Give children a little self-destruction shock to their worldview.

Page 175

A moment later, Mayumi Neko said, "Not on the chest... and definitely not on the butt."

The scene inside the players' lounge is quite absurd.

Mayumi Haga, who had transformed into a cat, was held in Ayasa Terasaki's arms with a smile. Despite being a giant cat with a large size, great strength, and sharp claws, she was forced to obediently expose her chest and belly because of her guilty conscience.

Although the sense of touch is different when she is a cat than when she is in human form, Mayumi Haga still has basic human decency and feels very uncomfortable about being touched inappropriately.

She tried to ask Sugiyama Rikka, who was standing next to her, for help.

But I saw the restless urge in the other person's eyes.

Forget it, the guardian is completely unreliable.

She glanced at Hitomi Tono again, when Terasaki Ayasa's sinister voice came from above: "Who are you asking for help?"

Tono Hitomi completely missed Haga Mayumi's plea for help and exclaimed excitedly, "I want to touch it too! I want to touch it too!"

The carefree little thing quickly recovered from its initial shock and immediately began to enjoy Mayumi Haga's cat form.

Mayumi Haga could only wag her tail restlessly while being forced to purr under the excellent cat-petting skills of Ayasa Terasaki and the other two.

Although she has a human soul beneath her cat's skin, Mayumi Haga still finds it difficult to overcome her cat's instincts in a relatively relaxed environment.

It feels quite nice to be touched all over.

She even acted like a cat that had had its fill of playing, instinctively opening her mouth to gently bite the hand that Hitomi Tono was using to scratch her chin.

Hitomi Tono: "Ohhhhhhh!"

Mayumi's bites don't hurt at all, and her little pink tongue is so cute!

Just as she was about to start meowing in a way that didn't fit her character, Terasaki Ayasa's phone rang.

Yuga Mayumi jolted awake and struggled to escape from the terrifying embrace of her lover.

Only after getting off on all fours and distancing myself from the group did I finally feel safe.

Terasaki Ayasa's eyes showed regret. She knew that after missing this opportunity, it would be very difficult to catch the reserved guardian cat for a big rub again, and she couldn't help but feel reluctant.

But it was my work phone that rang, so I couldn't just leave it there.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a call from the organizers of this festival.

They said there was a problem with the magic monitoring system, but their staff couldn't find the cause, so they asked Ayasa Terasaki to come and fix it.

Ayasa Terasaki raised an eyebrow: "Is it going to affect the live stream?"

If it were the live broadcast mishap that occurred when Mayumi Haga transformed, the organizers wouldn't have taken it so seriously under the cover of world consciousness.

Rather, even if an anomaly were detected, it would definitely be overlooked during subsequent inspections, rather than undergoing such a large-scale overhaul as it is now.

That must be another issue.

Ayasa Terasaki was very confident in the magic system she had created, believing that it would not have any unusable bugs for at least ten years, but the organizers were not lying.

After all, Terasaki Ayasa's fee was not a small amount. She had already given the customers the repair methods when she delivered the product, so they would never come to her for ordinary usage problems.

However, the organizers had tried all the methods, but some of the monitoring systems were still not working properly. Unable to resolve the issue, they finally called Ayasa Terasaki.

Terasaki Ayasa: "I understand. I happen to be at the festival. I'll head over now."

Unexpectedly, there was still work to do after going out. Terasaki Ayasa sighed as she saw that Haga Mayumi looked wary and would not be able to hug and touch her like before.

"I have something to take care of and need to go out for a bit. I hope I can make it to the next match," said Ayasa Terasaki, pushing open the door to the lounge.

-----------------

The maintenance workers are sweating profusely as they inspect the magic runestones buried underground.

Since ordinary humans do not use magic, and this live broadcast relied on a magic monitoring system to operate, the organizers replaced most of the maintenance personnel with freaks.

Some oddballs with the pressure of supporting their families would accept temporary jobs, while the rest would be pranksters and orange juice pies.

"That's strange, there's nothing wrong with the runes." Scratching his head, the ballpoint pen-like man's head clicked as he stared intently at the magic rune stone in his hand.

