Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 14 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

GREETINGS, THEN AN INCIDENT

  Touta Magaoka

When his aunt had first told him her secret, he’d thought she was joking. Then, once she had transformed in front of him, it turned out to be no laughing matter. Magical girls were real. They were actually real.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed at the sight.

“Ha-ha-ha!” His aunt cackled. “How do you like that? You believe now?”

“Like, I thought for sure you’d be just the same, but with a magical-girl outfit on.”

“If that were how it worked, I’d have quit being a magical girl in my teens…” She casually lifted the entire dresser with only her right hand, humming as she held it up to clean the tatami under where the dresser had just been. Then she turned off the vacuum cleaner, set down the dresser, went right out to the veranda, and jumped off. Before Touta could even scream in horror, she came back to knock on the front door.

And her boobs were bouncy and huge.

She was a magical girl. And she was right there in front of him. Now her evasiveness to questions about her work made sense. She was always so vague and wouldn’t tell him—it was because she was a magical girl. Plus, now he understood why hard-to-reach cracks between the wall and dresser were never dusty, unlike at his friends’ houses.

“Are there no male heroes?” Touta asked her. “Like riding modified motorbikes or piloting giant robots—or the type that fire beams and lasers?”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. Oh, but if you mean guys who become magical girls, yeah, I’ve heard of some.”

“So they’re always magical girls… That’s fine; it’s a little disappointing, but I’ll let that one go.”

“Why’re you acting like it affects you? It’s just something you’ve gotta accept about life.”

“Fine, I accept it.”

“You back down surprisingly easily.”

“I mean, like, you said I’m a mage, right?”

“You’re the grandson of a cousin of a mage. Simply put, your, um…relative was a mage. But even if you have mage blood, if you don’t learn how to use it, you still can’t do anything. Oh, one more thing. I think you understand this, but if you let anyone find out or tell anyone about magic, mages, or magical girls, you’ll be made to forget everything, as if they’re plucked from your brain.”

“Really?”

“Oh…I’m not sure. This happens a lot with magical girls, but I get the feeling like it hasn’t really happened for mages.”

“Huh? Then what does happen? It’s kinda scary if I don’t know.”

“Well, you just have to remember that something scary will happen. You can’t tell your friends, either.”

“Okaaay.”

Touta had never experienced anything supernatural. Even though a mountain of things like that appeared in books or on TV, there had been nothing mysterious in his life.

His parents had been in a traffic accident when he’d been too young to remember it, one time he’d had a fight with a kid who’d said there was no such thing as Santa Claus and Touta had cried, and he’d sneaked out one night with a friend to go to a haunted spot, but nothing had happened, and then they’d been found out after and gotten an earful for it—all those things had happened because of a lack of anything supernatural. No miracles had happened, no ghosts had been there—nothing like that. It wasn’t fun. It was boring. Nothing incredible happened to Touta, and he hated that. There were strange things happening somewhere out there, and he was sure they were so magical, but they wouldn’t happen to him.

But now that was over. That day, his aunt had brought him something magical. His aunt would do this for him. All he’d known about his aunt was that she was his mother’s mother’s little sister—she was his great-aunt, actually. He hadn’t known what she did, either. From how she went to work in clothes that didn’t look like what you’d wear for a normal job—a T-shirt and sandals—she’d been very puzzling to him. She was the kind of person that, when he heard she was a magical girl, he thought, Oh, I see, as all the puzzle pieces came together.

“Huh? You’re not coming with me, Auntie?” Touta asked her. “Why not?”

“I have work I just can’t get away from.”

At times like these, he couldn’t say, “So work is more important than me, huh?” even as a joke. He never wanted to see the look she got when she heard jokes like that ever, ever again.

“So I’m going alone?” he asked.

“I’ll have a friend of mine go with you. No worries; she’s someone you can count on. But she can be a little difficult. Well, there are a lot of magical girls like that.”

“She’s a magical girl?”

“Yep. She used to work harder than anyone, but she’s gotten lazy lately, for a bunch of reasons. You’ll wind up no good if you avoid working too much, so I come up with jobs like this sometimes to give her something to do.” Then she followed with, “You should ask her for more info on magical girls, mages, and the Magical Kingdom.”

Touta felt like she’d picked up that he was full of questions, and he nodded in silence. When his aunt said, “When you meet her, eat with a healthy appetite,” he nodded again.

He met that magical girl another day at a sukiyaki place. Miss Marguerite was, as his aunt had said, a very fastidious person. With a hat and skirt like a noble lady and carrying a slim sword like a Western fencer, her chopsticks weren’t even touching the delicious-looking sukiyaki in front of her. Despite Touta’s nervousness about being around the first magical girl he’d ever met besides his aunt, he heartily ate the sukiyaki as told, and while taking care to avoid letting them notice, he also compared to see if his aunt’s magical-girl form had different-size boobs than Miss Marguerite. Her boobs were normal. It seemed it was not the case that transforming into a magical girl would give anyone huge boobs.

Marguerite looked like she was in a bit of a sour mood. His aunt seemed glad about that. He figured he’d managed that conversation just as she’d told him. On the way back from the sukiyaki restaurant, his aunt praised him: “The way you glanced at our boobs to compare them was pretty good.”

Though Touta was panicking about how she’d been able to tell, he pretended he’d done it deliberately and puffed out his chest proudly. But he also had the feeling that she could tell it had not been deliberate.

Two days after having sukiyaki, Marguerite, who’d been told to help Touta get ready, came over to the apartment building after dark. The doorbell rang, and when Touta turned on the screen for the apartment intercom, he thought, She’s here! Miss Marguerite, in that same aristocratic lady–looking costume, was on the screen. Could it be she had come to the apartment building in that outfit?

Touta immediately unlocked the automatic door at the entrance to let her in. His aunt hadn’t come back from work, so it was just the two of them. One-on-one. Touta rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants. They faced each other with the long kitchen table between them. There was plenty of distance between them, but he felt a pressure pushing him that made him shift his chair over.

Marguerite grabbed a cup and glugged down her barley tea, then set down the cup on her saucer. Touta stood from his chair, pulled a bottle of barley tea from the fridge, and poured Marguerite another serving.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

In science class experiments, Touta had been grouped with a kid who was bad at conversation. Whenever things felt awkward, they felt like they both needed a drink to sip to pass the time. Marguerite didn’t seem like she generally loved to chat. It was probably just as Touta thought. His aunt was so nasty.

“Or maybe it’s both of them…,” Touta muttered.

“Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Marguerite might also have been nervous. Thinking about it that way, his tension relieved somewhat. She talked like a teacher, and she was really pretty, but it all seemed so forced—and that was cute.

“Are you positive nothing is the matter?” Marguerite asked.

“It’s really nothing.”

“I see. Well then, let’s get ready.”

“Right.”

Touta had heard that the trip would be about a week at longest. Picking up all the things he figured he’d need for about that stretch of time, he lined them up in the tatami room.

Marguerite swept her gaze over everything he’d laid out and shook her head. “It’s too much.”

“But I already picked out some things to leave behind,” Touta protested.

“You don’t need games. You don’t need handheld video games or card games, either.”

“Whaaat…? But…”

“You don’t need them.”

“So then I’ll leave behind the cards for trading use. Since they’re heavy and bulky. But I can just bring my deck, right? Just the deck case won’t really get in the way.”

“Your teacher scolds you when you bring toys to school. Am I wrong?”

