Girl in the Box: Please tell me why I was reincarnated as a mimic monster!

Chapter 19 The Little Fox's Night Walk

Ning originally planned to go directly to Olito to talk about this, but Li stopped her, saying it was too late and would disturb other people's rest.

...It's impossible to tell whether that person is resting or not, but Ning guesses that they're probably still working. Since that's the case, she withdrew her hand from the door.

Nieqi and the others played a makeshift wooden chess set for a while to pass the time in their evening. They played until Xiao started yawning before packing up to rest.

After saying goodbye to Neki, Salid left the house and went to the warehouse on the other side. He then used the portal in the warehouse to return to the shop.

Of course, tonight won't be so peaceful either.

"..."

Ning gently closed the book, left her desk and walked to the bedside. Moonlight shone in from the window, and Ning under the moonlight seemed to be veiled in mystery.

"...Let's go for a walk."

Her gaze fell upon a crow so black it was almost indistinguishable from the moonlight in the distant dense forest. And there was more than one; they were everywhere in the surrounding forest.

So, we're surrounded...?

Ning couldn't help but reveal an eager smile. It had been almost a month since her last battle, and the restrictive fighting hadn't given her any real enjoyment. She had been looking for an opportunity.

Because she had to consider Li's feelings, she had never done anything too outrageous, nor had she had a suitable reason to start a fight. But now it was different; the other party had come charging in with overwhelming force.

"We can't fail to properly entertain our guests."

Ning quietly pushed open the door to the room, then silently closed it, went downstairs, and used magic to create a barrier around Xia Ling's room to prevent her from being awakened.

The person in the family who needs the most protection is Xia Ling, so Ning will do her best to protect her. Li and Xiao don't seem to react at all; it doesn't matter if they are woken up.

Anyway, it was already resolved by then.

Ning pushed open the door and left home. Standing outside, she ignored the uninvited guests who were already lurking in the dense forest, and then began to circulate the magic power within her body.

Snapped.

Then someone suddenly hit her on the head.

"Tsk...! You...?" Ning was about to shout angrily when she realized it was Li. "Li...?"

"Are you an idiot?!" Li hissed at her in a low voice, "Don't fight here! It'll hurt the trees!"

“…Oh.” Ning replied perfunctorily.

She seemed to have genuinely forgotten about the Perseus Tree's existence here. If she were to start fighting recklessly like this, the Perseus Tree, which had only just begun to recover, might be destroyed on the spot.

“Oh, right.” Li grabbed Ning’s hand. “Come over here.”

"……what?"

Ning looked completely bewildered and followed Li into the dense forest without any precautions. Once inside, she began to sneak around. What was she doing...?

“Look at that…” Li pointed it out to her.

Ning looked in the direction Li Suo pointed, and in the moonlight shining through the leaves of the dense forest, a petite figure stood quietly, holding two small katana, one blue and one black.

That's not it...

"Shh~~~" Li hurriedly covered her mouth, "Don't call her, I want to see what Xiaoxiang is doing..."

Yes, that petite figure standing in the dense forest is Xiao. She is wearing clothes that allow for easy movement, so she must have come here with a purpose, right?

Because they were both very busy, the two of them had hardly paid any attention to Xiao's movements. They only knew from Xia Ling that she was very well-behaved and that she usually just played with Shuangyue.

Of course, Xia Ling would occasionally play with her when she had free time, but that was all.

Xiao, who is usually the same as always, was now sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, which seemed a bit strange. Needless to say, even Ning was slightly intrigued.

"Have you been here the whole time?" Li asked.

“No, I just arrived.” Ning shook her head. “Compared to that, didn’t you already know? About the little fox?”

"Hmm... I just noticed too." Li rubbed his hands together. "I found out when I got up to use the restroom, so I quietly followed you out. By the way, why did you come here?"

"Hmm?" Ning looked away. "Ah... well, I guess you could call it welcoming guests."

"A guest...?" Li tilted his head. "Would there still be guests at this hour?...A thief?"

"Probably, who knows if they'll be robbers or something." Ning shrugged. "After all, we only have young girls in our family. They could easily control us. We might even get raped."

