Chương 67: Roland

The office is spacious and bright, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows offering excellent views of the entire city. The interior furnishings are simple yet elegant, revealing a calm and sophisticated atmosphere.

In the center of the room stood a solid wood desk, and an elderly man, who looked to be in his early sixties, sat in front of it. He wore sunglasses, his silver hair was neatly combed, and he had a warm smile on his face.

As the door to the room opened, the old man raised his head and "looked" toward the doorway. His movements carried a subtle sluggishness that was different from that of ordinary people, yet they were unusually accurate.

As she entered the room, Starfrost detected a faint but undeniable fluctuation of magical energy in her magical perception.

The fluctuation seemed to be emanating from the old man, but it was different from the pure magic power of the magical girl. It was more like some kind of... borrowed power, which made her feel a little confused.

"Haha, come in, Miss Magical Girl." The old man spoke first, his voice gentle and approachable, like a long-lost elder greeting a junior.

"Did you sense anything?"

Xing Shuang's heart skipped a beat. The other party seemed to have sensed her magical perception. Without hesitation or hiding her doubts, she asked directly, "You... can't see anything?"

The old man smiled slightly, took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of eyes that, though cloudy, still shone with a gentle light.

"Yes, I've been blind for a long time," he answered frankly, his tone calm, as if he were recounting something perfectly ordinary.

"But fortunately, I possess some magical affinity," he continued.

"With the help of a kind magical girl, I constructed a simple spell that made my other senses more acute."

"This allows me to 'see' things around me by sensing subtle changes in my surroundings, just like a bat."

He paused, then put his sunglasses back on: "Although there are still many inconveniences, at least it doesn't affect my ability to perform the job of Director of the Bureau of Extraordinary Events, and I can better serve the magical girls."

Roland—as he referred to himself in the following conversation—brought the conversation back to Starfrost.

"There's not much to dig into about this old man's story. Let's talk about you instead." Roland's smile carried a genuine kindness.

"Welcome, Miss Starfrost."

He leaned forward slightly, his tone carrying a secret sense of satisfaction: "It's been over two months since any new magical girls have appeared in this city."

Xing Shuang's heart skipped a beat. Did this confirm her suspicions about the "disappearance"? But she didn't say it directly, instead asking, "Is this time interval... very long?"

Roland's smile faded slightly, as if he was carefully choosing his words. He hesitated for a moment before finally replying, "No, the frequency of magical girls appearing has always been rather random."

"Is that so..." Xing Shuang silently reviewed the situation in her mind.

She knew that, under normal circumstances, magical girls would bring the energy cores they killed to the Bureau of Extraordinary Events in exchange for rewards, which was proof of their activity.

If the magical girl who had been active all along hadn't appeared for a long time, the observant director would definitely have sensed something was amiss, but the other party's response seemed perfectly "normal," as if they hadn't noticed anything unusual.

It's possible he's hiding something, but it's also possible her previous assumptions based on "disappearance" and "lateness" were wrong.

She still didn't fully trust the old man in front of her, so instead of pointing out her suspicions, she steered the conversation back on track.

"The receptionist just told me that you would explain to me about magical girls and the Bureau of Extraordinary Events," Starfrost said.

"Yes, what would you like to know?" Roland nodded and gestured for her to sit down in the chair at the table.

After sitting down, Xing Shuang took a deep breath and asked the most pressing question in her mind: "I would like to understand in detail the cooperation system between magical girls and the Bureau of Extraordinary Events."

Roland smiled and nodded, then began to speak slowly and deliberately, his voice carrying a sense of historical weight, as if he were telling an ancient story.

"As you probably know, magical girls didn't originate in the human world," Roland said.

"They originated in a pseudo-plane called 'Esmeralda,' which we can call... the Magic Kingdom."

"The war between Esmeralda and the Void lasted for a very long time. They attacked each other, but neither side ever gained a complete advantage."

"Later, forces within the Void Realm attempted to transform the entire human world into a Void Realm, turning it into a force to attack Esmeralda. To avoid this and to fight against a common enemy, Esmeralda formed an alliance with humanity."

"They sent contracted spirits to the human world to form contracts with girls who had a high degree of magical compatibility, turning them into magical girls to deal with the infiltration of the Void into the human world."

"Humans, on the other hand, need to provide logistical support for these magical girls fighting in foreign lands, help them conceal their identities, and handle the aftermath... The Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs was born in this context."

Xing Shuang listened silently. This information answered some of her questions about the origins of magical girls and the duties of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs. She thought of Ruby, the contracted spirit of Ruri, and about magical affinity and contracts. Everything seemed to make sense.

"I'm somewhat familiar with the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Intelligence's assistance mechanism," Starfrost continued, "How exactly does this system work?"

Roland explained, "Every magical girl who registers with the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs receives a special signal receiving device from us."

"Once the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs detects the infiltration from the Void Realm, it will use this device to send a distress signal to the magical girls in the city, indicating the location of the infiltration and the initial assessment of its scale."

Upon hearing this, Xing Shuang's doubts about "surveillance" resurfaced, as this seemed to contradict the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs' principle of protecting the magical girl's identity.

"Such a device..." she carefully chose her words, "Could it have surveillance capabilities? For example... revealing the daily routines of magical girls, thereby deducing their true identities?"

When Roland heard the question, he laughed again, this time with a knowing and helpless expression, as if he had been asked this question countless times.

"Many magical girls have this worry, which is only natural," Roland said.

"But please rest assured, this is impossible. Once the magical girls obtain the receiving device, they only need to store it in their own 'Tears of the Heart'."

"Human creations have no ability to allow signals to pass through the magical barrier of the Heart's Tear, whether it's electromagnetic waves or anything else; it's a completely different system."

"Then..." Xing Shuang blurted out, then suddenly stopped.

"If that's the case, how could the magical girls receive the distress signal?" She asked herself this question, and almost at the same time, she already guessed the answer.

Roland seemed to have also considered Xingshuang's guess, and he nodded with a smile: "You guessed right, the core component of this device comes from Esmeralda."

"Only through the core components from there can the signal receiving device we manufactured be able to receive the distress call that penetrates the magic barrier of the Heart's Tear."

"So..." Starfrost took a deep breath and stated the conclusion she had drawn from this information, "The connection between the Bureau of Extraordinary Events and the magical girls... is completely one-way."

"That's exactly right," Roland affirmed.

Hearing this affirmative answer, some of Xing Shuang's doubts dissipated a little, but at the same time, new confusion arose.

If the communication is completely one-way, and if the Bureau of Extraordinary Events cannot track the magical girls' locations, then the previous speculations—that the Bureau of Extraordinary Events deliberately delayed sending distress signals to specific targets, or that it was aware of the recent decrease in the number of magical girls—seem to be wrong.

The Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs might not be hiding any conspiracy as she imagined. They are just doing their best to fulfill their duties and provide logistical support to the magical girls, but because of this one-way communication, they may not be able to grasp their true situation.

Xing Shuang took a deep breath, feeling as if she were one step closer to the truth, but at the same time she realized that she needed to know more. She glanced at Roland, the blind old man, who seemed much more honest than she had imagined.

"So," she gathered her thoughts and continued gathering information, "besides providing logistical support, what other responsibilities does the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Intelligence have? For example... what is the purpose of the recovered Void Beast energy cores?"

Roland smiled and nodded, his tone becoming more serious: "This... brings us to another important responsibility of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs, besides providing logistical support."