Get off work and become a magical girl

Chapter 243: The Gate to Kingship
In Fangting City, if you stop a pedestrian on the street and ask "What is the tallest building in Fangting City?", you will often get a fairly uniform answer:
——Green Tower.

With a total height of 1005 meters and 197 floors, the Green Tower, as the most famous tourist and commercial building in Fangting City, was built decades ago. At that time, the Green Tower was even known as the "tallest building in Donghua Prefecture".

The original reason for the project is no longer traceable. We only know that the Fangting Municipal Government at the time used the slogan of "boosting the tourism industry", invested huge sums of money, and even cooperated with the Bureau of Strategy and mobilized a large amount of magical resources to finally complete this engineering miracle building.

Unfortunately, this building ultimately failed to change Fangting City's position as a small border town. Rather, given Fangting City's own biased geographical location, the Green Tower project ultimately became a self-entertainment project within the city. At the time, it even had a negative reputation of being "too high to be meaningful."

Not many outside tourists came, only the citizens of this city went there to join in the fun. After a few years, as the novelty of the locals wore off, the Green Tower gradually became one of the common sights in Fangting City.

Decades later, the Green Tower, as a landmark building in Fangting City, continues to play its due role. The bottom ten floors are a commercial complex consisting of various shops, and the higher floors, up to the 100th floor, are office areas mixed with a small amount of commercial areas. As for the 100th floor and above, they are completely positioned for sightseeing tourism, used to accommodate local and global tourists.

As for the top floor of the green tower, there is a huge signal light installed. Every night, it will emit a light green neon light. Even dozens of kilometers away, the green light spot in the night sky can be seen.

It is worth mentioning that the largest stadium in Fangting City is named "Green Tower" Stadium because it is built in a suburban location with the Green Tower. Whenever there is an important sports event or a grand stage performance, the light on the top of the Green Tower can shine right above the stage. Sometimes, the color of the light on the top of the tower will be changed to match the performance in the stadium, which is also a good story among citizens.

And this green tower welcomed two special guests today.

On the first floor of the Green Tower, there is a secluded elevator waiting hall, which is located in the northern part of the tower. Its interior decoration is quite luxurious, with sparkling crystals inlaid between the high ceilings, waterscapes and statues standing next to the exquisite walls. Sunlight shines into the room through the floor-to-ceiling windows with blinds, and golden spots of light flow gently on the marble floor.

However, such a beautiful view did not seem to make the two guests want to stop and appreciate it. They passed by the statue, stepped on the light spots, and hurriedly came to the empty elevator door.

"It's amazing. No one stopped us on the road. We just walked in without any hesitation!"

Mu Baihe trotted behind Lin Yun, who was striding forward. She looked around and exclaimed, "The decorations are so luxurious. I feel like I've become a rich person."

"If you want, every magical girl can be a wealthy person in the eyes of ordinary people."

Lin Yun pressed the button next to the elevator, with a calm face: "If you really want to become rich, no one can stop you."

"You can say that, but I can't possibly exchange my own echo for money. I understand that."

Mu Baihe stopped in front of a bonsai tree next to the elevator and stretched out her hand to fiddle with the green leaves. "As for asking the Yi Ce Bureau for money, or robbing other people, that's even more impossible. Mu... Yuan Xiang will beat me up if she knows."

"Have you really considered going out to rob?" Lin Yun raised his eyebrows when he heard this.

"Of course I haven't...?" Mu Baihe turned around in confusion: "Probably not."

"... Never mind. This kind of thing is not important."

Looking at the other person's clear yet somewhat silly eyes, Lin Yun sighed inwardly and gave up the idea of ​​continuing to delve into this issue. He changed the subject without leaving a trace: "Let's talk about the matter we discussed earlier. Are you sure that the 'rumor' you mentioned can be believed?"

"of course?"

Seeing Lin Yun mention this, Mu Baihe nodded immediately: "This is a secret that everyone in our circle knows. The 'Gate to Kingship' definitely exists!"

"Oh." Lin Yun did not comment, "Then let's take it as that."

"Don't take it lightly!"

Seeing that Lin Yun still looked uninterested, Mu Baihe said angrily, "I have told you my biggest secret, you must keep it a secret, okay? You must not tell anyone else, okay?"

