008 Good Armpits

"Haa..."

Sitting at his workstation, Mo Bai let out a yawn. He was so sleepy. Having been nagged by his adorable younger sister all night, and struggling to get any decent sleep due to the wound on his leg, he still had to be up by nine in the morning for work. His debuffs were fully stacked.

Fortunately, thanks to his own subtle suggestions, Mo Mo had already convinced herself that the mess at home was caused by his reckless playing with gunpowder, and his wound hadn't been discovered. It was a complete victory.

The only issue was that finger—the one he didn't know the purpose of. It was just like Sukuna's finger; nothing could destroy it. He had tried knives, fire, hammers, potato mines... he’d tried everything he could think of, short of buying a hydraulic press. Since the finger showed no signs of movement, he decided to ignore it for now, keeping it in the inner pocket of his jacket.

Even though he knew his sister wasn't an ordinary person—given her status as a "Magical Girl Killer"—he had an instinctive desire to keep these troublesome matters away from her. All his sister needed to do was come home every day to see his smiling face. Such a peaceful daily life was exactly what she deserved. He didn't want to see her wearing a pained expression.

Well, he really wasn't a "sister complex" case. Besides, given the circumstances, his sister was likely a villain. Until he knew the full details, he was truly afraid to speak up. If something happened—something no one wanted to see—that would be disastrous.

"What’s wrong, Brother Bai? You look like your soul has been drained. Did you pull another all-nighter?"

Someone nudged Mo Bai’s back with their elbow. He turned around to see a cat-eared maid wearing a miniskirt and white over-the-knee socks. She smiled brightly and handed him a lollipop.

"Here, durian flavor. The manager gave them out, and I specifically picked this one for you."

Behind her skirt, a white cat tail tied with a ribbon swayed back and forth.

"Well, I really appreciate that."

Mo Bai took the lollipop. The cat-eared maid was his colleague, Xie Zijun. Yes, a colleague. Mo Bai worked at a maid café, and yesterday had been his day off. Of course, Mo Bai definitely... well, he wasn't a maid. He was the butler and security guard. After all, a maid café is full of cute, young maid girls; if someone were to harbor malicious intent, Mo Bai would have to step in.

Mo Bai still remembered that night a month ago, around 11 PM, when a pervert wearing nothing but a dress shirt and shoes had walked straight toward their café. The scene was terrifying, just like triggering a boss fight in a Souls-like game. Mo Bai could practically hear the background music playing in his head.

To keep the guy from offending the eyes of the maids, Mo Bai had immediately donned his "failed-man" suit, transformed into a masked hero, and chased the creep away with a pair of bolt cutters. For some reason, rumors later spread on the streets about a pervert in a bodysuit who appeared at night, wielding an unknown weapon and enjoying "taking away" people's dignity. Mo Bai had spent several days patrolling the area to confirm it was just a rumor.

It was ten o'clock now, and the maid café was open for business. The work consisted of nothing more than calling out to customers as they entered: "Okaerinasai, Goshujin-sama." Then, they would proceed to recommend the overpriced, "delicious" maid nutrition sets to the clueless nerds.

Finally, they would offer a fake air kiss to the nerds and chant a few "spells of love," and that was it. Making money from nerds was just too easy. As the butler and security guard of the café, having listened to the maids complain about the customers during their downtime every day, he no longer had any expectations for such a place.

Still, it wouldn't be bad if he could get Mo Mo to cosplay as a maid one day and say "Okaerinasai, Goshujin-sama" to him... Hehehe.

Lunchtime arrived. A "closed for lunch" sign was hung on the door. Their staff meal was, naturally, the same overpriced "delicious" maid nutrition set as the customers.

"Oh my, oh my, finally a lunch break. The nerds lately have been making more and more demands. One of them even asked me to call him 'Onii-chan'..."

Xie Zijun complained as she stirred her curry, sitting across from Mo Bai. "Hey, Brother Bai, I remember you have a younger sister, right?"

