Even I Don't Know Myself That Well (2)
“It’s fine,” I told Salbyeol. “People change over time. For better or for worse.”
“That sounds a little different to me now. I’m sorry for misunderstanding you~yoyo.”
A magical girl losing her mana. It was the same as losing everything that made her a magical girl. No matter how vast her magical knowledge or how outstanding her skills, without mana to back them up, no spell would ever activate. A magical girl who couldn’t use magic was no different from an ordinary person. Calling someone without mana a magical girl felt almost embarrassing.
That was why every magical girl was extremely sensitive about her mana reserves. They worked hard to increase the amount they held inside their bodies and managed it with iron discipline so it would never decrease.
As for me, I had already let go of everything related to being a magical girl, so becoming a half-baked one like this didn’t really matter. But it seemed the people around me, including Salbyeol, didn’t see it that way.
“To lose so much of your precious mana—the very core of a magical girl… what exactly happened to you?”
“Before I tell that story, Salbyeol, how did you end up coming to Earth?”
“M-me~yoyo? Out of nowhere~yoyo?”
I suddenly changed the subject with a question completely unrelated to our previous conversation.
“Yeah. You disappeared without a word to Forsythia and were considered missing. I’m curious why you’re on Earth instead of in Magica.”
Salbyeol looked flustered, but he began answering my question obediently.
“That’s true… Lady Posiltia must have been really worried when I suddenly vanished~yoyo.”
Thinking of his former magical girl partner, Salbyeol was overcome with longing.
“Not really? She seemed surprisingly fine.”
“What? What did you say~yoyo? There’s no way Lady Posiltia would—yoyo.”
But my words shattered his fond memories, and Salbyeol fell into deep confusion.
“She didn’t seem worried at all. I almost want to ask just how little interest Forsythia had in you that she stayed so calm even after you disappeared.”
“That’s not true~yoyo! Lady Posiltia would never be the kind of person who… would… she wouldn’t, right~yoyo?”
“You’re starting to agree with me, huh?”
Doubt crept into his voice as Salbyeol trailed off, sinking into thought. He seemed to be slowly retracing his past relationship with Forsythia. But the more he remembered, the worse his expression became, as if only unpleasant memories were surfacing.
Eventually he shouted in firm denial.
“No! Lady Posiltia simply trusted me and had no reason to worry~yoyo! She would never find me annoying if I disappeared or be so uninterested that she wouldn’t even notice I was gone~yoyo!”
“Those are the exact words that dig your own grave.”
“I don’t know anymore~yoyo. I don’t know anything now~yoyo. Cosmo is an idiot~yoyo. Hmph!”
Salbyeol seemed to have gotten sulky again because of my teasing.
“Cosmo… you’ve gotten even more playful than before~yoyo. That’s too mean~yoyo…”
I thought I used to make similar jokes back then. Or did I? I didn’t do it often, but I would crack jokes sometimes to lighten the mood.
…I should stop teasing him.
I went back to my earlier question.
“Yawn. Anyway, what happened? Why did you suddenly disappear?”
“It wasn’t anything special~yoyo. I was patrolling the city like any other day to check for monsters when I discovered a suspicious gate~yoyo.”
“…A suspicious gate?”
The interesting word made me sit up straight and focus on Salbyeol’s story.
“Yes. It was closer to a hole than a proper gate~yoyo. A strange hole where space itself had shattered. It was a form of gate that had never existed before, so I approached a little closer to investigate… and when I came to my senses, I was in a completely different world~yoyo?”
Now that I thought about it, one of the last documents I had reviewed as Association President before returning to Earth had been related to an anomalous gate incident.
…I remembered now. That gate had only been reported through verbal witness statements. There had been no visual evidence at all. Right after the field report came in, we dispatched an investigation team, but not only was there no anomalous gate—there wasn’t even any unusual phenomenon. At first we suspected it was a false report, but a few days later another sighting of the anomalous gate was filed from a different location, so we changed our minds.
However, every time we sent a team to the site, the gate was nowhere to be found, and every photo the witnesses claimed to have taken showed nothing out of the ordinary. In other words, combining all the information suggested the gate could not be captured on camera and only existed for an extremely short time… It was all difficult to understand with common sense.
In the end, there were very few witnesses, their accounts were all different, and above all there was no clear evidence, so we eventually dismissed it as baseless rumor and moved on.
