Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 14 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

MAGICAL GIRLS IN REGULAR CLOTHING

  John Shepherdspie

In any era, mages tended to look down on food and beverages, and some even thought enjoyment of such was a sin. Many would disparage such things: “There’s no need to fixate on the mere intake of nutrients!” “It’s a waste to spend time on cooking and eating!” “One should put that time to use in study and research!” “That’s just lazy pigs touting ‘culture’ as a plausible excuse!” among other complaints. Shockingly few would endorse gourmet cuisine. Whenever a mage showed an interest, it ended up being something like, “Let’s create food with magic, and if we’re going to do it anyway, it might as well be good.” But the creation of food and drink with magic is equivalent to the process of automation, and a personal touch is necessary for achieving fine balance and revolutionary innovation.

Shepherdspie’s opinion on the matter was simple and straightforward: “Nothing beats delicious food.”

Those words echoed in Shepherdspie’s mind. No sooner had his eyes flared open than they squinted in the light of the sun seeping in through the gaps of the curtains.

Yes. Nothing at all beat delicious food. In order to obtain it, he had to work, though. He couldn’t stay in bed forever. Shepherdspie stirred and propped himself on his elbows in bed. He felt too weary to be simply fatigued. He’d sustained nothing worse than bruises when falling from the floor above, and he hadn’t broken any bones. Perhaps this wasn’t harm to his body but to his inner self.

It was true that he’d experienced an emotional shock, but he couldn’t be lying around in bed forever. He had an obligation. He swept off the blanket.

Shepherdspie had been preparing for this day, and that preparation wasn’t a hardship. He had never put full effort into exercise, study, magic, arts, or anything else like that, but the one thing he could passionately devote his energy to was food and cooking. He heaved himself up.

He’d researched all the most excellent ingredients with the utmost thoroughness. In addition to the local products such as the vegetables, pork and pork bones, green pheasant, and fish, he had also made orders for beef shank, beef bones, celery, green onion, bouquet garni, and various other ingredients. It all looked delicious. And it was delicious. True gourmet was already beautiful in the ingredient stage.

Ahhh, what beauty!

Slicing and shaving off the meat. Breaking and crunching the bones. Delicately and sometimes boldly. Such craftsmanship—no, this was art—could not be accomplished by using magic with an eye only to convenience. He focused his eyes to skim the broth with as much precision as was humanly possible. The bouillon was brimming with gold, the clear amber essentially a masterpiece. The broth and the sauce—the essence of a dish, some might say—would cause problems for cooks because of the subtleties that wouldn’t last in the fridge, but putting them in the storage here could keep them in a freshly made state forever. Shepherdspie made precise use of magic in such specific areas in pursuit of the pinnacle of cuisine, something beyond a mere advancement to amateur craft. He would not only entertain as the host; he would bring the guests joy as a chef.

I’ll channel all the techniques I’ve learned…!

His excitement grew. He raised himself up on the bed.

He had covered every contingency when deciding the menu as well.

He’d avoided anything too oily, which would be hard on older people, while also including food that children would favor, such as pudding and ice cream as petit fours. Additionally, some of the guests were commoners. Rather than course cuisine that demanded formal manners, they would probably prefer to eat casually in a buffet style while mingling with the others. He made the drinks with lower alcohol content, selecting a popular apple brandy over some pretentious antique wine. For the children, there was freshly squeezed juice of various fruits. Without trying to show off or be officious, he nevertheless enlivened the eating. The individuality and taste of the chef was expressed in the aperitif selections, too.

That’s right… There are people waiting for me…for my cooking!

Gritting his teeth, putting his hands on his knees, Shepherdspie forced himself to rise.

Not making it a standard multicourse dinner would offer more freedom in the menu, too. The dish Shepherdspie loved the most, the one he’d made his own name, shepherd’s pie, was too much a home cooking item to serve to mages, but it was actually perfect for a buffet. Plenty of mashed potatoes. And then ground beef—Shepherdspie’s own preference was lamb, but he would nix that this time out of consideration for Mary—Époisses de Bourgogne, fermented butter, bacon smoked with sakura wood chips, a little olive oil, and cream as the secret ingredient.

Heh-heh, fwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Just imagining it, he couldn’t stop drooling. Absolutely delicious. He was willing to bet his whole fortune on this. Shepherdspie had just that much confidence in it. Anyone who ate it would sing its praises. It wasn’t as if Shepherdspie really loved or respected his guests. He wasn’t particularly fond of the men and women he was working himself to the bone to please. But he wanted their compliments. He wanted them to acknowledge that Shepherdspie was exceptionally talented in the field of cuisine. He wanted applause, cheers, praise, cries of shock and awe, that sort of thing.

Tossing off his nightcap, he slung his robe over his pajamas and forced his dragging legs, lifting them up and down to get to the door. When he undid the knob lock and opened the door, light poured in. It was blinding. Shepherdspie squinted, holding his right hand up to the light. The beautiful light of the sun, as if indicating his exultant future—

“…Huh?” he blurted out.

No wonder the light was blinding. There was no wall. Or rather, it wasn’t that there was no wall at all. It was still there. But it wasn’t doing its job. Not only was the light coming in from the outside, exposing the miserable aftermath of destruction, but wind was blowing in, too. Looking up, it wasn’t just the first floor—the second and third beyond were all gone, too. Blown in the wind, Shepherdspie staggered and reached out to put his hand to the wall, but before he could, he stopped. The wreckage looked like it would crumble if he leaned on it.

