A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

Kuroki Hitomi stared blankly for a moment before silently raising her head.

Ke Mingqing's body was gradually enveloped in a hazy cocoon of light. Then, as the light shattered, an entirely different entity appeared inside the supermarket.

Kuroki Hitomi found it hard to describe what she saw in that instant. Her meager vocabulary was inadequate to capture the thing reflected in her eyes, but she was absolutely certain of one thing: it was not a magical girl symbolizing love and hope.

In fact... it was not human at all.

In that split second, it was as if she were looking at the most chaotic, indescribable creature in the world. It was shrouded entirely in a dark, gray halo and encased within a throbbing cocoon.

It looked just like a beating heart.

The darkest, most hideous heart of an alien entity in this world.

Thump...

Thump, thump...

Some of these heads were roaring, others laughing wildly, some shouting, and others wailing... It was like a symphony from hell, pouring out a flood of thick, viscous malice. Merely standing at a distance induced an overwhelmingly oppressive sense of suffocation. For the first time in her life, Kuroki Hitomi felt such bone-deep terror, as if she were directly confronting the ugliest, most twisted monster in existence. The girl with the teardrop mole stood frozen in place.

After a while, a super-human species panel slowly appeared as a Pop-up in her vision.

[Super-human species codename: Witch of ?? and ?? and ??]

[Danger rating: ????]

[Description: ???]

[Known weaknesses: ???]

The lights inside the supermarket flickered, casting Kuroki Hitomi's face in shifting shadows.

Every time the lights dimmed, the heartbeat grew louder.

Whenever the lights flared back up, another head's outline would appear on the surface of the cocoon, as if some creature were about to hatch. She stared at that cocoon, listening to the miserable roars and wails, and for some reason, scenes began flashing through her mind.

Like a revolving lantern, those fleeting images darted past her eyes.

It was a rainy night.

A teenage boy sat on the kitchen floor with his head bowed, leaning against the sink. In front of him lay a bloody corpse. Bloodstained crow feathers and a mask were scattered across the pool of blood.

After a long while, the boy closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and took a deep breath of that damp, muggy scent.

He didn't know if he was smelling the blood or the rain.

He suddenly felt as though all the strength had drained from his body, so he lowered his head and gasped for air, deeply and repeatedly.

Outside, the rain was falling, pattering against the windows.

In the absolute silence, the boy opened his player notebook and raised a finger. He intended to draw a checkmark next to a name, but his hand fell weakly to his side.

["Mind Link" mode enabled. Your thoughts will be recorded in the notebook.]

With hollow, downcast eyes, the boy relied on his thoughts to control the notebook panel, slowly drawing a blood-red checkmark next to that blurry name.

There were five more names below it.

The boy slowly raised his head, staring at the player notebook with an expressionless face as his chaotic thoughts manifested on the panel one by one in blood-colored text.

He stared at the names on the panel and the blood-red checkmark next to his father's name, and suddenly let out a low chuckle.

"I will... kill you all."

His lips moved.

"Slaughter every last one of you... without exception."

The final line of text on the thought panel froze there. The boy slowly stood up and stumbled out of the kitchen, staggering like a puppet with cut strings.

The moment he lifted his head, his face was entirely devoid of emotion.

Immediately following that, the scene in her mind shifted, and Kuroki Hitomi saw something else.

She saw a blood-red sky stretching over a barren wasteland, though the desolate terrain faintly resembled the layout of central Leijing.

At dusk, beneath the crimson sky, the boy knelt on the ground, cradling a girl in a gothic dress. Above his head, highly advanced alien airships soared past.

At this moment, a humanoid figure fully covered in a metallic shell, with pairs of mechanical tentacles sprouting from its back, hovered against the setting sun and peered down at him condescendingly.

The metallic figure opened its mouth with a look of pity, but Kuroki Hitomi couldn't hear what it said.

"Roar!"

Suddenly, a deafening roar pierced Kuroki Hitomi's ears.

Her thoughts were yanked back to reality, and she abruptly threw her head up.

At that very moment, the mountain-sized mirror ghost in the corner of the supermarket let out a roar and charged toward the cocoon suspended in midair. The earth rumbled as the mirror ghost raised its massive claws, swinging down with enough sheer force to shatter a small house.

The world fell into absolute silence.

In the next split second, a tear suddenly ripped open on the surface of the cocoon with a squelch, like an eye peeking out from the abyss, and a pitch-black arm reached out.

