Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 10 - Chapter 8

Guns or Roses?

It had always been true that much of the magical-girl recruitment exam was up to the discretion of the examiner, and many gifted people would be passed over. For example, if you searched for eligible candidates in schools that had lots of girls, you would only find those who attended school. Shut-ins who stayed at home, those who were sick in the hospital, or those who worked would fall through the cracks. But still, since an examiner and mascot alone could never be expected to cover absolutely everything within a recruitment region, they had to resign themselves to the fact that a certain number of oversights were inevitable, targeting only places where the most girls gathered.

They’d had no choice but to do that—until now. From now on, things were different.

If an examiner made use of the mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project in a recruitment exam, it would greatly reduce overlooked targets. Whether she was a housewife struggling to get by or a popular manga artist or a freeloading lawyer or a lacquerware craftswoman who had been designated a Living National Treasure—if she had an environment where she could play the game as well as the magical aptitude, then she could become a magical girl…maybe.

If you compared the exams thus far to fishing with a pole, then this exam would be a trawling net. It would mean even more participants, even greater talents, and even more powerful magical girls.

Or so said the mascot Fav in his brilliant speech about how wonderful this examination strategy was.

However, the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry, pointed at the screen of her magical phone with disinterest. “Can we really place such trust in this?”

“Whoa there, are you some sort of technology skeptic, pon?”

“I’m concerned that perhaps having it pick up all people within range, rather than the examiner directly looking at people to select, might make a difference in the type of people who are chosen.”

“Don’t worry about that, pon. I know if you were the type to reject new technology, you wouldn’t have Fav, the latest and greatest digital fairy, with you.”

Cranberry closed her eyes and gave a silent shrug.

Fav somersaulted in the opposite direction from before, scattering gold dust. Before it melted into the air, he beat his wings to make the dust disappear.

“I won’t make complaints about you, though, Fav.”

“And it’s got other new functions, too. For example, if you’ve got this new model terminal, then with master access, you hold the power of life and death over the examinees, pon. You can carry out the exam in total ease and safety, no matter what happens, pon.”

Cranberry brought her eyebrows together as if she saw this as quite loathsome and spat, “Worthless. That’s the very sort of thing I would prefer to handle myself and not leave to a machine.”

“So then we do our best, pon. We’ve already got the ball rolling with the exam, pon. I can’t have you being so indifferent about this forever. The candidates caught in this net surpass those in regular exams in both quality and quantity, pon.”

Cranberry didn’t reply. She turned her back to the magical phone and stood by the windowsill, putting her hand on the frame to look outside. The wind blew in, making the torn curtains sway and the curtain rod creak. “Greater than regular exams in both quality and quantity, you say?”

“Yeah. Is there some kind of problem, pon?”

With the middle finger of her right hand, Cranberry tap-tapped against her forehead, then expelled a deliberate-sounding sigh. After that sigh—so long it seemed it might even reach out and grab Fav’s hologram—she muttered as if to herself, but also like she wanted him to hear:

“That is high quality?”

Cranberry thought of pretransformation profiles as not even fit to make tissue paper. She didn’t give that sort of thing any weight when it came to examinees—in fact, she completely ignored it. Even if Fav wrote up documents about it, she wouldn’t look at them. To Cranberry, the result—the magical girl—was the important thing, and the means to that result, her life as a human, just polluted that.

Fav was different.

Human lives had history, and history had weight. Even if a girl seemed ordinary and common at a glance, even if she tended to look like some kind of template, there would be no other like her. No matter how boring a life might be, it was her world, and her death was the end of her world. That was exactly why people feared a death unsought for and would try to escape it.

What was so interesting about Monster A showing up to be defeated by the hero? When you had a grasp on Monster A’s name, family, personal history, personality, interests, way of thinking, principles and opinions, ideology—everything—knowing Monster A just about as well as Monster A knew themselves, then Monster A stopped being a nameless NPC, and that was what made it a fun spectacle when the hero killed it.

In that sense, a profile of their time as human was important. Calamity Mary, the first magical girl from Magical Girl Raising Project, was unique, and that was something to be appreciated. Fav had gotten just a little bit sick of pubescent kids who would get all heated up if you made so much as a pass at them before becoming deluded about their own heroism, only to die.

“Late thirties, violent against her daughter, alcoholic, abandoned by her husband and daughter, life gone to seed and living alone.”

