Aftermath of the Second Development
The next day, I went to work. My vacation had been canceled. It was only reasonable, so I didn't bother arguing. As I walked down the hallway on my way in, a girl dressed entirely in black from head to toe approached from the far end of the corridor.
It was Aile, the Dark Magical Girl who had become the talk of the town.
“S-Science Guy—! G-Good morning…!”
“……Yeah. Good morning.”
“Hehe, ehehe—.”
The edgy, villainous magical girl I had seen on TV just the other day was nowhere to be found. In her place stood only a gloomy, socially anxious otaku. I stared at Aile, fascinated by the stark contrast in her behavior.
Feeling my gaze, Aile flinched, then cautiously lifted her head to look at me. Her pitch-black eyes sparkled as they caught the light.
“Um, s-so… the m-magical girl outfit… I used it well! It w-was great! Really—!”
“Really? I saw you on the news yesterday and you were pretty—.”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaah—!”
It seemed she was fine talking about it herself, but hearing it from someone else was unbearably embarrassing. Aile let out a sharp squeal and bolted down the hallway. Finally freed from the awkwardness, I let out a sigh and returned to the lab.
The moment I sat down, I cracked open an energy drink I’d bought at the convenience store and took a light sip. My eyes drifted to the homemade nutritional tonic I’d created, which was rolling around in the corner of the lab. The slightly yellowish liquid sloshed inside the bottle.
‘How the hell is anyone supposed to drink something like this…?’
I’d made it myself, but honestly, I didn’t trust it at all. I’d rather die than drink that. With that thought in mind, I gulped down the store-bought energy drink.
The refreshing coolness and sharp carbonation slid down my throat. As expected, products from big corporations you could actually trust were the best. I glanced at the label and let out a small sound of surprise. I’d spotted a name I never expected to see.
‘Evils Drink? Isn’t Evils right here?’
It really was just like the mega-corporation run by the boss. To think they’d even stretched their reach into such a tiny market. Then again, without that kind of financial power, she never would’ve been able to pick up some random bum off the street and turn him into an executive of a villain organization.
I prayed that the boss’s wealth would last forever and that her interest in running a villain organization would never fade, as I continued drinking the energy drink.
“Damn it—! What the hell is that guy!?”
─Mew!?
When the Fire Magical Girl, Elemental Flame, slammed her fist down, the spirit assisting her let out a startled yelp. But she had long since stopped caring about that mascot-like creature. It was a phase every magical girl with a bit of experience went through.
What mattered right now was the appearance of a new type of magical girl. And the fact that this magical girl had single-handedly beaten the crap out of every other magical girl and subdued them. That was the real problem.
“Hey! Weren’t you the one who said magical girls can’t use their power for evil deeds!?”
─Th-That’s what I said, mew.
“Then what the hell is that thing!? How can she cast magic targeting an entire city and beat up her fellow magical girls without any issues!?”
Flame’s anger was completely justified. They were bound by the restriction that they couldn’t use their power unless it was against evil. That meant they couldn’t lift a finger against anyone who wasn’t a World’s Enemy, a wanted criminal, or a villain. On top of that, they often had to deal with annoying paparazzi-like pests that were too ambiguous to drive off with magic but too irritating to ignore—!
Yet the Dark Magical Girl who had revealed herself this time had used magic across the entire city to threaten civilians, as if such restrictions didn’t apply to her, and mercilessly subdued her fellow magical girls. Some of them had been beaten so badly they’d developed trauma from the incident.
─We don’t know either, mew! She was definitely a magical girl, but she also wasn’t a magical girl, mew!
“What kind of nonsense is that!? Argh—! Seriously! Saying you don’t know is the end of it!? You need to give us a solution!”
─W-We’re doing our best, mew.
“If you keep this up, I’m not saving the World’s Enemies or anything anymore!?”
─Th-That would be problematic, mew….
While venting her stress by mercilessly scolding her assigned spirit, Flame recalled what had happened that day. A magical girl dressed entirely in black from head to toe. The Dark Magical Girl had burned her existence into the minds of everyone present that night.
She had said she would make sure they never forgot her. And she had succeeded. Flame was certain she would never be able to forget this for the rest of her life. At least not while she was still active as a magical girl.
‘Damn it, isn’t there anyone who knows who she is?’
Magical girls couldn’t stay transformed twenty-four hours a day. They were still human, and maintaining their magical girl form consumed a considerable amount of energy.
The same should apply to the Dark Magical Girl. If they could identify her true identity and strike when she let her guard down, they could take her out. Since there were many of them, they could maintain their transformations around the clock.
But astonishingly, not a single person had managed to uncover the Dark Magical Girl’s true identity. Not only the spirits who granted power to magical girls, but even magical girl otakus from all over the world were scouring the internet to find out who she really was—!
‘Or maybe… is she actually a World’s Enemy…? Did she become a magical girl type specifically to oppose them—.’
If that wasn’t the case, there was only one other possibility. She was someone so insignificant that no one even bothered to know her. For example, a non-powered person without any special abilities.
However, the moment Flame recalled the power the Dark Magical Girl had displayed, she immediately erased that possibility from her mind. A magical girl’s strength was proportional to the power of the esper ability she originally possessed. With that level of strength, her true identity had to be a fairly well-known esper.
