Compared to the magical creatures in the Second Zone, which could only use the lowest-grade magic—magic that didn’t even rank in the Witch spellcasting system—the monsters in the Third Zone were far more dangerous.

—Their magic could break through Jiang Cha and He Qin’s defenses.

That alone was enough to make them proceed with caution.

“What should we do?”

He Qin glanced at the Second Zone bats swarming all around behind them, still hot on their heels, then at the Third Zone creatures of every shape and size glaring at them from behind the rune-etched cages ahead. She couldn’t decide what to do.

“Couldn’t Lina just charge in and kill one?”

Even her own Lightning Bolt couldn’t get through this little dragon girl’s defenses, so Jiang Cha didn’t think these Third Zone creatures could pose much of a threat to the blond loli.

“We can’t, Jiang Cha-chan. Mentor Vladimir didn’t say it outright, but our performance in class affects our grades.”

“Ah... Right. That is kind of a pain.”

At the end of the day, they were still students. And students naturally had to be assessed. It made perfect sense.

They hadn’t taken part in the hardest part of the assignment at all, so naturally they weren’t going to earn many grade points.

Lina looked ready to give up thinking and leave everything to her. The girl rubbed her temples with a faintly pained expression.

She had to come up with a plan.

“How about another explosion?”

“Absolutely not!”

Lina stamped her foot, grinding her teeth as she glared at the girl. She had no intention of going through another brush with death—because that really was what it had been. The mana vortex stirred up by Third Zone creatures was on a completely different level from the Second Zone’s.

“Jiang Cha-chan... The school bought all these magical creatures with its own money...”

“Huh? What’s that got to do with us?”

“If we kill too many without permission, and there’s no danger to our lives, we have to pay for them.”

Jiang Cha: “....”

“Fine, fine... Let me think, let me think. Lina, stop staring at me! I promise I won’t send you off to risk your life this time.”

After a quick discussion, the three girls settled on their next course of action.

He Qin had the strongest defense, thanks to her Guardian golem. Lina, the Combat Witch, had the strongest offense. And Jiang Cha?

She’d actually been the weak link in the team before. But during this practical class, she was gradually becoming the team’s brains and all-rounder.

She had a hand in everything, but the greatest pressure—whether on offense or defense—was never on her. It was the perfect position for her.

She was good at thinking things through, had a wide range of magic, and possessed a huge reserve of mana. She was perfectly suited to being the team’s jack-of-all-trades.

And so...

“Let’s move.”

The girl standing on the Guardian golem’s shoulder gave a quiet command.

Lina immediately began gathering mana, while He Qin issued orders in a calm, orderly manner.

【Empowered Casting】【Magic Shield】

【Mana Transfer】

Jiang Cha rapidly cast three spells in succession. Each one was executed to perfection, with precision down to the millisecond.

Empowered Casting enveloped Lina, boosting her offensive power so she could focus on increasing the number of fireballs without worrying about their strength.

The Magic Shield went on the Raider golem, reducing the damage it took as it charged forward.

Mana Transfer was directed at the Guardian, strengthening the powerful mana shield protecting them.

He Qin moved forward with measured steps, neither rushing nor dawdling. She kept just within the maximum distance Lina could charge out and return. As she moved, their whole formation gradually advanced toward the Third Zone.

Lina’s aim wasn’t to charge in and reduce the enemy’s numbers. More than a thousand fireballs hovered around her, scattering precisely in every direction under Jiang Cha’s guidance. They intercepted spell after spell, setting off explosions in midair.

This was to ease the strain on the Guardian’s circuits and keep its large mana shield from breaking under a rapid succession of attacks.

As for Lina herself, with a Magic Shield Jiang Cha had managed to cast on her, she punched and kicked every monster that pounced at her, sending them flying back.

This was an incredibly high-pressure situation for them. Protecting themselves from thousands of Third Zone creatures was one thing; protecting an entire formation covering nearly a hundred square meters was another challenge entirely.

The first was a bullet-hell game: no matter how many projectiles filled the screen, they weren’t a threat as long as you could graze past them. The second was a tower-defense game, where they had to withstand the full force of thousands of Third Zone creatures attacking head-on.

“Preparations complete. Guardian, transform. Fortress Mode!”

Ten seconds later, He Qin opened her eyes and gave the command.

At her command, the sturdy, silver-white humanoid golem beneath Jiang Cha’s feet split open at the shoulders. Its inner mechanisms shifted and rearranged, forming two large squares. Rune-etched silver metal plates spread across the ground.

As mana flowed into them, the runes on the metal plates gradually turned light blue, then deep blue.

As the rune plates unfolded, the Guardian’s Magic Shield grew thicker and larger, expanding to more than twice its original area before stopping.

The spells those Third Zone creatures had just cast had made the mana shield visibly shudder when they struck it. That was what happened when a Magic Shield’s defenses weren’t strong enough.

Now, even a hundred volleys of Wind Blades striking the same spot in succession couldn’t make it ripple.

The metal rune plates greatly improved the Guardian’s mana efficiency. They also had an Empowered Casting effect, more than tripling the strength of its Magic Shield.

“Cha Bao, do you still have enough mana? I can take over if you don’t.”

A Magic Shield worked by using mana to cancel out the mana in incoming spells. Put simply, it was a shield that burned mana.

