The Cafeteria Monster!

"Find anything?" Guo Caitang asked.

"I spoke to the last person who saw the missing girl. She said she caught a rotten stench coming from the cafeteria. It's basically confirmed: either there's a perverted creep hiding in there obsessed with girls, or there's a Demon-Beast." Mo Fan adjusted his glasses, which caught the light at a brilliantly sagely angle. What was it Conan always said? Ah, right — *there is only one truth!*

"Is that so? Then tonight you'll guard the library and cafeteria. The rest of us will cover the teaching buildings, Mingwen Park Hill, the dormitories, and the sports field." Caitang said this with a distinctly self-satisfied air.

"Um... why can't I guard the dormitory building? I heard there are still quite a few boarding students who stayed on campus. Their safety would really be better in the hands of someone who—"

"Feishi will handle that."

Mo Fan's stomach sank. Feishi was obviously the kind of man who rummaged through girls' underwear drawers for sport. Sending *him* to watch the female dormitories would make the girls *less* safe.

That night, Mo Fan was indeed assigned to the cafeteria.

Mingwen Girls' School's cafeteria was enormous — it resembled a grand banquet hall. The school was practically an elite institution, and a cafeteria this spacious and opulent made perfect sense. Nothing like the one back at Tianlan Magic High School, where if anything ever tried to hide inside, the lunch ladies would flush it out with a single sweep of their brooms.

The cafeteria was pitch-black, lit only by a few distant lights that illuminated scattered patches of the room. Row after row of tables and chairs stood silent and cold in the gloom. Crouched in a corner, Mo Fan let his mind drift to images of girls in summer skirts dining here — the warm fragrance, the youthful splendor...

**Thud!!**

**Thud!!!**

**Thud! Thud! Thud!!!!**

Suddenly, a series of sounds erupted from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint.

A lone iron spoon — forgotten and left behind — began rattling along with the shaking tables and chairs, slowly creeping toward the table's edge.

The spoon tipped off and fell. Mo Fan's hand shot out and snatched it from the air just in time. A clattering spoon would have been a completely idiotic way to blow his cover.

*Damn it. The evidence from eating ice cream out of boredom earlier this evening nearly gave me away.*

"Something's definitely off in this cafeteria," Mo Fan muttered to himself, peering cautiously around. "What in the world is causing the trembling? Feels like there's a construction crew underground. Don't tell me someone built a captivity dungeon down there — that kind of thing's been popping up all over the country lately."

*Guu~~ guu guu~~~~~~~~~~*

A deep, unsettling rumble drifted from the direction of the kitchen.

Riding that sound came a wave of stench — the reek of rotting food, leek, raw meat, and fermented pickles all at once.

*Crap. Is there actually a Demon-Beast here?* Mo Fan's gut clenched.

Before joining the City Demon-Hunting Squad, he had always assumed the city was a peacefully ordinary world, and that Demon-Beasts were something adults invented to scare children into bed. He had never imagined they truly lurked inside city limits. It seemed his aunt Mo Qing hadn't been lying after all.

Then again, it made sense. A city this vast held far too many unseen corners. Even if a Demon-Beast surfaced and lives were lost, the police would suppress the news and resolve it quietly behind closed doors. The damage done by public panic would far outweigh the incident itself.

Mo Fan drew out his pager and pressed the button from inside his pocket.

The device was simple — it sent his teammates a signal and his location, alerting them that something was wrong.

*Guu guu guu!! Guu guu guu!!!!!*

The instant he pressed the pager, the thing lurking in the kitchen seemed to sense the signal's pulse. A single deep-blue eye appeared grotesquely from behind the partition glass, locking directly onto Mo Fan.

The pupil was the size of a basketball. Fleshy tumors riddled the surface of the eyeball, and the way they slowly rotated sent a wave of revulsion crawling across Mo Fan's skin.

By the reflected light, he could make out a rough silhouette...

It was a neck.

A neck as wide as a tree trunk you'd need both arms to embrace. Neck and head were indistinguishable — the approximate region where a head should have been contained nothing but that basketball-sized eye and a vast mouth crammed full of rotting food.

*What the hell — do Demon-Beasts come with built-in wireless receivers? I press one button and this thing picks it up instantly!* Mo Fan raged inwardly.

One button press, and the Neck-Eye monster had zeroed in on him. Even the aliens in Hollywood blockbusters didn't have abilities this absurdly overpowered.

*Guu guu!!*

Without warning, something began to concentrate within the creature's pupil. The basketball-sized eye contracted violently.

Energy surged to its limit. In an instant, a searing crimson beam blasted from the monster's pupil.

It punched clean through the glass partition separating the students' dining area from the kitchen, then blazed through an entire row of cafeteria tables in rapid chain succession, driving straight toward where Mo Fan crouched.

Mo Fan nearly wet himself.

The thing hadn't even offered a warning before attacking. That cold, annihilating glare had the exact same energy as a lunch lady's death stare when you dare ask her for an extra scoop of meat.

Fortunately, this wasn't Mo Fan's first encounter with a Demon-Beast. He trusted his reflexes and threw himself into a sideways roll toward the cafeteria exit.

A heartbeat later, a scorched black hole appeared where Mo Fan had just been crouching. Had he not moved, that hole would have been in his chest.

The power of Stardust, to some degree, altered a Mage's physical constitution. The change was not dramatic — but it was enough to ensure that a Mage could at least dodge the more obvious attacks.

Mo Fan had been wise from the start, positioning himself closest to the door. That single roll carried him safely outside.

But things were not as simple as he'd hoped. The Neck-Eye monster let out a piercing shriek and burst out of the kitchen. Its enormous eye was already gathering that crimson energy again.

Mo Fan glanced back — and ice shot down his spine.

*That firing rate is insane. There's no way I can dodge again!*

He was already reaching with his Mental Intent into the Enchanted Gear imprint within his soul, preparing to summon the Sickle-Bone Shield to absorb the blow.

"Water Control — Disperse!"

Just as he was about to complete the summoning, a clear, bright voice rang out from the direction of the nearby basketball court.

A stream of water materialized in the air — flowing as softly as a ribbon of silk, dancing gracefully before him. It wove itself rapidly into a curved shield of water.

The crimson beam struck the woven water shield — and dissolved utterly. The scarlet energy scattered along with the spent Water Control skill into countless tiny droplets that rained down at Mo Fan's feet.

Mo Fan immediately released the shield summon and turned his head.

There stood Xiao Ke, flashing him a sweet smile — two adorable little canine teeth on full display.

*Xiao Ke?*

*Girl, your timing couldn't be more damn perfect!!*