The repair manual says that if the stone malfunctions, try inputting magic into it to see if the magic exchange rune is broken, causing poor contact and preventing the rune from converting free magic in the air into internal energy.

If it lights up normally, compare the position of the rune stone with the design diagram in the repair manual. Check if there are any errors in the patterns. You can use a rune testing pen to check if the runes are broken or blurry.

If there's still no problem, then hit it hard. This trick has an 80% success rate when repairing electrical appliances.

If the appliance repair method still doesn't work, then it needs to be sent back to the factory for repair.

In other words, it will be sent back to the developer, Ayasa Terasaki, for repairs. If it is really badly damaged, it will have to be remade.

The ballpoint pen enthusiast checked it three or four times according to the repair manual, but couldn't find any problems.

But the higher-ups were in a hurry, after all, this was the first day of the festival competition, and the live broadcast had only been going on for less than five hours.

This is the venue for the second hide-and-seek game. If it can't be repaired, the losses will be huge.

After all, for a competition like this where all the players are doing their own thing, full-coverage camera angles are needed to achieve the best broadcast effect.

The organizers are full of confidence to make this year's festival a success, but if something goes wrong in the second match, it would be a really bad start.

Therefore, after realizing that something was wrong, they hurriedly invited Ayasa Terasaki to help.

Fortunately, Ayasa Terasaki arrived quickly, which gave the organizers some psychological comfort.

Terasaki Ayasa took the magic rune stone from the ballpoint pen monster and felt a strange warmth in her hand.

It wasn't the temperature generated by being held by the ballpoint pen monster. In fact, this rune stone is of the highest grade and its temperature doesn't change due to changes in the external temperature.

That means it has been mixed with impurities.

Aya Terasaki took out her magic power testing pen and placed it on the transparent, shimmering blue stone.

Almost immediately, she noticed the tiny, black worms floating inside the stone.

This is……

Something that looked somewhat familiar alerted Terasaki Ayasa, and at the same time, she heard the thud of the ballpoint pen monster falling to the ground behind her.

Turning my head, I saw a thin, dark mist beginning to drift around me.

Text: 276. Hide and Seek

The second game was hide-and-seek in a maze.

The organizers of the Strange City Festival generously purchased a magically created subspace as the venue for the competition.

Before the competition begins, a "hunter" will be drawn from the contestants to be responsible for finding people. All the remaining contestants must enter the maze in advance and use all their skills to hide from the hunter's pursuit.

It's worth mentioning that this competition doesn't stipulate that the hunter wins by finding the hider; instead, the hunter must throw a ball covered in fluorescent powder at the hider to leave a mark.

Because there are no restrictions on the use of magic, and the hiders can attack the hunters, and the number of glow orbs is limited, the difficulty of the hunters' matches is actually not fair in comparison.

However, hunters can earn points more easily than hiders, since the difference in the number of points is quite large, roughly one to twenty.

Since the competition is mostly conducted in teams, the scores are calculated on a team basis.

As a lone wolf there to make up the numbers, Mayumi Haga was also assigned to the hunter camp due to the hunter-prey ratio considerations.

Before the competition began, Mayumi Haga received a bag full of glow-in-the-dark balls, a total of three hundred.

Since the ball is a throwing prop, its weight naturally cannot be too light. However, to make it easier for players who are not very strong to carry it, the organizers provide them with storage pockets enhanced with storage magic.

The capacity isn't very large, but it's thoughtfully designed.

Mayumi Haga clipped the pouch to her waist, and after a little movement, she could barely feel any weight, nor would it dislodge due to strenuous activity.

It seems the organizers put a lot of effort into the props for this event.

Mayumi Haga glanced around and noticed that there were also "weapons" distributed to all the contestants.

Of course, the festival does not involve actual fighting; these weapons are merely non-dangerous auxiliary tools.

For example, there are pitching guns to assist in throwing, and trap nets that can also be used by hiders.

There were even some nonsensical things like canned herring and badminton rackets.

With a little thought, you can arrive at the answer.