Kuroki Hitomi watched this scene blankly. That slender hand grabbed the mirror ghost's head and forcefully dragged its body into the cocoon. The mountain-sized dark silhouette was swallowed whole, completely pulled inside.

It defied all logic and reason, as if a rabbit had swallowed a tiger and digested it within its own stomach. Yet, it was happening right in front of her.

Kuroki Hitomi heard the sound of chewing. She saw rows upon rows of sharp teeth emerge on the surface of the black cocoon, tearing into the dark silhouette and swallowing its flesh and blood.

The supermarket remained completely silent for a moment, and then those quiet heads suddenly moved.

Like they were holding a meeting, the heads awakened from their slumber one after another, uttering muffled sounds.

A hoarse, deep voice came from one of the heads in the cocoon:

"Which side is real... and which side was implanted, fake from the very beginning... I was a fake right from the start. We took the fake for the truth."

"Oh, don't be so depressed, alright? We weren't the ones in the wrong. At least Lord Bai... had fun playing around." Another head spoke in a lingering, mocking tone.

"And this... is what counts as a hero..." one head said in a heavy voice. "Tell me, what did we actually do?"

"Let us try again," another head said coldly. "That girl is still waiting for me. She's still waiting in the box."

"Staking the name of magical... purifying... even if I fall and become a witch, even if I get... lost in the... corner..." a clear, crisp voice spoke intermittently.

"Mom, please forgive me... give me one more chance." A head sobbed softly. "This time... I won't make the same mistakes again. I need that thing in your hand... I need a chance."

Kuroki Hitomi couldn't clearly hear everything they said, only managing to catch fragments.

Suddenly, all the heads moved in unison, squirming like insects inside the cocoon, or perhaps like pilgrims on a sacred journey.

The contours bulging on the cocoon's surface revealed their agonizing, ferocious expressions.

Kuroki Hitomi slowly took two steps backward.

"Ke... Mingqing?"

Staring directly at that indescribable entity, the girl with the teardrop mole moved her lips and slowly uttered his name.

The next moment, a hazy cocoon of light enveloped the bizarre behemoth in midair. It then shattered apart, and a teenage boy in a white T-shirt appeared above.

He hovered for half a second before slowly falling toward the ground.

Kuroki Hitomi froze for a second, then quickly ran over, catching him and cradling the unconscious boy in her arms.

At the same time, the system prompt slowly rang in her ears, breaking the absolute silence that had enveloped the supermarket.

[Congratulations, player "Ke Mingqing" has successfully killed the dungeon boss "Mirror Ghost Number Two."]

[The weekly dungeon "The Mystery of the Mirror Supermarket Ghosts" has been cleared. The settlement phase will begin in three minutes.]

The supermarket was deathly quiet.

Kuroki Hitomi knelt on the ground with her eyes downcast, quietly gazing at his face.

A moment later, Ke Mingqing's eyelids twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes.

He raised his head slightly. The first thing he saw was Kuroki Hitomi's face; the girl with the teardrop mole had red-rimmed eyes, and her lips were trembling faintly.

Ke Mingqing blanked. "What's wrong with you?"

"I... don't know." After a long silence, Kuroki Hitomi spoke in a hoarse voice, "I don't understand."

Ke Mingqing was stunned for a moment before breaking free of her arms and slowly rising from her embrace.

He hunched his back and sat beside her, turning his head to look around.

There were no longer any mirror shards to be seen inside the supermarket. It was completely empty in all directions; even the toppled shelves and cabinets had vanished, leaving behind only a blank void.

The ceiling fan above was still blowing, oscillating left and right as the light bulb emitted a glaring white glow.

The boy and girl sat quietly in the blank space, looking like paper cutouts plucked from a picture book.

Ke Mingqing remained silent for a while. "Does turning into a magical girl actually cause memory loss?" he muttered, looking up at Kuroki Hitomi. "What happened just now?"

Kuroki Hitomi turned her head and looked at him quietly.

After a long while, she gently shook her head and said, "Nothing."

"If nothing happened, why are you reacting like this?" Ke Mingqing questioned.

Kuroki Hitomi thought for a moment before whispering, "Anyway... you turned into a magical girl, and then you killed it."

"Then why were you scared to tears?" Ke Mingqing asked. "Was that boss really that scary? It was just a big, dumb brute."

"I didn't cry," Kuroki Hitomi said softly, her voice still a little raspy.

Ke Mingqing looked at her and sighed softly. "Whatever... Speaking of which, am I really that strong after transforming into a magical girl? I took down the boss all by myself."

