Watching the anime from Madoka Magica and writing the rules

"Did the witch release me? But this is too much of a coincidence, and I was just guessing and I actually came back."

Zhixing was full of doubts, but there was no one who could help him, so he could only touch the wall while looking around carefully, alert for the appearance of the familiar.

"Paper line, paper line, calm down and don't let your own speculations cloud your mind."

Zhixing looked around and saw that there were no familiars around, so he walked very slowly, while giving himself a mental shot of prevention.

"The witch didn't harm me because I was a novel toy to her, but even so, I was almost killed by the witch last time because I couldn't speak."

"So when you encounter a familiar that you can't communicate with, you must not let your guard down. You must hide and either find an exit or return to the witch's room."

Zhixing kept repeating the words that told him to be careful, but he just couldn't get nervous.

It's as relaxing as if you've arrived in a safe zone from the danger outside.

Zhixing was very surprised to realize his own relaxation, so he kept using his reason to analyze the current situation in order to tell himself that he was in danger.

"I'm in a weird state right now."

"Why are you suddenly not nervous anymore?"

"Is it because I won't be controlled by the Witch's Kiss in the Witch's Barrier that I don't feel so much despair? I don't even feel stressed anymore?"

"No, even in the witch's barrier, people can still feel despair, even if it's just shock."

"Otherwise, no one would have died that day for shouting."

Zhi Xing walked forward, feeling the wall with one hand and reaching for his heart with the other.

"I've experienced despair myself since entering the barrier. Whether it was the initial panic or the emotions I felt while reading the information, they were all genuine."

"Even recently, when I came to the witch's barrier, I was terrified. After all, the mouth that I used to prove my uniqueness was blocked."

"At that time, I really felt like I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do. It wasn't like the situation I'm in now. I didn't feel any pressure and could think freely."

Zhihang stopped and looked at the bustling assembly line factory in front of him.

Following the conveyor belt closest to him, Zhi Xing saw the intersection with another conveyor belt in front, where the doll limbs were transported in an orderly manner.

I recalled my previous guesses.

"If I remember correctly, the witch's barrier is a maze because it is filled with separated rooms."

"If you don't know the location of the witch's room, then even if you can break through the wall, you'll have to keep searching. So, to save mana, you should follow the existing doorway into the next room."

"Over there, breaking through the partitions of the rooms, does such a witch barrier exist?"

Zhixing felt that his thinking was very smooth. Apart from the possible problem with the direction of his thinking, he did not encounter any situation where his ideas were quickly denied.

"Both the TV witch and the squad leader witch use a three-dimensional room as their battle location."

"But it's a witch's room after all, so it's natural that it's bigger than the other rooms."

"The Mermaid Witch's room is not only large enough for the concert, but there's even plenty of space underneath."

"The contrast to the concert was the narrow corridors and rooms that Anzi saw when she was talking to Madoka. And after being discovered by the witch, she had to pass through a large number of doorways to reach the center."

"But the most obvious one is, of course, the Witch Night-level witch barrier in the movie."

"It can restore the entire Mitakihara area to the barrier, and there are no labyrinthine rooms between each area."

"And after the witch transformed herself, the familiars gathered together to form a legion. Similarly, the entire city wasn't turned into a series of small rooms. Instead, it was visible directly from the edge to the center."

"Mami's side can even fire long-range cannons that can cross rivers and knock down giant familiars at who knows how far away."

Zhi Xing looked at the wall he was holding onto and saw a corner in front of him, but he could not see the shape of a door. He was somewhat certain of the witch's current situation.

"It seems we've found evidence that proves the witch is actually in an unhatched state."

"Since the witch hasn't been hatched, there's no possibility of her leaving on her own."

"So, am I really at the edge of the barrier now?"

Zhixing had to remain skeptical about this, after all, his behavior this time was too strange.

After ruling out the possibility that the witch had actively pulled him in, Zhixing was left with only one guess.

"It's not that I entered from the edge of the barrier, but because I was the barrier that trapped the witch, the witch spread out from me as the center. So now, I am actually in the center of the barrier."

