Pale, who kept looking back every three steps, finally distanced herself from that amusement park.
Good, neither of them pursued her.
The farther from the amusement park, the less yellow sand accumulated—this was likely because all the anomalies spread outward with Elara as the center.
After the "calamity" era, humans had grown accustomed to these environmental changes. It was nothing more than spending a few days cleaning up, and with magical girls' help, everyone would quickly forget about this incident.
Filling their stomachs was the most important thing.
Pale stumbled into a quiet, deserted alley, leaning her back against the cold, rough brick wall. Unable to support herself any longer, she slowly slid down to sit on the ground.
"Hah... hah..."
The girl panted heavily. Each breath pulled at wounds all over her body, bringing waves of sharp, piercing pain. Fine cold sweat beaded on her forehead, sticking gray hair strands to her pale skin.
That severely damaged Gothic dress finally couldn't maintain its form completely, silently dissipating like a fading phantom, revealing even more shocking wounds beneath.
Her ordinary clothing had long become tattered in the previous battle. Through the tears, crisscrossing claw marks and bruises deep enough to show bone were visible. Her waist and abdomen bore a large patch of unnatural charring and corrosion marks, with fabric at the edges even adhering to the rolled flesh. The purple-blue strangulation marks on her neck and collarbone appeared even clearer and more terrifying.
Damn it, Elara really wanted to kill me.
Pale raised the magic stone core in her hand. The black chaos within seemed even denser.
Pale had no doubt that if this continued, her core might become more calamity-like than the "calamity" mother body itself.
"Sigh~"
Pale sighed and helplessly placed the core back on her lower abdomen.
Still ice-cold and chaotic, without a trace of magic power.
What difference was this from a decoration!
After doing all this, Pale looked at the magic stone from Suzune, which had dimmed considerably.
In her panic earlier, she had forcibly used it for transformation, flight, and acceleration, wasting most of its energy, but at least a trace remained.
Pale gritted her teeth, mobilizing the insignificant trace of magic power that had just recovered, carefully guiding the remaining energy in the magic stone to extremely slowly nourish the most severe wounds on her body, allowing the rolled flesh to barely heal and stop bleeding.
As for those bruises and surface scrapes, she could only ignore them for now.
After this makeshift treatment, Pale carefully scattered the completely exhausted magic stone remains, now turned to powder, in the wind.
As for Elara's remains in her magic space...
Pale still felt that fallen leaves should return to their roots.
After calamity receded, that grassland had gradually changed from desert to wilderness, with tumbleweeds and poplars that Pale had specially cultivated growing robustly upon it.
That former homeland was now full of descendants of the poplar sapling Elara had once entrusted to her.
Pale felt... she should erect a monument for Elara.
Pale didn't shed a single tear for Elara.
Her long life had already taught her that tears were the most useless form of mourning.
True remembrance and farewell lay in action, in continuation, in transforming that heavy emotion into the strength to keep moving forward, even with stumbling steps and wounds all over.
The dead had departed; the living must continue forward.
There were still so many children waiting for her care.
The days with Elara had been full of joy.
Let this joy remain forever etched in her heart.
Becoming Pale's motivation to keep going.
"Mmah~"
Pale stretched lazily. This level of injury really wasn't much for her.
'Time to clock in at Twilight~'
'Wonder what this month's perfect attendance bonus will be. Hopefully new clothes or little bears or something.'
From her magic space, she took out her work uniform and, under cover of night, blended into the crowd.
○
Pale dragged her exhausted, wounded body, struggling to maintain surface calm as she mixed into the morning crowd returning to base, sneaking back to the "Twilight" base through the logistics passage.
Called a base, it was really just a group of hollowed-out apartment buildings and former office buildings.
Magical girls studied, lived, and trained within them.
After all, they were still just children.
So there would be specially dispatched government teachers to assist with academic and magical training.
This was both care for magical girls and to put the government at ease about them.
The base interior had already awakened.
Magical girls bustled about, discussing last night's abnormal energy in the suburbs and rumors of the "traitor" Ember's reappearance.
Pale kept her head down, wishing she could turn invisible, only wanting to quickly pass through the hall.
"Did you hear? Ember appeared again, and this time the commotion was even bigger." A magical girl with a bun hairstyle said to her companion.
