Off Work, Then I Become a Magical Girl
Chapter 122: Spider Web

The sudden ambush forced Veronica to give up on her plan to keep attacking. She used her magic to perform a quick cushioning maneuver in midair, spinning her body and slamming her gauntlet hard against the spider spear, barely dodging the incoming strike from below.

But that didn’t mean the danger had passed. The Ravager in front of her could clearly sense that the Magical Girl before it was already affected by the rules—there was no reason for it to back down now. It quickly gave chase, attempting to pursue Veronica.

At the critical moment, Deng Zhan stepped in just in time, taking Veronica’s place. The two Magical Girls fought while retreating, barely managing to fend off this wave of the Ravager’s attacks.

However, the spider silk wrapped around Veronica’s elbow still hadn’t been dealt with.

During the gaps in the fight, she repeatedly used her Masterpiece to try and cut away the silk entangling her, hoping to break free, but it was no use. This spider silk, generated by the rules, was completely unaffected by her Magical Armor or her magic.

Worse still, once she got a good look at the silk wrapped around her arm, she realized—it looked no different from the silk binding Cat Tail and the others. That finally made her understand what the spider had meant earlier by “experiencing it for yourself.”

Clearly, the Cat Tail Squad had also fought the spider before. And the reason the entire squad lost was because they couldn’t overcome the rules of this Ravager.

Even now, with her own elbow bound by this special silk, not only was her arm difficult to move or bend, but even her magic circulation in that area had grown sluggish and clumsy.

“How bad is it?” Deng Zhan asked when she saw the grim look on Veronica’s face. “Still can’t get rid of it?”

“I’ll need to find another way,” Veronica said, letting out a breath and giving up on removing the silk. “We need to figure out what its rule is—otherwise even our attacks will get locked down.”

The silk on her arm had appeared when she was chasing the Ravager. She wasn’t sure if the two were directly connected, but it didn’t stop her from acting cautiously going forward.

“But…” Deng Zhan hesitated, glancing up at the spiderweb in the air.

Veronica followed her gaze and saw that the magic fluctuations around Cat Tail and the others were growing weaker and weaker.

With the magic perception both of them had as Magical Girls, it wasn’t hard to tell where the magic was going—it was all being funneled into the Ravager’s body along the spider silk.

Clearly, after spending magic in the previous battle, the Ravager had sped up its absorption. At this rate, the Cat Tail Squad might die of exhaustion before the fight even ended.

Veronica fell silent.

She did have a strategy in mind, but speed and safety clearly couldn’t both be achieved.

If she wanted to keep herself and Deng Zhan alive and intact while defeating the Ravager, she couldn’t afford to be reckless. She’d have to figure out the rule first before making any moves.

But if she wanted to save Cat Tail, there was no time for slowly figuring things out. She’d have to take a gamble.

“Deng Zhan, we’ll split up.”

After weighing her options, she said, “You go up and save them. I’ll stay down here and deal with the Ravager.”

“Huh? That’s not gonna work!”

Deng Zhan shook her head immediately. “You’re already affected by its rule! If anyone should stay behind, it should be me—I’m in better shape!”

“You just got seriously hurt. How good could your condition be?”

Veronica gave her a side glance. “Besides, you already lost to it once. I can’t trust you to take it on alone.”

“But…” Deng Zhan still wanted to argue, but Veronica didn’t give her the chance.

“Don’t waste time.”

She pushed Deng Zhan aside and faced the Ravager, which was already preparing another aerial attack. She got into a combat stance. “If there weren’t any annoying rules in play, I’m confident I could finish it off quickly.”

As her words fell, spider silk shot out from the shadows again. Veronica activated her Magical Armor and charged forward, engaging the Ravager head-on once more.

Blood-red spider silk mixed with purple-black magic clashed with Veronica’s dazzling blue magic threads. Her Masterpiece blades collided violently with the Ravager’s exoskeleton, locking the two in a fierce stalemate.

Eventually, Deng Zhan obeyed Veronica’s command. She pushed away her needless worries and flew toward the spiderweb in the sky, leaving Veronica to fight the Ravager in a perilous solo battle on the ground.

The mindless Ravager couldn’t understand the reason behind the Magical Girls splitting up. All it saw was that only one of them remained before it—and to it, that meant this was the perfect chance to kill her quickly.

So it ignored Deng Zhan completely and went into a frenzy, launching an even more savage assault on Veronica.

Not long into the fight, the spider silk around Veronica’s arm completely engulfed it, cutting off her ability to channel magic through it.

She had no choice but to switch from dual-hand combat to relying solely on one hand and her magic threads. It forced her to adopt a more defensive style.

With only one usable arm, she had to protect her remaining hand at all costs. If both arms were disabled, the situation would become dire.

And on top of all that, her head hurt like hell.

The side effects of overloading her magic were getting worse, disrupting her movements more and more. The intense pain forced her to grit her teeth just to stop herself from crying out. Her body screamed at her to end the fight quickly—but she knew, now wasn’t the time.

Still, even under such grim conditions, Veronica stayed calm.

Despite the blinding headache, she kept thinking, watching the Ravager’s behavior closely and piecing together clues in her mind.

She could feel it—the Ravager was moving according to some strange pattern. It kept giving them chances to retreat and regroup. But why?

Thinking back to everything that had happened since they first encountered the spider, Veronica had a hunch.

Back then, she and Deng Zhan ambushed the spider. She had attacked from behind using her Magical Armor. That ambush had to have worked—otherwise, the spider wouldn’t have tolerated her interrogation.

That attack must’ve disabled its regular combat ability. The anti-magic spell had locked down its magic, forcing it to tap into its Ravager form to regain power.

So she asked herself: If I were the spider, and I knew transforming into a Ravager was my only chance, what would I do?