If you were the boring kind of examiner, that profile alone might make you stamp her as disqualified. Fav couldn’t quite imagine the expression that would appear the moment such a unique figure was killed. Would she give up, or struggle, or beg for her life, or would some kind of wisdom of adulthood enable her to escape from her predicament? Before even meeting her, Fav was looking forward to her death. And so Fav headed out to meet Calamity Mary—Naoko Yamamoto.

“Congratulations, pon. You’ve been chosen as a magical girl, pon.”

Already transformed by Fav, Mary looked at his hologram, heard his voice, and didn’t really react. She tapped her phone screen and ended the quest. Fav looked around the room. Magazines and cardboard boxes from online purchases were scattered about, and stuffed garbage bags were just left there on the floor. There was a broken plastic umbrella and a tricycle lying on its side, and all over the kitchen table and floor were rows and rows of empty bottles.

Fav had never seen a room like this before, and the novelty of it satisfied him, so he waited for Mary’s reaction. After finishing the quest, Mary headed for the shop and chose to use candy she’d earned in the quest to repair her weapons. Then she upgraded her weapons, purchased a magic pack, checked her remaining candy, and quietly muttered, “Shit,” and then, most likely in order to participate in a limited-time quest with a good reward, she headed straight from the shop to the quest reception desk—

“Hey, why’re you ignoring me, pon? Fav won’t let you say you never noticed something as impressive as Fav, pon. There’s no way you could have not heard my sweet voice like a charming little woodland creature’s, pon.”

Mary didn’t answer, eyes on her phone.

“Huh? Why? I think if you take a look at yourself in a full-length mirror, you’ll understand, pon. Don’t you have a mirror somewhere, pon? A sink or bathroom mirror would work, though, pon.”

Mary checked that there were no upcoming quests posted, then headed to the coliseum.

“Heeey, liiiisten. Fav’s never gotten a reaction like this before. It’s bewildering, pooon.”

Picking up the pale-blue booze bottle sitting beside her, Mary poured the liquid into her mouth, and then, with slow movements of her throat, swallowed it down. With a heavy burp, she turned back to her phone.

A thought hit Fav. “Wait, you don’t think you’re hallucinating because of the alcohol, do you, pon? No, no, there’s no way you could see this so clearly if Fav were a hallucination, pon. Fav may be fantastical, but still, stop with those kinds of coping methods, pon. You were chosen to be a real magical girl, okay? Did you hear that, pon?”

It took ten minutes to get her to acknowledge his existence, and then another ten minutes to get her to go check that he wasn’t lying about her being a magical girl. Calamity Mary did not jump up in shock or bounce around in joy. With an expression like, “Guess this stuff happens,” her mouth twisted in a smile that reached her eyes.

“So, Cranberry, I’m asking you to take on the role of her mentor, pon.”

“Why me?”

“She’s the first magical girl in N City, pon—this is a premium event, something to commemorate. Fav would rather have you showing her how a magical girl should be, rather than Fav taking on the role of mentor, pon.”

Fav did not say what he really was thinking by asking Cranberry to be her mentor—that it seemed like it would be interesting to have the two meet. Fav made sure to explain to Cranberry that she had to commit to acting as a participant, and not to forget that she was the first magical girl chosen by Fav, while Mary was the second. He then arranged for the two of them to meet on the roof of the tallest building in the Kounan district.

Calamity Mary had her hand on the brim of her ten-gallon hat as she rudely stared at the first magical girl she’d ever seen besides herself.

By contrast, Cranberry bowed her head deeply, putting on a courteous attitude. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Calamity Mary. I am called Musician of the Forest, Cranberry.”

“Uh-huh.”

Cranberry specialized in being an examiner. She knew what sort of magical girls the Magical Kingdom sought out, and she was capable of explaining that to examinees, too. However, since she believed herself that such magical girls were unnecessary, her explanation was completely apathetic. And Mary didn’t care, either, her posture languid as she listened. Occasionally Cranberry would slip into a droning monotone, just reciting the words she’d memorized, while Mary yawned and drank her booze, not taking any of it seriously.

Fav observed, practically giddy. It would be bad if they were to suddenly clash and the exam were to be ruined, but he did hope something interesting would happen.

Once she’d more or less finished her explanation, Cranberry asked Mary, “Do you have any questions?”

