I Am a Pebble. A Pebble No One Looks For.
At first glance it had the shape of a lizard — but it was far too enormous to be called one. Even Mika's mascot, a sacred-beast-tier unicorn, hadn't been this big. The giant lizard fixed me with a glare, its violet eyes flashing — the same violet as mine — and let out a shriek that felt like it was splitting my eardrums.
“Summoning me, Bersaka — a being who can only be called forth by offering up what you treasure most? You've got more nerve than sense, girl. Fine. I'll hear you out. Speak! What is it you so desperately desire — so desperately that you would sacrifice your most precious thing for it!”
What kind of yapping was this? It definitely wasn't the mascot I knew about. Ah. I wasn't even confused anymore. Mika wasn't the problem — I was. I was the problem. I exhaled a deep sigh and stared back at the giant lizard glaring at me.
“A sigh? You dare sigh in my presence, mortal?”
“What am I supposed to do instead?”
“What? So you truly do wish to die.”
By nature, a mascot doted on and devoted itself to its magical girl. Sure enough, the other girls' mascots were already telling them this and that about being magical girls, building rapport. But this lizard, for reasons I couldn't fathom, did nothing but complain and pick fights at every turn.
“Teacher, I think it got summoned wrong. Is there no dispelling spell or something?”
I posed the question to the teacher with a bored expression, leaving the growling beast-monster of a creature behind me — but no answer came.
“Huh?”
It felt as though time had frozen. No one moved, no one breathed, no one so much as blinked. Had someone cast a barrier spell? The only things moving were me and that giant lizard. Something had clearly gone wrong.
“Did you do this?”
“And if I did? Your pathetic mortals would collapse from my mana alone before I lifted a claw — of course I stopped time. Isn't that simply basic courtesy?”
“Then why can I move?”
“Ha. That's because a mere girl like you couldn't possibly be capa— ...Eh?”
The lizard looked at me, looked around, looked at me again, and kept rubbing its own eyes.
“That's impossible...? Even the one who summoned me should only barely retain consciousness, unable to move a limb...?”
“What have you been going on about this whole time?”
“What exactly are you?”
The giant lizard suddenly dropped into a combat stance, sweat beading down its hide. I knew things had gone thoroughly sideways, but this situation demanded I simply give up on thinking — it was beyond any judgment I was qualified to make.
“I'm an eight-year-old magical girl.”
“A magical girl? One of those girls who abduct noble beings like us as so-called mascots and make them play errand boy?”
“Yep, that's the one.”
“Ha. Absurd. Let me make one thing clear: I despise magical girls with every fiber of my being. I answered your summon, but the moment anything remotely ridiculous leaves your mouth, I will tear you limb from limb.”
“Yep, yep...”
Why was this guy so high-strung? He glared at me, trembling from head to toe, as if magical girls had dumped him once upon a time. Whatever. Humoring him was exhausting anyway — might as well just cancel the summon.
“What is it you desire, then.”
“Huh? You'll grant anything?”
“Naturally. You offered up your most precious existence to summon me — how could your wish not be earnest? Whatever my feelings toward magical girls, I have principles. Have no fear.”
“Hmm, if I had to pick... world peace? Make me a world without demon beasts.”
“Impossible.”
“Why not?”
“Power on that scale would belong to a god, or to the world's creator. With my strength, interfering with the natural order borders on the impossible.”
“Tsk.”
“D-did you just click your tongue at me?”
“Oh, did I? Who can say. I'll just cancel the summon, so run along now. I need to go pick out a mascot like the other kids, you see.”
“Did the act of summoning me cost you your intelligence? This is the golden opportunity of a lifetime — one that will never come again!”
“You can't even touch the natural order, so what would I even ask for~? Just go home already, if you please~”
“You will regret this. One last thing—”
“Run along now, if you please~”
My stubborn refusal dragged things nowhere near the direction he'd wanted, and the lizard finally spoke, his face twisted in displeasure.
“Calling yourself a magical girl — how very foolish you are. Squandering what is precious as if it were nothing. I cannot comprehend it.”
“Let's never meet again.”
I didn't want this kind of mascot either. He strutted around mouthing off like he was so great, then acted however he pleased with zero regard for anyone else's understanding. An overdosed concept character was the one existence I wanted to avoid at all costs.
“...”
“What are you still doing here?”
“The cancellation... isn't working.”
