The True Face of the Fairy Queen
Welcome to the happy city. Among the twenty-six city-states, G City boasted the highest crime rate of all, thanks to the overwhelming number of villains who had taken root there.
They behaved as though morality and ethics were foreign concepts, frequently kidnapping, torturing, and even killing the families of heroes. Public safety had hit rock bottom, leaving citizens no choice but to live their lives trembling in fear. If one had to sum it up, G City was a place overflowing with anxiety and misery.
To the World's Enemies, such a city was irresistibly tempting. It was almost strange they hadn't shown themselves sooner. Now they began to appear in explosive numbers.
“What kind of new freak is this…? Die, you bastard!”
Of course, the villains of G City were no pushovers. They were the cancerous lump of the city that countless heroes had failed to eradicate. In G City, they held more terrifying power than the World's Enemies.
At first the villains had the upper hand. Their superpowers were specialized for killing, honed to a razor edge through endless real combat. No monster calling itself a World's Enemy could dodge their blades.
But as time passed, their momentum gradually began to falter.
“These fucking monster bastards, how long are they going to keep coming?!”
They were hideous creatures that gnawed away at your sanity just by looking at them. Every encounter felt like another piece of your soul was being shaved off, yet the damn things showed no sign of stopping.
They grew by feeding on negative emotions—misfortune, bad luck, stress. Emotions that would never disappear as long as villains existed.
Before long, the World's Enemies outnumbered the villains, and in several districts they accomplished what no hero ever had: the complete eradication of villainy.
“These things aren’t necessarily… bad, are they?”
“Please, just keep going until every last villain is dead…”
By the time such murmurs began to spread among the heroes, the corporations and association of G City had finally analyzed the nature of the World's Enemies. They realized the creatures were devouring every scrap of the villains’ malice and the citizens’ accumulated stress.
“Chairman, look at this.”
“Hmm… Is this accurate?”
“Yes. Since the World's Enemies appeared, both the villain growth rate and crime rate have plummeted…”
Having learned that the World's Enemies consumed every negative emotion in sight, the Hero Association chairman, the corporate executives, and the mayor gathered to find a way to exploit it.
The ability was far too useful to ignore. If they played their cards right, they could wipe out every villain who had taken root in G City.
That was exactly why they had turned down the late-arriving magical girls and the helping hand offered by the H Group.
“What? You’re saying there’s no need to eliminate the World's Enemies…?”
“We’ll handle our own city’s problems. You take care of yours.”
“But eliminating those creatures is our duty, and we’re the specialists who can do it better than anyone.”
“Are you looking down on the heroes of our city? Should I leak your home address to the villains?”
“…That’s not what I meant at all.”
In the end, the H Group’s interference came to nothing. When every single person in G City rejected them so fiercely, not even the H Group could force their way in.
While Carl Heinz sat in his office tapping his fingers in irritation, fully aware of how serious the situation had become, the spirits that had appeared in other cities pulled their own stunt.
─Lulu! Contract with me and become a magical girl!
“…Me? I’m a man in his thirties.”
─It’s fine!
For some reason the spirits had become visible even to ordinary people. They shattered every existing rule and offered contracts to anyone—man or woman, young or old, pure or impure.
Naturally, the magical girls born from such reckless contracts couldn’t display the overwhelming power they once had. That was the one silver lining. Still, now that the public could interact with magical girls so easily, it was only a matter of time before their secrets spilled out.
Around that same period, Carl Heinz received a request for an audience with the Queen.
In the secret audience chamber beneath H Group headquarters, Carl Heinz arrived to find a woman with leaf-green hair already waiting. He let out an involuntary groan.
A goddess of such radiant beauty that it was hard to believe she belonged to the mortal world stood before him.
“…Your Majesty the Fairy Queen.”
─Human representative. What is the meaning of this?
“That’s what I’d like to ask.”
Carl Heinz turned the question back on her. The contract he had made with the Queen was simple: ensure that World's Enemies only appeared inside H City. The Queen had been delighted by his proposal, praising him as a man of remarkable self-sacrifice among the people of this world.
The contract had been formed by mutual consent. It was supposed to remain in effect barring any extraordinary circumstances. Reality, however, had other plans.
“Why are World's Enemies appearing in cities other than H City? At this rate the entire planet will be in danger!”