"Do all you nerds like having beautiful girls call you 'Onii-chan'?"

Caught in the crossfire, Mo Bai lifted his half-lidded, dead-fish eyes. "Nerd? What nerd? I’m not a nerd."

"Don't go around saying that. I'll sue you for slander."

Xie Zijun retorted, "Why don't you look at your phone case before you talk?"

"Phone case?" Mo Bai looked at the Miku blue-and-white bowl pattern on it. "That's the Princess, what's wrong with that?"

Xie Zijun: "...Nothing, nothing at all."

"As long as you're happy, Brother Bai."

"Speaking of which," Mo Bai looked at Xie Zijun’s head. "I haven't seen you for a single day, and suddenly you've become a 'Genshin-trash'?"

"You started playing *Genshin Impact*?"

In Mo Bai's view, several labels were floating above Xie Zijun's head. He identified the white [Genshin-trash] tag at a glance.

"Huh? No, I didn't?" Xie Zijun looked confused. "I don't play games. I just tried on a cosplay outfit for a character yesterday."

"It was a purple character wearing black stockings. It was so weird; she used her hair to tie up a pair of cat ears. Her name was, uh..."

"Keqing."

"Oh right, Keqing..." Xie Zijun realized something was off halfway through and squinted at Mo Bai. "Brother Bai, how are you so familiar with this?"

"Don't worry about the details."

Mo Bai chewed a spoonful of curry rice and fell into deep thought. She hadn't played *Genshin*, but just cosplaying a character made her a "Genshin-trash"? That seemed a bit too...

Hmm? Wait, actually, that seemed quite reasonable, didn't it?

Never mind then. It was worth noting that Xie Zijun didn't have a "maid" tag on her head. Combined with his observations over the past two days, it seemed that one's job did not count as a "tag." Hobbies resulted in tags, but working as one did not—that seemed to be the logic. Race wasn't a tag either, and things that weren't human had no visible tags at all.

Wait, if he followed that logic...

Mo Bai suddenly broke into a cold sweat. Then, his sister Mo Mo’s purple [Magical Girl Killer] tag...

She really liked killing!

No, he absolutely couldn't let Mo Mo know about Shen Qiqi's existence. Mo Bai ate a few more mouthfuls of rice to calm his nerves. Honestly, even though this stuff was expensive, it was actually quite tasty—plenty of meat and soup, and with cute maids fluttering around you, it was decent value for those who were into this sort of thing. Some people even bought lifetime memberships.

"Brother Bai, what's wrong?" Xie Zijun was eating when she suddenly reached out to touch Mo Bai’s forehead. "Your expression is turning purple and white. Do you have a fever?"

"Do you need me to ask the manager to let you take the rest of the day off?"

Looking at Xie Zijun's concerned eyes, Mo Bai slowly swallowed his food and looked away.

"Little Xie."

"Yeah?"

"I can see your armpit."

Mo Bai gave a thumbs-up. "Nice armpit!"

Xie Zijun: "!"

She retracted her hand as if electrocuted, covered the opening of her clothes, and glared at Mo Bai with an annoyed expression. "Pervert!"

"You total pervert!"

"You'll die if you don't tease me, won't you?"

"I was actually worried about you!"

"Alright, alright, thank you for your concern, Maid-san~"

Mo Bai picked up his tray and placed it in the kitchen sink. "I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine."

"By the way, tell the manager that my hemorrhoids have flared up and I need to go to the hospital for surgery."

Xie Zijun: "..."

She looked at the yellow curry in her own dish and gave Mo Bai a resentful look. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? You're definitely doing this on purpose?!"

"Also, how many times have you used the hemorrhoid excuse? Can't you come up with something else?"

"Then let's go with appendicitis."

Mo Bai ignored the pain in his leg and walked quickly out of the maid café.

Just now, when Xie Zijun touched his head, he hadn't just seen her armpit—he had also seen Shen Qiqi. The magical girl who had escaped from his house. She was walking against the crowd, heading toward the isolated building.