: The Vanished Her

Gollum-

Mu Ming's stomach had been growling countless times, but he pretended not to hear it and kept flipping through his short diary entries.

[On [Month X2], I was called an idiot by the magical girl I liked. I'll continue tomorrow; that magical girl should agree by then.]

[On [Month X, Day X3], I had just said I wanted her heart's seed when I got punched twice. My face hurts so much.]

[On [Month] [Day] 5, shouldn't we consider building a good relationship first before revealing our true intentions?]

[If I get stuck at this step on [Month X, Day X9], how do I proceed with the subsequent entries?]

[Month 2nd, Ugh, why can't men become magical girls?]

[On the 6th of month X, try a few more times. If they still refuse, then I'll have to resort to lying.]

On the 9th of month X, something good happened. Even after I explained the reason, that girl still wanted to be my friend. Her name is XX.

She came from XX city on the 12th of month X, so she won't be able to stay here for very long. We need to hurry.

[On [Date], even if I obtained her heart's seed, it was meaningless; there was absolutely no reaction. Why...]

On [Date], XX refused to inject magic into my body. We had agreed that we would each get what we needed, and I would play the role of a caring friend to help her complete the tasks on my to-do list... Why is she going back on her word now?

On [Date], she still disagreed. I couldn't understand her thinking, saying that this would hurt me, and that what she was doing was actually harming me.

Am I not good enough to her? If I treat her even better, will she understand that I'm trying my best? That way, she'll understand my determination and stop blaming me with silly things like "you can protect me"...?

Humans can only rely on themselves. If they don't control their own power, they simply cannot cope with the situation of calamity beasts spawning right in front of them.

Even if I were to marry a magical girl, and even have a daughter who is also a magical girl, could they truly stay by my bedside all the time? Could they truly stay with me every step of the way?

"I don't think so. Besides, human strength has its limits; even magical girls encounter situations they can't win."

Let's try one more time. Girls like XX are rare. If she can stay with me until the end, and if I'm still alive by then, then I'll follow her plans. After all, I'm out of options...

She's a bit of a chuunibyou (middle school syndrome) sufferer.

Perhaps because the difficulties had been resolved, Mu Ming could understand his own feelings at the time, but it would be a lie to say that he didn't feel tense inside.

The name of the magical girl who helped him in the diary had been deliberately blacked out.

I don't know if I did it myself, or if it was done by someone who knew about this diary?

Mu Ming leaned more towards himself, since such a private matter as a diary should not be known to anyone else.

But I don't know why it was painted black.

However, this is a relatively minor issue.

The last time I recorded it was just a few days before I successfully transformed into a magical girl.

However, according to the diary, my progress is actually stuck at obtaining the "Heart Seed of the Magical Girl".

Because the magical girl he had his eye on was consistently unwilling to cooperate with him.

Mu Ming looked at the list again. The first six items accounted for less than 30% of the entire list, while "do not run away from the scene of the disaster beast attack" was the second to last item.

In those few short days, it was impossible for Mu Ming to do all the remaining items on the list, not to mention that finding a magical girl willing to cooperate was too difficult.

Although Mu Ming doesn't remember Lin Yuhuan, nor does he remember who the girl who gave him the Seed of the Heart was, or what her personality and appearance were like.

However, Mu Ming still remembered some of the trivial things that happened between them.

For example, I learned from her that the Bureau of Statistics often erases people's memories.

In my memory, there is indeed no recollection of executing the sixth step—[Obtaining the Heart Seed of a Magical Girl]—after that step.

Was it not done, or was this part of the memory truly completely erased? There's not even a vague recollection.

No, it shouldn't be like that. If there really was a girl who stayed with him until the end, Mu Ming would have no reason not to remember her, and that girl would have no reason to disappear.

It's impossible that she was scared and ran away—then there would be no need for her to accompany Mu Ming in doing those things.

Why don't you remember these things?

"Have anything been done after Article Six?"

Did I give up on myself and rush straight towards the monster after that magical girl left?

Not too possible.

"And...why didn't I have any desire to revisit these diaries before I met Lin Yuhuan? Was I influenced by something?"

Too many mysteries suddenly appeared, and the more Mu Ming thought about it, the more troubled he became.

I can't come up with anything by thinking about it myself. I should ask Lin Yuhuan for advice tomorrow. If I'm nice to her, I might be able to find out something from her.

And so, time circled back to noon the next day, and then—

Lin Yuhuan stood him up.

In the afternoon, Mu Ming searched everywhere in the amusement park, but couldn't find Lin Yuhuan.

Left with no other choice, she could only ask the middle-aged woman who had recruited her about Lin Yuhuan.

"Teddy bear, you must be mistaken. We don't have any girls working here named Lin Yuhuan."

"Is...that's how it is?"

Mu Ming's heart skipped a beat. Why did this kind of mishap always happen whenever he needed to find someone?

"But I do know Lin Yuhuan. Isn't she the brown-haired girl with wispy bangs and a beauty mark under her eye?"

"Yes!" Mu Ming nodded quickly, then leaned down to ask the older woman, "Do you know her?"

Unexpectedly, the older woman gave a subtle smile, "Young man, you've taken a liking to her?"

"I just... I just wanted to know more about it." Mu Ming scratched his head.

The older woman simply left an "I understand" emoji, and then said:

"She is the daughter of our boss, or rather, our former boss. I had met her a few times before, and she looked like she came from a wealthy family. However, I haven't seen her since our boss passed away."

The boss passed away? Is Lin Yuhuan now all alone?

"When did the previous boss leave?" he asked.

"It's been a few months, I think it was this spring, or even earlier, I can't remember exactly."

Although her family was well-off, the young woman had a bad life. Her father either ran away or died when she was young, and she was raised by her former boss.

As a result, my former boss unfortunately ran into a monster this year. I remember that accident killed one person, and it just so happened to be her.

"That's really pitiful," Mu Ming chimed in.

He was puzzled, though. He really wanted to know about his past with that magical girl. If he could recall it, it would solve a lot of his troubles.

Although he was pretty sure that Lin Yuhuan was the magical girl, he still lacked a certainty from himself.

If it really is Lin Yuhuan, what were her feelings when she agreed to my request?

What happened after that? I don't remember it at all...

We must find her.

"Young man, you're quite the envy of everyone. With your good looks, you might just win over Miss Lin and have her as your wife." The old woman chuckled twice, patted Mu Ming on the back, and walked away.

For the next two days, Mu Ming waited at the entrance of the amusement park at noon, but he did not see Lin Yuhuan.

He sneaked into the monitoring room and reviewed the surveillance footage from the past two weeks. He discovered that Lin Yuhuan used to dress up as a teddy bear every day, but she stopped coming after meeting him.

That same day, Mu Ming quit his part-time job and prepared to go find Lin Yuhuan.