Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

“You…” Lin Hai lifted the hem of his nun’s habit and quickly approached them, “Are you new here? Are you also trapped in this game?”

“Yes, but that’s not quite right either,” Xiangzi said. “We just entered this barrier, but we weren’t trapped; we entered it voluntarily.”

"Could it be... that you also received a distress signal...?"

“That’s right.” Xiangzi nodded. “I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Toyokawa Xiangzi, and I’m here to rescue you.”

She lifted the hem of her skirt and politely bowed to Lin Hai.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lin Hai."

With a face as exquisite as a doll and an innate noble air, paired with a black and red Gothic Lolita dress, Xiangzi naturally exudes a powerful aura when he bows.

Lin Hai was captivated by her aura; his heart involuntarily quickened, and the rush of blood made his cheeks flush red.

"My name is Lin Hai. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Lin Hai swallowed hard, awkwardly mimicking Xiangzi's gesture in return, then straightened up, adjusted his glasses which had slipped down from bowing, and looked at Xiangzi with a bewildered expression.

She didn't know what to say next, and the initiative inexplicably fell into Xiangzi's hands.

Xiangzi seemed to have noticed the hesitation in Lin Hai's eyes.

"I'd like to ask, you just said that we 'also' received a distress signal. Does that mean that besides us, someone else has also voluntarily entered the game world?"

"right......"

"Uh, um, little master, little sister."

Bang bang.

"Well, could we find a place to settle him down first, and then we can talk about the rest?"

Bang bang.

Ai Yin shook the Deacon on her shoulder again, and the armor made a heavy clanging sound.

Following the sound of the armor, Lin Hai shifted his gaze to the face of the man on Ai Yin's shoulder. In the shadow of the setting sun, the man's face seemed veiled, appearing blurry, until Lin Hai looked closely and finally made out his features.

"Mr. Deacon!"

She let out a scream, immediately turned around, picked up the thin iron rod that she had been keeping beside her, took a kerosene lamp that had just been lit from the hook above her head, and turned to Xiangzi and Aiyin to say something.

"Come with me to the village quickly. I'll take you to the church. We need to settle Mr. Deacon in first."

Xiangzi and Aiyin exchanged a glance, then, carrying Dickon, followed Lin Hai into the village, which was about the same size as the town.

After crossing the wooden bridge at the city entrance and walking over the five-meter-high city wall, the first thing Xiangzi saw was a clean and tidy stone-paved road, which looked very orderly.

There were few pedestrians on the road, but every kerosene lamp was lit.

Xiangzi glanced at the thin iron rod in Lin Hai's hand; she must have lit all the streetlights on the main road.

Passersby would greet Lin Hai when they saw her. Several people were so surprised when they saw Deacon on Ai Yin's shoulder that they knelt down and wept bitterly, looking almost no different from normal people.

However, Xiangzi has a very strange feeling when he knows that they are familiars.

Follow the winding stone path all the way to the end, and you'll reach your destination—the church.

This is a very large church, comparable to the cathedrals that only ancient major cities could have. It's hard to imagine that a village that isn't even a town-sized place could have such a building.

Like the rest of the village, the church is a Gothic building constructed of wood and stone. Its pointed roof requires one to look up to see the cross at the top, and the dark-toned building materials and stained-glass windows give it a solemn, religious feel.

Stepping inside the church, the room directly in front is the chapel. A door with exquisite carvings, in which one can vaguely make out the image of a woman wearing a veil, is carved on the door panel. The last rays of the setting sun shine through the openwork flying buttresses and through the stained glass windows into the church, casting distinct shadows on the rows of neatly arranged seats and the reliefs on the door panels.

Lin Hai did not lead them into the chapel, but instead took them down the spiral staircase of the adjacent tower to a room on the second floor.

"Put him here," Lin Hai said, clutching the cross pendant around his neck. "Leave the rest to me."

Ai Yin placed Deacon on the bed, rubbed her shoulders which were sore from the weight of the armor, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do you have a way to save him?" Xiangzi asked.