Shepherdspie gently closed the door behind him. His heart was at the opposite pole of gentle, but if he let himself close the door like he felt, the rubble was bound to collapse. His eyes swept right to left, but there was less that was still standing at this point. Rubble that looked like it had originally come from the wall had been piled into a number of large mounds, so there had been some cleanup done. Shepherdspie put a hand to his head. How long had he been asleep? What had to have happened while he was asleep for things to have wound up like this?

Shepherdspie headed to the kitchen, scolding his body and heart that seemed about to falter. He would have liked to lean on the wall for support if he could, but he couldn’t do that, either. It was too dangerous.

The surrounding trees had all been flattened. The basement entrance was a ruined mess. The ceiling of the hallway to the courtyard had come down. Had there been a duel between two mages who hated each other or something? Or had something exploded on accident? Had a herd of wild bulls charged through?

Oh, the guests.

Were the guests who had been invited to the island safe? As the host, Shepherdspie was obligated to protect them. Then he thought of the two magical girls. Were Chelsea and Mary safe? He trembled, and the flesh of his belly hit his thighs. The suspicion crossed his mind that maybe Chelsea’s and Mary’s safety was the wrong thing to worry about. Instead of concerning himself with that, it seemed not at all unlikely that those two had been the cause of this destruction—Shepherdspie shook his head. Smoothing his mussed hair with his right hand, he started walking ahead once more. True, Chelsea had made the floor cave in and Mary had pushed Shepherdspie down a floor, but they hadn’t done anything this terrible. Or rather, this kind of destruction could only be done deliberately.

Despite his denial, the doubt wouldn’t disappear from his mind. Just like the stubborn burn mark at the bottom of a poorly maintained cocotte, it wouldn’t go away, no matter what.

“Ohhh! Mr. Shepherdspie! You’re awake!” she said, roughly throwing down the wooden box she’d been holding. Looking surprised, she sprang over in his direction. It was a human woman. What was the name of that undergarment that was the length of about 85 percent of the body and showed the ankles, again? He thought it had been used in the name of a movie, but he couldn’t remember it. Her white dress shirt not only had dirt on it, but the cuffs were torn, too. Her wavy brown hair was tied up in the back, but he figured it was normally a semi-long cut that curled inward. She was about twenty years old. Her fingers were long, and her nails were cut evenly. There was a protrusion like a callus on her index finger.

Shepherdspie narrowed his eyes. He was ashamed to admit if there was a woman, he would find himself observing her, even at a time like this. But the lines of any women, magical girls included, were without exception artistic, which was also reflected in the cuisine Shepherdspie preferred.

While he was pondering on and on, the woman ran up to him, then stopped. It looked like she tried to say something, but she was panting and couldn’t quite talk. She had her hands on her knees, shoulders heaving.

Shepherdspie breathed a short sigh, then took ten times that to inhale again. “Mary?”

“Huh? H-how—how could you tell?!” Surprised, the woman staggered and wound up on her bottom. Shepherdspie thought about offering her a hand, but he didn’t feel well enough to do so. The woman stood up, then tapped twice with the toe of her pumps to remove the mud that was stuck on her shoes. The mud was already dry; she must not have noticed the mud until she’d fallen over and her shoes were in her field of view.

“You’re…Pastel Mary, yes?” said Shepherdspie.

“Yes, I am…but I’m not transformed right now, right? How can you tell?”

“Well, um.” First of all, she had the same energy. And he also figured from the callus on her index finger and her art-student attire that she was an artist either by trade or as a hobby. Furthermore, when she’d called him Mr. Shepherdspie, he’d been just about certain of her identity.

But now was not the time to be babbling on about that, and since he’d had experiences before where he had talked smugly about things like this and received an unfavorable reaction, he was appropriately evasive and didn’t say how. “I made a good guess.”

“Ohhh.”

“First impression is the most reliable for things like this.”

“Oh, really?”

“Basically. You need an eye for people when hiring, after all.”

“I see.”

“And when you fell over, I knew it was you.”

“That’s my most distinguishing feature? Don’t tell me that!”

“You have no one but yourself to blame, considering how you said you carry yourself differently as a magical girl…” Shepherdspie looked down at her. “You’re not much different at all.”

“I am a bit different.”

“Other magical girls who are more different go without falling over.”

“It’s a really subtle difference. One you can’t tell from appearances alone.”

People who make excuses must look like this to others. That had to be the same for himself as well, he thought with a nod, and he would look quite the disgrace. You always need a reverse teacher, no matter how old you get.

Shepherdspie sighed deeply. He was surprised he had enough energy to talk. Or rather, he didn’t have the time for suffering, since it was too much effort—wasted effort. “That really doesn’t matter right now.”

“Ah! Right! This is a disaster!” the woman cried.

“It’s quite obvious at a glance there’s been a disaster.”

“Not that; there’s an even bigger disaster!”

Shepherdspie just about passed out. There had been a disaster big enough to destroy half the main building of the estate and then an even bigger disaster on top of that? He didn’t want to think about it. But he had to ask. “What happened…?”

“Last night, all the mages collapsed, and all the magical girls were detransformed.”

Now that she mentioned it, the sunlight was shining in from the east. This was the morning sun. This was too long for him to have slept, even if the injury had knocked him out. Did it have something to do with how the mages had collapsed? Was it illness, or gas, or something else? Shepherdspie had learned a fair amount about the systems in the main building, but he couldn’t really say he knew everything about the whole island.

“That really is a disaster,” Shepherdspie said.

“That’s why I told you it’s a disaster.”

“Just what on earth is going on?”

“Mr. Shepherdspie, you don’t have…any ideas about the cause?”

“No. I have no idea.”

“There’s some weird magic cast over the estate, though. It’s not that going out of control?”

