The Line We Must Protect (2)
I carefully lowered Kim Su-jeong, who was collapsing toward me, onto the bed.
Letting her stay awake any longer felt like inviting an even bigger disaster.
There was no instant fix, but I didn’t have to worry. The facility I was in was run by a national agency built exactly for cleaning up messes like this.
Right now, I slipped out of school while pretending I was handling urgent business elsewhere.
And in a single breath, I shot straight up into the sky.
“So, how do we find them?”
“...I don’t know. Let’s start with the place they said they’d meet.”
The target was the back gate of the school. But it was locked tight, and nothing stirred behind it.
“Excuse me?”
“Hyak—!?”
I slipped out of hiding from the corner, approached the security guard dozing in his chair, and tapped his shoulder.
He jumped so hard his chair clattered to the floor.
“W-when did you get here?! I didn’t hear anything approaching… more importantly, this is during class time…”
“Were you here during lunch too?”
“Huh? Oh, no, I only ate after unlocking the gate.”
He scanned me up and down, flustered, then answered while stammering at my question.
That wasn’t much help. The system was even more fragile than I expected. The back gate was always open because the smoking area was right there and staff used it constantly.
“Hey, can I look at the CCTV? Since you’re public-service duty, you can’t show me?”
“No, I can show you. But why would you…”
“Just show it already. I don’t have time.”
I let a tiny thread of mana slip out. The ordinary man couldn’t resist; his body twisted under the pressure. His face drained of color in an instant, eyes flooding with terror.
“M-me? Why—?”
“It’s a matter of life or death for a student. Hurry up and show me.”
Even S-rank magical girl Aria, the true fighter, hadn’t survived this kind of fear.
The terror pouring from my shadow was too much; he nodded frantically without even realizing what he was doing.
“Car? Damn it…”
I could turn on the back-gate CCTV at the computer station right beside him.
In the footage, Kim Su-jeong appeared among the crowd. She chatted briefly, then walked with Park Tae-joon out to the parking lot and got into a car. At least that part had been voluntary.
“That’s not enough. Digital data won’t let me track them with a tracking spell.”
“T-then what do we do?”
I hid myself again in the empty building behind us and clicked my tongue. Just like Rene said, I had no way to follow the car they left in.
“Fine, I’ll just go with the flow.”
I kept calling Park Tae-joon, but he was grinding his teeth and ignoring me. Calling from a public phone, blocking the caller ID—same result.
So I flew back into the sky once more.
“Park Tae-joon was definitely taken by a demon. If demons are rampaging on their own right now, this method won’t work. But if they’re moving with a purpose…”
I crossed the sky without thinking twice. The targets would be the dark-hearted people demons usually preyed on in the big city.
I would hunt the demons there and follow their trail.
“It’s a stupid choice if all you want is to find Kim Su-jeong’s whereabouts. As I saw with Kim Su-jeong, the only thing an incursion does is vent its own desires!”
“If it’s Park Tae-joon’s desire, it probably called me—the trophy and plaything it likes lately!”
Rene grabbed my hair and shouted, but I cut him off firmly. The clue had to lie in the demons’ movements.
“I found one.”
Not long after, I spotted a demon weaving through the forest of buildings.
I stuck to its tail like glue. A normal demon would dive into a victim’s body, go into rampage, and act exactly as the victim’s desire demanded.
“Mmm?”
The demon slipped into a salaryman’s body who had just hung up on a call right below the building in a single breath.
I quietly landed in the alley beside it and released my hiding spell.
His eyes met mine. I saw the murky energy flickering in them clearly.
This man was completely possessed right now, just like Kim Su-jeong had been moments ago.
“Do I know you? Got some business with me?”
“…No. Not at all.”
He smiled and spoke. The people passing by didn’t even glance at us, so his composure looked completely normal.
I still couldn’t be sure whether this was full rampage or something else.
“Goodbye, then.”
I wasn’t about to poke at him. If the demons had been given the same command as recently, both Park Tae-joon and this man should be acting the same way.
If not, the demons were just like always—pushing people’s desires…
“It’s a weekday lunch. A student here? Maybe you got lost after visiting the school as a tour?”
But the moment I turned, he reached out and grabbed me with a gentle voice.
Rene, perched above my head, grumbled that it was nonsense, but my instincts screamed.
“Y-yes… that sounds right.”
“Oh dear. This is serious. In times like these.”
I turned back with a small smile. The man looked down at me and grinned.
“I’ll take you home. Come on.”
He naturally offered to follow me. That kind, gentlemanly smile and relaxed manner screamed “nice guy trying to help a lost kid.” But in times like these, it was hardly wise.
“Okay.”
I accepted his offer without a second thought.
[He lured Kim Su-jeong too, and this guy is using “I’m just helping a stranger” as an excuse. Any common thread there?]
“…He’s trying to take the girl? If the target is Mammut, anything’s possible.”
Rene was still doubtful. But the moment the salaryman who had guided me got into his car and drove off, both I and Rene were certain.
*
“The cooperation with Mammut was not just a simple power boost for us. It was a crucial turning point where we could finally understand and use the mysterious power that magical girls wield—the mana.”
Chief Director Andrei muttered into the recorder in his hand, recording every word.
The command-control room he sat in now was filled with equipment that let you watch the entire bunker disguised as a villa.
“And to use it, we’ve been scouring the whole country, gathering the girls from the demon incursion experiments as the test subjects. Hah… this large-scale biological experiment will be a major contribution to humanity’s next stage of evolution.”
On the screen he watched, girls were being transported to the facility in real time by the possessed. All of them were in their early to mid-teens—exactly the age most fairies recruited magical girls.
The girls who had been forcibly moved into the facility were all strapped tightly to the experiment tables.
Those who couldn’t get on the tables were thrown straight into the massive test tubes and forced into deep, artificial sleep.
“Everyone’s eyes are going to be fixed on Mammut, the monster suddenly causing chaos in Japan. We’ll move as fast as we can and claim our wish in the gap.”
Andrei nodded with satisfaction.
The plan was flawless. Mammut, the great calamity, had provided plenty of data and acted as a perfect bait, and the organization had used that opening to mass-acquire test subjects.
If you knew how hard it was to find healthy girls for experimentation, this was a golden opportunity for them.
“Start the experiment! Cut the time as much as possible. We have plenty of subjects. Inject! Inject!”
He immediately ordered the experiment to begin and told them to conserve time.
Actually, they judged that even with Mammut they couldn’t hide it perfectly, so they had to squeeze out every bit of data and results before they were discovered.
“Does it hurt? This is being injected with blood extracted from magical girls. Just endure it. Your sacrifice will benefit everyone.”
Andrei personally went to the lab and stroked the head of a girl strapped to the table, full of needles everywhere, gagged, screaming in agony.
Same scene was playing out on dozens of tables scattered all around.
Even with her body convulsing, the needle attached to the machine kept pushing the contents in until the end.
“Ah… she’s in shock.”
“As predicted. Burn the corpse and lower the dose for the new test subject—retry.”
When the convulsing girl collapsed after vomiting blood, he cleared the corpse and laid out the next subject.
This was going to happen again and again, and he already saw it as the necessary cost.