"That explains why I'm not in the witch's room. Also, there's no way out behind me."

"After all, the witch's room isn't in the center of the maze, so the magical girl has to explore the maze and consume her magic power."

"In that case, escaping the barrier by walking to its edge is probably hopeless. Does that mean I have to find the witch's room to get out? To do that, I have to go through that entrance where familiars keep coming in and out, to get back to the witch's room."

Zhixing once observed that unless there were any unexpected circumstances, such as ordinary people entering the barrier or magical girls breaking the barrier, witches would usually just do the same thing over and over again.

And this is usually the happiest moment in their lives.

Although this happiness will not be perfect, just like Charlotte who loves snacks has all kinds of candies in her room except her favorite cheese.

Just like the mermaid's concert, even though Kamijou's familiar was present, it was drowned out by the chorus.

Just like there are no friends in the beautiful tea party, the witch on the other side can only look at memories, the witch of salvation harms people in the name of saving people, and the nutcracker can only repeatedly behead himself but can never reach the reality of death.

The witch will constantly repeat the process of reaching the happiest moment in the witch's barrier, but she will never get the result of happiness.

Therefore, if no one enters the witch's room called the Repairing Witch, the entrance is probably already full of familiars waiting to be repaired, and after being repaired, the familiars continue to dismantle themselves and queue up again. Without external interference, the queue will never end, and there will be no chance for Zhi Xing to enter. He will definitely encounter those familiars before entering the room.

"Sure enough, this feels so familiar. Are both options actually wrong again?"

"I can't say it's wrong, but once I think about it, it always feels like an impossible option."

"If it were any other time, I'd probably have stopped thinking at this point, and chosen the lesser of two evils. This is the decision I can make with the benefit of hindsight."

The paper line stopped near the corner, without looking past the corner to where the other rooms should have been.

"Is there a third option? A third option that will get me out."

"Yeah, that pitch-black space at midnight. I remember being in a dilemma there. Going back or not would result in two bad outcomes."

"Go back? Hmm... is that an option?"

Zhixing compared the methods he had thought of repeatedly in his mind and finally made a decision.

Choose the option that will provide the greatest future benefits.

"Go back, go back, go back."

Zhixing kept repeating this word, then walked out of the corner and looked at the area that should be another room.

Two toys with wooden bodies are filling their limbs with cotton on the assembly line.

Zhixing didn't have much time to take a closer look, because just when Zhixing's eyes fell on the two familiars, the familiars suddenly turned their heads and looked at Zhixing.

I don’t know if it’s because he’s really sensitive to gazes, or because Zhixing hasn’t stopped talking since he made the decision.

"go back!"

Their eyes met before Zhixing could turn around and run away.

Everything around began to twist again.

Taking advantage of the short period of time required for the distortion to occur, Zhixing maintained his previous calm state of thinking, and a sense of enlightenment arose in his heart.

"It turns out that it wasn't me who went back, but I was the one who told the witch to go back through the witch language."

Zhixing seemed to realize something and was about to continue thinking along this line of thought.

“Beep! Beep!!”

Two rapid horn sounds came from beside Zhixing, interrupting his thoughts.

Then there was a loud brake sound.

Zhihang turned around and saw a car stopped just a cup's distance away from him.

The paper company could even feel a strong gust of wind coming from the direction of the car.

"Are you looking for death?! Why are you running away in the middle of nowhere?!"

The driver of the car leaned his head out of the window with an angry look on his face and shouted angrily.

Zhixing looked at the angry driver with an innocent face, and soon realized that he was in the middle of the road.

It was as if I was doing something I really disliked, running around on the street.

"Feel sorry."

Zhixing thanked the driver who stopped, then, noticing the increasing number of eyes focused on him, glanced at the sidewalk closest to him and whispered:

"Let me in, Bear."

A magic circle that had just been seen not long ago appeared next to Zhixing again.

Zhixing stepped in without hesitation, avoiding the attention of everyone attracted by the sudden stop.

The driver, who couldn't see the magic circle, was getting angrier and angrier, and wanted to get out of the car and beat up the paper shop.

