Chapter 43: Fierce Battle in the Shopping Mall

Relying on her keen perception, Qianling noticed several spots within the plant-covered walls that were emitting a peculiar magic.

So she tracked the closest one to herself, on the second floor, and sure enough, discovered something amiss.

There, a pillar was wrapped in endless roots.

Between the roots, there hung a constantly pulsating sphere, looking exactly like a heart.

Is this… a flower bud?

As soon as Qianling approached, the bud began spewing out purple smoke.

After she dodged aside, several vines sprouted from the roots, whipping towards her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she summoned the “Iron Bramble” in her hand and sliced them apart, cutting down the bud along with them in one swift motion.

The fallen bud on the ground started struggling like a living creature, and after a few seconds, it withered into powdery fragments.

After that, there was no further movement from the roots.

Qianling crouched down, touched a bit of the debris with her fingertip, and placed it on her tongue.

“As I thought, it’s poison.”

She withdrew her finger from her mouth and sighed in this manner.

Qianling had once seen the protagonist of a detective anime do something similar. People online often criticized how unrealistic that scene was.

But that was because the anime protagonist was human.

As a doll, Qianling not only possessed a more sensitive tongue than humans, she also didn’t have to worry about being poisoned, so this was a completely reasonable action—at least in her opinion.

In any case, these things posed no threat to her, but for ordinary people, it might be another story.

I can’t just leave these things alone; my job is to eliminate such unstable factors.

She reached this conclusion and looked down towards the floor below.

On the first-floor promenade of the mall, Yang Mo was just about to come to blows with the Corrupted Fiend.

As Yang Mo drew closer, the Corrupted Fiend seemed to confirm its primary target, becoming even more agitated.

It moved on its straw-bound legs, crawling across the ground like a spider.

First, it slashed downward with its right wrist at an angle, but Yang Mo dodged aside with a quick sidestep.

She kept running forward, swinging the utility knife in her hand. At the same time, a stack of book pages flew from the book at her waist, following her as she moved.

The Corrupted Fiend couldn’t retract its arm right away. Suddenly, the vines on its chest began bubbling like boiling water, then several thinner vines shot out, thrusting straight at Yang Mo.

But Yang Mo’s expression remained calm.

Because the pages flew faster than the vines, she flicked the utility knife again, and countless pages immediately gathered in front of her, forming a funnel shape.

The attacking vines were brushed aside by the pages.

Under the protection of the pages, Yang Mo successfully closed in on the Corrupted Fiend.

The “funnel” shifted shape; in an instant, the torrent of pages converged on the utility knife, forming a true blade.

Yang Mo swung the blade with all her strength, slicing a deep gash into the Corrupted Fiend’s chest.

Hurt, it lashed out wildly in all directions, smashing the nearby counter and lighting fixtures to pieces, sending dust billowing through the air.

But Yang Mo had already leapt lightly out of its attack range.

“Getting a paper cut must really hurt,” she said irritably.

It seemed the delay in her lunch had truly made her angry.

On the other side, Qianling watched everything happening with Yang Mo and finally relaxed.

In the original story, Yang Mo’s magic hadn’t had much chance to shine, but a magical girl is still a magical girl—how could she lose so easily to a Corrupted Fiend?

“I’ll leave this side to you for now, partner.”

She muttered in a voice only she could hear, then set off again toward the next anomaly.

When the dust settled, Yang Mo was surprised to find that the Corrupted Fiend’s wound had already vanished, along with the straw bound to its body.

It must have snapped it off while struggling.

Without the constraint of the straw, it no longer resembled a human form, but its attacks grew even fiercer.

Countless vines supported its weight, leaping onto the wall with strange movements, then launching itself at Yang Mo using the recoil.

The tremendous impact left cracks in the floor, but Yang Mo dodged by leaping into the air.

But the attack wasn’t over yet.

From the previous exchange, the Corrupted Fiend seemed to have realized that its attacks weren’t working, so it tried to win by sheer numbers.

While Yang Mo was still evading, a barrage of vines shot straight at her.

After landing, she didn’t continue dodging. Instead, she went directly forward to meet the attack.

Under her command, the pages linked into a ring and spun rapidly, like the blade of a lawnmower, slicing all the vines to pieces.

She sprinted ahead, and the Corrupted Fiend’s main body fell within her attack range.

Another flash of the blade of pages.

This time, her slash cut even deeper—nearly severing the Corrupted Fiend in two at the waist.

Just as Yang Mo prepared to follow up, she sensed a disturbance underfoot.

It was then she noticed that, mixed in with the vine fragments she’d sliced to pieces, there was something else.

“This is…?”

Before she could finish, a sphere attached to the debris began to pulsate like a heart.

The next second, purple smoke erupted from within.

This was clearly the same kind of bud that Qianling had encountered on the second floor.

With so many buds scattered all around, Yang Mo had nowhere to dodge.

She could only hurriedly swing her utility knife, commanding the pages to form a dome that sealed herself inside.

This could indeed prevent her from inhaling the strange smoke, but it also brought another problem.

That is—the pages blocked not only the smoke, but also her own vision.

At that moment, the Corrupted Fiend attacked again, twisting countless vines into just three thick cords to maximize their power.

The pages that had previously repelled the vines were now pierced with ease; the vine tips entered from one side of the dome and exited the other.

All those watching the battle gasped.

“No way…”

“Will the magical girl inside even survive?”

A tense, uneasy atmosphere spread among the crowd.

However, at that moment, the Corrupted Fiend’s vines began to twist in agony.

At the same time, the sealed dome split into two halves, spiraling open to both sides.

The feathered pages instantly became twin wings, and, like a bird spreading its wings, whipped up a gust that shredded the vines into pieces, sweeping away all the poisonous gas as well.

Yang Mo stood within, holding her utility knife high, protected in the center by the two wings, appearing completely unharmed.

In other words, the Corrupted Fiend’s attack had missed from the very start.

The reason she could dodge while her vision was blocked was that she had used her magic in another way.

She’d already used this method back when she first met Qianling.

Back then, although Qianling had used stealth magic, Yang Mo still found her—the scrap of paper in the maid uniform’s pocket allowed her to track Qianling’s movements at all times.

For Yang Mo, it was the same with the Corrupted Fiend now.

In their earlier clash, what littered the ground was not only vine debris… but also torn pages.

If one looked closely, one could see that the ripped corners and edges were stuck all over the Corrupted Fiend.

Sunlight shone through the mall’s skylight, and the scraps glinted like aluminum foil on the fiend’s body.

So—

“I can see your every move, you know.”

Yang Mo declared.

Whenever the Corrupted Fiend tried to make another move, she could sense it ahead of time through the scraps of paper.

As she closed the distance, she couldn’t help but reveal a faint smile, then launched into another round of close combat with the Corrupted Fiend.