As he spoke, he shot her a suspicious glance. "You didn't secretly take pictures, did you?"

Kuroki Hitomi fell silent for a moment. "Yeah, respecting your privacy... I know you wouldn't want to see what you looked like after turning into a magical girl, right?"

"True." Ke Mingqing bared his teeth. "Actually, I was just making a desperate last attempt. To think it actually worked." He paused, raising a hand to point at his own face.

"Was I super ugly after turning into a magical girl?"

"No."

"Then what exactly is wrong with you?"

Kuroki Hitomi considered it for a bit. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah." Ke Mingqing nodded earnestly.

He had never seen Kuroki Hitomi with red-rimmed eyes before. He had no idea what could possibly frighten this outwardly fragile yet inwardly resilient girl to such a degree. "I'll tell you in a bit," Kuroki Hitomi said softly, lowering her eyes.

Just then, a settlement panel slowly appeared as a Pop-up in front of their eyes, drawing their attention.

[Weekly dungeon completion rewards obtained: 1. 5000 experience points; 2. 1000 superhuman coins; 3. One-time use item: Demon-Reflecting Mirror.] [Your current superhuman coin balance is: 7500.]

"The difficulty of this dungeon was so high, but the superhuman coins rewarded are so few. Isn't that way too stingy?" Ke Mingqing shrugged.

"But it gave a lot of experience points," Kuroki Hitomi pointed out.

"Fair enough."

Ke Mingqing curled his lip and continued reading down the screen.

[The player has reached the experience cap for the current level. Level automatically increased by 1.]

[Current level: LV.10 (1100/5000 experience points)]

[One Attribute Point is awarded for every 5 levels gained. You have one unused Attribute Point available for allocation. Would you like to use it now?]

Ke Mingqing summoned his attribute panel and, with a wave of his hand, allocated the Attribute Point.

[Congratulations. By consuming 1 Attribute Point, your "Spirit Attribute" has increased from "E+" to "E++".] [Player "Ke Mingqing"'s current attributes are as follows: Strength: D+; Agility: D++; Spirit: E++]

[Notice: One Skill Bar slot is Unlocked every 10 levels. Slot No. 6 is currently Unlocked. You may purchase new skills in the Skill Shop.] "Finally level ten. It was really awkward wanting to buy skills before but having no open slots." Ke Mingqing yawned and closed the series of notification panels.

"You already had five skills?" Kuroki Hitomi asked.

"What else?" Ke Mingqing retorted.

Kuroki Hitomi gently clapped her hands. "Oh... so impressive. I only have three skills right now."

"But the average quality of your skills is high... Two C Ranks and one B Rank." Ke Mingqing ticked them off on his fingers, forcing a compliment.

Kuroki Hitomi shot him a lukewarm glance and didn't feel like talking anymore.

[The MVP for this dungeon run is "Ke Mingqing". Boss kill count: Two (Rating: Flawless)]

[Notice: The MVP player will receive the bonus reward "Mirror Clothing". (This clothing can copy any outfit you have seen within the last 60 minutes, but it cannot replicate the copied outfit's attributes or abilities.)]

"Whoa... this dungeon item is pretty good. Combined with my Disguiser Talent, I'll be able to impersonate quite a few people." As Ke Mingqing spoke, he turned to look at Kuroki Hitomi. The girl with the teardrop mole tilted her head, a lock of hair falling beside her eye.

Ke Mingqing stared at her. "Didn't you just say you'd tell me what happened in a bit?"

Kuroki Hitomi remained silent for a brief moment. Suddenly, she raised a hand to cover her chest and looked up, glaring at him like a fierce black sheep. The girl with the teardrop mole said expressionlessly, "After you turned into a magical girl, you tried to grope me... and then you scared me so much I almost cried."

"That's an obvious lie."

Ke Mingqing turned his head and rolled his eyes at her.

"It seems my mom was right. Men instantly forget the things they've done," Kuroki Hitomi murmured, looking away. "Have you been possessed by Little Red Riding Hood?" Ke Mingqing laughed dryly.

"It's called picking things up by exposure." Kuroki Hitomi uncrossed the arms she had over her chest and said faintly, "At least we cleared the dungeon. We shouldn't overthink the rest." Ke Mingqing scratched his head. "Come on... the more you say that, the more curious I get."

At that very moment, a sudden, intense beam of light swept across the area, enveloping the entire supermarket and swallowing the figures of the boy and girl within it.

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