─On the contrary, that is what I wish to ask. Why are World's Enemies appearing in cities other than H City?
“Pardon?”
Carl Heinz blinked, utterly confused. The Queen answered in a voice of perfect calm.
─By my authority, I arranged for the World's Enemies to appear only in the city where you live. I did so because I trusted in your noble spirit.
“Then the ones appearing in H City right now are…?”
─Those have nothing whatsoever to do with us. In other words, they are World's Enemies created by you humans yourselves.
Created by humans? For a moment the words refused to make sense. But Carl Heinz—who had once plotted to weaponize magical girls—immediately understood what she was saying.
“Someone… created the World's Enemies?”
─Yes. And the only one capable of such a thing would be you, Carl Heinz.
“T-that’s not true, Your Majesty! Why would I do something so pointless—!”
─Then you claim someone other than yourself analyzed and recreated the World's Enemies that appear only in your domain?
“That…”
It was too plausible. The Queen’s accusation was perfectly logical. Even Carl had to admit it. At this point it made more sense to suspect that someone inside his own company had been secretly researching the creatures behind his back and selling them to other cities.
Understanding the situation at last, Carl Heinz let out a low groan. When viewed rationally, the one at fault wasn’t the Queen—it was him.
─I trusted you. I trusted the beings called humans. That is why I refrained from using my full power in this world. Conserving that strength here allows me to save many more worlds.
Hearing those words, Carl Heinz could already guess what would come next. Contract termination. The other party had discovered that this side had failed to uphold its promise, and now they intended to annul the agreement.
That could not be allowed. Panicking, Carl Heinz shouted to stop her.
“Your Majesty! Please reconsider—!”
─It seems I can no longer trust the people of this world. You have worked hard. Now, with my power, I shall completely sever the World's Enemies from this—
Crackle—!
Suddenly the Fairy Queen’s form began to distort. Carl Heinz tilted his head at the bizarre sight.
“…Your Majesty?”
The beautiful Fairy Queen’s appearance warped and twisted, revealing the hideous thing hidden beneath. Carl Heinz, who had seen only a fragment of it, felt every ounce of strength drain from his legs and collapsed.
A monster of the abyss whose mere gaze could rob a person of the will to stand. Its form was far too similar to that of the World's Enemies.
“U-ugh… ughhh…?”
The entity that had been the Fairy Queen dragged a hand down its face and groaned, as if it couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong.
Now that its true identity was exposed, it apparently saw no reason to hold back. The ugly creature’s hand slithered toward Carl Heinz. The writhing motion was nauseating.
The mind that should have fainted long ago was pinned in place by the monster’s unique aura. It felt less like his sanity was under attack and more like his very soul was being toyed with. Even with his eyes closed, the creature replayed vividly inside his head.
The Queen’s hand slowly wrapped around Carl Heinz. The touch was indescribably revolting. In his heart he desperately called out to any god who might be listening.
Even a man who had never believed in anything would have prayed in a moment like this. Carl Heinz was no exception.
Just as the unspeakable horror began to stroke his body, strings of zeros and ones flickered into existence on their own.
> : : : THERE YOU ARE : : :
> EXECUTING ERASURE PROTOCOL
─What… Kugh, Kuaaaaak!
The floating characters crushed the Queen’s body. When Carl Heinz’s eyes flew open at the sudden scream, he saw a flickering mass of light and the monster writhing in agony.
It looked exactly as if God had answered his prayer. Carl Heinz could only stare, transfixed.
“O-oh God…”
While he watched in a daze, the Fairy Queen vanished as though driven away. The beam of light that had done its duty seemed to glance down at Carl Heinz for a moment, then disappeared.
In the now-empty audience chamber, Carl Heinz realized he had witnessed the divine.
Beep!
I stretched when I heard the alarm ringing from my laptop.
“Getting all cocky, huh?”
On the other side of the dimension, I watched Carl Heinz’s face twist with bewilderment as the monster hid its true form. So that was the creature he’d trusted enough to act so arrogantly?
I wondered if he could still look that smug now that I’d driven the thing out of this world.
How does it feel to be taken down by a model student who only knows how to push papers?
A chuckle slipped out. It had to be utterly humiliating. After losing everything, to learn that the person responsible was the very “model student” he had always looked down on… yeah, that would sting.