And ever since Lina retreated from the front line, the Guardian’s Magic Shield had been taking hits from hundreds of spells every second. The mana drain was enormous.

“I’m fine. These guys’ spells are way weaker than yours, Lina.”

The girl shook her head and continued, “The Guardian’s mana efficiency is really good. It can hold out for an hour or two without any trouble.”

At its core, a Magic Shield was a shield that consumed mana. The amount of mana needed to cancel out each unit of an attack depended on four factors: the caster’s mana strength, the enemy spell’s strength, the complexity of the spell model used to form the shield, and whether it had any relevant enhancement traits. Together, these determined the mana efficiency on both sides.

On top of that, the Guardian had mana stored inside it, and He Qin was supporting it too. Saying it could last an hour or two was Jiang Cha being conservative.

The girl had calculated its maximum endurance at six hours.

“What we need to think about now... Hey, He Qin, would you say we’re ‘in danger’ right now?”

“.....”

Miss Yamato Nadeshiko had already guessed what this wicked woman was planning.

But she couldn’t refuse.

She really couldn’t refuse.

To Witches, the body parts of First and Second Zone creatures were all worthless junk. But Third Zone creatures had plenty of materials they could use.

Even if He Qin’s golems had a metallic, sci-fi aesthetic, the golem-making business still couldn’t avoid using biological materials.

And golems were consumables. You only had to look at the serial numbers on her three golems to see that. They were all improved versions of the same model, but...

They were still consumables.

Developing a secondary profession took a lot of money.

Lina, on the other hand, was a little rich girl who didn’t care about money. She hadn’t even figured out why He Qin had gone quiet, but she’d understood one thing: “Ooh! Cha Bao, you wanna go big!? I’m in, I’m in! Just tell me what we’re doing!”

The thrilling idea had brought out her urge to cause trouble, and the flames around the little blond dragon girl flared brighter with her excitement.

“That’s right~”

The girl smiled faintly and nodded. That was exactly what she had in mind.

To be honest, she didn’t like wasting time for no reason. Until now, she’d wanted to finish the task as soon as possible and get back to the dorm to read.

But...

She was the poorest one here, okay!

He Qin had two years’ worth of savings from working part-time, and if she ran out of money, she could earn more by making golems.

Lina was a little princess of the Dragon Clan. She’d never been short of money, and even at her young age she owned property in two resource worlds.

And what about her!?

She didn’t have a single coin! She had to rely on He Qin even for food! Her pockets were truly emptier than her face was clean!

And in the future, she’d have the endless material costs of studying the four major secondary professions, not to mention the huge tuition bill due next school year...

Cha Bao was really poor.

So when she saw that most of the Third Zone creatures—whose mutations gave them some resistance to magical interference—were less than sixty percent mutated, and that the parts with plenty of mana that could be used as spell materials were still intact, an idea popped into her little head.

Aislin Witch Academy was loaded. It didn’t care about materials this low-grade, the kind that any random resource planet could mass-produce by the livestock penful. But they were still materials.

The materials themselves might not be worth much, but turn them into all kinds of magical items and they’d be worth something!

She could get some hands-on practice, too. Two birds with one stone!

And the best part was, they were free! No cost at all!

And so...

The Raider golem charged through with its Magic Shield up, swiftly taking the creatures down one by one with its blade. Lina’s little fireballs picked them off with pinpoint accuracy, one after another. With a wave of her hand, Jiang Cha sent a whole sky full of Lightning Bolts straight into the monsters’ brains; the high-voltage current killed them instantly. He Qin simply summoned a dozen ordinary golems to harvest the materials.

The three fearless Little Witches began their journey of slaughter.

They could have slaughtered them more efficiently, but they wanted to preserve the materials as much as possible, so they had to stick to low-powered methods that were easier to control.

If they went any faster, the Mentors watching them might step in and stop them. They also wouldn’t be able to harvest the materials quickly enough, and they’d no longer count as being ‘in danger.’

This pace was just right.

Luring the creatures in as they killed, the girls kept up their efficient slaughter for more than an hour before finally stopping.

“Phew~ That was so satisfying! So satisfying!”

The blond loli let out a long breath. Her gray robe was almost soaked through with blood.

As a warlike race that had evolved on its own, Witches were born with a powerful urge to kill.

Combat Witches were especially prone to it, and Little Witches born with huge reserves of mana found it even harder to control the impulse. The Academy’s packed battle classes were partly meant to give them an outlet.

So long as they didn’t go too far, the Mentors turned a blind eye to this kind of slaughter and couldn’t be bothered to intervene.

Jiang Cha and He Qin were much cleaner... At least they hadn’t gotten carried away and started wrestling the magical creatures in close combat.

But the two poor Witches weren’t exactly calm, either.

“How many? How many?”

“Six thousand seven hundred and twenty-five first-grade materials. They’re worth about four hundred Witch gold.”

He Qin did a quick calculation, then smiled with satisfaction.

“Yes!!”

Jiang Cha hugged her and cheered happily.

Lina turned around and looked at the two of them hugging. She tilted her head, confusion on her delicate, blood-stained little face.

‘Is killing monsters really that fun?’

“Hey!! I want a hug too!!”

Never mind that. Getting cuddly with cute girls was what mattered most!

.....