Silver Bell knew too well what kind of person Yue Wange was, which was precisely why she was so angry.
She understood Yue Wange’s concerns, but her kindness had now become an excuse for the Apocalyptic Church’s audacity.
The Church refused to budge at all, and at this rate, Yue Wange’s body would eventually give out… unless…
Silver Bell seemed to think of something and paused slightly, though her gaze slowly turned resolute.
Lowering her voice, Silver Bell said, “Wange, I still have another method. Do you want to hear it?”
A few minutes later, Silver Bell briefly explained her plan, watching Yue Wange’s expression intently.
“Here’s the thing—I know a reliable black market dealer, a contact from the Great Chaos era. No third party will ever find out about this.”
“Besides, I’m not just an S-Class Magical Girl; I’m also the Guardian of North Blossom City. Without solid evidence, neither the Association nor the Church will do anything to me.”
“This way, we won’t disappoint the public in the Church, and it will also ease your physical condition, because your current problem is definitely related to the Tower of Commandments…”
“No, Ling’er!” Yue Wange shook her head like a rattle-drum. “This method is way too out of line, and the risk for you is huge. This is just too…”
Silver Bell took a deep breath. Yue Wange had always been a very gentle and reasonable person—this was the first time Silver Bell had lost the desire to reason with her.
“If you don’t agree, then I’ll deal with the Church my own way. You can’t stop me, Wange.”
Her tone was resolute. The silver armor on Silver Bell’s body clinked softly as she stood coldly in front of Yue Wange, like an unyielding tyrant who refused to listen to anything.
“…I’m begging you, Wange. Even if it’s just this once, can’t you think about yourself for a change?”
Yue Wange hesitated. She opened her mouth slightly, but before she could say anything, a knock sounded at the conference room door.
The two exchanged a glance, and Silver Bell pulled open the door with a stern face—the Minister of the Magical Girl Department stood outside.
Seeing the destroyed conference table, he raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Some Magical Girls said people were arguing in the meeting room, so I came to check. This is really… are you two okay?”
Xiaoxi nodded thoughtfully. So the rumor that Silver Bell and Yue Wange had once argued in the Association was because of this?
Yue Wange’s fake death escape was a necessary two-pronged strategy—Xiaoxi had already understood that.
Actually, Silver Bell’s plan was not complicated; it was just that everyone was misled by the possibility of “Yue Wange being killed” and no one thought in any other direction.
Moreover, Silver Bell’s identity did play a role—no one could have expected her to do such a thing.
In the eyes of others, after Yue Wange returned home, only Silver Bell and Qiuli had visited her one after another.
Then Yue Wange disappeared from the face of the earth.
But in reality, the “Yue Wange” who first returned home was never really Yue Wange herself.
Silver Bell had obtained a magical device capable of disguising and mimicking another person’s appearance through black market channels.
Such magical devices were actually not rare; Su Ying and Qiuli used similar devices to disguise their monster traits.
After all, this counted as one of the few technological legacies of the Divine Summon Order.
So from the very beginning, it was Silver Bell who had mimicked Yue Wange’s appearance, changed into her clothes, and returned home in broad daylight.
As for the “Silver Bell” who visited later, it was actually a Slime that had mimicked her.
Silver Bell used her authority as an S-Class Magical Girl to sneak a Slime out of the Association’s Research Division.
These low-harm magical creatures were just like lab mice—there were plenty of them in the Research Division.
Although the Research Division did notice a Slime missing at the time, no one would ever connect such a trivial matter to Yue Wange’s supposed murder.
Slimes, as fantasy-type magical creatures, had an extremely strong mimicry ability.
With just a few days of training, they could perfectly mimic another person’s appearance…
Xiaoxi knew this all too well, since she had used the same trick before to fool her dear younger sister.
Therefore, on that day, what went to Yue Wange’s house was only a mimicked Slime.
As soon as it entered, Silver Bell killed it without hesitation.
Then Silver Bell simply left Yue Wange’s house in her original appearance, causing Yue Wange to vanish from her own home without a trace.
No wonder there were no signs of fighting or residual magic power in Yue Wange’s house.
Slimes were D-rank magical creatures with almost no magic power to begin with, so no magical traces would remain after being eliminated.
