I Became the Magical Girl Everyone Notices (2)
But why go this far? I chewed on the bread they’d given me while I turned it over in my mind. What exactly were they after by doing something so dangerous?
“Hey! Stop worrying about it and just get out! You can just transform! You didn’t even have your connector taken away.”
“I got curious and wanted to watch for a bit.”
After becoming the Demon King, I’d gotten a bit twisted in the head. I’d admit it. But if I hadn’t survived in the Demon Realm with my wits, I never would have made it.
“If this had been some ordinary place, it’d probably have been nothing worse than long-term trafficking or sex trafficking. But this is a place where magical girls and kaijin are both common.”
“What are you even saying?”
“It’s not like a bad idea, is it? If I just sit here quietly, maybe I can rack up the ‘performance’ you want so badly.”
It was basically a stakeout. Of course, I hadn’t asked for any of this.
Ren seemed to understand my logic and finally shut his mouth, flopping down with a thud.
“Did it scare you? Good thing the quality was high, huh? You’re going to the right place.”
And surprisingly, I was out of that room after just one day.
“The police uncle said this is the place I’m supposed to go.”
“No, even trash like you can be put to better use.”
Dr. Park grinned as she tapped the syringe. A thought crossed my mind for a second. Should I take it or not?
“It’s good that you’re quiet and obedient. You didn’t have to see anything ugly. The supplier didn’t even say to send back any limbs intact.”
Supplier. Limbs. She really was using the welfare institution as a front to sell kids.
So what was the point? She stabbed the syringe into my arm.
As expected… nothing happened. But I couldn’t just stand there like an idiot, so I staggered and finally collapsed into her arms.
Luckily it seemed to be the right thing to do.
“I really can’t believe this…”
The sound of Ren grumbling while being stuffed into the big bag was hidden from Dr. Park’s eyes. I was soon sealed away completely inside the bag, my body crumpled like a fetus in a mother’s womb.
“Ugh.”
She loaded the bag into the rattling cart and started moving somewhere.
[You don’t know anything about this world’s crimes, do you?]
“Hiyaaa!”
I spoke telepathically to Ren.
Ren yelped the moment he heard my voice and thrashed inside my chest.
“W-what is this? Why is your voice ringing in my head?!”
[It’s nothing special.]
“How are you talking after I canceled my transformation?!”
I wanted to talk faster, but he didn’t seem to calm down. I sighed and hugged the little guy tighter.
“Ugh…”
The choked little guy thrashed and tapped my arm with his hands. Only then did I relax my grip.
“W-what do you want to hear?”
[You said you were a veteran. You must’ve seen a lot while taking care of magical girls. Where do you think they’re taking me now?]
“…Human greed, probably.”
Eventually the little guy started spilling the beans one by one. He knew way too much—why hadn’t he said anything sooner?
“He said he’d touch my body without restraint, so it’s not about making me a sex slave. Those cases are rare these days anyway because of the drop in merit. I think it’s some kind of lab.”
[A lab?]
“It started when magical girl information spread and kaijin started chasing us. Stupid humans tried to use bio-experiments to surpass our power without using Yggdrasil’s strength.”
So it was just their bullshit after all. Still, it made some sense. To normal humans, our power would look pretty attractive.
[So the experiment is to create magical girls?]
“That’s how I see it.”
[Nice.]
By then I was lifted up and loaded into what I assumed was the trunk. I guess I really was going to have to nap and wake up.
*
“Wake up!”
“Huh?”
I snapped to attention and jolted awake. I was still inside the bag, but a bright light was leaking through the seams.
[What? Are we there?]
“Looks like we’re on a ship.”
[Aha.]
Yeah, Korean soil was tiny. If an organization that trafficked kids as a base thing existed, what couldn’t they do?
“Snap out of it. It looks like they’re doing a transaction with you right now.”
I listened quietly to Ren’s words and strained my ears outside. The clinking sounds were not Korean. Annoyingly, I had to use translation magic.
“Confirm first. You’re healthy, right?”