"More than just a big commotion!" Her companion, a short-haired girl, immediately responded with wide eyes. "I heard that when Suzune-senpai and Hoshino Yume-senpai arrived, the entire amusement park was nearly demolished! Sand and bone fragments piled up like small mountains! The energy residue was terrifyingly strong!"
"That's nothing!" Another passing girl joined the discussion, mysteriously lowering her voice. "I heard someone from the reconnaissance team secretly say they detected super-high concentrations of 'calamity' reactions at the scene! Stronger than any previous record! It was like... the calamity mother body had revived!"
"Really?! Then Ember, she..."
"That's why it's so scary!" Another voice interjected, clearly fearful. "Think about it—why does Ember show mercy to those magical creatures and witches, why does she always cause us trouble? It's terrifying when you think about it!"
"Hiss!" The girls gasped.
"Shh! Keep it down! Suzune-senpai forbade us from wild speculation!"
Seemingly noticing Pale's presence, several magical girls immediately surrounded her.
Crap!
Pale wanted to run, but those girls had already encircled her.
"Pale-nee, you need to be careful lately too!"
"Right, right! That Ember is just too awful!"
They chattered away. Though the content was about how terrible "Ember" was, their purpose was completely protective toward Pale.
"Pale-nee, you're always in the logistics area, and sometimes you have to go to the warehouse," another girl with hair clips added worriedly. "What if that traitor sneaks around the base perimeter..."
"If she dares bully Pale-nee, we absolutely won't forgive her!" A younger but hot-tempered girl waved her fist, her face full of righteous indignation.
Pale was surrounded by them, listening as they denounced "Ember" with the most disgusted tones while caring for "Pale" with the most sincere attitudes. This feeling was so bizarre she could barely maintain her facial expression.
"Pale-nee, you're the only ordinary person here who isn't a magical girl. You must protect yourself well. We'll all come save you if you're in danger!"
"Mm-hmm, thank you all."
Pale could only try to lower her head, letting her gray hair cover her eyes that might betray emotions, unconsciously wringing the hem of her clothes while putting on a weak appearance that was both afraid and grateful.
Damn it!
I'm not that scary!
You little brats, I'll give you special attention next time I come!
Hehehe!
"Pale-nee, you look awful," the bun-haired girl looked at her carefully and said worriedly. "Were you also scared by last night's commotion? Didn't sleep well?"
"Ah?... Mm!" Pale nodded along, completely attributing her poor condition to being "frightened" and "staying up late."
"I... I still need to prepare breakfast for everyone, so I'll go first!"
"Yay! We can eat Pale-nee's cooking again!"
After a few more reminders about "staying safe" and "don't wander around at night," this group of energetic girls finally left chattering toward the training ground.
'Sigh~ Those guys finally left.'
Pale breathed a sigh of relief.
Young people were just so energetic, always loving to chat about gossip and strange tales.
"Oh my? Isn't this Pale?"
A gentle voice with a hint of lazy, mature charm called out to her.
Pale's heart skipped a beat as she looked up.
The one who called her was Jasmine... a veteran support-type magical girl in the base with a gentle, generous personality. Due to her reliable character and full figure, she was privately called "Jasmine-nee" by her juniors. She was currently holding a cup of hot tea, looking at Pale with concern.
Of course, Pale firmly believed she was still more mature and reliable.
Though her figure after transformation wasn't as substantial as Jasmine's, in terms of overall charm and allure...
Pale's gaze quickly swept over Jasmine's impressive bust, then compared it to her own currently smaller curves, immediately conducting a meaningless and biased internal comparison, concluding that she was absolutely superior.
Victory!
Jasmine smiled gently, her gaze falling on Pale's face: "You still don't look well... I saw them surrounding you just now. Were they talking about last night's scary events again? Don't take it to heart too much. They're just worried about you."
Jasmine gently blew on the hot tea in her hands, the steam misting her gentle eyes: "But speaking of which, though you can't use magic, Pale, you always take such good care of everyone. Having you at the base makes everyone feel very secure."
"Oh my, this is what I should do~" Pale scratched her head. "If there's nothing else, I'll go first."
Damn it!
Why care about me so much!
"Oh, Pale-chan~"
Jasmine held her teacup and walked a bit closer, her usually smiling eyes now carrying a trace of serious scrutiny as her gaze lightly swept over Pale's neck that she was trying to hide with her hair.
"This thing on your neck… It looks somewhat familiar~"