guys watching right now?"

Since returning, Li Lan has been busy making money and investigating the identities of certain body-snatchers, so she hasn't had much time to participate in various forms of entertainment.

"Urban cultivation, indeed, this is the place to show off and slap faces, hehe!"

"..." Li Lan was taken aback for a moment. "This type of novel seems to be too similar. They all basically start with a KTV scene, and then the protagonist becomes invincible and gets a double slap in the face. It is indeed a formula that novices like."

Li Lan recalled a certain pioneering urban fantasy novel, which featured multiple layers of pretentiousness and captivated numerous readers with its unique writing style and approach to pretentiousness. Furthermore, with the continuous influx of authors and readers into the online novel world, certain tropes and plot points become prime sources of inspiration.

Anyway, more than ten years ago, it wasn't unheard of for a top author in a certain genre to support a large number of junior writers, and it's probably similar now.

"Uh, it seems that's really true?" Black-haired Yu Hui was stunned for a while, then suddenly felt bored. "Damn it, servant, what nonsense are you talking about? You just reminded me that I've read thirty similar books. Are you even letting me enjoy myself anymore...?"

Oh, this guy's acting all wronged!

"It's not like it's a single-celled organism. You should be able to spot some of the repetitive plot points, right?" Li Lan said weakly.

In fact, it's not just novels; it's pretty much the same in any industry. As long as you can make money, a lot of capital will flock in, and a lot of people will choose the same themes, even if it means "plagiarism," just to try to catch up with the money-making trend.

This is probably a question related to psychology and economics.