Chapter 50: The Black Magical Girl
Chapter 50: The Black Magical Girl
“Get lost.”
I brushed my hand as the disgusting gray tried to cling to my body.
Perhaps recognizing me as a fellow entity of the Otherworld, the gray world hesitated for a moment before shifting its mass elsewhere.
It hadn't given up on consuming everything, as it continued its relentless assault, but it wasn't something I needed to worry about.
Entities of the Otherworld aren't necessarily on the same side just because of their origin; this was only natural.
We were merely in a state of hostile neutrality.
I wouldn't go out of my way to make an enemy of it, but the moment I showed weakness, it would move to swallow me whole.
“Is… is this really okay? Yumil?”
“It’s fine. Probably.”
“Probably…?”
Danger Rifle looked pitiful as she tugged at my dress, trembling with fear.
How could someone who had lived dozens, no, hundreds of times longer than me be like this?
She had acted so tough at first, but ever since I showed her a glimpse of my power, she had been reduced to this state.
It was likely a primal fear of the more cruel of my two creators.
I slowly scanned my surroundings.
I looked at the barrier, dying as it was smothered in gray.
Step.
With every step I took, the world momentarily regained its color, only for the tentacles to immediately devour that diversity once more.
“Is ‘diversity’ something that can be eaten?”
“You… you can’t eat that, right?”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
I directed the question to the memories within me.
To the foolish man cackling while exhaling cigarette smoke.
Emotions, memories, relationships, the past, space…
【You can eat it all. Why wouldn't you be able to?】
In an instant, various words surfaced.
And with them, a flood of loathsome memories surged.
My reflection in the mirror.
The reflections of my comrades.
Brains. Electricity. Drugs. Corpses. Blood. Modification. Machines.
Perhaps there is always a price for obtaining memories. The moment I recalled a snippet of the past, a chain of related episodes followed, tormenting me.
“How annoying.”
A single remark directed at my father, who had made it so I couldn't even think straight.
“Are you talking about my sniper rifle…? If it’s in the way, I’ll put it back…”
“It’s not that, so just be quiet for a bit.”
Even my companion, Danger Rifle, was starting to annoy me.
I understood that she was a woman of immense wealth.
The moment she saw me and heard my words, she had arranged countless fake identities and safe houses.
The only reason I was even here on this battlefield was thanks to her.
She seemed to have connections in the military, as she had successfully smuggled us into the supply lines and helped me disguise myself as a Hero.
Setting aside her strangely submissive attitude, she was an excessively capable woman.
There was no mention of someone like her in my memories. What on earth was that man thinking when he paired her with me?
Thud. Thud.
On the now-silent barrier, only the sound of my boots echoed.
Complete silence. A world that refused to change.
If the Heroes were to lose, this is how the world would become.
Why did I feel nothing even while knowing that fact?
Was it because I had nothing to my name?
I continued walking along the barrier, devoid of any particular desire to act, until my companion tugged on my clothes again.
“What is it?”
“Um… shouldn't we help the people?”
Help them, she says.
I looked around.
At the living beings that had become one with the barrier.
“Ugh… ah…”
“Uh…”
“Ah… woo…”
“Sa… ve…”
They were things that used to be human, but their intellect had vanished and their emotions were gone.
Even the sounds escaping their lips were nothing more than meaningless, grotesque groans.
I had become a living being from nothingness. Yet you all are turning from living beings into nothingness.
A certain emotion welled up within me.
A question that didn't appear no matter how much I searched my memories. What exactly was this feeling?
Hiding that emotion, I spoke to my only conversation partner.
“How do you plan on saving them?”
“Maybe by dragging them out of this strange space… or by keeping them near you, Yumil.”
“The first option is impossible. How are you going to drag all these people out? The second is even more out of the question. I can barely protect you. Two people? Do you want to go outside instead?”
The space I could maintain with my power only had a radius of about two meters.
I had no intention of letting any more people into this space.
