The villainous magical girl's daily mission is to find fault.

More than 20 years ago, the Chengdu Heroes Association welcomed an outstanding magical girl.

Her identification code name is "albatross," a bird that spends almost its entire life at sea, rarely venturing to land, and capable of flying continuously for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers.

Since the appearance of the albatross, the magical girl Chi Xue, who was guarding Rongcheng alone, has welcomed her first companion. The two joined forces and their fighting power increased sharply, making them invincible in the battle against the monsters in Rongcheng.

People witnessed Albatross's diverse range of fire magic, admired her outstanding support firepower and elegant demeanor, and considered her an exceptionally talented magical girl.

However, in the eyes of the Hero Association, the sense of oppression brought by the Albatross is no less than that of the monsters, and sometimes it is even greater.

Since she joined the front lines against the monsters, the association has noticed some discrepancies in the damage bills following the attacks:

In the battle against the Hot Pot Monster, Albatross lifted a fully loaded semi-trailer truck and rammed the Hot Pot Monster into the ground.

While fighting the Umbrella Monster, Albatross casually dismantled two of the Association's armored vehicles that hadn't had time to evacuate, turning their armor plates into a makeshift pair of large scissors, which he used to shred the Umbrella Monster's sturdy umbrella to shreds.

They even used an entire armored vehicle as the hammer, miraculously smashing the swivel chair monster's head into its body.

Next up are the mug monster and the watch monster. Without exception, once Albatross thinks of a gadget that can quickly subdue them, he will immediately do it, regardless of the consequences.

Although the damage was within acceptable limits, even less than half of what it was when Akayuki was alone, the loss of combat equipment often causes significant trouble for the Hero Association's field personnel.

Write summaries, copy reports, prepare reports, and finally, conduct rectification and self-criticism.

Every field worker who lived through that era would sigh with heartfelt sorrow when the pristine white magical girl in her black and white shawl appeared: "The albatross is here again."

For Messiah, a former star field clerk who has been transferred to logistics, the presence of Albatross means endless loss reports and annual reviews, as well as countless days and nights to stay up.

Today, the Chengdu Heroes Association recalls that ghost of the past.

"A thorough search! Every corner of the city must be turned upside down!"

Qi Yun shouted loudly using full-channel communication,

"Search in the subway, search in office buildings, even send robots into the sewers to search thoroughly!"

"We absolutely cannot overlook any corner!!"

Messiah sat behind his desk, looking troubled, carefully reviewing the preliminary reports from the frontline investigation team.

As it turns out, Messiah had made a mistake in discussing this matter with Xin Yuehu.

I shouldn't have let Xinyuehu emphasize to Hyacinth that "this terminal is very valuable." If that were the case, Hyacinth wouldn't have conveyed that message to Albatross, and we wouldn't be in such a sorry state now.

Why? It's all because of the albatross!

The albatross's logic is both unconventional and natural. Now that the terminal is missing, her logic can be simply understood as follows—

This thing is expensive, but it can convey important information.

That means you can't be found by others, and you also have to avoid any potential dangers.

Hey, then I'll hide it in a secluded and safe place, and just to be on the safe side, I'll put one, two, or three layers of defensive magic on it, right?

QED

It seems alright at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it seems that this child's thought process is a bit too straightforward. Doesn't he consider what might happen after the defensive magic is applied?

"One report states that no signal was detected along the subway line."

"Second team report: We've searched the entire city's sewers, but found no signal. However, we did find several underground drug dens, which have all been destroyed."

"Any extra gains?" Qi Yun couldn't help but ask, and together with Messiah, they peeked at the photos of the hideouts.

The lawbreakers were handcuffed and brought back to the ground. One of them, a bald man who looked a lot like the actor who played Breaking X, asked the field agents in disbelief, "How did you find this place? I clearly set up so many decoys and strong defenses."

It seems pointless to tell him now that "it was actually the albatross that pulled a big stunt and that's why it ended up on you." Let him spend the rest of his life in jail.

After properly arranging manpower to deal with these hideouts, Messiah began writing tomorrow's press release, intending to use this incident to cover up the city-wide search. However, the subsequent news did not cheer her up.

The third, fourth, and all the way to the sixth teams, who were dispatched to conduct a carpet search throughout Chengdu, all sent back intelligence that none of them had found the special operations terminal that had been given to the albatross.

This suddenly made Messiah, who had been excitedly writing the press release, feel depressed. He kept muttering to himself, "That terminal is worth XXX million. How many days would I have to work to afford to lose that much?"

"I said, should we try another method?"

After finishing her field mission and returning to the conference room, Meteor put the frontline reports she had compiled on the table and instantly moved to the sofa at the edge of the room to sit down.

"Is there any other way? The transmitter and receiver of that terminal were custom-made by me. They can transmit a stable signal under any operating conditions, unless..."

"unless?"

"...Unless the albatross protects it with a defense so strong that even a hyacinth can't break it, and buries it dozens of meters deep underground, I can't think of any reason why we can't find it."

"I think that possibility is quite high," Messiah replied.

Never underestimate the destructive power and creativity of any magical girl. Messiah had this firm belief after witnessing Kokoro's growth path.

But how exactly can we find that terminal? If all goes well, it contains crucial intelligence that the albatross wants to transmit to Chengdu, a matter of vital importance to the safety of the city.

"I think it's worth trying to put yourself in their shoes."

The Lancet, who had been sitting on the sofa dozing without making a sound, spoke up.

Messiah glanced at the medical staff member who had just finished his night shift and was now dozing off in the conference room, and asked him curiously:

"Speaking of which, why is it you, Liu Mu, who came today? Where is Wu Yi?"

"Didn't he tell you? He's on the day shift today, he's incredibly busy," Liu Mu replied.

"Let's get down to business. I think our investigation approach is flawed. Since we all know that Albatross's thinking is very unpredictable and difficult to track, why don't we try to see things from her perspective?"

"Meteor, if you were an albatross, where would you put that carefully protected terminal?"

The meteor paused for a few seconds, as if deep in thought.

"Where should I put it? Let me think..."

"For ordinary items, I'll put them in the corner of the closet; for more valuable items, I'll put them on the bedside table; and for the most valuable items, I'll probably put them in a safe..."

"If this device were a special operations terminal, I would probably place it in a location with a higher level of security than anywhere else."

"For example?" Liu Mu pressed on.

"Hmm... an underground bunker, deep in the sewers, or some abandoned underground mine?" Meteor wasn't quite sure of the answer.

"As we just saw, the illegal drug manufacturing den thought it was well hidden, but we found it in no time. There are also signs of collapse in the underground mine tunnels. Do you really think these two places are safe?"

"This... um..."

After thinking carefully for a while, Meteor seemed to have thought of something and said softly:

"If it were me, I would put such a valuable item in a place where no one else could enter except me... a secret room with no entrance and accessible only by my psychic abilities..."

"No one but me can enter that place, but if it's spatial magic of the level of the Mental World..."

"So, where can we find a room like this?" Liu Mu finally asked.

Meteor raised its head and looked at its companions around it.

"—Underground of the Hero Association Headquarters, [Psychic Ability Testing Center]."