Silver Bell only needed to take the Monster Seed with her.
Everyone mistakenly believed Yue Wange had been murdered because of the bloodstains Silver Bell had set up in the room, plus the disappearance of the “Discipline” covering North Sea City.
In fact, Yue Wange herself had already disguised herself and left North Blossom City by then.
Xiaoxi nodded in sudden realization. All the previous doubts did make sense this way, but there was one place… Xiaoxi looked at Qiuli.
Since Qiuli had visited Yue Wange’s house after Silver Bell, shouldn’t she have discovered that Yue Wange wasn’t home at that time?
Not only Xiaoxi, but Silver Bell and Yue Wange also looked in unison at Qiuli, who had been standing silently behind.
“My plan was originally over at that point,” Silver Bell sighed. “Chestnut was an accident. Neither Wange nor I told her about this, but…”
“Why? Didn’t want to involve me in this kind of trouble?” Qiuli shrugged, still expressionless. “How heartbreaking. I care about Wange’s situation too… I’m your friend too, aren’t I?”
“I could see that you two were acting off those days. I didn’t need to think hard to know you were planning to help Wange with something. I really didn’t guess what you were going to do, but I just had to go to the scene after Ling’er that day and take a look around.”
“That way, they’d suspect me first, right? After all, my reputation in the Association has never been good. This way, no matter what you were planning, I could help divert attention and buy some more time,” Qiuli smiled. “And after I went to Wange’s place that day and looked around, I could roughly guess what you were up to.”
Now everything fell into place. As Qiuli said, the Association was initially more suspicious of her—a monster with a record—than of the S-Class Magical Girl, the Silverflame Dragon Princess. Xiaoxi and Xinglan had also focused their initial investigation on Qiuli.
“Chestnut…”
Yue Wange’s eyes reddened slightly as she gently held Qiuli’s hand. On the other side, Xiaoxi had completely figured out the whole story.
According to Silver Bell, she and Qiuli helped Yue Wange fake her death and escape within North Blossom City, buying time.
On one hand, this prevented Yue Wange’s physical condition from worsening due to the Tower of Commandments; on the other hand, Yue Wange could investigate the solution herself and find out what secrets the Church was hiding.
But unexpectedly, after the news of Yue Wange’s murder spread, it coincidentally attracted the Divine Summon Order to cause trouble in North Blossom City—Xiaoxi realized she had misunderstood the order of events.
It wasn’t that the Divine Summon Order had attacked Yue Wange, but rather that after Yue Wange’s supposed murder, the Divine Summon Order saw an opportunity and came to North Blossom City.
This turned out to be a perfect chance to use the information gap to trick the Divine Summon Order.
So Yue Wange took advantage of the situation to start tracking the Divine Summon Order’s movements in secret.
That was why on the night Xiaoxi went to catch the fake, she ran into Yue Wange, who was also chasing after the Divine Summon Order.
“But now we’ve figured out the problem with Wange’s body,” Silver Bell sighed. “A Xing, the core of the Tower of Commandments is actually a Meteorite Fragment, right? Damn those Church bastards!”
No wonder the Church had been hiding their so-called “core technology” all along—they didn’t actually have any technology.
They were just using the Meteorite Fragment to amplify the range of Yue Wange’s Discipline.
Meteorite Fragments can indeed enhance a Magical Girl’s power, but the side effects are equally obvious.
For example, Jingtong, who had just used a Meteorite Fragment to burst out power, quickly suffered a backlash.
Although Yue Wange hadn’t used the Meteorite Fragment with high-intensity concentration, constantly amplifying the range of her “Discipline” through the Meteorite Fragment over the years would definitely affect her body.
And Silver Bell only now realized why Yue Wange had inexplicably suffered magical backlash from the people’s affection, causing her own “Discipline” to suppress her.
She had previously thought it was just an issue of the Church over-promoting Yue Wange. It turned out to be the fault of the Meteorite Fragment!
People’s directed positive emotions toward Magical Girls—such as fondness and adoration—generate Magic Power, helping Magical Girls increase their strength.
But if you compare the Meteorite Fragment to a bidirectional amplifier, then not only did it amplify Yue Wange’s “Discipline,” it also amplified the Magic Power generated by the people’s affection for Yue Wange!