Chapter 274: Interlude—Portrait of a Certain Magical Girl
Chapter 274: Interlude—Portrait of a Certain Magical Girl
“So, you’re saying that mental manipulation was just a fluke?”
That was what Senior had said.
It happened just this morning.
“Hmm. I see.”
He said the words, but he couldn’t hide the suspicion written all over his face.
He was undoubtedly suspicious of the woman inside me.
The woman who was a blood-stained corpse.
It had been quite a while since I started having these lucid dreams.
But this was a secret.
A secret from everyone, including Senior.
A secret kept only between the two of us.
“Well, let’s move past that and talk about how to use your power.”
Even though he noticed I was hiding something, he didn’t pry any further.
He brushed it off as if it weren’t a big deal.
He was being sincere.
“Did you collapse from exhaustion because you used it on me, or is it naturally a technique that consumes that much energy?”
The latter was the correct answer.
She told me I had talent, but my own strength was still insufficient to fully draw out her power.
And so, my answer remained the same.
“So it’s an efficiency issue. Then, for my next question—can it only be used on humanoids?”
To this, I replied that it didn’t matter as long as the target possessed senses.
But that was a lie.
If I were to use that technique on my own, it would only work on beings I could understand.
Humans, demi-humans with similar sensory structures, or mammalian animals.
However.
She is inside me.
The woman who transcended perception and stepped into the darkness.
She knows monsters.
She was once a monster herself.
Because she, who helps me, understands those sensations.
“It wouldn’t be bad at all if you could use it on monsters. The duration is a bit disappointing, though. Hmm… Just try to do something about the exhaustion.”
I couldn’t do anything about the one-to-two-second duration.
She told me that since the technique was based on my telepathy, using it any longer would cause the target’s senses to flow back into me, causing adverse effects.
But the exhaustion was entirely my problem.
It was because I still lacked strength.
If I could one day surpass that limit, this would no longer be just a hidden trump card, but a power that truly belonged to me.
My own strength, possessed by the girl once called a worthless Hero.
Even if that strength was borrowed from someone else…
“Th...en, the nex...t paaaaaage…”
Ah. No.
I let an impure thought slip in.
The memory began to crumble.
From the reproduction of a happy daily life, the keywords of my thoughts led to The Root of the negativity buried within me.
The memory of my trauma.
I tried to summon countless other thoughts to block it, but once my emotions gave way, they swept through my mind like a tidal wave.
By the time I came to my senses, I was in a back alley.
A cramped, narrow alleyway.
Above my head, a lightbulb at the end of its lifespan flickered.
Beneath my feet, red blood coated the cracked pavement.
A suffocatingly narrow alley.
There were three beings in that alley.
Myself, with blood dripping from my fingers after firing my bow repeatedly.
My enemy, collapsed with eyes wide open, riddled with arrows.
And.
The one I didn’t want to see.
A single bat hovering over the corpse.
A bat with soft, pink fur.
It looked quite cute on the outside. Its fluffy fur gave it a plump appearance, making it look somewhat like a dog or a cat.
But its interior, unlike its appearance, was nothing but darkness.
“Does it really take you this long for an enemy of this level?”
A sentence that had been etched into my brain through hundreds of repetitions.
I wanted to deny those words.
But this was my trauma.
A memory I had yet to overcome.
And so.
“I couldn’t help it.”
The words of the past flowed out naturally.
Compared to back then, I had become significantly stronger, yet it felt as if I were still shackled to this place.
“Right. You couldn’t help it, could you? Because this is the extent of your power. I made a contract with you because I saw your talent, and though a long time has passed, you haven’t reached that level yet.”
Sharp thorns were embedded in that cute voice.
They tore at my heart, but I could only repeat the old memory.
“What are you trying to say?”
And then, my despair began.
“Oh, nothing much. Let’s just part ways here.”
“What do you mean? My story still has a long way to go.”
I knew what it meant.
But the 'me' of that time had no choice but to say those words.
“Yes, your story has a long way to go. But that’s none of my business.”
The bat fluttered its wings and laughed.
With a cruel voice.
Poking at the corpse.
“You’re struggling just to catch a low-level grunt who isn’t even an executive. Is there any reason for me to keep supporting a Magical Girl like this? I still have plenty of capacity left; it’s better to just cut my losses and save time.”
Even back then, I understood what the mascot was saying at this point.
It was abandoning me.
“To be honest, I’m disappointed. I thought you’d be a good enough pawn, so I invested a lot in you. But I guess I’ll just cut you off now.”
Wrrr.
As the air around the bat vibrated briefly, pain surged through my body.
It wasn’t a physical injury.
No matter where I looked, there were no cuts or lacerations.
The pain was in my brain and my heart.
It was the backlash caused by being forced to take over several tasks that the mascot had been handling for me.
“Ugh…”
“Hmm. You didn’t scream. I’m slightly impressed. Not that it’ll change my mind, though.”
While the past me gritted my teeth against the pain, the mascot, which had been happily flying over the corpse, landed on my shoulder and spoke.
“Since we fought together for a while, I’ll give you some advice. I’ve transferred my functions to you, so you’ll have to control them yourself now, which will make you even weaker. Well, I hope you wrap up your story nicely. Oh, dying is fine too. That way, I can quickly cut away the dregs of you that are taking up my capacity.”
With a cruel voice.
With a dark laugh.