Mary tilted back her square bottle and loudly gulped down her booze.

Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her right hand and clanged the bottom of the booze bottle against the metal railing. “You’re saying you’re my ‘mentor’ magical girl.”

“Yes.”

“The game was only released a week ago.”

“Yes, so it was.”

“In other words, even though you’re calling yourself more experienced, you only became a magical girl a week before me.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true.”

“Why’re you looking down on me? With only a week’s worth of difference, at a school or workplace, it’s not a vertical relationship; you’re equals. Am I wrong? If there’s some other reason you’re playing mentor and giving me arrogant bullshit when you only became a magical girl a week earlier than me, then I’m listening.”

Cranberry and Mary stared at each other in silence. There was a distance of five large steps between them, which was unnaturally far apart for two people having a conversation. The wind at the top of this building tossed up Mary’s hair and made Cranberry’s roses flutter. Mary closed one eye, and Cranberry blew a breath out her nose.

“Forgive me,” said Cranberry. “That wasn’t my intention… I apologize if my attitude appeared arrogant.”

“Hmph.”

Mary knew that Cranberry’s apology was not in earnest, and Cranberry was aware that Mary knew. A dry, tense air, like the wind blowing over a wasteland, wafted between the two of them. They both could sense that what lay between them could go off at any minute.

This wasn’t anything so gentle as two warriors who acknowledged one another tossing a ball back and forth, testing the waters to see if they would fight or not. They were simply irritated, angry. These two did not get along.

Mary popped up her right hand, and Cranberry’s left twitched in response. “Is it cool if I ask a question?” said Mary.

“Go ahead.”

“I get that you said to do good things for people, but…you didn’t say not to do bad stuff, huh?”

“Because everyone understands that, without my expressly saying.”

The air grew tense. Fav realized he really shouldn’t have let his curiosity get the better of him. The two girls had never meshed from the start. Fav didn’t want a pointless fight before the exam got started.

Cranberry gave a thin smile, while only the corners of Mary’s mouth turned upward. They continued to hold each other’s gaze for a while.

Cranberry looked away first, then slowly opened her mouth and broke the silence. “If your misdeeds are exposed, your qualifications as a magical girl will be revoked, and you will be made to forget ever being a magical girl. And depending on what you did, you may be handed over to human authorities.”

“Heh.” Mary chuckled deep in her throat, but she didn’t seem amused. “Outlaws get hanged, huh?”

“That depends on the degree of your misdeed.”

Mary took another swig of her booze but didn’t ask any further questions. That was it. Cranberry told Mary to contact her if she had any issues, and then she left. She went from building to building, heading back to her roost without another word.

Some people could never become friends. You could list countless reasons as to why, but the fact was, the people in question wouldn’t really know the answer themselves—was their lack of friendship due to those very reasons, or was it because they couldn’t become friends that they could come up with endless reasons why not?

Even if Fav were to tell Cranberry to restrain herself until the exam began, Fav didn’t know to what extent she would listen to him. Cranberry’s apparent age was older than the average for magical girls, but deep down, she was no different from when they’d first met. For instance, she would stay stuck in a sour mood for a long time until Fav would eventually have to be the one to give in, or Cranberry would stop talking to him.

Ultimately, Fav would have to be the one to make adjustments. He would take care to keep Cranberry and Mary from meeting, and he would never bring up Cranberry in conversation in front of Mary. With Cranberry, on the other hand, he would avoid touching on the issue of Mary as much as possible, leaving coordinating roles to another appropriate magical girl when possible. After this much consideration, Fav regretted his shortsighted inability to resist his urges, his idea that it would be interesting if the two met. Even knowing from experience that when you let curiosity guide your actions, it would generally not get good results, he’d carelessly gone and done it anyway.

Fav regretted it for the umpteenth time, and reflected on it for the umpteenth time. He would not have Cranberry act as mentor in the future. He would make it a volunteer job, and Fav would handle the next one. Though it would be a hassle, when he thought of the hassle that had been brought about by having Mary and Cranberry meet, it was nothing.

After some minor adjustments to the plan, Fav got to the point where he figured there should be no more problems. But that didn’t last long—immediately a new problem came up. The next accident came from the outside.

When Fav heard about it, he was mad. Feeling stupid for getting mad, he became exasperated with himself, and then he felt sad. Why did someone have to get in the way right when this fun exam was about to start?

