Chapter 8. Weapon (6)
I don't know exactly how the Hope Circuit works.
There's a circuit that runs on hope. Its conversion efficiency is overwhelmingly higher than the circuits that run on despair. Those two facts were the extent of my knowledge. I did watch the webtoon, but the lore never got spelled out in any detail. If anything, the focus was more on power struggles between government agencies and corporations.
Not that it ever dove deep into those either — it was the kind of gag manga that tucked little bits of black comedy into the gaps between the magical girls' everyday lives.
Back when it was running casually on some blog, I could just laugh and enjoy it. But once it got an official serialization and the run stretched long, somewhere around the point where it had burned through the equivalent of a few dozen chapters of that blog material, it turned dead serious, and the genre shifted entirely.
...So, yeah, that's what I mean. I do know a fair amount of the setting on my own, but honestly, I've learned more since coming over to this side than I ever picked up from reading it.
Which is why I had no idea why Hayun's wand had suddenly burst into flame.
All I could tell was that it had helped her tremendously.
The kaijin swung its arm at the magical girls as if to say it would never, ever give up.
If anything, it looked far more savage than when it had been holding a hostage.
Maybe because neither side had anything left to worry about now.
Its white left arm came rushing at Hayun with a hiss of cleaved air.
While I dug my heel into the ground to brake, the attack had already reached her.
Or to be precise — reached Hayun's wand.
"———!"
The kaijin, which until now had managed something vaguely resembling a human voice, let out a shriek that wasn't even remotely human anymore.
A mass of white flesh flew up into the sky. It was shaped like a pincer. More precisely, it looked the way a pincer would if there were meat inside the claw.
...Seeing it up close, it's genuinely horrifying.
She was not the Hayun of her best days. The girl who had once stood against me didn't show herself here either.
But that pink blade was, quite simply, a sword that severed everything.
The power I could only unleash by leaping high into the air and hammering down with all my strength, Hayun could produce with a single sweep of her wand.
Tschak!
And then the leading edge of the armored chitin came charging in — and was sheared off. The hardest tip of the pincer on that right arm went flying before it could even touch Hayun's body.
When I was a kid, I watched one of those movies full of people swinging lightsabers, and this was like watching a battle scene straight out of it. A pink blade of light whirled and wheeled, guarding the space around Hayun's body.
At a glance it looked like she was simply swinging it around and around, but watch the motion closely and you'd see that each of the enemy's faster strikes was being cut down at the last possible instant, blocked with the barest minimum of movement.
Well, of course. The ones who'd break an enemy's limbs rather than let a single blow land — those were magical girls. And they don't kill.
"You bastards...!"
The kaijin roared and pressed itself flat against the ground.
Then it raised its tail carapace high into the air.
The tip of that carapace was sharp.
Was the reason it hadn't used it until now simply because it had two pincers? It would have had to turn its whole body to bring the tail around, after all. It didn't look remotely flexible enough for that.
Kwajik.
But before it could twist around and swing that tail at Hayun's throat, the armor on it was smashed to pieces.
"Keeeeeek!?"
The kaijin shrieked and tried to thrash, but with a warhammer pinning its tail, it wasn't going anywhere.
Crushed as it was, the flesh inside hadn't been severed. With the hammer bearing down on it like it had a rocket booster strapped on, unless it tore its own flesh free, it wasn't escaping or moving anywhere.
bang! bang!
The kaijin twisted to face rearward, only to stagger under bullets that came flying in from the side.
And when it tried to look the other way —
thwack!
It just took a magic-reinforced gauntlet to the face.
From above, Dahlia's magic came hammering down as if a hailstorm had broken loose. The kaijin's body sank a little lower under the heavy blows.
"Uoooooh!"
But then, as if it would overcome all of it, the kaijin tensed its entire body.
"Ugh!?"
The hammer pinning it bucked.
Whether it was wringing out its final dregs of strength or undergoing some second awakening, the body beneath the carapace heaved as if it were about to shed its husk and burst out at any moment.
But —
"Whoa!?"
"G-get out of the way, quickly! What do you think you're doing?! Do you want to die together— Squeak!?"