"I don't think everyone will unconditionally believe that what you say is true..."

"I don't care, but you are not allowed to tell anyone else, okay?"

"Yes, yes, I will definitely not tell anyone else."

While perfunctorily talking to Mu Baili, Lin Yun turned his gaze to the elevator beside him. After watching the number on the floor indicator light slowly turn to 1, he took out a white card from his chest pocket and stuck it next to the elevator button. Not long after, accompanied by a "beep" prompt sound, the elevator door slowly opened to the two of them.

This is the Green Tower's internal staff elevator, and it is also the only elevator in the entire Green Tower that can go directly to the top of the tower. Lin Yun took the pass in the name of the Strategy Bureau's affairs, which led to the current scene.

Next, the two people's target was the top floor of this landmark building in Fangting City.

As for why they came here, and why Lin Yun accompanied them alone, the reason was naturally the word that Mu Baihe just said -

The King's Gate.

This is a long-standing rumor among magical girls. It is also impossible to verify when it started. However, as far as Lin Yun himself knows, this rumor was already circulating among magical girls when he was still a student.

The rumor specifically says: It is said that there is a door called "The Gate of Ascension" in this world. Anyone who walks through that door and is recognized by it can become "King".

This short sentence is all the content of the rumor. As for what exactly a "king" is, why one must become a "king", and whether this rumor is disrespectful to Her Majesty the Queen, these are not issues that an ordinary magical girl needs to think about.

There was no beginning or end, no details, no witnesses, and even the word "boring" would be too gentle to describe this rumor. So although the existence of the "King's Gate" has been circulated among magical girls for many years, no one has ever really taken it seriously.

Even with the change of generations, and because the content of the rumors was too boring, many of the new generation of magical girls had never heard of this term. Even Lin Yun himself had forgotten it in some corner of his memory. If Mu Lily hadn't mentioned it, he would probably never have taken the initiative to recall it.

It was for this reason that earlier in the Strategy Bureau, when Mu Baihe repeatedly emphasized, "I can tell it, but you are not allowed to tell anyone else," and "I don't believe your verbal promise, you have to write a written agreement," and then uttered these words, even though Lin Yun tried very hard to control his facial expression, he could not stop the look of suspicion from spilling out.

"You mean, this so-called 'Gate to Kinghood' now exists in Fangting City?"

Lin Yun reorganized Mu Baili's fragmented expression and tried to understand the intention behind her words. He patiently wrote two notes in the notebook in front of him: "Who told you that?"

"Of course he's my friend." Mu Baili answered confidently.

"Who is your friend?"

"The other magical girls I met online, what's going on?"

"Why are you so sure what they say is true?"

"Because my friend told me that her friend's friend's sister's father's colleague knew the big fairy in the garden..."

To be honest, if Mu Lily was not Margaret's team member, but a strange magical girl who came from nowhere, Lin Yun would probably have turned around and left, waiting for her teammates to come and pick her up.

According to Mu Baili herself, in the two months since she came to Fangting City, she had spent all her funds on a carpet search for such a rumor, but she had gained nothing. To make matters worse, her teammates suddenly decided to leave Fangting City yesterday and insisted on taking her with them, so she became bold and made up her mind to go to the Strategy Bureau to look for relevant information.

Also, because Mu Baihe carried out the entire thing in secret, and was only thinking about monopolizing the "Gate to the King", and did not want others to know the truth, she finally chose the worst decision of "sneaking into the Strategy Bureau alone".

Then, she was caught by the security department of the Strategy Bureau because she was captured by the camera, and was brought here because she almost destroyed a lot of important information when she tried to use the magic costume to escape.

The whole process makes people want to sigh.

"So, why do you think that this rumor has been circulating for so long, why hasn't anyone else found your so-called 'Gate to Kingship' in Fangting City?" Lin Yun asked Mu Baili helplessly.

"That's because I'm a magical girl, of course. I'm better than the average magician!" Mu Lily answered confidently.

As for whether she is really more powerful than ordinary magicians, considering that she was arrested by the Security Department of the Strategy Bureau, Lin Yun would put a big question mark on this conclusion in his heart.

"What about your so-called 'friends'? Didn't you say they were also magical girls? Why don't they come to you themselves?" Lin Yun continued to ask.