It had begun just the other day, at the magical-girl exam held in T City in the neighboring prefecture, where the prefectural office was. One girl had gone through a legitimate exam and passed without issue. They said her magic was to “create creatures from fantasy,” and in the exam she had showed off that ability many times to the examiner. However, the management had not been attentive. One of the creatures created by her magic during the exam had escaped, and, tracking it, they’d learned it was hiding itself deep in the mountains of M City, which neighbored N City.

Though the girl could create creatures, she was unable to dispel them at will. She also lacked the skills to search out a creature that hid in the mountains. She’d consulted her magical-girl examiner, and that examiner had reported it to the Magical Kingdom, and the Magical Kingdom, learning that the exemplary magical girl Musician of the Forest, Cranberry, was holding an exam nearby, had asked her, while she was managing her exam, if she would also capture or kill the creature.

Frankly speaking, they’d chosen the right person for the job. Cranberry was, as her name suggested, used to wilderness operations, and no creature alive could escape from her sharp hearing. Most of all, with her excellent combat abilities, she could take down even a fierce beast created by magic in a fraction of a second.

“This is nice for you, pon. It sounds like this is a mission that comes with a fight, pon.”

“It’s not as if I’m glad to fight simply anybody. According to the data, it’s not as strong an opponent as a magical girl. If we’re classifying this job as either interesting or boring, it’s the latter.”

Even if Cranberry was the right choice for the task, neither she nor Fav was so naive as to think, So they think I’m good! simply because of that. Being made to wipe someone else’s ass made Fav feel weary, and it also felt vaguely ominous that this was happening at the start of the magical-girl exam. So Fav was feeling highly unexcited as the two of them headed to M City.

The magical girl who had created the creature had apparently asked to be allowed to participate in the hunt. However, she’d been politely turned down. Having one more person to protect would cause more work for Cranberry. And if Cranberry got more work, then Fav would get more work, too. That was not a good thing.

Unlike N City, which had been forcibly expanded through a merger, M City was extremely small, a town deep in the mountains that was less a city and more like a village. It was so deep in the mountains that they said periodically, about once every ten years or so, some old woman would get lost hunting for wild edible plants, and even during the day the forest was dark, keeping even the locals from going in too far. But for Cranberry this wasn’t much different from going for a stroll around a resort grounds at midday. As she carried out a careful search via echolocation, Fav held back his grumbling.

She pushed past branches and thickets, and then, after thirty minutes of making their way in, said, “I figure that’s it.”

“They said it looks like a bear, so that’s gotta be it, pon.”

The two of them found it easily. With its dark-brown pelt, sharp claws and fangs, and beast-like ears, at a length of six feet, it did very much resemble a bear.

Suddenly the sky grew dim. A cloud was hiding the moon.

Perhaps the creature had been angered by being called a bear, or maybe it was irritated by the disappearance of the light, because it let out a growl. It even sounded like a bear. Mowing down vegetation, it bounded toward Cranberry. She stood in a natural posture, waiting for it.

The creature swiped a claw, and the force of its wind alone swept up the plants around it. Nimbly evading the strike, Cranberry came close to grab the creature’s arm, hitting its elbow with a backhand blow and bending its joint in the opposite direction.

The creature cried out in pain, wildly swinging around the arm Cranberry held in her grip. The force sent her flying, and she spun in the air to land—from there leaping back at the creature, slipping past its clawed counterattack to grab the creature’s leg. The creature fell on its rear, and, pressing its ankle against her side, Cranberry twisted it in one motion. Its leg still in her grasp, the creature flailed its arms, but perhaps because of the pain, its movements were sloppy.

Cranberry was not one to overlook an opening. Avoiding its arms, she spun them both around to circle behind it, wrapped her arm around its neck, and grabbed it by the jaw to snap it, then gave it a half turn in the opposite direction, pulverizing it entirely. The creature collapsed forward into a prostrate position and made no movement other than spasming. Well, Fav had figured things would wind up like this.

“All right, then, let’s take the body and go back, pon.”

Cranberry was looking off in another direction. Fav turned that way and zoomed in with his vision—noticing a shadow moving, he felt quite fed up. There were three more bearlike creatures threatening them with exposed fangs. “Why are there more of them, pon?”