A colossal mass of magical energy was flying straight toward us — so enormous that James, perched on my shoulder, was shouting about it.
It was Delphinium's spell.
And since I knew exactly what kind of pain that magic delivered, every hair on my body stood on end.
I wrenched my upper body sideways by brute force, swinging the hammer's head away.
The moment the hammer rolled aside, the energy discharging outward from the Generator shoved my body sideways as well.
I spun about four full rotations like a top.
Or should I say a centrifuge? The energy source was astronomical, so that might actually be the more accurate term.
Either way, it got me clear.
I planted my feet on the ground again and stopped, holding the hammer head-down, and looked toward the kaijin.
"......"
Is that thing... not lethal?
And I've been getting hit by things like that and surviving? Even for just a moment, I have to admire the sheer tenacity of human life.
Or maybe, appearances aside, that spell was actually somewhat controlled.
The surroundings were burning white.
Inside, the kaijin showed only as a black shape — dancing and burning within the white mana.
Then, in a single instant, the light vanished. As if it had never existed in the world at all.
The kaijin stood in place for just a moment.
There wasn't a scrap of the white flesh left.
The kaijin took one step forward,
and simply collapsed.
The heavy thud of its fall rang out louder than I'd expected. It must have been because everything around us had gone so quiet.
I quickly turned my head to look for people.
"Jieun!"
I heard someone calling my name.
Far away, there was Jihye.
She seemed to be trying to run toward me, but the police standing beside her were holding her back. Whether out of consideration for Jihye being a girl, the ones restraining her from both sides were policewomen.
Something that had been burning hot seemed to plunge into cold water, with an audible hiss.
And then there was a faint smell of something burning.
I turned to look — smoke was rising from the hammer.
My heart lurched. The smoke and the smell made me wonder, for a horrible second, whether the circuit inside had caught fire.
But before I could get any more seriously worried —
clack.
With that sound, the rear section of the hammer that had been flung open sealed itself shut in stages. Machined metal parts so exquisitely precise interlocked with each other so seamlessly that not even a trace of its having been open remained.
Maybe it was because seeing Jihye safe had settled my heart.
I lifted my head and looked toward her again.
Our eyes met.
Jihye, who had been waving and shouting at me, flinched back a little the moment our eyes actually met.
"......"
I looked down at myself.
Soot was smeared everywhere. Hardly surprising, given how much I'd been swinging around a hammer that burned white-hot and had a thruster bolted to the back of it.
There was blood trickling too, and more than anything, I was drenched in that soybean-marinated-crab-colored fluid.
I looked like a wreck.
No — the problem wasn't just that I looked like a wreck.
I...
Ah. So that's it.
Right in front of Jihye, I had crushed someone's arm to pieces. And looking now, the traces of it were on Jihye's body too.
And.
What if — what if Jihye thinks it was because of me?
What if she thinks she got taken hostage because of me?
The kaijin wasn't in any state to say anything coherent, but that was exactly why, going by the situation alone, it was so easy to misread.
...Am I overthinking it?
Yeah. I'm definitely overthinking it.
If I just go over there and talk to her now —
But the moment I took a single step in that direction.
BANG!
With that sound, my left shoulder was thrown backward.
"Squeak!?"
That sound escaped from James's mouth.
We'd brought it down.
It wasn't Hayun's strength alone that had felled the kaijin.
And that was precisely what made it good. It meant she'd done it together with the other girls — and with Jieun.
Besides, Jieun had even stepped in to protect her from the kaijin's attack. Didn't that mean, at the very least, that there wasn't enough ill will left between them to let her be hurt?
In that final moment, hope had blazed.
Maybe that was why.
"...Ah."
Only after everything was finished did Iris open her eyes wide and stare down at her own circuit.
It was an utterly faint hope — but that alone had brought Hayun's energy back, at least in part.
And that "part" alone was more than enough for the circuit's energy to brim over and pour strength into the magical girls around her.
"...That was close."
Delphinium said, looking slightly pale.
"The range almost spread too far."
"...Was it because so much mana came flooding in partway through?"
