Preparing for the Academy (2)
In my memory, the demon beasts in the anime had all been revolting to look at. There was one covered in dozens of eyeballs that triggered trypophobia, one whose arms and legs crossed over each other in a way that made you question whether its anatomy even worked, one that displayed every wrinkle of its brain with nothing but a lone mouth dangling in the middle of it. Everything had been designed to churn your stomach at a glance and make you want to bolt the moment you crossed paths with it.
“Grrrrrrrr….”
But those had all been high-grade beasts — troublesome opponents that only magical girls were sent to handle. In other words, demon beasts with intelligence. Fortunately, the beast standing before me now was closer to a wild animal, incapable of speech, let alone actual thought.
At a glance it resembled a wolf, but its fangs looked like they could punch through anything in a single bite, its forelegs were bigger than my entire body, and its sheer mass — far too large for any wolf — announced I'm a demon beast! loud and clear.
The wolf beast drooled as it stared me down. I could probably outrun it if I wanted to flee, but I wanted to test something first. This was a golden opportunity to measure the fruit of a full year's training — a chance to take stock of myself before entering the Academy.
“It's been a while. This cold, prickling feeling.”
Box cutter in hand, I began wrapping mana around my heart. The mana gradually spread through my body, and I concentrated it into my arms and legs.
Tch. Coating my whole body is still beyond me, huh.
It wasn't that my mana reserves were too small to cover myself from head to toe. But wielding that mana operated on a completely separate axis from how much of it I had. Just channeling it into my arms and legs demanded brutal endurance and focus.
A strange standoff bloomed between the beast and me, a probing game of nerves. The way it held back from a mindless charge — a predator's instinct to never lose prey it had once marked — suggested it possessed at least a bare minimum of intelligence.
Whoosh.
In the span of a single blink, the wolf beast before my eyes vanished from sight. The speed of something inhuman, all right. I wouldn't lose to it in raw speed, but my dynamic vision still couldn't keep pace with that kind of movement.
Focus. Remember the time when, even with killers lurking in the darkness, hiding in blind spots to take me down, I cut through every last one of them on killing intent alone.
Left.
Clang!!
The instant I felt the killing intent, a massive claw on the wolf beast's foreleg — lunging from the brush to my left — met my box cutter, and a thunderous shriek of steel rang out across the entire forest. If I hadn't reinforced my body with mana, I'd already have been slammed into that boulder, out cold.
When its attack failed to land, the wolf beast melted back into cover at blistering speed and readied its next strike. Close your eyes. Feel for the killing intent. This was a battlefield, the borderland of death itself, where a single mistake could cost me my life.
Left again.
Fool me twice? Not a chance. The moment its claws came hurtling toward my body, I snapped my mana around the blade in a heartbeat and countered.
“GRAAOOOOOOWR!”
One clean stroke, and the beast's right foreleg went limp and dropped away. The wolf beast howled in agony, retreating step by step — pain it had never known before. It was probably the first time in its life that prey had ever fought back.
I squared my stance and studied its movements. Damn it. Without a proper weapon, the blade had already started shredding after just one strike.
The longer this drags on, the worse it gets for me. I end this in one.
In my killer days, I was never the type to savor the taking of a life, dragging it out. I preferred delivering death cleanly and painlessly. That was why I'd honed the art of striking an enemy's weak points and vitals with precision, and I never let a beautiful blade dance run past three moves.
The vital points of humans and beasts differ, sure — but who do you think I am? I'm the one who binged this entire anime, after all. I also knew that for mindless, animal-shaped beasts, the vitals were no different from those of ordinary animals.
Aim for the throat. Precisely.
The wolf beast was rattled. I had to finish this before it hid itself again. My box cutter rattled loose in its handle, as if warning me that this swing would be its last.
Never once had I moved at my true speed. But now — now was my chance to test the limits of it. I concentrated every drop of mana into my legs and pushed off with everything I had.
Whoosh.
One second to close the distance to the wolf beast. One more for the blade to sink into its neck. And one more for the head to come completely off.
Thud.
The whole thing took barely three seconds. From the stump of the beast's neck, a fountain of blood erupted skyward as if a waterfall had burst open. How many ordinary humans would you have to drain to produce that much blood? I stared up at the sky, dazed, as the beast's blood came pelting down on me like rain.
“Mission complete.”
It was only a low-grade beast, but that wasn't the point — what mattered was that I had killed one without Unique Magic before even entering the Academy. With fundamentals this solid, I could do it. I could keep growing stronger until the day I met that one.
I set the completely ruined box cutter down on the ground and made my way out of the blood-soaked forest. Keeping my instincts sharp for a full year without real combat was no easy feat. But it was precisely because I'd held onto those memories that the me of today existed. The killing intent, the scent of death, the resolve to act — all of it was carved into my mind and my body alike.
