Welcome to the Happy City
“Hmm—good morning, Scientist!”
“Yes, Boss. Good morning.”
The boss I happened to run into in the hallway greeted me with an unusually lively voice. Of course, she wasn’t the type to waste time on idle chatter even when she was busy with construction work, but even this much was unusual.
Wasn’t the boss normally evaluated as someone so cold she seemed to lack any emotions at all? Though she did seem to get angry whenever she saw me, anyway.
Vira stared at me in surprise, as if it were that rare for the boss to show emotion on her face and in her tone.
“You…… what did you do?”
“Huh? What do you mean, what did I do?”
“The boss isn’t the kind of person who walks around with a happy expression on her face, but she’s been smiling like that all day!”
“It was her birthday yesterday. I suppose she was just that pleased with our congratulations.”
“……Now that you mention it, you gave her some kind of aroma candle yesterday. What was that? Some kind of drug?”
“That’s a rather rude thing to say.”
I let out a dry laugh and looked at Vira. A drug? There were people who used it like one, but that didn’t make it a drug. Absolutely not.
On the contrary. Just as no one would call the painkillers given to patients in hospitals drugs, this was closer to a treatment.
‘I worked my ass off making that without any infrastructure……’
What I gave the boss wasn’t exactly an aroma candle.
Anyone who knew this world was made of atoms, and that those atoms only accumulated without ever disappearing even as they changed form into energy or waves, would easily understand the candle’s true nature.
The Entropy Record. A kind of playback device that collected the atoms etched into the universe to reconstruct events from the past.
‘I can’t believe how much effort it took to calculate what should have been handled by a quantum computer using a makeshift circuit I threw together.’
If she knew how hard I’d worked, she wouldn’t have so casually suggested it was a drug. If it really were a drug, I would’ve used it on myself instead of giving it to the boss—I’d practically fried my brain making it.
It was something that could never be created in this world under normal circumstances. The fatal flaw of science: without the proper infrastructure, you couldn’t even reproduce technology that was centuries old.
If this world had no espers or magic, and if I weren’t in a position to easily encounter such beings, even I wouldn’t have been able to make it here.
‘Esper engineering…… it really is impressive.’
At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking that pure science wasn’t developing because of esper engineering. No matter how hard someone researched and developed something, if an esper with superior performance appeared, it would all be for nothing.
That was why corporations didn’t pour large sums into scientific research. Instead, they spent money on figuring out how to better exploit espers.
“So? What exactly did you make?”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“……You know that sounds really weird coming from you, right?”
“That’s a bit much, seriously.”
“It’s true, though.”
After trading a few more jokes with Vira, I entered the lab and tilted my head at the unusual atmosphere. Something that should have been there was missing. After thinking for a moment, I realized what was missing was Aile.
‘I told her to study, and she’s off somewhere again……’
There was no need to think long. Aile’s destination was always the same. Letting out a dry laugh, I turned on the TV in one corner of the lab.
Switching to the news channel out of habit, I saw Aile on the screen.
“I told her to study.”
“She must be stressed.”
“Even so, in broad daylight like this…… She clearly didn’t tell the boss either.”
I watched Aile beating up magical girls early in the morning, and the magical girls getting beaten up by her.
Seeing the magical girls trying so hard against Aile, I started to feel genuinely intrigued.
‘Magical girls were created to fight the World’s Enemies. Beings born from spirits dispatched to various universes to stop the World’s Enemies……’
In other words, magical girls were purely systemic beings. And if they were systemic, that meant they operated on a highly advanced civilization of spirits. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be active enough to send agents to other universes.
That meant the spirits probably knew the way to Earth as well. The thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘If it’s various universes, then maybe Earth too……’
Once I finished thinking, I stood up immediately. While Vira looked at me as if to ask where I was going, I pointed at the TV screen and said,
“I’m going to H City.”
“What…… You too? Did you hit puberty or something?”
“Of course not. I need to go for a reason.”
“Yeah, yeah. If the boss says guard duty, I guard duty……”
Grumbling, Vira got up, and together we headed for H City—the very place where Aile was currently swinging her staff of friendship at magical girls.
H City. As the name suggested, it was the happiest of the twenty-six cities. A happy city with no villains, where you could easily run into cute girls anywhere!
People spent their days in this happy city as usual.
“S-Scientist? What are you doing here……?”
“I got interested in magical girls too.”
Aile, who had finished her dark magical girl activities and was buying magical girl goods in H City, was startled to see Eight standing in front of her.
