Girl in the Box: Please tell me why I was reincarnated as a mimic monster!

"Good morning," Li waved, "How are you feeling?"

“Not good,” Elise said with a wry smile. “It feels like I had a nightmare.”

"I'm sorry," Li said apologetically, "we couldn't stop it in time."

“Well… it’s nothing,” Alice waved her hand dismissively, “If it weren’t for your reminder, things would probably be even worse.”

“That’s perfect.” Ning said with a wicked smile. “Now I’ll tell you some bad news: the elves are coming this way.”

"Whoa...Are you a demon?"

Savi's complaints went unheard. Alice didn't react much either, instead appearing as if she had seen through everything.

"Well... I think that's pretty much the outcome," Elise shrugged. "Since you knew the elves were coming, it means you must have some plan, right?"

Alice had long since figured out Li Ning and her companion's tactics. Since they already knew, it meant they already had a plan to deal with it. Since they had brought it up, they would take steps to resolve the matter. Alice was already used to it.

"I guess so..." Li said somewhat uncertainly.

"Your words make me a little uneasy." Alice's expression became subtle. "Speaking of which, where's the Demon King? I remember that guy came too, right?"

As Li zoomed in on the minimap of the Magic Eye, he said, "It seems he's already heading towards the elves."

After dealing with the insects in the city, Demon King Xuanze left his subordinates to help clean up and went to the elves alone. In Li's demonic eyes, she could see the Demon King's magical energy rapidly moving away from the New Kingdom and rushing towards a large group of magical energy reactions. A headache; the Demon King was still the same old self, doing whatever he pleased.

"I'm sorry," Li apologized to everyone, "Ning and I will be leaving now. You can stay here and handle the rest of the issues. We will try our best to resolve the elf problem."

"I'll be waiting for your good news." Alice smiled as she watched the two leave.

"Be careful," Savi whispered.

The next problem involved areas beyond their control, so they could only obediently wait here for the three of them to solve the elf's problem.

Li nodded, took Ning's hand, and vanished in a flash of silver light. The scene shifted, and the two of them found themselves directly in front of the Demon King Xuanze. Unfortunately, this location was right in front of the many elves. Who knew the Demon King had run so fast that he was already in front of them?

As soon as Li Hening appeared beside the Demon King, the aura of attack emanating from the elves intensified, as if the surrounding air had solidified, making one's whole body ache. Xuanze, on the other hand, stood on the ground as if it didn't care, the hem of his black trench coat fluttering in the wind, his face showing an expression of boredom that made him want to yawn.

On the other side, the seven-colored fairy queen and her many elves occupied half the sky with stern faces, saying nothing but surrounding the three of them, looking as if they might attack at any moment. Li was really having a headache. He had originally thought of coming over normally, not making the atmosphere so tense, so that it would be easier for them to start communicating with the elves.

But it seemed the Demon King was deliberately creating this atmosphere, and Li didn't know what to say to break the awkward silence. Li glanced around and saw Yan among the elves. She tried to maintain a serious expression so she wouldn't seem out of place, but her poor acting was immediately obvious.

This awkward situation lasted for a while, and was finally ended by the Elf Queen speaking up.

"Dragon King and Demon King," the Elf Queen asked, "why are you stopping us?"

"Anyway, you're planning to repeat what happened last time, aren't you?" Xuanze sneered. "Don't you understand what's going on?"

“I don’t understand what you mean, Demon King.” The Elf Queen frowned.

"Ha, idiot." Xuanze added fuel to the fire.

boom----!

No sooner had he finished speaking than several bolts of lightning crashed down, striking Xuanze and producing a deafening thud. However, this had no effect whatsoever; Xuanze stood there unperturbed, only the surrounding ground turned charred black.

"Tch!" The high-ranking elf who controlled lightning clicked his tongue and roared, "What the hell did you say?! Dare to say it again!"

"Hey, wait a minute! I have something to say!"

Li quickly intervened. If Xuanze continued, the situation would only worsen. Xuanze's bad temper combined with the other party's irritable spirit would cause a strong chemical reaction, and they might even start fighting before they could even exchange a few words. This situation had to be avoided no matter what. In order to truly stop the conflict from escalating, Li directly used her power to erect a spatial barrier.

After being separated by the spatial barrier, both sides calmed down. At this point, Li became somewhat embarrassed, her mind going blank from nervousness, and she forgot what she wanted to say. Seeing that she wouldn't recover anytime soon, Ning had no choice but to step forward and say a few words herself. Yan, who had been extremely nervous, showed a relieved expression after Li and Ning intervened.