“No, but…”

“You’re not going to a playground. So you won’t need toys for playing.”

“There might be people to play against there, though.”

“It will be all mages and magical girls there. There won’t be any friends for you to play with.”

“Are you sure…? Won’t I have nothing to do in the evenings?”

“If you have nothing to do, then you should go to bed. Replenishing your strength in preparation for the next day is part of the job.”

“Fiiine…”

“And then these multiple tanks… Are these…crayfish? Why something like these?”

“I have to take care of them.”

“Make a friend take care of them.”

“Look, I finally got these guys to molt after screwing up a bunch of times, and they’re the biggest and most valuable crayfish I’ve ever gotten. My friends would just forget to feed them and make them eat each other and skip cleaning the tanks. They’re sloppy about taking care of them.”

“Then have your aunt take care of them.”

“Auntie doesn’t like crayfish. She says they stink like crayfish… Obviously! She never stops nagging me to put them out on the veranda.”

Marguerite smiled. It was not a pleasant or gentle smile. It was 100 percent a smirk. “Insist that you can’t go if she won’t take care of them and just make her take them. I’m sure she’ll take care of them, even if she complains.”

“You think…? Then I’ll do that.” It looked like his aunt had shoved some work off on Marguerite, and now Marguerite was glad his aunt would be stuck with something she didn’t like. Auntie had said that Marguerite was a friend, but was this how friends were? Touta’s friends—now that he thought about it, all those guys would gleefully do things you hated, too. “Maybe that’s just how it is…”

“What is?” Marguerite asked.

“Oh, no, nothing.”

“Also, you’re missing some things. A robe, cape, and hat.”

“What?”

“You need appropriate attire for a mage gathering—such as a robe, cape, or hat. You should have clothing that makes you look like a mage.”

“Ohhh, so you wear easy-to-understand stuff like that, huh. But I don’t have any.”

“I’ll ask your aunt to arrange for some. And we’ll also want gifts.”

“You’ll have Auntie get some of those, too?”

“Yes. Light snacks are fine, but the more expensive, the better.”

“For how many people should we get?”

“We don’t know how many people will be there. So let’s get a fairly large amount. Ten should be enough.”

“We can eat the leftovers, right?”

Marguerite smirked. “That’s not a bad proposal.”

Touta smirked back.

  Miss Marguerite

After the dinner meeting at the sukiyaki place, Marguerite asked over the phone again about what she and Touta should be doing, listening to make sure there were no implied and unspoken intentions. Once she was sure what her former associate wanted, she massaged her furrowed brow.

It wasn’t as if she was being used for her combat skills to win something. This wasn’t a request to educate an amateur into a warrior, either. What was being asked of Marguerite was experience. Marguerite had worked for many years for a government office, and so she knew a decent amount about the Magical Kingdom, and she also knew quite personally how to associate with mages and magical girls. She was being told to make use of those skills and also to teach Touta.

She would offer what was being demanded of her, as far as she was able. That was what Marguerite had always done. Even if she had been basically dragged into this, that was what it meant to get paid to take on a job. Fortunately, Touta was an obedient and honest boy. Marguerite had known a number of magical girls who were elementary schoolers pretransformation, and all of them had been selfish and willful. Compared to them, he was far preferable. But he might get carried away if she said she was thankful he was a good boy, and she didn’t want that, so she maintained a strict attitude.

On the way to their destination, they visited the Inspection Department, saying hello to the mages and magical girls who worked there before passing through the gate installed there to arrive at the island. The whole time, Touta’s curiosity was on full blast, saying, “Good morning,” “Nice to meet you,” “What’s that?” and “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” looking for explanations from Marguerite and using up their time, and it put off their arrival later and later.

The magical girl Death Prayer—Touta’s aunt—said the reason she had Touta join this inheritance meeting was that “more than the inheritance itself, I want a record of him being officially recognized as a mage.” She had saved up a decent sum of money so that things would be okay if she died at any time, but that wasn’t enough to put her at ease. Touta’s father, who’d had mage blood, and his wife, Touta’s mother, had passed away together in an unfortunate traffic accident. But Touta’s father had lived as a white-collar worker at a company. He’d ended any involvement with the Magical Kingdom and had lived without using magic. That was a fine choice, in its own way. Marguerite could understand thinking that being involved in magic and the Magical Kingdom wouldn’t lead to anything good.

However, Death Prayer was in a different position. She hadn’t said so much out loud, but Marguerite had been able to figure it out, and she understood what Death Prayer had wanted her to. Death Prayer was on a very dangerous job right now—one dangerous enough to make her think she might leave Touta all alone. If the death of his great-aunt left him all alone in the world, it would be best for him to have the status of a mage and also to know about the Magical Kingdom. Record of him receiving an estate would semi-formally make him a mage. And the mage who had left this inheritance was from an esteemed family, so it was safe to assume there would be people of decent status among its heirs, too. Touta could make connections with people like that, and this would make it so he could rely on Miss Marguerite in the process. That was what Death Prayer was thinking.

Marguerite wasn’t enough of a recluse to refuse. Her senior had once been too ashamed to ever show weakness, and Marguerite was young enough to feel moved by her old colleague revealing the vulnerability. She also knew when to give up. Once she was dragged in, she’d say “oh well” and do it.

Marguerite would teach Touta what he didn’t know. That was part of this job. At the Inspection Department, when he asked “What’s this?” and “What’s that?” she answered everything, and Touta nodded thoughtfully at her answers.

“You know everything, huh, Miss Marguerite?” he said.

“I don’t know everything. Don’t rely on me too much,” she replied.

“Ohhh, so it is true.”

“What is?”

“Auntie says when you get a compliment, you’ll actually act cold back.”

Marguerite cleared her throat while silently cursing Death Prayer, who had to be working.

That aside, one of the things Marguerite had to teach him was “how those who want to make connections should behave.” Not everyone was a good person who would be sweet on him just because he was a child, and he couldn’t be a child forever. Therefore, he should learn the manners and common sense that would be needed in the future while he was still a child. That was what discipline was.

Arriving at the island, what was the first thing Touta should do? Greetings. Cheerful, pleasant greetings are the cornerstone of communication. John Shepherdspie, who was managing the island, was abed because he wasn’t feeling well, so they sent a message asking after his health while passing some of the gift sweets that Touta’s great-aunt had gotten to the magical girl who worked for him.

Even if he was just managing the island, he was in a position where he had to entertain mages. Marguerite had thought that he might be able to help smooth things over if Touta happened to make some mistake, but it didn’t seem like they could count on him if he was sick. Perhaps because their employer was ill in bed, the two magical girls Shepherdspie had hired, Dreamy Chelsea and Pastel Mary, seemed rattled and in a tizzy. The flock of sheep was far calmer than the two girls, making orderly lines to carry things. The way their faces pointed slightly upward, looking proud as they lifted their legs high, was just like humans.

As they left, Touta looked back to gaze up at the estate. “Wow, that mansion is like a castle… Oh, look, look! That wall over there is crumbling down.” Off where Touta pointed, part of the stone wall was falling apart, damaging the majesty of the estate.

“Keep thoughts like that to yourself,” Marguerite told him. “It’s rude to voice such things as you point.”

“Okaaay.”

