The Story Begins (1)
The Surveillance Room.
It was the highest-security facility in the entire Bureau, buried in its deepest recesses, accessible only to the handful of personnel Han Ho-jun had personally authorized.
For years, Ho-jun had poured his blood and sweat into recruiting trustworthy agents as his hands and feet. To those who shared his cause, he granted the right to come and go from the Surveillance Room.
As a result, everyone currently inside the room was one of Ho-jun’s people.
Completely cut off from the outside world, Ho-jun had used the Surveillance Room’s inherent isolation to build a kingdom of his own—carefully enough that his superiors would never notice.
Even if it meant dying, the capable agents who would stand with Ho-jun, who remained loyal to him and moved exactly as he directed, were gathered here in force.
Deputy Director of the Bureau Han Ho-jun intended to make full use of them for his plans.
Across the world, the various Magical Girl Oversight Organizations were the bodies charged with the production, management, deployment, and correction of magical girls.
Outwardly they appeared to cooperate against the Unknowns, but the reality was a hellscape of rival factions clawing at one another—a chaos that deserved to be called an age of warlords.
From petty factional struggles inside a single organization, to fights over the director’s seat, all the way to armed conflicts between the oversight bodies themselves.
For personal gain, for one more title, for even a slightly larger “supply” of magical girls, each side leveled guns at the others for every conceivable reason.
The competition burned hot enough to catch fire. No one could be trusted. Hierarchies reversed overnight, and countless people died.
It was little more than a slaughterhouse of repeated snitching, accusations, intrigue, and assassination.
After the “Magic Crusades,” once the Unknowns’ momentum had ebbed, the competition only intensified—until civil war itself seemed imminent.
The Bureau of Magical Girl Correction and Surveillance, which oversaw every magical girl across the Far East, was likewise sliding toward ruin under the weight of its own internal struggles.
Until Ho-jun appeared.
Han Ho-jun, backed by the Bureau’s upper echelons—the Judgment Committee—had steadily infiltrated and taken over the organization, and had managed, more or less, to put an end to the chaos.
Around the time his opposition was wiped out in a series of suspicious accidents, Ho-jun began gradually distancing himself from the Judgment Committee. Slowly, carefully enough that they would not notice, he filled every key post with his own people.
He had no intention of sitting at the same table as those nauseating, disgusting pigs. Ho-jun’s lofty ideal was aimed higher—toward the faint moon, the Waning Moon, shining in the sky above.
The Judgment Committee agonized over Ho-jun’s behavior. The puppet they had intended to put forward was now maintaining a subtle distance. He had not yet bared his fangs, but he was more than worthy of caution.
Having belatedly recognized Ho-jun’s ability and ambition, the committee members began to check him on their own initiative.
To grasp his intentions more accurately and dig out information, they started slipping “rats” into the Bureau one by one.
Of course, Ho-jun merely snorted and carried out periodic “pest control” so that no rats could infiltrate his kingdom.
Just like this very moment.
“You did well to get in here, you rat.”
“D-Do you think you’ll walk away from this unscathed?! Once the Committee learns what you’re plotting, you’ll die without a sound—your family, all of them…!”
“That is not your concern. And I have no family.”
“…Are you planning to put your daughter’s life in danger?!”
The pale-faced “rat” spat the words with flying saliva.
Ho-jun smiled coldly.
It was not worth answering.
“…It’s not too late. We’ll pretend you saw nothing… Just take this for now…”
The rat reached into his coat for something.
Bang, bang-bang—!
Without the slightest hesitation, Ho-jun pulled the trigger of the pistol he had already trained on the rat.
It was a general-purpose automatic pistol manufactured by Germany’s M&K and adopted as the Bureau’s standard sidearm. Every Bureau agent carried one as a primary weapon.
Of course, most carried no live rounds. Only the tiny minority Ho-jun had selected were issued real ammunition.
The gun’s greatest advantage was its comparatively light recoil. It combined reliability and accuracy; in the hands of a skilled shooter it almost never missed its mark.
And Ho-jun had used this pistol to kill countless rats.
