The losers in daily youth have all become witches

When will it end... How can I make it end... And what will become of me?

The more I think about it, the more scared I become. The more scared I become, the more I have to bite the bullet and keep "restarting".

After all, no matter how well she performs in her daily life, Chihaya Asagumo is just a 15-year-old girl.

When all possibilities were exhausted, she paced on the path outside the hot spring hotel like a zombie.

But at this moment, a person appeared in front of her.

"Let's talk it over," he said gently.

"...Ayano-kun, why...shouldn't you be by the lake now?" Asagumo Chihaya was stunned when she saw the familiar figure.

Ayano Mitsuki said softly, "Let's stop here. Don't go on like this. You're in a very dangerous situation now, Asagumo-san."

However, just as he finished saying this, the girl's eyes became sharp.

"...You're not Ayano-kun, who are you?"

"What are you talking about? I'm Mitsuki Ayano." 'Mitsuki Ayano' was stunned.

"No, you are definitely not Ayano-kun!"

"How disgusting." After a while, 'Ayano Mitsuki' revealed a strange smile: "How can you see that?"

The girl took out her pocket watch and threw it to the ground almost as quickly as possible.

But this time the opponent was faster than her.

"【scale】--!"

This time, he was not wrapping himself up to resist the flow of time, but wrapping up the pocket watch.

In nature, scales are a means for organisms to protect themselves, commonly known as stacked armor.

Although the spell [Scale] also has the image of 'isolation', its essence is undoubtedly used for protection.

Then the pocket watch covered by the [scales] hit the ground heavily, and then bounced up intact.

Nothing happened.

Chapter 60: Madam, you don’t want to…

Although he was discovered, Li Mo didn't care.

Originally, he used the Polyjuice Potion to transform into Mitsuki Ayano's appearance just to prevent Chihaya Asagune from escaping by using her ability of 'rewinding time' as soon as he approached her.

Although he was not sure about the conditions for the other party to activate his ability, based on his last memory from last week, Li Mo believed that it was probably related to the pocket watch in the other party's hand.

In that case, regardless of anything, we just need to seal the pocket watch - just like how Graham restrained Yuigahama Yui, as long as we wrap it with the magic spell [Scales] to cut off the connection between the pocket watch and Chihaya Asagumo, we should be able to seal the pocket watch to a certain extent.

Therefore, as long as the opponent enters the range of your spell and you can ensure the spell hits at the greatest possible distance, it doesn't matter whether your identity is discovered or not.

As long as you can block the opponent's ability to rewind time, the rest will be no problem.

So he picked up the pocket watch on the ground and walked slowly towards the girl.

——From Chihaya Asagumo’s perspective——

The situation is not good.

Chao Yun Qianzao tried hard to suppress the panic in her heart and immediately turned around and wanted to escape.

It doesn't matter if the pocket watch is lost. As long as you are not caught, there will always be a way to get it back from the other party, whether it is making a thermite bomb or making some poison gas with bathroom supplies.

"Asagumo-san," but at this time, 'Ayano Mitsuki' said calmly, "You don't want Ayano's skin to be destroyed, do you?"

Asagumo Chihaya turned her head and saw that 'Ayano Mitsuki' had pulled out a fruit knife from somewhere and pointed it at her face, as if she was going to hurt herself at the next moment.

Could it be that this monster has taken away Ayano-kun's body?

Chihaya Asagumo's body froze, her heart torn between her conscience and her desires. Her logic told her that being caught at this moment would be the worst possible outcome, but her emotions prevented her from allowing Mitsuki Ayano's body to be destroyed. If she could really disregard Mitsuki Ayano's safety so easily, she wouldn't have used her superpowers of unknown origin to 'restart' so many times in the first place.

And the moment she stopped because of the conflict in her heart, the girl knew in her heart that she was finished.

Generally speaking, girls' physical fitness is naturally inferior to that of boys of the same age. Once the other party gets close to her, she has lost hope of escape.

"If I'm at your mercy, could you please let Ayano-kun go?" Chihaya Asagumo made a gesture of surrender: "At least return Ayano-kun's body to him..."

"Actually, I lied to you about this."

As a result, 'Ayano Mitsuki' revealed a wicked smile and pulled his cheeks. "This body is mine. It was simply transformed by the potion into its current form. As for Ayano, that guy should be being dragged to the lake by his childhood sweetheart to confess his love."

By the way, because there is no help from Li Mo, the fireflies in this round can only be spit out from the mouth of the golem snake Napoleon - although the effect is much worse than Li Mo's star shower in the previous rounds, but I guess the pair of dogs... cough, childhood sweethearts should not mind.