Chelsea and Mary told them, “We would be pleased to have you wait over there”—they actually said it with more stuttering—and pointed Marguerite and Touta to an annex that could be seen from there. Just twenty-five yards away from the main building that Touta had described as being like a castle, the annex was quite a bit newer and smaller. But it was still big enough to easily be called an impressive residence on its own. It had to have been built less than ten years ago. It inevitably looked cheap next to the moss-covered stone castle, but it was sturdily built with good materials. If Marguerite’s judgment was correct, it would also be soundproofed and have reliable anti-earthquake measures as well.

“Why are you knocking on the walls?” Touta asked her.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Marguerite replied.

Going through the entrance, which was equipped with sensors that would sound an alarm if a stranger was to pass through, she followed the guide map on the wall to the lobby.

Some mages were already gathered in the hall, and there were even more magical girls. The sixty-five-square-foot space was furnished as you might expect, with round tables, chairs with armrests, silver candelabra, a set of knight’s armor holding a spear, and a soft-haired rug dyed an eye-opening shade of red. Everyone was sitting where they pleased to chat or read or whatnot, and the atmosphere wasn’t bad. Touta’s gifts got a decent reception, and there was the sense that they had accepted him somewhat.

“I see… Though it may be a distant relation, he does have a blood connection with Sataborn,” said the old man.

“Um, yes. Though I’ve never met him,” Touta replied.

Marguerite knew this man’s name. He was famous, after all. He was the head of the Magical Girl Management Department, Ragi Zwe Nento. His job was to yell at foolish magical girls.

Ragi appeared calm—specifically, wilted. He was leaning on his twisted staff for support like he could barely sit upright. He looked so drained, you wouldn’t think this was the constantly furious and stubborn old man from the rumors. Even just talking seemed laborious, and his exhaustion was apparent. Perhaps the way he sat alone and away from the others meant to convey that he didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Touta wasn’t really paying attention to Ragi talk, his eyes flicking in the other direction. He was curious not about the old man sitting on the sofa before him but the magical girl standing beside him. She was completely unperturbed by his rude stares, standing stiffly at attention at the old mage’s side. His curiosity came as no surprise; the girl was human from the neck up, and she had the lower body of a deer.

Marguerite had known of her, even before the brief introduction from Ragi. That was because after Annamarie had lost her challenge, Marguerite had looked up every single one of Cranberry’s children. But even if you didn’t know her background, her strength as a magical girl was apparent at a glance. When she received a gift from Touta, she raised it above her head respectfully in thanks, and even though she was just standing there, she always kept a strict watch around her.

Marguerite had heard that Ragi was very straitlaced and hated magical girls, so why would he have brought one of Cranberry’s children of all people? Being in his position as the head of the Management Department, he had to know of Clantail’s background. Marguerite reminded herself not to let her guard down, no matter how weakened he looked.

The middle-aged man with thinning hair who sat in the place farthest from Ragi called himself Navi Ru. He said he worked in a department that was under the direct supervision of the highest echelons of the Magical Kingdom. If that was the truth, then he was on the elite track.

But nothing about the man himself gave a sense of his rank or career background, and he welcomed Touta with a good-humored attitude and friendly words. “So then, once this is over, wanna come to where I work? I’ll put in a good word for you so you can join us.”

“Um, well, uh, I’ll talk about it with my aunt,” Touta stammered.

“Nah, nah, nah, wait, wait,” the magical girl with him cut in. “That isn’t a place you’d take a kid.”

“Come on, Clarissa, you’re… Yeah. You’ve got a point. That place isn’t for kids.”

Even though Touta hadn’t seemed that enthusiastic, learning that this place to work as a mage had apparently vanished, his shoulders slumped in visible disappointment.

Navi gave him a couple of gentle claps on the shoulders. It seemed as if Touta’s reaction pleased him. “Don’t be so disappointed. Look, I’ll introduce you someplace else. I’m sure there’s places that, like, a kid would be happier to go to, probably.”

“You’re just saying that,” Clarissa shot back at him. “It’s not like you have that kind of authority.”

“Don’t tell him that. Let me look a little cool, okay?”

Clarissa opened her big mouth and laughed, her shapely canines in plain view. Those fangs were sharp, which would be more appropriate for a fierce feline. And you could tell from the way she clapped her hands and bent over when she laughed that she was incredibly flexible and springy, with supple muscles that moved with ease. Though she might normally be pleasant, fun, and charming, she was the type who would become a warrior if the time came.

And then Navi. There was no way “a nice mister who looks rough but loves kids” would be able to work surrounded by the sly old foxes of the Central Authority. And the magical girl he’d brought with him wasn’t just a buddy brought for chat but a fighter. Marguerite couldn’t let her guard down.

The mage with the name that you’d stumble over, Agrielreymwaed Quarky, was a young woman. She seemed to be having a friendly conversation with Navi, but she said the two of them had only just met on this island.

Agri appeared to be more interested in Touta’s background than Touta himself. In other words, what drew her interest was that he had Sataborn’s blood. It was fair to say Agri was closer to the deceased than either Ragi or Navi. She was not an old academic friend or a student who hadn’t visited in a long while but a direct blood relation.

“As for our relationship…are we okay calling us distant relatives?” Agri said. “I dunno if there’s a more proper way to put it.”

“I’m not sure,” Touta replied.

“It’d be awkward if you suddenly started calling me Auntie.”

“Oh, I think so, too.”

Agri smiled at Touta, then flicked her eyes to Marguerite and smiled at her as well. Marguerite let her cheeks relax enough to not be considered rude, and seeing their exchange, Nephilia did an odd snicker, while Love Me Ren-Ren, who sat beside her, chided her quietly.

Agri probed Touta’s situation with little bits and pokes. The pair under her hire seemed relaxed, but their eyes were sharp. They didn’t look like fighters. Either they had magic or something else? Types you didn’t overcome through fighting were actually more trouble in cases like these. And you could imagine what kind of mage would bring magical girls like those. Marguerite judged that the mage named Agri was a shrewd woman, but Touta was fidgety around an older lady and seemed like he’d fall for her wiles at any minute. If they had the opportunity to talk later, Marguerite would have to teach him that she was not someone to be trusted.

Marguerite snorted quietly, making sure to keep anyone from noticing. But despite her efforts, Nephilia burst out laughing, making her cup rattle on the table and black tea spill onto her saucer.

“Miss Marguerite.”

Marguerite turned around upon hearing her name and saw an unfamiliar face. No—maybe it was just a face that was a little more grown than one she knew. But it still easily counted as the face of a child.

“It’s been a long time, Mana,” Miss Marguerite replied.

The mage girl who’d arrived even later than Touta was an acquaintance of Marguerite’s. “Why are you here?” Mana asked Marguerite.

“As an escort for a mage.”

“You? As escort?”

“I’m just working freelance.”

“If that’s how you were going to wind up, you shouldn’t have quit Inspection. Your departure has weakened the whole department. One great instructor gone means basically—”

“You think too much of me.”

Mana worked for Inspection. Unusually for a mage, she directly involved herself in investigations, and she had the will to polish herself as well as the desire to gain experience. Though she had a slight tendency for narrow-mindedness, by Marguerite’s standards, she had the makings of an excellent inspector.

Touta was fidgety, his gaze shifting between Marguerite and Mana. Marguerite indicated Mana with her palm. “This is Mana.” Mana cut off there and closed her mouth. She had introduced her by her given name. If she had been speaking as an inspector, then of course Marguerite, being in the higher position, would call her by her name, but Marguerite had quit Inspection. Despite having told her students they shouldn’t neglect manners, once it was her turn, it seemed like she wouldn’t necessarily conduct herself well.