I clenched and unclenched my trembling hands. They were still the small, dainty hands of an elementary schooler, but the countless calluses embedded in the palms sat there like proof of everything I'd put myself through.
And then three days passed. Three days went by in the blink of an eye, and the day of my Academy entrance arrived.
“Our little girl can do this, right?”
“Don't get hurt, and call us the moment anything happens!”
“Yes!”
I walked away from my parents, who sent me off with bright, cheerful voices. The moment I stepped out of the house, a single figure was waiting for me.
“Serena Silphiel?”
The voice calling my name was slightly low-pitched, with a tone that sounded mildly annoyed by something. The girl had the look of someone who'd wear a crisp tailored suit well, and she extended a hand to me, showing off the lean muscle in her arm. Generously, she might pass for a middle schooler, yet her body carried a lean muscle mass that would put a grown adult to shame.
“Take my hand, and you'll be transported to Arantree.”
So this really was a world of magic — even travel was done by spell. I nodded and took the woman's hand.
Whoosh.
I had closed and opened my eyes exactly once.
The dense forest I'd been looking at was gone, replaced by a clamoring space packed with students and lined with enormous buildings, crowded wall to wall.
Pretty convenient.
The woman who'd brought me here was already gone — she'd teleported off somewhere else the moment we landed, as if she'd never been here at all. Off to pick up the next student, presumably. So she was basically a taxi. No wonder she'd worn that dead-eyed expression.
The scene around me was like a roaring marketplace — students clustered in little groups, chattering as they headed to class, fresh enrollees like me wandering around lost, trying to figure out where to go. Never in either of my lives had I seen a place this chaotic.
“And my stomach's already turning.”
As I stood rooted in place with a sullen look on my face, someone tapped me on the shoulder and struck up a conversation.
“Um, hey — are you a new student too?”
I turned, and there stood a girl with a face I couldn't have known better if I tried, blushing as she looked at me, as if speaking to me embarrassed her.
“Mika?”
“Huh? How do you know my name? Is that some kind of magic?”
What kind of setup was this supposed to be? Why was Mika — the protagonist — coming up to talk to me from the very start? The early story I knew did not go like this.
“Uh… did I do something wrong?”
I was supposed to hide my confusion, but my expression management had completely failed. If this kept up, the main scenario would end up entangled with me from the very beginning. I wanted to move as safely and inconspicuously as possible, and this was exactly the kind of thing that would blow that plan to pieces!
“N-no, it's nothing.”
“Oh, good! Want to walk together? I'm a new student too, so I have no idea what's what!”
Simple-minded, or just plain dim — take your pick. At my single answer, Mika broke into a dazzling smile and grabbed my hand without hesitation. Even though my face was still frozen in undisguised seriousness.
“N-no thanks. I prefer being alone.”
“Come on, nobody actually likes that! Let's go together!”
“Huh?”
Despite my perfectly reasonable refusal, our protagonist breezily brushed it aside, linked her arm through mine, and started dragging me along. What kind of absurd situation was this? Not only had I run into the protagonist immediately, now I was expected to accompany her? Absolutely, categorically not.
“No, listen, I—”
“Look over there! That must be where the entrance ceremony is! Come on, let's go!”
She wouldn't even listen to my words. When I tried to shake my arm free, she gripped me with all her strength, as if refusing to let me slip away.
Ha. What on earth is going on here.
For what it was worth, Mika and Serena ended up in different classes in the anime. There were three classes in total — Mika went to Class A, Serena to Class B, and the first time the two of them ever met was during the sparring match between each class's top student. Which was exactly why I couldn't afford to panic right now.
Once we're sorted into different classes, we'll barely run into each other anyway. This much can't hurt.
Mika dragged me along with stubborn determination. Even if I ran now, I'd inevitably see her at the entrance ceremony, so wasn't it better to let this pass quietly than to manufacture a whole tedious scene?
One of us beaming from ear to ear for reasons I couldn't fathom, the other wearing the face of someone who'd lost the entire world. What on earth were the other students thinking when they looked at the two of us?
“Anyway — what's your name?”
“Serena Silphiel…”
“What a pretty name! Almost as pretty as your face!”
Trivial chitchat flowed back and forth. It was less a conversation than a one-sided interrogation where I fielded whatever came my way.
“I want to become an amazing magical girl as fast as I can!”
“Mm… sure. You got this.”
Just hold out a little longer. She'll be gone soon enough anyway.
Sighing, I let Mika lead me toward the hall where the entrance ceremony was about to begin.
And it didn't take me very long to realize just how badly I'd misjudged that thought.