Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

"Well, it's not that serious." Aine put her hands behind her back and gave Xiangzi a bright smile. "Actually, I really appreciate Master's scolding~ After all, Master looks so gentle and sweet, and speaks just like that, so even if he's a little stricter, it doesn't matter~"

If Xiangzi's reprimand were delivered to a harsh, sharp-tongued headmaster in his thirties or forties with high cheekbones, wearing piercing glasses, small eyes, and a sharp, sarcastic tone, Ai Yin would be sure to feel incredibly frustrated and dissatisfied, her anger level likely hovering on the verge of exploding.

But Xiangzi was a beautiful high school soprano, sixteen years old, with a round face, big, bright, and watery eyes, long blue hair like a waterfall tied with two cute little braids, and a soft and timid voice that made her seem like a little adult. That was completely different.

If it sounds good and I like it, I'll criticize it a bit more.

Ai Yin flashed a bright, standard eight-tooth smile at Xiangzi, and before she knew it, they had completed the alternation of offense and defense.

"Soft, so soft and sticky?!" Xiangzi's eyes widened suddenly. "Me, me, am I really that... pathetic...?"

Ai Yin's words, though devoid of any malice, struck her heart like a thunderbolt, threatening to shatter her worldview, values, and outlook on life.

She thought she was quite authoritative.

I thought that the impression she left on Aine was mysterious, beautiful and powerful, and that she had nothing to do with the adjective "soft and sweet".

how so.

How could this happen?!

“How could it be bad? If Little Master really becomes a teacher, he will definitely be very popular.” Ai Yin continued to whisper devilish words in Xiangzi’s ear.

“But how can a teacher not have authority?” Xiangzi objected, standing up angrily. “If students don’t listen, that’s a big problem.”

"As the saying goes, it's better to guide than to block. Students will subconsciously be more obedient if they have a cute and lovable teacher."

“That won’t do, desuwa. Being too soft and gentle will make you a target for bullying by the students.” Xiangzi had already imagined himself as a teacher and shook his head vigorously.

No, no, no, this is absolutely not acceptable.

Just as Xiangzi was shaking her head vigorously, Ai Yin's voice rang out from very close by.

"But, but, little master isn't really going to be a teacher." Ai Yin skillfully grabbed Xiangzi's arm. "Little master is my little master, I won't disobey."

She nuzzled Xiangzi's shoulder with her cheek, like a puppy asking for a pat.

The kind of dog that's clingy, mischievous, and so smart that you can't do anything about it.

Just like a Border Collie.

"I'll be very obedient~" Ai Yin's sweet voice made Xiangzi's ears go weak.

Border Collies seem obedient, but when things keep going missing from the house, you wouldn't know how naughty they are unless you look at the security cameras. The security cameras in the house are practically like burglar's recorders.

Xiangzi considers herself a staunch cat lover, but why is she surrounded by dogs? The only cat she has is a Cheshire Cat, which is cheeky and that Xiangzi doesn't like.

Meow Dream: Achoo! I've been sneezing a lot lately.

"I understand, I understand, please don't hug me yet."

Feeling Aine's body temperature, Xiangzi shivered instead.

If Chu Hua were to install a burglary camera here, she'd be ripped off one day.

"Little Master, you always say the same thing, either 'okay, okay, okay, whatever you want, whatever you want,' or 'I know, I know.'" Aine still clung to him, refusing to let go, "like a reluctant cat."

"But the more unwilling the kitten—"

Not only did he refuse to let go, but his grip tightened, and he clung to Xiangzi like an octopus, pressing them tightly together. Their body heat radiated through their thin clothing onto Xiangzi's skin.

However, it was clear that Xiangzi was not in the mood to enjoy the delicate and soft touch of Ai Yin's skin at the moment.

"Can you let go!" Xiangzi pressed down on Aiyin's head and forcefully pushed her out.

"Yada!" Aiyin shouted loudly, "Yada—!"

Crackling, popping, banging, clanging—!

The Tale of the Lost: The Lost Child - Chapter 325 Sending a Letter (Part 2)

"I don't know what's gotten into you all of a sudden." Xiangzi smoothed out the wrinkles on her skirt that Aiyin had made from rubbing against her.

She had changed her clothes when she came back from outside. She was now wearing a white cotton short-sleeved nightgown that Lin Haiqiang had given her; Ai Yin also had one. Although, in her opinion, the workmanship of this dress was not even as good as the discounted clothes sold on the street, the fact that it was made of cotton made it far superior in both fineness and softness to the coarse linen clothes worn by ordinary people.