“Sorry? What do you mean, it's not working?”
“I can't return to where I came from, that's what!!”
All of his earlier noble, dignified bearing gone, the lizard scrambled about in a panic, testing one spell after another on himself.
“Need some help?”
“What could a mortal possibly do! The canceling of a summoning is a ritual that must be performed by the being who received the summoner's mana!”
“Then what are you doing, exactly?”
“I don't know! I don't know, I tell you! You didn't do something to me, did you?”
“What could a humble mortal like me possibly do~? Now shoo, shoo — I have mascots to shop for.”
“Wait. A mascot? You were summoning those errand boys?”
“Yes? Why?”
The lizard stared blankly at my face for a good three seconds, then stretched his jaws open wide and spoke.
“Don't tell me... you're about to say something preposterous like: you summoned a mascot, and I came out instead?”
“Hm? You didn't know?”
“So you mean to say... you summoned me with pure mana, without any offering whatsoever...? As a mascot...?”
“That's about the size of it?”
“GRAAAAAAAHHH! IMPOSSIBLE!!”
The lizard's wail nearly took my ears off. I couldn't tell why he was making such a scene — all he did was stamp his massive feet and keep banging his head against the wall.
I was sick of playing along with this guy's moods. The frozen time was creepy, and the whole business about offerings rubbed me the wrong way too. Cancel this, and if a proper fairy-realm mascot would just show up like in the original story, everything would be perfectly okay.
“Hurry up and go back, why don't you.”
“I can't, you little...”
“What are you saying?”
“If I'd been summoned through another summoning ritual, I could sever the contract and return... but a mascot summoning is a different concept entirely... I cannot return until the summoner's power as a magical girl is exhausted, ever!!”
“Eh? Then...”
“I'm the fool. The fool here is me. It's been ages since my last summoning, so I naturally assumed an offering had been paid for me. If I'd known, I'd at least have checked the summoning details first. No — I shouldn't have answered at all. I shouldn't have come bounding over all excited...”
The lizard kept rambling on, banging his head against the wall. Hold on. Wait just a moment. So this lizard was officially my mascot? I was supposed to be stuck with this arrogant, insufferable reptile from now on?
“Haaah...”
The lizard and I both sank to the floor at the same time and let out a long, deep sigh. I give up on understanding any of this.
“First, undo the time stop. I'd like to at least ask the teacher something.”
Everything I knew said mascots got summoned and dutifully followed their magical girls — I'd never seen a rebellious, bizarre case like this. Who in their right mind wanted to team up with a creature that did nothing but gripe?
“One moment. Unless you'd rather I knock the whole room unconscious, I must shift my form first, no?”
Grumbling between deep, heavy sighs. Trust me, I'm the one who doesn't want to be here.
With a soft pomf, the massive body vanished, and the mist that had lain spread around it faded away as well. Before me, shrunk down to something smaller than a human face, the lizard flapped along on tiny wings, flying with all his might.
“You're a lizard. What's with the wings and horns?”
“Lizard? Lizaaaard? Does your eye truly perceive me as a lizard, girl?”
“Yes.”
“GRAAAAAAHHH! How can one who cannot even recognize my worth become my master! How utterly galling. Dying and resurrecting on the spot might honestly be the better option.”
“Don't care. Lizard-san, undo the time stop already.”
“A dragon! A DRAGON! The strongest and sovereign of all sacred-beast-tier creatures — a dragon!”
“Huh? You're sacred-beast tier?”
“You looked right at me and didn't know!”
“I assumed you were reptile-class.”
“GRAAAAAAAHHH!”
That lizard was a sacred-beast-tier dragon? Judging by everything he'd said and done so far, I couldn't doubt it — but why did it have to be me as his master? My mana was inferior even to Mika's; a fairy-tier mascot should have been the correct outcome for me.
The lizard — no, the dragon — circled around me in the air, bellowing at the top of his lungs. Ah, yeah. A quiet life is not in the cards for me. And here I'd hoped, at the very least, for a quiet, demure mascot.
After flying circles for a long while and running out of steam, the dragon finally seemed to calm down, glaring at me with a tight grin and saying nothing at all.
“Undo the time stop, please.”
“Haaah... Fine.”
Temporal stasis dissolves — the world resumes its flow.
The moment the dragon exhaled his breath, the barrier-like membrane around us slowly dissolved, and everyone — as if nothing had ever happened — stood holding their breath, staring at me.