"Waaah... I'd better hurry up and call Xiao back."

As she was speaking, Li was about to call Xiao, but this time Ning covered her mouth and pulled her back.

"Don't go, you idiot," Ning whispered in her ear. "Do you think there will be any bandits who can suppress us?"

Here you'll find the world's most powerful slime, a slime powerful enough to rival the Dragon King, as well as the newly born "Time-Space Dragon King" and descendants of divine beasts.

Such a dazzling lineup, just looking at the basic attributes is enough to scare people to death.

"Woo!"

Ideal had something to refute, but Ning didn't give her a chance or intend to listen to her rebuttal. Ning thought she was overthinking things, and now she just needed to watch what Xiao planned to do.

"This way..."

Xiao seemed to have found something, and then she ran off quickly. At her speed, she would be left behind immediately if she didn't catch up.

"Follow."

Ning released Li's hands and used wind magic to increase their speed. Although Li still wanted to complain about something, it was more important to keep up with Xiao now.

A golden magic circle unfolded from Ning's palm. After infusing it with enough magic power, she released the magic. The magic circle spread out from her center throughout the dense forest, then turned into points of light and disappeared.

"What did you do?" Li asked as he ran.

“‘Dispel’,” Ning explained to her, “is a very simple light-attribute spell. We’ve made a higher-level version of this spell before, and the effect is similar.”

"Purification?" Things started to get interesting. "This magic is for dispelling curses, right? What did you use it for? And why does this 'dispelling' have such a large range?"

"It dispersed some messy stuff." Ning pointed to a black spot on the ground.

There wasn't much time to verify, so Li glanced at it with his magic eye and continued to focus on chasing Xiao. The magic eye immediately displayed information about the black spot.

"Black ink, a liquid magic composed of both water and dark elemental magic."

“That magic is used to create familiars,” Ning explained to her. “Recently, haven’t there been some crows lingering around our house? That’s from that magic; someone is watching us.”

"Huh? You knew that a long time ago?" Li asked unexpectedly.

"Ah, yes." Ning nodded.

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"There's no need to tell you everything," Ning said impatiently. "Stop, Xiao, stop."

Ning grabbed Li, who hadn't reacted in time, and pulled her back. Li was furious at being treated so roughly. But, more importantly, someone else arrived.

Chapter 20 Hmm... friends?

night……

"Xiao, Xiao. Wake up."

A girl in a completely transparent, dark blue dress was shaking the little girl on the bed. Why was this girl transparent? She was even floating in mid-air.

Because she is a ghost.

She shook the little girl on the bed with all her might, hoping she would wake up. Her efforts were effective, and the little girl began to gradually wake up.

"Ugh~?" Xiao rubbed her eyes and slowly got up. "Sister Wense...?"

"Yes, that's right, it's me." The girl in dark blue nodded.

This is Windsor, Windsor Balgandy, a ghost who originally lived in the labyrinth, now possessing Akatsuki to maintain his existence.

This ghost lady is actually a member of this family. Both Rin and Ning can sense her faint presence to some extent, but they can't see her. Only Akira can see her.

Wenser usually revolves her actions around Xiaolai, because she can't stray too far from her host, but she also enjoys watching such a cute little child. So, she's the one who plays with Xiaolai every day, even though no one can see it.

Speaking of which, it seems that the cat at home, Shuangyue, can also recognize her appearance. She's probably influenced by her little owner.

But why would Winsor suddenly wake Xiao at this moment?

"Xiao, someone's here." Wenser used his spiritual power to open the window. "They're in the dense forest, and seem to have some bad intentions."

"……!I see."

Xiao tiptoed off the bed, careful not to wake Shuangyue, and cautiously walked with cat-like steps. Then she grabbed the clothes she needed to change into and the two small katanas hanging on the wall, and jumped out of the window.

Of course, such a height posed no danger to her. She lightly touched the eaves and landed on the lawn outside. Then, she put on her shoes and clothes and ran quickly.

Even running so fast across the lawn, there was no sound of footsteps or rustling, just like a skilled ninja. To be honest, her current attire also resembled that of a ninja.