"First of all, I have to say something," Ning said calmly, "You guys really are a bunch of complete idiots."

What are you doing?!?!?!

Yan and Li were both internally screaming. The atmosphere, which had just begun to ease, was tense again because of Ning's words, which were directed at all the elves. They had no idea what Ning was trying to do. Yan's gaze drifted to Bing, whose forehead veins were bulging, and who roared as he unleashed several bolts of lightning.

These thunderbolts were naturally and completely blocked by the spatial barrier. Ning showed no panic and continued speaking expressionlessly.

"Do you know why I say this?" Ning smiled mysteriously. "You have been used by humans twice. The first time, you were lured into attacking the New Kingdom by some scheming humans. This time, you have been used by humans again for the same reason. The reason we are here is to prevent you from becoming ignorant idiots."

"We've been used...?" The Elf Queen frowned.

“Your Majesty!” Bing stepped forward and said, “Stop wasting time talking to those three! We have more important things to do now!”

"More important things?" Ning smiled. "Aren't you all in a hurry to rush to the New Kingdom to repair the damage to the ley lines? They should be repairing themselves soon. Don't rush over now. How about you talk to us?"

"...!"

At this moment, the high elves were all shocked, as an unexpected situation had taken them by surprise. The Elf Queen stared at Ning for a while, then sighed deeply.

"Please speak," said the Elf Queen. "Since you know about these things, I imagine you must have something you want to clarify, right?"

“Then I’ll be frank,” Ning said bluntly. “You should already know that we humans are aware of this, and we know that if this matter isn’t handled properly, it could be a matter of the world’s survival. But it seems you’re not working on the repairs very efficiently. Because of this, you attacked the New Kingdom. I expect you to give the New Kingdom a sincere apology and appropriate compensation. The problem lies with you.”

"You fucking wasted our time just to talk about this?!" Bing roared. "You know this is a matter of world survival, and you're still wasting our time?!"

"Bing, watch your word choice," Miao said, stopping Bing from the side.

"But!!!" Bing wanted to say something else.

“It’s alright,” the Elf Queen stopped them. “She’s right. This is indeed a problem we caused. We can’t keep ignoring it, after all, we’ve taken quite a few lives.”

"Tsk...!" Bing said nothing more and returned to his original position.

"I thought you were some kind of unreasonable robots," Ning said sarcastically. "Let's talk about the apology later. We're well aware of your situation, and we can help you if you need it."

“Please wait a moment.” The Elf Queen interrupted Ning and asked, “I would like to ask, how much do you actually know, how deep is your knowledge, and where did you learn it from? I think that there should no longer be any literature about elves in this world.”

“Oh, that.” Ning nodded and said, “That’s true. We’ve investigated a lot of documents but haven’t found any information related to elves. But that doesn’t mean we learned it from books. As for where we learned it from… well, it’s from the goddess who is at the root of this problem. To be precise, it’s from the goddess’s agent.”

As Ning said this, she glanced at Li. The elves were shocked once again by this, and the Elf Queen noticed Ning's small gesture, shifting her gaze to Li. At that moment, Ning secretly gave Li a push from behind, shoving her towards the elves.

"Eh?"

When she came to her senses, she had already taken a step forward, her mind still blank. Helplessly, she looked at Ning behind her, who shrugged, indicating he wasn't going to help. Xuanze, on the other hand, looked like he was just watching a show. She had no choice but to give up and say something herself.

“Uh…” Li tried hard to squeeze out something, “I am… the goddess’s representative… I recently learned some things from the goddess about this world, about the elves, and about myself. So… I think we can help you, in the name of the goddess’s representative… like this…”

An awkward silence ensued.

Li herself didn't know what she had said, but instinct told her that she had messed things up. However, the Elf Queen's next words startled her.

"Goddess's proxy..." A strange light flashed in the Elf Queen's eyes. "Since that's the case, then there's nothing I can do... If possible, I'd like to discuss this matter with you in more detail somewhere else. Is that alright?"

"Um... of course!"

end

Around noon, Ri and the others returned with a group of people. These people were none other than the Elf Queen and several high-ranking elves. Of course, Bian, with his extreme violent tendencies, was excluded. If he were there, things would probably become very troublesome, so he wasn't brought along. This was an order from the Elf Queen. Nagi was also left behind as a restraint in case Bian went berserk.

It seems the Elf Queen isn't an unreasonable person.

They led the high elves and all the leaders of their alliance to meet. The Elven Queen first apologized to Queen Eliste of the new kingdom and explained the whole incident. She also expressed her willingness to help rebuild the new kingdom. After listening, Eliste envisioned a blueprint for rebuilding an elven kingdom centered around the elves, and she naturally welcomed the elves' help.

