Jiecheng Yuan had forced the silver-haired girl onto her side with a lose-lose move that hurt the other person without benefiting herself. It was, without a doubt, a textbook example of an open scheme.

Because the other girl had no way to refuse, Jiecheng Yuan confidently presented the second option she’d prepared for her:

“Let’s mess up that girl chasing us together!”

After hearing Jiecheng Yuan, the silver-haired girl jumped down from the wall onto the street. She slowed down and waited for Jiecheng Yuan to catch up.

Jiecheng Yuan hurried a few steps to run alongside her, quite pleased with herself for thinking the girl was willing to work with her. But the silver-haired girl shot her a disgusted look.

“You’re awful! You pervert! So this is what Jiecheng Yuan is really like!”

“That’s not what I meant!” Only then did Jiecheng Yuan realize the silver-haired girl had clearly misunderstood her.

She’d just been explaining what would happen if they lost, and now she was plotting how to mess someone else up. It was no wonder she’d been misunderstood.

Jiecheng Yuan was a little relieved she’d said all that in her current identity and gender. Otherwise, it would definitely have sounded like sexual harassment or a declaration of criminal intent. She’d deserve a slap for that.

But the silver-haired girl hadn’t slapped her or sped up to get away. She kept running alongside Jiecheng Yuan with that disgusted look on her face, which was already enough to show she was willing to cooperate.

Oh, right. Running side by side would make them look suspicious to the person chasing them. Maybe getting slapped would’ve been better.

“Pretend you’re trying to get away from me. Run ahead, quick!” Jiecheng Yuan whispered. Then she raised her voice dramatically so Shuiye You behind them could hear: “You’re not getting away!”

“Ah! She’s gonna catch up!” This time, the silver-haired girl played along, picking up her pace and running ahead.

Jiecheng Yuan’s acting was a little over the top, but she thought it was passable. The girl playing opposite her, though—her acting and the painfully flat way she delivered her lines were hard to watch.

“You don’t have to say anything, you know! Hey! Don’t look back! Keep running!”

“Cut the crap! You don’t want to get messed up too, do you? Hurry up and tell me how you’re going to mess her up!” The silver-haired girl sounded impatient. She ran ahead at the same pace as Jiecheng Yuan, keeping her voice low.

Jiecheng Yuan was even more certain now: even if she really did intend to do those awful things, the other girl probably wouldn’t refuse.

But Jiecheng Yuan didn’t want to do that, and she certainly wasn’t going to do it to Shuiye You, who was chasing them. That would be the exact opposite of her plan to redeem herself. Acting like a villain would only push her somewhere she couldn’t come back from.

A game was just a game. Even if you did something you couldn’t take back, you could always reload and fix it. That made plenty of players take losing lightly, or even deliberately choose the wrong route just to see the CGs that came afterward.

But now that virtual data had become reality, Jiecheng Yuan couldn’t look at those game characters the way she used to. If she crossed that line with them, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

According to the still half-formed plan in Jiecheng Yuan’s head, she could get away from Shuiye You on her own. But she’d chased after the silver-haired girl for a reason. Simply running from danger would inevitably let the girl get away—and that would defeat the whole point.

Besides, the silver-haired girl was the only person who currently knew Jiecheng Yuan had fallen to the dark side. Letting her go was no less dangerous than getting caught by Shuiye You.

And the last thing the silver-haired girl had said before jumping out of the room and transforming was: This isn’t what we agreed on.

What came next was only Jiecheng Yuan’s guess, based on those words and some of the girl’s reactions: when it came to making her fall to the dark side, this girl was just a not-very-bright operative. Someone else had come up with the plan.

If that was true, she had even more questions to ask—and even less reason to let the girl go.

At its core, forcing the silver-haired girl to cooperate with her was a roundabout way of showing goodwill. Something like: Now we’re good buddies who’ve done bad things together!

That way, once this was over, she’d have a chance to ask the girl some of the things she was curious about. Even if she got nothing out of it this time, at least she wouldn’t leave an unpredictable loose end lurking in the shadows.

Taking advantage of a little villain like this was still a long way from crossing the line, right?

“Hey, say something! What are we doing?” The girl couldn’t help urging Jiecheng Yuan on when she didn’t get a response.

Her thoughts interrupted, Jiecheng Yuan turned her attention back to reality. There was so much she wanted to know, and she kept getting lost in thought. If she carried on, her brain would be the first thing to get all messed up.

“Moonsea Park! Then do what I tell you!” With Shuiye You drawing closer by the second, Jiecheng Yuan made up her mind at once.

Moonsea Park covered an enormous area and could roughly be divided into two parts. The smaller section was an amusement park full of attractions and visitors. Jiecheng Yuan’s target was the much larger, less developed area, where only simple stone paths had been laid for visitors.

A while later, the three of them, chasing and being chased, one after another slipped into the wooded hills at the back of the park.

Did Jiecheng Yuan think she could lose her pursuer among the maze of paths and trees? Not at all. She had another plan for dealing with Shuiye You.

The park trimmed back branches that blocked the paths so people could walk through easily, but left everything else to grow freely. In a place like this, flying would block your view and risk sending you straight into a branch, which would only slow you down.

Just as Jiecheng Yuan had predicted, Shuiye You dropped back down to the ground.

Now the real show was about to begin.

“Do you really think this’ll work? Even I wouldn’t step into such an obvious trap,” the silver-haired girl muttered. Taking advantage of the brief blind spot created by a turn, she dropped a land mine in the middle of the path, just as Jiecheng Yuan had asked.

The girl hadn’t actually dropped a real land mine. It was a kind of magic called a Binding Trap, a move used by almost every Magical Girl who’d fallen to the dark side in the game. And what did it do? Just like the name said, it restricted the movement of anyone who stepped into it.

Jiecheng Yuan didn’t believe Shuiye You would fail to notice such an obvious Binding Trap. But she was betting that even if Shuiye You knew exactly what it was, her personality flaws would still make her step right into it.

Jiecheng Yuan nimbly sidestepped the Binding Trap the other girl had set. She couldn’t exactly tell the girl that Shuiye You was a lunatic who’d practically give herself away, so she could only fob her off with a vague answer and change the subject.

“She’s different. Put down a few more. As long as she steps into one, we win.”

“Okay! I trust you!” The silver-haired girl dropped several more traps in a row.

“Aah!”

A scream came from behind them. No doubt about it—it was Shuiye You. Maybe it was just Jiecheng Yuan’s imagination, but the scream sounded just a little excited.

Did it work? Jiecheng Yuan turned around in disbelief.

It worked!

She’d thought the plan might work, but she hadn’t expected it to be this easy. Shuiye You hadn’t even tried to hide it—she’d charged straight into the first trap the silver-haired girl had set.

The land mine burst open, sending several chains flying out to wrap Shuiye You up like a dumpling.

Jiecheng Yuan had expected the Binding Trap to put on a more impressive show, but never mind. As long as it did the job, that was good enough.

Jiecheng Yuan had been watching Shuiye You closely. A frustrated look crossed that cold face. Then Shuiye You’s gaze landed on the Black Magic Mark on Jiecheng Yuan’s abdomen, and a flicker of anticipation showed on her face. She struggled even harder.

“Guh! I won’t give in! Kill me!”

There it was! The classic female-knight line, all defiant refusal and barely concealed eagerness!