"You don't understand this? Of course, it's because I'm on my way to Fangting City, so they gave me this important task." Mu Baili replied while curling her hair with her fingers: "They even specially raised some funds for me."

"Give you funding? Oh, so you said you have used up all your funds. What exactly did you use them for?" Lin Yun looked up at her, holding a pen and paper.

"Uncle, you are so annoying. You have to ask girls all kinds of questions, and always ask personal questions. Do you really have feelings for me?"

"What is called……"

Lin Yun was almost amused by her: "This is a routine investigation. I have a wife and children. I am not interested in a little girl like you."

"Hmph? I'll just take that as a given then."

Mu Baihe had an expression that said, "I see the truth, but I won't tell you." She propped up her cheeks and said, "You asked about the money. Of course, I used it to buy snacks and clothes. What else can I use it for?"

Lin Yun couldn't tell whether her mission was important or not, but she did see that her group of sisters must have been wronged.

At the end of the inquiry, out of respect for the other party's courage to enter the Strategy Bureau, Lin Yun decided to help her and check the relevant records of "Gate to the King" in Fangting City.

Regardless of whether the rumors are true or false, and whether useful information can be found, at least a relatively accurate answer can be obtained, so that the little guy Mu Baihe can go home with his teammates in peace of mind.

Lin Yun was originally pessimistic about whether this action could get the corresponding results, because he did not think that the source of information from Mu Baili was credible at all, and it was very likely just a rumor among a group of children.

But the truth was far beyond his expectations.

Using the director's authority to unlock the entire database of the Strategy Bureau, Lin Yun continued to look through the contents of the data. After flipping through the records to a few decades ago, he actually found some records that were somewhat specious.

The source of the record is the [Fangting City Green Tower Observation Deck Project] file. In these files, Lin Yun discovered that the Strategy Bureau undertook part of the construction work of this project, and one of its main purposes seemed to be to search for the existence of "something". A considerable part of the content in the file pointed to the connection with the magic kingdom. It seemed that the Green Tower itself had limited participation from the kingdom, and even left something on the top floor of the Green Tower.

As for that "something", because of the involvement of the country, the Strategy Bureau at that time did not leave too detailed description in the documents, and even the real name was not left, but only a pseudonym was used.

This alias is called "door".

So, the two of them made this trip to the Green Tower.

This kind of thing was not originally the responsibility of Director Lin Yun to go out in person, but considering that Mu Baili was a magical girl from another city after all, there was no liaison officer in the Fangting City Strategy Bureau who could communicate with her normally. Only he, the director, had the authority to temporarily connect with the magical girl, so it became a two-person trip for him and Mu Baili.

In addition, the fact that this matter actually involved the state side made Lin Yun quite interested, and he thought it necessary to take a look in person.

Although it is a tourist attraction open to the public, the top floor of the Green Tower is not open to tourists. Because there are many important equipment on the top floor, as well as the city's famous searchlight, the stairs leading to the top floor are usually kept closed to the public, and there is only one employee elevator in the entire Green Tower that can lead to the top floor.

Of course, for Lin Yun, the director of the Strategy Bureau, this blockade was meaningless. It was just a phone call, and when he arrived, someone would hand him a pass to the inside of the Green Tower.

Then, the two of them stood in the elevator leading to the top floor.

"Ah!" In the silent elevator, Mu Baihe suddenly let out a short cry of surprise.

Lin Yun looked in the direction of the voice and saw her covering her ears, leaning against the inner wall of the elevator, with a look of fear on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, reaching for the Heart Gem in his pocket, trying to sense if there were any unusual magical fluctuations around him.

“Ears…ears!”

However, Mu Lily pointed at her ears in panic: "My ears exploded!"

"ear?"

Lin Yun frowned and pondered for a moment before he understood what the other party was talking about. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: "Oh, you are talking about this, it's the air pressure. It's not your ears that have a problem."

"Air pressure? But my ears hurt."

Mu Baihe covered her head and said, "Could it be that? The Gate of Ascension is rejecting my approach..."

"Pinch your nose, close your mouth, and blow air."

Interrupting her words, Lin Yun pinched his nose as a demonstration, raised his head, and motioned Mu Baihe to follow him: "Like this, exhale slowly."

"Hmm? Hmm."

