54. Magical Girl... Maybe
54. Magical Girl... Maybe
While Mari and Isis faced a legion that, far from dwindling, only swelled in number, Dina watched the scene anxiously through the screen.
The tide of battle on the screen was clearly against Mari and Isis.
Strictly speaking, they were warriors specialized in close combat.
Simply by scattering and swarming them, the Legions left them with nothing they could do.
Of course, they each had one or two wide-area attacks, but their range was limited and they weren't the kind of thing they could spam repeatedly.
Even if they devised a brilliant plan, Legion only had to keep one or two copies beyond their reach to render it useless.
Unable to keep watching her friends face such obvious danger, Dina headed out of the laboratory.
The elderly researcher she had met before stopped her.
"Young lady. Where are you going?"
"I'm still a wizard, so I could at least help my friends..."
"You know that. Without Heart Gem magic, you won’t be able to help them."
The cold words from his mouth stabbed into her chest like a dagger.
As she lowered her head, her black hair hung like a curtain, veiling her face.
Her expression beneath the curtain might have looked unchanged, but the researcher knew she was burning up inside.
A bitter emotion colored the researcher's face as he looked at the young girl who couldn't join her friends.
Aware of his gaze, she sank to the floor.
'So this time too, all I can do is watch as the people precious to me fight.'
That day, she had been able to do nothing but watch the back of her older brother as he fought off robbers.
And that sturdy back had been dragged away by the guards, never to be seen again.
She had regretted it ever since.
If only she had been strong enough to fight alongside him, perhaps they could have at least ended up in the same place.
That regret became a resolution never to suffer the same pain again, driving her to grow her trading company and study magic.
But in reality, all she could do was silently wait behind, unable to fight alongside those most precious to her.
'I want to fight... for my people...'
Then suddenly, a single phrase flickered through her mind.
'My own fight.'
An idea sparked by those words, and Dina raised her head again.
The researcher, who had been watching her with worry, was taken aback by her suddenly brightened expression.
"Could this method work?"
"Method?"
"Yes. Like this."
She told the researcher her idea.
The researcher listened with a dubious look at first, but after mulling it over, his expression brightened as well.
"This could work!"
"Then may I ask you to do it?"
"Yes. Ten minutes will be enough."
The two headed straight for the researcher's personal lab.
Soon, the sounds of something shattering, breaking, and being reassembled came from inside the lab.
As their shadows flickered against the lab wall from the sparks of welding something, a blueprint lay on the desk where those shadows fell.
The name on that blueprint was this.
<Personal Firearm-Type Composite Modular Magic Staff>
*
In the gradually intensifying battle, Mari and Isis grew more and more exhausted.
They had reached their limits against the overwhelming numerical onslaught.
Mari's punches carried no force, and the daggers Isis threw flew with no strength.
As time passed, the rate at which they eliminated the Legions slowed while their numbers grew exponentially. The girls’ exhaustion had reached its peak.
At that moment, a golden beam shot past in front of them along with the sound of a single gunshot.
"Huh?"
Another beam flew toward Ceres as she stood dumbfounded, letting out a stupid sound.
She raised her arm to block the beam coming at her, but the beam actually curved in front of her and struck the forehead of a Legion that had been targeting her back.
"Isis. This..."
"I don't know who it is, but it looks like they're helping us."
Realizing that these beams were, at the very least, not hostile, they began to reduce the number of Legions under the cover fire of this unknown someone.
The newly joined sniper cut down the Legions at a speed rivaling that of Mari and Isis.
Curving freely through the air, the beams traced lines of light as they pierced one Legion head after another.
Amid the repeated covering fire, Mari and Isis identified the nature of the beams.
"Jewels?"
That was it.
The “lasers” were actually bullet-sized amber projectiles.
Using amber as ammunition.
Whoever this sniper was, they were certainly wealthy.
As the cover fire continued, the Legions, seeming to realize this would become troublesome, began searching for the sniper.
"Mari! Grab that one!"
"You think that's easy?!"
They, too, immediately grasped the Legions' intent.
The problem was that they couldn't stop the Legions from heading toward the sniper.
The Legions sent a detached force to find the sniper while keeping Mari and Isis pinned down.
The method they used to find the sniper was nothing short of extreme.
They blanketed the island with overwhelming numbers.
By the time their advance had filled the island with dust, a figure burst from the forest.
Judging by the long rod in the figure's hand, it wasn't hard to tell that this was the sniper.
Mari and Isis also turned their heads to see the identity of the sniper.
And the sniper who entered their vision was someone they knew well.
"...Dina?"
The expressionless, black-haired girl had been peering through the scope, but when the dust kicked up during her escape obscured her view, she tore it off.
Then, aligning her eye with the iron sights, she pulled the trigger.
The Legions that had been charging gleefully at the sniper were pierced once more by a flash of light and collapsed.
But as they kept advancing, using their fallen comrades as meat shields, Dina had no choice but to give ground.
"Dina!"
Dina glanced once at her prickly friend, who had called her name in alarm, then refocused on the Legion directly before her.
When she disassembled the anti-materiel sniper rifle in her hands, the parts fell away to reveal a pistol.
No, looking closely, it was a magic staff shaped like a pistol.
It was unmistakably a magical girl's staff, merely equipped with a trigger and a jewel where the muzzle would be.
She casually dodged the Legions rushing at her, then took a cylinder from her waist and attached it to the staff.
Click-clack, click-clack.
The staff, now fitted with new parts, had transformed into the form of a pump-action shotgun.
She loaded the shotgun with small magic scrolls shaped like shotgun shells, then pulled the trigger.
Boom! Boom!
The shotgun belched fire and unleashed a spray of ruby pellets.
Red trajectories reduced the Legions' bodies to tatters.
But the Legions, swarming endlessly from all sides, eventually managed to reach her by exploiting her blind spot and the shotgun's reload time.
Yes.
They succeeded in reaching her.
"Hey, you insolent bastard. Where do you think you’re putting your hands on a lady?"
The attack would have succeeded if a penguin had not suddenly appeared behind Dina and blown off the head of the Legion approaching her from the rear.
"Thanks, Frank."
"No problem. Partner."
Answering in a gruff voice, the penguin tossed the reloaded shotgun to Dina.
Dina tossed the empty shotgun to Frank, took the loaded one, and resumed mowing down the enemy.
The sight was so surreal that Mari and Isis, too, had their attention seized by the penguin.
"What is that...?"
"Uh... a mascot?"
The magical power they sensed was definitely that of a mascot.
His eyepatch, the toothpick clenched in his beak, and the bandolier slung over his shoulder were far too bizarre for a mascot, but... he did seem like one, anyway.
"Anyway, this bastard's dressed like a killer whale. Ah, partner. You know what a killer whale is?"
Shake, shake.
"There are bastards like that. Their eyes are seriously the size of nipples, and they're located right where their nipples are, those bastards."
Yes. His way of speaking was a little rough, but... he did seem like a mascot, at least.
The penguin couldn't fight as well as Dina, but he was capable of stalling the Legions coming from her blind spots to keep them from targeting her.
Even more absurdly, he seemed to know his limits, doing exactly what he needed to do without any unnecessary heroics.
He looked just like a well-trained soldier.
The problem was that he was a cute penguin.
"Uh..."
"I suddenly miss Lirpin and Cled."
It felt as though what little remained of their childhood innocence had shattered.