It whispered in my ear.
“Who knows? Maybe your potential will unlock if you die. Well then, I wish you ill luck.”
With those final words, the bat flapped its wings.
Toward the night I would never see again.
To fly away and disappear.
Donning a mask of innocence once more, to find another victim like me.
Because the me of that time realized it too.
“Ugh… Cyan!”
Dragging my pained body, I aimed my bow into the air.
Praying that I could stop that thing.
With a trembling body, I notched an arrow and fired with all my might, but…
Whoosh.
The arrow cut through the empty air in vain, leaving only a flickering pale pink trail.
And so, the pink vanished into the darkness.
This was the end of my memory.
Whenever I thought of something dark within a Lucid Dream, this memory would surface from the bubble-like recollections. The beginning of my self-loathing.
No matter how many times I saw it, it was a memory too painful to endure.
But the me of the present was still alive.
I hadn’t died as that thing had hoped.
Nor had I remained weak.
Though the story hadn’t ended yet, none of the curses Cyan placed on me had come true.
And so, hoping that I would one day overcome this memory as well, I looked up at the sky where I had regained my freedom.
At the fleetingly dark sky shining down on the back alley.
Is that the end of today’s dream?
The moment I thought that, the sky flashed.
With a red light.
A blood-colored line illuminating the darkness cut through the hollow sky, forming a twisted smile.
And the woman appearing in the sky, weeping tears of blood, opened her mouth.
【 I’ve seen it several times now, but that mascot really is something. Even my partner wasn’t that bad. 】
She spoke in a voice so refined it was unimaginable given her twisted, corpse-like appearance.
“How many times have you seen it?”
Did she react to my words?
She began to fall from the sky.
The veil of night and the face of a corpse plummeted toward me, dragging the sky down with them.
【 Yes. The time I can manifest is short, but I can watch for a long time. 】
Even as she fell, she continued to speak.
The moment the flowing fabric reached my side.
Pop.
With the sound of a single water droplet, she tore through the night and revealed herself.
Her internal organs were still spilling out due to the missing chunks of flesh, and brain fluid leaked constantly from the gaping hole in her head.
But she looked much better than when I first saw her.
【 My mascot was the type to spit out insults like, ‘You need to be a bit more shameless,’ and then move out because he couldn’t stand living with me. Despite that, when I was about to die, he threw himself in the way to block the attack and died instead. I never even got to make up with him. 】
As she spoke at length, she looked at me with hollow eyes.
However, many things had changed since the last time I saw her.
She appeared wearing glasses with cracked lenses and a tattered gown that could be mistaken for a shroud.
“It’s been a while.”
The last time we met was three weeks ago.
【 I see you all the time, so I’m not sure if it’s been a while. 】
At some point, she started appearing in my dreams to talk to me.
How to cultivate my strength.
How to use my newly awakened Mental Magic.
Old stories about Senior.
And even…
Caring for my mental health.
It was a bit strange to have my mental issues diagnosed by a corpse in a dream, but it was a huge help.
Perhaps it was one of the reasons I was growing.
Little by little, the traumas sleeping inside me were disappearing one by one.
That was why I was always curious about her.
“Do you still have no intention of telling me who you were when you were alive?”
【 I’ve told you many times, there’s no need to know. You shouldn’t know, either. I am merely the last remnant that survived thanks to the laws of the Otherworld. 】
Today, as always, she told me nothing.
Normally, the conversation would have ended there.
But perhaps it was because of the expression Senior had shown today.
I asked one more question.
“Senior seems to know something, too. Given the stories of the past, aren’t you one of the old Heroes?”
Squelch.
A piece of internal organ slid out.
A pinkish mass that might have just been a lump of flesh.
【 An old Hero. That’s an overestimation. I was just a simple Awakened. But because of a dream I want to achieve even in this state, I’m just clinging to this stubborn life. 】
She had never spoken of her past regardless of the question, yet for the first time, she gave a response.
“What kind of dream is it?”
【 I wanted to make everyone happy. 】
She smiled.
Not the twisted smile she usually showed.
Even within her mangled face, it was a natural smile that felt peaceful.
“That’s a good dream.”
【 I don’t know. It’s not that great of a dream. It’s just a lingering obsession left behind by the dead. 】
She smiled twistedly again, blood and phlegm leaking out.
As if the previous smile had been an illusion.
Then, she spoke again.
【 That’s enough of that story. So, what do you want to train today? 】
She had returned to her usual self.
As if she had originally worn glasses, she naturally adjusted the cracked lenses and asked her usual question.
“Sensory Control.”
I had heard about the problem with my current strength from Senior.
He said that concentrating magic into an arrow and firing it wasn't a bad method, but once it had been seen, it was a joker card that had already been countered.
Even if I became able to fire it multiple times without exhaustion, the condition of the light radiating from the arrow was too easy to deal with.
He said that they probably wouldn't fall for it next time.
To solve that problem, he told me to either increase the duration so I could definitely kill The Enemy even if it was only once, or find a more stealthy way to activate it.
That was why I wanted to find another way.
【 You don’t really need to do that right now. With your current capacity, you can only use it once anyway. Why not try healing or telepathy instead? Or even Blood Magic would be fine. 】
She also seemed to have doubts about my request and offered a more rational plan.
However.
At least for today, I wanted to train in Sensory Control.
Because.
“There’s someone I want to surprise.”