After settling Lin Ling’s issue, Yu Hua took a bit of a detour, deliberately choosing the Laboratory Building Rooftop, which was farther from the B6 Teaching Building, to safely complete his transformation.
Then he flew straight toward the Magical Girl Division.
He pushed open the office door.
Xing Li and Fei Xing were busy scurrying about, rummaging through the Daoju Storage Cabinet in the corner of the room, stuffing all sorts of colorful ability gadgets into two already bulging backpacks.
“Why’s it so lively today? Doing a big cleanup or preparing to run away?”
“Yu Hua, of all times you had to be late now,” Xing Li snapped, not even turning around, her tone urgent.
“Come help us pack quickly, there’s a combat mission this afternoon.”
“Combat mission?”
Yu Hua was a little surprised.
Usually, they just handled patrols and civil assistance; combat missions were rare.
“What’s going on?”
“Check the Internal Group, the briefing’s already posted,” Xing Li said while jamming a Lingneng Barrier Generator into an overflowing backpack.
Yu Hua pulled up the group chat and found the mission file, skimming through it quickly.
The target was an Awakened Vending Machine.
The report said it would actively attack passersby with canned drinks, but since it hadn’t Awakened any mobility, its threat area was fixed.
So, it could only be rated as a C+ Grade Anomalous Entity: a certain threat to ordinary residents, but relatively low destructive power, and unable to escalate the threat any further.
“Isn’t it just a C+ Grade punching bag? Head, you’re B+; can’t you solo it with your eyes closed?”
“No, no, no, don’t look down on it just because it’s C+,” Xing Li explained.
“It’s only rated that way because it can’t move. In a real fight, who knows? They handed it off to us because even a B Grade Hero got driven off in a panic.”
“Fine, fine…”
Yu Hua sighed and stepped forward to help sort through equipment.
“Wait, you’re bringing the Lingneng Barrier Generator too? That thing’s expensive.”
“So what?”
Xing Li said, full of righteous confidence.
“If we don’t spend our procurement budget, it’ll just go to waste. Safety is the top priority.”
After a flurry of chaotic preparation, the three of them finally packed up all the tools they might need.
To Yu Hua’s surprise, Xing Li didn’t just fling open the window and fly out as usual, but led them toward the building’s third-floor Flying Platform.
The Flying Platform was a protruding structure on the Ability Bureau building’s side, like an airport runway, designed especially for heroes needing to use flying gear or board airborne vehicles.
In an age where Anomalous Entities could break out at any time, three-dimensional mobility that ignored ground traffic was crucial, so Jetpacks, Antigravity Hoverboards, Mechanical Wings, and other personal flying devices had been developed and widely deployed.
Of course, for Magical Girls who could fly naturally, these gadgets usually weren’t as fast as their own flight.
Normally, they preferred to leap out the office window.
But today, Xing Li insisted that “combat missions need a sense of ceremony,” dragging the two along the long way to make a formal departure from the platform.
Their destination was Jianghe Park in Dongjiang District. From the sky, looking down at the land, they didn’t even need precise navigation; a prominent Yellow Warning Line stood out at one corner of the park from a distance.
The three of them landed just outside the warning line.
Looking along the path, in a small plaza about two hundred meters ahead, a white vending machine stood quietly in the sunlight, looking harmless enough.
“Head, what’s the plan? Or do I have to figure it out again?”
Last time Xing Li barely did anything on field duty, so Yu Hua called her out right away.
“If I’m not mistaken, this warning line is here to warn about this area,” Xing Li said something completely pointless.
“You mean its attack range, right?”
Yu Hua couldn’t help retorting.
“So… should we circle around and try a sneak attack from behind?”
Fei Xing suggested softly.
“How can you be sure the front with the panel is its ‘face’? It’s not a humanoid Anomalous Entity,” Yu Hua griped out of habit.
“No need for that,” Xing Li observed the vending machine from afar.
She’d expected it to sprout mechanical tentacles, but seeing it in person, it didn’t seem so impressive. Standing with hands on hips, she was instantly filled with confidence.
“With a B+ Grade Hero like me, I’ll just walk right up and crush it with pure stats.”
“Let me test it out first.”
Yu Hua stopped the eager Xing Li, quietly casting Pain Suppression Magic on himself, then stepped across the warning line.
As a Magical Girl, his offensive spells only produced water balls, which basically did no damage; Healing Magic worked only on himself, and was just barely passable for others.
His only real value was relying on Self-healing Ability and pain suppression to tank hits.
Step by step, Yu Hua advanced, while Xing Li and Fei Xing followed from behind at a cautious distance.
Sure enough, the moment Yu Hua crossed about ten meters past the warning line, the seemingly quiet vending machine was activated.
There was a click as its retrieval slot snapped open, and a can dropped out.
“Huh, free drinks!”
Fei Xing scratched her head.
But this drink clearly wasn’t meant to quench their thirst.
As it fell, the can shuddered violently, the bottom spitting out a jet of flame-like liquid—like a tiny rocket it accelerated instantly, breaking the sound barrier with a shrill screech, and shot straight at Yu Hua at the front.
Yu Hua reacted quickly.
The moment the can dropped, he raised an arm to shield his face, just in time—the can was indeed aimed for his head, and smashed hard against his arm.
“Bang!”
With a muffled thud, the powerful impact knocked Yu Hua off his feet, sending him flying several meters before crashing onto the grass and rolling to a stop in a rather undignified heap.
With a Magical Girl’s constitution, such an attack wasn’t really a big deal—it’d leave some bruises at most.
But the can had crumpled and burst on impact, leaving Yu Hua covered head to toe in sticky, sugary soda. Blades of grass clung to his hair, leaving him both pitiful and comical.
“Yu Hua.”
“S-Senpai…”
Xing Li was terrified, and Fei Xing was stunned.
The two of them hurried over, grabbing Yu Hua’s arms—sticky syrup be damned—dragging him back across the warning line to safety.
The vending machine made no move to follow up, standing silently, as if to say ‘if you don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with you’.
“Head, can you still crush it with pure stats?”
Yu Hua wiped soda from his face and activated Healing Magic to clear up the bruises on his arm.
“It’s fine… it’s fine, anyway it can’t move. We’ll attack it from a distance.”
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