Mu Baihe followed his example and kept her mouth shut for a long time before finally letting go of his hand:

"Hey, really, it doesn't hurt anymore! You are so awesome, uncle!"

"It's just a little common sense. Even if I don't tell you, you will learn it from somewhere else one day." Lin Yun stared at the electronic screen above the button. "If you want to say it's 'awesome', then the predecessors who summed up these methods are more amazing."

"Really?" Mu Baihe blinked and clenched her hands slightly beside her cheeks: "But the person who invented this method can't save me now. To me, you are more powerful, uncle, who happened to help me. You can be more proud."

"...Where did you learn these nonsense?" Lin Yun looked away again and glanced at her helplessly.

"This is my original work. Any plagiarism will be prosecuted." Mu Baili was very proud.

The elevator rose to the top floor in this rather strange atmosphere.

Lin Yun walked out of the elevator and looked around. The outside was a much smaller elevator room than the first floor. Perhaps because it did not need to receive tourists, the interior decoration was much simpler than the luxurious style of the first floor. He could even see mottled rust on the door frame leading to the rooftop. It seemed that after the Green Tower was built decades ago, there had been no extra maintenance here.

Holding the Heart Gem in his pocket, Lin Yun walked out of the elevator slowly. He felt that the sun was particularly dazzling and the cold wind was particularly biting. The temperature at the top of the tower, which was a thousand meters high, was much lower than that on the ground. Even through a coat, he could still feel the coldness penetrating his body.

"Wow! So beautiful!"

Before he could see the furnishings around him clearly, he heard Mu Baihe's exclamation. He saw that the girl had already run to the edge of the rooftop, stood by the railing, and looked down: "You can see the whole city from here!"

"Be careful."

After subconsciously giving the other party a hint, Lin Yun walked up to her, squinted his eyes, and looked down from the same angle. He suddenly felt dizzy.

The entire Fangting City was now within his sight. Because it was so high, the buildings on the ground had become clusters of buildings, embedded between the dense roads, like a chessboard. Moving his eyes forward, he could even stand here and see the city's protective net in the distant sky, as well as a gray-yellow wasteland in the distance.

It is worthy of being called an “observation tower”.

He thought silently in his heart, standing in the cold wind, quietly looking down at the city below him. After a long time, he patted Mu Baili's shoulder and turned around: "Let's go when you've seen enough. We didn't come here just to see the scenery."

On the rooftop of the Green Tower, the searchlight that illuminates half of the city was right behind the two of them, standing on a steel support that was more than ten meters high.

Just now, Lin Yun felt a fleeting fluctuation of magical power, and the source of the fluctuation seemed to be the searchlight.

He secretly used magic to search the entire rooftop of the Green Tower and found that everything else was ordinary, with only the searchlight having a faint magical fluctuation.

There is no doubt that what the Strategy Bureau and the Country left here decades ago in their search for the "door" is there.

Lin Yun walked up the scaffolding steps with a slight sound, holding onto the iron bar at the side, and climbed up carefully using his hands and feet. Before long, he felt his pace slow down a little.

It's a barrier.

He was acutely aware of this.

The purpose of this barrier does not seem to be to block other people's steps, because the magic power inside it does not have any repulsiveness to the outside, and its nature is also quite mild, as if it is merely maintaining a certain magical balance.

Realizing that the answer might be right in front of him, Lin Yun quickened his pace, climbed up in two steps at a time, then followed the magic fluctuations to bypass the searchlight and found what he had sensed earlier behind it.

——A piece of slightly yellowed white paper was posted behind the searchlight. Black Favor runes were written on the four corners of the white paper, and some words were also printed on the paper.

Lin Yun recognized this kind of white paper.

This is a national product called "Automatic Secretary". The product itself is just a blank piece of paper, but according to the instructions given by the user, the automatic secretary can independently write what the user wants on the paper.

This commodity is neither rare nor expensive, and its value is about the same as a paper book in the material world. If it is to be regarded as the "treasure" of this treasure hunt, it is obviously not qualified.

Perhaps, the only thing that has value is what is written on this piece of paper.