“When magical power goes out of control, it’s more obvious to see… Oh, like an explosion or a fire.”

“What about something he was researching leaking out?”

“I don’t think so…” Since it would be distributed as the inheritance, Shepherdspie had gathered all magic items into the storehouse of the main building. He had also assessed the catalog of them, but not being the specialist, he didn’t understand all the effects each item might have. The more specialized the item, the more things about it he wasn’t sure of.

“Is this the only area that’s collapsed?” Shepherdspie asked.

“Yes, it’s just what you can see around here,” the woman replied.

In other words, the storehouse was safe. It didn’t seem like it had to do with the magic items—but magic was magic, so he couldn’t say that for sure.

“I’d like to ask a specialist’s opinion, if possible,” said Shepherdspie.

“Like I said, everyone is down.”

“How bad is it?”

“Aside from one boy, the rest of the mages are all moaning and groaning. And then there’s the magical girls who went to the gate to get help… Actually, I’m impressed you can walk, Mr. Shepherdspie, even though you’re a mage.”

He did feel sluggish, but it wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t move. Was it thanks to his fat, or was it his obsession with cooking?

The word “cooking” rose in his mind, and he looked up. “Cooking…yes, cooking.”

“None of the mages are in the state to eat,” the woman explained, “but when magical girls can’t transform, they get hungry, right? So we decided to have a meal to start before investigating the island, so we had the food that was in the kitchen, but… That was okay, right?”

Shepherdspie staggered. He almost collapsed, but he pulled himself up with the utmost effort. He felt dizzy. This woman was saying that they had eaten the food that had been in the kitchen. And that meant, in other words— Shepherdspie raced off. Or more precisely, his emotions were racing. His body and heart couldn’t keep up, so functionally, he was just walking quickly, but anyway, he was hurrying.

The voice of the woman came after him from behind. “And everyone was wondering! If maybe you don’t know something! And they want you to tell them what you know! Can you hear me? Mr. Shepherdsp—aaaaah!” The woman, who’d been chasing after him, cried out, followed by the sound of hitting the ground. She must have tripped over something and fallen.

Shepherdspie didn’t turn back, and of course he didn’t extend a hand to try to save her, either. He gritted his teeth. The ingredients were ultimately nothing more than ingredients—they were not cuisine. The fond and the bouillon had taken time, but they hadn’t been made to be eaten just like that. It was the efforts following that which would make them true cuisine to serve the guests. And that plan was falling apart because of magical girls.

Shepherdspie loved cuisine, and he respected the people who created it, but that didn’t mean he respected all non-mage humans. He was neither a philanthropist nor a humanitarian, and he despised foolish and worthless people—the types of people who would treat food crudely and who would make a mockery of eating. In that sense, he wasn’t fond of magical girls, as they didn’t need food, either. But it wasn’t as if they chose to not require food and drink. Those who had designed them like that were the ones to be despised, and it was barking up the wrong tree to be complaining to magical girls. But forgiving them for blasphemy against food was a completely different issue.

He heard footsteps coming from behind. Occasionally, they stumbled. Shepherdspie kept moving forward, not turning back. He opened the door to the kitchen, looked at the pot on the stove, moaned “Ahhh,” and fell to his knees. The whole pot of bouillon was completely gone. There was a bag packed with vegetable scraps, too. So they had used those as well? The plates piled on the table were marked with sauce. He leaned in to sniff them. It was canned tomato sauce. They had used it on his carefully selected ingredients without even checking for taste, without any adjustment or addition to the store-bought sauce, just because it was there. Another cry of “Ahhh!” spilled from him.

“Ahhh! I can’t believe you’re still here!”

When the footsteps that had been following him reached the kitchen, an accusatory voice immediately rained down. There was no reason Shepherdspie should be criticized. When he raised his chin in indignation, the woman who’d called herself Mary was glaring down somewhere else, looking upset or angry. With the mountain of plates in the way, Shepherdspie couldn’t see anything. He leaned one hand against the table and slowly stood. Beyond the plates was a woman in a bathrobe hunched all the way over, cradling a soup bowl. He knew that woman. That was Dreamy Chelsea pretransformation.

The woman in the bathrobe held a spoon in her right hand and a soup bowl in her left and was scowling. “You’ve got the wrong idea. Look. This isn’t my fault.”

“This isn’t about fault,” Mary replied. “We can’t be the only ones slacking off when everyone else is busy doing all sorts of things. But the moment you got the chance, you came back to the kitchen to have soup. Even though we just finished breakfast time.”

“I needed nutritional supplementation.”

“Everyone else was satisfied from dinner and breakfast.”

“I have poor fuel efficiency.”

“That’s just nonsense… Ah! The soup is completely gone! You ate it all!”

“That was unavoidable; I mean, this soup is really good… Ah, Mr. Pie!” Looking up from the soup bowl that appeared to have been licked clean, the face of the woman in the bathrobe sparkled. It was a joyful expression, like someone lost in a desert who’d found an oasis. “This soup is great! The best! I’ve never had anything so insanely delicious before! Amazing! Hey, tell me your recipe! I’ll have my mom make it when I get home.”

“At least say you’re going to make it yourself…,” Mary grumbled.

“My mom’s a better cook than I am.”

“Well, um, even if that is true…”

The woman in the bathrobe went on—talking about how delicious the soup had been. How there was no point in living if she couldn’t have any more of this. How if she just had this, more energy would always well up inside her. “If you have welling energy, then do some work,” Mary muttered.

