91. Magical Mari: Magic? Girl?
91. Magical Mari: Magic? Girl?
In the end, Mari couldn't resolve the issue of the demon on her back.
Rather, the problem got worse in the process—
"Tell me about it. It's hard enough just controlling my pectoralis major right now."
Exactly.
The symptoms had worsened.
Ceres's mana proficiency couldn't keep up with her rate of muscle growth, so it had gotten worse than before.
In daily life she was fine, but the moment she tried to lift anything even slightly heavy, the demon on her back would try to reveal itself at every opportunity.
Because of that, Ceres had to put on an act as a frail beauty, a role she'd never wanted in her life.
Whenever physical work came up in the Hero Department,
- 'H-hawah... without physical enhancement, Ceres is the weakest~'
With her carrying on like that, the studio people who knew the truth had a hell of a time holding back their laughter.
I patted Ceres on the back—soft at the moment, since she was feeling down.
"Don't be so glum. I happen to think your back muscles are fine. If anything, they've got a healthy beauty to them. So walk around with some confidence."
I meant every word.
I'd described it as a demon possessing her back, but it wasn't to the point of being unsightly.
It was just that claiming to be a "magical girl" was a stretch, that was all.
But my words seemed to have the opposite effect; she flinched in surprise and put distance between us.
She protested with her face turning red, and she didn't look particularly pleased about it.
"Wh... what does it matter to me whether you think it looks good?! That's sexual harassment!"
"Sorry if it made you uncomfortable."
"No, I mean, it's not something you need to apologize for,"
Then what was I supposed to do?
As I pouted my lips, Ceres started watching my reaction.
Her face still hadn't shed its flush as she avoided my eyes, murmuring in a voice barely audible.
"Thanks..."
"Huh?"
"I said thanks."
Whoa. Our pointy-eared brat had finally recovered some manners.
Twisting a strand of hair around her finger, she went on.
"Being grateful aside, I still have to keep my back muscles under control normally. I'm still the actress playing Mari, after all."
"Ooh. A real pro."
Just last week she'd thrown such a fit about never wearing a magical girl costume again.
Looked like in one week she'd passed from denial through depression and entered the acceptance phase.
I was offering a mental ovation for her professionalism when I got the feeling I'd forgotten something.
"Ahem. Hm."
It was only when I heard Pia's dry cough beside me that I remembered what I'd been doing.
Ah, right. I was in the middle of exploring clothing shops with Pia.
This time, after Ceres, it was Pia staring at me with a sulky expression, clearly dissatisfied about something.
I was wondering whether people in this other world hit puberty late when a soft sensation pressed against my arm.
When I came to my senses, Pia had linked arms with me.
Which meant this soft sensation against my forearm was a mass of fatty tissue, but astonishingly, it stirred no lust whatsoever.
If anything, it just felt nostalgic.
It felt like only yesterday that Pia and I had walked like this through the gardens at her villa when she was little; seeing how big she'd gotten only made me feel the passage of time.
While the pressure on my arm intensified, Pia spoke to Ceres with a smiling face.
"We're rather busy picking out clothes for Allen right now. We have many more shops to visit—would it be all right if we took our leave first?"
As the saying goes, a kind word begets a kind reply, and at Pia's bright voice Ceres answered with a bright smile and cheerful tone of her own.
"Oh my. My shopping just finished too—may I help you pick out clothes?"
"No, that would be far too much trouble for you; we couldn't possibly impose. We're grateful for the thought."
"Trouble has nothing to do with it. As it happens, I had nothing to do this afternoon and was feeling bored, so this is perfect."
"No, no, it's really all right~"
"No, I said I'd help~"
Kindness sharper than a spear and refusals thicker than a shield clashed head-on.
The verbal duel between the two was fierce, but refusing too much could itself become rude, so I said, "That's enough," and let Ceres join us.
As a result, Pia's mood did worsen, but accepting Ceres into the group was a good thing for me too, so it couldn't be helped.
...Honestly, if I were alone with Pia, I had a feeling the whole day would be spent just picking out clothes.
After that, Ceres, now part of the party, found combinations that suited me far faster than I'd expected.
Believe it or not, before she began working in earnest as a Hero—back when her soul core was still too immature for Sanctuary work—she'd spent about ten years as a coordinator.
She'd done coordinator work, she said, with the same mindset as learning to clean and wash dishes before picking up a knife in the kitchen.
As you'd expect from a race with nothing but time, she viewed ten years as a brief investment.
And the product of those ten years was quite satisfying.
"Oh my..."
Even Pia, who'd initially disliked Ceres joining us, had to admit that Ceres's styling was excellent.
Thanks to that, a shopping trip that had produced zero results in two hours ended within one hour of Ceres joining.
I jotted down the combination chart Ceres had given me on a note, then picked up armfuls of clothes myself.
It had been a thoroughly satisfying shopping trip.