By the way, also because Li Mo was blocking Chihaya Asagumo here, Yuigahama Yui, who was afraid of the dark, couldn't follow Shaoyan Lemon and her husband and wife alone, and Yanami, as a Muggle, certainly couldn't follow them. Gokou Ruri needed to suppress Yanami and take care of her two younger sisters, so in the end she had to ask Yukinoshita Yukino, who knew some of the inside story, to help go with Yuigahama. For this, Li Mo owed her a small favor.

Chihaya Asagumo's face darkened, and her eyes began to wander over Li Mo's body, as if she was considering which part of her body would be most effective when using women's self-defense techniques.

"Okay, although you may not believe it, I have no ill intentions," Li Mo clapped his hands, forcing the other party's attention from his lower body to his hands: "It's better to say that I came to save you."

"Save me?" The girl frowned.

"No matter what kind of magic it is, abusing it like you do will definitely not end well, especially on such a grand scale. Don't you feel it yourself?"

"Magic?" Chihaya Asagumo said with a hint of enlightenment, "So it's not a superpower..."

Li Mo keenly noticed that the other party did not refute what he said. It seemed that she herself seemed to have vaguely realized that something was wrong.

But then the girl frowned again: "But didn't you guess that the 'restart' ability requires the use of that pocket watch to activate? Then it's not my power, it's simply the power of the pocket watch, right? And it..."

As Chihaya Asagumo said this, she glanced at Li Mo's hand holding the pocket watch, obviously meaning 'It's already in your hands, I can't use it to activate my super powers anymore'.

"excuse me."

Li Mo said softly, and before the girl understood what he meant, she saw 'Ayano Mitsuki' in front of her taking off her glasses, first looking at the pocket watch in her hand, and then quickly glanced at her.

It was just a glance that lasted less than a second, but it made Asagumo Chihaya feel as if she had been seen naked...

No, rather than being seen naked, it felt more like being thoroughly observed from the inside out, from every cell and muscle fiber in the body to the heart and brain. The feeling was so strange that the girl almost instinctively got goosebumps.

The whole process took less than two seconds and he was wearing his glasses again.

The girl keenly noticed that the breathing of 'Ayano Mitsuki' in front of her suddenly became much faster, and cold sweat broke out on her forehead, as if that short moment had consumed a lot of his physical and mental strength.

"The situation is pretty much what I expected." Li Mo didn't notice Chihaya Asagumo's strange look. While regulating his breathing, he said softly, "This pocket watch is just the manifestation of your spell, similar to a Horcrux. Its power is essentially the power of your spell. Besides, your magic is still working."

"But I'm not turning back time now..." The girl subconsciously wanted to refute, but was interrupted by Li Mo.

"To put it simply, it's like a TV. You 'return it on'... is that what it's called? Activating your ability can be thought of as using a remote control, or a pocket watch, to change the channel. But before you change the channel, the TV is still playing and on. Only when the TV is turned off does your magic stop functioning."

In fact, the situation is much more complicated. For example, although Li Mo said it as if the girl was jumping timelines, in fact there is only one timeline from beginning to end. Her ability is closer to the classic time rewind. The note that Li Mo hid in the body of the golem snake Napoleon is proof of this. If the timeline was changed, the note would not exist.

But at the moment he couldn't think of any other more appropriate metaphor.

"The biggest problem now is that when the TV is turned off... that's when the magic ends," Li Mo's voice became serious. "You will lose a huge amount of magic power, and your spell will drain your own 'time', and you will disappear from this world."

Chapter 61: Overwork of the Capable

"Chaoyun-san, I didn't lie."

Li Mo looked at the girl who was clearly showing doubt and said, "When you overdraw your magic power, the countdown to your life has begun."

“…Even if you say so, I don’t feel it’s real at all.”

Chihaya Asagumo looked at her hands, feeling at a loss.

Even after obtaining the pocket watch and possessing the superpower of "restarting", the girl has been living in an ordinary daily life since she was a child. It is difficult for her to feel any sense of reality for Li Mo's almost prophetic and surreal words.

"Really? Then I'll show you some evidence."

Li Mo reached out and touched the girl's long hair.

Asagumo Chi blushed at first because he still maintained the appearance of Ayano Mitsuki, but then the girl immediately realized that the other person was not Ayano Mitsuki, so she subconsciously took a step back and distanced herself from him.

But at this time, a brown hair was already entangled in Li Mo's hand.