Each time the woman in the bathrobe praised his soup, Shepherdspie’s plump cheeks relaxed, and before he knew it, there was a faint smile on his face. An invigorating sense of satisfaction filled his heart. He pulled out a chair, sat down, and hung his head, completely out of energy. The expression on his own face, reflected in the glass door of the dish cabinet, looked more peaceful than anything he’d seen on himself before. He could just about be satisfied enough to die right that moment, but then he thought, I can’t die now, and shook his head.

  Kotori Nanaya

She had made a big mistake. Lately, staying in magical-girl form had generally brought woes to both her work and private life. If she never detransformed, her dress pretransformation would naturally get sloppier, and she would stop using makeup and stop doing her hair, and she wouldn’t even put on shoes, and with the excuse that she didn’t need it if she was a magical girl, Kotori had gotten sloppier and sloppier. And all of that had led her to now. She hadn’t planned to detransform, so she hadn’t brought clothes. She’d brought a swimsuit because she’d heard they were going to an island, but how could she wear that now? And that was in 7753’s size anyway, so it would be too small.

Everyone else was in school uniforms and formal wear. They were so put together. Some were in casual wear, but it was still clothing they could go outside in. The one in the maid outfit couldn’t be wearing it for fun; that had to be her work uniform. In other words, it had a dignified air.

The only one in her pajamas with no makeup was 7753—Kotori Nanaya. Everyone else surely had registered her as being “the hilarious pajama woman” or “pajamagical girl.” But this situation was dire enough to have made Kotori’s disgrace trivial in comparison.

Something unclear had happened that had caused the mages to collapse and the magical girls’ transformations to come undone. This unclear event could only be expressed as something, and despite having a lineup of veteran magical girls who seemed like they would be far more reliable than Kotori, they all had no idea. Even if they wanted to try asking the mages, Ragi, who seemed like he would be the most knowledgeable, followed by Navi, were both completely unconscious. Yol was struggling to keep her eyes open at all, while Agri and Mana could somehow wring out words. But despite the differences in their symptoms, they were all incapacitated. Only Touta was walking around without any particular difficulty, but he was basically just a normal little kid, and it wasn’t like he had any help or knowledge to offer.

All the mages—even if this didn’t seem like an immediate threat to their lives—were in a fairly serious state. And though the magical girls were mobile, they were in a serious situation of their own. They’d taken their physical abilities and magic for granted, but now they couldn’t use them. They were a few defenseless women stuck on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean where there were wild animals running loose, too.

Though they’d met up with the two magical girls who worked at the estate, they were basically just as clueless. They didn’t know anything about the island, either. They said their employer should know, but he was still asleep and wouldn’t wake up. So they decided to eat to get their strength up first, but Kotori couldn’t even process the taste as good or bad and just forced it down.

Time passed uselessly as they wandered around in confusion until nightfall, and since they couldn’t be walking around in the dark, they decided to take a break for now. But the coming of dawn didn’t resolve anything, and the mages were still fast asleep. Tepsekemei hadn’t come back, either.

Kotori was worried about Mana, but she was also worried about Tepsekemei. All the other magical girls had been human to begin with, so they’d been able to gather together—Tepsekemei was originally a turtle and would have a hard time coming to them. But then this island was so big, it would be difficult to search for a single turtle. If her transformation had come undone while she was flying through the air, then worst case—considering this far, Kotori shook her head.

It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay; Mei is strong. And she’s lucky, too. She’s not going to…

Nephilia, Love Me Ren-Ren, Rareko, and Maiya armed themselves with a poker, hatchet, shovel, and crowbar and headed out for the gate first thing that morning. They would use it to return to the outside world and seek help. Dreamy Chelsea and Pastel Mary would investigate the estate, while Kotori kept an eye on the mages in the annex and stood guard there. Though Clantail and Clarissa Toothedge stayed behind, too, they were both too small to defend anything. The only ones she could rely on were Miss Marguerite and herself.

Kotori’s gaze dropped to the object in her hands. The hammer shone dully under the light of the sun coming in from the window, and it felt heavier than it actually weighed. Her left hand held a pot lid. She held both objects by their wooden handles but felt no warmth from either. She’d been handed these in order to protect herself from beasts, but just how useful would they be? Even in magical-girl form, she wasn’t any good at rough stuff. Could she use these for anything other than carpentry or cooking? Just thinking about it made her heart and stomach feel heavier. She would have at least felt better if she could have transformed, but she couldn’t even do that.

Ever since the incident in B City, she’d been spending more time as a magical girl, even outside of work hours. She’d lost her old habits of detransforming to go shopping or to get her hair done at a popular salon. Every time she remembered the faces of the magical girls she’d met during that incident, it hurt like being cut open. As long as she was in magical-girl form, it would ease the pain.

Maybe that was just running away. Kotori couldn’t deny that. Living with Tepsekemei, a magical girl from B City, forced her to remember all the time. No—she was sure that was an excuse, too. The incident would have lingered in her mind whether Tepsekemei was there or not.

There was no escape on this island. Kotori remained frightened and human, worried about the missing Tepsekemei and Mana, who couldn’t get up, and all she could do was stand there patiently at the annex entrance.

“Um.”

Kotori turned around to see the girl in glasses and braided pigtails standing there. She couldn’t really tell if the girl had an expression or not. She had the stature of a middle schooler or younger, and her face read as middle school or first year of high school at most, but she seemed superficially far calmer than Kotori.

“Um…you’re Clantail, right?” Kotori felt like it was weird to call a human by a magical-girl name, but she didn’t know her name as a human, and it would be weird to ask now, so there was nothing for it but to call her this. “Did something happen?”

“A call.”

“Huh…? Ahhh.”

