Assault on the Secret Laboratory (1)
"Haa… I wonder if those kids are still alive. They definitely aren't the type to go down that easily somewhere…"
It had already been a full week since the hero magical girls Magical Seraphina and Aquamarine went missing right after their battle.
When a hero disappears during combat, the situation typically splits into two possibilities afterward.
If there's even a rough idea of what happened, personnel are mobilized to track them down. But if no leads can be found at all, the search is eventually abandoned after a set period.
Heroes are valuable assets, so the Alliance does its utmost to locate them. Still, without any evidence, there's simply no way to find them, leaving no choice but to give up.
In the case of these two girls, every agent nearby had been found dead, leaving no witnesses. Even the CCTV footage only showed thick smoke filling the area—there was no way to tell where, how, or to whom they had vanished.
"If they don't come back… I'll have a hard time avoiding responsibility myself."
The director of the research institute was the very person who had granted immense power to the two girls, who had once been ordinary ability users with potential. Now he also served as their attending physician, monitoring their condition.
"Well… being held accountable is inevitable, but… not knowing what happened to those young ones… it doesn't sit right with me."
With the two girls he regarded like his own daughters still missing, he couldn't bring himself to sleep at all.
"Director!!! Director!!!!"
Just as the director's head was throbbing while drafting his report, a researcher burst frantically into his office.
"What is it? Something urgent?"
"The magical… magical girls… they've returned!"
"What?! Is that true?!"
The two girls who had vanished without a trace from a street in S City had survived and returned to Hero Alliance Headquarters—a shocking piece of news.
"Where are they?! Where are those two right now?!"
"They're resting in the on-call room inside the institute. Their injuries look quite severe… We should bring them here for a proper examination."
"Right… Bring them here immediately—no, take them to the examination room. I'll head there myself!"
The director abandoned everything he was doing and rushed into the examination room. Inside, Seraphina and Aquamarine lay collapsed from exhaustion.
"You really came back…! You two…!"
The director felt a pang in his chest as he adjusted their tattered magical girl costumes, yet he couldn't contain his relief that they had somehow made it back alive.
"Ah… Director… It's you…"
"Uncle… Hello."
Seraphina and Aquamarine turned their pale faces weakly toward him. Their voices were so faint they were barely audible, a clear sign of how dire their condition was.
"Did you… take your medicine? You were gone for a whole week…"
"Just in case… we had some emergency supplies… with us…"
Aquamarine pulled a small white bottle from her pocket and showed it to him.
"Thank goodness… thank goodness! The injuries were bad enough, but I was worried about the side effects if you hadn't taken the medicine!"
Even while captured by villains, the two girls had secretly taken the emergency medicine they had prepared, waiting for a chance to escape. They had finally broken free during a brief opening.
"Good… Rest well for now. I'll handle things upstairs. Take a few days here to recover slowly before deciding whether to resume activity."
"Thank… you…"
- Knock knock knock -
While the director was checking their condition and chatting with the girls, a knock sounded at the examination room door.
"Did I call for someone…? I don't recall. Whoever it is, come in!"
The person who knocked and entered was a female researcher. She carried a stack of documents containing the girls' examination results in one hand and several small diagnostic devices in the other.
"I thought you might need these for the examination… so I brought them ahead of time."
"Ah! Thank you. I completely forgot in my rush to get here. By the way… are you the new researcher who joined recently?"
"Yes! I started last week. My name is Hong Seo-rin."
The female researcher had long, deep green hair with a slight blue tint, much like Seraphina's. She smiled brightly and set the documents and devices down on the side table next to the director.
"Ah…? Ah… I see. I've been so distracted lately… I didn't recognize you."
The director knew he had been out of it ever since the two magical girls disappeared, so it made sense that he wouldn't remember a newly hired researcher.
"Well… thankfully, their condition seems stable. In fact, they might even be in better shape than before… Perhaps the procedure is taking effect."
Despite their serious injuries, the two girls' bodies looked surprisingly healthy—far better than their exhausted appearances suggested.
"For now… rest here in the institute facilities for at least a day. And since you're already here, I'll get you some extra medicine as well."
The director picked up the receiver in the examination room and pressed a button to connect to the pharmacy.
"Ah… are they away from their post? I can't get through."
The researcher who should have been stationed in the pharmacy was apparently absent, and no one answered despite multiple attempts.
"If you're trying to reach the pharmacy… I know where it is."
"You're still new, so you probably don't know which medicine it is… I'll go myself. Right! Since this is your first time seeing them… why don't you chat with these girls for a bit?"
As a new hire, Seo-rin wouldn't be familiar with the research or daily tasks yet. The director left the two girls in her care and headed toward the pharmacy.
"The pharmacy… I'm sure something fun is waiting for you there, Director… Hehe."
"Whew… Thank goodness. Those kids… I was worried for nothing."
After struggling for years to secure a stable research position and drifting between facilities, the director had finally landed this role when he heard rumors of a secret Hero Alliance project. Now in his fourth year, satisfied with both the stable post and his research, he had met the two girls during a villain incident in which they lost their parents.
The girls had no memories of their past, likely due to the trauma of the villain attack. The director had come to see them as his own children and vowed to raise them into outstanding heroes.
Those heroes were none other than Magical Aquamarine and Seraphina. That was why the director felt such deep affection for them.
"Whew… Still, why is it so quiet inside the institute?"
The secret laboratory under his direction employed around forty researchers. Normally, several people would be walking the corridors or resting, yet the place was eerily silent, with no one in sight.
"Did everyone go out to lunch without me…?"
Lately, the younger researchers had been avoiding sharing meals with him, and he had been quietly nursing a sense of hurt over it.
Grumbling under his breath, the director soon arrived at the pharmacy door and opened it.
"No one's here…? What… what the—?!"
"Mmph… mmph…?! Mmmph!!!!"
The pharmacy was in complete disarray—toppled medicine cabinets and scattered pills everywhere. About twenty researchers lay bound tightly, gagged, and trembling in fear.
"So that's why the institute was so unnaturally quiet…?! What about the other researchers… are they safe?"
Panicking at the unprecedented situation, the director quickly shook his head and began searching for a way to resolve it.
"Villains… Villains must have infiltrated while we were distracted…! I need to call for help…!"
"Mmmph!!! Mmmph!!"
As the director reached for the internal line to request backup from the Alliance, the researcher who had just announced the magical girls' return began thrashing and screaming through her gag.
"What is it?! Did someone threaten you—gaaah?!!?!"
But the director's hand had already touched the receiver—
- BOOM! -
The receiver exploded, blasting away the director's left hand and arm entirely.
"Ghh… Aaaargh!!!!"
The pharmacy became an even greater mess, filled with smoke from the blast and the director's blood spraying everywhere. Having lost his left arm, the director howled in unbearable pain and shock.
"You were… shaking your head… because of this?!"
The reason the researcher had screamed and shaken her head so violently was because someone had planted a bomb in the receiver, anticipating a call for help.
"Haa… haa… I need… to contact… someone…!"
Having lost so much blood in mere seconds, the aging director's face turned deathly pale as he gasped for breath. Even so, he had to save the researchers—even if it cost him his life. He had to save the two magical girls, whose bodies were still far from recovered.
Clutching his arm in agony, he forced his head up with that resolve.
"So you touched it after all, Director."
"Y-you… You're…!"
Standing before the director with a wicked smile was a woman. She was the female villain who had introduced herself as Hong Seo-rin—the one who had killed a researcher, stolen her clothes, and disguised herself. It was Rui-lin in her Glamour Mode.