Once it was clear Mana wouldn’t call her to task for this, Marguerite continued. “She’s an old colleague. And she is currently your aunt’s colleague.”

Touta nodded, looking like this basically made sense to him.

But Mana tilted her head. “Aunt?”

“Death Prayer.”

“Ahhh, Prayer’s.”

Having to explain to both parties was a hassle, but avoiding hassles would cause even bigger hassles later. Marguerite turned her palm the other way to indicate Touta. “This is Touta Magaoka. He’s a relative of Master Sataborn and my—”

He wasn’t her employer. Death Prayer was the one who’d paid Marguerite. He also wasn’t her ward, and it was roundabout to call him someone she was bodyguarding. He was like a companion or a friend. After a moment of hesitation, the word that came out was, “He’s something like an apprentice.”

“Nice to meet you, Touta. Your aunt has always…obliged me with her guidance,” said Mana.

Touta must have sensed some implication in that slight hesitation, as he bowed his head apologetically. “Um, I’m sorry about my aunt… I’m Touta Magaoka.”

“Oh no, ah… Well, this magical girl is 7753.” Mana gestured with a palm to the magical girl sitting next to her. Being so suddenly referred to, the magical girl in a boy’s school uniform bobbed her head in a hasty bow, making the goggles hanging around her neck clunk against her forehead. “She works with Magical Girl Resources.”

Inspection and Magical Girl Resources didn’t have a very good relationship. Marguerite hadn’t heard about it improving since she’d quit, either. Unlike a freelancer, you couldn’t bring 7753 over for pay. So then this had to be a personal friend of Mana’s. Marguerite was privately glad that even a stubborn, short-tempered girl like Mana had someone like that, and she smiled on the inside, thinking Mana was a good girl at heart—but she didn’t let that show on her actual face.

“I do have another companion here, but…” Putting a hand to the brim of her hat, Mana scanned the area and scowled. “She’s not here. Hey, where did Tepsekemei go?”

“Um…she took that tin of cookies she just got and wandered outside,” 7753 told her.

“I told you to keep a proper watch on her,” Mana scolded her.

“I-I’m sorry. I tried to stop her, but she slipped out.”

“Good grief… Um, it sounds like she’s gone out to play. I’m sure there will be opportunities to introduce her later. 7753, this is Miss Marguerite… Hana’s master.”

When Marguerite had heard that Hana Gekokujou had died on the job, she’d thought it had to have been some mistake, but she had to accept it upon hearing Archfiend Pam had died in the same incident. Hana had been one of the most outstanding of Marguerite’s students and an excellent magical girl, but even she could never have survived a battlefield where Archfiend Pam had fallen. In fact, Mana was far more the unusual case for having survived a situation like that, but Hana had surely been the one to accomplish that. Mana’s expression when she said “Hana’s master” and 7753’s expression when she heard those words were telling.

Mana exchanged a few words with Touta, bringing Marguerite into it as well, occasionally making 7753 panic when the discussion was turned to her, and they finished a decently peaceful chat. Marguerite felt like Mana had become gentler and kinder than before. Maybe that was thanks to 7753, or maybe it was the influence of the other magical girl who wasn’t with them.

After leaving Mana, Touta said to Marguerite quietly, “Hey.”

“What?”

“Am I your apprentice, Miss Marguerite?”

“You don’t like it?”

“Oh, no…actually, it’s exciting.”

She didn’t get what he meant or what he intended there, but if he wasn’t unhappy with it, then that should be fine.

The mage they met after Mana was a unique-looking girl with strong visual impact. Though she couldn’t be much different in age from Touta, she spoke like an adult.

“It’s very good to meet you, Touta. My name is Yol,” she said.

“Yeah. Nice to meet you,” Touta replied.

Her hair was voluminous, made poofy with large spiraling rolls. Just doing her hair probably took forever. She wasn’t a magical girl, so it wasn’t a part of a transformation. It was possible to do intricate hairstyling through magic; the higher you went up in class with mages, the more they tended to see time-consuming grooming as a virtue. Unlike the other mages, her pointed hat and robes were elaborate, with her family crest patterned in gold thread, the sort of attire chosen only by those both wealthy and pedigreed enough to brag about it. And the wearer came off as luxurious in the way of some Western dolls but put into human form, and adding to that a haute couture robe that would be recognized by those in the know was a powerful enough sight to make a timid mage automatically prostrate themselves before her.

But Touta spoke to her without any shyness at all. It seemed like he wasn’t nervous around girls his own age. And the girl, Yol, didn’t criticize Touta for it, gladly accepting the gift he’d brought. The charming joy of a girl of that age saying, “Oh my, I’m so glad” and “Thank you,” would bring anyone joy. There was a human goodness different from a magical girl’s coquettishness. Touta tried to act mature, saying, “Oh, it’s nothing much,” as he scratched his head, but there was a smirk on his face. Still, it was different from the nasty self-satisfaction of an adult. It was childlike and pleasant, too.

But the servant who stood beside Yol didn’t seem to think that way; she was practically glaring at Touta. When Touta happened to look up, he noticed that glare and lowered his eyes like a child being scolded over something done wrong. He hadn’t done anything bad enough to deserve that, though.

Marguerite glanced at Yol’s servant—the one who stood on Yol’s right side and had been glaring at Touta. Noticing that, said servant glared at Marguerite next. Though her robes might have seemed confusing, since they featured a family crest about a rank down from Yol, she and the other servant were both magical girls.

The other of Yol’s two servants was letting her eyes wander all over uncomfortably, but nobody was going to save her. Her black hair, straight bangs, and round glasses were very plain for a magical girl, but her facial features were beautiful.

Noticing that Touta was acting strangely, Yol turned to look back and finally realized that one of her servants was glaring at him. “Whatever are you doing?” she asked her servant.

“I am merely looking straight ahead, as usual, miss. Just…”

“Just?”

“I would say that those who have something to hide will often avert their eyes thoughtlessly.”

“You’re always saying things like that, Maiya.”

Marguerite furrowed her brow. Now that the name had been said out loud, she couldn’t pretend not to have noticed.

Maiya didn’t miss that, either, the corners of her mouth twisting.

Marguerite mentally clicked her tongue, to which Maiya replied, “It seemed you meant to pretend you wouldn’t notice, Miss Marguerite.”

Marguerite knew that if she noticed Maiya, it would mean trouble. But if she admitted she’d meant to pretend she never noticed her, it would plainly mean even more trouble. “…Not at all. I only just noticed you. Your attire was different than the Maiya I know.”

“Hmph, you came prepared with that excuse…”

The Maiya whom Marguerite had met before had carried a staff that was exceedingly humorous in appearance and color—it looked like a candy cane—and matched its bearer’s clown-like costume.

But the murderous aura that welled up from Maiya’s whole body, as well as her expression of smothering those feelings, made everything about her that should have been humorous instead eerie, fathomless, and frightening. Not a single person who had faced Maiya had thought of her staff as silly.

At a glance, Maiya appeared empty-handed. But upon closer inspection, there was a little lump under her right arm. She was hiding the staff under her robe. She would draw it immediately if her mistress was in danger. And then she would wield it without mercy, brutally enough that you wouldn’t be able to tell who was the victim anymore.

