Black Twilight Infiltrates the City (2)
"Hello, Vice Commander Weg. It's been a long time since we last met."
"Oh dear, it really has been ages, Factory Manager. Welcome."
Though the visit was completely unannounced, Weg Vice Commander greeted his guest with a gentle, affable smile.
The man who entered was heavyset and large-framed, his head half-bald and giving off a middle-aged vibe. Despite Mech拉克's advanced technology allowing anyone to alter their appearance or get plastic surgery at will, he stubbornly clung to his current look—a true eccentric.
Surprisingly, many monster soldiers preferred such appearances, so it might not be right to judge them by Earth's conventional standards of beauty.
Anyway.
Without any prior appointment, the man who had shown up out of the blue followed Weg Vice Commander's guidance and settled onto the sofa in the inner office.
The high-end sofa creaked and sank deeply under his weight, as if crying out in protest.
A short while after he sat down, a finely crafted robot maid served coffee and pastries.
He declined the coffee but immediately picked up a pastry and popped it into his mouth. The elegant motion, so at odds with his bulky build and looks, was quite unexpected.
"I... must admit, I'm a bit surprised. You've been so hard to meet despite my repeated requests..."
"Ah, yes, indeed. As you know, I've been quite busy with various matters. Still, I felt bad turning down your requests every time, so I finally made the trip myself..."
The heavyset middle-aged man chuckled in response to the vice commander's words.
This middle-aged man was the mayor overseeing the entire city.
At the same time, he was the head of the Hypnosis Factory, responsible for managing and processing the city's magical girls.
This city was a "factory city" and a "hypnosis city."
In other words, as the name implied, the city itself had been built around that very Hypnosis Factory.
Thus, the person in charge of the "factory" also assumed the role of mayor, overseeing the entire city.
'He ignored all my requests for a meeting... Busy? As if his only job isn't just fucking the magical girls being processed in the factory.'
'You tanuki-like geezer...'
Weg Vice Commander inwardly tore into the man before him with vicious insults but kept his fawning expression perfectly intact.
He had a hunch about why the mayor had come in person.
"First of all... I'm truly sorry about the chimera you lent us earlier. It was our failure in handling it."
The anti-magical girl chimera.
These weren't infinitely producible; each one cost a fortune.
Production and management were handled by the "factory," and the "barracks" under Weg Vice Commander's command would request and borrow them as needed.
Recently, soldiers under Weg Vice Commander had taken one to capture a magical girl, only for it—and the soldiers—to be found brutally shredded.
Weg couldn't fathom how a chimera designed to counter magical girls had ended up like that. Suspicions of it being defective arose, but he wasn't in a position to voice complaints now.
Irritating the other side could sour relations, which would be disastrous.
After all, deploying hypnotized magical girls was also the factory's domain.
If this man decided to, he could simply stop sending Er his way.
"All slots are booked solid~" or some such excuse, and Weg would be left speechless.
No choice, then. Dirty and卑劣 as it was, he had to grovel.
As Weg Vice Commander slathered on the flattery, rubbing his hands and gauging reactions,
the mayor waved him off dismissively, saying it was fine and rejecting the apology.
"I'm chalking this incident up to Pure White's interference—nothing to be done about it. For some reason, our anti-magic chimeras just don't work on her. Bad luck, that's all."
"Pure White... Do you have solid proof she was involved? All the deployed soldiers were killed, and the nearby surveillance gear was fried."
"There was one survivor, remember? The one we thought was beyond saving, chopped to bits."
"...Right."
One soldier had clung to life with sheer tenacity.
But reduced to twitching chunks of meat, no one expected a coherent testimony from it.
"That soldier was specially modified. It could survive even in that mangled state. Thanks to that, we extracted perfect data while treating it in our facility."
"If you say so."
"Yes. I've brought the footage it personally witnessed. Let's watch it together."
With that, the mayor flicked his finger.
Responding to his brainwaves and gesture, a massive holographic screen materialized in the air, playing back the scene.