Afterwards, they talked about all sorts of random things, such as the collapse of the world, the repair of the dragon veins and ley lines, and key information about the world's core that Li and Ning had been withholding from them. All of this was revealed by the elves, and the Elf Queen even bowed to everyone present, begging for help. Although from their perspective, it wasn't appropriate to shamelessly ask for help at this time, everyone still agreed.

Ultimately, it wasn't entirely the elves' fault; they were simply following their rules. So, the humans didn't pursue the matter too much, since it was already agreed upon how to handle it, and the elves would be temporary laborers in the new kingdom anyway. After that, Li didn't pay much attention to what happened next; he just felt inexplicably tired after finally resolving everything, his eyelids grew heavy, and finally, his consciousness sank into darkness.

Everyone was engrossed in discussing these matters and future plans, so they didn't notice that Li had already fallen asleep. Ning simply offered her her shoulder, doing what she needed to do for her, even after the discussion ended. The two of them didn't leave their spot, remaining leaning on each other until evening...

"Um..."

Li groaned as she opened her eyes. Her mind was blank from just waking up. She instinctively sat up straight, staring blankly into the air for a while before her consciousness gradually returned. Her unfocused pupils suddenly dilated, and her previously stiff, expressionless face became panicked. It seemed she had finally remembered what she was doing.

敲。

"It's getting late." Ning tapped her on the head.

"Huh?! It's already evening?!" Ry scratched his head in regret. "What have I done... This is such an important matter. By the way, Ning, why didn't you wake me up?"

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” Ning shrugged. “Others think so too.”

"Please don't suddenly speak for everyone else, okay?!"

"But that's really how it is."

"……real or fake……"

Li suddenly had a bad feeling. Was it possible that after everything was resolved, the world would no longer need an "abnormal" like her? Li had heard this kind of plot from Xin Ge before. According to him, it was a common ending in eroge. It was possible that Li had inadvertently walked towards this ending.

In other words, they crossed the river and then burned the bridge.

It was precisely because of this bad feeling that Li began to quietly distance himself from Ning. Ba Zuo doesn't care about logic; no matter how sudden their actions are, they are all their own ideas and don't make any sense at all.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ning asked, grabbing Li, who was trying to sneak away, with a headache. "I don't know what kind of nonsense you're thinking this time, but it's obvious you're trying to slip away. Seriously..."

"Let me confirm first," Li asked, "You won't abandon me after you've served your purpose, will you?"

"Crossing the river and then burning the bridge?" Ning tilted his head. "What are you thinking, you stupid box?"

“Ugh!?”

Ning flicked Li's head hard to wake her up. It was now confirmed that this guy's paranoia had flared up again. Ning felt like she was taking care of a child. Well, thankfully, Li wasn't a brat.

Li touched his forehead where he'd been flicked and asked, "Really?"

"Ha... why are you so hard to please?" Ning said helplessly. "Don't worry, we've already talked everything out. It's okay for you to sleep. Anyway, you don't really know much about this field, and besides, you're not really suited for this kind of thing. There's nothing to worry about. Now that you're awake, we should probably head back."

"Huh? Is everything resolved? While I was sleeping..."

Li was incredibly embarrassed just thinking about falling asleep in front of everyone in that kind of place. All she wanted to do was hide away, feeling ashamed of what she had done. She was very concerned about how things were going, because this was a major event, like the final stage of a large-scale quest in an RPG game, and it could really turn into something bad.

"Yes, it's all resolved." Ning stood up and relaxed his hands and feet. "The troublesome things that needed our help are gone, and everything is back on track."

"Ugh..." Li seemed a little bothered, "Was it a little...too smooth, too perfunctory? I don't really feel like it was resolved..."

"Really?" Ning glanced at her. "In the end, all we need to deal with is the ghost, right? Besides, these are things that are easy to handle. It's just that we took a roundabout way to catch that ghost."

"Hmm..." Li brushed a strand of hair aside, "I feel like something's not quite right..."

"You're overthinking it," Ning chuckled. "It's all over now. Haven't you noticed? The world is moving in the direction they wanted. Although our handling of it was a bit subtle, our story is nearing its end, isn't it?"

“Our story…” Li repeated it unconsciously.

Yes, everything has entered its final stage. Even if it's a story of a hero, it's already a bit too long. The main quest of this world has been completed, which means the story is nearing its end. Everything is almost perfect, and only the final touches are left.

"The end of the story..." Li said with emotion, "It feels like playing an RPG with Xin Ge and finally seeing a happy ending."