This wasn’t just a girl of few words—these weren’t enough words here. There was no subject and no verb. But Kotori figured it out. There weren’t many people here who would call for Kotori specifically.

“I’m sorry—can I ask you to handle things here for a while?” Kotori bowed to Clantail, who nodded. Then Kotori strode down the corridor to open the door to the large hall. There were a bunch of sofas there where the mages lay limply. Maybe it would have been better if they rested in the beds in their separate rooms, but since they didn’t have enough people to watch four mages separately, they were forced to lay them on the sofas in the hall and put blankets on top of them.

The girl in a skirt with suspenders looked over at her and stuck up her right thumb to indicate behind her. It was a totally incongruent gesture for an elementary schooler, but when you imagined her original form, it actually felt right. The woman in the long T-shirt with plain English letters printed on it glanced over at her, then immediately returned to her task of fanning the old man. Though she couldn’t have been much older than Kotori, she seemed far more dignified.

Kotori passed by Touta, who was wiping the sweat that was gushing down Navi’s forehead (though it was hard to tell how much of that was forehead), and went to the girl who lay on the sofa at the very back. “Mana?”

“Have a request…,” Mana said, like it was a struggle. It was painful just to look at her, and Kotori wanted to tell her, “Please take it easy and rest now,” but the firm light of will shone in Mana’s eyes. She hadn’t called for Kotori because she was in pain or because she was suffering. That was the look of someone with a goal.

“Take me…my room,” Mana wheezed. Even just getting out a few hoarse, broken words was absolutely the most she could manage. Kotori brought her ear to Mana’s lips.

“Take me…to my room,” Mana repeated.

“Will you be all right?” Kotori asked her.

“Pharmacy is…my…specialty. In my bags…”

“Oh, so then I could bring your bags here—”

“No.” A clear rejection. She said that a bit louder, too.

Kotori brought her ear away from Mana’s lips and looked at her. Mana’s expression was firm, saying that she wouldn’t change her decision.

Kotori cleared her throat, took Mana’s arm, and brought it behind her own head. Putting an arm around Mana’s shoulders, Kotori somehow got her to stand, but Mana was hardly holding herself up at all. Circling her other arm behind her thigh, Kotori lifted her with a heave. Kotori wasn’t all that strong, but Mana was as light as she looked, and it seemed like she could barely carry her to her room.

“Hold on there; where are you going?” a voice called out from behind.

Without turning back, Kotori replied, “Mana says she wants to check if there is anything useful in her bags.”

She sensed movement from Marguerite’s direction. “Wouldn’t it be better to just bring her bags, rather than forcing her to move?”

“She said she didn’t want others moving her things… I’m sure there are drugs that would be dangerous if mixed and things like that.”

She sensed a presence standing where she’d seen Touta before. “Um, I’ll help…if you don’t mind.”

And now Touta. Kotori was grateful for his kindness, but she didn’t want him following right now. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m stronger than I look.” Kotori lumbered heavily to emphasize her strength even more.

But a presence behind her rose to her feet and approached. Kotori heard a child’s carpeted footsteps and trembled. “Oh, and besides, Mana doesn’t like to be touched by other people,” she said. Then she followed that with, “It took a long time before she’d let me touch her.”

The presence behind her stopped, then returned to its original position and sat down. Kotori silently apologized to the vaguely dejected presence. She’d become a better liar than she used to be. When Tepsekemei asked questions that were difficult to answer, she would avoid them with sloppy answers, and despite knowing Mana was looking into the B City incident, Kotori kept her mouth shut about having been in contact with Pythie Frederica for a mission for Magical Girl Resources. It was all miserable and shady.

Kotori had made it look like she was calm while in the big hall, but once she came out of the courtyard, she was panting as she carried Mana. Even if she wasn’t heavy, Kotori hardly ever got exercise while human, so she was quite literally an unbearable burden. Panting hard, she opened the door to Mana’s room, but she still didn’t toss her down, laying Mana gingerly on the bed. Mana’s luggage wasn’t girlish at all, a black Boston bag and a milk-white suitcase, but you couldn’t deny they were very Mana.

“Is this it? This one?” Pointing to the bag, Kotori followed Mana’s direction—her nod—and opened it up. Kotori checked over the items within one by one until she pulled out a dark-brown plastic case from the Boston bag. She dug her nails into the case clasp to pry it open. She wasn’t used to handling tools like this, so she was weirdly nervous, wiping off the sweat dripping down her cheeks with her thumb. The tiny case was just four by six inches, with a row of slim ampules inside. Mana still had more instructions. Aside from the ampules, she’d also brought needles and thin black rubber tubing. Mana tried to prop herself up on her arms, and Kotori hurriedly went to help her.

Kotori raised up the bespectacled Mana and followed her instructions—her voice was as quiet as a mosquito’s buzz—rolling the sleeve of Mana’s robe up to the shoulder and then tightly wrapping her left biceps with rubber tubing. Kotori couldn’t do the rest, even with instructions. Breathing heavily, Mana broke an ampule, inserted the needle, and drew up the contents. She brought the needle to her arm with trembling hands, and though she hesitated a few times, she stuck it right into a vein that had risen from the rubber tubing’s restriction. The plunger pushed in the translucent fluid, decreasing in volume until it was depleted. Kotori watched, unable to stop her. She didn’t even know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Once before, Mana had strengthened herself with drugs to fight an insanely powerful magical girl. Then she’d passed out afterward and gone straight to the hospital. Of course, she wouldn’t be using the same stuff as that time. At least, Kotori didn’t think so, but she couldn’t say for sure.

