Chapter 55
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: Magical Accountant? (1)
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Right after Sora and Octopus set off to hunt down the monster.
Not long passed before Sora's magic wore off. The wall of blue flames blocking Whitey and me began to crumble.
And then.
- Thud.
- Bang!
The sound of my footsteps crossed with the gunshot.
Well, it wasn't really a problem. I already knew Whitey's magic to some extent.
Straight-line spells focused purely on power.
All I had to watch out for was the direction of the barrel and the number of bullets.
That's probably why it was honestly easy to dodge. No unavoidable situations even came up.
Whitey's magic was that straightforward.
Thanks to that, I reached her without much trouble.
Now I just had to subdue her.
Of course, there was the option of stalling until Sora and Octopus dealt with the monster.
But I didn't think that was a good choice.
Sure, my body was in better shape than it had been in that other world, but that didn't mean it was superior to a magical girl's. Not even close.
I was especially at a disadvantage in terms of stamina.
Honestly, at first I just planned to dodge and tested a few moves without closing in, but the consumption was more than expected.
Whitey could just pull a trigger and be done, but every dodge required some pretty exaggerated movement on my part.
Simply dodging wouldn't last long.
So subduing her was the next best option.
That's the judgment that led me to approach her.
To add a note, I felt a bit bad, but ending it myself was more comfortable than trusting Sora and Taisi's timing.
So, I traced a sharp crescent moon.
From above to below.
Using the standard-issue magic wand.
It was close-range magic, but since it wasn't the Moonlight Sword, it'd just leave a moderate wound and be done.
"New Moon."
In response, Whitey fired a bullet at my swinging hand.
Her second and final shot.
- Bang!
No problem.
My magic had the edge over other spells, both in that other world and here in the present.
In other words, I could neutralize just about any ordinary magic.
I didn't know the exact reason.
I just knew it worked that way.
But that was enough.
After all, I could just cancel out Whitey's current magic. She was out of bullets now, and I could cast the next phase right away.
That's what I thought.
"Huh...?"
Until my fingers exploded off.
- Drip, plop.
The severed fingers trailed blood before hitting the ground with faint sounds.
- Ting, roll.
The standard-issue magic wand fell and rolled limply. It had lost the fingers holding it steady.
"...What the hell."
The inexplicable situation drew a question from my lips before I knew it.
At that moment, Whitey twisted her lips.
"Limit it, and you can use it like this, huh?"
Then I realized.
This wasn't magic.
Instead of manifesting magic through bullets, she'd just fired them as is. From what she said, she'd probably restricted the mana.
In short, regular bullets had ripped off all my fingers.
Well, it was a natural outcome in a way.
Normal firearms might not work on monsters, but they could effectively shred a regular human body.
Because of that, the crescent I'd been tracing cut off before it could reach Whitey.
No fingers left to grip the standard-issue wand with—how could I draw the moon?
The spell had essentially been canceled midway.
But it was fine.
The damage stopped at my fingers.
And.
I still had other means.
Besides, the last bullet she'd fired at me was the final one loaded in her wand. So I just had to block her backup revolver.
I thrust my mangled hand toward Whitey's backup revolver to keep her from drawing it.
At the same time, I swung my still-intact arm.
Summoning the Moonlight Sword atop my hand.
Tracing the moon once more.
"New—."
At that instant, a faint sound rang out.
- Fwip.
Followed by burning pain in my side.
And.
The sensation of something that shouldn't spill trying to pour out.
"Ah, shit."
I gave up on drawing the moon.
I had to deal with this first.
I quickly put distance between me and Whitey, grabbing my side with my ruined hand.
A scorching, sticky, squelching pain climbed my spine from my flank.
Unpleasant, stinging... and familiar.
"Ha."
Yeah.
A chunk of my side was gone.
My guts were about to spill out through the missing flesh as an escape route.
"The hero's totally screwed, fuck."
The silver lining, if any, was that only my side was hit.
My organs hadn't burst, and no ribs or lungs were damaged. Just flesh and muscle missing.
But that wasn't much comfort. I was injured, period. Honestly, it was a close call.
At the same time, it made no sense.
How the hell had Whitey pulled off that attack?
I knew her double-barrel shotgun wand had no bullets left—I'd counted earlier.
And it wasn't her backup revolver either. I'd blocked it with my hand, and she hadn't even tried to draw it.
In other words, no means to attack, yet she'd wounded me.
I really had no idea.
What the hell had she done to make that possible?
But soon enough, I figured it out.
"What the actual fuck."
Whitey was now holding a normal magic wand, not the double-barrel shotgun form.
In other words, she'd shredded my side with magic manifested through a 'regular magic wand.'
Magic without incantation from a plain wand—not even her specialized form.
That explained why the wound wasn't that severe.
Even so, my mortal body made it plenty damaging.
Anyway, I'd roughly pieced it together. But one question branched off from that.
Why attack like this?
It wasn't like Whitey.
Not the magical girl way.
In other words, not suitable against a monster.
No incantations despite using magic.
Suddenly limiting mana to just shoot bullets.
Firing magic straight out of a normal wand.
Pointless against monsters.
It wouldn't even work well—better to land one solid spell instead.
Stealth, deception, tricks, feints, exploiting gaps in attention.
Those were for killing humans, most effective elements there.
Not needed against your average charging monster.
So what had happened to Whitey to make her fight so differently?
Whitey wasn't someone who killed people.
If anything, she was someone I sometimes wanted to kill.
No, not sometimes—pretty often.
At that moment, Whitey tapped her neck with her wand, flashing an uncharacteristic sly grin.
"Didn't see that coming, did you, Magical Ant?"
Then she reshaped her wand back into the double-barrel shotgun, letting out repeated sighs of admiration.
"Man, what an amazing magical weapon. You can use it like this too. Feels way more developed than how I've been using it."
First came the sense of wrongness.
"If I'd had something like this from the start, I could've blown that bastard's head off ages ago and pocketed the prize money. Instead, I wasted time laundering through all those extras."
Then the eerie familiarity.
I couldn't place why the latter hit. Some unpleasant feeling crept up in a corner of my mind.
"Eh, who cares about those intern punks. They were just money pits anyway."
Especially when she kept bringing up money like this—the familiarity and disgust intensified.
It just kept pissing me off.
But separately, that initial wrongness finally clicked.
At first, I'd thought she was just under hypnotic brainwashing. A curse making her see herself as a Magical Accountant and others as Magical Ants.
But there was another curse layered on.
— "I stuck in one of the trickiest bastards I've ever met. A downgraded version, but they said it'd be enough."
Recalling what the monster said before leaving, this had to be it.
Possession.
To put it plainly, it'd copied over a personality and skills, now surfacing.
Probably took time for the possession to take hold.
Of course, not a full possession.
She'd stuck to her original fighting style at first, and her speech patterns were still Whitey's.
That 'downgraded version' comment had reason.
Well, whatever.
I had the situation figured out. So I just needed to adjust my thinking and respond accordingly.
This wasn't Whitey I was facing.
A being that looked just like her, wielded her magic, but was absolutely not her.
Someone accustomed to killing, measuring everything by money.
An unknown someone who gave off a sickening sense of familiarity.
"Anyway, that's that..."
At that moment, Whitey racked the gun with a click, aiming at me.
"Gotta squash the Magical Ant first, right?"
One hand held the double-barrel shotgun, the other fingers wedged with bullets ready to reload.
"Die."
- Bang!
With the gunshot, a thin line slashed through the air.