Off Work, Then I Become a Magical Girl
Chapter 120: Spider

The sudden attack interrupted the man's movements, silencing the mocking words that had not yet left his mouth.

He stared at the magical dagger that had pierced through his chest, his eyes wide with shock. He let out a strained gasp, but no words escaped his lips as blood poured from his throat, causing him to cough violently.

"Lightbulb, go check on the Ravager and see how it's doing. If you can, subdue it. First, check if there are any survivors in those tumors."

Pulling the dagger from the man's back, Veronica mercilessly kicked him to the ground, binding him with magical threads. She then cast several Favored Runes on him, sealing his magic with an anti-magic ritual. "I’ll interrogate him."

"Understood." Lightbulb nodded, using her magic to float into the air, heading straight for the Pupa Ravager above.

Before long, the Ravager's roars and the sound of magic explosions mixed together, clearly indicating a battle had broken out in the sky.

Veronica glanced upward at the unfolding battle before looking back down at the man on the ground, her gaze as cold as ice. "Name, identity, purpose."

"Ha... ha..." The man still couldn’t respond. Blood continued to pour from his throat as he opened his mouth, his eyes wide, gasping for air, on the verge of death.

He looked pitiful, but Veronica felt no sympathy or empathy for him. She simply watched him quietly.

Since entering this "Nest," everything she had seen and learned pointed to one fact—this man was a complete villain. Such people weren’t worth any sympathy.

She stared at the man on the ground in silence.

After several seconds, seeing that he was still struggling to survive despite his pathetic state, Veronica spoke again, "Finished acting yet?"

Her words seemed like a signal. The man looked at her for a moment before finally stopping the meaningless sounds and slightly lifting the corners of his mouth. "You’re smarter than her, little miss."

"I’ve never heard of a human who could defeat a Bud-tier Magical Girl, but my intuition tells me that someone like you shouldn’t just be stabbed in the heart and end up in this state."

Veronica coldly responded, "Now, I’ll give you two choices. Tell me where the missing Magical Girl is and what your plans are, and you can either choose to die by suicide or be killed by me in one strike; or refuse to answer my questions, and the Magic Kingdom has its ways of making you talk, but you might not get a peaceful death."

The man relaxed his wide-eyed stare and looked at Veronica in silence for a long time. After a brief pause, he let out a deep breath. "Too bad, I don’t like leggings."

His words made Veronica pause for a moment. After a brief silence, she started to realize what he meant and looked down at her skirt.

"You don’t seem to want a peaceful death?" Veronica asked, her voice cold, as she crouched down. Magic threads gathered in her hand, forming a dagger. She pointed it next to the man’s eye. "Or do you want me to do something more inhumane to get you to talk?"

"I don’t want to waste time with scum like you, so I don’t want to hear any more useless chatter. Tell me your choice in three seconds, or this dagger will gouge out your eye."

"One."

"Two."

"I’ll talk," the man said, trying to turn his head, but the magic threads had firmly bound him, preventing any movement. "You really have no mercy. You’re much colder than the other Magical Girls who came after me."

Swish!

"Ah!"

The dagger sliced past the man’s eye, cutting open his lower eyelid and causing him to scream in pain.

"You kept your eye, but your words caused you more pain."

Veronica removed the dagger. "Now, name, identity, purpose."

The man gasped for a long time before weakly speaking, "Spider, Ember Guard, gather nourishment."

"Explain what those words mean. Don’t speak in riddles," Veronica narrowed her eyes.

"Don’t you know?" The man was slightly surprised by Veronica’s question, before his gaze wandered across her face, revealing a strange smile. "Interesting, you really are just like the codename given to you by that Bud-tier. A bird in a cage, just as your name suggests."

Veronica raised the dagger and cut across the corner of his mouth.

"Ugh!" The man groaned again.

"You’re using my codename to provoke me. Are you trying to anger me?"

Throwing the dagger aside, the magic threads reformed a new one in her hand. Veronica raised her voice slightly. "I actually don’t mind you continuing to do so, but time is limited. I hope you stop wasting my time, or by the time this interrogation ends, my promises will be empty words."

"…Spider is my codename."

Seeing that Veronica was unaffected by his provocation, the man finally decided to be more honest. "My identity is the Ember Guard of the palace, so I have my own codename."

