Why play in a band if you don't form one for life?

"So disgusting..." Hongxia's face turned green.

"Wow, end the band." Shizi spoke suddenly.

The four of them looked: red blood, yellow pus, blue cloth, pink brain…

understood.

The drumsticks beat a rhythm on Shizi's head.

"There is also a Shizi there." Liang suddenly pointed out a place.

The four of them took a closer look and saw that the lump was mixed with gray mold spots.

"Ugh——" Kita vomited first.

It was even more incredible to watch. Shizi took the lead in the fight. Several stone ridges rose from the ground and plunged into the meat mountain with a puff. This was her ability called [Illusionary Boundary]. After being strengthened by CiRCLE, this level of manifestation was easy for Shizi.

Kita immediately followed. As the most destructive force in the team, she had already condensed a rain of fire and blasted it towards the meat mountain. However, all the flames were extinguished by the acid. The acid erupted from the gap in the meat mountain. As the gap continued to move on the meat mountain, the monster was like a turret. The acid had already leaked towards the five people. At the critical moment, a deep and heavy bass sounded, and a wall of sound broke the water column.

Several people ran to the sides in tacit agreement, trying to separate. However, the monster's body cracked several more times, aiming at several people. During this time, the rain of fire and the water tornado mixed with ice blades continued to harass them. The acid blocked all the attacks, but their own attacks were also blocked by the sound wall and the stone wall. For a while, no one could do anything to the other.

"(We have to block its attack first!)" Shizi kept raising stone walls between everyone and the meat mountain, but couldn't find a chance to counterattack, "(Just like a slime, even if you can block a few gun muzzles, it can always grow new ones...)"

"(Wait, what is Ichiri doing?)"

I don't know when Yili's piano sound has changed from fierce to agile. The water column is no longer rushing towards the meat mountain. After blocking the acid, the acid that flows in actually increases the volume of the water column. Now, after a period of accumulation, the liquid is enough! With a pluck of the strings, the water wall gradually surrounds the meat mountain, forming a water cage. The meat mountain's only way of attack is to spray acid, but now all the acid will be dissolved by the water wall!

"Nice!" Shizi shouted in her heart. It's worthy of being called "Guitar Hero!" The only question is, how long can she hold on?

Yili plucked the strings with great effort, and beads of sweat had already appeared on her head. But the next moment, she felt that her pressure was relieved a lot: a silent wall of sound was close to the water prison, becoming its support. At the same time, the starlight also enveloped her, and she felt that her strength was constantly recovering.

Shizi knew that the opportunity had come. But the other three were unable to spare any strength. Kita's flames could not penetrate the water prison, and Shizi's ability could not be used without being able to see inside the water prison. It was difficult to kill this monster whose weakness could not be seen just by smashing things... How to attack?

"Kita! Can you turn iron into molten iron in an instant!" she shouted to Kita.

After receiving a positive answer, Shizi waved his hand, and thousands of iron bars appeared above the water prison. Kita understood, and the iron bars fell down, falling into the flames that were as bright as the sun.

When the flames faded, a torrential rain of molten iron began to fall!

In an instant, a hole opened up above the water dungeon, and the molten iron poured in. With a hair-raising "sizzling" sound and a cloud of steam, everything was over.

The water prison was gone. Just like before, there was no monster corpse on the spot, only fine sand. As the people approached, a red gem gradually emerged from the fine sand, shining quietly.

Yili exhaled, took off the hot gun barrel from his back, and used it as a crutch. Hongxia thoughtfully distributed bottles of water to everyone. After a short rest, they continued on their way. After teamwork, the cooperation between the several people became much better.

Powerful monsters were rare, and Hongxia helped to restore strength, but the scenery was always monotonous. Even Kita, who was noisy at the beginning, lost interest. Instead, Shizi took the camera and retreated to the end of the team, taking a few photos of everyone - mainly Ichiri - from time to time.

The sun was almost setting. They had found a secluded place to eat lunch, which was a lunch box prepared by Ms. Marina in advance. After playing outside for a whole morning, it was already halfway through the afternoon, so it was time to go back. Hong Xia looked at the sun and thought so.

"Okay, let's stop here for today. If we leave now, we won't be able to go back," she announced.

With the help of CiRCLE, everyone could roughly sense the location of CiRCLE. The canvas bag was already filled with a lot of gems, and it was a bit heavy. Shizi took the initiative to replace Hongxia and took the bag.

The atmosphere on the return trip was different from that on the departure trip. The mission had been accomplished and everyone felt like they were going home from school.

"This set of clothes is still not very convenient..."

"Next time, let's change to the same one as Hongxia..."

"What about band practice?" Liang asked.

"Huh? Still need to practice?" Kita thought they no longer had time to play the band.

