44. Magical Mari is a Magical Girl
44. Magical Mari is a Magical Girl
"Nicol. Your IQ's 140, mine's 110. We have to find a perfect solution with this."
"Boss. Please shut up. You're interfering."
"Hmph..."
Nicol racked his brain desperately.
Frantically counting primes, searching for a way to break out of this situation, he kept catching a flash of an idea for a moment, only to lose it again in regret, on and on.
Meanwhile I was trying Mari's avatar on Ceres.
Sure enough, the demon on her back remained hale and hearty.
After they repeated the process about five times, Nicol managed to devise a stopgap.
"Ceres. Can you generate something like wings on your back with mana?"
"I'll give it a shot."
Fortunately, as an elf with high magical affinity, she could release mana from her back and shape it into wings.
And those angelic wings successfully concealed the demon that had descended upon her back.
"Oh... Lord."
At that holy sight I unconsciously offered a prayer of gratitude to my god.
Since I know you don't take offerings, I'll show you a moonwalk in front of the temple this weekend instead.
With the demon that had momentarily made my heart plummet now vanquished, I gave Ceres a firm instruction.
"When you use Rush, you absolutely have to activate <Stardust Mode> first. Promise me."
"No, I... Fine! I got it, so relax your face!"
Her wing mode was designated <Stardust Mode>.
That was because the mana released from her back resembled the tail of a shooting star.
Additionally, the new technique she'd shown me was sealed for the time being as well.
Using it at the academy was forbidden, and even within the production, I only felt at ease after restricting it so that it could only be used while Stardust Mode was active.
"How long do I have to do this?"
"Until you can control your muscles."
Once you could control your back muscles, I'd approve whatever technique you came up with.
*
Setting aside the grumbling Ceres, I looked at Kylie with an anxious heart.
"And you. You didn't go and learn anything weird, did you?"
If Isis ended up growing a demon inside her, that would be a serious problem.
At that point it wouldn’t be a magical-girl show; we’d have to retitle it <Fighter Mari>.
We’d already decided on the broad outline.
"I did pick up something else, though..."
"?"
Hesitantly, she drew her weapon.
My heart, which had been at ease only up until I saw the sword's hilt in her hand, came crashing down in real time as I watched the blade that just wouldn't end.
"The hell."
This kid. I'd sent her home for the vacation and she'd thrown away her daggers and learned the sword.
A katana, no less.
To top it off, she was holding that katana in a reverse grip.
That meant it wasn't exactly a mainstream school.
"Report. Now. (Report immediately.)"
"I-it's not like I meant to do it... Our family's secret art has you gradually level up your cultivation and switch weapons as you go, you know? But it just so happened my cultivation advanced over this vacation..."
"No, you don't have to feel that guilty. You and Ceres both went and gave it your all; there's no way I'd scold you for that. Raise your head and talk. When you do that, it makes me feel like I'm garbage."
"You weren't?"
"..."
Calm yourself, inner Big Bad Wolf.
I took a deep breath and prompted her to continue her explanation.
"Our house is a vassal house, so we practice assassination arts. Daggers are for beginners. What I’m using now is intermediate."
"So to summarize, that katana you're holding now—"
"Technically it's a wakizashi."
"Right. Thanks for the clarification. So this wakizashi is your new technique, is that it?"
"Yeah."
"Haah."
Who could I blame for this?
Ceres had volunteered, sure, but Kylie I'd just up and kidnapped without even asking about her martial school.
It was all my own fault.
Come to think of it, the daggers she used to use had looked a lot like kunai.
And combining that with dagger throwing and clones...
She'd really been spelling it out for me in neon letters all along, hadn't she.
"So how do you handle that wakizashi?"
"Like this?"
She sheathed the blade.
She held that stance for a moment, then drew the sword, leaving a silver arc behind while still holding the hilt in a reverse grip.
Belatedly, a sharp sword aura traced the path of her blade and left a mark carved into the ground.
"I can also do this."
She sheathed it again.
The moment she drew it this time, her hand briefly vanished, and then the ground all around was left scarred with sword marks as if it had been randomly slashed.
As I used alchemy to rub away the sword marks that had appeared on the club room floor, I whispered to Nikolai.