Mana slowly lifted her chin and looked up at the ceiling. She pursed her lips and blew out a breath that eventually became a long sigh as Kotori watched, sweating buckets. Mana exhaled especially deeply, and then when she turned to Kotori, she looked a little refreshed and invigorated, and there was pink in her cheeks.

Kotori let out a long sigh as well, grabbing Mana by the shoulders. “Are you all right? There’s nothing funny going on, right? You’re not using any weird drugs?”

Mana’s bright-eyed expression immediately turned to a scowl as she brushed away Kotori’s hands. “Stop worrying about nonsense!”

“I mean, of course I’m going to worry. You wound up in the hospital from doing that before, didn’t you?”

“This is a different type of drug. The one I used this time is just a nutritional supplement.”

“Just a nutritional supplement… Isn’t that what everyone who uses dangerous drugs says?”

“What would be the point of lying about something like this? It really is just a nutritional supplement. But not for the body. It’s replenished my magical power.”

“Your magical power?”

“This must mean that the reason the mages all collapsed and the magical girls’ transformations were undone was their bodies’ magical power drying up. I’m going to try testing a little more.” Mana pulled out a second needle. Withdrawing the liquid drug from an ampule, she tried to take Kotori’s arm, but Kotori panicked and waved off her hand.

“What are you doing? Don’t!”

“It’s not poison! Relax. If this makes you go back to being a magical girl, then we know the cause.” Mana took her wrist hard enough that it hurt and drew her close.

Never once as long as Kotori could remember had she ever liked needles, but she couldn’t possibly refuse this. She looked back fondly on when she’d been a child and could say straight out that she hated needles.

“Um, what about disinfectant?” Kotori asked.

“It’s not necessary with these syringes.”

“What about using a rubber tube, like you did before?”

“You have thick veins, and they’re easy to see.”

Kotori gave up, scrunching her face and closing her eyes. She felt a literal stabbing pain and the feeling of a foreign object going into her arm, cold, disgust, unease, and various other negative feelings, and when she felt the needle come out, she finally opened her eyes. Though her left arm still hurt a bit, that was all. When she looked down at her arm, there was a little red dot. Maybe Mana was better at giving injections than the doctor Kotori usually went to.

Kotori waved her arm around. She didn’t feel any worse, but she didn’t feel better, either. If it was as Mana said, then she should have recovered a little magical power, but it wasn’t like she’d felt a sense of loss or fatigue when she’d become unable to transform in the first place—the transformation had just come undone spontaneously, and then she’d been unable to turn back again. Kotori tried transforming so she could say, “It doesn’t look like you can resolve this with just one needle,” but it worked. Like when her transformation had come undone, Kotori was completely naturally able to transform into the magical girl 7753.

She was dumbfounded for a few seconds. Then, seeing her arms and legs, her costume, her voluminous hair, and her goggles, which you might call her lifeline, she cried out, and Mana leaped on her and covered her mouth.

“Don’t yell. Quiet.”

“No, but, I mean—”

“You’re allowed to be wowed or surprised, but keep your voice down. You got that?” After that warning, Mana removed her hand. 7753 turned around, but when she reached out to the doorknob, this time, Mana captured her wrist. “Listen to me. Don’t make a fuss. Stay here.”

“But we have to tell everyone.”

“Only when we figure out who it’s okay to tell.”

7753 started to protest, “Is this the time to be doing something like that?” but then closed her mouth. Mana looked extremely serious, and she wasn’t going to hear any arguments. Mana, who you’d think would be the far weaker one, pulled her close, and 7753 sat down beside her on the sheets.

Mana leaned close and lowered her voice. “I’m going to have you check them.”

“Check them?” 7753 didn’t get what she was trying to say. The mages were out on the sofas groaning, and they had to save them as soon as possible. And the magical girls had left the mansion and could be in danger out there, so of course it would be good for them to be able to transform. It would be safest for 7753 to go out and help. And to save Tepsekemei, too—

Mana smacked her own thigh, interrupting 7753’s train of thought. “Don’t rush. Prioritize checking with your goggles over everything else.”

“Like I said, check what?”

“Check if someone caused this mess. We can tell people about the cause and how to fix it after we know for sure they didn’t do it. We should pretend to be helpless, too, until then.”

7753 chewed on the meaning of Mana’s words, and it took her a few seconds until she had digested them. Her eyes widened. “Wait, you mean someone caused this?!”

“Don’t yell.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Maybe someone did this, and maybe not. That’s why we’re going to check. If someone did cause this, I’m not gonna let them get away with it.”

The mage girl who’d been laid flat and groaning was gone. Now, there was an investigator who, as a member of the Inspection Department, wasn’t going to let a villain do as they pleased. 7753 bit her lip with a little nod. There were creases in the white sheets.

7753 was also supposed to be one of the magical girls who had fought in B City. Even if it had been for only a brief time, she had abandoned considerations of her personal safety to stand against fearsome enemies in order to protect the city, in order to support the girls who had protected the city. She’d been running from those memories because they were painful and difficult, and this time she’d gotten herself all worked up thinking of this like a vacation or a fun trip, and as one of Mana’s companions, she was all in a confusion.

Mana was different. She didn’t run away, and she didn’t try to forget. She was trying to be a stronger investigator—surely, one great enough that Hana Gekokujou would not have been ashamed of her.

“Understood. I’ll do it. I’ll go.” 7753 was about to get up, and this time, Mana grabbed the hem of her costume.

“How are you going to explain it if you go as a magical girl?”

“Oh, of course… But what should I do?”

“Take off your goggles and undo your transformation. You leave the goggles separate, as an item.”