―It was a dark alleyway.
―A chimera and a magical girl were there.
―Then a new magical girl appeared in the alley, slicing through everyone in a blur of motion that required slowing the footage to 1/10 speed just to make out.
From her declaration, this intruder was clearly Pure White herself.
Yet even in the video, her form appeared hazy and indistinct, impossible to identify clearly.
"Magical girls wield all sorts of magic beyond our understanding... This must be one such spell. To conceal her identity."
The mayor—and head of the Hypnosis Factory—explained.
Indeed, Pure White's true identity remained unknown... but Weg Vice Commander had seen footage of her before, always appearing this way.
At any rate, Pure White was undoubtedly involved in the chimera incident.
That said...
"My thanks, Mayor. Saving our hopeless soldier and confirming Pure White's involvement—valuable intel indeed.
We'll keep hunting her down, so we'll use this footage as reference."
This video alone wasn't particularly thrilling.
Pure White had been a thorn in their side for ages, already a top search target.
They had plenty of similar footage already.
Nothing groundbreaking here.
Sensing the vice commander's disappointment,
the mayor replayed the video and continued, his demeanor shifting to the main point.
"One thing—that's why I came today. To share crucial information with you, Vice Commander."
"Look here, at this part."
He paused the playback and zoomed in on a spot.
It was the magical girl who'd been getting abused by the monster soldiers throughout the footage.
A short-haired magical girl with deep dark circles under her eyes.
Rescued by the intruding Pure White, her face now filled the enlarged screen.
With another wave of his hand, a new screen appeared beside it.
Factory product data.
"After seeing this, I checked our database—this magical girl's record was already registered. Verified as factory-processed."
"But that's odd. I memorize every girl we process here."
"No record of her in my memory."
"Neither processed nor managed."
"The data looks aged and fabricated... But checking my weekly reviews, it wasn't there last week."
He rattled it off like a machine gun.
Weg Vice Commander was taken aback by the logical, rapid-fire speech from that pudgy, dull-looking frame.
The mayor's image had always been one of laid-back ease.
"If I may... are you saying it was hacked?"
"Precisely. Given our security level... it has to be an inside job. And we've already pinned the culprit."
That made it even stranger.
If he'd identified the traitor himself, why not handle it solo? Why tell him?
Hard to read the true intent.
"Now, the main point. Here's where I have a favor to ask."
He summoned yet another screen.
Pure White's footage again, her face still blurred beyond recognition.
"We'll uncover Pure White's identity. Interrogating the traitor and this girl should yield results."
"What I need from you comes after we expose her—"
He elaborated.
Weg Vice Commander quickly grasped the intent as the explanation unfolded.
There were various details.
But boiled down: something only he, head of the city's military "barracks," could do.
"I can't ask the Commander. Only you, Vice Commander...!"
The mayor—Factory Manager—bowed earnestly before him, full of passion and sincerity.
Indeed, the barracks' rigid Commander would never tolerate the shortcuts the mayor proposed.
Moreover, what he'd just outlined was a high-risk gamble from start to finish—utterly disastrous if overheard.
No sane person would entertain it.
Yet here he was, begging for it.
'Hmm...'
But if it succeeded, the collaborator stood to gain massively.
He might leap from vice commander to commander... or even higher.
'Commander, huh...'
Relishing the ring of it, he narrowed his eyes.
Commander vs. vice—just one rank apart, yet worlds in treatment.
Naturally, Weg Vice Commander wasn't content with his current post.
After a moment's thought, he murmured lowly.
"One condition, Factory Manager. Grant me this, and I'll back your plan. Deal?"
He flashed a sinister smile.
A smile brimming with dark desire.
A sticky, swampy grin like the depths of an abyss.
"Among your products, there's a magical girl named Er. I want her—make her mine, somehow."
The Factory Manager accepted the proposal readily.
Thus, a secret pact was sealed between them.
It would become the tragic spark driving Black Twilight and Er into a corner.