Give children a little self-destruction shock to their worldview.

In the end, they only managed to salvage the core by self-destructing, along with a few small bone fragments that flew out with it.

Now, this part of the remains lies quietly under the stone tablet in front of Sugiyama Rika, simply placed in a hole dug casually.

Sugiyama Rikka hastily averted his gaze, feeling a sudden nausea in his stomach for some unknown reason.

She looked up and felt an unprecedented sense of oppression in the scene, finally realizing where she was.

...This is the graveyard of Mayumi Haga.

Main text: Chapter 153 Resistance

As you walk along this road, the number of corpses piled up along the roadside increases.

The sky darkened at some point, the heavy clouds creating a gloomy atmosphere. The wind was thin and sharp, its touch on the face initially feeling cold, then damp, and finally painful.

The shadows of crows circled above the three people's heads, but when they looked up, there was nothing there.

Only deathly silence remained here.

Hitomi Tono stepped on something soft. She was startled and looked down. What she saw was a bloody and mangled face.

In that instant, her mind went blank, and she moved her foot away as if she had been electrocuted.

Dead body.

Although the facial skin had completely disappeared, revealing the underlying muscles and teeth, and the eye sockets were dark holes, it was unknown how long they had been buried there. It was only with the arrival of the visitors that the soil was loosened and they saw the light of day again.

But she looked as if she had just been buried, her muscles and the blood soaking in the soil still carrying a trace of warmth.

It's as if he could open his mouth to speak in the next second, or suddenly start moving, with only his last breath left.

Hitomi Tono felt short of breath, not because of the physical phenomenon of being in a place piled with corpses, but because of the mental one.

A tightness and dryness gripped her throat, making all her reactions seem incredibly rude. Accompanied by a strong feeling of suffocation, the world seemed to spin around her, yet her gaze remained fixed on the familiar corpse before her.

Her head was buzzing and all sounds faded away. Tono Hitomi belatedly felt a strong physical reaction. A feeling of nausea welled up in her throat. After awkwardly looking away, she found that there were even more gruesome corpses all around her.

This body only suffered facial damage; the remaining bone fragments mixed with minced flesh, or perhaps just the grotesque upper body, were mostly grotesque remains.

As the road stretched on, the ground beneath our feet, which should have been muddy, seemed to have turned into a mixture of flesh and fat left behind after a self-destruction. Our shoes creaked and groaned, making even taking a single step difficult.

The sky had turned a deep, dark red, the stone tablets became increasingly broken and haphazard, the records of time became more and more chaotic, and eventually, there were no stone tablets at all, only countless corpses piled together, the blood and entrails emitting a strong stench, white hair mixed with exudate turning into a chaotic pile of straw, and those same bright golden eyes staring blankly at the sky.

The colors of the sky and the earth blend together, the sky seems to be bleeding, while the earth grows increasingly dark red. There is no sun or moon here, so it is impossible to tell the time.

As far as the eye could see, there was Haga Mayumi.

The little bear struggled to walk through a path that was far too treacherous for her. She stumbled, not knowing what she had stepped on, and fell into the cold embrace.

She quickly got up and saw that it was just a broken arm, stuck diagonally in the pile of flesh, but it was neatly arranged in a comforting posture. The little bear had just fallen into this palm.

She gasped, her first reaction being a little scared, after all, she had never encountered a human corpse in this form before... But she also felt that the outstretched hand was a little lonely, so she sadly hugged its thumb.

Seeing this, Sugiyama Rika couldn't help but grab the teddy bear and hug it herself. After all, as the road stretched on, it became increasingly difficult for the ten-centimeter-tall monster to move. In this space, all their magic was suppressed; even a powerful monster here was just a ten-centimeter-tall doll unable to move on its own.

She picked up the bear, observed its behavior, and, based on her knowledge of the strange people in Miracle City over the years, deduced that the bear was probably not very old.

Feeling compassion, she tried to cover the bear's eyes with her hands, but the bear pulled them open itself.

