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Snowflakes slowly drifted down from the sky.
"Hah~"
Aoko Aozaki strolled along the street, breathing softly, a small cloud of white vapor escaping her rosy lips. She was currently wearing her usual winter attire: a white down jacket over a red miniskirt, and a pair of thick, warm, black pantyhose. She was dressed like a typical JK girl in this country.
In fact, Aoko didn't like wearing the same outfit all winter, but she had no choice—she was poor.
It wasn't that she didn't have money for clothes.
Though the Aozaki family wasn't a prestigious one, they were at least a middle-class family. They had not only regular clothes, but also some formal wear for banquets.
But Aoko only had one winter outfit with a magical protection effect.
This one outfit had cost her nearly half a year's living expenses. If not for this fight with an outside magus, she wouldn't have been willing to wear it.
Though it was simple, this outfit was her magical formal wear, even if its only effect was to defend against impacts of less than 200kg and to nullify a certain amount of magical attacks.
————
"Maybe I should go rob a rich guy??" Aoko muttered under her breath. Though she was only a half-baked magus, for her magical formal wear to be so weak, it was too embarrassing.
But to create a magical formal wear, expensive magical materials were necessary. And she had no money. So, she could only rob.
As for the rich guy she had her eye on... it was naturally a certain True Magic User.
Though she had only been a maid for a few days before brazenly skipping work, she was deeply impressed by Haru's extravagant use of magical power to clean—and even to provide special magical tools.
He had so many magical materials he didn't know where to burn them. That was Aoko's most direct impression of Haru. So, it wouldn't hurt for her to use some, right?
"Forget it. I don't want to owe him a favor," though she already owed him a debt she could never repay. Aoko thought of the two grimoires she had read that afternoon.
Thump~ thump~
The sound of her small, black boots against the gray flagstones echoed in a chaotic, yet orderly, rhythm.
About ten minutes later.
As Aoko stopped, the sound of her footsteps also ceased.
The gentle gurgling of a flowing river slowly reached her ears.
Aoko looked around.
She was at the head of a forty-meter-long stone arch bridge. Beneath the bridge flowed a river named the Tokawa.
Directly beneath this bridge was one of Misaki City's Ley Line nodes, and one of only two remaining.
Aoko and Alice had chosen their guard posts with a purpose.
For Aoko, whose magical power conversion efficiency was extremely high, the great source of magical power overflowing from the Tokawa Ley Line was practically an infinite ammunition depot. Not to mention the combat power bonus, her endurance had been increased countless times.
On the other hand, for Alice, whose combat power relied almost entirely on her fairy tale familiars, the combat power bonus of the Tokawa was extremely limited. Therefore, Alice had chosen the fulcrum of Shagi Park as her battlefield—to give Aoko a few more layers of winning chances.
Aoko walked to the center of the bridge, leaned her back against the stone railing, her elbow resting on the top, and looked up at the bright moon in the sky.
"...10 o'clock," she sighed helplessly.
Since she was on guard duty, she naturally had to wait here for the enemy to arrive. To be honest, for her, who preferred to attack, this was a rather troublesome chore.
Whoosh~
A cold winter wind, mixed with snowflakes, blew across the land, bringing Aoko a winter blessing.
"...I forgot to bring a blanket." Aoko's eyelid twitched, and her whole body trembled.
A magus's battle normally took place at night. So, she would have to stay on this stone bridge until dawn.
Aoko covered her face and looked at her down jacket with a bitter expression. Just this one piece of clothing was not enough to withstand the cold winter wind on the bridge. And she had to endure it for a whole night. If she forced herself, she would definitely catch a cold tomorrow.
"Should I go buy a cup of hot coffee?" Aoko muttered, and then her gaze instantly sharpened.
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Click~ click!
A faint clicking sound reached her ears, and then the sound grew louder and louder.
Aoko knew what this sound represented. After all, she had fought with the owners of these sounds for a long time last night.
The sound of a puppet's joints moving.
Aoko's sharp gaze was fixed on the right side of the bridge. On the other side of the bridge was a forest. Due to it being nighttime, visibility was not high. She could only vaguely see some scenes by the light of the streetlights and the moon.
Countless, or rather, more than the maximum number Aoko could calculate, azure flames were floating in the dark forest. They were the eyes of the puppets, glowing.
As the clicking sound grew louder, the puppet army gradually approached the bridge, slowly and orderly, towards Aoko. Soon, the puppet army approached the bridge and, under the streetlights, their full forms were revealed.
"What the hell!!!!"
Aoko stared, dumbfounded, at the dozens of puppets at the forefront, her azure eyes trembling with shock.
Before her were thousands of 'Aoko Aozakis.' Their appearance, height, and even weight, Aoko estimated, were not much different from her own.
"How much did this cost!!" Aoko said, her tongue clicking.
She wasn't shocked by why the puppets were all modeled after her, but rather by the cost.
To make a combat puppet, even the cheapest one would cost at least one hundred thousand US dollars. And that was for a defective one, that is, one without a face, without skin, just a bare white torso.
Not to brag, but to make a puppet's appearance as beautiful as hers, it was impossible without at least three million US dollars.
But how many 'puppets' simulating her were on the other side? Just by looking, the number was definitely over two thousand.
How much did that cost!!!
"Tsk, if you like me, why don't you just come after me? Why make puppets!!!" Aoko said, half-joking.
If all these puppets were converted into cash, it would be enough to buy the entire Misaki City. And yet the other party had unhesitatingly made them into the same kind of disgusting puppets as yesterday, just to disgust her.
Aoko's azure eyes were filled with a grave and sorrowful light. This disregard for cost, just to achieve a goal...
"That sister of mine, when did she get so rich!!" Aoko forcibly suppressed the chaotic thoughts in her mind, pursed her lips, and lifted her right hand, holding it level with her eyes.
Sizzle~ sizzle~
Her entire right arm glowed with an azure light—a manifestation of the Magic Crest's operation.
"—Crest connection!" The familiar pain came.
"Direct current numerology, first layer, second layer, third layer!" As Aoko's voice fell, a triple-layered azure magic circle surrounded her arm, continuously rotating around it.
"Circuits okay, ammunition sufficient. Let's have some fun." Aoko's lips curved upwards, a wicked grin on her face.
A bowling-ball-sized azure magic bullet appeared in her palm.
"Load, fire!!!"
Boom boom boom—
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