The Black Mage Hungers for Mana (1)
'Is this for real?'
Sweep, sweep. As Raban swept the area with his broom, the thought crossed his mind. The employee welfare at Lux Tierra High School was better than expected. Specifically, the food was delicious. Delicious enough to spark a momentary impulse to just settle down in this world.
The place where he'd washed up was quite similar to his original world, aside from people's somewhat lax minds and the existence of magical girls. He could enjoy most of the blessings of modern civilization that he'd craved.
'But what I wanted isn't here in its complete form.'
There were sequels to novels he hadn't read yet. Follow-ups to movies he'd been anticipating. Even long-concluded shonen manga had gloriously launched into part two. So many expectations remained back in his original world.
This world probably had similar stories. But not the exact ones Raban was waiting for.
Raban resolved to live quietly like a dead rat, scrape together mana with grim determination, and force a dimensional jump.
'That aside.'
This school was definitely off. Raban continued cleaning, ignoring the gazes he felt from every corner of the school.
The fairies, cloaked in invisibility magic, watched Raban swing his broom around. As the smirks on their faces deepened, one fairy voiced her suspicions.
"Bro, that guy's smiling mofu. Smiling while working on a weekday afternoon? Isn't he a monster mofu?"
"It's Wednesday, so he's happy mofu. Leftover-free day. His face shines when the side dishes are good, but turns grim at fried mackerel or braised cod mofu."
"...Doesn't our school use a pretty vetted caterer mofu?"
"The cook got turned into a monster host and is on leave mofu. The fried mackerel was legit good until that happened."
'What the hell is this...'
Raban suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He couldn't see them with his eyes or hear them with his ears, but something made of excessively clumped mana existed throughout the school.
If it were mana dwelling in an ancient tree or a massive boulder—some symbolic landmark—he might brush it off. But he could feel these mana clumps had distinct self-awareness and were moving.
They maintained a constant distance, observing his every move without deviation.
In the secondary dimension where he'd drifted, they'd be called 'spirits.'
Suspicious spirits surveilling him while hidden.
'Mascots, after all?'
Raban had various hypotheses about the mascot faction. The most convincing to him was that mascots were a type of spirit, and whatever empowered magical girls was equivalent to a spirit king.
The reasoning was simple. The ability to instantly repair city-wide destruction and the barrier spanning the entire city. An entity that could affect such a vast area, specialized in regeneration and restoration—it had to be a spirit.
'A spirit king dwelling in Hikarius City?'
If the mascot faction's true nature was a spirit king and its subordinates, he could lower his guard a notch. Spirits were generally neutral as long as you didn't harm their natural hosts...
'But these guys aren't neutral anymore, are they?'
This wasn't about conscripting magical girls against monsters. Monsters were threat enough to Hikarius that spirits responding made sense.
What baffled Raban was City Hall. They'd immediately tossed him into Lux Tierra High School, a place under mascot faction surveillance. City Hall's decision was likely in line with the mascots' intent to screen intruders.
In other words, the mascots already had City Hall under their influence. Meaning they held de facto control over the city.
'These are crazier spirits than I thought.'
A Big Brother spirit king and its minions controlling the city from the shadows, surveilling dissidents. How terrifying.
Raban pondered ways to charge mana while evading these mad spirits.
'The safest bet was sucking monsters dry, but...'
Bad luck—he'd run into magical girls. Only Magi White was there at the time, but given the Big Brother mascots' tendencies, they'd flagged him as suspicious long ago.
'What now.'
He could fool the surveilling gazes. Mastering black magic had let him manipulate his body like a colony. He was confident he could survive even if divided into 16 parts.
The problem: even if he split his body to absorb mana, getting caught by magical girls...
'Huh? Hold on.'
The main component he extracted from monsters was human negative emotions. And this was a school. Adolescent turmoil was prime negative emotion fodder.
"Schools have counseling rooms, right."
If he played it right, he could vacation here for years and head home!
"Salamandine. What do you mean by that?"
