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

Mayumi Haga sensed a subtle aura.

After she uses the blessing [Companion] to transform into a cat, her five senses are enhanced to a certain extent. With the magical enhancement of the proxy certificate, she is indeed more sensitive to magical and calamity auras in this form.

While she was buying cat food at a nearby pet store, she brushed past a disheveled office worker.

The other person looked like they had just slipped and fallen in the puddle ahead. They were running in high heels and didn't notice Mayumi Haga walking by with a large pile of cat food.

The latter, however, noticed her.

Strange, there's something about that person.

It seems to be related to magic, but it's impossible to identify or track down based solely on Mayumi Haga's knowledge of witchcraft.

In fact, if that young lady hadn't just brushed past Mayumi Haga, the latter wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about her.

That unusual aura was very well concealed.

After thinking it over, Mayumi Haga decided to go after them and see what was going on.

Of course, in the form of a cat.

She can only use some of the proxy's functions when she's in cat form, including practical magic like flight and tracking. It would be rather abrupt for Mayumi Haga to chase after her herself, so it's better for her to pretend to be a cat passing by.

But she didn't expect that in the short time it took her to transform into a cat in an alley, the strange aura emanating from the other person had already grown to this extent... Fortunately, she arrived in time, otherwise this office worker might have really jumped.

Main Text: Chapter 113 The Cycle of the Weirdos

Mayumi Haga hasn't eaten dinner for the past few nights.

Although she had no need to eat and would not starve to death by skipping dinner, Megrana was still puzzled: "Why have you suddenly stopped eating again?"

Since Megranie arrived these days, Mayumi Haga's three meals a day have been quite regular, something the former had assumed she would have already developed a habit of eating them.

Mayumi Haga covered her mouth and let out a small burp.

She ate outside... even though it was cat food.

I really liked Ms. Yoshida's cat form, which I saw a few days ago when she was surrounded by an aura of calamity.

Because Mayumi Haga was very concerned about where the other party had picked up the strange aura of misfortune, and also worried about when the other party might have another problem, she would always pass by the other party's window to take a look, which led to her being detained for a meal.

Ms. Yoshida thought her tail looked pitiful, so she would prepare a lot of food for her—food that cats could eat.

Although that person wanted to keep a cat, they weren't quite sure about cats' appetites. Moreover, Mayumi Haga's cat form was a giant cat, much larger than a Maine Coon of the same breed, so Ms. Yoshida prepared so much food for her that she would always eat until she was stuffed.

"...What does the cat food taste like?" Megrané asked curiously after hearing this.

"I can eat it." After saying that, Mayumi Haga felt an unpleasant taste in her mouth. She breathed on her palm, frowned slightly, and got up to brush her teeth.

It didn't just eat cat food; it also ate canned food and cat treats, so the smell in its mouth is a bit complicated and needs to be cleaned.

Megranne felt a pang of sympathy for Mayumi Haga... even though she didn't have a stomach now.

But what does cat food actually taste like?

Asking this guy won't get me any valuable answers, so I'd better try it myself.

Megragne tore open a bag of cat food that Mayumi Haga had placed on the coffee table and chewed on one piece.

Pshaw, it has no flavor.

Despite his disdain, Megrana swallowed it anyway.

After a quick wash, Mayumi Haga came out, and Megarane called out to her, "Going out again tonight?"

"Yes." The latter nodded.

The suicidal Ms. Yoshida, whom I met a few days ago, carried an aura of calamity that was both familiar and strange to Mayumi Haga.

Having dealt with calamities for so long, she could naturally discern their life-devouring nature; even if she only brushed past them, Mayumi Haga could tell.

But it also feels somewhat unfamiliar.

The calamity seems to be gradually adapting to this world, evolving in a direction unfamiliar to Mayumi Haga, quite different from the death worms she was originally familiar with.

According to Megrana, who has been assimilated within the body of Calamity, Calamity is attempting to invade the world in a more indirect way.

The origins of the world are all different.

The continent of Alamo, where Mayumi Haga is located, has no magic, but this world is full of magic, and even the world's fundamental power is the so-called spiritual veins.

Magic, or rather, a kind of power manifested through magic, is the origin of this world and the foundation of everything.