"Ember Guard? Is that your rank?" Veronica coldly pressed.

"Palace Ember Army, Palace Ember Guard, Royal Ember Attendant."

The man panted as he spat out the three terms. "This is no secret, especially to your Investigation Bureau. It should already be public information."

Veronica didn’t say a word, but raised her dagger again. The man shrank back, then quickly shouted, "I know! I’ll talk! Don’t do it!"

He sighed with relief as Veronica lowered the dagger, then continued to explain, "The ranks go from low to high, with the lowest being the Ember Army, followed by the Ember Guard, and the highest is the Ember Attendant."

"The Ember Army is the most ordinary rank, with no codename, only numbers. For example, among my subordinates, the combat specialists are called Ember Army, with their prefix being 'Soldier Spider' followed by a number—Soldier Spider One, Soldier Spider Two..."

"The Ember Guard can receive a codename and acts as a mid-tier position, managing a group of Ember Army soldiers."

"Royal Ember Attendants are the closest to the power core, and they wield immense strength. They often control entire regions."

"An entire region?"

His words made Veronica realize something, and she continued to press, "Would the southern region of Donghua Province count as a region?"

"Of course, it counts," the man smirked. "But how many regions there are, I wouldn’t know. That’s not something an Ember Guard can know."

"Then, who is the leader of the Black Cinders Dawn in this region?" Veronica fixed her gaze on his eyes.

"I don’t know," Spider smiled.

A cold glint flashed, and a new wound appeared on his abdomen.

"Ah!"

He screamed in pain again, but this time he didn’t immediately answer. Instead, cold sweat beaded on his face. "I… I can’t say."

"Can’t say?" Veronica frowned slightly. "Maybe I should stab somewhere more painful to help you remember?"

"No… it’s not remembering. I... I can’t say it. I can’t do it."

Spider gasped, his face turning red. "I can’t say his name to a Magical Girl. It’s his order. I can’t disobey."

"Disobeying your superior’s orders means death. Here, refusing to answer my questions means death. Which one do you think is better?"

Veronica asked calmly. "Maybe you could describe the consequences of defying the order. I’ll try to be a bit worse than your superior."

"I’ve told you... We can’t defy our superiors."

Spider continued to gasp. "It’s like how lower-tier beasts can’t defy higher-tier beasts. It’s the hierarchy of life. You can’t surpass it."

"You mean to say that your superior’s orders are absolute, unrelated to your own will?"

Veronica raised an eyebrow. "Like the Ravagers? You really see yourselves as Ravagers, don’t you?"

"See ourselves as? The power of beasts is originally our ladder for progress. What’s wrong with climbing the road to human strength?"

After some pain, Spider’s voice calmed down. "You Magical Girls will never understand."

"I don’t plan to understand the thoughts of monsters. I just want to know what you’ve done."

Veronica remained unmoved. "Go on. Explain your purpose. What exactly does 'gather nourishment' mean?"

"It means… feeding the beasts."

Spider glanced upward, his eyes darkening as he looked at the Pupa Ravager fighting Lightbulb in the sky, clearly losing. "Beasts can devour any life with magic, even the most foolish humans. They all have weak traces of magic within them. It may be insignificant, but it can add up."

"And if you want to increase efficiency, you should go after more potent prey, like other beasts, or the magic sources of fairies, or..."

He shifted his gaze toward Veronica’s collar, staring at the Heartstone Gem that flickered in her neck. He swallowed. "Your magic source."

Veronica said nothing for a long time.

She stared at Spider for a long time before finally speaking again. "You really are a group of animals."

What Spider said was not hard to understand. In other words, the "nourishment" they were after was essentially any living being with magic. Whether it was humans, fairies, Magical Girls, or even cannibalism among Ravagers, it was all a fact.

"This is the reality of this world."

Spider said indifferently. "Without the power to protect yourself, you’ll be devoured sooner or later."

"The Magical Girl disappearances in Donghua Province these past few years—was that you?"

Veronica gripped the dagger tightly in her hand. "What about the investigation team that came to Bo’an City? Where are they?"

"All of us? Who knows, but if it’s Bo’an City, it’s probably all my doing."

Spider stared blankly at the sky, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "It’s just a shame I couldn’t catch those new Magical Girls. I had just trapped that troublesome Bud-tier when you arrived. If I had killed her, all the Heartstone Gems in this city would have been mine."