It wasn’t clear whether Yol had noticed the mood between Marguerite and Maiya; she clapped her hands to get their attention. “So you’re acquaintances.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” said Maiya. “We unfortunately keep bumping into each other.”

“Don’t say that. Aren’t you the one who told me you have to value your friends, Maiya?”

“If they are friends, they should be valued, but that’s not the case for those who are not friends.”

“You have this nice opportunity to see each other again, so you should rekindle your friendship. We’ll go have a chat in my room.” Yol stood and took Touta’s hand, dragging him to his feet. Maiya’s eyes widened in shock, but Yol ignored that, leading Touta toward the door at the back. Maiya started reaching out one hand but stopped halfway and retracted it, then called out “Rareko” to the magical girl next to her, who hurriedly followed after her master and Touta.

At the hall exit, Navi called, “Ohhh, a couple of young people are stepping out of the party together? Getting frisky!”

Yol laughed. “Oh, Uncle, you always say such funny things.”

Navi tried to add something else, but noticing Maiya’s murderous look, he shrugged and chuckled. “Heh-heh.”

The two children and one magical girl left the hall. Marguerite and Maiya remained standing there, staring at each other. Maiya was really closer to glaring. Her face contorted even more as she bitterly spat, “Eugh. I never expected to see your face in a place like this.”

“I could say the same thing,” Marguerite replied.

Marguerite had run into Maiya many times during the Archfiend Cram School’s events. Since they had both been outside participants and not members of the school, Marguerite would hear things about her whether she liked it or not. She’d heard Maiya had a position like a nurse and home tutor in the house of a mage, and that the reason she gave for participating in events was “I can’t have my skills become rusty if the time comes when I must protect my master.” Most people participated in those events for letting off steam or for simple pleasure, like a hobby. Marguerite had thought making your job your excuse really made you such an extreme workaholic, but now that she reconsidered it, she had actually done the very same. She sighed at herself.

Tracing back through her memories of Maiya rekindled indescribable bitterness, anger, and vexation in her heart. She knew it wasn’t any fault of Maiya’s, but looking at Maiya made Marguerite remember and brought a frown to her face.

Around when had that been? There had been no established rules back then, and they hadn’t had the media exposure, either. Which meant it had to have been quite a long time ago.

Marguerite had been participating in an Archfiend Cram School event. The school was a gathering of battle-mad magical girls who flocked to the strongest of them all, Archfiend Pam. Calling it a part of diligent training and to make them stronger, they had periodically held large-scale combat tournaments.

The rules had been primitive and violent. The participants would wander around a plain and clash with each other, and the last one standing was the victor. Since the participants were all hooligans with primitive and violent ends, nobody would ever complain indignantly about how awful it was and storm off. They gleefully threw themselves into a banquet of barbarism, enjoying hitting and getting hit.

Marguerite had reasons she couldn’t enjoy herself there. She hadn’t joined in for personal pleasure—she was participating as an instructor of the Inspection Department.

Sometimes she had trainees whom she wanted to gain combat experience, but they weren’t ready to risk their lives in actual fights, so she would take them to Archfiend Cram School events to give them a sense of what real combat was like.

Archfiend Pam herself declared it safe, and Marguerite supervised, too. Compared to real fights against criminals, it wasn’t like this couldn’t be called safe-ish. If everyone they were up against would be great fighters, that was decent enough.

Marguerite had brought only one magical girl that time. Most years, there would be three or five, but there was only one pre-newbie apprentice that year. Year after year, the Inspection Department was becoming less and less popular. The pay was too low for how much of your time it demanded, and more than that, it was too dangerous. Of course there wouldn’t be more willing candidates.

But even if she didn’t have a great quantity of candidates, she wasn’t exactly lacking in quality. The apprentice inspector Annamarie was good enough that she could even pass as a new student at the Archfiend Cram School. With her bullfighter-style costume, carrying a muleta made of a stick and cloth, two banderillas at her waist, a saber, and a brilliant capote, all crossed with a flamenco dress, she was flamboyant enough to hurt the eye.

In contrast with her fantastical appearance, the way she fought was grounded and solid. She was a defensive fighter, focusing on blocking and evasion to find a weakness in her enemies and finish them off. She was resilient mentally and physically, and she’d never once given up, not even in the Inspection Department’s infamous hell training.

In hindsight, that had to mean she’d been training to defeat a particular enemy, but at the time, Marguerite hadn’t thought to pry into her personal situation. Annamarie had just been an apprentice worth training. Her style had a lot in common with Marguerite’s own, being a fencer using a rapier, so there were many techniques she could teach her.

But the problem wasn’t techniques or physicality. It was something mental.

As was not uncommon with strong magical girls like her, Annamarie could be vain about her strength. Marguerite had taught her with pain that there was a stronger than strong, but that just ended with Annamarie acknowledging that Marguerite was stronger than her, and her faith in her own strength never wavered.

It’s important to believe in your own strength. If a magical girl loses that and her spirit breaks, she’ll meet her end before long. But it was still a problem for her to believe that she was stronger than everyone else, and Marguerite was an exception. That would kill her quickly, too.

Having her apprentice join in this event was supposed to have corrected that tendency at least a bit, but contrary to Marguerite’s expectations, Annamarie chalked up nothing but victories.

Handling her magic muleta like a part of her body, she blocked attacks and trapped weapons or tied up enemies directly. Her magic muleta that could change its hardness at will was a powerful weapon as well as armor.

Marguerite knew that some of those magical girls were actually very strong, but the stronger they were, the more wary they were of Marguerite, who stood behind Annamarie, and their distraction led to their defeat. Or more like Annamarie tended to actively use Marguerite’s presence as bait. She really fought like a bullfighter, creating openings in her opponent.

She was confident in her own strength and yet would also use some sneaky moves that would make some scowl and accuse her of unfair tricks. The more Marguerite tried to hide herself, the more those who were skilled in combat would turn their attention to Marguerite, and they would be defeated without having the chance to fight with all their strength.

Annamarie would be overjoyed with each victory, and then her instructor escort would admonish her, but Annamarie would be glad anyway. Plus, when Annamarie smiled at her, Marguerite smiled back instinctively. Then Marguerite would make a face and say, “You’ll get a lecture once we get back.”

That was when Maiya showed up.

She appeared in a completely natural manner, practically gliding toward them from the shadow of the trees. Her core was firm, steady. She wasn’t just strong—she moved like a magical girl with mastery in martial arts.

Marguerite recognized her. Her face and name were already well-known. She was a master of staff techniques, and she was as good as the top members of the Archfiend Cram School graduates. Even for Annamarie, who could pass for a new student at the cram school, this was the wrong fight to pick.

Maiya swiped from right to left, and Annamarie blocked with her muleta and riposted with her saber—Maiya pushed back, right leg stepping forward to catch Annamarie’s foot, and next Annamarie threw a banderilla, making Maiya jump back as she swiped it aside with her staff as Annamarie immediately went for a follow-up strike.

There was a triple stab from Annamarie’s saber, but Maiya turned each thrust aside with butter-smooth blocks as she slid in range. Annamarie responded by coming forward as well. There was almost zero distance between them.

The triple stab was the bait. By deliberately making a wide move to offer an opening, she drew Maiya in.