That is not a power that can be directly devoured by calamity.

If the source of magic cannot be suppressed with a completely opposite force, then calamity will never be able to obtain the spark of this world.

In short, it means "using magic to defeat magic".

Therefore, calamity must master the magic of this world through evolution in order to analyze its origin.

The peculiar aura of calamity emanating from Ms. Yoshida was actually a product born from the mixture of magic and calamity.

Mayumi Haga has already warned the magical girls as a guardian.

To be honest, she felt that the calamities were occurring more frequently than she remembered.

There is no specific pattern to the invasion of calamities.

In Mayumi Haga's memory, there was a gap of about half a year between the first invasion and the second.

The subsequent intervals became even more irregular, completely unpredictable, and impossible to guard against.

It's actually quite easy to understand, because invading a world is not something that can be accomplished in a short time. Whether it's a calamity or a world, no matter how long it takes, it's just a blink of an eye for both.

After learning that the world would also face a calamity invasion, Mayumi Haga had actually prepared for the next few hundred years—no, given the current situation, it might be a longer tug-of-war than before.

After all, this world is difficult for Calamity to conquer. Even if Calamity increases its power after devouring her world, it will not be as powerless as her world.

As Mayumi Haga pondered these questions, she transformed into a cat once more.

She jumped out of the window, her magical girl agent badge now hanging around her neck. Following the direction of the clinic, she activated the teleportation function set within the agent badge.

.................................. .................................. ............................................

“…That’s strange.” Terasaki Ayasa rubbed her temples, feeling troubled.

A subtle sense of unease is hanging over the city.

Aside from the case discovered by Neko-chan Gray, several other magical girls have also been found, and some victims have even been sent to the hospital due to their extreme behavior. Fortunately, there have been no casualties so far.

She felt a strange sense of familiarity.

Such emotions suddenly turned sour... like the style of the desperate monster I read about in the book before. The attacker would plunge the person being attacked into an inescapable, almost endless negative emotion, and when he unleashed his full power, he could bring the entire country to a standstill.

The only problem is that the strange person was not a naturally born strange person, but rather a strange person with negative emotions who absorbed a similar strange person when the spiritual vein was abnormal.

It was defeated forty years ago and has since been restored to its original state.

If the Despair Monster hadn't disappeared, there wouldn't be a Sad Monster now.

However, considering that the current Sad Monster doesn't possess his past memories... there might still be a problem.

The cyclical system of the freak remains an unsolved mystery for the current magical world.

All Terasaki Ayasa knew was that after completely defeating the previous monsters, new monsters of the same type might be born from the monster core.

Even after the sadness dissipates, there is still sadness, but it is a new sadness, distinct from the previous one.

However, not all strange beings follow this cyclical rule. For example, a snotty monster that dries up on a wall will not regenerate, while some special strange beings that have existed since ancient times and are more closely related to the spiritual veins will continue to exist.

Main text: Chapter 114 The Desperate Monster

Eccentrics are special to this world.

They are neither human nor monster. But they possess intelligence equal to that of humans, magical abilities of monsters, and a unique regenerative mechanism that neither of them possesses.

Strictly speaking, they do not die when they are freaks.

Even if the core is severely damaged, even if the magic power cannot be regenerated, a piece of the monster's core will remain, quietly waiting to be awakened.

In everyone's perception, even among eccentrics of the same type, there are actually distinctions between old and new.

This does not mean that after the core of the former was completely destroyed, a brand new monster was born from the spiritual vein. Rather, it means that the temporarily dormant monster will be revived directly based on the original core.

However, the strange man who has been awakened has no knowledge of his past. The power he has accumulated over the years has been completely wiped out, which is equivalent to being cleansed into a completely blank level one character. Therefore, it is not a problem to regard him as a brand new individual.

The oddballs in the negative emotion series are all "new".

After all, the existence of these negative emotions can be traced back to the birth of intelligent life, and the most experienced of the current series of negative emotion monsters is the Abyss Gentleman, but he is only in his teens or twenties from the time of his birth.

When the Abyss Gentleman was born, he did indeed see the former Sad Monster who was about to disappear.

Rather, it's more accurate to say that they not only met, but also received considerable care from each other.

