Chapter 13. Counterattack (7)

Before long, sirens began to wail outside.

Every time we'd been called out before, the ones the police had been dealing with were, as a rule, kaijin — but today their target was different. Something about protecting the chairman of an extraterrestrial corporation who played a rather important role in this country... I suppose it was something like that.

Naturally, the chairman wasn't here. I couldn't tell which they'd judged the greater priority — me striking at the chairman, or the seizure of the company's key facilities — but apparently they'd decided to play it safe and guard against both. And I had to admit that judgment wasn't wrong. If I'd actually run into the chairman here, something — an arm, a leg, whatever — would have ended up broken.

Well, with Hayun and Iris at my side, it wouldn't come to killing. Even on my own, I probably wouldn't have actually killed him. That would make it genuine murder. Wait, no — wasn't breaking limbs just as much of a violent felony? Was that different from plain assault? Hmm.

In that case, stopping at intimidation was still the smartest play.

Hayun and Iris looked my way.

There was still time. The police wouldn't charge in right away. They knew that even sniper fire wouldn't neutralize me in one shot — quite the opposite, it would send me rampaging — and that subduing a rampaging me would take more than slipping a few officers inside. Would they simply wait until I came out? Even so, I had no interest in letting even a handful of them in to make a nuisance of themselves.

I stood a table on end against the front door to block it, and behind that I braced the half-wrecked wardrobe roughly into place, so punching through would cost them a little time.

Would the police come at the huge window we'd smashed our way in through? If they rappelled in from a helicopter or the like, it seemed entirely possible — but regrettably, that side was too awkward to seal off for any number of reasons, so I decided to leave it as it was.

There was nothing on the second floor. Not that it was strange. The space was far too cramped to hide anything, and measured against the building's exterior, too much of the interior read as empty. Above all, the top of this house was flat — rooftop style. Even if something important were hidden up there, the most it could be was a crawlspace barely deep enough for a person lying prone. Just in case, I smashed through the ceiling of every room to check, but all I found were the gaps left for wiring inspection.

James hadn't come inside yet. Which was proof, at least, that there was no sign of the police deploying troops by helicopter.

Iris looked at me. She didn't put it into words — in case of listening devices — but she'd likely noticed that something about this space was off.

Even so — really, it was one thing to have no equipment for dealing with us. This was too bare even for that.

Had he assumed I wouldn't come calling because this was the former chairman's house? That I'd hunt down wherever he himself was staying?

Or did he simply no longer have the means to field kaijin? The ones that had faced us were everything he'd secured, and by the time we'd destroyed every last one, there might have been almost nothing left. Beyond that... perhaps, rather than burning each kaijin one by one against us, he was preparing to develop more reliable equipment, fit it, and deploy it in their place.

If so, this place might have been filed away as a 'relatively unimportant location,' exactly as James had predicted. The chairman had no particular need to be here. It wouldn't be strange for him to have a handful of buildings... no, dozens — ready to house him at a moment's notice. And if he was lying low in some pricey hotel room, we had no way of ever finding out. Even if we did, storming the place would demand caution. Civilians would inevitably be tangled up in it.

It burned me up, but this whole trip might be a bust.

"......"

I hesitated for a moment. Would it be better to simply head back at this point? Or should we check whether there was a basement after all?

"Is something the matter?"

As I was deliberating, James's voice rang out.

"I came over once the sounds of destruction inside stopped, but it appears there was nothing of great importance after all."

The drone James rode circled the room as it spoke, as if surveying its surroundings.

"You needn't worry about listening devices. At least as far as I can tell, there are none."

"If you know that much, wouldn't it have been better to mention it a little earlier?"

"I was monitoring for helicopters and drones until just this moment — how exactly was I supposed to notify you? You didn't even bring any wireless communication equipment."

"......"

Maybe I should build one of those after all.