“They’re creatures created with magic. It’s not strange that they would multiply.”

“You don’t think the stork is working too hard here, pon?”

“Quite.” Cranberry swept her gaze from right to left. The tips of her ears twitched. “The stork is indeed working too hard.”

She hooked the leg of the first creature as she passed by it, slamming it into the second, and when the third’s path was blocked by the two beasts entangled, she slammed her fist into its face. Fur and flesh flew, and when she withdrew her fist from the indent in its face, a string of sticky blood hung off it. Cranberry approached the first and second before they could get back up, and with only the slightest movements, gouged with her fingernails into the spines of the enemies at the neck. When the fourth came to attack from behind, she crouched to dodge, then placed her hands on the ground to slam a kick into its jaw without even looking back.

“…A fourth one?!”

And that wasn’t the end of it. A fifth and sixth drew near, and then, as if they’d timed it, a seventh, eighth, and ninth appeared. Cranberry kicked each one to knock it aside, twisting the arm of the tenth and using it as a shield to crash into the eleventh, kicking all of them down.

She could hear loud growls coming from all over. This wasn’t just ten or twenty. The smell of beast and blood hung over the area, drowning out the scent of the earth, trees, and grass.

“Why are there so many more, pon?”

“The magical girl who created them is a newbie. She must not have a proper grasp on her magic.”

“So irresponsible, pon!”

“I never thought I would hear that word coming from your mouth, Fav.”

The creatures made to charge all at once, but when they took a step forward, their upper bodies all snapped violently backward. Next, hammers of sound battered their arms and their legs, and once their legs took a hit, they thudded to the ground.

Fav was privately surprised. Cranberry was using her magic. She loved hand-to-hand combat, so she only chose to use magic to attack when her opponents forced her into a corner.

Cranberry approached the enemy with a casual stride, then tapped a thick shoulder with her fingertip. Instantly the creature’s whole body vibrated wildly, bodily fluids pouring from its mouth, eyes, nose, and ears to scatter all around. By sending sound reverberating inside its body, she’d done massive damage to its organs, the brain in particular. Cranberry wove in between the creatures, and any that approached her spewed liquid as it thumped to the ground.

Stepping over the piled corpses of their brethren, more creatures attacked Cranberry one after another, adding mass to the mountain of bodies. But the creatures’ morale never flagged, beast after fresh beast marching forward as if their purpose was death, coming to Cranberry one after another.

“There’s no end to it.” Cranberry sounded excited. Before the creatures could strike, she hit them with destructive sound wave, and their bodies swayed, swelled up, and collapsed. “There’s no sign their numbers are decreasing.”

She struck a creature’s knee with her heel, and, using that knee as her springboard, she thrust her elbow into its gut, doing a half turn in the air to strike its back with a spinning turn kick, sending it to the ground facedown. Cranberry ran backward to put some distance between them, and then, when the creatures pursued her, she blasted a directional destructive sound wave right in the center of where they gathered, sending them flying—grass and earth and all, bodies dancing high in the sky, trees breaking, bouncing, and rolling on the ground.

Gouging into the earth like that, the enemy now stood that much lower. A creature cut through the clouds of dust, swinging its claws, and Cranberry avoided its attack, destroying one, two, three creatures from the inside with her sound while she kicked off the chest of a fourth to leap backward, jump off a tree, then hit the ground to bound away.

She evaded the arm that tossed up fallen leaves as it shot out from the ground, and when another beast came falling down from above the trees, she used its momentum to throw it, slamming its head into the ground. There were more large bodies writhing ahead.

Sneak attacks didn’t work on Cranberry—no matter how cleverly you camouflaged them, even if you lay still to hide, you couldn’t completely silence every sound of your body. However, warding off every single surprise attack would consume a lot of time and wear on her nerves.

“Cranberry, behind you, pon.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

She avoided the arm of a creature that was trying to grab at her, then struck back at it with a three-strike combo, spinning around to hit it in the side with a spear hand. She lightly stroked legs, arms, and head, and each time a spray of blood went up, dyeing Cranberry a dark red. Thick drops from the splatter dribbled from her long ears and the blossoms of her roses. She tried to block one creature’s body slam with her shin, but there was too much force in its charge, so she let the block fall, turning away from the momentum as she circled to the front around the axis of the creature’s head, then circled farther around behind it to pound continuous strikes on its back, waist, and ankles.

