"Yes, I understand, very sorry,"
In the dimly lit sewer, a sowhat tired man's voice ca from above.
"Yes, okay, if your maintenance staff can't handle it, we will co to provide service as early as tomorrow morning..."
It was 11 p.m., and Lin Yun stood at the opening of a sewer, phone in hand, his face expressionless yet his tone earnest as he promised the person on the other end of the line.
Then he hung up the phone, opened the text ssaging interface, typed out a ssage, and sent it off. Only then did he put away his phone and let out a long sigh.
Investigating locations rife with urban legends, receiving complaints about his subordinates over the phone late into the night, and getting an earful for the lack of signal previously in the sewer, all of it was truly exhausting to both body and mind.
But fortunately, there weren't many locations left. If the chrysalis-stage Remnant Beasts really existed in the sewers of Fangting City, tonight he would be able to drag them out from their hiding places.
Holding onto the heart-shaped flower, he transford once again into the Magical Girl, Erald Sparrow, and flew towards the next rumored location against the night sky.
"The Song in the Sewer," as an urban legend recently popular on the internet, had many variations, but tracing back to the source, most posts claiming firsthand experience said it happened in Fangting City.
The content of this urban legend is roughly that when passing by a sewer at night, one could occasionally hear a faint, eerie yet beautiful song. Though it wasn't in human language, it seed to convey so sort of emotion. It was like the legend of the siren, tempting passersby and arousing a desire to explore.
Once soone was captivated by the song, they would invariably be drawn closer to its source, even to the point of moving the manhole covers to try to listen to the lody from a closer distance. Ultimately, they would be grabbed by hands reaching out from under the manhole cover and dragged into the darkness.
If soone completely ignored the song and showed no interest, they would beco entrapped in the sa area as if they had encountered a ghost hitting a wall. The song from the sewer would grow stronger and closer until they were fully lost in it.
Only those who showed enough appreciation, yet were not completely captivated, could safely leave the area where they heard the song.
As this strange tale spread, so even began to seriously claim that seeing an open and unsealed manhole cover ant soone had been hard, and it was guaranteed that news of a missing person could be discovered nearby.
But Erald Sparrow didn't manage to see any of that.
Every ti she searched the sewers while enduring the stench, apart from missing people, she barely even saw any rats. The gloomy and oppressive sewer only had the occasional sound of water flow and the breeze.
Recalling the narrative of the urban legend, Erald Sparrow concentrated on her hearing, attempting to capture any trace of the so-called "song," but never once did she succeed.
Just like that, she floated and flew through the maze-like pipes for a good half hour.
The constantly recurring sight of the drab yellow walls and dense pipes was tireso, but Erald Sparrow still forced herself to continue searching. Regrettably, the expedition still yielded nothing.
Having failed to find what she was looking for, Erald Sparrow had no choice but to head towards the next location. However, as she prepared to pick a path to leave, she suddenly realized sothing was amiss:
——Half an hour, she had flown for so long, yet she hadn't encountered a single exit?
Her already sowhat dull consciousness instantly beca alert, and the dormant magic power began to stir. Erald Sparrow moved her hand, drawing several patterns in the air. Then, she released her magic power, sending it out in circular waves around her. She stayed in place, waiting quietly, and after a period of investigation, she realized she might have finally found the right place.
Not only because she sensed extrely faint traces of magic power, but also because of the clearly abnormal spatial structure here: it was not a normal city sewer at all but rather a sewer in appearance only, the reality being a labyrinthine space like an ant colony, with overlapping and nested compartnts.
This was the unmistakable sign of a chrysalis-stage Remnant Beast's lair, a distortion of the space that originally existed in reality.
Adjusting her flying posture, lowering the height at which she floated, Erald Sparrow released several balls of magic power from her sleeves, illuminating her surroundings. Her hands kept moving, rapidly tracing lines in the void. Accompanying these actions, several Favo Runes leapt from her fingers, flying into the surroundings and forming a translucent Magical Barrier, the light of which, together with the runes, soon extinguished.