"It's been so long since I absorbed any magical girl energy..." Aine whimpered, crouching in a corner with a large bump on her head. "Waaah..."

"Is this your public persona?" Xiangzi raised an eyebrow.

"Girls are so fragrant and soft, everyone would want to cuddle with them, right? Little Master, you were enjoying that just now too."

"No, you're the only one enjoying yourself." Xiangzi raised his chin arrogantly. "I'm going downstairs first, I won't wait for you."

She clutched the corner of the envelope and went out the door first.

Following the rather uncomfortable spiral staircase down to the first floor, I pushed open the door of the chapel and saw Lin Hai being surrounded by several villagers.

"Sister Lin, thank you for helping my husband and me clean the fields." The middle-aged woman closest to Lin Hai was carrying a basket full of fruit and insisted on putting the basket in Lin Hai's arms. "These are freshly picked fruits, please accept them."

“My good-for-nothing brat… sigh… if he hadn’t insisted on going to war with the knight commander… there would have been no need to trouble the nun with such a trivial matter.” Another middle-aged man sighed.

“I apologize on behalf of Mr. Deacon.” Lin Hai accepted the fruit basket the middle-aged woman gave him, quietly placed it aside, and bowed slightly. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need for that, Sister. It’s already a miracle that the Knight Commander came back alive.”

"Lord Deacon has not forgotten us even after becoming a knight. His willingness to return and guard this declining place is already a great blessing."

"Yes, yes, nun, don't blame yourself..."

......

A chattering sound rang out in the chapel.

Xiangzi watched from afar as the warm and simple villagers chatted with Lin Hai. He saw the girl in the ID photo, who looked gloomy and withdrawn, now able to smile and talk with the villagers, even comforting them.

“It’s as if Su Shi-san has created a real world.” Aine murmured, standing beside Xiangzi at some point.

"It's a pity they're all fake." Xiangzi leaned against the wall and sighed.

No matter how realistic they are, they are not real people; they are merely tools created by the witch to satisfy her desire to "play house."

"But Linlin's acting like this, she's treating this place like the real world, isn't she?" Aine looked at Lin Hai worriedly. "We can't just tell her the truth..."

"...She's no different from Su Shi, clinging to an illusion that will inevitably shatter. It's all the same whether we tell her sooner or later." Xiangzi turned his head away and said in a low voice, "But...let her dream until we've investigated everything. Whether she knows or not, it won't affect us."

"Little Master is so gentle." Ai Yin smiled warmly.

“Being gentle isn’t my job.” Xiangzi glanced at her sideways. “I’m usually the one playing the bad cop.”

“I’m not talking about the kind of gentleness that’s expressed, the gentleness of Little Master…” Ai Yin raised her head and thought carefully about the adjective. “I can’t think of one right now. It feels like the kind of gentleness that Dad would have, reserved, serious, and dignified, unwilling to express it, yet silently giving.”

"They were still saying I lacked authority upstairs..."

“But our little master is someone who is both dignified and lovable at the same time,” Aine said with a smile. “It’s amazing.”

"..."

Faced with Aine's gaze, which could be described as one of adoration, Xiangzi looked away shyly, searching around for something to change the subject.

Just then, the villagers who had been surrounding Lin Hai dispersed, giving Xiangzi the opportunity to steer the conversation back to the main topic.

“That area is now available,” Xiangzi said.

Several villagers walked past her and quietly thanked her.

Xiangzi ignored them and walked straight to the back door of the chapel.

The villagers who were about to express their gratitude and offer small gifts were stunned.

Aiyin followed behind, briefly explaining to the villagers how cold on the outside but warm on the inside her little master was, calming their emotions, accepting their gifts, and quickly catching up with Xiangzi.

After the villagers left, the chapel was empty. Lin Hai straightened his clothes and turned to face Xiangzi.

"Is there a problem?"

"I'd like to use that door," Xiangzi said, pointing to the most magnificent and solemn structure in the church.

On his second day here, Xiangzi asked Lin Hai about the purpose of the door. Logically speaking, given the layout of a church, this location is usually for placing statues of gods.

However, there are no statues of gods here. Instead, there is a heavy gate that is four or five meters high. The goddess relief on the gate is much more exquisite than ordinary statues of gods. It was even carved with the lighting of the windows in mind. From morning to night, from east to west, the sunlight shines in from different angles outside the windows, leaving staggered shadows on the relief of the gate.

This was definitely no ordinary gate, Xiangzi thought at first glance.

She also asked Lin Hai about the purpose of this thing.

Lin Hai's answer was—

Rainbow bridge.