“Whatever you say.”
Soon I heard footsteps approaching. I closed my eyes again and hid my presence. Right after, the bag zipper opened with a zip, and blinding light poured over my face.
“Time to wake up, isn’t it?”
“Just… one hour left?”
A rough hand reached in and roughly pried my eyelids open.
“…No, you’re already awake. Bold kid. See you later.”
He shone a light in my eyes, realized I was conscious, and zipped the bag shut again.
“Good. This transaction was satisfactory too. Load the cargo.”
My body was lifted up. The ship, huh? It really was.
It was a pretty big ship. After being lifted for a while, the zipper came down again. This time it was fully open. For the first time in an hour and a half, I could finally stretch my legs.
“It’s best to behave quietly. You won’t understand anyway. But you know what this is, right?”
The white man with a shaved head who’d been checking my eyes grinned and tapped a silencer pistol against my forehead. At the same time, another guy grabbed my hands behind my back and cuffed them.
“Where is this place?”
“…Huh?”
I opened my mouth and said something. Thanks to the translation magic, it came out in his mother tongue. His eyes widened, then he blinked.
“You speak Russian…”
“And what are you kids supposed to be?”
A chuckle escaped me. At the same time, the guy who’d been cuffing my wrist froze. He’d spotted the connector ring on the fingers that had shown my power usage.
“M-magical g—”
“I figured it out.”
The moment I moved, I split his body in half with shadows. The guy who’d been cuffing me was pierced by a shadow spike and collapsed, blood spraying everywhere.
“How are you using power without even transforming?!”
“I wanted to investigate more, but I had no choice.”
I ignored Ren’s loud shout and snapped the cuffs with raw strength while listening to the approaching footsteps. At the same time, I used the connector to reshape my outfit into a formal transformation.
“Kyah!”
“Here… cough…”
The departing ship turned into a mess. Even with guns, bullets wouldn’t stick to me. Shadow blades sliced through their bodies in one go.
“Hee!”
I kicked open the locked door in the cabin and stepped inside.
One researcher was sprawled on his butt. As expected, this was some kind of lab.
“So what experiment did you run that made you buy a little girl? Speak properly, and I’ll let you live.”
“W-we…”
“There!”
I clicked my tongue. I sliced the researcher’s neck who’d been trembling and sent shadows writhing along the walls and floor to wrap up the approaching guys.
“I guess I need to speed this up.”
I flicked my hand and crushed the wrapped guys to death. Bones and organs burst out from the unrecognizable corpses with a crunch.
“Hah, move more seriously.”
“I’m always serious.”
I put my hand in my skirt pocket and walked slowly through the ship. There was no escape from the vast ocean anyway.
The little survivalists clinging to the tiny lifeboat could be dealt with later.
There were a few who tried to rush me, but the spikes shooting from the writhing shadows in the hallway pierced their heads every time.
“Oh, you’re the leadership here?”
“…Magical girl.”
The place with the strongest presence was where I was heading. I found a group of survivors huddled together. The skinny white man standing in the middle was probably the boss.
“You planned to infiltrate using a broker organization…”
“No, you should’ve at least done a proper inspection.”
“I didn’t know. I only thought a mid-teen girl could slip in without canceling her transformation and get here without being caught. But… if it’s a crazy woman like Code Red, I guess anything’s possible.”
“You’re strangely calm.”
My shadows were writhing all over this space. One flick of my hand and they’d all be dead. Yet he seemed unfazed compared to his subordinates.
“Well, you’re just a kid. I don’t know about kids like you. You’re just a puppet mercenary.”
He pressed a switch in his hand. I could have stopped it, but it was interesting so I let it be.
“Ah… I see. So this is the real experiment you’ve been running?”
“Even though it’s a failure! We succeeded in partially transplanting magical girl power. Activate N-21!”
Something dropped with a thud from the ceiling. A small, pitiful life form twisted in a grotesque way.
The once-normal girl spread her long mouth wide and shot a black wave toward me.