"Well, it's not as though you came expecting much in the first place, is it? Our objective in coming here was to plant the perception that you were after the chairman's life. The point was to pull as much of their strength as possible away from the real target, so there's no need to be so disappointed."

Hearing James say that left me with a strange feeling.

Was he... comforting me?

I couldn't see his expression. Being a hamster, even when I did look, I could only make out the shape of his mouth and the size of his eyes — hardly precise. Even so, there was a real difference between catching that much and seeing nothing at all.

It was absolutely not out of any fondness for me, I was sure. More likely, if I despaired completely over something like this, it would interfere with his revenge.

So, just as I was about to suggest we call it here and head back—

"Th-then, um, does it have a scanning function too? For the surroundings, I mean?"

"Pardon?"

At Hayun's abrupt interjection, James's drone swung around toward her. Even slightly warped by the speaker, the flustered note in his voice came through surprisingly clearly.

James was a bit awkward around the other magical girls. He and I couldn't exactly be called close either — but at the very least, I regarded James as emergency rations.

Aside from Iris, who built and mended things alongside him, I'd rarely seen James hold a real conversation with anyone. Usually, even when there was business, one side simply said their piece and it ended there. At most he'd answer me, and if another magical girl cut in midway, he'd field her question too.

Hayun especially — whether because it still bothered her that James had been an 'enemy cadre' — I don't think I'd ever seen her speak to him first.

"Like... checking whether there's any empty space, or something..."

Hayun's voice shrank a little. The drone had no face, but the way it stared at her in silence probably looked like it had forgotten what to say.

"If you insist on splitting hairs, it isn't that no such method exists."

"But?"

"That doesn't mean I can see through walls like an X-ray. Scanning the area for somewhat suspicious spots is about the extent of it."

"......"

Hayun, Iris, and I looked at one another. Then we looked at James.

"Then just scan the first floor with it. Why didn't you say so from the start?"

"Because I have this house's blueprints. There's nothing here that could pass for a research facility."

"......"

James's words plunged us back into silence.

After standing there blank for a good five seconds, mouth hanging open, I glared at him.

"Why didn't you say so from the beginning? No — wait. Didn't you flat-out act like you knew nothing at first? What exactly was going through your head when we planned this operation?"

But James brushed me aside with the very smoothest of manners, turning back toward Hayun as he asked:

"Then let's scan the first floor and head back. If anything special turns up, we'll destroy it or take it with us. Though the odds of that are slim, of course."

He'd plainly just wanted to watch me run myself ragged for nothing. Damn him.

But our original purpose in coming here had been accomplished, so there was nothing more I could reasonably say.

I followed James down to the first floor as he led the way.

James made for the center of the living room and switched on some... function or other of the drone.

Lasers burst from the drone in every direction. At a glance they resembled a surveyor's laser, but the pattern was far more intricate than that. Alien technology, presumably, or something of the sort.

I wondered whether we were even meant to be standing in the middle of it, but James raised no objection, so we stayed put.

While we kept our silence, sirens wailed outside, and the low murmur of a crowd drifted in. By now, the police probably had the building ringed. They hadn't yet started ordering us to surrender and come out — they were likely still moving carefully. It hadn't even been thirty minutes since we'd arrived. From where the police stood, the best outcome was us leaving without doing anything more.

"......"

"Why?"

After the lasers had swept over everything from the heights above to the ground beneath our feet, James went quiet. I waited a moment, but he said nothing, so I gave up on holding my tongue and asked again.

"...There are no facilities."

"Really? Then let's head ba—"

"No — one moment, please."

Bewilderment had seeped into James's voice.

"...Why?"

"There is a circuit beneath us. It appears to be running on the mana you use."

"You can detect that too? I thought you said you had no see-through function."

"I can detect vibrations."

In that case, that vibration had to be vanishingly faint. None of us could feel it, after all. If something were buried in solid ground and running, the vibration reaching the surface would be nearly nil — thick concrete soaks up almost all of it. All the more so with no open space around it.

