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

Thinking this, she waved her magic wand once more, and the thin, white, glowing wood lightly touched the air, causing a sudden earthquake.

The clock tower where Mayumi Haga and Hitomi Tono were hiding was quite old, and many ivy plants were climbing on the walls. At this moment, these green plant tendrils suddenly expanded, and in just a few seconds, countless roots entered the interior of the wall through the cracks, wriggling and waving like sentient hands.

The wall, which was not fragile to begin with, was now teetering on the brink of collapse.

Mayumi Haga realized something and looked up.

Countless dark green tentacles stretched out from all directions, densely intertwining to form a dark green cage that trapped her inside and further contracted.

The dark green vines seemed to consciously push Tono Hitomi away from her, wrapping around her restless and struggling limbs, and sweeping the two apart like a tide.

This was exactly what Mayumi Haga wanted.

It's okay if Hitomi Tohno isn't here... or rather, it's best if that child doesn't stay with me. Since we've already reached the final boss battle, I'll just have to face it alone.

As Mayumi Haga thought this, she didn't look at Hitomi Tono's outstretched hand that was trying to grab her.

"Shin... Mayumi, ugh ugh ugh!" The noisy pink-haired idiot was forcibly silenced. As the vines gently and undeniably carried her away, she desperately tried to attract Mayumi's attention, but the guardian didn't even glance at her.

In the end, the hand was wrapped in vines, like a cocoon, and dragged to safety.

It was supposed to be a safe place, but it was really just hanging outside the wall by vines, swaying in the wind.

“Alright, there are no hostages now.” The mage approached Mayumi Haga, tilting her head slightly as she spoke to the silent Mayumi. “No one is in the way.”

Realizing that he was shorter than Mayumi Haga in front of him, the magician hesitated for a moment, then floated up to be at the same level as Mayumi Haga.

Mayumi Haga: "...You didn't care about the hostages' lives before, did you?"

Although Tohno Hitomi is not a hostage—who else could protect themselves better than herself… she is indeed a bargaining chip, capable of temporarily restraining the magician’s actions.

However, the mage was reckless and ruthless, much like Tohno Hitomi before. This greatly frustrated Mayumi Haga.

If she hadn't realized the danger, Hitomi Tono might have really been injured because of her.

Thinking about this, Mayumi Haga's impression of the magician in front of her dropped considerably.

Actually, she didn't dislike magicians at first, since their nature should be similar to that of guardians, and they could be considered one of the ultimate means of maintaining this world.

But this last resort... wasn't as reliable as she had imagined.

Mayumi Haga gained a completely new understanding of this world.

Why do they all seem so unreliable?

If this near-accident of accidentally spilling something on one's own character happened in an anime, it would be considered comical. But for a real person, it's not something to laugh off.

At least Mayumi Haga wasn't thick-skinned enough to consider it a trivial matter.

Although Hitomi Tono herself doesn't seem to have any psychological trauma.

Mayumi Haga underestimated the thick skin of the people in this world. Hitomi Tono had faced even more dangerous situations in certain special battles. A mysterious, habitual way of thinking always made others around her think that the child would be fine, but Mayumi Haga, who was not affected by this strange way of thinking, was genuinely nervous.

That's fine, she thought, Xiaotong shouldn't get involved in this anymore.

"W-What's wrong? Anyway, the child will be fine..." When questioned by Mayumi Haga, the magician's face showed a guilty expression. She subconsciously retorted, but her argument was untenable.

That wretched freak! She actually managed to find his weakness...

The magician had no intention of wasting any more time with Mayumi Haga.

She could tell that Mayumi Haga was weak enough, and that techniques like shield parrying wouldn't be able to defend against all of her attacks. With a wider range of magic, the strange wooden shield wouldn't be able to hold her back.

If all else fails, just tie their hands and feet.

The magician looked at Mayumi Haga, who was having difficulty even standing, and sighed inwardly.

"You know, right? If you don't admit defeat, both you and the real Despair Monster will be exiled from this world." The magician said finally, wanting Mayumi Haga to hand over the core of the Despair Monster. "I don't know where you put the core, but in any case, I will banish the core's carrier to a space where everything is still."

This is an ultimatum.

If Mayumi Haga can hand over the bear cub, then he'll let her go.