'Wait. I feel like I'm forgetting something.'
Just as we'd finished all our errands and I was contentedly heading back to my lodgings, I realized something was missing.
Ah. Right.
The goal had been exploring ordinary student life.
I debated whether to turn back and resume the student-life exploration, but soon gave up the idea.
Come to think of it, wasn't this also a way of spending time with friends?
Only then did I realize that trying to study "ordinariness" was itself a contradiction.
"Is something the matter? You stopped all of a sudden."
"Did you eat something bad for lunch?"
As I stood there blankly replaying the day's epiphany, Pia and Ceres turned to look back at me.
I told them it was nothing and set my feet moving again.
*
"So. What does any of that have to do with the next project?"
The day after Allen spent an ordinary student life.
Sitting on a couch straight out of a therapy scene in an American TV drama, Nikolai asked Allen.
Across from Nikolai, Allen, in the role of patient receiving counseling, leaned half-reclined and spilled his grievances.
"When I thought about it, my life last year was way too far removed from student life, you know?"
"You actually realized that on your own, I'm impressed."
"Hear me out. Once my thoughts got that far, I started wanting to do the things only a student can do during this one-and-only student life."
"Uh... yeah."
Up to that point, Nikolai could understand.
But over the past year, the Allen he'd observed had a habit of following up this kind of buildup with a conclusion of pure nonsense.
And sure enough, the logic Allen laid out next was incomprehensible to an ordinary person like Nikolai.
"So here's the thing: for building school-day memories, I want to shoot a film for students. You can't shoot this kind of thing once the time has passed, right?"
Allen was proposing a film as if it were a limited-edition release, but up to here, it was still within the range Nikolai could accept.
Even in his previous life, arts-related departments had students make films during their school years to build experience, so he figured he could see it as an extension of that.
"So we just prepare a school romance, then?"
If that was it, it was Nikolai's specialty.
He had been possessed into this world while reading that very genre; there was no way he couldn't write it.
But as had been the case with the magical girl, Allen's logic circuits never operated the way Nikolai wanted.
"No. Romance is already overflowing in this world."
"...Then as far as I know, that leaves only one school genre, and that's not it, right?"
"I think that's exactly it."
"No, I'm asking because I genuinely don't understand—what does an academy battle series have to do with building school-day memories?"
"I told you. It's something you can only shoot while you're a student."
An academy battle series shot with real academy students.
What a sweet resonance that phrase had.
At least for Allen, who pursued realism, it was an entirely rational and logical idea.
But for Nikolai, it was unacceptable.
Writing the script wasn't the hard part.
He had his own degree of expertise in academy battle series and their offshoot, the academy genre.
It was just that Nikolai didn't want to write that kind of work with his own hands.
"Boss. I don't want to lay a hand on that kind of rootless genre."
"How is the academy battle genre rootless?"
"It would take more than an hour to explain, but the biggest reason is this: I don't want to write a story about a fully developed overpowered protagonist going around collecting beautiful girls. The protagonist of my work has to grow."
"Then don't worry about that. I think the same way. The protagonist of my battle series will grow."
Even with Allen saying that, Nikolai found it hard to think of an academy battle series where the protagonist grew.
At Nikolai's request to give him just a few examples, Allen immediately rattled some off.
"Shooting a railgun with a coin."
"That one has roots, sure."
"Expecto Patronum."
"...Is that really an academy battle series?"
"They fight with magic at an academy and have power struggles over whose wand is better—wouldn't that be an academy battle series?"
"...Boss, please, I'm begging you, don't go around telling people you've watched a lot of movies."
At any rate, Allen's logic was simple.
If the genre was about students fighting one another at an academy, didn't that make all of them academy battle series?
The logic wasn't entirely wrong, so Nikolai ended up losing to Allen's reasoning.
The adage that when a fool and a sage argue, the fool always wins circled through Nikolai's head.
Unable to harbor such irreverent thoughts toward the patron, superior, and boss he respected, he shook his head to dispel the notion and picked up his pen again.
As he felt the cold touch of the pen for the first time in a month, mixed emotions surged through him, and Nikolai dragged both hands down his face.
From beyond his palms, his voice toward Allen could be heard.
"I do have a condition, though."
"Just say the word, Sage."
"This time, you absolutely cannot send the plot off to Andromeda like last time."
"..."
Allen's gaze drifted sideways, toward nothing at all.
----Epilogue----
There had been many incidents along the way, but in the end, Nikolai was the type to deliver what was asked of him.
Once he sat at his desk, scenarios poured out of Nikolai like copies from a machine.
As they were reviewing them, Allen suddenly recalled a point of curiosity and asked Nikolai.
"By the way, this academy battle series we're shooting at the academy—is it fiction, a musical, or a documentary?"
"...I think we might need to have a serious discussion about that."
Nikolai was trying hard to deny it himself, but if Allen was Pat, then Nikolai was about a Mat.