I Became a Magical Girl (2)
"Whoa. Now this is a different kind of scenery."
I crossed the Dimension Gate still in my transformed state. Awkward as the body felt, my mood was at an all-time high — my heart was pounding so hard I could barely keep it in my chest.
"Welco...me, new Magical Girl."
Rana was waiting for me on the other side. After a moment of reading the room, she slipped naturally into informal speech. Fair enough — in this place, I wasn't the Demon King. I was just an ordinary Magical Girl.
"Hello there."
So I waved and greeted her with a smile. Her expression froze over awkwardly, but I ignored it.
"So, when can I go to Earth? Er — when would that be possible?"
"We could leave right this second. But first, let me introduce you to your mascot. Normally, the mascots identify Magical Girl potential out in the field, and then the scouts go in to make the contract, but..."
Rana explained as she glanced back at me trailing behind her. I wasn't really listening. I was too busy looking around.
They'd called it the fairy realm, but it was nothing like the mystical space where Yggdrasil had been. Just an ordinary building in an ordinary world.
"Hmm. Doesn't seem like the employees know about me."
"...We kept it confidential, as per the contract. The rank-and-file staff didn't even know you were coming."
The fairies we passed all eyed me with puzzled looks. After hearing Rana's explanation, it clicked.
Come to think of it, I was the one who'd put the confidentiality clause in the contract.
"Now then — one of Lana Land's mascots here, External Director Toy, is the veteran who'll be taking you on..."
Rana flung her office door open. Then she froze solid. Curious, I peeked around her waist.
"B-Boss! Th-that's, well, actually..."
"Leave it to me, Boss! I can absolutely handle this!"
I pushed past the statue that was Rana. Inside, a deathly pale Yuria stood beside a squat little doll.
"The Director was just carried off with acute neurosis. So as his successor, I will fill that vacancy! As you well know, Boss, I, Ren, have cared for twenty-eight Magical Girls to date, and my performance record..."
The doll, which seemed to be modeled after a puppy, stood on the desk waving its stubby arms, giving itself a hard sell.
One look at Yuria — mentally checked out, physically exhausted — and at Rana, who'd turned to stone, and I more or less pieced it together.
"So you're that brat Department Manager Yuria was talking about!"
The doll hopped down and walked over to me. He planted himself in front of me, crossed his arms, and scanned me from head to toe.
"Age around early-to-mid teens. Black, black, more black, and a lot of skin showing. Armament seal on the lower abdomen... this kid's got a lot of scars. And yet she's wearing a flashy uniform and a hat. She's also packing some serious inner desire—wait!"
"So this doll that openly critiques other people's underwear is my partner?"
I stomped down with my shoe on the little thing that had been openly appraising me — and peeking up my skirt, no less. Only then did Rana finally find her voice.
"I'd originally planned to leave this to a veteran. He already knew all the circumstances. He could've handled everything smoothly."
"Must've been pretty nervous, getting carried off like that."
I snorted. Unexpected, sure. Rana was trying to keep her composure, but the hand adjusting her glasses trembled, completely at odds with her blank expression.
"Nothing we can do about it. Stay here for just one day. I'll inform Ren of your identity as a stopgap and run through some training..."
"Nah. This actually sounds fun. Going in with someone who doesn't know a thing."
"But...!"
"I'm a Magical Girl anyway."
I turned down her offer of a crash course. Then I lifted my foot, picked up the doll I'd been stepping on, and raised him to eye level.
"Th-this brat, acting all high and mighty just because she got a special hire..."
"Let's get along, Ren."
"Eek..."
The squirming little thing's eyes met mine as I grinned. I wanted as few people as possible knowing my secret — and like I'd told Rana, this actually seemed like it'd be more fun.
"B-Boss. Actually, I still have unfinished business..."
"In that case, Ren. You are now the handler for our new recruit, Takilas. Take her to Earth."
No take-backs. Rana issued the personnel transfer on the spot.
I tossed Ren aside. My heart started pounding all over again. I was finally going to Earth.
Magical Girls. Mysterious beings who fight villains.
But reality is neither that simple, nor anywhere near as beautiful as they are. Good and evil — what even counts as good, and what as evil? If the two can be divided, where does one end and the other begin? And can these extra-legal beings even be called "righteous"? Should they be recognized as heroes based on results alone? Or should they be seen as a band of superhumans who merely bring chaos to the world? This was the uncomfortable "reality" where all of that was tangled together.
