That frequency of mana vibration was below the range of human hearing, but it could be captured by a magic circuit.
It had the exact same structure as the songs of the Sea Race mermaids from her original world.
That race was very rare in her original world as well, active only in the deep sea, so they had little interaction with humans.
What they sang were not songs, but the resonance of the water element.
Beneath the waves, they used their songs to awaken sleeping star-vein ores, heal injured deep-sea creatures, and soothe restless ocean currents on the eve of storms.
She had heard similar songs in her original world; the mermaids of the Sea Race would surface to sing on nights of the full moon.
Every full moon, the Observatory's coastal observation tower would catch their songs drifting from the distant sea. The astronomers on duty would set down their star charts and lean against the windows to listen quietly all night.
But the songs of the Sea Race were not of the healing variety—at least, not in Qiluo's memory.
The songs of the Sea Race possessed the potential to alter the structure of space. The highest-tier mermaids could even use their songs to shift the orbits of stars.
Documents in the Observatory recorded that during the pre-continental calendar era, a mermaid elder had sung on the sea surface for an entire night to stop a falling meteor.
Ultimately, that meteor veered off course outside the atmosphere, scraping past the planet.
Thus, this was no ordinary healing magic. This was a spell formula that used sound waves to interfere with reality.
Yet now, in this other world where no Sea Race existed, a pink-haired idol Magical Girl was singing with the exact same technique described in those records.
Not only did she know how to sing it, but she also hid the healing spell formula within the chorus of a pop song.
This allowed everyone in the livestream to unconsciously receive an extremely gentle soothing of mana.
She herself probably didn't even know what she was doing...
Leaning against the armrest of the sofa, Qiluo watched Meruru sing with her eyes closed on the projected screen.
Meruru was truly using her song to do something whose underlying principles Qiluo understood, yet could not easily put into words.
What kind of coincidence could allow her singing to synchronize with the mermaids of another world to such an extent?
Qiluo opened her eyes, looking at Meruru's profile on the screen.
The song was already on its third verse. A tiny, faint tear glistened at the corner of Meruru's eye, and her tear beauty mark was reflected in a pale silver hue under the stardust light curtain.
Qiluo leaned back against the sofa, her fingers unconsciously tapping out the beat on her knee.
Meruru's singing was not yet that powerful, but it could still make listeners feel, for the few minutes the melody lasted, that their pain was understood.
Meruru's song could probably achieve a similar effect.
It was just that she likely had no idea such a thing was hidden within her singing.
Perhaps it was for the best that she didn't know; knowing might actually prevent her from singing it.
The final note of the chorus slowly dissolved into the air along with the last few piano chords. The livestream fell silent for two beats before the chat started scrolling again, as if someone had hit the play button.
These viewers had no idea they had just experienced an extremely low-intensity healing magic.
All they knew was that Meruru had sung a ballad, and after listening, they felt a bit more at ease, their heavy emotions somewhat lightened.
“Thank you, everyone,” Meruru said, placing the microphone back on its stand and gently dabbing the corner of her eye with the back of her hand.
“I usually don't dare to sing this song, because every time I do, I lose a bit of control over my emotions.”
“That's all for today's livestream. Thank you for spending this special night with me. Good night, and sweet dreams.”
She gave a gentle wave to the camera. The livestream image on the projected screen froze on the frame of her waving, then went dark.
After a few more rounds of “good night” and “see you next week” scrolled by, the active viewer count in the stream began to slowly decline.
Night Sakura collapsed back against the sofa, her arms spread wide as she stared at the ceiling for a moment.
Pulling her arms back, she picked up the can of cola on the coffee table—which had long since lost its chill—and waved it in the air. “Good job, Meruru. And good job to us, too.”
Kohinata leaned her hammer against the sofa armrest, squatting on the floor as she swiped through screenshots of today's livestream statistics.
When she looked up, her eyes still held that stubborn, competitive drive. “Next time, we're going to make the viewers spam ‘good night’ until the chat lags out!”
“Work on stabilizing your hammer technique first,” Amamiya said, lying on the other end of the sofa.
“I didn't hit myself even once today!”
“That's because you didn't demonstrate your hammer technique at all; you just talked the entire time,” Amamiya replied, her eyes half-lidded in sleepiness, a faint curve on her lips.
Kohinata grabbed a cushion from the sofa, preparing to retaliate, but her attention was diverted by Night Sakura picking up the last bag of potato chips from the coffee table.
Qiluo rose from the sofa armrest and walked toward the door.
As she passed Night Sakura, the latter looked up at her. “Leaving?”
“...Yeah.”
The late-night streets were so quiet that only the hum of a vending machine could be heard. She canceled her transformation at the mouth of the alleyway, the warm white light fading from her body and taking with it the last lingering warmth of excitement.
The first thing she did after turning back into Qiluo Tian Gong was let out a yawn.
A wide-mouthed yawn that squeezed a tiny tear of fatigue from the corner of her eye.
Since no one was around to see, she didn't even bother to cover her mouth.
Lightweaver could never do such a thing!
This was the persona Qiluo demanded of herself.
Lightweaver was supposed to be cool and elegant, covering her mouth with a subtle, polite purse of her lips.
Her phone screen lit up with a notification from the Wings of Freedom's group chat.
Night Sakura had sent a screenshot of the livestream data, captioned: “The debut broadcast was a massive success! See you all at the same time next week!”
Qiluo planned to go on a date with her bedding tomorrow. She hadn't consumed much mana, but she felt incredibly tired today.
Tomorrow was Sunday, and she was going to sleep in until she woke up naturally.
No one would be able to drag her out of her cozy blankets for any reason whatsoever.
She wasn't some Magical Girl, nor was she anyone who had to shoulder responsibilities.
She was just a high school girl who needed to catch up on sleep.
Pushing open her apartment door, the warm yellow light of the nightlight cast a soft glow over the entire room.
Kicking off her shoes, she walked over to the window and drew back the curtains, wanting to let the moonlight in.
Instead, she saw that star.
The Eye of the End. No matter which world she was in, it shone with an incredibly piercing glare.
Today, it seemed slightly brighter. Around it was an extremely faint, silver-white halo, its edges pulsing slowly and rhythmically, as if breathing.
“It has already begun,” she said to her reflection in the glass.
Her reflection didn't answer, but her fingers were already moving.
She turned, walked over to the low table, and squatted down. Pulling her notebook out of the drawer, she flipped to the page containing the cookie sticky note and the smiley-face receipt.
On the blank space that followed, she quickly sketched a simple star chart, marking the Eye of the End's current position, brightness, and range of diffusion.
She had almost forgotten to keep track of this nasty thing.
Drawing the curtains halfway closed, she stood there for a moment before walking over to her bed and lying down.
If that calamity star really dared to drag this world into ruin as well, she would fly up there herself and snuff it out.
Even if she couldn't, it didn't matter. She would stand in front of everyone anyway, weaving a net large enough in the night sky with her threads of light to catch that cursed star.
Rolling over, she buried her face in her pillow.
Tonight, she would probably dream of standing atop the Observatory's highest observation tower, shooting a warm white thread of light toward that ever-brightening calamity star.
The thread of light would pierce through the clouds, through the stratosphere, through low Earth orbit, and finally, gently tap the core of that calamity star.
And then the star would go out, like a blown-out candle, clean and simple.
In her sleep, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly, as if she found the dream rather pleasant.
Rate on N.U.