But Mayumi Haga answered the magician with silence.

"What a pity," the magician said, his fingertips twitching slightly.

However, the next second, she stopped moving.

The magician frowned, then slowly raised her head to look at the sky, which was already beginning to brighten.

A sound like shattering glass came from the sky.

In fact, the sky, which already had a hint of orange before sunrise, was indeed "shattered".

A massive barrier had somehow enveloped the clock tower. The enormous mirror barrier, made from the spiritual veins, contained the people who were negotiating. After a moment of dizziness, they were forcibly pulled into the mirror space within the barrier.

The magician was puzzled.

This is a mirror barrier that Miracle City activates only to deal with special monsters, and it's large enough to envelop the entire city. Previously, its deployment required control by its creator, Ayasa Terasaki, but now that it's been recognized by Miracle City's magical foundation, the barrier should deploy automatically.

The premise is that a huge threat sufficient to destroy the city has been detected.

But I clearly restrained my strength...

"Are you wondering why this barrier is being deployed when the damage you've caused is probably less severe than the daily battles between monsters and magical girls?" A familiar voice came from behind.

The magician turned around in surprise and saw a guy he had just met not long ago.

The red-haired former magical girl looked a bit disheveled. Her hair was messy, she was panting, and it seemed she had really put in a lot of effort to get here. Her clothes were wrinkled, and her nose was covered in sweat.

"...You can't use the ley lines teleportation?" The mage immediately saw through the other party's problem.

Sugiyama Rika could have used the Miracle City's spiritual veins to teleport back without consuming too much magic power, but the way she was acting clearly indicated that she had flown back over a long distance.

Aside from the possibility that the other party has something they don't want to teleport back to—after all, Sugiyama Rika does seem to be in a hurry—there's only one left:

The ley lines in Miracle City are no longer usable.

"What happened to the spiritual veins?" The mage was quite surprised that he hadn't even sensed anything wrong.

During this brief exchange, Sugiyama Rika did not respond to the magician's words, but immediately used magic to tear the vines on Haga Mayumi's body apart.

The magician tried to stop him: "What are you doing..."

Sugiyama Rika ignored her and instead grabbed Haga Mayumi's hand; the place where their skin touched was icy cold.

Yuga Mayumi instinctively pulled her hand back, wanting to retreat, but was blocked by thick vines behind her.

Sugiyama Rika's heart sank. She noticed that Haga Mayumi only looked up at her after a while, her pupils slightly unfocused.

Mayumi Haga's reaction was even slower.

Because she didn't sense the hostility of those approaching her, her hearing loss made her slow down... or rather, her vision gradually blurred, and her body became increasingly sluggish.

But when that fiery red hair came into view, she realized something.

Miss Guardian...?

This incompetent guardian hadn't appeared before her for some time, and she never expected to see Sugiyama Rika appear before her at this time.

Her heart was throbbing with pain, as if there was a thin layer of paper around it, and the surging blood was about to break through that paper. She tried to pull her hand back before she lost control of her body, but Sugiyama Rika grabbed it again.

The other person seemed to be saying something, but it was a bit hard to see clearly.

Mayumi Haga struggled to decipher Rika Sugiyama's lip movements, only to see Rika turn her head and say something to the magician, earning him a disapproving, icy gaze.

"Don't touch my child." Sugiyama Rikka stood firm.

The magician found it absurd: "She looks only a little younger than you. What do you think she is, some child?"

Yuga Mayumi appears to be in her twenties in her guardian form, but the scars make her look a few years older and she doesn't appear young at all.

Sugiyama Rika choked for a moment.

She only obtained a portion of the information about the other world from the temple deep within the cave, vaguely deducing the identity of Mayumi Haga and knowing that this child was probably the legendary "Guardian".

But unexpectedly, Mayumi Haga's true form? Or rather, her transformed appearance, was about the same age as himself.

Rather, compared to her unreliable guardian, Mayumi Haga seems more like an elder...

No, now is not the time to dwell on this.

After hastily recording the information about the other world found in the temple, Sugiyama Rika roughly understood what had happened in that shattered other world.

It was nothing more than a tragedy of the world being destroyed by an external enemy.