Since Wenser had to follow her host, she naturally went into the dense forest with Xiao. Her role was not just to remind Xiao of this.

"They're probably in that direction." Winsor used his spiritual power to draw a route. "There are four people there, surrounded by familiars."

"Sister Wenser? What is a familiar?" Xiao asked, tilting her head.

"Hmm~ Probably like a pet like Shuangyue that can help Xiao with chores." Wense nodded, though she wasn't sure if that was the case, because she wasn't good at this kind of thing when she was alive.

"Are those bad people's pets?" Xiao saw a dark shadow hidden in the dense foliage.

"Yes, that's it. Can you take care of them?" Winsor used his spiritual power to mark their locations. "Those with blue dots on their bodies are enemies; we need to eliminate them first."

"Ok!"

Xiao shouted with great momentum, then suddenly accelerated and activated his skill "Moment," suppressing his aura to the point of being almost undetectable before suddenly bursting forth, drawing his black katana and slaying the shadowy figure in one strike.

"Huh?" Xiao suddenly stopped, then turned around to look. "This? Is it a pet?"

Feeling uneasy that her strike hadn't landed properly, she turned back to look, only to find that the thing she had struck had turned into a pool of black water.

"This... looks like ink?" Winsor looked at it. "I see. Using ink as a medium to create a large number of familiars... that's certainly a very cost-effective method..."

"Hmm~? Xiao doesn't understand..." Xiao tilted her head, "This seems really powerful?"

"Haha... Never mind if you don't understand." Winsor reminded her, "We should continue. There are still many familiars around here. I'll let you know if I find those four."

"Ah."

Xiao stood up and threw herself into the task of hunting down the familiars. As for why she was killing familiars, it was because the other party's familiars had spread throughout the entire dense forest. The role of these familiars was probably to monitor them. Now, their every move was being watched by the other party.

This doesn't seem like something someone would overlook...

Wenser had doubts about this matter. It would be understandable if Li and Xiao hadn't noticed these familiars, but Ning didn't seem like the kind of person who would make that kind of mistake. What was she planning to do?

While marking Xiao's familiars, Wenser used her spiritual power to explore the entire dense forest in search of the intruders. The two worked together with incredible efficiency; almost as soon as Wenser marked a familiar, Xiao would kill it, so in the blink of an eye, they had dealt with most of the familiars.

Nevertheless, familiars continued to arrive, but Winsor already knew where they were.

"Xiao, stop for a moment."

"Oh."

Xiao, who was moving at high speed, obediently stopped. Wenser immediately launched a maximum-efficiency exploration, constantly narrowing the range... Got you!

"There it is!"

The spiritual energy lines extended rapidly, and without Wenser saying a word, Xiao understood and began running at high speed along them. Although her two older sisters hadn't witnessed her growth, Wenser had always kept a close eye on it. Now, Xiao was already proactively doing small things for her family.

In short, Winsor was very pleased and unknowingly became her life mentor.

But now is not the time to talk about such things, and... the arrangement of these familiars is rather subtle, I have a feeling...

It's like it's inducing something.

Xiao suddenly stopped, and Wense also stopped drawing the spiritual energy lines. They had both sensed each other's presence, and the other party walked out as if they had no intention of hiding.

"Finally see you!"

A blue-haired girl ran out of the dense forest and immediately grabbed Xiao's hand. Wenser remembered the girl; in fact, the memory was still vivid.

"Hey, Celia, don't you think you're rushing things?" The bald man, sweating profusely, revealed himself from behind the tree trunk.

"Hmm, look, she seems a little panicked."

The tall figure, clad in full black armor, seemed to blend into the darkness; one might not even notice him without careful observation.

There was another boy I hadn't seen before. The boy in the white robe didn't come any closer, and a black raven was perched on his shoulder. It seemed that this boy was the one who released the familiar.

Of the four, apart from the unfamiliar boy, the others had all helped Xiao during that dungeon raid. Although she might not remember them, Wense remembered them very clearly.

"How are you? Are you alright?" Seria carefully checked Xiao's entire body. "You should be fine. It's amazing you managed to escape from that surrounded maze. It's good that you're alright, it's good that you're alright."

"...???"