"I have to go back to school!"
Sargasso clutched the back of his neck. He was speechless.
"...Didn't the magical girls already uncover your identity?"
Grata of earth voiced Sargasso's doubts in his stead. During the last school trip, she'd unwittingly revealed herself, clashed with the magical girls, and retreated.
To the civilians at Lux Tierra High School, her identity was safe, but the terrifying sentinels—the 'Mother Fairies'' minions hidden there—would have sniffed out that Dine was Salamandine in disguise...
"Speaking of which, didn't you name your alias super lazily?"
Dunamis tilted his head, flapping his emerald wings. His peacock-tail feathers fanned out dramatically.
"Your real name's Salamandine, and your alias is Dine? Might as well have read the spelling backward."
"Sometimes I wonder if the Mother Fairies' lackeys are idiots. How'd they not notice?"
"Even dull Grata here is baffled. What were you thinking with that alias?"
"Hey!"
Salamandine flushed and raised her voice. Her flame hair blazed even brighter.
"Be serious! Listen! A freakish thing appeared that's got even the Magi Lists and damn mascots rattled!"
"Indeed, that's a major issue. A parasitic creature devouring the mana from our manufactured monsters... Some abomination from another dimension, perhaps."
Sargasso nodded gravely. There was only one recent reason such a bizarre entity would enter Hikarius City: the revival ritual he'd overseen. In failing to reach Ebon's otherworldly abode, they'd summoned something else entirely.
"Yeah. That guy. Magi White called him a shadow sorcerer or something. Anyway, he was after the mana we embed in monsters."
The mana used by Ivory Tower members wasn't pure mana derived from nature. That was for Magi Lists. The Tower reached for the dark, hot, humid, sticky mana surging from human hearts.
And the easiest harvest spot was...
"Lux Tierra High School. That's where the victims of the Na Ju Pharma incident are gathered."
"A haven for souls freed from fairy bondage. Land swarming with Ebon's greatest supporters."
Dunamis cocked his head. The most irreverent of the Four Heavenly Kings, ever eager for a sharp jab, shot back at Sargasso.
"The fairies gathered those kids, didn't they? 'Gathered of their own will' feels off—more like 'imprisoned' or something."
"You... insolent brat. Don't interrupt your elders!"
"Ah, Sargasso, quit with the doddering old man act. Anyway!"
Bam! Salamandine slammed the round table and stood, scanning the room. Grata flinched at her intensity, but she pressed on.
"If I were that guy, I'd hole up at Lux Tierra, the easiest spot in Hikarius for negative emotions. We should infiltrate the school again to hunt down and eliminate the shadow sorcerer."
"Logical enough, but do you think the Mother Fairies' vile minions will tolerate you?"
"Ask via the Magi List kids. They felt it fighting that wooden hand thing. It's an abomination neither the Magi Lists nor the Tower can abide."
And so, transfer student Dine Ifrit returned from her brief leave of absence.
"You're back!"
"We were worried!"
Her official excuse: complications from falling into the sea during the school trip. Severe pneumonia, just discharged.
Dine scanned her surroundings intently.
"Hee hee, rest assured. I'm perfectly healthy now."
Dine greeted her friends in a tone diametrically opposed to Salamandine's. It was a persona she'd adopted to hide from Magi Lists, and since her friends remembered her this way, switching back felt awkward.
If anyone approaching mentioned 'Salamandine,' they'd be the Magi Lists in disguise.
'How'd they figure out this fairy-pet spot was where they scouted magical girls?'
But she sighed and gave up. Magi List security was weirdly tight in places like this.
Instead, she pursued her real goal upon returning.
'I'd have seized the counseling room first. We used to mark frequent visitors there as monster host candidates.'
Toward the end of lunch. Dine began moving cautiously.
If that fiend was there, he might've implanted hideous parasites in the kind, gentle counselor's brain to make her his minion...
"Eek?!"
"Oh, sorry. Corner blinded me. You okay?"
Raban collided with an unfamiliar red-haired girl!