The answer was obvious—while I still had my human rationality, I’d prepare everything needed for the upcoming battle.

That must be why the spider had tolerated Veronica’s questioning—to buy time.

So, what could it do under Veronica’s nose?

The answer: that white spider Ravager under its command.

The turning point came when that white spider launched a surprise attack from the air. It drew Veronica’s attention and gave the spider time to transform. Before that, it must’ve had the white spider doing something up in the air.

The air?

That word triggered a sudden realization.

She remembered what the spider had been doing before the battle even started—looking up at the sky.

What was it looking at? And what did it see that told it the time was right?

These two questions felt like a thread she could finally grasp. Veronica looked up—in her vision was nothing but the spiderweb.

And Deng Zhan, who had reached the squad and was working to peel Cat Tail off the fleshy web using her spells.

She was close to success.

The spider silk binding them was a product of the rule and couldn’t be removed easily—but the fleshy spiderweb wasn’t. All Deng Zhan had to do was sever the parts sticking the squad to the web, and she could bring them down safely and stop the magic drain.

But this didn’t escape the Ravager’s notice.

As the master of the web, the Ravager understood its own creation better than anyone. Even with most of its mind gone, it knew what it meant when Deng Zhan reached the squad.

It meant its nearly-dead prey was about to be stolen.

And in its own nest, the Ravager wouldn’t allow that.

With a furious shriek, it gave up on Veronica and shot into the air, pulled upward by spider silk to intercept Deng Zhan.

Veronica instinctively tried to give chase, only to find her feet glued to the ground by spider silk at some point.

She couldn’t move.

Meanwhile, Deng Zhan had noticed the Ravager coming and began readying a spell, fully alert and prepared for battle.

But that wouldn’t do. Veronica knew that.

Deng Zhan couldn’t take the Ravager head-on—not with her injuries and incomplete mastery of the Domain. If she fought now, her chances of winning weren’t even twenty percent.

What now? What could Veronica do to pull the Ravager’s attention back?

Her brain raced, but nothing came to her. The Ravager was getting closer to the web. Her eyes widened—she had to make a decision.

She had to gamble.

She already had a theory about the Ravager’s rule and what the spider had done before transforming. She just didn’t know if it was right.

But if she wanted to end this battle properly, she had to take that risk.

“Deng Zhan!”

She raised her voice and shouted, “Forget the Ravager! Hit the spiderweb above my head with everything you’ve got! All out!”

“Huh?”

The spell nearly complete in Deng Zhan’s hands faltered.

She didn’t understand why Veronica would give such an order. It seemed totally irrelevant.

If Veronica told her to prioritize rescuing the squad or protecting them from the Ravager, she could get behind that. But attacking a random spiderweb? That made no sense.

While she hesitated, Veronica had already spread her arms. The Masterpiece blades around her dissolved back into threads, which climbed the nest’s walls.

In the air, those magic threads wove into another web, intercepting the airborne Ravager and halting it mid-flight.

But the barrier wouldn’t last long.

This was a half-molted Ravager—not some weak Egg-tier or Caterpillar-tier minion. The magic threads weren’t strong enough to bind a Ravager of this level. Sure enough, just seconds later, the Ravager tore several gashes through the net.

Veronica kept weaving patches as fast as she could, trying to hold the Ravager back.

That gave Deng Zhan enough time to realize Veronica wasn’t bluffing. She really had some plan in mind.

So she refocused, redirected her spell, and aimed the spike at the flesh web above—right over Veronica’s head.

She poured nearly all her power into the attack. A second later, the spell launched from her hand.

Hundreds of magic spears flashed through the air like a storm, hammering the spiderweb. After a brief struggle, the brown magic tore through the flesh web, creating a gaping hole.

A burst of magical smoke, shattered flesh, and unidentified liquid exploded outward.

Then, something unexpected—when the web broke, the Ravager let out a piercing scream of agony.

“Screeeee—!”

Its voice became sharp and shrill, as if it were in unbearable pain.

Then, a massive surge of blue magic burst from the ground.

Seconds after the web was destroyed, Veronica shot into the air.

Her entire body glowed with powerful blue light. Her eyes burned with icy killing intent. She raised one hand, holding something small and metallic, and charged the Ravager.

The spider silk binding her had vanished without a trace.

Her theory had been right.

The spider’s rule, just like its name and behavior, was the web.

When Veronica ambushed him and locked him down with the anti-magic spell, he stalled for time so the white spider could weave that web above.

Once he transformed into a Ravager, the rule became simple—anyone under the web would be wrapped in spider silk.

Not by contact, but by coverage. Anyone standing directly under the web would be caught.

She had figured it out by watching the Ravager’s strange movements.

It had kept baiting them to move under the web, but never stepped into that zone itself.

That’s why attacking the silk on her arm did nothing—it was just a projection of the rule, a shadow of the web above. How could striking a shadow hurt the source?

As for why the Ravager screamed in agony when the web broke—Veronica didn’t know.

And she didn’t need to.

Because right now, she was airborne, cloaked in an overwhelming wave of magic that felt like pure killing intent.

She had no interest in a dying monster’s thoughts.

A gleam of metal flashed in her hand. Amid the blue glow, she appeared above the Ravager in an instant—and unleashed her power.

Magic erupted from the Ravager’s body and network. The already-torn web above began to collapse. The bright red silk turned to ashen gray, losing its strength and quickly shrinking.

Dark purple blood dripped down. The nest, pitch-black except for the magical glow, began to tremble.

“——Screeee!”

With another scream of pain, the Ravager’s body cracked apart midair, shredded by blue threads.

BOOM!

It plummeted to the ground in a storm of blood and runaway magic—then exploded into countless pieces.