When Hayun asked, Delphinium nodded.
Every one of the magical girls had known what was happening to Hayun and Jieun. Naturally, none of them had any intention of attacking Jieun right before their eyes.
The reason Delphinium had called it dangerous was that Jieun had ended up inside that spell's range.
So she'd hurled it a little earlier than planned, then.
Hayun looked toward Jieun.
"......"
Jieun wasn't looking at her.
She was simply gazing at Jihye, who was waving to her from far away.
Of course... she is.
It might be coincidence, but Jihye had been taken hostage. If anything, worrying about her first was only the right thing to do.
...It's okay.
So much had happened.
She must have built up so much by now.
If Jieun ever brought it up, I'll apologize properly. I'll make it up to her as far as I possibly can.
And if she still can't forgive me... then that can't be helped. But still —
But still, there was hope.
Even when facing magical girls in battle, Jieun had looked out for Hayun. There was no malice mixed into that.
Which meant that, at the very least, something of a friend's feeling must have remained.
The way she'd helped just now, too.
Someone who truly despised her wouldn't have done that.
Hayun looked down at her circuit.
The circuit was spinning with strength.
From that tiny sliver of hope alone.
"I'm — I'm going to go over for a bit."
When Hayun said this, her fellow magical girls glanced at one another, then back at her.
"Go for it."
Rose gave her shoulder a pat.
"...If the rest of us go along, it'll probably only backfire."
Hayun nodded.
Iris looked a little anxious, but she didn't try to stop her either.
Jieun looked worn out. There were visible injuries, but nothing seemed critically serious at a glance, which was a relief.
Somehow, they'd get her to the Magical Treatment Center. After a good, proper rest, they could talk things over slowly, and things would be all right.
She should bring Jihye along too. That might actually put Jieun more at ease. After Jieun disappeared, Hayun had looked into it — Jihye was family to her, in every way that mattered.
With those thoughts, Hayun looked toward Jieun once more and took a single step forward.
That was the moment the gunshot rang out.
Jieun looked exhausted.
Her clothes were torn and scorched in places, and blood was running from her wounds.
On top of that, some unidentifiable liquid had been sloshed all over the injuries.
What if it infects her?
What if it's dangerous to leave her like this?
I'd never heard of a magical girl dying from something like that, but I was worried all the same.
I wanted someone to call an ambulance right this second. She needed to be taken to the treatment center.
The moment I turned my head with that thought —
A deafening gunshot.
Jieun's shoulder was thrown backward.
On her falling face was the expression of someone who hadn't yet grasped what was happening.
Magical girls were supposed to be able to deflect even bullets with their magic — but from Jieun's shoulder, a fountain of blood was erupting.
A scream tore its way out of Jihye's mouth.
The first thing I thought of when the bullet hit was James, sitting on my left shoulder.
"James!?"
Shouting that, I touched my shoulder with my right hand.
Blood came away on my fingers.
My heart hammered wildly. No. Don't tell me—
But thankfully, I heard a faint, slightly depleted squeaking.
And then —
"I almost died, you lunatics!"
A lion's roar erupted from my shoulder. I jerked my head aside for a moment.
He's okay? Thank god.
...No. It wasn't anything to be thankful for.
Looking down at my shoulder, it was smeared with red blood.
Had the bullet gone through? It hadn't. My left arm still moved properly. Judging by the location, a through-and-through there would have shattered my shoulder blade outright. Forget clenching a fist — the whole arm would have hung limp at my side.
Had magic deflected it?
Then why the wound —
Ah.
I looked down at the hammer.
Starting from the moment I looked down, a faint ticking began to rise from the hammer once more.
The Generator stopping meant I'd been feeling hope — that much of it. I'd seen that Jihye was unharmed. I'd seen Hayun regaining her strength.
An achingly thin hope, so faint it was practically invisible.
And even that hadn't lasted long. As one thought chained into the next, fresh worry had painted right over it.
And yet, even so —
"...Ha."
"Ms. Jeong Jieun?"
"Ha, hahahahaha!"
Ridiculous. Just plain ridiculous.
I clutched my belly with my left hand and laughed.