Why was he here when he should have been in E City?
But after hearing why he had come all the way here, she let out a sigh of relief, and when she discovered he had the potential to become a fellow magical girl otaku, her eyes sparkled.
“You got interested in magical girls!? Great! Then first, let’s start with the most popular one, Magical Physical Season 1—”
“No, that’s not the kind of interest I meant……”
“What!? But watch this! This is the tear-jerking true story of how the first magical girls fought bloody battles to protect the world—”
Eight scratched his cheek awkwardly. Once Aile got going, she didn’t stop easily. She didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about saying such things loudly on the street.
Glancing around, Eight let out an exclamation of surprise when he noticed that the people passing by didn’t seem particularly interested in their conversation.
‘They really don’t care? I guess talking about magical girls is allowed even if it’s a bit loud……’
After all, being called an otaku for watching magical girl anime was something that only happened on Earth. In this city, where magical girls actually existed, had protected the city for generations, and were treated like celebrities on TV and the internet, talking about magical girls wasn’t something to be looked down on at all.
On the contrary. In H City, the strange ones were those who didn’t admire magical girls.
“More importantly—I just want to meet a magical girl right away. Where should I go?”
“Huh? Scientist, you’re one of those direct-to-source types……?”
“……Direct-to-source?”
“People who want to see magical girls in person…… Watching them through video media is the best!”
It wasn’t something the dark magical girl who went around beating up other magical girls should be saying, but Eight just laughed dryly and nodded.
He wanted to meet a magical girl because of the spirits, so there was no need to meet one directly.
“Then what about the spirits?”
“Spirits……?”
“Yeah. The spirits that let you become a magical girl.”
“You can’t meet the spirits.”
“……What? Why not?”
Eight asked in surprise. He had come all the way to H City just to meet the spirits, only to be told he couldn’t? But Aile tilted her head as if it were obvious.
“Because spirits only appear to people who have the qualities to become magical girls…… and you’re not a girl, Eight……”
“……Then I guess I really do need to meet a magical girl directly.”
“We don’t need creepy fans who want to meet magical girls in person from the start……”
Though she grumbled, Aile opened her smartphone and started tapping away. As a current (dropout) high school girl, she finished inputting in an instant and looked up at Eight.
“There’s a small-time magical girl fan meeting nearby, so I made a reservation…… B-but even though she’s a magical girl, you can’t be too pushy! Okay……?”
“……Yeah. Got it.”
“I-I’m worried, so I’m coming with you!”
“Ah, then Vira should come too.”
“Y-yes!”
Having instantly made the fan meeting reservation, Aile led the two of them to the venue. Upon arriving, Eight let out a dry laugh at the nearly empty fan meeting hall, save for a few people.
He had thought all magical girls were praised and adored, but that wasn’t the case. After all, look at the magical girl sitting at that table. Unlike the others, her face and figure were completely covered. If she couldn’t attract fans with her appearance, she had to draw them in with something else, but Eight had never seen that mask on the news even once.
“—Thank you for coming today. I am the magical girl White Fang.”
Without a host, White Fang began her solo fan meeting, starting one-on-one handshake sessions with the fans seated before her. If you looked closely, those “fans” weren’t fans at all.
They were mostly reporters who had come out of curiosity to see the face of a newly appeared magical girl, or toxic fans trying to gain the attention of other magical girls by becoming fans of an unpopular one.
“H-heheh—W-White Fang, was it? Show me your face……”
“—I’m sorry. I have reasons for covering my face.”
“Whyyy—? You can’t be that ugly…… Hoo, hoo-.”
Letting out a dry laugh at the sight of such toxic fans, Eight realized it was finally his turn and took a seat in front of the magical girl.
White Fang spoke in the same emotionless, dry tone as before.
“Welcome. It’s nice to meet you.”
After lightly shaking the hand she offered, Eight looked at White Fang and got straight to the point, as if he didn’t want to waste any more time.
“White Fang?”
“Yes.”
“I need something from you…… How much would it cost to buy you?”
“……Excuse me?”
“S-Scientist!?”
Ignoring Aile’s shocked exclamation from behind, Eight simply looked at White Fang. If she refused, he could just find someone else.
White Fang kept her mouth tightly shut for a moment before carefully opening it.
“……How much are you willing to pay?”
“—As much as you want.”
Fortunately, White Fang accepted the offer. Eight stood up with a satisfied smile.
“A magical girl…… prostituting herself!?”
He did his best to ignore Aile’s outburst from behind.