Chapter 66
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Magical Interim Report
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Previously, I'd asked Sora to catch some monsters for me.
In place of me.
If things had gone according to the original plan, I would've interrogated the captured monster myself, but my injuries were too severe for me to manage it.
So, right before being transferred to the Magical Capital Hospital, I'd clung to that last handful of consciousness and urgently asked Sora.
To interrogate the monster in my stead.
The questions weren't anything special. Who she'd heard about me from, how much she knew.
Even if it meant resorting to extreme measures, I'd asked her to pry out the information. Whether a monster lived or died was none of my concern anyway.
"Did you happen to miss asking about it?"
"Ah, on that front, there's one good piece of magical news and one bad piece."
"Yeah?"
Sora cleared her throat with a soft hum, then slowly began to speak.
"First off, the good magical news is that we successfully completed the magical interrogation on that unusual monster."
Definitely good news.
In other words, it meant Sora had made contact with the monster and gotten to my questions.
"And just to be safe, we ran magical interrogations on all the regular monsters too."
Probably accounting for the chance one of those plain monsters might suddenly start talking, like before.
I hadn't even mentioned it, but she'd handled it anyway.
Asking Sora really was the right call.
"Thanks. Hope it wasn't too tough?"
"Eh, it went smoother than expected. They accepted right away when I offered to handle the monsters' magical disposal for them. Made it easy to get close."
"Oh, good."
Really good.
There'd been a real risk of other magical girls meddling and blocking the interrogation, but no interference meant smooth sailing.
"After that, it was pretty straightforward."
"What do you mean by that?"
But Nakji apparently couldn't let Sora's take slide. She jumped in with a quick rebuttal.
"Taishi, what do you mean?"
"Absolutely not straightforward. Magical cigarette smoke leaked out of the magical shower room—nearly caused a huge mess in all sorts of ways."
With that, Nakji shot a glare at Whitey.
"Why'd you smoke indoors?!"
"No, uh... I was going for that rich magical atmosphere, and next thing I knew..."
Whitey trailed off.
Nakji's voice rose another notch.
"This girl's got such a deep magical smoking soul that we played it off without panicking—otherwise, we'd all have ended up in magical detention together!"
Nakji's outburst—not so sudden after all.
Her point was spot-on, of course, but the timing couldn't have been worse.
And just like that, things started spiraling.
"D-Don't keep ragging on just me! I wasn't the only one smoking! Sora smoked too! And unlike me, she was doing full-on magical chain-smoking!"
Whitey vented her injustice at Nakji's words, while Sora straight-up admitted to chain-smoking.
"You idiot sister! I told you a million times not to bring that up in front of senior!!!!"
Sora, who'd been sitting quiet, suddenly dragged into it, shrieked at Whitey.
"Senior, I didn't smoke magical cigarettes. It was just... magical secondhand smoke. Ah, no—actually, with you hurt and all, I was so bummed out, so honestly, just one—just one real quick."
Sora suddenly started gauging my reaction, piling on excuses.
"Sora, lying's bad. You said that day felt all penis-mood and smoked a whole magical pack—"
"Sister, shut up!!!"
Then Sora went half-lidded and roughly tore into Whitey.
Heavy smokers through and through, apparently.
They went at each other with scary skill.
Worried it'd go past the point of no return, I quickly grabbed Sora.
"Anyway, Sora—what's the bad news?"
"Senior, believe me! I really only smoked a tiny bit of magical cigarette that day—!"
"It's fine if you smoked. Whatever."
I cut off Sora's spiraling ramble at the right moment and repeated myself from earlier.
"So, bad news?"
Sora took a deep breath to steady herself, then spoke cautiously.
"That monster... didn't know anything."
"What?"
No way.
It'd seemed like it knew something.
Catching my skeptical look, Sora hurried to elaborate.
"I know it sounds weird, but it really didn't know a thing. Like its memories were completely wiped."
"Amnesia?"
"That's how it seemed. Couldn't even remember fighting us tooth and nail—or even firing those magical curses at the magical girls."
Something was wrong.
How could that happen?
Anything else, sure—but it had to at least remember the cursing, right?
"It was even wondering why it was here, what had even gone down."
The monster had totally blanked on why it'd even been facing off against magical girls.
Was memory loss this convenient even possible?
Never seen it in this world, at least.
Magic, maybe?
"You ever seen a spell that causes memory loss?"
"Nope. Never."
"Me neither. Never even heard of one."
Not magic, then.
The more I heard, the less it made sense.
"Anything special happen to that monster at the end? Why no memories at all?"
"Well..."
"Sora, something did happen?"
"...Not really keen on saying."
You'll regret it, Sora added.
I pressed harder.
"Tell me. Won't regret it."
"...That fucker had 300x sensitivity, so at the end it got nipple-tortured, climaxed like crazy, and passed out."
"..."
Shouldn't have asked, shit.
I couldn't bring myself to say it aloud, just swallowed it down inside. My bad for prying, anyway.
Maybe reading my regret, Sora gave me a dead-eyed stare.
"Told you you'd regret it."
"W-well, climaxing at 300x sensitivity must've blown the memories away."
I forced a grin and wrapped it up.
But Sora shook her head firmly.
"No, that's not it."
"Why?"
"The other regular monsters wouldn't talk either, but they all seemed to have no memories too. Looked super aggrieved about it."
"Sora's right. Tried some hardcore magical torturing, but the monster dudes really knew zilch."
"You asked right?"
I fixed Whitey with a steady gaze.
Whitey spoke calmly.
"Even tried a magical baptism with magical water. No dice."
"Ah, then you did plenty."
Once they'd pulled out the universal fix—water—they'd fulfilled their duty.
Water handles everything.
Shedding pounds.
Stain removal.
Shutting people up.
Pulling answers from the unknown.
If even water fails, it's no ordinary snag.
"I zapped 'em with magic too—no effect. Just wailed that they didn't know."
"Got it."
Even busting out another universal tool—fire—had yielded nothing.
At this point, they could safely say they'd given it their all as magical girls.
I thanked them all.
"Alright. Thanks, you all worked hard."
Not the payoff I'd hoped for, but gratitude was gratitude regardless.
They'd stepped up and handled what I'd planned to do, all while I was out of commission physically.
Plus, even if I'd done the interrogation myself, the results might not have changed.
"Sorry we couldn't be more help."
"I should've done better... sorry..."
"It's fine. You did what you could."
They had to be just as frustrated as me.
I got it. They'd poured real effort in, only for no solid results.
"Kinda bummed we couldn't 'screen' more kidnapped monsters in the magical shower room. Extra so since this girl couldn't handle it personally."
"Uh... yeah."
Well, someone was frustrated for different reasons.
Anyway.
The matter was settled, but now there was one more mystery: how the monsters' memories vanished.
Guessing possibilities was tricky enough; recreating it was flat-out impossible.
If I could reclaim my power near its prime and check it out myself, I might snag some faint lead—but right now, that was a pipe dream.
For the moment, I'd have to settle for this.
Regrettable as it was, no helping it.
Meanwhile, we hadn't talked that long, but they'd polished off everything I'd ordered.
Right on cue, Sora spoke up.
"Senior, ready to head out?"
"Yeah."
"Inferior species, thanks for the grub."
"...Thanks."
I waved it off casually and stood.
Whatever the case, they'd pushed extra hard this time, so no more big favors or overexertion ahead.
At most, a few rounds of the usual work, then coasting easy. Nothing more special than that.
Yeah.
Another peaceful day as a magical girl.
"We will now commence the Magical Cooking Contest! All magical girls, please prepare!"
"Ah, fuck."
I'd thought.