"You won’t get that chance again."

Veronica’s voice was cold. "Tell me where the investigation team is, and I’ll give you a quick death."

"Investigation team? Oh, you’re still asking about those stupid Magical Girls who came to interrogate me a few days ago."

Spider’s gaze shifted, focusing on Veronica’s face. "You’ve been asking about them from the very beginning. Why? Does your colleague from the Investigation Bureau really matter that much to you? Aster?"

Veronica’s breath caught in her throat.

His words weren’t a question, but when he mentioned "Aster," he did so with complete certainty.

Lightbulb had called Veronica earlier, so Spider had every reason to know Veronica’s codename. But Aster—no one had mentioned that codename in front of him.

Perhaps the Cat Tail Squad had mentioned it, but why? Why would they mention herself to this man?

"You seem to know me?"

Veronica lowered her voice and raised her dagger again. "Good, now you have one more thing to explain. I hope your answer satisfies me."

"I know you, it’s not strange, little miss. You seem to have a bit of a misunderstanding about your own fame."

Spider raised his eyes. "But I’m surprised that the Investigation Bureau let you chase this matter, and you found me so quickly. It wasn’t what I expected."

"I’ll say it again, no more nonsense."

Veronica pressed the dagger to his chin.

"I’m not babbling. I’m telling the truth."

Spider suddenly locked eyes with Veronica, staring intently at her eyes. "I just want to tell you, you weren’t my prey to begin with."

Veronica met his gaze without flinching, her cold stare burning with intense fire, as if she intended to burn him to ashes.

She didn’t speak, but pressed the dagger upward.

But this time, the dagger didn’t pierce Spider’s skin.

"...You see, I told you, I wasn’t talking nonsense."

Spider, whose face had been pale from blood loss, now had a hint of color. He grinned once again, but this time it was cold. "It’s your chatter that’s too much, little miss."

"—Veronica!"

Suddenly, Lightbulb’s voice rang out from the sky.

Almost at the same time she heard the two voices, Veronica felt an intense sense of danger from behind. She immediately released the dagger from her hand, and her magical armor transformed into a square protective shield, fully encasing her.

Soon after, dark purple magical energy surged from above, and blood and flesh threads appeared from nowhere, wrapping around the magical armor and binding it tightly.

A white spider, several meters tall, descended from the sky, its legs lifting Spider and placing him on its back.

Spider sat on the back of the white spider, looking up at the sky and muttering, "Alright, your mission is complete."

As he spoke, the Pupa Ravager, which had been hanging on the massive web and fighting Lightbulb, suddenly screamed in agony. Its already battered body collapsed and fell straight into the web it had woven.

The man, codename Spider, straightened up on the white spider’s back, reaching for his neck. But the anti-magic ritual abruptly pushed his hand away, causing a slight frown to appear on his face.

However, he quickly set aside his displeasure and looked at Veronica, who was trapped in her magical armor. He spoke again:

"You see, I didn’t talk nonsense. As I said, high-tier Ravager’s orders are absolute to low-tier ones."

This sentence made Veronica, who had been planning to change her magical armor and cut through the surrounding flesh net, pause in her movements.

"High-tier Ravager..." Realization dawned on her as she looked up at Spider. "I was wondering why this 'Nest' didn’t seem like a Pupa’s at all from the start."

"Your intuition is really sharp."

Spider gently stroked the Ravager beneath him. "A Pupa Ravager can command the Caterpillars and Eggs in its Nest, so why shouldn’t it be able to command itself?"

As if responding to his words, the spider Ravager beneath him lifted its head and screeched. Then, the massive spider that had been on the web trembled, its body twitching before it fell completely still.

"That Ravager wasn’t the mastermind behind this incident; it was just a tool."

Veronica looked up briefly before lowering her gaze and staring at Spider. "You just controlled it, using its Nest as a hunting tool."

Spider smiled slightly.

"You’ve been asking me where those stupid Magical Girls went."

He spoke, his hand suddenly twisting, and with a shrill scream from the white spider, he tore a piece of dark purple flesh from its back.

The purple-black flesh still pulsed with life, and Spider looked at it with an almost reverent expression. Slowly, he pressed it against his chest:

"This answer... you’ll witness it yourself."

"This is the time for rooting out traitors and rebels."