Thinking of this, Lin Yun reached out and peeled off the white paper. After taking a closer look, he found that the densely packed words on it seemed to be some kind of record:

[Queen's calendar year 1955, detected fluctuations 0 times, oscillations 0 times, resonances 0 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

[Queen's calendar year 1956, detected fluctuations 0 times, oscillations 0 times, resonances 0 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

……

[Queen's calendar year 1963, detected fluctuations 1 times, oscillations 0 times, resonances 1 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

[Queen's calendar year 1964, detected fluctuations 0 times, oscillations 0 times, resonances 1 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

……

[Queen's calendar year 1978, detected fluctuations 0 times, oscillations 1 times, resonances 1 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

[Queen's calendar year 1979, detected fluctuations 0 times, oscillations 0 times, resonances 1 times, the fluctuation frequency is...]

All the records above finally stopped at "Queen's Calendar 1980".

According to the national calendar, Lin Yun is now in the year 2000 of the Queen's calendar. In other words, this automatic notebook lost its effectiveness 20 years ago.

As for what was recorded above, Lin Yun had not studied it, so he could not understand it, but he did not care because he knew that there were others who could understand it.

After getting off the stand, Lin Yun turned the white paper over and over in his hands to study it, confirming that there was nothing special about its material and that it did not record any other hidden content. Even the magic circuit in the paper had long been ineffective. He then handed it to Mu Baili without any reluctance.

He had already written down what was written on the paper, but he didn't care much about the paper itself.

This behavior made Mu Lily's eyes widen.

"What do you mean, gave it to me?" she asked in disbelief.

"Well, here it is." Lin Yun shook the white paper: "I have checked it, it is just an ordinary piece of paper, not a dangerous item, you can take it."

"No, it's not a matter of dangerous goods, right?"

Mu Baihe took the automatic notebook from Lin Yun's hand in a daze: "This is the clue to the Gate of Ascension? It's very valuable, right?"

"I know, so I wrote down what was written there." Lin Yun nodded.

"What about this piece of paper? Maybe it's some treasure?"

Mu Lily also shook the paper in her hand: "What if there is a treasure map, a lost spell, a portable grandmother or something like that..."

"That's your business too."

Lin Yun did not comment: "After all, you also said that this is your encounter."

"I said I did... No, that's not right? Uncle, how do you know I said such a thing?"

Mu Baili was even more surprised: "I didn't tell you?"

"Who knows? Maybe I just mixed it up."

Lin Yun tightened his coat and walked towards the elevator not far away: "Let's go, it's too cold outside."

"No, no, no, you must have known it from somewhere! Uncle, you really are following me secretly, right?"

Mu Baihe finally reacted, clutching the paper, and ran after Lin Yun: "It's not too late for you to confess now, it's okay, after all, for a cute girl like me, it's normal to have some improper thoughts."

"I've already told you, don't overthink it."

"But you're making it hard for me to have any wild thoughts! You're so good to me, do you really want nothing?"

"...I don't think I've done anything good for you, so you should stop being so touched."

Lin Yun sighed: "I am from the Strategy Bureau, you are a magical girl, and what I do is my job."

"But I'm obviously not from Fangting City?"

"Whatever. It doesn't matter."

"A trait like tsundere wouldn't be cute in an uncle, right?" Mu Baili ran forward a few steps, bent down, raised her head and looked at Lin Yun.

"Stop talking nonsense." Lin Yun was shocked.

"So it seems that my previous opinion was really wrong? Uncle, you are really a good person." Mu Baihe straightened up again.

"I told you already, I'm just passing by." Lin Yun sighed.

"Well, let me treat it as an apology and treat you to lunch!"

"Are you rich?"

"No."

"So how are you going to invite me?"

"Come to our magical girl base. I'll ask our captain to cook for you."

"...Thank you very much."

"How about it? Are you coming?"

"Don't go."

"How could it be... This is lunch made by a beautiful magical girl. Besides, our captain is single, beautiful, and even a big star. Uncle, you will definitely like it."

"Forget it. I have work to do."

"It turns out that the affairs of the Strategy Bureau are so busy."

"Yes, the Strategy Bureau is very busy."

"So I have to go back alone?"

"Let me take you there. It's too cold to walk back."

"Oh! Heartwarming words! My favorability towards you has increased again, uncle! But I'm still a minor, so even if my favorability has increased, some things are still not allowed."

"Oh."

……

"Uncle."

"Ok?"

"Thank you. I'm sorry about what happened in Baian City before."

"Ah."

(End of this chapter)