Shen Xuan looked at Luo Xiaoxue, then glanced down at the gleaming military entrenching tool in his own hand.
Could this ordinary entrenching tool possess some special quality even he wasn't aware of?
Umm... he couldn't see it.
"Alright, stop messing around. Hurry up and take this entrenching tool and come with me." Too lazy to guess the little girl's thoughts, Shen Xuan produced a slightly smaller shovel and handed it to her.
Luo Xiaoxue: "???"
She stared at the thing in her hands. Goodness gracious, it really was a shovel?!
At that moment, refined little lady though she was, Luo Xiaoxue felt a powerful urge to unleash a string of curses.
Damn it, was this jerk treating her like a beasts of burden?!
She was a Mage, not some Swordsman with an eight-pack of abs; physical labor was the absolute last thing she was good at!
What's more, he had prepared two shovels, and this second one was exceptionally well-suited to her grip, as if custom-made. All of this made Luo Xiaoxue suspect that Shen Xuan had planned this all along.
Seeing the white-haired loli's fierce little bared-teeth grimace, Shen Xuan suppressed the urge to reach out and pinch her cheeks, and said with a straight face, "Xiaoxue, you need to fix your attitude. Older brother handing this entrenching tool over to you isn't just an important task, it's a supreme and glorious mission!"
Luo Xiaoxue stared at him in utter shock.
Not because she thought Shen Xuan made any sense, but simply because she thought—how could anyone in this world be so brazenly shameless?
"So what on earth are you planning to do?" Cutting straight to the point, Luo Xiaoxue didn't want to bicker with him anymore.
"You'll find out in a moment. Don't worry, it's easy work." Acting all mysterious and giving the little girl no chance to refuse, Shen Xuan scooped her up, shovel and all, and hauled her off.
"I'm not going! I'm not going!" The girl struggled continuously to break free from Shen Xuan's grip, but it was completely useless.
The two of them emerged from the back door of the library, crossed a small patch of wasteland, and arrived at the base of the city wall.
Shen Xuan set Luo Xiaoxue down, and without another word, he found a spot with soft soil that was easy to dig into and started excavating right away!
"Don't just stand there, hurry up and come dig this tunnel with me, big brother!" Shen Xuan hastily called out. A free little laborer—if he let her run off, he'd take a huge loss.
Luo Xiaoxue's face darkened; this jerk really didn't miss a single chance to take advantage of her in every sentence!
"What are you digging a tunnel for? Don't tell me you plan on burying yourself alive? If you'd said so earlier, I guarantee I'd unconditionally support and help you all I could."
Shen Xuan looked surprised. "You know, now that you mention it, I actually was considering that."
Luo Xiaoxue: "..."
Shen Xuan: "Anyway, make it snappy, or it'll be too late!"
Luo Xiaoxue: "Hmph, I won't do it!"
Shen Xuan: "One ice cream, deal or no deal?"
Luo Xiaoxue: "Am I the kind of person who can be bought off with an ice cream? I'd rather die than do it!"
Shen Xuan: "Ten."
Luo Xiaoxue: "Deal!"
Seeing her agree so readily, Shen Xuan suddenly felt like he'd taken a loss.
If he'd known, he would have said five—no, three would have been enough. After all, eating too much ice cream easily upset the stomach; he was only looking out for little Xiaoxue...
The two of them worked at a fast pace, and within a short while, they had dug out a tunnel over a meter deep.
"What on earth are we digging this tunnel for?" Luo Xiaoxue asked, panting for breath, still burning with curiosity.
"Why, to—"
"Boom, boom!"
Before Shen Xuan could finish speaking, a massive sound erupted from the east, resembling a chain of explosions.
Even more terrifying cries of alarm from countless people drifted over from the direction of the street!
"What's going on, what's going on?" Realizing something was wrong, Luo Xiaoxue—whose face was already smudged like a little kitten's—hurriedly poked her small head out from the tunnel to look around, but her view was blocked by the tall library, and she couldn't see a thing.
Immediately afterward, a wave of magical fluctuation swept in from afar, likely generated by the explosion earlier.
Luo Xiaoxue quickly cast an elementary spell that amplified sound, capturing the commotion from the street:
"Oh god! Damn it—are those Slimes? But they seem way too big..."
"How can this be? The army, Lord Liu, and Lord Jin Kela—did they all attack together and still fail to stop the Monster army?!"
"No! Those Slimes are coming this way, run!"
"Help! Wu—glub—"
For a moment, shrieks of terror echoed endlessly.
Listening to the chaos on the street, Luo Xiaoxue was too terrified to speak. Although she had learned plenty about Monsters from books, she had never experienced a genuine Monster invasion, and her mind went entirely blank.
"Get in here and hide!" Shen Xuan grabbed the dazed Luo Xiaoxue and yanked her back into the newly dug tunnel.
The little loli finally snapped out of it and anxiously asked, "There are Monsters invading Winter City, what do we do? Oh right, will Grandpa Librarian and the others be okay?"
"I don't know, but hiding here should be safe." As he spoke, Shen Xuan began shoveling the excavated dirt back to block the entrance.
Watching his actions, the girl bit her lower lip, her gaze conflicted as she seemed to battle the fear in her heart.
In the end, a sense of responsibility overcame her dread.
"No, I'm going out." Luo Xiaoxue suddenly grabbed Shen Xuan's sleeve. Though panic still lingered on her little face, her tone was exceptionally resolute. "Even though I just became a Junior Mage, Monsters are invading Winter City. As a Mage, I have to fight; this is the responsibility and glory of being a Mage!"
Shen Xuan frowned slightly, as if re-evaluating her. After a couple of seconds, he sighed, waved his hand, and said, "Then go ahead. I wouldn't be much help anyway, so I'll just hide here. Oh, and stay safe."
"Okay, Big Brother Shen Xuan, you be careful too." Luo Xiaoxue didn't blame him for his cowardice; instead, she felt it was better this way.
With that, the young girl stopped hesitating, retrieved her staff from her spatial storage, and with a trace of determination, ran toward the direction where the cries for help were coming from.
Clearly just a tiny tot, her figure suddenly seemed unprecedentedly tall.
Watching the little girl's retreating back, Shen Xuan remained silent for a long while.
"I originally didn't want to get involved, but come to think of it, old man Jin Kela might be a bit capitalistic, but he's a decent guy at heart. And as for you, little girl..."
"Even though you always interrupt my work (sleeping), if I couldn't hear you chattering away in my ear anymore, I'd find myself... quite troubled."
The youth muttered to himself, seemingly searching for an excuse to take action.
[System Notification: Does the Host happen to have feelings for Luo Xiaoxue?]
"Cough, cough!" The sudden query from the System inside his mind nearly caused Shen Xuan to choke to his own saliva!
[If you answer "yes", the Host will receive "Romance Manual" Collector's Edition x1. Once mastered, you can effortlessly charm older sisters, lolis, empresses, and princesses alike—truly an essential guidebook for living off a woman; if you answer "no", there is no reward.]
"Shut, shut up! I would never have any ideas about a flat-chested loli!"
Retorting with that, Shen Xuan changed the subject and asked, "By the way, what rank is the Monster leader invading Winter City?"
[A King-rank Slime, with destructive power equivalent to a Super-tier Mage.]
Shen Xuan rubbed his chin. "A Slime King? A single strike with a shovel should take care of it... Still, I need to keep a low profile; I should wrap myself up tightly when I make a move."
He looked up at the sky. "Being too high-profile makes me feel like I might get targeted by some unknowable entities."
System: [...]
Sometimes, it had no idea why it had chosen a Host with such severe persecutory delusions in the first place.