The festival competition is not only a contest for the right to mine spiritual veins, but also a cultural activity that the city is striving to develop. Adding more entertainment and spectator appeal to the competition is also quite important.

What the audience wants to see is not a quick victory for the contestants, but a back-and-forth, exciting, and preferably entertaining match with lots of clever maneuvers.

Therefore, these strange props were also brought in.

Some of them were reportedly donated by citizens and appeared at the competition site after undergoing safety checks.

Haga Mayumi glanced inside and found a toy bow.

Although it's called a toy bow, it's actually quite sturdy thanks to the magical enhancement. You can place a glowing ball in the groove of the arrowhead and shoot it out.

“Holding a bow really gives you a hunter’s feel,” said the strange lady next to her who picked up boxing gloves.

Mayumi Haga thought: Seriously? A pink toy bow? And aren't the boxing gloves a bit too violent?

But seeing how much the strange lady admired the boxing gloves, Mayumi Haga didn't say anything, after all, the match was about to begin.

but……

Mayumi Haga suddenly remembered Ayasa Terasaki; the phone call she had just received was about coming to repair this place, the venue for the second match.

The fact that it is now open to the public means that the venue should have been repaired.

Wow, that's incredibly efficient!

After a few brief reflections, as the microphone freak announced the start of the competition and that hunters could enter, Mayumi Haga carried her little pink bow into the arena.

-----------------

The match was easier than Mayumi Haga had expected.

Although she hadn't hunted for a long time, back in her original world, she used to cover most of her travel expenses with the game she hunted.

She could lie in wait for three days and three nights without eating or drinking, lurking in the path of her prey; she could run for more than ten miles to find her prey by following its footprints; and she could even casually raise her hand and knock down a bird with a stone.

Almost all guardians possess this basic survival skill, since they spend most of their time living in the wild, where there is no food that can be bought with money.

Due to her meager elven bloodline, Mayumi Haga was born with exceptional archery talent.

After becoming a guardian, she also focused on honing this skill.

Although it was not used much later on, figuring out how to draw a bow and shoot an arrow was still simpler for Haga Mayu than eating or drinking.

With her excellent archery skills, accumulated hunting experience, and keen senses, finding the hidden contestants was just a matter of glancing at them.

Some participants who enter as a team will choose to hide or ambush the hunters in order to fight them when exposed.

That way, even if they are discovered, they can fight back.

This makes it even easier for Mayumi Haga to find:

She can hear the telepathic communications between these strange people.

To be honest, this skill had already caused her some trouble. From the moment she entered this maze, the telepathic communication channels of all the hiders had been blaring in her ears.

It's like a swarm of buzzing flies flying right next to your ear; if you listen carefully, you can pinpoint their exact location.

Not to mention those who loudly report their location via telepathy after spotting a hunter...

Mayumi Haga's participation in this kind of competition was indeed somewhat cheating.

To avoid overlapping routes for hunters at the beginning, all hunters are randomly teleported to a corner of the maze by a magic circle upon entering.

The hunters are evenly distributed, starting from the edge of the circular maze, hunting and heading towards the exit teleportation array in the center of the maze. Once they have enough points, they find the exit and leave to finish.

The time limit is five hours. Food, water, and some emergency medicine are stored in the magic pocket.

Half an hour into the match, Mayumi Haga had successfully hunted down all the hiders within a 500-meter radius of her teleportation point.

She was teleported to the edge of the maze, where the walls extended upwards for about fifteen meters and there were many traps for hiding. However, she was still caught at a glance.

Although Mayumi Haga wasn't very good at cracking mechanisms, she could still clearly hear breathing sounds and communicate telepathically.

There were also strange people who were about to be captured and, in their desperation, wanted to fight her, but she subdued them first.

After being coated with fluorescent powder, these hiders will be identified by nearby magic circles and teleported away.

Mayumi Haga quickly cleared the surrounding area, preparing to climb to a high point to see how to navigate the maze ahead.

Just then, she heard the sound of flapping wings.

A black raven feather drifted down from the sky, and the shadow of a huge bird loomed overhead.

Haga Mayumi raised her head.