She might even be an active hero or a hero-in-training….
─Mew!?
“What? Did you find something?”
─No, it’s not that… I haven’t eaten lunch, so my stomach is growling, mew…. I’ll be right back after a quick trip to the spirit realm, mew.
“You gluttonous freeloader—!”
The shock of seeing the Dark Magical Girl wasn’t limited to the magical girls alone. Various organizations around the world—those who now realized that the power of magical girls could be used for evil deeds—were equally stunned.
“We can use magical girls in military operations…?”
“Wait, what is this….”
“Send people to the magical girls immediately!”
But it didn’t take long for all of them to reach the same conclusion. No matter what method they tried, they couldn’t use magical girls that way. The moment they attempted it, the magical girl would lose her power.
“—So, you failed?”
“I-I’m sorry…!”
Crimson, the leader of the villain organization Dawn’s Twilight, frowned deeply as he listened to his subordinate scientist. He hadn’t given him that difficult of a task. All he’d asked was to kidnap a magical girl, brainwash her with drugs and hypnosis, and turn her into a villain they could use.
To fail at something so simple? Was that even possible?
“Did I give you such a difficult order? We took care of both the kidnapping and procuring the drugs. All you had to do was the very simple task of brainwashing the magical girl. And you failed at that?”
“I-I have no excuse, Boss… B-But—! The moment it looked like the brainwashing might succeed, the magical girl’s power disappeared…! It was as if the power itself was saying that magical girls must not be used this way…!”
“Ha— what a joke. It was proven just yesterday that magical girls can be corrupted. Someone succeeded at what everyone said was impossible. And— if others can succeed, so can we.”
That was the motto of Dawn’s Twilight, after all.
As Crimson spoke, he lightly gripped the scientist’s head. The moment his monstrous grip—far beyond human limits—closed around the head of an ordinary scientist, the skull couldn’t withstand the pressure and burst like a watermelon.
Even though a person had just exploded right in front of him, not a single drop of blood stained Crimson’s body. He clicked his tongue lightly, ordered his subordinates to clean up the corpse, then sat back on his throne and slowly scanned the executives.
“—I’ll give you time. Bring me results within one month.”
“Y-Yes, sir—!”
“Use any means necessary. Yes. If possible—.”
Crimson’s eyes sparkled as he continued.
“Even if you have to kidnap the one who created that magical girl, make sure you deliver results.”
And so, without even realizing it, Eight began receiving attention from all directions. From both heroes and villains alike.
“—Ahem! With that said, I shall now commence the Evils executive meeting!”
Clap— At Regalia’s declaration, only Aile let out a dry “Woo—” and gave a weak round of applause. The sparse clapping quickly died out once it became clear she was the only one doing it.
Regalia pouted her lips and grumbled about how cold-hearted her subordinates were for not even playing along.
“—Boss. What kind of joke is this?”
Galrm looked at his boss and asked why she had summoned them. Regalia clapped her hands together as if she had forgotten.
“Ah, that’s right. I hadn’t explained yet. The reason I called this executive meeting today is entirely because of you, Scientist.”
“Eh— Me?”
“Yes, you.”
I had been blankly counting the stains on the ceiling when the sudden call made me jump. I looked at the boss in surprise. Wait, what did I do wrong to become the subject of an executive meeting?
But both Galrm and Aile nodded at the same time as if it were only natural. I had simply done my job dutifully… For a moment I wondered if this was just an excuse to throw a party, but unfortunately the atmosphere didn’t seem festive at all.
She had genuinely called this meeting because of me.
“—Um, Boss? What exactly did I do wrong….”
“It’s not exactly wrong. Not wrong at all. However… in a way, it might be even worse than if you had done something wrong.”
“What does that even….”
Had she found out that I had copied products from Earth to create my results? No way. Even if similar items existed in this world, there was no way anything could be exactly the same as what I had made. Those were things that existed only inside my head.
Then what could it be? The fact that I hadn’t answered the phone and slept for a whole hour? She should cut me some slack. At the time, I had stayed up for three days and nights straight to finish my research….
“The problem is that the things you create are simply too outstanding.”
“Hmm…?”
“In the future, please give me a heads-up before you make something like that. Understood? If something like this happens again, my heart might give out.”
Regalia said this while patting her chest. There was no way the heart of a boss who was still so young—practically a child—would actually fail, but I nodded along with her playful act. My creations were too outstanding? They really weren’t anything special….
The boss let out a deep sigh as she watched me silently nod. It was the kind of sigh an old man who had lived through everything in life would make, not a little girl.
“Good, as long as you understand. If you have nothing else to do, why don’t you make some products for our company to sell? Children’s Day is coming up soon. It would be nice if you made some presents for the kids.”
“Presents for children?”
“Yes. Something like that robot you fixed at the mansion the other day. Making things like that shouldn’t cause any major problems.”
Regalia gave me my new assignment. In my heart, I wished she would just let me be a salary thief who did nothing, but… as the Evil Scientist and a proper employee, I couldn’t do that.
I gave a bitter smile and answered.
“Yes, well. I’ll do my best.”