Behind the World and Magical Girl Hunter
Prison Thanato
As the magical girl, I collect the remains of the dead. That is my sin and my duty.
I arrived at the scene in collaboration with Fav, but upon confirming the two corpses sprawled across the floor, I let out a deep sigh.
“You have to handle these nutrient-poor corpses on your own, Fav.”
“Fav sent exactly the magical girls’ corpses over there, pong. There’s no way they’d be nutrient-poor, pong?”
“This is a scam. Prepare corpses with enough magical essence to control, and don’t bring me empty cans without any magic at all.”
The bodies on the floor were Swim Swim’s and Minael’s. The way their magical essence had already been drained made me click my tongue in disgust.
This world is truly packed with villains.
They solve their magical power depletion by pulling it from another world, then select the talented under the guise of the Selection Exam to justify it.
But Cranberry’s Selection Exam was worlds away from the peaceful and natural one she pretended to be.
“Truly….”
“You actually enjoy it, don’t you? The worst mage expelled from the Magical Kingdom, playing corpse handler.”
“Enjoy? I’m nothing like that. If this world is a playground for villains, I’ll become the worst villain who ends it all and drags the planet down with me.”
“Talking like a god. Fav thinks your power isn’t that great, pong.”
“Right, just an ordinary mage.”
“Hiding corpses for Cranberry’s Selection Exam. That’s your job, right? Now keep quiet and watch. You love stimulation and violence, don’t you, pong?”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”
I answered vaguely, turning my gaze away. Fav grinned slyly while staring at my phone screen.
“By the way, that person in the background screen of your phone… is it really Shinomiya Gaku, pong?”
“Correct.”
“Wow, Fav is genuinely amazed, pong! How did a human like you become friends with such a pure guy, pong?”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“That aside, Hardcore Alice’s magic and your magic look just as ugly, pong.”
I began sewing the corpses together into a controllable doll instead of answering.
Black thread dripped from my fingertips, burrowing into the cold flesh.
“Stop mocking me. After all, you just watch Cranberry’s cruel game, and I get the byproduct, the corpses. That’s the contract we made.”
“You’re not sane, pong! You pushed your own sister into Cranberry’s test and talk like that, pong!”
“That was for the greater good. You lot are fundamentally different.”
“The greater good? Pong! You just tossed Cranberry a fun toy for her Selection Exam, pong!”
“By the way, what about the promised ‘Miya Octave’ corpse?”
“Ah, Master strictly forbade handing it over, so I couldn’t, pong!”
“It’s just gonna rot back to dirt anyway. Greedy.”
“If you keep saying it’s dead, you’re basically dead too, pong. You died at Shinomiya Gaku’s hands and got erased from records, pong. The only reason you’re alive now and patching yourself up is because you should be grateful to me, pong!”
“…Yeah, you’re not wrong.”
Sensing the foreign throb from the patched body, I turned my gaze toward the pungent smell of blood drifting from beyond the forest.
“Speaking of your sister earlier, how’s that guy doing these days?”
Fav answered my question with a tail wag.
“Caught and living like a slave by a magical girl who worships the Selection Exam and mimics Cranberry with a nasty dialect, pong. Doesn’t she look pitiful, pong? She’s been used as a near-slave.”
“…Doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”
My cold response made Fav’s fluffy tail wag excitedly as he approached.
“No warmth toward your sister, even after washing your eyes out? Pong?”
“There was once, but now I don’t have room for that kind of feeling.”
I answered coldly, as if swapping out emotions, then shifted my gaze to the screen Fav had summoned.
Inside the screen, Snow White was locked in battle. A hand-to-hand fight that refused to yield against the strongest, Cranberry.
It was like she had already mastered her opponent’s moves, methodically hunting only her weakness.
A magical girl carrying memories from the future time zone….
◇ Snow White
“You’re here, Snow White,” Kurei murmured quietly.
I faced him and steadied my trembling breath.