Annamarie made her real attack with the muleta. Once she was close to her opponent, she hardened the cloth part of the muleta and swung it as a single board perpendicular to the ground, aiming to crush the top of Maiya’s foot. With a cry of, “Olé!” she struck sharply. But Maiya had already moved. She’d shifted her leg back by one foot’s length as she simultaneously grabbed the edge of the muleta with her right hand to push it downward, along with the force of Annamarie’s swing.

Two people’s worth of force made the muleta stab deep in the ground, leaving Annamarie’s face defenseless. Her mouth opened in shock, but it was already too late. Before she could soften the muleta and pull it out of the ground, Maiya’s stick hit her. She fell in a single attack. The muleta was still thrust in the ground beside her like a grave marker, but she wasn’t dead—merely unconscious.

Maiya had read her utterly. Marguerite didn’t think Annamarie had used her magic in front of Maiya before, but Maiya had used her movement, flow, rhythm, eye movement, everything as material to carefully read her aim and lay her trap. Annamarie, who had been enjoying the strike and riposte with her opponents in the rhythm of a flamenco, must not have understood she was going down until that very moment.

Maiya withdrew her staff in a flowing motion and turned to Marguerite. She’d had an eye on Marguerite all through the fight, ready to be attacked at any time. It’s quite something that she beat Annamarie so thoroughly anyway, Marguerite thought, privately impressed as she spread her palms toward her opponent, raising them on either side of her head. A revenge match for her student would be counter to her goal. Annamarie had lost, so Marguerite’s job as her chaperone was to carry her to the medical tent.

Maiya gave Marguerite a murderous look. That look said, “If you’re not going to fight, then don’t come to a place like this.” Scowling and with her staff pointed toward Marguerite the whole time, she left.

When Annamarie woke up in bed, she pressed a hand to her forehead and said, “Aw, I lost.” She didn’t look as defeated as her words said.

Marguerite also had lots of things she wanted to say, but for now, she figured, Oh well, and nodded generously.

“I won’t lose when it’s for real,” Annamarie said.

Her saying “for real,” that had to refer to, in other words, the incident she would later cause. If Marguerite had been considering things more seriously, she might have been able to figure that out. But she hadn’t thought about it deeply at the time, her only insignificant impression being, She’s tough, after being beaten that badly.

It was a strength for a magical girl to be resilient and never get discouraged—especially for investigators working for the Inspection Department. At the time, Marguerite had thought that if Annamarie grew in the areas where she should and work on her weaknesses, she wouldn’t only become strong but would become a first-class investigator.

Now, she could understand. She had made her own assumptions about what sort of magical girl Annamarie was. That had been hopeless arrogance on her part.

Marguerite had run into Maiya at many events after that. Annamarie had been with her at some of them, but there had also been times without her. But now only the times with Annamarie kept coming back to her. Every single one of those memories tortured her. Looking at Maiya made her remember how she’d been then, made her think of Annamarie with pointless thoughts of, If I’d only done this, if I’d only done that, racing through her head. She almost sighed, but she swallowed it.

Marguerite was too polite to say honestly, “Seeing your face makes me remember things I don’t want to,” and she maintained a vague expression as she was forced to converse with Maiya. “It seems you’re still in good form…”

“That goes for both of us,” Maiya replied. “Though I heard you quit Inspection.”

“I did.”

“You’re freelance?”

“I am.”

“Is that your current employer?”

“It’s mean to call him ‘that.’”

“‘That’ is enough for insects who approach the miss—well…” Maiya casually grabbed the tip of her pointed hat and gripped it. It formed wrinkles in the brand-new hat, and looking at the brow underneath it, you could see bitter lines there, too. “There’s actually a worse insect.”

“What kind?”

“Filth that deserves to be addressed as the kind of massive, toxic vermin that writhes around at the bottom of a night soil jar. That thing keeps approaching in an attempt to butter up the miss. Never mind contact, it’s noxious to have that thing anywhere close. Agh, absolutely vile.”

“…Is that person here?”

Maiya spoke quieter. “Listen, Marguerite. Work with me. Don’t let Navi Ru approach the miss. If you cooperate with me, it may be possible for me to establish your client’s position.”

In events, Maiya was like a wild animal that knew only the hunt. Now, she looked like a working adult dealing with lots of problems. Had time changed her, or did she put on a different face depending on when she was off or not?

Marguerite nodded, prompting her to continue.

  Touta Magaoka

“Weren’t those two glaring at each other? Are they okay?” Touta asked.

“It’s fine, it’s fine; we should let those old friends chat together.” Yol walked briskly on ahead—still holding Touta’s hand.

Her fingers were soft, smooth, cold, and chilly, but they were gradually warming up. When Touta realized that was because he was warming them up, he yanked his hand away. Yol turned back to him with an expression like, “My,” and smiled right back at him. Ahead of where she indicated with a “Go ahead” was an open door, and Touta realized they’d come to her room.

It was way bigger on the inside than he’d expected. There was a sofa smaller than the one they’d been sitting on before, a long table, some kind of cabinet with alcohol and wineglasses in it, and two more doors on the other side of the room. Maybe that was where she got changed and slept and stuff. The words that he imagined of his own accord—“getting changed” and “sleeping”—made Touta blush, and he hurried on into the room.

Yol moved her cape to the side to sit, while Touta sat on the seat opposite her, and the magical girl in glasses who had been called Rareko went to stand behind Yol.

“So then, let us begin,” Yol said.

“Begin…what?” Touta asked.

“Tee-hee, why don’t we stop pretending we don’t know?” She was acting rather strange—somehow different from before. She seemed bolder or something, like a rival character from anime or manga. “I’ve been researching how magic is treated in worlds other than the Magical Kingdom—how the existence of the technology we call magic, which shouldn’t even be known about, has been received and grown culturally.”

“Ah, yeah.”

Yol suddenly leaped to her feet, cape fluttering. On the inside of her cape shone countless somethings… Touta narrowed his eyes and examined whatever they were. Looking closely, he recognized them. “The Hellfire-Burnt Queen,” “Dream of the Extreme,” “The Lady Knight’s Anguish,” “Devilish Twin Angels,” “Robot’s Treasure,” “Anonymous Seraph”—attached to her cape were cards from the wildly popular trading card game Magical Battlers. It was packed with rows of difficult-to-acquire promotional cards or rare cards that were too expensive for him to get his hands on.

“Touta Magaoka,” Yol said. “I immediately recognized that name. You’re a duelist as well, aren’t you? You won third place in the fifth annual national Battlers elementary school tournament.”

“Huh? How do you know…?” Touta wondered. “Oh, is it ’cause my name came up in a magazine?”

“It’s an unusual name. In my pursuit of other cultures, I fell to the temptation of dueling…”

“Oh, I see.”

“Now come, Touta! Choose the regulations you’re most skilled at! Now, let the curtains rise on the game of darkness!”

“Sorry, I didn’t bring my deck.”

“Huh?” Yol’s eyes widened. She stared back at Touta with her mouth half open. “Why not?”

“Miss Marguerite told me not to pack anything that would get in the way…”

“My goodness… But the deck might be called the soul of a duelist…!” Yol cried out, throwing her hat to the floor. Rareko dithered, unable to do a thing, but it wasn’t like Touta could do anything, either, as Yol stomped on her hat over and over. “But I planned to show off my Satacon!”

“Huh? Satacon? You mean General Satan Control?”

“That’s right. Of course you must know about it. Using the Control Deck typical in Battlers, you hold out however you can using counters and bounces until you can play the high-cost demon General Satan—”

“No, I know that… But you can’t play Satacon now, right?”