"When your body tissue has been away from 'you' in the mystical sense for a certain distance or time, it will be deemed to no longer belong to you. Naturally, any spells still in effect on you will no longer protect it. So, in a sense, its fate also represents your situation after the spell ends."

Before Li Mo finished speaking, the long hair in his hand quickly faded and turned into a white silk thread.

After a few more seconds, the white hair stopped moving.

Is this the end?

When this thought came to the girl's mind, she saw Li Mo gently twisting the hair, and the silver thread, which seemed to have not changed at all, broke into dust-like residue because of his action.

"Hair is generally very hard to decay, but its texture becomes increasingly brittle over time, so it ends up like this."

Looking at the strands of hair disappearing from the other person's fingers, Asagumo Chihaya's face, which had originally looked good, suddenly turned pale.

She felt that she had used up all her calmness in her life to barely avoid doing anything inappropriate.

"Right, right, since this is what happens when I try to remove the magic, can't I just keep it on?" Chihaya Asagumo said as if she had thought of something.

"Just like a credit card always has a limit, you can't keep casting magic by overdrawing on it. It will eventually come to an end, but at that time, the price you'll pay may not just be your time."

Li Mo said seriously: "If it's serious, it might even affect the people around you."

"Then what should I do..."

After hearing this, Chihaya Asagumo, who had been able to keep her composure, finally broke down.

Even though she could still comfort herself with words like 'They're all lies, they can't scare me', after this period of contact, Chihaya Asagumo had actually more or less realized that the person in front of her had no need to deceive her at all.

After all, if you think about it carefully, you have already been a fish on the chopping board, and you have no ability to resist the opponent who has mastered supernatural powers.

"Luckily, I discovered it before things got to the worst point." Li Mo then said, "If it had really gotten to that point, I'm afraid even I wouldn't be able to save the situation."

The girl looked at him and asked softly, "Can I really trust you..."

"No problem, trust me like you trusted the Twin Towers before September 11th."

"Won't it be hit soon?"

"Working with me is like boarding a ship that's said to be unsinkable."

"Didn't it sink on its first voyage?"

"Oh," Li Mo sighed, his voice unclear. "American products are really bad quality."

"I don't think those two problems had anything to do with the ship's quality," Chihaya Asagumo calmly pointed out the problem with his statement. "Besides, the Titanic was a ship owned by a British company."

"These things are completely unimportant. I'm actually curious why you're still so wary of me."

"The fact that you're still wearing Ayano-kun's face is completely worrying."

"That's true." Li Mo nodded, agreeing with the girl.

He activated the magic in his body, hindering the normal functioning of the potion.

So in Chihaya Asagumo's eyes, the facial features of 'Ayano Mitsuki' in front of her began to change drastically like plasticine.

His originally light-colored hair turned black, his left eye remained unchanged, but the pupil of his right eye turned into a gorgeous and strange wine red. His face and facial features were no longer the elegant and handsome boy like Ayano Mitsuki. He looked unremarkable at first glance, but upon closer inspection, he had a kind of gloomy and strange charm. He could barely be considered a handsome guy.

If you look closely, you can even find that the other person has become taller and has a stronger body. However, Mitsuki Ayano herself is a relatively thin type among boys, so it is hard to say that the other person has a strong body. It seems that he is slightly above the average?

"Let me introduce myself again," he said as the girl looked at him. "My name is Asakura Takuma, and I'm a magician."

“…So it’s Asakura-san.” Chihaya Asagumo’s expression became a little strange.

"you know me?"

"After all, he was either first or second in the grade's academic ability test, so it would be difficult not to know him," said the girl.

This is a lie.

In fact, she didn't care that much about the academic results. It was just that Ayano Mitsuki would occasionally come to her after the exams to complain that the alliance between the two people above them who had jointly blocked the academic champion and runner-up was too unbreakable. There was an almost huge gap in results between them and the third place, and there was no hope of surpassing the two. That's why she remembered the name "Asakura Takuma".

I originally thought it was some big devil, but now it doesn’t seem that scary?

"I thought I was being low-key enough." The young man sighed and said distressedly, "As a magician, being too conspicuous is not a good thing."

"This is probably what's called overwork."

"It's too painful for a capable person. It will cause sudden death!"

"Then, could it be that Yukinoshita-san, whose grades are similar to Asakura-san's, is also..."

"No, she's just an ordinary person."

Li Mo shook his head. He glanced at the girl again and suddenly realized that she seemed to be in control of the conversation's rhythm. "Ms. Chaoyun has a lot of questions."

"Okay, one last question." The girl stared at Li Mo, as if trying to see through his true thoughts: "Why would such a powerful person like Asakura come to help me?"