"Let's discuss it tomorrow. Today is the first day, so let's take a rest first - but we must practice. It would be too funny if we couldn't even play a musical instrument after returning to reality." Hong Xia said.

In fact, Kita wanted to say that it was okay even if she couldn't play the instrument by then, she could just start learning from scratch - but seeing Hongxia's eyes that seemed to have other hidden meanings, she tactfully did not object.

Before night fell, they returned to the light.

Chapter 7 Band Activities

When the clock pointed to eleven o'clock, Shizi reluctantly put the CD in his hand back into the warehouse, washed up, and walked towards the dormitory.

She pushed open the door to the room.

"Aiya——" She was greeted with a scream.

"Huh?" Shizi was frightened by several people.

"Sorry, we are telling a ghost story~" It was Hong Xia's voice.

After someone fell asleep next to him, Yili could hear someone whispering. The conversation became quieter and quieter, and soon, Yili could no longer hear it.

She fell asleep.

In the past few days, Yili was the first one to fall asleep as soon as the lights were turned off. In fact, Yili often stayed up late to practice guitar in the past, but now the daytime activities were too tiring. Although Hongxia helped with physical fatigue, mental fatigue was still unavoidable. On the days when they planned to practice with the band, they could only practice for one or two hours after dinner before taking a break.

But more importantly, Yili was nervous all the time when she was awake. Although she had a lot of fun with everyone these days, after all, they had only known each other for a short time. In the past, she had been with her most familiar family most of the time, so it was no problem, but now she was suddenly in an unfamiliar environment, and Yili felt stressed from time to time.

Shizi performed much better than herself, but she also understood Shizi's approach and she couldn't learn it.

Yili can only hope that time will slowly change himself.

Will it change? At the dinner table, Ichiri stuffed a piece of fried chicken into her mouth. Ms. Marina tried very hard to make the taste that everyone liked, but it was different from her mother's dish after all.

"Based on my observations over the past few days, the speed at which you collect fuel has far exceeded the speed at which CiRCLE consumes it, so your working hours can be reduced." Marina announced before dinner.

"Great!" Kita was the happiest one. Although she was the only one who went out among the six people, she was fed up with the life of looking at the same scenery every day, fighting disgusting monsters and not being able to post on SNS! She wanted a holiday!

Liang raised his hand: "Excuse me, how much are you paid these days——"

"Still thinking about the salary!" Hong Xia knocked Liang's head with her hand, interrupting her delusion, and then turned to the others, "Then, in the future, we will increase the time for band activities. Is that okay with everyone?"

Of course, there is no problem with Yili. She also wants to resume her six-hour guitar routine as soon as possible.

Xiduo had a bitter face. She had planned to sleep until noon. However, she didn't raise any objections, as she knew other people's attitudes at a glance, and there was no need for her to cause trouble for them. In her long social life, she had become accustomed to this practice.

"But before that!" Hong Xia suddenly became excited, even her triangular hair was swaying slightly, "Let's take some art photos!"

The next day, in addition to hunting, the group also had to look for a suitable background for artistic photos. Shizi was holding a camera in her hand, which she had borrowed from Ms. Marina.

The scenery of the Gobi Desert seemed fresh at first, but after a few days, we got bored. The visibility was very high, but all we could see was lime, lime, and lime, which made us dizzy.

"No, can't we shoot at CiRCLE?" Yili said weakly. She just wanted to go back early, and she didn't think she could find any good place.

"Artistic photos are the first step for many people to get to know the band, so we can't just do it casually." Hong Xia was full of energy, "In fact, there are several places where it would be better to take photos at night... The starry sky that can't be seen in big cities is definitely suitable as the background, but it's a pity that Ms. Marina said it's dangerous at night."

"Actually... I have an idea." Shizi, who had been silent, spoke.

She stopped and raised her hands. A stone wall and cement floor appeared in front of her. As she recalled more, yellow-green graffiti gradually appeared on the stone wall. Soon, a bright painting full of modern art was completed.

"Huh? Could it be that Mr. Wu is an artist?" Kita excitedly held Shizi's hand, his eyes sparkling.

"I kind of miss the time when I worked hard on the streets with my friends..." Shizi looked up at the sky. It was difficult for her to keep a straight face because this wall was just a sculpture made based on the background of the original art photo in her memory.

However, this action made several people mistakenly believe that Shi Zi really had some wonderful past, and they couldn't help but admire him.

Until a trembling voice broke the atmosphere: "Shizi must have had no friends before... right?"

Kita was stunned.

Hongxia began to equate Shizi and Liang in her mind.

Liang became closer to Shizi instead.

"...Hurry up and finish the shoot, then go home." Shizi raised the camera expressionlessly.

Photos came out of the printer one by one.

