"Oh, what a cute little girl~" Pale sounded as if she'd heard the most amusing joke.
Under the wide brim of her wizard hat, her molten gold eyes curved into crescents, and she even dramatically covered her mouth with the back of her hand, making "pfft pfft" sounds as she stifled her laughter.
After Pale had laughed enough, she leisurely lowered her hand, elegantly flicking at nonexistent dust on her hat brim with her fingertips, her eyes full of cunning: "But... you say I can't use magic? Tsk tsk tsk, little child, do you have some tremendous misunderstanding about your senior's power?"
Before her words finished, Pale's figure vanished from her original position without warning.
The twin-tailed girl's pupils suddenly contracted. A pink magic wand appeared out of thin air, and the girl clutched the wand while alertly looking around. With the howling sandstorm and blurred vision, she couldn't capture any trace of Pale.
"Is the little cutie looking for me?"
That voice full of teasing laughter, like a ghost with trailing echoes, rang out close to the girl's nape, warm breath brushing against her ear.
"Mmhoi!"
Time overdraft.
As a magical girl's fundamental power, Pale could overdraw future magic power and stamina to gain explosive improvement in a short time.
Of course... it needed to be repaid.
Similar to Pinduoduo's "use now, pay later."
The world seemed to fall into viscous slow motion—wind and sand froze, sounds stretched out.
Pale's figure moved like an elegant dancer, strolling leisurely through the nearly static flow of time.
Pale circled around to the front of the twin-tailed girl, ignoring her terrified wide eyes and slowly swinging magic wand.
"Oh, what a cute little girl~"
Pale commented thus.
Magical girls generally had high attractiveness—this was magic's gift.
Pale extended her hand wearing white lace gloves, gently landing it on the twin-tailed girl's head.
Pale's fingers carried a trace of coolness, passing through the girl's silky hair strands, roughly ruffling them, making the girl's originally meticulously tied twin tails somewhat disheveled.
A few hair strands stuck up, revealing the girl's blushing cheeks.
Finally, Pale's fingers stopped at the girl's round, delicate earlobe, pinching it extremely frivolously.
"Mm... nice texture too." The corner of Pale's mouth curved into a wicked arc.
Having done all this, Pale seemed to have played enough. But she didn't retreat. Instead, she leaned forward slightly, using a somewhat lazy posture to gently rest against the twin-tailed girl's stiff shoulder.
The girl's body instantly tensed like a stone. She could clearly feel Pale's body weight and warmth transmitted through the thin combat outfit, and that huge black-red wizard hat brim gently brushing against her cheek.
Even more excessive was that Pale seemed to deliberately adjust her position to lean more comfortably, even letting out a satisfied, cat-like purr.
The time overdraft ended, and Pale's speed returned to normal.
"You... you... you this... old pervert! Rogue! Shameless old witch! Demon!!" The twin-tailed girl screamed incoherently, her voice carrying a sobbing tone and cracking, "I'm going to kill you! I'll definitely kill you! Cut off your hands!"
This was followed by the sound of swinging the magic wand with whooshing air.
This child had completely flown into a rage, even forgetting that magic wands were for using magic, not for using as baseball bats to hit people.
"Puahahahahaha!" Seeing the girl completely collapse, tears streaming down her face, overcome with shame and anger, Pale laughed so hard she swayed back and forth. Her wide wizard hat shook violently along with her, and she even dramatically clutched her stomach,
"Aiyo... can't take it... stomach hurts... hahaha... little child... your reaction... hahaha... is too cute!"
She laughed while wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, ignoring the girl's chaotic, shrew-like swinging of her wand trying to hit her.
The twin-tailed girl's strike missed, and she staggered, nearly falling. She clutched her wand, breathing heavily with her chest rising and falling irregularly. Tears kept streaming down as she looked at Pale with eyes full of shame, anger, fear, and a sense of helplessness at being completely toyed with.
"What... what exactly do you want!" she shouted with a sobbing voice, her voice hoarse.
"What do I want?" Pale finally stopped laughing, her molten gold eyes still holding traces of teasing moisture, but her tone carried a barely perceptible seriousness. She pointed at the unconscious Momo below, "Look, your teammate—I'm returning her to you."
Before her words finished, her figure flickered.
The twin-tailed girl only felt her vision blur as a gentle but irresistible force lightly pushed her. She instinctively stepped back, and immediately after, a soft body was stuffed into her arms.
It was Momo!
"I've done simple treatment."
The twin-tailed girl was caught off guard, frantically struggling to hold Momo.
Momo's body was limp, her face pale, and the position of her magic core at her chest was completely empty, leaving only a dim mark. Holding her teammate who had lost her core, the girl's anger and shame were instantly replaced by tremendous sorrow and panic.
"Mo... Momo..." Her voice trembled, tears flowing even more fiercely.
"Don't worry, she won't die." Pale's voice rang out above her head, carrying a trace of casual comfort, "Her core was just taken out, magic power depleted, and she fainted."
The magic core crystallized from a magical girl's soul was the entirety of a magical girl's life.
As long as the core was intact and returned to the original body within a certain time, then barring fatal injuries like decapitation or heart removal, magical girls could automatically repair themselves over time.
If magic power control was strong enough, one could consume magic power to restore the body in a shorter time.
Pale could sense... two cores had been taken by someone, and magic power traces were deliberately left behind, as if purposely telling Pale the location of the perpetrator's hiding place...
And... carrying a trace of wild aura familiar to Pale.
The Grassland Wolf Clan.
"Listen, little brat." Pale's tone rarely carried seriousness, though the corner of her mouth still held that habitual teasing smile, "Now, I'm giving you a mission."
The twin-tailed girl instinctively tensed her body, looking at her warily.
"Take this pink-haired little dummy," Pale gestured at Momo with her chin, "back to your 'Twilight' base and hand her over to Suzune. I should have taught her what to do. As for the other magical girl, you'd better prepare magic stones for the exchange~"
"Damn it! I knew it was you! Don't think you can escape, I'll catch you!"
"Hehe, I already expected you'd say that. Why don't you feel your own magic power?"
The girl discovered in horror that her magic power... was being absorbed bit by bit by Momo in her arms.
"A little 'insurance.'" Pale stepped back two paces, creating distance from the girl, "I temporarily used magic stone power to keep her barely alive, but this requires continuous energy supply. This mark will continuously extract your magic power to maintain her vital signs."
"Of course," the magic stone materialized in Pale's hand, a wisp of black magic power churning as Pale gradually flew away from the ground, "you can try what happens if you let go~"
"You... you demon!" the girl shouted with a red face, "Pervert! Sex fiend! Deviant! Traitor! Someday I'll catch you!"
Pale hovered in mid-air, looking down at her from above, listening to her impoverished curses. Far from being angry, she seemed to hear the most beautiful hymn, letting out delighted soft laughter.
"I remember you're called... Hoshino Yume? I'll be waiting for you~
Properly prepare magic stones at the base and wait for me,"
The face of an old acquaintance appeared in Pale's mind—Elara.
The last Grassland Wolf King, and also the Wolf Clan Princess.
An extremely troublesome, terrifying woman...