Want to be human, but cube-like

On her way here, in order to speed things up, she used her Phantom Sword to pierce countless little mice in all sorts of streets and alleys, relying on teleportation to reach Xiangzi at top speed.

"Eh!"

But as soon as she finished speaking, Alex looked down and saw the wound on Xiangzi's knee. She glanced to the side and also saw that Xiangzi's snow-white ankle was slightly swollen.

"You are hurt!"

Was it due to the teleportation side effects of the Ender Pearl? Did you break a bone?

But I don't have any bandages or splints right now, and it seems like I haven't loaded the relevant modules either. What should I do?

Alex thought anxiously.

She tried to help Xiangzi up in a panic, but the latter suddenly grabbed Alex's wrists.

“… Xiangzi?”

Somewhat puzzled, Alex paused and asked in a low voice.

"..."

Xiangzi remained silent. She simply tilted her head slightly, pursed her lips tightly, and twitched her small nostrils, as if she had just been sobbing.

Her eyes were red-rimmed as she stared intently at Alex.

"Does it hurt a lot...?"

Before Alex could finish speaking...

Unexpectedly, a fragrant breeze wafted over.

"Woo..."

A soft, warm body nestled into his arms, and a low, sobbing sounded softly in his ear.

It was Xiangzi. She grabbed Alex's hands and, using the momentum, threw herself into Alex's arms, wrapping her arms tightly around Alex's slender waist and holding her close.

"What's the matter……"

After a moment of stunned silence, Alex gently embraced the girl in her arms, smiling tenderly as she softly inquired.

"Waaaaah... Waaaaah—!"

The sobbing in my ears grew louder and louder until it turned into the pitiful weeping of a young girl.

"Okay, it's okay."

Helpless, Alex could only smile and put her lips together, wrapping one arm around Xiangzi's back and gently stroking her somewhat disheveled hair with the other.

"Alex...!"

She sobbed and cried out Alex's name.

"I'm here, I've always been here, I'm listening."

With her head tilted slightly and her cheek gently pressed against Xiangzi's head, Alex inhaled the fragrance emanating from him and softly comforted him.

"No...don't leave me alone...!"

As if venting his frustrations, as if he had forgotten where he was, Xiangzi uttered a jumble of words in a soft and delicate voice.

"Okay, I won't leave Xiangzi alone, never..."

Feeling the gradual sensation on her chest, and realizing that her collar was already soaked with Xiangzi's tears, Alex responded softly.

After a long while, until Alex felt that her collar was getting a little cool.

Xiangzi then left her embrace.

"You're not allowed to lie to me anymore..."

She has

Her eyes were slightly red and swollen from crying, her cheeks were flushed, and she was sniffling as she spoke softly, her lips trembling.

"Yes, I won't lie to Xiangzi anymore."

Alex nodded reluctantly and agreed.

"..."

The atmosphere calmed down.

Neither of them spoke again. Xiangzi lowered her head, seemingly lost in thought. Half of her body was still in Alex's arms, and although her hands were no longer wrapped around Alex's waist, she was still tightly gripping Alex's hem with her fingers.

Alex waited quietly for Xiangzi to calm down.

"It's amazing."

At that moment, Cupid's voice rang in their minds once again.

How did you survive?

It seemed quite puzzled, but even with this questioning phrasing, Kewpie's tone remained flat and unsettling.

Alex glanced at the minimap, and after confirming that there was only one Kyubey nearby, she turned her head to look in the direction of the lump of rotten flesh.

By now, a new Kyubey was crouching there. The one that had been smashed on the curb was nowhere to be seen. Only a pool of blood on the ground proved that Alex had indeed killed a Kyubey.

“Cupid, I didn’t see you in that dimension just now.”

Alex did not answer Kyubey's question; instead, she raised a question.

"It seems your detection range is no more than 500 meters in diameter."

Kyubey's words clearly indicate that it was deliberately testing Alex's abilities.

"Just now, inside the witch's barrier, I did see you smashed to pieces and melted into that witch's power, but why are you completely unharmed now?"

Kyubey was still trying to steer the conversation toward Alex's resurrection.

"Even your clothes were restored. What kind of power is this?"

Its observational abilities were so detailed that they made Alex and Shoko feel uncomfortable.

"So, that dimension is called the Witch's Barrier?"

Alex caught a key word and asked a question in return.

Alex initially had no prejudice against Kyubey, and their conversation was friendly during their first meeting. However, after her interaction with Shoko, Alex began to feel that Kyubey seemed to have some ill intentions towards her and Shoko.

As a result, she now has a bit of a wary attitude towards Cupid.

“I found traces of another human inside.”

With a wary mind, Alex casually brought up a topic.

"Was he captured by the witch?"

"Yes, to be precise, he should have been captured by the familiar."

Kyubey, who never refused to answer questions and never lied, accepted the topic.

"He probably hasn't been harmed by the witch yet. Speaking of which, Xiangzi, you might be very interested in that person's identity."

