Boundary Tides

“Dad~~ My good daddy~~ Dad?… Where are you? Where the hell are you!?”

Returning home, Luo Zining was looking for a certain old geezer to vent her exhaustion on, but when she couldn’t find him, her tone grew progressively more irritable.

He wasn’t here!

She waited sullenly at the front door like a demon.

In a daze, the invitation she had received yesterday came to mind again.

After suppressing the dimensional beasts that had crossed the pass yesterday, she received an invitation from the Jiuming Sea branch of the Magical Alliance, asking her to become one of their members.

One had to know, the Jiuming Sea branch ranked very high among all the branches of the Magical Alliance.

Receiving an invitation from the Jiuming Sea branch meant that her strength as a magical girl had been officially recognized.

Of course, accepting the invitation would also require many sacrifices. Although she could reasonably apply to a university in the Jiuming Sea area after the college entrance exams this year, but…

Trill-rill-rill…

Luo Zining took out her phone. It was her aunt, Ji Yue.

“Hello? Auntie.”

“Zining, I’ve heard about it. Don’t rush into this. It’s not like you have to go right away. You still need to undergo more training as a rookie, you understand?”

“Mhm, I know, Auntie.”

“As long as you know. I’m busy over here. If you need anything, talk to me first!”

It seemed Ji Yue had taken time out of her busy schedule to call, and she hung up quickly.

“Sigh…” Luo Zining looked up and sighed.

At times like this, she really wished she could get some useful advice.

What would the old geezer say?

For some reason, Luo Zining suddenly found herself desperately hoping that Luo You could offer some advice rich with life philosophy.

Just then, the sound of a key in the lock came from the door.

“Sigh, I’ll just make something simple to eat… Huh! You’re back too?”

“Mhm.”

Luo You entered, closed the door, and turned around to face Luo Zining’s defiant expression.

“Math competition over?”

“It’s over.”

“How’d you do?”

“Waiting on results.”

“Alright, I’ll order takeout.”

At the dinner table, Luo Zining suddenly brought something up with Luo You.

“Dad, I have an English competition coming up. I need to go away for training, probably for a week. I’m leaving this afternoon.”

Luo You’s mouth twitched when she heard that.

‘English after math, is it? Is Chinese next?’

‘By the way, do they even have competitions for Chinese?’

Knowing this was about her magical girl duties, Luo You couldn’t be bothered to pursue it and said nonchalantly, “Mhm, no problem. Go ahead.”

“…”

Luo You looked up and saw her daughter staring at her with dissatisfaction. She asked, “What else? Oh! How much is the training fee? I’ll give it to you.”

“That’s not the problem! (slams chopsticks down)”

“…Hope you get good results? (chews)”

“Forget it! It’s nothing!” Luo Zining clicked her tongue, thinking that asking this old geezer for good advice was indeed a lost cause!

‘An English competition right after a math one, being away for so many days, and he doesn’t even bother to ask for any details?’

‘With emotional intelligence like yours, if you ever got married, your wife could be called out for “urgent meetings” by someone else every other day, and you’d still be at home, happily helping your neighbor pay for his hotel room!’

With incredible speed, Luo Zining shoveled all the good dishes in front of her into her mouth, leaving Luo You with nothing but a plate to lick.

Yare yare, honestly… Luo You shook her head.

‘I really can’t read the mind of a teenage daughter. It’s not like I’ve been messing around outside recently, have I?’

Although, she had been chatting quite heatedly with Liyun lately.

After their last meeting, Liyun had added her on WeChat and would frequently ask her for guidance.

The thing Liyun asked for Luo You’s help with the most was to have conversations with her using Elera’s provocatively bratty tone, saying it would help build her resistance for when she met the real Elera in the future.

After a few back-and-forths, the voice messages Luo You had sent her over the past few days could probably be compiled and sold as an ‘Insolent Brat ASMR’ collection.

‘Still, Zining has been deployed a bit too frequently lately. Those guys at the Magical Alliance aren’t planning on sending her to the front lines, are they?’ Luo You wondered.

She couldn’t just ignore it.

Staying at home wasn’t a solution either. She might as well pay a visit to Xue and, while she was at it, complete the final session of her hypnotic brainwashing.

“Mmph, mmph!”

“Hey! Stop squirming!”

In the room, Xue broke free from Luo You’s hypnotic suggestion and began to jump around restlessly.

Luo You caught her again. The usually docile Xue actually managed to struggle free, which deeply surprised her.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Mmm… I just can’t seem to calm down!”

Xue was like a cat in a bath, just had to keep moving! It made Luo You want to smack her on the butt.

“Is it that… that really evil scent you mentioned?”

“Mhm, it’s getting stronger!”

Looking at it this way, it seemed the danger from the Sea of Realms hadn’t been contained and was still threatening the mainland.

Luo You pinched her cheeks. “You were a Plunder-Light class beast once. Why are you jumping around like this?”

“This smell is disgusting! It makes me want to puke!”

“Then get used to it.”

“Impossible!”

“No ‘impossible’!”

Luo You carried her to the sofa. “Come on, watch some TV with me. Forget about that smell for a while.”

Beep—

“According to an official report, a ‘Tidal Phenomenon’ is expected to occur in the Sea of Realms soon. The Sea of Realms Observatory predicts it to be a Level One event. The frequency of dimensional beasts crossing the pass will increase slightly. All citizens are advised to be prepared to evacuate at any time.”

Listening to the news anchor’s report, Luo You was speechless.

The Tidal Phenomenon of the Sea of Realms was just like the ebb and flow of ocean tides.

During the ebb tide, not many dimensional beasts appeared. But once the high tide began, the direction of the tidal flow acted like a beacon, pinpointing Earth’s location—the worst-case scenario.

Five years ago, there was a high tide period, a Level Seven, the highest ever recorded by humanity. A massive number of dimensional beasts from the depths of the Sea of Realms followed the tidal flow to Earth. Even the super-large Star Rings were of little use, and the human governments suffered heavy losses.

That tide lasted for more than three years, brought a Plunder-Light class dimensional beast with it, and halted the war between the Aberrant Organization and the Magical Alliance.

“Is it really just a Level One?”

Luo You gave a playful smile. In situations like this, you just had to multiply the officially reported severity by ten to get the right idea.

It was at least a Level Two.

Luo You opened her computer, went to an underworld website, and found the ‘Free Consultation’ section. It usually published information known to most people, only charging when one accessed truly rare content.

Coincidentally, Luo You was one of the fish that had slipped through the net of ‘most people’.

“Hmm-hmm… Let’s have a look-see… Multiple areas of the Sea of Realms Pass have been successively attacked by dimensional beasts, the Wangyue-class Super-large Star Ring has been damaged… Wow~ This is really…”

Luo You wondered if she should go take a look when the time came.

If she had time, she definitely would.

In fact, she had time right now. That’s right, she was extremely, incredibly idle.

She was like an empty-nester coach on the second floor of the gym, without a single student to train, doing nothing all day. Even Luo You, who usually loved to slack off, was getting a little restless.

Just yesterday, she had asked the manager to assign her more students, but the manager had dismissed her with a single sentence.

—”If I give you more students now, what if a big shot happens to come and request you by na— sorry, wrong example. I mean, what if a large group of people comes up to the second floor all at once? In short, you need to be on standby at all times, waiting for customers to come and enjoy… to exercise!”

At the time, Luo You couldn’t help but wonder if some big shot was keeping her as their personal plaything.