“Did it get summoned?”
“Look! Something's floating around Serena!”
“Kyaaa! It's so cute!!”
The girls' reactions were innocent enough, but the teacher looked as if she'd seen a ghost, gaping in shock.
“A d... dragon? That's a violet dragon — the highest of the sacred-beast tiers, said to be the strongest of them all?”
“Hmph. At least this girl has eyes that see.”
The dragon nudged me, all but asking whether I finally grasped his stature now, but I was worried only about what came next.
“What? Sacred-beast tier?”
“The second sacred beast after Mika!”
“Amazing!! Me too, I want one too!”
“Serena, were you hiding your power all this time?!”
In an instant, all the attention converged on me and Dragon-san, and the girls crowded around in a ring to gawk at us like monkeys at the zoo.
“H-hey! Don't you dare touch me so carelessly!”
Ugh, please. Just leave me alone. Right now everyone was focused on Dragon-san — this was my one and only chance. Time to slip away.
“Hey! You're not thinking of leaving me behind, are you? Hey!!”
My name isn't "Hey," so that obviously wasn't me being called. Sure, sure, whatever you say.
I left Dragon-san to soak up the spotlight even better than I ever could, and hid myself behind Mika and Irene, masking my presence completely.
“Serena, what are you doing?”
“Hide-and-seek.”
That's right. I am a pebble. A pebble no one looks for. So please, please, just leave me alone.
“Hey!! Help me!!! Right now, before I crush every last one of you!!”
And just like that, our mascot summoning came to a haphazard end.
Back in the classroom, everyone was happily chatting about their newly summoned mascots — their life stories, what magic they'd use once they became magical girls, that sort of small talk.
“Hey. Do you want to die?”
Everyone, of course, except for me and my mascot. Dragon-san had spent roughly an hour of hell surrounded by the girls. I'd heard dragons were a race that didn't flock together, wandering alone instead — and honestly, that seemed to suit me just fine.
“Calm down. Better than being called a lizard, at least.”
“You call that a consolation...! Ugh, forget it. It's all my fault anyway.”
“Glad we agree.”
Dragon-san glared at me a couple of times, then flopped down onto the desk and turned to Mika's mascot beside him, speaking as if picking a fight.
“A sacred-beast-tier being, serving as a mascot. Have you no shame?”
“No shame at all. Do you have any idea how beautiful and noble this work is?”
“What did you say? Running errands for little girls?”
“Choose your words carefully. You're the one who should be ashamed, for failing to understand how beautiful it is to protect this world.”
“A pony dares defy me?”
“Hmph. A being so grand and mighty, reduced to a mascot. That's what's truly laughable.”
Dragon-san trembled with rage. Seriously — you can't even win, so why start the fight in the first place? He really did seem to live a tiresome existence.
When the teacher finally came in and gave a brief explanation about mascots — filling in, belatedly, what Liria had covered in her lesson — the material was old news to me, and the girls were too busy chattering about their mascots to care. The class trailed off into nothing.
“Starting tomorrow, we'll begin your magic lessons in earnest, so each of you return to your dormitory and have your mascot grant you your Unique Magic, alright?”
“Yes~”
Unique Magic, huh. I'd be granted something completely different from what I already knew. If the mascot system had stayed as I remembered it, I might have had some hope to cling to — but with everything thoroughly upended, I no longer even wished for the story to follow its original course. In short: I'd given up.
“Hey. What's got you making a face like you're about to drop dead?”
“It's not 'Hey.' It's Serena. Serena Silphiel.”
“You dare speak casually to me?”
“You should be thanking me for humoring you this long. Asking for more than that would just be greed without conscience, wouldn't it?”
I was already exhausted; kissing up to this guy and playing courtier on top of it was more than I could manage.
“What could possibly be the problem? I'm none too fond of you myself, but summoning the strongest of mascots should at least make you happy like the others, no?”
“You'd think.”
“What a frustrating creature you are.”
“Anyway — what was your name again?”
“Bersaka.”
“Right. Bers. Looking forward to working with you.”
“It's Bersaka!”
“Bers.”
“Truly insolent. Are all humans with high pure mana like this?”
Leaving Bers grumbling behind me, I set off toward the dormitory with Irene. Unique Magic or whatever — the day had drained me more than enough, and for once, I just wanted a little rest.