“So, if you want them to live, pray that the Heroes win.”
Though, in this situation, I wasn't sure if the Heroes even could win.
Should I call for Linshua?
If the Mutants of The Society gathered, they could surely handle something of this scale.
By the standards of The Society’s will, this method was the absolute worst.
The ideology of Linshua planted within me, the teachings of The Society—everything was screaming in opposition to this. Thus, I knew instinctively that if this situation continued, The Society would take to the battlefield.
Despite being rejected and killed by humans, my seniors had protected the world from the shadows.
But I still didn't understand.
Why did they fight?
I could understand Mutants born in the human world. No matter how much the Otherworld whispered to them, Earth was the home where they were born.
But what about the Mutants born in the Otherworld? Why did they fight for Earth until the very moment of their deaths?
They claimed it was for world conquest, but that was just nonsense.
It was incomprehensible behavior.
The teachings and ideologies left to me were all injected into my mind.
They didn't spring from my heart.
The memories were the same.
Everything was nothing but pain.
The memories my father passed down to me.
The ideology my mother passed down to me.
The teachings the group passed down to me.
They were all just things that made my life miserable.
The beauty of the world eased that pain slightly, but the pain inflicted upon me was eternal, while the beauty of the world was fleeting.
Someday, I would grow used to the shimmering of The Sea and the blue of the sky.
The wind that tickled me as I ran, and the dampness of the earth—all of it.
And when that happened, the heavy shackles fastened to me would tighten around my body once more.
Wasn't it happening even now?
Now that the gray world had killed all my senses and stripped away the beauty, that melancholic weight was crushing me again.
Whispering that I was merely a being born as someone’s proxy.
That even my birth was a cursed one.
The silent gray world was the perfect environment for me to sink into such darkness.
As I walked along the barrier with Danger Rifle in tow, I sensed something and stopped my train of thought.
A massive power.
And the loud sound of something colliding.
“It looks like there’s a Hero who can still move.”
“Then let’s go there! If we join forces…”
Had she lost her mind from fear?
Had she forgotten what kind of being I was?
“What do you think happens when a Mutant shows up in front of a Hero?”
“I know that not all Mutants are bad! My driver is a Mutant too, and…”
Driver? What was she talking about now?
The lack of information was truly maddening.
“My memories say otherwise. Let’s go somewhere else.”
Thud.
I turned my feet and moved toward a different location.
* * *
Why?
Why was I here?
Before I knew it, I was standing in this spot.
At the place where I had the best view of The Hammer clashing with the Gray Crustaceans.
“What is that red pillar, Yumil?”
“Likely the one responsible for all this.”
The Otherworldly Power I felt from it was staggering.
A massive Otherworldly force. It was inferior to Linshua, but it was still a being capable of destroying the world.
According to the memories I possessed, there had been more than ten battles against beings of that caliber.
And those battles were all won, albeit with a certain amount of sacrifice.
Would this time be any different? I thought simply as I analyzed the information of the red giant.
At that moment, my confidence was shattered into pieces.
What is that?
Regardless of the magnitude of its power, the mere fact that it existed there radiated a sense of pressure and terror.
No, the moment I recognized that even the scale of its power was terrifying, it began to crush me.
“Blegh.”
I retched, vomiting up the contents of my stomach.
It was the pasta I had eaten at the Dining Hall inside the barrier.
The undigested noodles spilled from my mouth, scattering across the ground.
“Yumil!? Are you okay…?”
Danger Rifle, seemingly flustered, asked if I was alright, worried by my sudden change, but her words didn't reach my ears.
Meaningless noise.
How could anyone stand against something like that?
Why was my father standing there, bearing all those loathsome emotions?
I had merely read the memories inside me and deluded myself into thinking they were my own experiences.
I was mistaken because the memories were written so calmly.
They were records that could only be endured if they were written and remembered in such a way.
The Heroes of the old era had fought against things like that to protect the world.
Vrooooooom.
While I was vomiting and looking away, the situation must have changed drastically.