However, he did not expect that this man who appeared in the road out of nowhere, after apologizing to him, took a step and disappeared from his sight, and disappeared without a trace from the road where vehicles were still passing.

The driver was completely stunned. After a long while, he trembled and grasped the steering wheel to restart the car amid the honking of the car behind him.

"I must...I must have seen a ghost. Tonight, no, now let's go find a...find a shrine to worship."

As the vehicles started, the traffic that was originally blocked by the appearance of the paper line began to recover quickly.

“There seems to be very little traffic.”

After entering the barrier and walking quickly for a distance, Zhixing, who felt that he was in a similar position, tried to talk to the Witch's Kiss on his neck. Soon, the Witch's Kiss responded to Zhixing's call and released Zhixing from the barrier. He accurately did not overlap with the passers-by, but came to the street intact and witnessed the whole process of traffic congestion to unblocking.

"I never thought that what I was just talking about would actually come true. But did I degenerate from Level 0 Kamijou Touma to Level 4 Space Teleportation Shirai Kuroko?"

Thinking of this, Zhi Xing looked at the walls on both sides of the alley that blocked the view of passersby because he was staring at others on the street, and said with a sigh of relief:

"As long as it's not the one who got stuck in the wall because the experimental space shifted, I can accept it."

Thinking of this, Zhi Xing stretched out his hand into the alley, but soon he sensed the gazes of others and the meaning conveyed by the other party. He could only withdraw his hand helplessly and hide deeper in the alley to avoid being exposed to the sight of others.

"Does this count as Shokuhou Misaki's version of being forced to stay away from people because I can't control the translation?"

"There's no other way. Although the witch seems to have become my helper, there are still risks. I can only wait until midnight to use the dark space to go back, and then teleport to Conan at a fixed point."

"At least I don't have to worry about being trapped in the witch's barrier anymore. So, it's better not to return to the Demon Circle so early. I'll use my time to accumulate experience in other worlds."

Zhihang picked up his enthusiasm, looked up at the sky with a hopeful look, and had a mentality that already had super powers... He was hungry from the afternoon to the brightly lit night.

"At least it proves that the soup given by the witch can only be maintained normally within the witch's barrier. So if I choose to go back, I might faint from hunger. It's worth it..."

Zhixing squatted in the alley, holding his stomach. After a wait that was far more boring and longer than Zhixing had believed, he finally welcomed the long-awaited moment.

Darkness enveloped Zhi Xing's vision.

Zhihang, who had been unwilling to sleep in order not to miss the time, immediately became excited. This time he looked around without any scruples, and soon a white shadow appeared in his sight.

"I want to go back!"

Thinking that he could finally go back to Maori's house for a meal, Zhixing smiled and spoke without hesitation.

But...it was still pitch black all around.

Chapter 167 A Promise to the Future

"go back?"

Zhi Xing was confused for a moment, then tentatively said something to the white shadow in the distance.

But the surroundings were still pitch black, white feathers were still the only color, he still could not hear anything, could not feel anything, and nothing happened.

Zhi Xing suddenly realized that something was not there.

That indescribable feeling.

"Could it be that because I've been going in and out of the witch's barrier, my ability to travel back has also changed? It's like I'm now passively translating other people's sight."

"That won't do. My greatest reliance is traveling through time, not entering and exiting the barrier."

"If there's no possibility of going back, then my life here will be difficult."

The paper industry really hates the current situation it is in, and the reason for this situation is that there is no system to explain its capabilities.

But Zhixing hates things like the system even more. After all, it will consider worse outcomes. If an unknown existence that can detect its own situation at any time appears, wouldn't that be a situation of inevitable death?

"I still don't understand why I traveled through time. Maybe there's a limit to how many times I can go back. In that case, if I run out of energy from using the witch's barrier continuously during experiments, that would be the worst possible outcome."

"No, if the number of times is really limited, then I shouldn't choose this world. Instead, I'd choose the high-risk world and take a gamble."

"And the time I might have known the truth was probably during the first round of the Demon Circle, right? Because I didn't expect Samsara to lose her memory? So when the girls from outside came to fight, didn't I try to find Homura?"