“Why not? My darling Satan can sally forth anytime—”

“General Satan’s a banned card now, though.”

“No way?!”

“Last week, there were some special revisions aside from the regular revisions, a bunch of errata came up, and they announced like an afterthought that General Satan’s been made a banned card… I heard that all cards related to General Satan have gone down in price across the board, and card shops aren’t doing buybacks.”

“This can’t be… How absurd!” Yol fell to her knees. The set of cards attached to the inside of her cape hit the floor with a thump, and her hair, in an incredible state, wafted down together with it. “I can only acquire information from Monthly TCG… So if it happened last week… No… Could it be…there is an upheaval in the scene…?”

“Yeah.”

“Dreadful… This is simply too dreadful… But my Satacon… It was so finely tuned! I read every single dribble of meta, and the meta on the meta…” Yol was on her hands and knees on the floor, shoulders trembling. She was in shock.

Touta looked over at Rareko and saw she was still completely flustered. It didn’t seem like she’d be useful. In other words, he had to be the one to do something. “U-um…isn’t this an opportunity, though?”

Yol looked up. It revealed her face, which had been hidden under her hair. There were tears in her eyes. “Opportunity…for what? My darling Satan is gone now…”

“That was gonna happen anyway. They’ve been saying that ninety percent of the top-of-the-world tournament was face-offs between similar Satacons… But you know, now that it’s been banned, new decks can come into play…right? I’ve heard that, now, famous deck builders are coming up with the decks that will dominate the new scene.”

Yol straightened up into a formal kneel on the floor. At some point, she’d stopped crying and sucked it up. “In other words, you mean…this is an opportunity to come up with the new strongest deck and carve my name into Battlers history…?”

“Huh? Yeah. Well, maybe.”

Yol stood with her hat in hand, swept the dust off it, straightened it up, and put it on her head. She clenched her right hand in front of her chest. With her eyes focused on the ceiling, she cried, “True opportunity lies in times of crisis!”

“Ah, that’s the catchphrase God-Emperor Iizuka used a lot in the second season of the anime.”

“Now that it’s decided, it’s time to build a deck. You help, too.”

“Oh, sure. Are the cards that aren’t in your deck pinned to your cape, too? Isn’t that hard to use?”

“But it’s cool.”

“True, it is cool.”

“I had it specially made.”

“Awww, nice.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead in relief and glanced at Rareko.

  Dreamy Chelsea

Poor Mr. Shepherdspie was stuck in bed. He said unlike magical girls like Mary and Chelsea, mages weren’t any tougher than humans. The double-punch of falling down a floor and inhaling smoke, plus the little fire and damage to the building, had weakened him both physically and mentally. Saying that he didn’t want to do anything anymore, he had crawled into bed and stopped moving.

Chelsea felt kind of bad, too. She’d gotten a little overexcited about her first job. So after reflecting on her actions and with her boss self-confined to bed, she decided to do her best to improve his view of her as much as she could by giving him the energy to get up, at least. So for starters, she took Pastel Mary out to fix the place that had been damaged.

“No, no way, no way,” Mary rambled in a panic. “There’s no way we can fix this. We need to get a carpenter.”

“Yeahhh, huh. An amateur couldn’t do this, huh.”

Failure already.

After discussing with Mary, they decided they would try to clean things up, at least. Mary drew some sheep and used them to cart away rubble, while Chelsea strung a yellow rope around the trees of the area and hung up signs saying NO ENTRY. While they worked on it, mages who said they’d come to visit the island showed up now and again, and each time, the two magical girls told them, “Shepherdspie is in bed right now, since he doesn’t feel well,” and had to guide the guests to a different building.

I see, so this is work, Chelsea thought. This work thing was more of a monotonous drag than she’d expected. But when she saw Mary looking like she might drop dead at any moment, Chelsea really couldn’t leave it all to her while she took a break.

But maybe a short break would be fine while she went off to the kitchen to leave a gift from a guest there. So with that thought, she left their work site. The gift was a paper bag from a well-known department store. Inside, wrapped in the paper of an equally well-known bakery, was a box. Chelsea’s instincts were telling her this was an assorted cookie set. If she was at home, she would just open it and have some, and if her mother complained about it after, Chelsea could apologize then, but even she didn’t have the guts to do that at work.

She seemed to recall that the white chocolate cookies from this shop were really good. If she could get online, she could have checked the reviews or the product description, but now, she could only gaze at the box. What a shame, what a shame, she thought as she stared at it. I suppose there’s no harm in just cutting the seal. If she did that, though, she knew she’d take one automatically, and so she stared helplessly at the box until she figured she should get back. She left the temptation alone on the table and turned away to find Mary, peering out from behind a pillar and staring at her.

“…I’m not going to eat them, okay?” Chelsea said.

“Really…?” Mary was leery.

“Of course I’m not going to eat them, geez. More importantly, why are you here?”

“You took so long coming back, so I thought maybe you were stealing a bite…”

“I’m not gonna, I swear! It’s all good, okay?”

Maybe Pastel Mary was sharper than Chelsea had thought. Mentally revising her evaluation of her, Chelsea returned to her work. But once they were done removing the debris and cleaning up where the fire had been, there was hardly any work left.

Once she was done stringing the ropes and looked up, thinking she was done with the job, she saw the hole on the wall of the estate. It was the spot where she had stepped through the floor and had fallen along with it. “Ahhh, I forgot about that.”

“Wouldn’t it be best to cover it with a plastic sheet or something?” Mary pointed out.

“Oh? You think?” Chelsea was doubtful.

“It would be bad if rain or something blew in through there, right?”

“It’s so sunny, though. I doubt it’ll rain anytime soon.”

“But the wind will blow in.”

“I think that’ll be nice and refreshing.”

“It doesn’t look very nice seen from the outside, though.”

“You don’t think it’s cool in a sort of avant-garde way?”

“Chelsea…are you trying to reduce your workload?”

“No, no, not at all! I’m totally raring to go… Huh?” Something crossed a corner of her eye. A translucent human figure resembling a lamp genie was carrying a tin of cookies, picking out one of them to crunch—

“Hey! You! You magical girl or whatever person over there!” Chelsea cried.

The translucent girl in lamp genie–themed attire looked right, left, down, and then pointed to herself. “You mean Mei?”

“You can’t just eat those cookies! And how did you get them?”

“This is Mei’s now, so Mei will eat them.”

“Those aren’t yours! They’re Mr. Pie’s!”

“I don’t know any pies. Funny Trick gave them to Mei. This is Mei’s.” She sharply turned away from Chelsea like she was ready to fly off. At this rate, the cookie thief was going to slip through Chelsea’s fingers. Even Chelsea had resisted the urge, but a magical girl whose name she didn’t know was going to run away with those delicious brand-name cookies.

Chelsea looked down at a rock at her feet. Should she kick it? But if that girl was to dodge it the wrong way, the rock could hit the cookie tin by mistake. If the cookies inside were broken, it would all be for nothing. The girl’s semitransparent coloring was also curious. When that type of enemy appeared in video games, physical attacks wouldn’t work on it.

Chelsea switched gears, going after the cookie tin. No way in hell that could resist physical attacks. And she wouldn’t use her magic. Basically, the best idea was to steal the tin from the girl. She would get close and snatch it away.

“Wh-what do we do, Chelsea?” Mary asked.