This is the Rainbow Bridge Gate, a gateway connecting different locations in the eight worlds. Each major city in the eight worlds has a Rainbow Bridge Gate that is over twenty meters high, but the one in the church is a smaller version.

Simply put, this is a portal.

This setting was present in the original Once Upon a Time. Players rely on these Rainbow Bridge Gates to achieve significant map crossings. Moreover, as the starting point, this relatively small Rainbow Bridge Gate has a special significance—it is the first gate created by the goddess, and therefore it is enshrined in such an important place.

Except for players who choose to be assigned to the Sacrifice World, all other players will experience a storyline in their assigned location before being sent to the Rainbow Bridge. They will then exit through the Rainbow Bridge gate at the starting point to begin the actual game.

"What do you want with that door? Isn't it just for decoration now?" Lin Hai tilted his head.

After the Holy Grail shattered, the Kingdom of God lost contact with the eight worlds. The horn that kept the Rainbow Bridge running was located inside the Kingdom of God, so all the Rainbow Bridges became ineffective.

With the worlds losing contact with each other, crossing mountains, snowfields, oceans, and other natural barriers became the only way to travel between them.

The rainbow bridge inside the church is also out of order, becoming a complete decoration, which has stood there for three hundred years.

“I need it.” Xiangzi waved the envelope in his hand. “I need to send information to people in the real world. There are no means of communication here, so letters are the best.”

The emblem on the letter is a logo known only to people from Mujica. It is used as ink on the envelope to identify the recipient, so that they can immediately tell that the letter was written by them.

She wanted to send this letter, filled with current intelligence, back to the real world.

"Are you kidding me?"

Lin Hai's face suddenly darkened as he stared into Xiangzi's eyes, seemingly trying to see a hint of mockery in them.

Unfortunately, Xiangzi was very serious.

"No kidding."

Xiangzi walked to the gate, grasped the doorknob that was seamlessly integrated with the relief carving, and which was so natural that it could only be noticed upon close inspection, and pulled the heavy gate open.

Lin Hai didn't even have time to stop him, and watched helplessly as Xiang ZVI Instruments and Arts Division 2 opened a door that had been closed for nearly three hundred years.

Could it be that... the Rainbow Bridge is still usable? And that we can use it to return to the real world?

rumble--

Xiangzi pushed the door open completely, revealing everything behind it to everyone. Lin Hai and Ai Yin's eyes widened, because what they saw was—

A stone wall, exactly like the walls of the church.

To be more precise, it was the church wall.

"Little Master made such a big fuss, I thought there was some grand spectacle to see." Ai Yin looked disappointed.

"There's nothing here." Lin Hai breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yes, there’s nothing there.” Xiangzi said nonchalantly, hands on his hips. “That’s how we see it.”

"But?" Ai Yin played the straight man, agreeing perfectly.

However, if we don't look at it from a human perspective, it's a completely different story.

When Xiangzi is in spirit form, he sees the world differently. He doesn't see it with his physical eyes, but rather with... magic, or a way of being closer to his senses, like his soul.

Using Kasumi's theory of dreams and witch barriers, Shoko's spirit form is itself a form of witch rebirth, the rationality of rebirth, that is, Shoko herself. She "threw" herself out of her body in a dreamlike way, creating a familiar purely composed of magic, capable of projecting her consciousness onto it. The familiar is also part of the barrier, so the relationship between dreams and barriers still applies to the familiar.

From the perspective of a spirit, behind the rainbow bridge in the center of the church lies an unseen void.

She tried to cross that void one night, spent some time in an empty world, and after finding nothing, returned along the same path.

But they found that it was already dawn.

She stayed in the void behind the door for less than twenty minutes. When she returned, the sky had gone from just after dark to bright sunshine.

That day, Xiangzi also complained to Aiyin about sleeping in late.

The time scale is different, meaning the space behind the door has already deviated from the boundary to some extent, making it a "weak point" in the Fairy Tale Town's barrier. Regardless of the reason for this, for Xiangzi, this news is almost equivalent to telling her: the world behind the door is the road home.

Of course, Xiangzi wouldn't say such things directly to Aiyin and Linhai, so she planned to just tell them the conclusions she had reached after her research over the past few days.

Since the spirit form of a familiar can access the space behind the door, it is equivalent to being able to touch the real world through this connection.

“This place is forcibly separated from the real world by a witch’s barrier, making it impossible to connect.” Xiangzi turned around, his palm covering the stone wall. “However, we can create a transit station between here and there.”

As they were talking, Xiangzi's hand, which was covering the wall, opened up a small, rectangular window, not even as big as a palm.