As she spoke, Qubi turned to Xiangzi, but her words gave her a bad feeling.

"That person's name seems to be 'Toyokawa Kiyoyuki'."

…………

Book 1: Chapter 57 Loss of Reverence for Life

The hospital was very quiet late at night.

In the brightly lit outpatient hall, apart from nurses and security guards, there were only five or six other people: a couple, a mother with a child, an elderly woman in a wheelchair, and a middle-aged woman accompanying her. They were all sitting in different places, and you could hardly hear any voices.

When Alex carried Xiangzi, whose face was slightly flushed, into the hall in a princess carry, this was the scene she saw.

Not all hospitals in Tokyo are open at night. Xiangzi taught Alex to find a university-affiliated hospital's night clinic on her phone, and that's how they managed to get an appointment.

The knee wound only required the on-duty nurse to clean, disinfect, and bandage it. Although it looked like there was a lot of blood flowing from the scraped area, the wound was actually not deep.

Even going back home and having a hamburger might be enough to heal Xiangzi's wounds without leaving a single scar.

A sprained ankle is more troublesome. There is already a large red and swollen area on the skin. After the doctor examined it and made sure there was no fracture or dislocation, she applied medicine and bandaged it up. She also prescribed some painkillers and instructed her to apply cold compresses appropriately for the next two days and avoid contact with hot water to prevent capillaries from rupturing.

This kind of damage cannot be resolved simply by restoring health.

Alex once went on an adventure in a post-apocalyptic world with her mother. In that world, one could suffer injuries similar to fractures and sprains, which could not be healed by ordinary healing methods. Instead, a medical item called a splint from a certain module was needed to remove this negative status.

However, Alex hasn't loaded that module yet, so Xiangzi can only rest and wait for his ankle to heal on its own.

"Does it still hurt?"

Squatting down in front of Xiangzi, Alex looked up at Xiangzi, who was sitting in a chair with his legs wrapped in bandages, and asked in a low voice.

The left foot has a wound on the knee, and the right foot has a sprained ankle.

As she spoke, her little hands seemed to be itching to poke at the wound on Xiangzi's knee.

Please forgive the blocky person's inexplicable curiosity; it was truly the first time she had ever seen such a scraped skin.

After all, in the worlds Alex had experienced in the past, even if there was bleeding or even severed limbs, there were no visible wounds.

"If you hadn't touched it, it probably wouldn't have hurt so much."

Xiangzi took a deep breath and lowered his eyes as he spoke.

Yes, Alex has already poked it in.

The movements were so gentle that it was both itchy and painful, making her feel even worse. She might as well have used more force.

"Um! Sorry."

Alex blinked, her hands clasped lightly in front of her chest.

She looked at Xiangzi, who was still in a low mood, and it seemed that her deliberate teasing had not changed his mood at all.

Are you still worried about your father?

After thinking for a moment, Alex asked.

"Although that witch escaped with the witch's barrier, I can find a way to go in again tomorrow and deal with it. Then I will definitely be able to rescue your father."

She promised.

Just now, through questioning, Alex and Shoko obtained a lot of useful information from the knowledgeable Cupid.

In its description, the witch seems to be a very cowardly being.

They will construct a movable special area centered on themselves, called the Witch's Barrier.

The interior of a witch's barrier is mostly a maze, with the overall structure and decoration based on the characteristics of the witch and the architecture on which the witch's barrier is based.

For example, the witch's barrier they just left was located in a train tunnel, and those rooms were constructed based on the characteristics of the banker witch herself.

Witches usually set up witch barriers in deserted places, and then...

He just keeps hiding and won't come out.

Only when someone invades this place and alarms the witch will it flee with the witch's barrier to find another area free from human activity to resettle itself.

It sounds like a completely harmless entity, which doesn't quite match what Kyubey had previously told Xiangzi about its potential to harm humans.

But what sustains the witch's existence and provides the nourishment for her growth is human emotion and vitality.

Although most witches, for some reason, strongly resist contact with humans, their familiars, who are part of the witches, will secretly leave the witch's barrier at night in order to ensure the witches' continuation and growth. They will seek out lone humans who are experiencing intense emotional fluctuations, carve a witch's kiss on them, and bring them back to the witch's barrier.

Those who can be bewitched are lured back directly, while those who break free are attacked until they lose their ability to move and then forcibly taken back.

This is why Xiangzi wasn't harmed when he was first lured by the familiar, but was targeted and attacked every time afterward.

Because she had once broken free from the allure of the witch's kiss.

Humans brought back to the witch's barrier are imprisoned by their familiars near the witch, waiting for the witch to be driven by instinct and devour them of all their value.

In the end, only a dead corpse was left and thrown out of the witch's barrier by the familiar.

It goes on and on.

Because of this characteristic, a witch will generally only devour one human at a time for a long period of time.

In a big city like Tokyo, the number of people who die because of witches is probably less than the number of people who go missing unexpectedly.