"Nicol."
"Yes, Boss."
"Is there a market for quick-draw magical girls?"
"That didn't exist even in my past life."
You might be able to find one if you looked, but Nikolai was confident that, at the very least, he had no memory of one ever becoming a craze.
In that case, what we were doing now was no different from blazing a trail no one had ever walked.
"A magical girl who specializes in quick-draw swordsmanship. Is our genre going to survive this?"
"I honestly have no idea either."
"Alright, screw it. Let's just go for it."
This wasn't a series we'd started trying to rake in money anyway.
If it failed, it failed.
With a devil-may-care attitude, we released their new techniques to the public.
*
The church had been crowded since early morning.
Once again today, someone visited its confessional.
A sturdy youth standing two meters tall, with a solid build, entered the small room, crouched down, and unburdened his troubles.
"Look, Father. I mean this sincerely, I swear to Rictus I mean it. I didn't start Magical Mari to make money, you know? I'm not interested in fame or power either, right?"
"...."
"So why is it that the film keeps doing so damn well! Why!"
"... Brother, please calm yourself."
When Allen suddenly jumped to his feet raising his voice, the priest's gentle voice restrained him.
Thanks to that voice, Allen quickly regained his composure.
And the priest began to offer an answer to his troubles.
"Brother. When the Lord created this world, He made it so that those who do their best would prosper in all they undertake. Therefore there is no reason for you to feel so burdened. The fact that your film is doing well is a sign that the Lord is regarding you with such fondness."
"... Thank you, Father."
The youth bowed his head to the priest who had lifted a little of the weight from his heart, and made to leave the confessional.
The priest briefly stopped him.
"One moment, Brother. Before you go, I have something to ask."
"Yes, go ahead."
"By any chance, are you planning to add a new magical girl?"
"... You son of a b—"
*
In the planning room of Bon Voyage Studio, which was somehow doing even better than it had over summer vacation, I massaged my brow again today.
Why was it doing so well?
If I could understand why people were so excited, I might at least feel proud. Instead, my own sensibilities couldn’t grasp what they liked about it, and that made me uneasy.
To put it in terms of an analogy, it was like finishing some coding and seeing zero bugs on the very first test run.
At the same time, the whole thing felt like it was The Truman Show.
That was the subtle sensation.
If I had my wish, I'd rather the viewers scolded the show with plummeting ratings for going too far with its setting.
'Should I just sink the whole thing?'
With a 21st-century-manufactured supertoxin: egalitarianism for all.
The impulse came over me for a moment, but then I thought about the future that would unfold after that and a chill ran down my spine.
If I did that, never mind some bizarre culture spreading through the world—I would be strung up in the central square.
No, beyond that, they'd pickle my dick outright.
In the end, I had no choice but to keep giving it my best as I had been.
"Haah..."
In a corner of the planning room was Nikolai, clutching his head over the very same worry.
Seeing that he'd been in that state this whole time, I almost wondered if maybe the prejudices of the 21st century were narrowing our field of vision—
'—my ass.'
This world was simply wrong from the very start.
'I don't even know anymore.'
I picked up my fan again and began mapping out the next episode with Nicol.
We'd successfully decked the start of Magical Mari Season 2 with the girls' power-up event, so now for a new event—
"Hey, Allen. You've got a visitor."
The planning room door flew open as Ceres barged in, shattering our discussion.
Judging by the way she'd flung open the door without even knocking, a fairly big shot had come visiting our studio.
"Who?"
"Diane."
"..."
The words "stop messing around" surged right up to my jaw, but then I thought about it and recalled the probability of my Fate going on strike at precisely these moments, and I shut my mouth.
With a feeling that was now half resignation, I headed to the reception room.
Inside the room, Diane sat demurely on the sofa, staring expressionlessly in my direction.
"..."
"Hello, Diane."
Tilt.
She looked at my face, briefly scanned me up and down, then nodded.
"I've decided."
"Pardon?"
"I'm Diane. That's my given name and my courtesy name is Cynthia. Since you're my superior, you may specially call me Cynthia. I look forward to working with you."
"???"
Ignoring my utterly dumbfounded expression, she produced an employment contract from god knows where and held it out to me.