"You're the only one who would mention other men's names when you're on a date with your partner," Ning retorted.

"Huh? Wait a minute!? Is this supposed to be a date?!"

"Well, let's go back."

"Give me an answer..."

☆, The End of the Story

Prologue

Finally, the elf incident was resolved satisfactorily, albeit somewhat perfunctorily, but it seemed to have resolved the matter without major issues. Given that those two individuals were involved, it wasn't surprising that things turned out this way. The restoration of the world's core, after the elves explained the details, is proceeding systematically with the help of humans.

At least, the collapse has disappeared, and some improvements have been observed recently. The collapsed areas are being repaired little by little. In terms of speed, it can repair about ten square meters a day in Earth's units... We can't force things to happen too quickly; it's a process that needs to be done slowly.

As the world improved, the inexplicably powerful monsters gradually weakened, and the environment began to become more suitable for survival. Sometimes, a small patch of dazzling, vibrant blue could even be seen in the desolate wilderness. This small patch of blue, which needed human care, gave many people hope to continue to survive.

The member states of the alliance centered around the miniature garden are gradually restoring the environment around their cities. The fields around the miniature garden labyrinth are now ready for harvest. Thanks to the transformation by the living dragon king Chuchu, the rice yield is quite high, so much so that they have to ask people from other countries for help. With this food, they will not have to worry about food for a while.

The rice has just been planted in the Demon Realm and the New Kingdom, and it's growing very well. Thanks to the pesticides, there haven't been any pest infestations. Of course, Ning has already modified some Earth items that will be useful at this stage, so there shouldn't be any major problems. The Demon Realm's relocation is progressing smoothly, and that red moon will probably eventually become a place for adventurers to level up.

Under Xuanze's leadership, the Demon Clan is developing at a pace no slower than that of the Little Garden. In fact, it's more like they've simply moved house; they're not in dire straits at all. Xuanze has been busy training people who can help him lately, so he's only seen on major occasions. Usually, Uncle Sin Flame and Silena are the ones who take his place.

The last time I saw him, he seemed to have returned to the way he was when we first met, but he looked much more tired, which was a bit worrying. I need to find an opportunity to talk to him about this later.

In the end, Edelman and their princess seceded from the duchy and chose a suitable location to rebuild their nation. Of course, after they left the duchy, everyone paid close attention to Edelman and his companions, providing support from time to time. The Little Garden even sent a construction team directly to them. In just a few days, their little city will rise from the ground.

Besides the small garden serving as the main support provider, the Principality also has a good relationship with the Edman Palace. According to Lihua, Savi often talks about Edman while working, expressing great concern for the situation there, and occasionally even goes there in person to help. However, the most troublesome issue is that the little princess Edman is raising seems to have developed feelings for Savi during this period of care, constantly asking to see her older brother. The situation is currently somewhat complicated, so they are observing the situation.

The most troublesome thing is that Saivi thinks it's just a childish joke, so he keeps agreeing to be someone else's groom. Lihua is genuinely worried about her brother's intelligence and emotional intelligence. It's not that she's unwilling to let someone take her brother away; she just hopes that her brother can at least properly assess the situation before making a decision. Incidentally, Edman seems to be very supportive of this.

The New Kingdom is developing quite rapidly. With the support of the elves, and having signed several contracts with them, Elise has changed the country's name again. The official name of the New Kingdom is now the Alyas Elf Kingdom, a nation that coexists with the elves. Overall, it seems to be transitioning from an underground power to a different type of nation.

With the support of the elves, the reconstruction speed was undoubtedly exceptional. Even without the help of the Little Garden, the Alyas Elf Kingdom quickly returned to normal operations and began providing support to other member states, just like the Little Garden. Speaking of which, it seems that only the Principality of Sevi lacks any distinctive features. The demons led by Xuanze are a major characteristic, while Li is known as the Labyrinth Kingdom because it has all sorts of talented people and lives within a labyrinth. The Elf Kingdom of Elise, with the support of elves, can also be considered unique…

What about the duchy...?

The duchy... seems to have nothing at all...

"Ugh... my head hurts..."

Kuroba, who was writing in the library, grabbed her hair in frustration. Her original form, the Book of Universal Magic, was lying in the corner of the table, and she kept flipping through it. This was her way of searching for information she already knew, but right now it looked like a computer CPU overheating because she couldn't find the information she was looking for, which was the unique feature of the Principality.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Kuroba is now one of the teachers at the pilot school, and she's even compiling the textbooks herself. When she's bored, she does things like this—writing things, mostly about recent events. But she probably can't imagine that the books she's writing will become various classics and be passed down through generations.