51. There Is No Forest for Mascots
51. There Is No Forest for Mascots
Only a few weeks after Nikolai entrusted Allen with the role of Magical Mari’s Sage and headed to the Forest of Spirits to film the feature film, it was released.
The reason it was released this quickly was entirely thanks to the spirits' cooperativeness.
Spirits were fundamentally hedonists.
In other words, they tended to act on whatever interested them rather than out of duty or conviction.
A prime example was the spirits contracted to Ceres and Isis—the fact that they were utterly delighted watching their contractors transform into magical girls gave a rough idea of their operating principles.
As a result, once filming actually began, it meant they could fuel themselves on interest and act around the clock without rest.
Moreover, spirits used magic as naturally as breathing, so they repeatedly created and reshaped even the sets in an instant, as casually as children playing make-believe.
Under those conditions, the reason it "still" took several weeks was because the Sage himself, Nikolai, was a student and a human who had to attend classes and sleep.
The film, completed so swiftly, was screened in theaters worldwide on the strength of Nikolai's name.
<No Forest For Mascot>
Audiences made their way to the theaters, eagerly anticipating what fresh, original story awaited them this time.
=====================
During the summer break when Mari and Isis were away visiting Dina's island,
Left behind on Hetairo Island, the lonely Lirpin and Cled set out into the forest to make spirit friends.
At first, the forest spirits were wary of Lirpin and Cled, spirits of a type they had never seen before, and refused to accept them.
The reasons were many.
They had no element, their place of birth lacked any foundation, their mana was foreign...
But more than anything, they were ostracized because most spirits were humanoid while the two mascots alone had animal forms.
That difference led the spirits to define the mascots as beings separate from themselves.
It was extraordinarily fortunate that the merciful and wise Great Mother, the only spirit unconcerned with appearances, mediated on their behalf and managed to secure them the right to reside there.
One day, while they were living in the forest, constantly tiptoeing around the other spirits, the Great Mother summoned them.
"Please, become the Forest Keepers."
"Mew?"
"Squeak?"
Then, without warning, she appointed them to the forest's vigilante corps.
"Why are you giving this to us, mew?"
"Because you are outsiders, spirits who belong to no element."
The Great Mother began her explanation with sorrowful eyes.
At first glance, the forest seemed happy, but within it lay various prejudices and diverse conflicts.
The prejudice that fire spirits must be aggressive, hot-blooded, and violent.
The prejudice that lightning spirits must be impatient, irritable, and capricious.
The prejudice that ice spirits must be cold-hearted, and water spirits must be melancholic.
And there was a prejudice that surpassed all of these:
The prejudice that darkness spirits must be cunning, wicked, gloomy, and selfish; and the prejudice that light spirits must always be righteous, sociable, perpetually cheerful, and never allowed to make a mistake.
Within that web of prejudice, Lirpin and Cled alone could be free.
For they belonged to no element.
Moreover, having met many different people and endured all manner of harsh trials while living in the outside world, they were surely wise.
Of course, Lirpin (six months old, with few social connections) and Cled (four months old, who spoke only with his partner) were utterly bewildered by the Great Mother’s immense expectations.
But unable to flatly declare it impossible in the face of someone who believed in them so, the two mascots accepted the Great Mother's request.
Thus, the two mascots set about resolving the forest's conflicts as the Vigilante Corps.
At first, far from playing an active role, they were troublemakers who only escalated problems.
"Cled! Do something, mew!"
"What am I supposed to do, squeak!!"
While escaping from a plummeting owl, they caused it to crash into a residential area and were mistaken for terrorists;
"I can defeat this baby bear with a single Shining Punch, mew!"
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean, squeak?"
"Chyu-ppyom chyu-ppyom!"
While trying to move a baby bear that had occupied the entrance to a spirit-inhabited tree, they ended up showcasing themselves getting struck by the mother bear's chyu-ppyom chyu-ppyom and sent flying all the way to the opposite side of the forest in front of all the other spirits;
"Listen to my song!!!"
"Lirpin. Watch and learn, squeak. I will show you the secret technique Isis told me to use in times like this, squeak."
"Stop posturing and watch where you're going, mew!"
When a lightning spirit caught up in the moment started playing a concert in the square in the dead of night, Cled boldly stepped up to subdue him—and ended up with an afro.
Even when they showed the spirits the emblem of the Vigilante Corps, the response was indifferent; no matter how hard the mascots tried, all they received were cold stares urging them to leave the forest quickly.
Yet through all those adversities, they carried out their duties, and before anyone knew it, they had grown into proper members of the Vigilante Corps.
Just as the spirits' assessment of them had been upgraded from "untrustworthy outsiders" to "moderately trustworthy outsiders," the Great Mother entrusted them with an incident.
Namely, a case in which spirits had recently begun falling into a deep sleep from which they could not wake.
The sleeping spirits had one commonality—they had heard a whistling sound starting several days prior, but no one could find the source of the whistle.
The spirits feared this as the "Witch's Lullaby."
The spirits suspected the darkness spirits, but the Great Mother believed otherwise.
She knew that, though their words were rough and they had somewhat gloomy aspects, the darkness spirits were in truth highly prone to loneliness.
They simply had strong tsundere and shut-in tendencies.
And so she entrusted them with the commission to clear the darkness spirits' unjust suspicion.
Having received the Great Mother's request, Lirpin and Cled set off on another adventure.
Everything went remarkably smoothly—except for the time they provoked a Siamese cat known as “the Godfather” and nearly got encased in concrete by wolves.
But the adventure that had seemed destined to remain smooth eventually took a turn for the worse.
Their intuition told them the darkness spirits were innocent.
But all the evidence pointed to the darkness spirits as the culprits.
It was the darkness spirits who roamed about whistling every night; the darkness spirits could manipulate sleep; and near every spirit who had fallen into slumber, without exception, darkness spirits had been present.
The mascots fell into deep contemplation.
Should they trust the darkness spirits, as the Great Mother had said, or should they trust the evidence?
At that once-in-a-lifetime crossroads, events suddenly became urgent.
The spirits began to move first.
They cried out to drive the darkness spirits away and cornered them in the plaza.
In that powder-keg situation, just before the dark spirits were driven out, the mascots suddenly appeared in the square.
"Objection, mew!"
"We have brought proof of their innocence, squeak!"
At last, they had found evidence that the darkness spirits were innocent.
"What are you talking about? There’s more than enough evidence that these two are the culprits!"
"No, mew! There’s also more than enough evidence that they aren’t, mew!"
They had brought the tree spirits as witnesses.
Unlike other spirits, tree spirits had no concept of sleep.
Therefore, they were the ideal witnesses.
Through their testimony, cracks began to form in the spirits' conviction that the darkness spirits were the culprits.
But the problem was that if the darkness spirits weren't the culprits, the only remaining question was: who was?
At that moment, a tree spirit made a shocking statement.
"I... saw... the light spirits... use magic... on the sleeping spirits... strange magic..."
Everyone's gaze turned toward the light spirits.
The light spirits, bearing the full weight of those stares, hung their heads low.
"Is that true, kids?"
"..."
The light spirits gave no answer.
Though silence could be taken as affirmation, no one had the heart to actually single them out as the culprits.
Just as prejudice alone had been enough to corner the darkness spirits, the power of prejudice in this forest was so immense that no spirit could bring themselves to call the light spirits the culprits.
The spirits were thrown into confusion, caught in the gap between prejudice and reality.
In the end, unable to make a choice, they entrusted the decision to the outsiders, Lirpin and Cled.
And the two mascots' answer was...
"You fools. The light spirits aren't the culprits either, squeak."