“No worries! You just leave this to Dreamy Chelsea!”

Chelsea confirmed the enemy position. She was getting away—already twenty-five feet up, thirty-five feet away from the building. Using the wall, that was close enough to make it. With her first step, Chelsea leaped off the ground, then she set one foot against the wall of the estate to run up the side of it. Hop, hop, hop—snagging uneven spots in the wall with her toes to race up, she ascended until she’d reached the same height as the lamp genie. Bending her legs all the way to ready for one final horizontal spring, there was a nasty creak, and her footing crumbled away. The wall came tumbling down, throwing Chelsea to the ground, where she managed to catch herself in a roll.

Mary, however, was making her escape into the forest astride a sheep. She was twisting her head to look back with an expression of desperation as she yelled, “Up! Up!”

Looking up as instructed, Chelsea saw the collapsing stone wall of the estate slowly falling toward her. Chelsea ran after Mary, then overtook her, and the wall came down—rather, part of the building came down, spilling into the trees in the area with a loud crash, sending a cloud of dust billowing up as fruit and nuts rolled, as well as crushing the rope she’d worked so hard to put up, too.

Mary, Chelsea, and the sheep all managed to escape to safety. They weren’t hurt. But Chelsea didn’t feel like she’d been saved—because the scale of destruction was just so big. Mary’s lamenting “Ahhh…” like she was digesting the event shoved the seriousness of the situation in Chelsea’s face.

Chelsea considered how she could talk her way out of this and decided to foist it off on the cookie thief. That would work best.

  Love Me Ren-Ren

Mages were all important people. Without them, magical girls would never have been created.

Having a lot of people around was very nerve-racking. None of the magical girls were standing. The half-beast Clantail; the pair wearing mages’ robes, Maiya and Rareko; and Miss Marguerite—who was in the style of an aristocratic lady—all stood beside their employers.

Thinking she should do so as well, Ren-Ren made to stand, but Agri grabbed her hand and stopped her. “Where are you rushing off to?”

“No, um,” Ren-Ren began.

“Right now is a time for talking, so you should talk. Okay, talk.”

Taking Ren-Ren and Nephilia with her, Agri shifted to a new seat. Mana and Yol were very charming, while Ragi seemed rather worn out, perhaps because of his age, and Touta seemed unused to things, like some random elementary schooler brought in and forced into mage clothes. Common to all of them was the sense that they were not bad people.

After a brief chat, Agri returned to her spot across from Navi. “He’s a little different from what I heard,” she said.

“Ahhh, the old man.” Navi nodded.

The two of them were whispering together. Their conversation was protected by magic so the other mages and magical girls wouldn’t overhear.

“I heard he was a fiery old grump, though,” Agri said.

“Who knows…? Maybe it’s age.” Navi shrugged. “Rumors say he has plenty of rage left to spare, though.”

“If he’s going to be like that, then we don’t have to bother going to talk to him, right?”

“Yeah, I’m good as long as he stays quiet.”

The others didn’t seem like bad people, but it was a bit hard to tell. At least, Ren-Ren had trouble saying for sure either way.

“What about the others?” Agri asked Navi.

“I know Yol. We’re on good terms. But that magical girl she’s got really has it out for me. The best thing would be to avoid letting that one offer any opinions.”

“Why does she hate you?”

“I dunno. She’s viscerally repulsed by me or something. Women are irrational.”

“Don’t just lump women all together.”

“I don’t hate women in general. I’m actually thankful for them.”

“Hold on.” Clarissa cut in on their conversation, rising from her seat. “Didn’t you hear something?”

“No, did you?” said Navi.

“I didn’t really hear anything,” Agri added.

Ren-Ren and Nephilia said they hadn’t heard anything, and Clarissa closed her eyes, her big ears trembling minutely. Navi grabbed her arm and muttered, like he was talking to himself, “There are things only Clarissa can hear.” She probably had excellent hearing, just like she appeared.

“I’m not sure…,” Clarissa said. “It sounded like something collapsing.”

“From where?” Navi asked.

“From the estate.”

“Hey, hey, that can’t be good.”

“There was a spot that had come down, right? That’s got to be it,” said Agri.

“Nobody better have been caught in it. We might as well go take a look.” Navi smacked his knee with a large palm and stood up. In a voice far louder than the whisper he’d been using to discuss, he called out, “Hey, everybody,” and gathered all attention on himself. “It sounds like the main building—”

There was a clatter from the corner, and a cup and its contents spilled out. It was diagonally across the room, some ways away, but Ren-Ren judged what had happened in a single glance.

A table had flipped over. Ren-Ren and Nephilia stepped in front of Agri, and Clarissa spread her arms out to cover Navi. Marguerite, near the exit, put a hand on her rapier, while Maiya pulled out a colorful staff. 7753, who’d been sitting comparatively closer, staggered to her feet. And then Clantail scooped up Ragi in her arms. Ragi had fallen, knocking over the table.

“Hey, old man, you oka—?” Right as Navi tried to approach him, he pitched forward and crumpled. Clarissa immediately caught him. Agri slumped against Ren-Ren, who hastily caught her in her arms.

Ren-Ren scanned the room. 7753’s arms were around Mana’s shoulders. Maiya and Marguerite had raced out the back door.

“What…?” Agri moaned. Ren-Ren stayed alert as she held Agri close. “I…feel so weak… Getting weaker…”

“Please don’t force yourself to talk,” Ren-Ren said.

Something felt off. Whose voice was that? she wondered, but it was just her own voice. Agri’s body, limply slumped against her, felt heavy—even though there was no way a magical girl would find the weight of a single adult woman as heavy.

Holding Agri, Ren-Ren checked her right arm. It was not a transparent clear white with long, graceful fingers. It was a human arm, with fine hairs on it.

She looked over at Nephilia. A girl in a blazer-style school uniform of about high school age was looking at her in surprise. Her eyebrows were well maintained and on the defined side, with dyed soft brown hair in a straight cut that went down to her back and glossy lips. There wasn’t much about her that was the same as Nephilia, but Ren-Ren could tell. She was Nephilia. She was the only one who would look amused in a situation like this.

A petite girl in braided pigtails, glasses, and a sailor uniform fell into the sofa along with Ragi, and the one lending her shoulder to Mana—a woman in pajamas in her midtwenties—lost her balance, too, diving into the sofa. A girl in a skirt with suspenders was almost crushed under Navi. Once she somehow managed to crawl out, it was clear she was about elementary or middle school age, maybe younger.

“What is the meaning of this?! What is going on?!” That one had to be in her forties. A woman fashionably attired in a fine gray business suit was yelling. She held a limp Yol in her arms. So that was Maiya. The young woman in black-rimmed glasses and a maid outfit following her appeared to be trembling and nervous, suspiciously looking all around the room. That would be Rareko. Her attitude was the same as when she was transformed, and her appearance was plain. Touta, who appeared next, was looking at Yol with concern, but he was able to walk on his own. The woman in her late twenties behind him who was glancing around the room—that had to be Marguerite. Her casual attire of a long T-shirt and skinny jeans was completely different from her magical-girl form, but her utterly alert stance and calm gaze was the same.

“I’m asking what’s going on!” Maiya repeated furiously.

The magical girls—now no longer magical girls—looked at one another, saw that nobody was going to answer, and grew visibly confused. They had no idea what had just happened. The one thing they did understand was that they were in big trouble.