Chapter 5: Fame?!

The next morning, inside the teaching building of University No. 3 in City A.

“Ren-ge, Ren-ge, stop sleeping. You’ve been out for almost half the class.”

“What’s up…”

Lu Ren, dark circles under his eyes, forced himself to stay awake and slowly opened his eyes to glance at his phone.

Seeing that it wasn’t time for class to end yet, he propped his head up with one hand, closed his eyes again, and went back to resting.

Xu Wenxing was helpless at Lu Ren’s reaction. “Ren-ge, what did you get up to last night? You knew you had class this morning, but you still stayed up so late. You look even more exhausted than me after playing games until past one.”

“Sigh… don’t mention it. Last night really wore me out.”

Without opening his eyes, Lu Ren waved his hand dismissively, signaling Xu Wenxing not to bring it up.

“Tsk, Ren-ge, is that rich lady you’re seeing really that energetic? Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Mm, mm, mm, mm, yeah, I got it.” Lu Ren mumbled casually.

“For money’s sake, Ren-ge, you’re really something… By the way, did you see the news this morning? There was a monster incident over by the northern High-Tech Zone.” Xu Wenxing naturally brought up what had happened last night.

“Oh, there was a monster in the High-Tech Zone? Got it.” Lu Ren muttered, continuing to brush it off.

After fighting the monster last night, Lu Ren waited until 4:30 a.m. for his Magic Girl Attire to deactivate automatically.

It left him caught in that awkward spot between not being able to sleep and not being able to stay awake.

Since he had an 8 a.m. class soon after, he ended up buying some food at the 24-hour Convenience Store, then napped for half an hour in the park before rushing back to class in a hurry.

Luckily, today he only had this one Career Planning Course in the morning; otherwise, Lu Ren feared he might just collapse on his desk mid-class and scare the professor.

“Ren-ge, you didn’t really skip the news, did you?” Xu Wenxing paused, surprised. “Your favorite red-haired Magic Girl actually showed up in the High-Tech Zone last night.”

Lu Ren twitched the corner of his mouth and rubbed his dry eyes with his left hand. “Don’t say it. I was too busy last night to watch any news.”

Xu Wenxing made a sound of understanding and looked at Lu Ren, who seemed on the verge of passing out.

After a few seconds of thought, he decided to share his prized collection with Lu Ren to help perk him up.

Having made up his mind, Xu Wenxing pulled out his phone, opened his saved items, and pushed it over.

“What now?”

Startled by the phone touching his arm, Lu Ren turned his head, half-opening his eyes to look at Xu Wenxing, unsure of what he was doing.

Without explaining, Xu Wenxing urged, “Ren-ge, watch this first, then you can sleep.”

“It’s just a Magic Girl, what’s so special?” Lu Ren reluctantly opened his eyes wider, took the phone, and planned to scroll through casually.

But as soon as he took the phone, the title immediately caught his attention, freezing his left hand mid-air.

It wasn’t anything extraordinary—just the title—but it was so bluntly straightforward that the just-turned-nineteen young man felt a chill run down his spine.

“Heroic Battle Poses of the Rising Red-Haired Magic Girl! Download and Save Quickly! Deleted After One Week!”

Lu Ren found it hard to imagine that in the middle of last night’s monster attack, someone hadn’t fled to safety but instead had raised a camera to snap pictures of him while transforming and fighting. It was like they didn’t care about their life at all.

Is that the cameraman’s code of ethics? Truly terrifying.

Taking a deep breath, Lu Ren’s hands trembled as he scrolled down the screen, reluctantly looking at photos secretly taken of him in his transformed state.

“Hmm…”

Lu Ren looked over the photos, pretending to ponder with a slight nod, his face calm as ever. But inside, waves of emotion stirred.

The photos of Blazing Flame looked completely normal—no revealing shots, no inappropriate expressions—only a determined yet youthful face and a valiant battle stance.

Still, for some reason, seeing these candid transformation shots from someone else’s viewpoint sent goosebumps all over him.

There was the displeasure of being secretly photographed, the pride of having his battle acknowledged by others, and then, from somewhere deep inside…

a strange mix of embarrassment and excitement?

“Ahem, what is this? Where did you find it?”

Not daring to dwell on why he felt that way, Lu Ren cleared his throat and feigned curiosity, pushing the phone back to Xu Wenxing while asking.

Xu Wenxing chuckled, not taking the phone right away. Instead, he scrolled up and opened another app.

“Don’t rush, Ren-ge. Check this out.”

At Xu Wenxing’s words, Lu Ren instinctively looked at the phone screen, curious about what strange thing his roommate wanted to show him next.

The next moment, Lu Ren’s face flushed red, completely speechless at the picture on Xu Wenxing’s phone.

“Hmm? No way, Ren-ge. You’re really that innocent? I thought you were a pro by now.” Xu Wenxing was surprised by Lu Ren’s reaction, not expecting him to blush over an anime-style image.

To Xu Wenxing, this picture was just a risque illustration of a red-haired Magic Girl wearing a translucent one-piece triangle swimsuit—nothing out of the ordinary.

If it weren’t for the fact that this image was of that mysterious red-haired Magic Girl and the surprisingly high quality of the artwork, Xu Wenxing wouldn’t have even thought to share it with Lu Ren.

There were dozens of images like this online. Even those created based on real Magic Girls’ appearances were easy for Xu Wenxing to find.

“You jerk, you and I have both been single since birth. What are you pretending for?” Lu Ren couldn’t help but retort. “I just never thought she’d be around less than a month and already have people drawing stuff like this. Sapphire and Meteor didn’t get this kind of attention so fast, right?”

“Oh, that’s why, Ren-ge.” Xu Wenxing nodded seriously and explained, “I think it’s because she’s really cute and also a nice person.”

“Cute…?”

Lu Ren stared incredulously at his roommate, surprised that this was the kind of feedback he’d get from him.

He’d spent so much time telling Xu Wenxing how cool, decisive, and ruthless he was against monsters when transformed.

But this guy didn’t remember a thing and simply judged Blazing Flame as cute just based on her looks?

Listening to Xu Wenxing, Lu Ren almost thought Blazing Flame was wielding a magic wand instead of her greatsword.

“Don’t doubt me, Ren-ge.” Xu Wenxing scrolled down to show the comments, wanting to prove his point. “Look at the comments.”

Lu Ren followed his scrolling and first saw the artist’s note.

“Commissioned work. The character is based on the red-haired Magic Girl recently active in City A, code name Blazing Flame. Not very famous yet, but very cute.”

Below that were the user comments.

“Came because of the reputation, worth it.”

“Sorry, was busy just now. I want to ask, if humans are always ruled by desire, where is our future headed…”

“Wow, even newly debuted Magic Girls get commissioned artwork? Could it be a little thunder fan? But this is really cute, with a sort of innocent beauty.”

“Saved by her during last night’s evacuation, now it’s my turn to save her.”

“It’s shameful to say this to my savior, but I want to be Blazing Flame’s mom’s son!”

“Are all the commenters perverts? Funny, me too.”

“I was saved by her last week, and now seeing this picture gives me complicated feelings…”