"But why does that matter? Is that circuit important or something?"

If the circuit was running, it was surely because of me. Naturally — my power was what set the ground trembling, however faintly.

"Important, if you care to call it that."

James held his silence a moment, then spoke.

"The circuit is extremely unstable. And quite large."

"...Huh?"

"Just so. To put it plainly, it's every bit as unstable as the circuit you used back in your combatant days. Only far, far larger."

"...And?"

"It means there is a risk of detonation."

Hayun, Iris, and I went silent.

"Let's go."

"Wait — wait just a moment. You can't possibly be thinking of conjuring that black hole right now. Do you want to be blown away along with the mansion? The instant your mana floods in, it will explode. I'd wager that's exactly what they intended."

"So what you're telling me is, they planted a bomb or something wherever we were likely to show up?"

"Less a bomb than a deliberately crude circuit, but yes, that appears to be it. Running on your mana as it does, it would have been simple to hide. If you never came, it wouldn't so much as activate."

"...Then why didn't it blow the moment we arrived?"

"Did you not drop out of thin air?"

Ah. Right.

"Then I'll just fly up right now and—"

"No."

James's voice was dead serious.

"Thanks to your use of the propulsion device while tearing this place apart, the circuit appears to already be running in an extremely unstable state. The vibration is irregular."

Ah. Of course.

Running the propulsion device had meant driving the circuit hard. Furious, I'd heated every corner of the house until the machinery was hot enough to break apart. A few spots had even caught fire — and in those cases, I'd swung my hammer with everything I had and beat the flames out by force.

In other words, while I was making a shambles of the place, I'd been flinging my mana about with abandon. And flying required that very mana. Pour more of it into an already white-hot circuit, and—

"......"

We fell silent.

Outside the house, the sirens were blaring loud enough to rattle the windows.

And now, at long last, the script-by-the-book announcement was crackling through as well.

Letting the voice wash past one ear, I said:

"So what you're telling me is, right now we have to run without flying and without teleporting?"

I looked at Iris as I spoke.

"What about you? Could you send us somewhere else? You know how to work warp. How about shooting me and Hayun with that gun of yours?"

I pointed at the rifle as I said it.

"First we run somewhere — anywhere — then we pick a spot and regroup. Once we're clear of this place, everything else will sort itself out."

"No, wait a moment."

James cut in over me.

"The mana fed into a circuit destabilizes it — but it also holds it together. If someone truly wanted it to detonate, they would have built it so the control mechanism failed the instant that mana supply vanished. Which means the moment you disappear from this place, that circuit will almost certainly explode."

James laid out the situation with a certain composure, but he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't entirely mask the tremor running through his voice.

"If anyone at all can trigger a warp with that rifle, it may not matter. If it goes off 'after you've vanished,' there's no problem — you won't be here when it blows either way. However..."

I rubbed a hand across my forehead.

Right. Even if that rifle did have such a function, I couldn't be the one to use it. The type of mana was different.

Naturally, taking on every kaijin with my mana alone was out of the question. However serviceable my power was, I hadn't even been fighting with magic for three months yet. My efficiency was naturally a step below girls who'd been at this for years. And if we all drew from my mana together, we might come up dry at the moment that mattered most.

That's why, whenever we moved out to fight, the magical girls naturally used their own circuits. No one could track us down within a matter of minutes. Besides, James kept tinkering with the tracking devices to stretch the delay even further.

...But none of it meant a thing if I was the last one left. However I tried to run, the bomb would go off.

"...What's the blast radius?"

I tried to recall the moment my own circuit had blown. It hadn't been all that big. Though the only detonation I'd ever witnessed was back in my combatant days, when output ran low — nothing like the circuit I carried now, or the one buried under our feet—

"I can't be precise,"

James seemed to sink into thought for a moment.

"but I'd estimate a radius of some fifty meters."

Fifty meters.