An entire magazine’s worth of bullets struck the rat’s body with perfect precision.
Gunsmoke.
The white smoke that rises when a firearm is discharged was curling from the pistol in Ho-jun’s hand.
Wind holes opened in the rat’s head and body. His ash-gray uniform was completely soaked in blood. The body that had been trembling went cold just as it was.
Ho-jun approached the corpse with unhurried steps.
He wanted to examine whatever the rat had been trying to pull from an inner pocket of his uniform just before dying.
A government ID.
An official ID card stamped with a large NIS mark.
…Already.
The Judgment Committee had colluded with the National Intelligence Service. The fact that they had gone so far as to plant a black-ops agent here to dig for information meant they could safely be considered to be in the same boat. Even if they were strange bedfellows, their purpose would be identical.
“Dispose of it.”
“Understood.”
Ho-jun snapped the ID card in half, pointed at the rat’s corpse, and spoke.
The agents began dragging the body outside, headed for the corpse-disposal facility disguised as a biohazard waste site.
The infiltrating NIS agent would be processed as an unofficial “death in the line of duty” within the Bureau.
He had dug too deep to be left alive. If Ho-jun did not kill him at once, the risk of his plan being exposed was real.
Lucky he kept his mouth shut…
If the Judgment Committee ever grasped his plan, magical girls from all over the world would come for the Bureau. Not only the Far East branch’s committee, but the oversight committees of every regional organization would make Ho-jun’s elimination their highest priority.
It was a plan he had not even properly explained to his own people. On this entire planet, the only ones who knew of it were himself and…
…
He could not let them discover it like this.
A common enemy.
He would become the common enemy that could temporarily paper over every conflict.
He could not afford to carry a risk factor. Ho-jun himself was walking a razor-thin tightrope. A single mistake would bring ruin.
“Agent So-rim, has the route the rat used to enter been identified?”
“…There was a traitor inside. At approximately 17:00 we detected that the vent entrance had been opened from within.”
“As expected.”
A heavy silence settled.
Infiltrating the Surveillance Room was extremely difficult. It maintained the highest security level at all times and strictly forbade outsider entry. Unless one was among the few chosen by Ho-jun, even setting foot inside was impossible.
To “seep in” meant, quite literally, infiltrating from within—either by earning Ho-jun’s trust over years and being “selected” as one of his people, or by physically slipping past the airtight security.
In the Surveillance Room they monitored every single movement of every magical girl, each of whom was effectively a strategic weapon. Even the Waning Moon was no exception.
More than thirty miniature cameras were installed in the Waning Moon’s room alone, and a microphone was embedded in the teddy bear Ian-na treasured.
By controlling the Surveillance Room, one could grasp every magical girl’s personality, traits, and weaknesses.
That was also why Ho-jun had made the Surveillance Room his stronghold.
“I will count to three. Step forward. I promise you mercy.”
Every person in the Surveillance Room fixed their gaze on Ho-jun.
“One.”
Click—
Ho-jun chambered a round. As before, he had filled the magazine completely.
“Two.”
The muzzle of Ho-jun’s pistol swept across the agents.
One agent whose face had gone excessively pale, whose body shook and whose cold sweat poured, looked at the barrel with a tearful expression.
“Three.”
Ho-jun aimed at the pale-faced agent—
Bang—!
—and fired.
“W-Aaaagh!!!”
The terrified agent screamed loud enough to shake the room and collapsed to the floor, but he was not the one Ho-jun’s bullet had struck.
“How…?”
“I have known since the end of last year. Your name was on the ‘list of recruits’ handed to me by the intelligence asset I planted in the Committee.”
“…”
Rats were not dispatched only from above, from the Judgment Committee. Ho-jun likewise maintained connections higher up, expanding his own network of recruits and planting agents of his own.
The short-haired female agent who had taken a bullet in the shoulder looked up at Ho-jun in disbelief.
Ho-jun’s confidants immediately restrained her.
“To the interrogation room.”
“Yes, sir!”
Ho-jun gave a cold smile.
In the interrogation room a colorful array of tortures unfolded. From magical girls to politicians, reporters, civic activists, soldiers, spies—no one, no matter who they were, could endure the torments inflicted there.