The murals in that part of the temple record the history of that strange continent, from the birth of life on both sides of the River of Life, the coexistence of ancient races and fantasy species, to the end of the Age of Gods, and before the curtain of the new era could be raised, it was invaded by the enemy.

Then, in the final mural, only one person remained, struggling desperately. Finally, the stone wall broke, and the history of the other world came to an end.

And that person, the only remaining guardian, is the person in front of you.

The guardian in the mural wears a blackened hood and tattered armor, holds a small shield, and has short white hair that is almost blackened by congealed blood. He only exists in a small corner of the painting, but the remaining 80% of the painting is crudely painted black, representing the overwhelming calamity.

In the corner of the mural, there are crooked, childish characters carved forcefully with a stone, bearing the name of the last surviving person in the world.

Despite not being able to understand the language of this other world, Sugiyama Rika still knew who it was.

【Haga Mayumi】.

When Mayumi Haga first came to her house, she saw that she had written these words.

Main Text: Chapter 143 Self-Destruction is the Best Way to Escape

Mayumi Haga.

A name remembered by the world at the end of time, the last guardian.

Sugiyama Rika knew that the information conveyed by the murals she saw must have more to it than met the eye.

The murals are too simple; although they are large, they cannot contain all the lost memories of that destroyed world.

The cold stone cannot recreate the swaying of a flower or tree in the breeze, nor can it recreate the despair of the last guardian.

Sugiyama Rika was just an observer; all she could see was the cold, hard wall.

Faced with that enormous picture of otherworldly history, all she could do was watch.

Then listen.

Sugiyama Rika can be considered a magical genius. She has a high level of acceptance for this kind of supernatural thing and her comprehension is also stronger than others.

Upon entering the temple, the countless overlapping chants presented her with the sole requirement for passing the temple's trial:

O person from another world, please walk through this corridor of history and etch it into your heart.

That voice, which had been lonely for too long, simply wanted to convey some information to Sugiyama Rika.

He wanted Sugiyama Rika to know the story of the world's last guardian.

"Please remember her," the voice said, its tone slowly changing, becoming childlike yet clearly sorrowful, like that of a dejected child. "She's all I have left."

Thus, Sugiyama Rika learned more information from this temple than she had ever imagined.

As soon as she came out of the temple, Sugiyama Rika rushed to find Haga Mayumi, not just because she was shocked to learn the other party's true identity.

Rather, the problem lies with the spiritual veins.

I initially thought this was just a mess caused by the Abyss Gentlemen, and had little to do with Mayumi Haga. I didn't expect it to escalate into such a huge incident like it did years ago... But now it seems the situation is much more serious than I imagined.

"What did the Desperate Monster's accomplices do in the spiritual vein?" the mage asked Sugiyama Rika with a furrowed brow. Only then did she belatedly realize that something was wrong with the spiritual vein, which made her very annoyed.

To be honest, although the magician had become a magical spirit, her perception was still inferior to that of Sugiyama Rika, who had almost assimilated with the spiritual veins here. Moreover, the spiritual veins here were still resisting her entry.

But that's strange.

The mage hadn't been to Miracle City for many years, so she wasn't familiar with the condition of the spiritual veins here, but Sugiyama Rika spotted the problem at a glance.

She sighed and said, "The ley lines of Miracle City were shut down once not long ago, and this is the second time."

Forced closure is only implemented when there is a danger sufficient to threaten the ley line itself. At such times, even Sugiyama Rika cannot enter the ley line.

The first forced shutdown occurred when the Calamity Dragon appeared in this world.

Although the Abyss Gentleman was somewhat capable, in Sugiyama Rika's understanding, this guy was not someone who could control the entire spiritual vein.

At least, this guy's abilities alone couldn't have done it.

In other words, the reason the spiritual veins were forcibly shut down was not due to the actions of the Abyss Gentlemen, but rather...

Just as she was about to state her conclusion, Sugiyama Rika, who was holding Haga Mayumi's hand, suddenly sensed the tension in her hand at that moment.

The moment Mayumi Haga gripped Sataka Sugiyama's hand, the sky, which was almost bright, was suddenly shrouded in darkness.

Wisps of red smoke rose from the ground, like ashes swirling in the updraft after being burned.

The color of the sky also began to change, with a crimson aura mixed with pitch-black calamity enveloping the area within the barrier, turning everything in sight a crimson expanse.