Who would have thought it had been a spatial gate connected to Earth?
I had realized the true nature of the incident too late through Salbyeol. If only I had known back then.
“I wouldn’t have had to go through all that suffering.”
“What do you mean by suffering~yoyo?”
The reason I had suddenly asked, “How did you end up on Earth?” was to lay the groundwork for what I was about to explain next. More precisely, I wanted to make sure of something.
“…The reason my mana disappeared.”
The story of how I, who had possessed quite a large amount of mana befitting a top-class magical girl, had ended up with less than even an ordinary person. And how, because of that, I had become this pathetic version of myself.
“Are you really going to open the gate?”
Someone behind me urgently tried to stop me. It was advice to think it over one more time. But I had heard that same advice dozens—no, hundreds of times. If I were going to change my mind now, I never would have started in the first place.
I finished drawing the magic circle.
“You already know that space-type magic consumes an enormous amount of mana.”
“That’s true. There are spells that require more mana than any single person could possibly handle.”
“And knowing that, you’re still going to gamble? With nothing but a handful of hope?”
A handful of hope? Those words were enough to touch my reverse scale. I set down the magic circle I had been drawing and snapped sharply at the other person.
“What’s wrong with that? If there’s even the slightest possibility, I’ll do it. Isn’t that how we’ve always done things, Yuni?”
“You’ll die if you mess up. I’m not joking. And I can’t stand by and watch my magical girl get seduced by some pathetic possibility and march herself straight to death.”
Frustrated by her words, I shouted loudly.
“If you’re my mascot, you should know! What I’ve been living for. Why I’ve been struggling like a dog in this unfamiliar world I knew nothing about, risking my life every single day—you of all people should understand!”
“Even so!”
My mascot, Yuni, cried out through tears.
“I will not accept you dying, Cosmo.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“How can I believe that! Opening a gate that connects two dimensions requires an entire nation’s yearly mana consumption. Even if you are an Astra, it’s not something you can handle alone!”
“According to my calculations, it’s entirely possible with the Halo System as a premise. You reviewed it with me, didn’t you?”
Even with my logical explanation, she didn’t seem convinced. Instead, she pushed back even harder.
“Since when does the world ever go exactly according to plan or calculation? Variables always exist. Every battle we’ve fought until now has been like that. No matter how perfect and flawless the plan, it always goes wrong. Brilliant minds and advanced machines are all useless in the face of the vast universe.”
“That’s exactly why I spent all those years trying to minimize those variables.”
“Yes. And even if, as you say, you manage to open the gate without dying, who knows if it will connect to Earth or some other strange dimension? According to your own prediction, the chance of reaching Earth is a mere three percent!”
Ignoring her words, I picked up my staff again. I continued drawing the magic circle I had started earlier. With my gaze fixed on the ground, I spoke to her.
“Like you said, variables always exist everywhere. That’s why there’s no need to get hung up on a three percent chance.”
“That’s not what I meant at all, Cosmo!”
“…Yuni. I have to return to Earth no matter what it takes. You know that, right?”
At those words, Yuni stopped talking. I quietly looked at her. She stared at my face for a long time before finally speaking in a low voice.
“Because of your little sister?”
“Yeah. My sister who definitely needs my help. Since both our parents are gone, her older brother has to be there for her.”
From the moment I first decided to become a magical girl, from the first time I met my mascot Yuni until now, I had said those same words over and over. That I had to go back. That I would return to Earth no matter what. That I would do anything to make it happen—even things that only happened in girls’ cartoons about magical girls.
“Your sister might not even recognize you if you’ve changed this much.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
With those final words, I completed the magic circle.
“No matter how much I’ve changed, I’m still me in the end.”
“…That’s what happened. It’s not that big a deal, right?”
After my long-winded explanation, Salbyeol seemed lost in thought. Very deeply, in fact. He stayed silent for a long time as if struggling with something before finally speaking.
“So in the end, you poured all your mana into casting the spell, tore open space, and returned to Earth~yoyo?”
“Pretty much?”
My answer, given without hesitation, made Salbyeol let out a huge sigh.
“Haa…. Cosmo, I really didn’t want to say this, but…”
Salbyeol made an incredulous face and said,
“In truth, Cosmo, you’re an idiot, aren’t you?”
Uh… This guy. So he’s only realizing it now?