All these actions had used up half of the Spell Techniques she had at her disposal. The Spell Techniques she had learned were mostly for exploration and protection, and when facing powerful enemies, there could never be enough.
After making this series of preliminary preparations, Erald Sparrow braced herself with renewed vigor to face the enemies that might co at any mont.
Chrysalis-stage Remnant Beasts had been relatively rare adversaries for her in the past, but now, 19 years later, her strength had indeed diminished compared to what it once was. For enemies she couldn't be sure of defeating, a cautious mindset was most important.
Traversing the sprawling passageways, Erald Sparrow would first let her magic orbs light up the surroundings at each intersection to avoid being ambushed by enemies lurking in the dark.
This subconscious vigilance soon paid off—she spotted a lurking Remnant Beast on the ceiling of a passageway around a corner.
Like a chunk of rotten flesh smashed against the wall, its pulpy at was stuck to the walls, and flesh-like tendrils secured its form; undoubtedly, it was a Larval-stage Remnant Beast.
"Thump"!
In a few breaths' ti, it was pierced by a Magic Power Beam from the hurried Erald Sparrow, its intimidating shriek forever caught in its throat, as it fell heavily onto the water surface, splashing up filth.
Extending a hand, pinpoints of starlight converged within, collecting the echoes of these Larval-stage remnants, and Erald Sparrow continued forward.
From the encounter with this Remnant Beast, the number of enemies she faced along the way only increased.
A multitude of Larval-stage Remnant Beasts, and even a few Inchworm-stage ones, sward toward her from all around the tunnels. It was as if sothing was directing them, enabling them to precisely locate Erald Sparrow.
Erald Sparrow was undaunted.
Such level of adversaries would not have required her attention if it were not for a demonstration for the newcors. With her Magical Armor deployed, lethal Magic Silk threads spread in all directions, and many of the advancing Remnant Beasts collided with them before they could react, being sliced into chunks by the blade-sharp filants.
She walked on expressionlessly, with Remnant Beasts occasionally shrieking as they fell along her path.
The sewer passageway had transford into a slaughterhouse, only the slaughtered were not livestock, but Remnant Beasts. The stench of blood even overpowered the inherent fetidness of the sewer, and the yellow water turned into red rivers tainted with the blood of the beasts.
Erald Sparrow didn't count the number of Remnant Beasts she had killed, only rembering that eventually, she even beca too lazy to collect the echoes of the Larval-stage.
Until at last, she heard singing.
This was not the indistinct soliloquy ntioned in rumors but a grand and magnificent chorus, like that of an extravagant performance.
What appeared before her was no longer the narrow and cramped tunnels but a massive cavern that, under normal circumstances, would be inconceivable in a sewer.
Unable to see the ceiling, she could only spot the intertwined pipes and tiles, with countless sewer openings stretching out from the cavern walls and a vast amount of sewage cascading down from all sides, gathering into a seemingly bottomless pool.
Above the pool, was the source of the singing.
It was neither a siren nor a rmaid, but without question, it was a Remnant Beast.
Erald Sparrow looked up, and the first thing that caught her eye was flesh, chunks of flesh, limbs of flesh.
Intestine-like flesh hung midair, draped across the whole cavern like festoons, as if in celebration of a festival. At the center, a huge Remnant Beast dangled from the air, its body a mix of flesh-colored pink and red, resembling a fish stripped of scales and skin, but void of fish eyes and gills, leaving only a massive mouthpart.
This giant mouthpart was moving just like a human's, writhing, and the enchanting song that it emitted echoed around the corridors, the intense reverberations mingling together into a chaotic chorus that sounded sacred and solemn.
There were no human languages in it, yet Erald Sparrow seed to understand its aning:
It was welcoming, welcoming the arrival of the Magical Girl.
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