Sensing a massive power and a bizarre sound, I lifted my head.
A red beam and a Golden Hammer collided. In a world filled entirely with gray, it was a clash between beings who still possessed color.
The Hammer swung.
Again.
And again.
“Why?”
I couldn't understand.
Why was he blocking that?
My memories, my copied combat abilities, were telling me.
That was a technique that should be dodged.
There was no need to block it.
Then why?
“That Hero is amazing! He’s blocking it! Maybe we’ll win…”
No.
He isn't just blocking it.
He is pushing his body beyond its limits.
So that the beam doesn't advance, for the sake of something else.
Realizing that, I finally had the composure to look around.
Where the beam would land if he dodged, and what would happen.
The answer was simple.
If he dodged, the beam would strike the barrier, and countless people would die.
That man was standing there to prevent that.
Discarding his own body for the sake of the justice he cried out for.
Even if it was a twisted, broken, and disgusting value, it was the justice he held.
I could see it.
His broken worldview.
His justice, riddled with contradictions and errors.
the end of a man who had gone mad.
And yet, within it all, there was something he believed in.
Something he had protected.
Because his justice did not exempt even himself. Because if he himself strayed from that justice, he too would become a target for punishment.
That is why he was standing there now.
Perhaps because I realized that.
A multitude of memories surfaced in a chain reaction.
Emotions I couldn't understand began to make sense. The moment I understood everything.
The final sentences he left behind came to mind.
To protect the peace forged from a Hero’s blood.
To continue challenging an unjust world.
To not hold one’s own life as something too noble.
To not demand reward for one’s actions.
To encounter the convictions of others and hold them in one’s heart.
To show no mercy to a cruel enemy.
To not be stained by the burning desires within the heart.
To hold an unyielding set of values in the heart.
To take up arms for the suffering weak.
To stay by the side of the lonely daughter.
To never know the miserable pain we possess.
To be righteous, even if that existence is a Mutant.
The Twelve Contracts.
Wishes that carried no force of compulsion.
I could tell just by glancing through his life.
That those contracts were wishes that had never reached his hands.
The wishes of a man who hadn't achieved a single one of those long phrases.
Wishes he had made while hoping for my happiness.
Only then did I realize.
Though I was born out of his necessity, I was not cursed.
I finally understood why Linshua had smiled at me.
Because I had been born with a blessing from the very beginning.
the moment I realized that, I saw a red dot in the distance.
A sphere growing rapidly in size.
Containing a massive Otherworldly Power within.
And I saw my father, running desperately to stop it.
My father, howling miserably and reaching out with everything he had.
Reaching out with a hand that wouldn't make it, yet still pushing his body to the limit to protect others.
How pathetic.
That is the end of a Hero who pushed all his wishes onto others and threw everything away.
A hollow shell where only conviction remained, unaware that he was even broken.
That is why he makes the people around him unhappy.
But, isn't it beautiful?
That even such a monster can protect the world.
I conjured an image in my mind.
The image of the Hero I possessed.
A small stature, holding a Golden Hammer.
An arrogant face.
An expression twisted in a way that didn't suit a Young Girl, and a blank stare weary of life.
Blue gloves and black boots.
A blue coat.
A reddish overskirt.
A long white dress.
White stockings.
【Is that the form you desire?】
The man in my mind cackled as he posed the question.
His cigarette had somehow turned into a white metal rod.
Yes.
At that moment, I kicked off the barrier and soared into the air.
My black dress began to transform.
The color remained black, but it shifted into the clothes of a Magical Girl, a perfect mirror of someone else's.
The Pry Bar in my hand began to twist.
Creeeak. Screeech. Clang. Click.
From the sound of iron twisting to the sound of machinery clicking into place.
I felt a weight in my hand.
A dark Red Hammer, a perfect replica of the one held in someone else's hands.
I think I finally understand. My emotions.
Toward the Red Sphere before my eyes, I swung my hammer.