What do you think about pigs? Plenty of folks love pork, but face a mud-caked hog up close and most hearts will shrink like salt in rain.

Don’t tell me “you’ll get used to it.” The first time you meet a free-range brute, the reek of pig dung hits like swamp gas, and its drooling chew looks like a slug polishing a leaf. Your gut curdles before your mind can speak.

Right now, Ling felt exactly that. A pig everyone called “Master” barreled at her like a boar out of the reeds.

“Tsk…”

Her right hand rose, fingers hooked like a little raptor’s claw, nature mana beading over her skin like dew on jade. Brother Pig’s cheek smacked into that shimmering film without suspense. Even a heartbeat of skin contact stirred a tide of nausea; she’d rather scrub with concentrated sulfuric acid than feel that slick again.

“Back you go.”

Her palm closed over his face. Before Brother Pig could buck, she gave a light push, and he arced away like a shooting star young people love to chase on summer nights.

Mmm… let’s call it the Brother Pig Star. Think anyone would dare make a wish on him? Probably. If Kars could turn into a star and still have rabid fans, Brother Pig landing a few brain-dead stans isn’t a stretch.

“Hehe—didn’t expect Miss Ling’s ‘Master’ to be this entertaining. Shame it gets your hands dirty…”

No doubt, a neat little jab. Ling wasn’t a kid you could bribe with a lollipop and a goldfish; she heard the barb clear as a bell in winter air.

“Stick to your lines. Why poke your nose in?”

“C’mon, we’re alive—might as well have fun. Then—‘Master-Control Sniper Vulcan Round’!”

By Amelia’s side, a thing seven people long and half a person tall surfaced from smoke, pitch-black and slick with a future-tech sheen—a gun, dark as a moonless river.

Click-clack. The round chambered with the snap of ice breaking.

Alright then… confirmed. It’s a gun.

“This looks like one of your human makes… what d’you call it again? From the Ulu Empire, right? That anti-recoil tech you built. Heard it’s nasty. Let’s try it.”

She hefted the so-called gun, both hands under it like cradling a sleeping beast, and clumsily leveled the muzzle at Ling. Her finger fumbled, found the trigger, a hawk’s talon searching for purchase, and a light press would send the round flying.

“Projectile Protection.”

Thump!!

Her finger pressed. The bullet spat from the barrel in a burst of fire, but the Queen’s awful grip let the recoil kick the frame back into the magazine like a mule. A smear of black smoke curled up like a burned offering. Only her quick reflexes saved her; she threw the thing away before it blew.

No matter. The round was in the air; treat the gun as a single-use firework and call it a day.

But is anything ever that simple?

While a certain dumb Queen was still fussing with it, Ling had already layered herself—cribbing from a pixel sandbox game she used to play—with a neat little charm: Projectile Protection.

This was a test, more than a shield. She wanted to see how far the so-called “game limits” ran, and whether this “game” played fair under heaven.

So the bullet, slow as a lazy moth in her eyes, sailed for her chest—and she didn’t lift a finger. From a bystander’s view, the small girl looked frozen, as if danger were only a breeze brushing reeds.

Too bad we couldn’t cut in that bystander cam; the bullet arrived first.

It was a pointed round, meant to pierce, not linger for a second bite. The tip was painted red like a blood moon, etched with fine lines like frost on a window; look close and you’d see the ghost of a magic circle carved there.

Didn’t matter. That proud little symbol of “penetration” didn’t grant her a clean-through chill. It struck her clothes. Yes—her clothes.

Fabric you could normally tear by hand turned into a stone gate in a mountain. Sparks fanned out like fireflies, and the bullet yielded first, its spin dying like a drained top. It dropped, chimed a lonely ding on the ground, and became a tired scrap of iron.

Looks like Projectile Protection is way nastier than I thought. Figures—it’s a game. Different flavor, same backbone. If Steve made it, the quality holds like an old pine in snow.

Amelia rubbed her head, sheepish as a cat caught stealing fish. Even she hadn’t expected the thing to be that bad; it looked fierce when it spat fire.

“Eh… forget human toys. ‘City’s Twelve Wardens’!”

She said twelve, but when the smoke pulled back like a curtain at dusk, only one figure stood. He wore armor the color of gold wheat, held a western rapier like a sliver of moonlight, a half-man-tall cudgel strapped across his back. A long crossbow hung at his waist, alongside flasks shaped like elemental vials. Beyond the golden cuirass, plates guarded face, legs, and hands; call him early-days Iron Man and someone might nod.

Defense, ranged, melee, heals—sure, that does smell like a city warden.

Ling’s gaze circled like a kite on a thermal. No sign of the other eleven.

“Where are the other eleven?”

Because one alone is… boring.

“What eleven?”

“Isn’t it ‘City’s Twelve Wardens’? How’s one guy equal twelve?”

“…‘City’s Twelve Wardens’ being just one is common sense.”

Common sense where, in which world’s village almanac?

“Fine. You win. I’m not arguing. ‘Satellite Annihilation Cannon.’”

At her word, a beam fell from the sky like a sun-spear, heat roaring, targeting the lone Warden.

He didn’t know what had happened. A strange bit of BGM rose like cicadas at noon, and every bell in his gut started clanging. He lifted his head, and a white lance burned into his eyes. Pain seared his sight like hot iron; he flinched, lids slammed shut.

The instant before the beam washed over him, his lips parted, and he spoke his last words—

“I really am…”

←To be co… (not finishing that, nyeh-nyeh~)