It wasn't laughter from joy, obviously. It wasn't because anything was actually funny, either.
Why was I laughing? I didn't know. It just came out.
"Because it's absurd" — that was probably the most accurate way to put it.
I raised my head.
I could hear people shouting that this wasn't allowed, hear voices raised in protest.
But stronger than any of those faraway sounds was what was right in front of my eyes.
I saw a net. The kind thrown out over the sea — the kind that greedily drags up whatever fish lie below, scooping hundreds, thousands of lives out of the water in a single haul.
Backlit as I was, I was only seeing the shadow of that shape. In truth it was a far more vicious thing than any fisherman's net.
Thick and heavy, pinning everything beneath it flat to the ground, a crushing weight that made it impossible to get back up.
It's just — ridiculous.
After fighting that hard.
I looked to the side.
The magical girls were moving.
They were rushing toward me. Why?
Only Hayun seemed unable to process the situation at all, eyes wide, mouth hanging stupidly open.
Truly, truly... unbelievable.
It would've been better if they'd just asked me politely to come with them. Sure, I'd have agonized over it when the time came, but maybe — maybe — I could have said yes? James did, after all. Why not put some thought into making it possible for one of them to actually reach me?
And instead, this is the result.
I tried too. I tried so hard.
I thought I'd worked as hard as anyone — hard enough not to lose to anybody.
Is it me? Am I the one who's different? Did I come to this world just to suffer, and is that why no amount of effort ever changes the outcome?
Look, I'm not claiming I did nothing wrong.
But you told me I could. You said it wasn't illegal. If anything, they're the villains — every last one of them, this side and that, all of them nothing but trash who use Hayun and feed off the Earth.
So why me? Why me and only me?
Is it really because of that one lousy comment I posted? Seriously? I wasn't even the only one who wrote things like that!
You absolute bastards.
Ahead of me, where the net had been, a black dot came into being.
That dot swallowed the net whole, greedily.
And not just the net.
It devoured everything that was there. The air. The light.
The light being sucked toward the black dot bent around it like a frame. The space nearby warped as if reflected in a concave mirror.
Even sound seemed to be pulled in — I couldn't hear anything at all.
I took one step toward that hole. Then another.
And I tilted my head.
I didn't do anything wrong. So why should I be the one running?
Aren't the police supposed to know better? They'd have investigated the scene. Evidence that it wasn't me would have been piled up to the sky.
I lowered my gaze.
Amid all that casually warping space, something glinted. One person was crouched atop a large armored vehicle, holding a long steel rod.
A gun.
A rifle, aimed at me without a shred of hesitation even now.
The foot that had been planted on the ground left it.
Rising slowly into the air —
I skipped the space in between and stood directly in front of the man.
"Uh—"
Before he could get a word out, I seized the muzzle.
The long rifle bent without much difficulty.
When I brought that curled-up tip right up to his eyes, the man broke out in a cold sweat.
I heard a chattering sound and wondered what it was — he was grinding his teeth together. It was cold out, sure, but not that cold.
I dragged my foot forward.
The armored vehicle's hull caved in hideously. The people inside scrambled out in a panic.
I shoved the prone man aside and, working off my anger, crushed the vehicle down again and again.
Rolling it with kicks, hammering it down, punching through it.
Windows shattered, the vehicle's flank tore open, tires burst and blew off and deflated, fuel came gushing out.
And the whole time, no one stopped me. Or couldn't? Why — when until a moment ago they'd fired at me without a second thought and dropped a net over my head?
Before long, the vehicle was flat.
I wrecked it far past the point where breaking it further would mean anything, then stood there panting and looked around.
Every person whose eyes met mine scrambled backward. A vast circle opened up around me, with me at its center.
The light in the sky was almost gone now. The blue sky had turned black as night. The sky where light flowed like rivers had been beautiful — and at the same time, it left me feeling empty.
"......"
I stared up at that sky for a long, long while, dazed, before lowering my gaze.
My eyes met Jihye's.
Jihye had sunk down onto the ground, staring at me with a face drained of all color.
For some reason, I wanted to cry.
So I simply vanished.