Sugiyama Rika was taken aback, realizing that she had been too presumptuous.

"...These are all real bows, that's for sure." Tohno Hitomi said sadly, "But where is the real bow we're looking for?"

Not the Mayumi Haga who had died countless times in battle, but the Mayumi Haga they were looking for and taking away now.

The corpses here are indeed all Mayumi Haga, but dead people are definitely not what they are looking for.

It should be at the end of the road.

The world has become smaller. The once vast and colorful world has become monotonous, dull, and distorted after Mayumi Haga went to any lengths for battle, and after a certain calamity broke out.

Most of the original colors have disappeared, leaving only the color of death.

The original forest has lost all its leaves, leaving countless swaying bodies hanging there.

The wind had become stagnant, and the scent of Mayumi Haga in the air had almost solidified, like the smell of oily residue stuck to hair.

The world stopped turning, and in Mayumi Haga's mental space, there were only countless versions of herself, countless deaths, and countless failures.

However, the three of them still found faint footprints.

The scene that the three of them could almost see in front of them was as follows:

With each step, deep and shallow, treading on the path paved with blood and flesh, a person is moving forward slowly but resolutely.

Her body peeled away layer by layer, like a melted wax figure, leaving only the flickering wick of a lamp still shining.

Because of the [spiritual blessing], the wick of this lamp could not burn out, and with the blessing of [continuous progress], she could not stop.

Now, with the spiritual protection failing, the wick burned down to the bottom in one go.

The only surviving footprint of Mayumi Haga leads to the abyss.

The three of them walked for so long before realizing that it was a downhill road. And since tissue fluid and blood are also liquids, once they reach a certain mass, they flow down the terrain and gradually accumulate to form a huge blood lake.

They finally found the real Haga Mayumi.

The black-haired girl sat by the lake, staring blankly at the water.

She wasn't wearing the Guardian's Set, nor the casual clothes she often wore in the modern world. Instead, she was wearing the black everyday clothes she wore in the Far East, her head bowed as she gazed at the deep, pitch-black lake.

She rested her chin on her hand, seemingly lost in thought or deep in thought. A small string was tied around her wrist, with a tiny feather at the end of the bracelet.

"Mayumi!" Suddenly, Mayumi Haga heard a call from not far away.

She turned around, but her expression of resistance was unexpected. Her lips were tightly pursed, and her dark eyes were filled with unfamiliarity.

At the same time, countless eyes fell on the three people who had rashly entered this area.

All eyes turned to Yuga Mayumi… or rather, all gazes were drawn to her; her bright golden eyes took on an eerie color against the deep sky.

The next second, the surging tide of blood and flesh swept the three away.

Chapter 154 You Can Never Go Home Again

"Makyumi!"

--who?

"……real……!"

Is someone calling my name?

Mayumi Haga vaguely heard someone calling her. She turned around as if sensing something, and saw only bright and warm candlelight.

"She seems lost in thought." Junko Haga, sitting across from her, chuckled and tapped her head with the book she was holding. "What are you thinking about, little feather?"

How strange, Mayumi Haga was a little stunned. She felt that the scene in front of her was harmonious yet somewhat inexplicably discordant.

The mother sat reading by candlelight, while she sat closer beside her, flipping through another book, enjoying a rare moment of peace.

...Strange, I've been with my mother all this time, so why does this scene feel like something I haven't seen in a long time?

Just as Mayumi Haga began to waver, the unfamiliar call that had disappeared from her ears rang out again. The sense of incongruity grew stronger, and she frowned.

Never mind, maybe it's just tinnitus.

She shifted her gaze to Junko Haga, whose concerned eyes remained fixed on her.

"What's wrong?" her mother asked, very worried. "You don't look happy, Mayumi."

Mayumi Haga instinctively replied, "I'm not unhappy..."

In fact, she was overjoyed to be able to spend time quietly with Junko Haga.

But Junko Haga could tell at a glance that something was wrong with her. She put down the book in her hand and sighed softly, "You look very tired."