"When you met him, he was a monster, wasn't he?" Lin Hai didn't answer Xiangzi's question, but instead asked, "After defeating the monster, Mr. Deacon returned to his current appearance."

"Yeah." Xiangzi nodded.

“I haven’t seen them since he received the Regent’s order half a month ago to lead the town’s young soldiers to suppress the rebels,” Lin Hai said. “Now that he’s in this state, the rest of them… are probably doomed.”

"We found him in the ruins of a battlefield."

"As expected..." Lin Hai's expression darkened. "Mr. Deacon turned into a monster because... everyone is dead."

She took off the cross pendant from her neck and placed it on Deacon's chest.

"May the goddess redeem you, Mr. Deacon."

The cross began to glow, enveloping Deacon's entire body.

"Just wait a while and it will be fine." Lin Hai stroked Deacon's forehead and whispered a few prayers in his ear.

"Monsters, regents, rebels, redemption, what are they?" Aine listened for a long time, completely confused. "And this place was supposed to be called the World of Sacrifice, how did it become the World of Desire?"

"Don't you know?" Xiangzi turned his head to look at her. "You've been playing for quite a while now."

“These settings aren’t in the game.” Ai Yin shook her head. “It’s strange, why would these things exist?”

“Because… this is set three hundred years after the game.” Lin Hai turned around and looked at them. “You probably haven’t eaten yet, right? I have some water and fruit wine here. Would you like to make do with that for now, and I’ll explain to you slowly.”

The Lost Tale: The Lost Child - Chapter 319 Historical Changes

The light from the kerosene lamp illuminated the walls of the tower, and gradually, a little nun carrying a kerosene lamp appeared at the corner of the stairs.

She led the blue-haired and pink-haired girls back to the first floor, passed through the solemn church, and as she passed by, she casually used the thin iron rod in her hand to turn on the lights in the church.

"Where should I begin?" Lin Hai said with a nostalgic expression as he walked. "I've been here for more than half a year, and I've almost forgotten about the outside world. The SOS message was sent right at the beginning."

"what?!"

Little tiger teeth.jpg

“It seems that the flow of time inside the barrier is different from that outside,” Xiangzi said. “The gathering received your distress message on… June 2nd.”

That is, two days before they left the reed field.

It's June 14th now, twelve days have passed, but Lin Hai says he's been inside for almost half a year... If you calculate the time, it's roughly...

"So, one hour in the real world is roughly equivalent to one day inside the barrier?" Xiangzi murmured.

“Ah, that’s just like the game design.” Ai Yin blinked. “The game is also designed to last one hour a day.”

"That's about right, I already knew that." Lin Hai shrugged and pushed open the wooden door to the kitchen.

A delicious aroma of wheat wafted from the kitchen.

The kitchen, like the chapel, looked empty. There was only one nun, Lin Hai, in the entire church, which reminded Xiangzi of Mary.

She even immediately began to suspect Lin Hai, wondering if he was already dead and if the person standing in front of them now was a familiar like Deacon.

But so what?

The barrier of Fairy Tale Town was unlike any barrier she had ever seen. It seemed to have a complete and self-consistent set of rules, making it feel like a completely new world. The familiars here didn't seem to be as aggressive as the familiars of other witches; instead, they seemed to live in a real world.

Lin Hai took out a piece of bread and a half-cut cheese from the cupboard, simply cut them into pieces and placed them on a wooden plate. Then he bent down and took out an iron can and a small pot from under the stove.

The small pot was placed on the stove. Lin Hai casually picked up two pieces of firewood from the side and threw them in. Then he took out a feather from his pocket, held the feather, and made a strange gesture towards the stove opening.

Bang.

The flames ignited the dry firewood.

The crimson feather in Lin Hai's hand turned into a cloud of ashes.

"You're a magical girl too?" Aine's eyes widened as she looked at the blazing flames.

"What is a magical girl?" Lin Hai tilted his head.

