Chapter 308: The Only Hope for the Poor

A moment later, Vivi was on her way to school.

Unlike the districts closer to the center of Neon City, this area was the outskirts. Most of the buildings were under fifteen stories, plastered with all kinds of advertising light boards.

Several homeless people lay sprawled every which way on the street. A half-naked woman was furiously raging at a wall in a drunken fit, letting out muddled, incoherent roars.

Yet the passersby around her were completely indifferent to this chaotic scene.

A passerby sighed in admiration, "It's really been peaceful lately. Aside from the suicides and the people whose organs got harvested for debt collection, hardly anyone's died."

Another person wagged a rat tail and chimed in, "Tell me about it. Last week this street only averaged one death a day, and almost all of them were homeless. Worthy of a place that rivals the Nest. Paying top credit to rent here was the right call."

Suddenly, someone chimed in with fury, no one knew who, "Not good at all! How come so few people died? I didn't win the dead pool again!"

A dense, swarming crowd gathered at the station.

Beep, student card.

A suspended monorail tram pulled into the platform.

With incredibly nimble movements and strength surpassing most people, the girl wove and squeezed through the packed crowd, forcibly snatching a window seat amid a chorus of curses. She crossed her arms over her chest, protecting the single-shoulder bag in her embrace.

On ordinary days, being able to grab a seat on this daily packed tram would make the girl feel fortunate, and she would use this rare time to close her eyes, rest, and catch up on sleep.

But today, the moment she closed her eyes, the words from her dream and that debt collection message surfaced in her mind, forcing her to open them again.

The tram interior was covered in all kinds of posters, and the hanging screens were looping noisy advertisements.

【Exterminate demon beasts, it's everyone's duty. New Beauty Training Camp: fail the magical girl exam the first year, retake it free the next year. Fail again the second year, the third year is half price. Ultimate unbeatable value!】

【Call now to experience a free trial lesson with a gold-medal private instructor!】

【Manual Labor Crash Course! Just three months, guaranteed to pass the physical fitness preliminary screening! Fail and get half your money back! Sign up now and get a Locust Series career spell simulation illusion, plus a mock exam qualification!】

【Team auditions are heating up! As long as your magic affinity passes the test and your compatibility meets the standard, an annual salary of tens of thousands of credits is no dream!】

【...】

Her gaze lingered for a moment on "New Beauty Training Camp."

Magical girl.

That was the most popular superhuman profession in Neon City, you could say it was the city's signature.

Not only because Neon City's male-to-female ratio had reached two to eight, but even many boys of eligible age chose to have their magic orbs removed and undergo gender reassignment surgery, all to gamble on a chance at becoming a magical girl.

The reason was simple.

First, magical girls were an extremely formidable existence even among superhuman professions. They belonged to the profession of professions. Even the weakest magical girl was an unattainably lofty figure in the eyes of ordinary people.

Powerful superhuman professions could all make serious money, and magical girls were of course no exception, even counting as the particularly money-making type.

Aside from exterminating demon-people, weirdos, and fighting demon beasts, there were many other money-making channels, such as product endorsements, photo books, anime adaptations, figurines, concerts, handshake tickets, and even... entering the

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In short, even the weakest magical girl had a mountain of cash-grabbing methods.

And even more, even more, even more crucially, magical girls had so many advantages, yet the threshold wasn't considered high.

It didn't force you to have a corresponding talent, an Innate Technique, nor did it require special modification as a career prerequisite. In theory, even the poor had a chance.

As long as you passed the various tests and obtained a magical girl certificate, then you could choose a contract beast to form a contract, awaken your transformation spell, and become a powerful magical girl, completely different from those professions that required all sorts of harsh conditions and advanced magical technology to work.

It could be said to be the only profession whose requirements for background and circumstances weren't set in stone.

That's right, the only one.

Magical girl was just such a profession where even the poor could see hope.

Because a magical girl's power came from the heart, the demand for external things was relatively low, and Neon City even had all kinds of discount and subsidy policies for boys and girls who wanted to become magical girls.

But theory and reality always had a massive gap.

Relatively low, that was only relatively speaking.

No matter how many subsidies there were, the remaining portion was still very expensive.

Aside from those extremely rare civilian geniuses who could sail smoothly to success, many girls and even boys, in order to gamble on this ethereal opportunity, squeezed their brains out, put their whole families into debt, entered a private school with decent teaching credentials, attended cram schools, took drugs, underwent modification surgery, took exams, got certifications... and ultimately realized their dreams, becoming radiant and beautiful magical girls. The number who succeeded probably wasn't even one in ten thousand. The rest were all failures.

In a word.

If you didn't have enough aptitude, you had to make up for it with money.

If you wanted to become a magical girl, you still had to spend money. A lot and lots of money.

And this was also why she had fallen to her current situation.

The girl raised her hand and swiped across her glasses. A window popped up on each lens, displaying different numbers.

One was debt, and the other was also debt.

Left eye:

【White Life: mortgaged left eye (300 credits), paid off this month. Next month due: 8.3 credits. Days until repayment: twenty.】

【Lion Tech: mortgaged left kidney (500 credits), paid off this month. Next month due: 13.8 credits. Days until repayment: twenty-one.】

【...】

Right eye:

【Black Snake Gang: debt 1028 credits, due this month 102.8 credits. Overdue by two days.】

【Xunteng Group Low-Interest Student Aid: debt 60000 credits, interest due this month 100 credits. Days until repayment: five.】

"......"

She swiped again, bringing up an account named "Dream":

【Balance: 52 credits】

This was all of her current assets, saved up by skimping on food and expenses, working part-time all over the place.

The girl fell silent for a moment, then lightly swiped the edge of her glasses again, opening the Ethernet.

After searching on the website for a while, she found an advertisement posted by a newly established financial company: 【Lightning-fast loans! Guaranteed credit! Mortgaging bodily assets, so your future need not wait!】

She skillfully entered her identity information and clicked the 【Mortgage Left Eye】 option.

A red light flashed across the screen: 【Sorry, your left eye has already been mortgaged to White Life.】

Expressionless, she clicked 【Mortgage Right Eye】.

【Sorry, your right eye has already been mortgaged to XX Company.】

"......"

Seeming a bit desperate, she pressed every option she could mortgage, kidneys, heart, brain... all of them.

The replies she got were uniformly identical: 【Sorry, your XX has already been mortgaged to XX Company.】

The information-sharing network of these bloodsucking companies was faster than a dog smelling a bone.

Vivi took several deep breaths. A suffocating, extreme feeling rose from the bottom of her heart.