“I see… Um…so in other words…I adjust the goggles’ settings beforehand, then check people through the goggles when they’re not looking?”

“Now you get the idea.”

“What parameters should I set the goggles to look for?”

“Can you make it so they check the level of understanding about this incident?”

“I think that could be checked through the number of hearts displayed.”

“Then make it that. If they’re the culprit, then of course their level of understanding will be high. And even if they’re not the culprit…if this situation was caused by some kind of coincidence and they know and aren’t saying anything, you can call that close, half-guilty.”

First, 7753 would look at the people still at the annex. If they were all clear, then Mana would share as much of her drug as she could. Next, 7753 would head out and go after the group that had headed to the gates and check if they were clear or not.

“But regardless, be quick,” said Mana. “It’s not good to leave things like this.”

“Yes, of course.”

“The others aside, the old man will die.”

“But…” 7753 couldn’t say that she’d heard that he was way more vivacious in his old age than a mage who never exercised and only had youth on their side. After some hesitation, she decided to put it slightly differently. “…I’ve heard that he’s a spry old man in good health, though.”

“Apparently, there are some concerns about his health.”

“Oh, really?”

“We all got a health check a few years ago, and when he got his results, he was ranting on about how ‘this must be some kind of mistake; don’t give me this nonsense…’ So I heard from my father.”

You’d think he wouldn’t be like that about his own health, but he was being outrageous there, too.

“So then I’ll act fast,” said 7753. “Um, how long will this drug last?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting something like this. I don’t even understand what’s going on in the first place. It would be best not to waste it, if possible… But we should tell those on our side that we’re on their side. I wouldn’t call sharing it for that purpose a waste.”

7753 changed the settings on her goggles, took them off, and placed them on the bed, then undid her transformation. All that was left then was the goggles.

Goggles in hand, Kotori stood, and Mana grabbed the sleeve of her pajamas. “You won’t have anywhere to hide the goggles with an outfit like that.”

Kotori wound up borrowing Mana’s robe. It wasn’t her size, but being a loose-fitting design, it wasn’t like she was going to burst through it.

Kotori put on the robe and left the room. When she told the story Mana had suggested—“Mana lent this to me when I complained about not wanting to wear embarrassing clothing this whole time”—Clantail and Clarissa were completely convinced, and Touta nodded a bunch of times.

Though she had been aware of it herself, everyone else acknowledging that her attire had been embarrassing was humiliating. But she didn’t let that discourage her and did her job. Ragi, Navi, Agri, Yol, Touta. And then Clarissa, Clantail, and Miss Marguerite. None of them knew what had caused the situation, and Kotori was relieved.

  Rei Koimizu

Rei went back the way she had come as a magical girl, now in human form. Though it had to be the same path and sights, everything looked different. The wind was blowing dirt and dust up, and the sun was gradually beating down hotter. The large leaves splaying from tree branches looked sharp, like they would cut if touched. The way was unpaved, and she felt like she would stumble on rocks and uneven spots on the ground. And then there were wild animals. She’d seen birds flying in the air and fish swimming in the pond, but the only large animals she saw were sheep. Though it was just that she hadn’t seen any large animals, and it didn’t mean there weren’t any. The guests had been explicitly told to bring magical girls, so you would naturally assume there was something. Everyone else thought so, too.

A walk down this path was a casual stroll for a magical girl, but not for a human. The group’s progress was slow. Maiya, carrying a crowbar, walked in the lead, while Nephilia, with a shovel, guarded the rear. Rei was second to last, while Rareko walked ahead of Rei. She was constantly hearing complaints from ahead, like, “Is this really all right?” and “Agh, why is this happening?” There were sighs. About one in every five times, a scolding flew back from the lead of “Be quiet, Rareko.”

Just doing it in human form was more stressful. The wind and sun were kind to magical girls but harsh on humans. How many of the people here had anything to prevent sunburn? Most of them were wearing minimal makeup or none at all. But there was a pressing enough threat to their lives that such things didn’t even matter. They didn’t know what was going on, but they had to go out to head for the gate anyway. This was kind of like a suicide squad, in a way.

Rei continued to observe how everyone talked and acted. They were different from when they were magical girls. If she got them mixed up, she might get hurt.

Get hurt?

What sort of hurt would that be? How did she reach that assumption? She already had her answer, but she could pretend she hadn’t noticed. What would Agri want in this situation? Was it all right for her to do as Agri wanted?

There was a poke at her back. Still walking, Rei turned to see the brown-haired girl—Nephilia—looking at her curiously. Wondering what this was about, Rei faced forward again, and then there was a stroke along her spine. Now she was sure this wasn’t her imagination. Rei turned back to look Nephilia in the eye. She didn’t look guilty about it at all, tilting her head.

“What?” Rei asked her.

“What do you mean, what?” She spoke more clearly than when she was a magical girl. But Rei didn’t understand what she was after.

“You just touched my back, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Rei faced forward again. Before she had the time to wonder what that was about, fingertips rapped her back in succession, and Rei turned around. “What is it?”

Expression not changing at all, Nephilia muttered, “Anyway,” basically declaring that she was going to change the subject, and Rei scowled. “That’s a cute uniform. You in middle school?”

“No, I’m in high school,” Rei replied.

“Huhhh. Your skin is so pretty, I thought maybe you were in middle school.”

“Well…thanks.”

“First year?”

“I’m in second year.”

“So we’re the same age. Surprising. You have such a cute baby face.”