Each of them took two photos. One was a photo of the band after the band finished, and the other was a group photo of the six of them, including Ms. Marina, after they came back. After looking at the photo for a while, they walked into the recording studio, chatting and laughing.

"It's really a good photo." Marina moved closer to the two people standing still. Ichiri and Shiko looked at the photo carefully and smiled the same silly smile.

Yili looked at the photo of the six people. For some reason, the tension in her heart began to dissipate. Although they had only known each other for a short time, with this photo, it was as if there was some invisible bond connecting them.

Group photo... It's amazing...

After Yili also entered the recording studio, Shizi said to himself: "End the band..."

Marina couldn't help but envy Shizi's innocent smile.

Youth is great.

So, when doing housework in the afternoon, Marina assigned double the tasks to the cheerful Shiko.

"I feel like I'm no longer young..." During dinner, Shizi seemed to have aged 20 years.

"(It seems like Shiko has been cleaning with Ms. Marina...it must be very hard work.)" I noticed Shiko's expression.

With a thought, two rays of starlight covered Miss Shiko and Miss Marina.

"Thank you for your hard work, both of you."

"Thank you so much……"

"Hey, hey, we are about to write our first original song!" Xiao Kita immediately changed the topic.

Ah, I was paying too much attention to Shiko-chan. As the captain, I should be the one to announce this...

I quickly followed up: "Yes, we plan to write an original song as soon as possible and pass the CiRCLE audition as soon as possible."

Of course, at first I wanted to perform at Starry first, and then gradually go to other livehouses to build a reputation. However, since I'm here, CiRCLE is also a well-known livehouse, so there's nothing wrong with starting here first.

Ms. Marina seemed calmer: "Since the boss is not here, I will be in charge of the audition. I will not let you off easily. After all, I have seen your efforts. The Ending Band is definitely not a band that needs to let you off easily, right?"

My heart warmed. "Thank you very much!" We said in unison this time.

I saw the light in Xiao Shizi's eyes. She looked even more excited than I was. Did we already have such enthusiastic fans?

In the evening, after band practice, I approached Xiao Shizi.

"Hey, little Shizi, can you please do me a favor?"

She seemed startled.

"Sorry, did I bother you?"

"No, no, what's the matter?" Xiao Shizi regained his expression.

Recently, the joy of forming a band has been lingering in my mind. Inspired by this excitement, I took out a design drawing. "But if I want to turn the design drawing into a real thing, I need Xiao Shizi's help! Please!"

Xiao Shizi did not refuse my request.

Soon, several cable ties appeared in her hands. Red, pink, blue, and yellow, corresponding to the colors of the four members of the band. I picked up one and tried to tie it around my wrist.

It's quite cute.

"Ijichi-senpai, what is this?" It was Kita-chan's voice. I looked up and saw her coming over and examining my wrist.

"I spent the whole night thinking about this band peripheral product!" I couldn't help but feel proud and raised my hand to show her.

Xiao Xiduo's reaction was very calm: "Isn't this just a cable tie?"

A little unhappy.

"Isn't it cute? The price is 500 yen!"

When they heard the price, they were not surprised.

"Compared to the two-thorned ape, Gu Zi is considered normal..."

“Compared to some popular online products, it is indeed much more practical…”

Hey, is there something wrong with these two people's consumption concept? 500 yen is just something I casually quoted. If you all agree, is it possible... that it is also OK?

I chatted for a while and prepared to say goodbye to them.

"Ah, are you going to practice guitar?" asked Ijichi-senpai.

"Yes! I am the lowest level in the band now. I need to work harder for the audition!" Although I don't have much motivation to practice, I have to do it seriously since I have started. At least I can't practice less than others.

What happened to classmate Wu? Why did he suddenly cover his eyes and say something like "too dazzling"...

Without thinking too much, I left and headed for the recording studio. I practiced guitar for a while and came out to use the bathroom. On the way, I met Senior Liang. When I saw Senior Liang, my heart was filled with joy. Before I noticed, she had already started to say hello.

"Hey, where are you going, Ryo-senpai?"

"The roof," was her simple answer.

Rooftop? Come to think of it, I've never been there. After all, there's no reason for everyone to go there together, and I wouldn't think of going there alone. On the contrary, it seems that Ryo, Goto, and Wu often go there. Eh, being alone is really lonely... I envy Ryo and the others so much. They can live happily alone, so they can easily take an unusual path...

I said goodbye to Yudai and headed for the rooftop. It was cool and quiet here, and I could see the starry sky that I couldn't see in the big city. Since I had decided to compose a new song, it was best to find inspiration here.

I met Ms. Marina at the staircase. To my surprise, she was holding an acoustic guitar.

"Can Ms. Marina also play the guitar?"