On its own, fifty meters didn't sound so vast — but in a neighborhood where the houses stood wall to wall, the math changed. A hundred meters across, and everything inside that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠circle might be blasted off the map.

Had it been buried out by the property line, somewhere between house and garden, it might not have been a disaster at all. It could have ended with nothing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more than this mansion and a strip of road blown skyward.

But this was buried beneath the mansion itself. However conservatively you measured from here, the next house over fell well inside fifty meters. Worse still, this was the heart of Seoul — city gas lines ran beneath the streets. And a bomb doesn't simply spread wide in four directions. It erupts upward and downward too.

"...And the police?"

"When I last looked, they were tightening a cordon around the entire area. Yes, there were certainly some at the front gate. At least a few of them would be caught in the blast. Especially if they come inside and fight you."

"If I don't use mana—"

"Your mana responds to your emotions. Have you forgotten?"

"So I'm supposed to think positive thoughts on the spot, is that it?"

"What did I tell you just now? The moment the mana feeding that circuit disappears, it explodes?"

Then what the hell was I supposed to do!

...Right. This was exactly the scenario they'd aimed for when they planted this damn device.

Coming here had been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the mistake. Less that I'd failed to foresee the future, and more that this place was worthless to the chairman to begin with — which was precisely why he'd rigged it like this. There was nothing here worth mourning if it all blew sky-high.

Besides, an 'explosion' was prime material. Even if every civilian nearby had evacuated, if anyone was hurt by this blast, public opinion would sour on me all over again — and the 'terrorist' label would stick that much more easily. Even the grudgingly positive reactions to the broadcast I'd put out would all be voided. Damn it.

"Could we get the police to pull back?"

"...Do you imagine the people who came to arrest you would retreat?"

"What if we tell them a bomb's been planted?"

"You'd throw away that broadcast you went to such pains over?"

...Was he picking a fight?

No — calm down. If my temper blew, the bomb might just blow with it.

"...Um."

As James and I went at it, Hayun raised a hand ever so slightly.

"Could I... offer one idea?"

She didn't need to look quite that worried about it. The situation was worrying, granted — but in moments like this, even an absurd idea was worth hearing out. You could always reshape it into something workable.

"First — what if we broke open the floor and pulled the circuit out?"

"That would be possible."

"Then what about working on the circuit itself?"

"...That too is possible, in principle."

James's voice came laced with a sigh.

"But I cannot guarantee the bomb stays in one piece. One misstep and it could detonate while we're extracting it — or while I'm dismantling it."

Right. Unstable — that was the whole problem. It was like pulling components out of a computer with the power cord still plugged in. You might take a shock; the parts might fry. A computer, at least, probably wouldn't explode — but this circuit was an entirely different beast.

"What if we called in a different expert?"

"...The Company is unlikely to offer any help."

Hayun turned toward Iris.

"Jua. You said the Company's circuits are nearly identical in structure to the ones we use, didn't you?"

"...Once you get down to the fine details, not exactly... but yes, at bottom they both run on 'emotion.' In that respect, similar is similar. If you want someone with more specialized knowledge than mine... oh."

Iris looked at Hayun as though something had just clicked.

Hayun nodded, then turned to James.

"Then I know just the person. A Squeak-seong-in like you — and brilliant with circuits, too."

"Someone from the Federation, perhaps?"

"Yes."

"How about you two escape first instead? I'll manage the bomb somehow."

"No."

Hayun's refusal was flat and absolute.

"Jua, you go back first."

Then she turned her head toward Iris and said exactly the same thing.

"And why, exactly, would I do that?"

Iris shot back, the very picture of incredulity. Then, with a resolute expression, she laid it out flat:

"Let's simply go with Blossom's idea. Get the people nearby to safety, and call Cherry. Above all, if I leave, that's one fewer person here who can actually help."

"......"

Honestly, not one of them would listen to a word I said.

I heaved a deep sigh and dragged a hand down my face.