Mayumi Haga wanted to argue that she hadn't actually left the room at all and hadn't done anything all day, so how could she be tired... But when she raised her hand, she realized something was wrong.

Her hands were covered in wounds, which had not yet scabbed over and were still bleeding. She was no longer wearing the clothes her mother had sewn for her when she was still in the Far East, but rather tattered and rough armor and a guardian's set covered in sand.

She stood by the bed, her footprints from the doorway muddy. Her breathing was erratic, and her hair was uneven, as she had haphazardly styled it herself with a razor.

Mayumi Haga hurriedly wiped her face, which was covered in sweat and blood, and subconsciously took a step back under her mother's gaze.

She didn't mean to taint this corner of her memories...

Perhaps the mother will feel disappointed.

After all, Mayumi Haga was never a particularly outstanding child. She wasn't a cool guardian. After struggling and ending up in a mess, she returned to her mother who had placed high hopes on her. She felt extremely ashamed at that moment.

Sure enough, the mother looked surprised.

But she did not show disappointment in her as Mayumi Haga had expected.

Junko Haga simply beckoned to her, just like before: "Come here, little feather."

"..." The disheveled white-haired guardian hesitated for a moment, but still walked over. However, his steps were heavy, and he seemed somewhat afraid.

As Mayumi Haga approached, Junko Haga, who was sitting on the bed, found herself having to look up at her child. She was both surprised and pleased: "You've grown so much!"

Haga Mayumi lowered her eyes.

"You're so tall and beautiful," Junko Haga exclaimed. "You're much taller than me. Did you get some extra nutrition in Urzana?"

“…Hmm.” Mayumi Haga replied briefly.

"Have you been exercising regularly?"

"Ah."

Have you traveled to many places?

"Have."

Did you have fun?

"good."

Mayumi Haga answered her mother's questions methodically, and the distance between them gradually shortened until Junko Haga was able to reach out and hug her.

Looking at her mother's open arms, Mayumi Haga felt a little embarrassed. At her age, she still had to be hugged like this... But she still bent down and was embraced by her slender mother.

Her mother hugged her and asked, "Are you tired already?"

Not tired.

As a guardian, her stamina is indeed almost limitless. Mayumi Haga rarely feels physically tired, and generally speaking, if you ask her this question, you will only get a negative answer.

But this time, something overwhelmed her, and in this atmosphere, she couldn't say anything against her conscience.

She buried her face in her mother's shoulder, the bloodstains clearly visible on her mother's white clothes, but she just wanted to rub it off.

Then he answered in a muffled voice, "I'm very tired, Mom."

At that moment, all her strength seemed to vanish into those words. She relaxed her body, nestled in the long-lost embrace, closed her eyes, and breathed slowly to relax.

Junko Haga's voice came from above, very soft, as if from a distant horizon: "Are you going to rest, little feather?"

"I want to rest." Mayumi Haga's voice was a little muffled. "Just let me stay here. I don't want to go any further."

Junko Haga said, "What about your friends outside?"

friend……

Haga Mayumi paused.

"They're waiting for you to come back outside. Are you sure you want to stay here with me?"

Mayumi Haga said, "If they are friends, they shouldn't bother me."

"Do you really think they're trying to pull you back into your responsibilities?"

“…that’s not how I feel subjectively.” Mayumi Haga was very honest.

She knew that the people she met in the new world were only there for her, but she didn't think she was of any value to them or worth their risk.

Perhaps it's just the overflowing compassion of people in this world that makes them want to save anyone just because she's a magical girl.

Haga Mayumi thought.

However, Junko Haga gave an apologetic smile: "You can't come to me yet, little feather."

"Why?" Mayumi Haga asked, pursing her lips in obvious resistance.

“Look, you’ve gone to the new world, but you haven’t had a proper meal, haven’t traveled, haven’t found music you like, and haven’t received love from anyone,” Junko Haga said. “If you come to me now, you’ll never have the chance to get these things again.”

Mayumi Haga pleaded, "I don't want those things."