Magical Girl Public Enemy? Stop Arresting Me Already! – Chapter 2

Eve Nightburn lay on the bed, pondering her already shattered life, feeling nothing but endless confusion.

“How am I supposed to work tomorrow?”

Eve stared at the ring, wanting nothing more than to burst into tears.

“What kind of cursed thing is this?! How can it track me down on its own, slip onto my finger, and then refuse to come off?!”

After racking her brain for a long time, Eve couldn’t come up with a solution.

Whatever, might as well ask her genius group chat friends.

She then fished her phone out from the lamb’s wool coat nearby.

Originally, Eve had thought her phone had been burned to ashes too.

But when she got home, she vaguely felt something hard in her pocket—that was when she confirmed her phone was still there.

At least this ring had some decency—it didn’t destroy her phone. Unlike her work uniform, which was completely gone…

Eve turned on her phone, and the moment her finger touched the fingerprint sensor, the lock screen instantly unlocked.

?

“I… can still use fingerprint unlock?”

Eve was stunned. Even twins couldn’t unlock each other’s phones with their fingerprints, right?

She thought about it for a second, then gave up.

Why overcomplicate it? At least she wouldn’t have to reset her fingerprint.

Opening That Goose, she navigated to a group chat where she was usually active and sent a message.

Well, this little dumpster fire of a group never lacked idle people. The moment you dared to ask, someone dared to answer.

Sure enough, the entire group exploded into activity in no time.

At this point, Eve’s face had darkened beyond recognition.

The glow of the phone screen reflected off her trembling fingertips as messages kept pouring in:

“Heh,” Eve couldn’t help but laugh. Truly, laughter was the only response to extreme sorrow.

But if Magical Girls were already ridiculous, now she had turned into a Little Loli—that was just next-level absurdity.

Who knew? Maybe the world itself was a farce?

If everything was absurd, then why bother? Maybe this world was like some bug-ridden computer program, running purely on glitches.

Having reached this conclusion, Eve stopped caring. Whatever happens, happens. Though it wasn’t like she could love anything anymore anyway.

Eve raised her left hand, staring at the ring on her ring finger—a rose seemingly crafted from ruby.

“Hey! Isn’t all of this your fault?! Can’t you at least take some responsibility?!”

Well, to be fair…

The rose ring had already been responsible. After all, the perfectly fitting winter outfit Eve was wearing now had been provided by it.

But that wasn’t the point. Eve just wanted to know how she was supposed to go to work starting tomorrow—though she already had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to.

Well, guess this job was on permanent vacation now. Unpaid vacation, that is.

Eve knew full well that if The Company saw her like this, they’d fire her on the spot. Hiring child labor was straight-up illegal.

She couldn’t just drag the entire company down with her, could she?

Though if The Company knew what she was thinking right now, they’d probably be moved enough to fire her anyway.

Deal. Two birds with one stone!

Wait, no—three birds with one stone!

Eve got herself a wife (herself), The Company could save on her salary, and there were plenty of wage-slaves waiting in line to take her spot. Perfect.

Eve felt like her life had been branded with a single, massive character:

“DOOMED—!”

But Eve didn’t stay pessimistic for long. As a master of slacking, she firmly adhered to the philosophy of giving up.

“If you can’t change the environment, learn to coexist with despair!”

“Speaking of which, I haven’t even seen what I look like now!”

Eve suddenly grew curious about her current appearance.

Well, she’d already lost everything—might as well find some way to break even.

“This… is my own body. Not illegal!”

While being a lolicon was against the law, being one’s own lolicon should be fine, right?

Having justified it to herself, Eve sat up on the bed, hopped off with a little jump, and landed on the floor.

But when she reached the Restroom, she realized a critical issue—this body was way too short!

Forget looking in the mirror—her head barely reached the height of the sink.

“1.2 meters…” Eve had a pretty good guess of her height now.

“Nice, free train tickets…”

“Nice my ass! I can’t even buy train tickets now!”

Right. There was no way she had an ID Card now. She’d successfully turned herself into an undocumented person.

“Meh, whatever.”

Eve stopped overthinking it and dragged her office chair into the bathroom.

Standing on the chair, she stared at the reflection in the mirror, momentarily stunned.

“So… so cute.”

The girl in the mirror looked like a fairy—short, light-yellow hair ending at her shoulders, a big M-shaped ahoge topped with a question mark.

Beneath her scarlet-red pupils were cross-shaped stars.

Under the simple pleated skirt were those irresistible little legs.

If those Magical Girls hadn’t been chasing her earlier, Eve was sure the Little Loli in the mirror would’ve been even cuter.

“Those Magical Girls really don’t know how to appreciate beauty.”

Whatever.

Once her heartbeat settled, Eve took another look at her reflection.

Then, she flashed a shameless grin.

“Damn, I’m adorable~”

Eve planted her hands on her hips, puffed out her slightly defined chest, and felt incredibly proud of herself.

She then struck a few poses.

“Onii-chan, hug me~”

Spurt—

Instantly, she was so overwhelmed by her own cuteness that her blood pressure spiked.

“No!”

Eve snapped back to reality, hurriedly wiping the nosebleed away.

“Dammit! I’m actually considering how to moe my way out of this?!”

But after cleaning up, the moment she saw the Little Loli in the mirror again, rationality was once again drowned by desire.

Eve shook her head vigorously to clear her mind.

“Whatever, this is my wife. What’s wrong with loving my own wife?”

But after admiring herself enough, Eve carried the chair back out, returned it to its place, and flopped back onto the bed.

Lying there, her mind blank, she felt like nothing mattered anymore.

If heaven had any mercy, Eve begged it to turn her back tonight!

But if heaven had any mercy, none of this would’ve happened in the first place!

Guess it was time to declare that the heavens were dead!

But Eve didn’t have the energy to shout empty slogans. She didn’t even know what “heaven” really was.

“So why were those Magical Girls chasing me again?”

Eve suddenly spotted the inconsistency. Weren’t Magical Girls supposed to fight Calamities?

Unless… she was the Calamity now?

Thinking this, Eve raised her left hand and stared at the ring again.

If she was a Calamity, fine. At least she’d be a superpowered Little Loli—better than being completely helpless.

“Hey, if you’ve got some omnipotent power, can’t you at least tell me what’s going on?”

……

……

A long time passed. Nothing happened.

Right. Couldn’t expect a ring to talk.

“DOOMED.”

At this point, there was nothing left to do. Time to sleep.

Eve pulled over the tiny blanket that no longer covered her properly and curled up under it, head and all.

Before drifting off, she muttered, Dazed:

“Wish I had family…”

Eve had grown up in an Orphanage for as long as she could remember. Sadly, she wasn’t some protagonist with dead parents and extraordinary talents.

Whether her parents were dead or not was unclear, and her talents were painfully average.

Still, Eve was somewhat lucky. Despite the terrible education in that rural Orphanage, she managed to scrape by in both middle school and college entrance exams—barely passing, but passing nonetheless.

Later, she moved to the city, rented this coffin-sized room, and walked to work every day—truly rootless, with no one to rely on.

The wish for family was just Eve’s way of thinking that if someone were with her, maybe she wouldn’t feel so lost.

But what “family” even was, she had no idea.