“…I no longer want to live just watching people die.”
“Right. Let’s return safely. We’ll end this hopeless Selection Exam right away.”
At those words, a woman slowly emerged from the hut deep in the forest.
Golden elf ears, eyes like burning red embers, green jacket. The forest musician, Cranberry.
She surveyed us with casual poise.
“The last one turned out to be Snow White, who drove me to the brink. Didn’t she come with La Pucelle? I assumed it would be a perfect set, but this unexpected combination is interesting.”
“La Pucelle isn’t coming. I didn’t ask.”
I hated the idea of him getting hurt again trying to protect me, more than death itself. This time, I would end it with my own hands.
“It means I still have a voice left because I haven’t used that magic item yet. Two against one, confident? Of course I welcome it. Beating multiple opponents is my specialty.”
Cranberry smiled and stared fixedly at Kurei Fuwa. The killing intent pouring from his entire body seemed to freeze the forest air.
“You really have to die, Cranberry!!!”
“You should know by now. You even participated in the Selection Exam with your whole family, right? Especially when you faced Fuwa Akane, you must have been plenty tense and nervous.”
Cranberry remained relaxed.
She didn’t know the true nature of Snow White’s magic.
But I was different.
Memories of the past, the sounds she heard and the exact timing of her movements, were etched into my brain.
Snow White raised her blade and kicked off the ground.
“…..”
Kurei Fuwa swung his massive scythe at the same time and charged. In the rain-soaked forest, the ruthless battle for fate finally began.
“Let’s see how much you can fight until the end.”
A strange smile curved my lips.
“Truly, this Selection Exam has had too many interrupters.”
Chidō and the scythe thrust toward Cranberry’s neck through the rain. She tilted her head back and dodged the edge by a paper-thin margin.
Any ordinary magical girl would have lost her stance here, but she countered by stabbing a sharp kick into Kurei’s abdomen at the same time she dodged.
BOOM!
But Kurei didn’t get pushed back. He had adjusted his body density with Swim Swim’s “Matter Phase” magic and dispersed the impact.
Seeing that opening, Snow White drove in.
(Right shoulder, and behind—!)
The attack trajectory echoed in Snow White’s mind as clearly as if it were written there.
Before Cranberry could counter, Snow White lowered her body and kicked her supporting left leg.
“……!”
Cranberry’s eyes filled with shock for the first time. She reacted a full beat faster than her own sound-reading of muscle contraction.
Snow White used the moment Cranberry tried to regain balance to smash her jaw with the handle of Chidō.
CRACK!
Cranberry’s neck twisted. Kurei fused with her shadow behind her back.
“Die!”
The scythe swung in a wide arc to sever her waist, but Cranberry twisted mid-air and stomped the blade with her instep to leap away. Unrealistic reaction time.
But the air was also her death.
(Landing point: three meters behind on the left, then sound wave release—!)
Snow White had already arrived there first.
“No!”
Snow White’s fist shot toward Cranberry’s face as she tried to land.
Cranberry crossed her arms in the air for a guard, but then Kurei’s deadly kick slammed into her side.
CRUNCH!
With the sound of ribs breaking, Cranberry tumbled across the rough dirt.
Her noble elf costume was ruined by rain and mud.
Cranberry panted harshly as she rose. Her eyes, wiping away the blood trickling from her lips, sparkled with grotesque excitement.
“……How interesting. Do you know what I’m thinking?”
(Interesting, isn’t it?)
Outwardly calm, inside Snow White heard her thoughts already boiling with insane joy.
“You won’t have time to ask questions.”
Kurei gripped his scythe again. Snow White brushed wet hair from her face and stared at Cranberry with cold eyes.
Magic was just support.
The battlefield now flowed with primal violence of flesh and bone colliding.
Snow White knew. Every step Cranberry would take next, every finger she would reach.
“Again…”
With Snow White’s declaration, two shadows rushed toward the forest ruler like a storm once more.