In his first year of memory, the Abyss Gentleman spent it with that strange man who was once known as "Despair".

Because the opponent was severely injured in the battle with the magical girl, and because the foundation was damaged by forcibly borrowing the power of the spiritual vein, the new attribute "Despair" that was born was not accepted by the spiritual vein, and it was about to dissipate.

Because when it changed its attribute to "despair," it gathered the magic power of all the negative emotion monsters, so apart from the former Sadness, who is the main consciousness, it can still move, all the other negative emotion monsters have entered a state of slumber.

The Abyss Gentleman was the first "fear" to be revived.

To distinguish her from Little Sadness, the Abyss Gentlemen usually call her "Despair".

The Desperate Monster taught the Gentleman of the Abyss how to enter the spiritual veins, and then planned to fall into a deep sleep.

Before falling into a deep sleep, she said to the Gentleman of the Abyss: "Despair is precisely what does not exist in this world... But in doing so, everything becomes so hypocritical, which makes me very sad."

Despair seemed to dislike the style of the world she lived in.

Unlike the minor sadness we experience now, the sadness of despair is profound and melancholic, incompatible with others, and incomprehensible.

“People may die, but they do not fear death. Because their lives are simple and easy, they do not taste despair, they do not experience true sorrow, they do not envy others for petty gains, and they do not fear the neon-lit night… It’s so good, but it’s also so bad,” Despair whispered. “Because that’s why we go hungry.”

People with negative emotions find it very difficult to survive in this world.

Their survival rules are harsher than those of other oddballs. After all, living in this brightly colored world that feels unreal, their lack of magic always puts them in a survival dilemma.

They're not doing well, but others are.

The Despair Monster's power doesn't actually come from humans, because she has difficulty experiencing human despair.

Her power comes from placing all her hopes on her brothers and sisters, and from the despair of other freaks.

According to the established rules, monsters cannot obtain magic power from other monsters. However, perhaps because the anomalies of monsters with negative emotions are crucial to the origin of this world, this one-time special rule was tacitly permitted.

The Desperate Monster used this opportunity to rewrite some of the rules of survival.

Since then, the monster has been able to eat human food.

Even if they lack magic power, they won't slowly starve to death. If they can eat human food, it will not only replenish a small amount of magic power but also provide some satiety, preventing them from falling asleep hungry.

So much power was wasted, yet only this small change to the rules was made, instead of taking this opportunity to spread despair.

because……

"Because I still don't like despair." The Despair Monster said, complaining that when the world's origin was nurturing them, why did it give them such pure thoughts? "Although it's a bit hypocritical now, it's still better than seeing the people who take care of me cry."

The Abyss Gentleman initially thought that the idea of ​​despair was too naive, even more so than his own newly born terrifying monster.

Although he himself didn't care much about fear or anything else, he just wanted to have fun, so he spread fear at will, created panic everywhere, and led a bunch of henchmen and collaborators to rampage around.

After suffering a setback at the hands of the magical girl, he gradually calmed down and realized what despair meant.

As those dormant, negative emotion freaks gradually awaken, he gains a family and is forced to engage more with human society. Only then does he realize that the humans he has always ignored are no different from these freaks.

Aside from their strange appearance and eccentric personality, these oddballs aren't much different from most humans.

The eccentric lives among humans, clumsily observing and imitating them in an attempt to fill the emptiness in his heart.

For the first time, the Abyss Gentleman had a family and experienced the feeling of living together and supporting each other.

He asked the owner of the ramen shop where he worked, "Why do I feel so energetic and motivated even though I'm very tired?"

“Home is such a magical place, Jack.” The cheerful shopkeeper patted him on the shoulder and laughed heartily. “This feeling is the ‘happiness’ that comes from when the heart has found a home. The fact that you can understand this means you’ve become a reliable parent.”

The Gentleman of the Abyss, who had only vaguely understood at the time, is now gradually coming to his senses.

His heart became stronger because of his vulnerability.

Therefore, without needing to spread fear as before, he was able to maintain a certain level of performance, and even vaguely felt that some bottleneck had loosened.

Magic is the power of the heart.

If his heart is strong enough, then he is capable of anything.

Just like the Desperate Monster from back then.