Extracting information was pointless. When one used a magical-girl-grade truth serum, anyone would lay bare their darkest secrets.
The interrogation room existed solely for the purpose of suffering.
The short-haired woman, as if resigned, offered no resistance whatsoever as she was dragged away.
“Well then, back to work. There is still a long time until the end of the shift.”
Ho-jun set down the pistol, took a sip of coffee, and spoke quietly. Silence once again settled over the Surveillance Room.
At that moment—
“D-Deputy Director…? Please look at the Waning Moon’s room!”
A beautiful woman with softly fluttering hair—So-rim—shouted at Ho-jun, her face clearly flustered.
At the same time, the countless monitors in the Surveillance Room all switched to the miniature cameras installed in Ian-na’s room.
Illusion’s voice rang out at the same instant—
Thud!!!
—and the monitors captured Illusion driving a powerful strike into the lower part of Ian-na’s abdomen.
“Deputy Director! The Director’s body cannot withstand that kind of impact! We have to stop them at once!”
If they left things as they were, the Waning Moon would die without fail.
The Waning Moon.
Ian-na was no longer a magical girl. Most people still called her “Waning Moon,” but the power of the Waning Moon was gone.
She was not even an ordinary human—her body was little better than a corpse. She had no means of enduring Illusion’s attack.
She would die. That much was certain.
So-rim, Ho-jun, and every one of Ho-jun’s people present thought the same thing.
“…Stand down.”
“Deputy Director?”
Ho-jun’s judgment was different.
On the screen, as he watched Ian-na take the blow to the stomach from Illusion, a faint smile touched Ho-jun’s face.
“The footage is being recorded. Let us observe the situation.”
“…Are you saying we should simply stand by even though we know what the Director is going through?!”
A thoroughly agitated So-rim shouted at him.
“Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.”
Ho-jun whispered softly.
“D-Deputy Director… what do you mean by that…!”
“Calm yourself and look at the monitor.”
At some point, the large bruise that had been stamped across the Waning Moon’s lower abdomen had completely vanished. Her body was now clean, without a single wound.
“That is…”
“Illusion is using her ability to heal the Director. She has no intention of killing her. For now… we will simply watch.”
Ho-jun’s eyes flashed as he stared at the monitors. When he first heard that the two magical girls had gone to visit the Waning Moon, he had thought it nothing worth special attention. Now it had become something he could not afford to ignore.
Ian-na was truly… something. Something was changing. For Ho-jun, whose daily routine began with recording when, how often, and in what manner Ian-na talked in her sleep, the present situation was intensely interesting.
And it was also an opportunity.
A golden opportunity that would never come twice. Ho-jun had no intention of letting it slip away.
“If you refuse, Deputy Director, I will go to the scene alone if I must! Have you not always said it yourself? That the Director’s safety is to be our highest priority…!”
“…Agent So-rim.”
As the frenzied So-rim half-rose from her seat, Ho-jun pressed down on her shoulder and spoke.
“I like that side of you, Agent So-rim. But right now I need you to trust me. There is no possibility that the Director will be placed in danger.”
“But…”
“That is an order.”
“…Understood.”
At the word “order,” So-rim, who had been about to spring from her chair, sat back down.
Even in the Surveillance Room, where the atmosphere was relatively free and the hierarchy somewhat blurred, Ho-jun’s orders were absolute. No one ever attempted to defy them.
“Just in case, let us put a call through. Connect me to Byeol-hwa in solitary.”
It was the bare minimum of a safety measure.
If—just if—those two had truly decided on treason and intended to murder the Waning Moon…
Then Byeol-hwa would have to be dispatched.
The only force that could restrain a magical girl was another magical girl.
Even if Byeol-hwa could not defeat the two of them, she could at least slow them down. In that interval they would extract the Waning Moon.
The Byeol-hwa that Ho-jun knew would fight for innocent human lives even if it cost her own.
Ho-jun’s gaze returned to the monitors.
So that he could grasp exactly what was happening inside the Waning Moon’s room.