Right before the creature fell, its throat trembled with a particularly loud growl, and Cranberry struck it with the blade of her foot to crush its jugular. The other creatures roared, as if goaded by the first cry, and Cranberry’s right eyebrow twitched upward.

Cranberry could pick up the faintest noises with her sharp hearing, and she fought based on auditory information. She wouldn’t so much as twitch over just a yell, but being continuously showered with this roaring as she was trying to listen and also fighting so many enemies was gradually exhausting her. If she wanted to, she could shut out all sounds, but if she did that, she wouldn’t be able to detect sneak attacks anymore.

Bending over to dodge a strike powerful enough to make the cedars sway with the force of its wind, she brandished a backfist as she turned around, laughing with glee.

But Fav wasn’t laughing. The enemy’s numbers were still increasing just as fast. “We need to request backup and evacuate the residents, pon.”

“Unnecessary.”

Cranberry turned aside a creature’s arm, grabbed it by the leg, and spun it around to slam it into the ground. Its massive frame made a dent in the earth and rebounded, and Cranberry jumped off its back as the creatures gathered around her, punching, kicking, slicing them up with a knife hand, thrusting her fingers into an eyeball and ripping to the side, but her sleeve caught on a fang, and she was a split second late tearing it free. She leaped to evade the claws that swung at her from behind, but barely failed to dodge them entirely, and part of the back of her jacket was ripped off—Cranberry grabbed a tree branch and spun around it, landing a ways away.

“Cranberry.”

“I decline.”

Fav did not have the authority to request backup himself. He needed Cranberry’s permission, but she stubbornly would not grant it. Cranberry wouldn’t fear harm to her own reputation. So was she just enjoying this fight and trying to keep other magical girls from stealing her fun? But if the creatures were to bring harm to regular people now, the exam might be canceled.

“Cranberry!”

“Be quiet, please. You’re distracting me.”

A wave of sound burst throughout the whole area, striking the creatures. Cranberry heaved a broken tree over her shoulder, using the jagged end to stab one of the creatures straight through its body. She then skewered a second creature that leaped at her along with it before tossing them both aside.

Dealing with those enemies had slowed her down, which was making Fav even more anxious. And if Fav was feeling anxious, there was no way Cranberry was unperturbed. She destroyed three creatures from a distance with sound, touched two at close range to destroy them from the inside with her magic, and the one that she’d missed she penetrated with a spear hand to the heart. But as Cranberry was about to withdraw her arm, the creature she’d stabbed embraced her to prevent her.

Cranberry dropped her other elbow on its arm in attempt to escape its grasp, but before she could slip away, another creature leaped at her. It hit her over a two-armed guard to knock her back, breaking branches, destroying trees as she rolled over the ground. While rolling, she smacked the ground with her right hand to jump to a tree trunk and met an enemy’s attack with her elbow to destroy its joint, then knocked aside its follow-up attack with a sound wave. As she stood, a streak of blood drew a single red line down her forehead.

It wasn’t any significant damage. It really was just the slightest scratch. However, it also meant that Cranberry had slowed down enough to be getting hurt. There was no way this nonstop melee was not wearing on her.

“Cranberry! Backup, pon!”

“As I’ve said, I don’t need it. Irritatingly so.”

She approached the creatures casually, without any hint of injury in her stride. They all fanned out, then charged. The herd of giant creatures all running at full speed made the ground shudder. The shaking quickly intensified, and a mechanical roar joined it as the area was illuminated by a bright light.

Knocking down trees and mowing away the plants, a bulldozer suddenly appeared, ramming into the herd from the side, making nasty sounds as it crushed the creatures. Some of them got up and tried to block the blades, but it was no use, and they were blown away. The girl in the driver’s seat cursed the creatures with foul language that offended the ears, mashing the accelerator harder.

It was Calamity Mary.

Cranberry leaped. She hit the creatures with a flying kick, knee strike, and roundhouse kick to knock them down, and the bulldozer swiveled with a lightness that belied its massive bulk. It seemed magic had been cast on it.

