Transform into a magical girl after getting off work

But for Emerald Sparrow, this remains one of the most reluctant memories to revisit in her entire life.

The melancholy brought about by An Ya's departure and the piercing sensation during countless trivial occurrences in her later life differ; if there is one word to describe the Garden Defense Battle in Emerald Sparrow's memory, it would be:

——Disgusting.

A war whose core function was to end all wars might be the greatest significance and glory for the people of the Magic Kingdom, but for Emerald Sparrow, it is not. The horrific scenes on the battlefield, the mourning and screams of comrades, the roars of the Remnant Beasts, and the burning smell still trying to penetrate her mind are not from a place of glory; to those who experienced it firsthand, it is merely hell.

The martyrs commemorated in the cemetery before her did not all have the consciousness of sacrifice during their lifetimes. Many of these Magical Girls were just naive young girls who might have been discussing their life's future with friends and family one day, only to have their Heart's Gem shattered the next. Besides a broken gem and a corpse, they left nothing behind in this world that they wished to.

To be fair, Emerald Sparrow didn't really know many of these Magical Girls personally, so while some of the commemorated names made her feel sad, more of them served as a reminder to her. These reminders tell her not to forget; some things should not be abandoned just because they are too painful to remember.

She indeed should come to take a look here.

Emerald Sparrow thought so.

She shook her head a couple of times, trying to expel those nagging thoughts, and took a deep breath. Carrying a bag of air cakes, she started to walk towards the entrance of the Memorial Cemetery. Yet, as she approached, she noticed that someone was already standing at the gate.

This person appeared to be a visitor intending to pay homage but seemed to be in a quandary.

——"No, without identification, you can't enter. This is the Memorial Cemetery, it's not a place where rules can be bent!"

The gatekeeper said mercilessly to the visitor: "No matter how much you plead, it's useless, I don't have the authority. You understand, right?"

"Please," the visitor merely bowed deeply.

"I've told you, no! Telling me this is useless!" the gatekeeper replied impatiently.

"Please," the visitor bowed deeper.

"No!"

It seemed that the refusal was because the visitor did not carry any identification.

She was a girl in a black school uniform with a long-sleeved knit sweater over it. As she was facing away from Emerald Sparrow, her features were unclear, but a single ponytail could be seen bouncing at the back of her head as she bowed.

Emerald Sparrow waited behind her for a while. Seeing that the girl was unwilling to leave and kept pleading with the gatekeeper who showed no intention of letting her in, instead becoming more and more impatient, Emerald Sparrow decided to intervene: "Excuse me for a moment, I have a question, are you a Magical Girl?"

This question was directed at the black-haired girl in front.

This black-haired girl's intent to enter the cemetery to pay respects was very strong, suggesting she was either a family member of a martyr or a comrade of a Magical Girl. Among these two possibilities, the latter was more likely: after all, a martyr's family would have visited many times and would surely know to bring identification.

Once Emerald Sparrow spoke, the girl in front paused immediately.

She froze in place for a couple of seconds maintaining her previous posture before slowly straightening up and turning around, looking at Emerald Sparrow with a very astonished expression.

"What's the matter?" Emerald Sparrow asked somewhat helplessly: "If you are a Magical Girl, do you have a Validation Card? If you show him the Validation Card, it should also prove your identity, right?"

She was already addressing the gatekeeper with the latter part.

"It's possible, but are you sure this young girl is a Magical Girl?"

Hearing Emerald Sparrow's question, the gatekeeper snorted, then looked at the black-haired girl with some annoyance: "I think she's just a local kid who came here to tease me, these damn kids always like to play pranks."

"… I have it."

The girl whispered.

"What?" The gatekeeper glared at her.

"I have it, the Validation Card." The girl said earnestly.

"You have it? Then what were you doing just now? Playing me?" The guard became even angrier after hearing this.

"...I didn't remember."

The girl said this and reached into the inner pocket of her knitted coat to rummage around. After a while, she slowly took out a dusty badge and handed it to the guard.

Although the guard looked very annoyed, he still took the dusty badge, carefully read the text on it, then emitted Magic Power to sense it, and gave the badge back to the girl.

"Alright, it's real, you can go through," he said, somewhat gloomily.

"...Thank you."

The girl immediately bowed her head and scurried through a side door.

With that girl no longer blocking the entrance, Emerald Sparrow also easily walked through the main gate. The identification provided by Emerald was fake but perfectly impersonated the real thing, so naturally, the guard at the cemetery gate couldn't detect anything.

However, shortly after Emerald Sparrow entered the cemetery, she noticed that the girl she saw earlier was inexplicably standing beside a statue, waiting. At this moment, she was staring at Emerald Sparrow with wide eyes, obviously wanting to say something.

"Captain, long time no see."

And as Emerald Sparrow approached, the words that came out of her mouth were indeed shocking.

Was she calling herself "Captain"? What did that mean?

It took Emerald Sparrow a good while to realize what the girl meant by "Captain": twenty years ago, to be exact, twenty-one years ago, she had indeed been the captain of a small team in the Luennolay City Defense Army.

But immediately after, she became more confused because her team didn't have many people. Apart from those who had sacrificed themselves, she remembered all of the remaining teammates. However, while this girl looked somewhat familiar, she didn't match any faces in her memory.

Short stature, black hair, skinny; these features were not particularly common. There indeed was a Magical Girl with such features in her team, Nina Kregios, but she didn't look like the girl standing before her at all.

"May I ask who you are?" So, she could only use this somewhat hurtful question in return.

And indeed, this question seemed to hurt because her interlocutor's face visibly paled upon hearing Emerald Sparrow's words, her already frail body trembling, looking like a gust of wind might blow her over.

"I, I … it's me." She extended her hands, pointing at her own face, voice trembling, "Captain, it's me."

"No, I know you meant that you are one of my old teammates..."

Emerald Sparrow suddenly understood why the previous guard had been so irritable, and somewhat helplessly said, "But so many years have passed, and it's hard for me to recognize someone just by their face, sorry, could you tell me your code name?"

The girl was stunned for a moment.

Not long after, as if suddenly recalling something, she reached for her face and then violently pulled upwards.

Schluck.

Along with this sound, her face, or rather, a layer of skin-like mask, was ripped off by her.

"I'm sorry, I forgot… I was wearing a mask."

She said apologetically while lowering her head, and at the same moment pulled out the validation card she had previously shown to the guard, handing it over to Emerald Sparrow.

However, since she removed her mask, Emerald Sparrow actually didn't need to look at that dusty badge anymore to know who was standing in front of her.

Emerald Sparrow felt relieved, because, as it turned out, it wasn't that her memory had deteriorated. Rather, even with the mask on earlier, she had already sifted through the correct answer in her mind.

Standing in front of her was indeed a teammate from her squad 21 years ago, Nina Kregios.

Just as engraved on that dusty validation card:

——[Code 13251, Mo He]