"It's like some white guy comes up to you and asks if you want your wish to come true, and in return, you have to become a magical girl and do things for him... or something like that."

"Never heard of it." Lin Hai shook his head. "My game character is a spellcaster, so I can use a little bit of magic."

“Aww…” Ai Yin nodded knowingly and exchanged a glance with Xiangzi.

It seems that even ordinary people can gain the abilities that the corresponding character should have within the barrier.

“But I’m only level three,” Lin Hai said. “I haven’t been promoted even once in the past six months. I’ve just stayed in the village and haven’t stepped out of there.”

After saying that, she laughed self-deprecatingly, brought the boiled milk to the table, along with sliced ​​cheese and bread, and on one side of the plate was a small piece of butter cut into several pieces.

"There's no time to make anything delicious, so just make do with this."

"Thank you."

"Thank you~"

“Of course, I am now the only nun in the church. The old nun told me before she died that I should treat everyone well.” Lin Hai rested her chin on her hand and sat down next to them. “I usually give bread and fruit wine to the refugees who have been stranded here, and I also do most of the medical work in the village.”

She smiled and pointed to the bread that Aine was holding.

"The bread, cheese, and butter you are eating right now are all homemade."

Aiyin quickly swallowed the bread with cheese and butter, along with the milk.

Although the bread was dry and the cheese smelled rotten, it was surprisingly easy to eat with milk and butter.

"Amazing......"

Ai Yin looked at Lin Hai with admiration. The nun's habit fit her exceptionally well. If she hadn't said that she was trapped in the barrier, Ai Yin would have thought that she was a native.

"It's not bad."

Hearing Ai Yin's praise, Lin Hai's expression darkened instead.

"After all, I'm the only one who chose to stay in the village. Everyone else... should be doing much better than me, right?"

Seeing Lin Hai's dejected expression, Xiangzi decided it would be better to change the subject.

"Could you tell me what's happening in the world? I'm a little curious."

"Oh, okay, after all, that's what I was going to talk about anyway." The little nun smiled apologetically. "We've gotten a bit off-topic, I almost forgot."

"If you are familiar with the basic worldview of Fairy Tale Town, you'll know that the eight worlds were originally supposed to be..."

......

The bread in the wooden plate disappeared little by little, and time passed with it.

Lin Hai explained in detail to the two newly arrived magical girls how this world had transformed from a happy fairy tale world into what it is today.

It is said that this world was created by the goddess using the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail can grant any wish. The goddess wanted the earth, so the Holy Grail created the earth; the goddess wanted rivers, so the Holy Grail created rivers; the goddess wanted humankind, so the Holy Grail created humankind.

At first, everything seemed normal. In this fairytale world, there was no killing or fighting. Everyone lived under the care of the goddess, upholding virtue and kindness, creating a beautiful and peaceful scene.

Up to this point, everything was still the original game setting; all the changes started from a certain point in time.

The Holy Grail shattered for unknown reasons.

The goddess also vanished, and the fragments of the Holy Grail were scattered in every corner of the world.

The fragments of the Holy Grail retain a portion of its power, enabling them to fulfill people's wishes "in an incomplete form."

And so the world changed.

It is said that the shards of the Holy Grail will follow desires and come to those who yearn to have their wishes fulfilled.

Since the Holy Grail has been shattered, their wishes will be fulfilled "incompletely," and the result of fulfilling their wishes is that they will lose the most important thing about being human.

Those people's wishes were twisted by the fragments of the Holy Grail, and eventually turned into monsters.

A world built on virtue is eventually replaced by depraved desires; the world becomes no longer beautiful, and fairy tales cease to be fairy tales.

=====

P.S.: My home is no longer my home.jpg

The Tale of the Lost: The Lost Child - Chapter 320 The Fate of the Cowardly

Lin Hai was originally an ordinary girl. She had no presence at school, did not experience any bullying, and had no conflicts at home.

She was so ordinary that no one noticed her.

Every day, I go to school, come home, do my homework, play games, watch cartoons, and then go to bed, ending an ordinary day.