Hunched over, Mary got half out of her seat. She turned to her right and leveled a continuous stream of fire at the creatures from her dual-wielded handguns, lending no ear to their cries of pain, tossing the guns behind her when the ammo ran out, then pulling out new ones to shoot the creatures. Her perfect head shots made one head explode after another, and the creatures fell into piles before they could even touch the bulldozer. The bulldozer kept on charging straight toward Cranberry, and with a nimble leap she landed in the passenger seat back-to-back with Mary.

“Thank you very much,” said Cranberry.

“Ha! You’re welcome!”

Neither of them looked at the other as they exchanged those very mundane greetings, all sticky with blood. Of course Cranberry had killed plenty of the creatures, but Mary had also killed some serious numbers to get here. Cranberry could detect sounds from a few miles away, so there was no way she’d failed to notice Mary going on a rampage. That must have been why Cranberry had insisted that backup was “unnecessary.”

The bulldozer plowed through the forest, the never-ending cycle of its blades destroying trees, plants, earth, rocks, creatures, everything, crushing it beneath them. They slaughtered enemy after enemy, Cranberry with sound, Mary with her guns. As they violently dropped enemies with frightening force and efficiency, Fav realized—the enemies’ numbers were decreasing. They were killing more than were being generated.

The creatures seemed to sense they were losing and turned their backs to begin fleeing on all fours, but Mary and Cranberry had no intention of letting them go, and what had been a fight turned into a one-sided slaughter as flesh and blood rained down in an even more magnificent spectacle.

Mary laughed with glee, while Cranberry breathed a small sigh.

“What, not having fun?” Mary asked.

“Attacking from a safe distance with projectile weapons isn’t to my taste.”

“I’m having a hell of a time, though!”

“What nonsense…”

“Did you say something?”

“Why have you come here?”

“You looked like you were having fun, so I figured I’d join in.” And then she added, “I’ll put this on your tab, Miss Mentor.” And with that murmur, she fired her guns.

The expression on Mary’s face was nothing so simple as her words. With her brutality laid bare, she appeared beyond rationality, but the gears were still turning in her head. Why had Mary come here in the first place? Fav couldn’t imagine any reason other than that she had been trailing Cranberry. And the reason she had been trailing her would have been something like wanting to relieve her own stress. She wanted a place and a means to vent her urge to just go wild.

Thinking up a way to make things even more fun with Mary, he said to her, “Mary, where did you get those guns, pon?”

“Some police department.”

“That’s not good, pon.”

“Who cares where I got them? Just having them is illegal in this country, so there’s no point complaining about the source.”

“I’ll make up a list for you of groups in the city that’ll accommodate you, so go with them, pon.”

“If that’s your deal, then, well, I could consider it.”

What came next was petty labor. Cranberry would detect sounds, the bulldozer would go to their source, and the two mad warriors would annihilate the creatures. As the creatures fled pitifully, Mary laughed and Cranberry closed her eyes. Fav patiently observed the two magical girls.

He hadn’t been wrong—their personalities did clash. Cranberry’s number one priority was fighting. Mary’s priority was to make her opponents submit. If necessary, Cranberry would carry out acts of cruelty in the process without hesitation. Mary would, even if not necessary, carry them out with pleasure. Cranberry saw Mary’s methods—firing guns from a distance—as “not to her taste.” Meanwhile, when Mary witnessed Cranberry fight and use her magic, Mary thought (albeit the thought was concealed with mad laughter), These crap weapons aren’t enough to go up against her.

In every single way, these two clashed.

A few hours later, they finished their hunt in the mountains, and Mary left the bulldozer there to head back. That had to mean, “You deal with that.” Her parting remark of “I could get used to this” as well as her refreshed expression told any who saw it that she had fulfilled her goal of unleashing some violence. Seeing her attitude, maybe she really was getting used to this.

Left behind, Cranberry and Fav looked up from the seat of the bulldozer at the mountain of creature corpses.

“Fav,” Cranberry said to her mascot.

“What, pon?” Fav replied.

“You said that with Magical Girl Raising Project, we can discover powerful candidates—you’re certain about that?”

“We should be getting magical girls of a type who’ve never been seen before…girls like Mary, pon.”

“The way she fights is utterly not to my preference, but if those of strength who could rival hers were to appear… I see, it seems this will be interesting.”

“So you’ve finally come around to it, pon?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Can I make the call now, then, pon? If you leave raw meat out for a long time in this weather, it’ll start to stink, pon.”

The pair, magical girl and mascot, burst into mismatched laughter.