"Hands in the air, all of you!"
"Heheheh..."
"Damn it, Lakos! Don't eat them yet! They're hostages!"
This was the heart of Seoul. In broad daylight, the streets were in chaos.
Gun-toting criminals had taken people hostage and occupied a building. The unusual part was that among the masked perpetrators, a particularly grotesque monster was mixed in — one of the beings this world commonly called Kaijin, whose origins ran the gamut from laboratories to outer space to spontaneous generation.
"Unlock it! Now!"
"I-it'll take a little more time!"
One of them was inside the building, shoving a gun at someone who looked like a researcher. Several people had already been shot dead. The researcher, white as a sheet, hurriedly began unlocking the security device's codes one by one.
"...Huh?"
But in that moment, with a flash of light, someone appeared right in the middle of the criminals holding a standoff with the police.
"Aaaah, hurry up and take them out! They're villains!"
"Ugh, thrown straight into live combat? You didn't come here on purpose, did you?"
"..."
I'd had a feeling, and I was right. Clicking my tongue, I yanked Ren off my shoulder, tossed him aside, and immediately started moving my mana.
The tall buildings, the clear sky, the pavement underfoot, Earth's trees, Earth's air — all of it was good. The police with their guns, the news crews with their telephoto lenses... they were good too. But the ones pulling a terrorist attack in the heart of Seoul were a blight on that nostalgia. Especially that weird-looking green monster.
"Magical gi— AAAAGH!"
"What the— GRAAAH!"
My shadow rippled and surged across the ground. In the same instant, the darkness that erupted from it blasted them off their feet, punched through their bodies, and slammed them into the pavement. I left the hostages alone and hit only the perpetrators with precision. One of them opened fire on me from above, but I deflected every round with a curtain of shadow.
"Uwaaaaah!"
"...Gross."
The green monster I'd been watching lumbered toward me and swung its sharpened claws. I flicked my hand. With a sound like shattering glass, dozens of awl-like tentacles erupted from my shadow rippling across the ground and punched through its body. It had a fairly tough hide, but it couldn't stop my mana, which carried a killing edge rivaling a Sword Master's aura.
"That's it, right?"
"Th-there's still some inside."
"Ugh, what a pain."
I expanded my senses. I already knew where they were, so I'd just go mop them up quickly and get out of here. Shadows wrapped around my body and shot me straight upward.
"Aaaaaah!"
The moment he saw me fly in through the window, he started spraying bullets. At least I didn't have to waste energy breaking the glass, but getting shot point-blank with my bare body still stung a little. Couldn't be helped.
"Guh..."
"Five left."
Once inside the building, I swung my arm, and a shadow tentacle sliced the guy's head clean off. As the headless corpse collapsed, blood fountaining from the neck, I looked at a balding middle-aged man who was crouched down, trembling as he stared at me.
"C-Code Red..."
"The hell are you talking about?"
"Urgh. Code Red is a classification humans assigned when categorizing Magical Girls. Red... gets slapped on those who slaughter without hesitation."
"They really do all kinds of crap, don't they."
I snorted and continued down the hallway. I was still a bit rusty, not fully adapted yet, but I could see where they all were now. They were all visible to my eyes.
"So."
"Guh."
"These guys."
"S-stay back, you monster girl... ghk."
"Why are they doing this?"
"Aaagh!"
The trio trapped in a dead-end corridor charged at me, and they too were pierced, slashed, and cut to pieces by my shadows. Standing in a sloshing pool of blood, I started to get curious. Why were these guys committing terrorism in the middle of a city in broad daylight?
"You're a Magical Girl. If they're villains, your duty is to shut up and execute them... hwaaagh!"
"Tearing your arms and legs off one by one and stitching them back on sounds pretty fun too."
"They were after the Mana Stones in this research lab—aaagh!"
Ren had been talking big, but once I grabbed both of his arms and started stretching them out, he spilled everything. Not that I understood any of it. Hearing the name "Mana Stone," I could only infer it was something like a magic crystal.
I put the details aside for later. I'd gone after the last one waiting quietly on the top floor — and found a middle-aged man pressing a gun to a bound child's head.
"One more step and this kid dies."
"..."
"I know your power is shadows. Stop right there."
"Hmph."
Compared to his idiot subordinates who couldn't even pull off a hostage situation properly, this one had some skill. Even if I killed him, stopping him from pulling the trigger would be difficult.