The sequence of actions was so perfectly natural that I naturally accepted the contract.
"... What's this."
"Why?"
"Why is there carbon paper underneath the employment contract?"
"..."
But there was a small problem with calling it an ordinary employment contract.
Carbon paper had been cunningly placed beneath the employment contract, and underneath that carbon paper, there was a sheet of paper of unknown purpose.
This method was common among the most vicious corners of the black market.
If you signed something like this without thinking, you’d usually end up sold into slavery—or, more rarely, missing a few organs.
I'd been subjected to this trick plenty of times myself whenever I had business in the black market, so I knew it well.
A more elaborate version involved alchemical treatment of the three sheets so they couldn't be physically separated. The papers Diane handed me were exactly in that state.
Unfortunately for her, however, I'd been burned by this kind of stunt so often I could tell the difference just by pinching a sheet between my fingers.
"Hold it. Where do you think you are slipping that bottom card in?"
I wasn't sure she understood the term, but going by her expression, she seemed to have realized her scheme had been exposed.
She clicked her tongue and tried to walk past me and out of the reception room.
But before she could even reach the door, I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and flung her to the floor.
I immediately locked down her movements completely with a submission hold, then hummed a little tune as I re-alchemized the fused papers and separated them.
"Tara-dan~ tara-dan~ tara-ran. Koon-jjak-jjak koon-jjak-jjak~"
And what revealed itself beneath was—
"A registration form?"
A marriage registration form.
"..."
"What is this."
That was my second time asking that question today.
"I don't know anything about that. Sign it for me."
"I don't usually say this to someone I've just met, but are you out of your mind?"
"Yes. So sign it for me."
Looking closely, even while I had her in a submission hold, she was wearing an expression of ecstasy.
'Gah, she's a fucking lunatic.'
Horrified, I let her go.
Looking vaguely disappointed, she got up and straightened her clothes.
Even in the middle of that, she didn’t forget to retrieve the registration form.
Once her clothes were fully in order, she placed the carbon paper over the marriage registration right in front of me, and then laid the employment contract over that.
Then, with a perfectly deadpan expression, she pointed at my signature line.
"This is driving me insane."
Why was it that only weirdos kept gravitating toward me?
Since whatever she felt toward me was not malicious, I decided to hear her out and asked what was going on.
"Why me, of all people?"
"Because you're John."
"Pardon?"
Sorry, I don't know anyone by that name.
But as if she'd expected me to say that, she opened the case she'd brought with her.
Inside, John's directive from the Imperial Counterintelligence Department was enshrined.
"..."
If I recalled the news correctly, that thing had sold for 1,200 gold.
What was it doing here?
"Mana is telling me. You are John."
Was this a bug?
In all my time operating as John, I'd never once allowed the cultists to back-trace me. Yet Diane was pulling that off like it was nothing.
Though when I thought about it, she was the daughter of the Calamity Duke.
Whether the Calamity Duke had helped her, or she'd inherited the talent, her reaching this point was entirely plausible.
But I couldn't just acknowledge it.
"I do not know what misunderstanding you are under, but I am not John. Someone like me could not hold a candle to him—"
"Submission."
"?"
"That submission hold you just used. That was John's."
"..."
When I mistakenly thought the person who'd been trying to sell me into slavery was fleeing, I'd had no room for leisure and I had subdued her with full force.
The problem was that John's technique had come out in that moment.
I considered denying it further, but I figured trying to deny it in front of someone this certain would only make me seem pathetic, and in the end I admitted it.
"Fine... So what's your objective?"
"Sign."
"..."
In the end, unable to withstand the pressure of her relentless, bull-headed assault, I signed the paper.
Overjoyed, she took the employment contract and the marriage registration together.
"With this—"
But when she peeled back the carbon paper, her expression darkened.
My signature was on the employment contract, but the marriage registration remained blank.
"How naive."
I, Allen Price.
I had years of experience fleecing the crooked merchants who played these sorts of games.
Applying just a touch of alchemy, leaving a signature only on the contract I wanted was child's play.
I clapped the bewildered Diane on the shoulder as she stood there with both contracts drooping in her hands, and declared to her:
"Welcome to the club, rookie."