This wasn’t necessarily entirely a compliment. Rei offered a vague smile in return. She hesitated, wondering if she should face forward again or not, and looked back at the other girl. Though it looked as if Nephilia was speaking to her in a pretty friendly way, she was completely expressionless. Her appearance was neat and trim, with sharp pleats in her skirt. Her hair was dyed from the roots, with no black inching in. Her eyebrows were thick—normally that would give the impression of sloppy grooming or a hot-blooded and emotional disposition, but with her, it gave her an air of elegance like Heian-period court nobility. Looking at the whole picture, she was even more inscrutable than the magical girl Nephilia.

“Hey, tell me your LINE,” said Nephilia.

“Huh?”

“Or are you using magical-girl social media? Magitter? MINE? Or Lightningram? That works, too.”

“I really don’t…”

“You don’t have them?”

“No, now just isn’t the time.”

“But it seems like things’ll get busier later.”

Their whispered chat must have been noticed, as a call of “You, stop fooling around” flew at them from the lead, and Rei faced front again. Hearing the muffled snicker of ksh-sh from behind, she thought, Ah, that is Nephilia. It actually put her at ease.

Keeping alert to their surroundings, the group made their way along, pausing over slight noises only to be relieved that it was the babbling of a river or the rustling of leaves, looking up at the beating sun with irritation as they headed for the gates. It took them triple the time it had taken to get there. Passing through the wet lowlands, they ascended a gentle hill, and when they looked down from its crest, a brown, square object was visible beyond the trees. Someone let out a weak phew. That object was the gate. Everyone else besides the one who’d made that sound upon finally reaching it sighed, too.

Restraining their feet’s urge to hurry and scolding their hearts’ tendency to race, they resumed their slow and gradual march. They did relax their attention a bit, just from their goal being right ahead. Ten minutes after that.

When they finally got to the gate, it wasn’t working.

“Just what is the meaning of this?!” Maiya was enraged, swiping her crowbar this way and that, but it wouldn’t resolve the situation.

Rareko said she knew “more than totally nothing” about these things, and she tried touching the panel and knocking on the parts of the device, then lay on the ground faceup with a toolbox beside her, clacking and rattling around as she fiddled with things like a car mechanic, but when she got up, her expression was still grim, and she shook her head without a word. According to her explanation, none of the parts looked broken, and she thought it was just that there was no energy supply. She also said she couldn’t repair it. Maiya got mad again, but regardless, it wasn’t something that could be fixed.

There were two gates on this island: the one Ren-Ren’s group had come through and the gate on the other side—on the south side. The group decided that if this one was no good, they’d try going to the other side and so headed in the opposite direction. Their steps were heavier than before. Though Rei figured this wasn’t going to work anyway, she followed along without opposing it. It wasn’t like she had any alternative plan.

Looking at the situation, it made sense that there was no energy being supplied to the gate. The magical girls couldn’t transform, and the mages were groaning and unable to get up. It seemed unlikely that the south gate alone would be intact given the situation, but they still had to check anyway.

Nephilia caused mischief like an elementary school boy—touching Rei’s hair, flipping up her skirt, always picking some new target or trying some new thing, but Rei ignored her. It was partially because she had other things to think about right now, but also because she didn’t want to get yelled at by Maiya any more than she already had.

Normally, you would be able to see the connection between someone’s human form and magical-girl form. They were the same person, so there wouldn’t be a dramatic personality change. Things might be different if it was the rare case of an animal or a guy becoming a magical girl, but Ren-Ren had never met a magical girl like that. Rare cases should fundamentally not be taken into consideration for anything.

Maiya was strict with herself and others. Her muscle, incredibly thick and lithe for a woman of her age, was visible even through her suit. Her legs were also thick and muscular. In other words, she trained as a human, too, not only as a magical girl. The way she swung a crowbar wasn’t amateur, either. She may have been emotional, but her body had been trained. And even that emotionality, Rei could imagine came from Yol’s dire situation—in other words, it was professionalism.

As for Rareko—surprisingly enough, she could use a weapon. Unlike Nephilia and Rei, she handled it like she knew how to defeat an enemy with it. Properly speaking, they would have liked to leave her with Yol, but if she was able to handle the gate system, there was no reason not to bring her. Put it the other way, then that would also mean trusting Marguerite, who seemed to be an old acquaintance of Maiya’s. When she had talked to Marguerite right before leaving, it had to be to tell her to protect Yol—or something to that effect. Rei thought back on how sharp and vigilant Marguerite had looked and breathed a little sigh.

The party went back the way they had come, and then once they had reached the hill where the annexes and main building would be in view if they ascended, the two in the lead stopped. Rei looked up front, wondering what had happened, but it was just the path ahead, and there wasn’t anything in particular. Looking at Maiya, her head was tilted upward. Since Ren-Ren was behind her and couldn’t see her face, all she could tell was that “it seemed she was looking up.” Rei followed Maiya’s gaze. There was a figure. She knew that figure. She seemed to recall it had been in the main building. But it had disappeared before being introduced. It was the magical girl dressed in a dancing-girl costume.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked.

“That’s my line,” Maiya shot back, almost cutting her off, weapon at the ready.

But even if she did raise her weapon, it wasn’t like she could do anything to a magical girl. It looked silly, but Rei felt like she had to do something, too. All of them raised their weapons and pointed them at the magical girl—Rei thought she’d been called Mei. It was strange that she was able to stay in magical-girl form in the first place in this situation. Rei also thought it was very natural to assume that she would know something about the situation, when she was the only one transformed when nobody else could do it.

Mei calmly approached the ground, and the group backed up, surrounding her in a circle. Rei observed. Mei didn’t show diffidence or smile sadistically—she remained cool as a cucumber, chewing on something. Her mouth munched along, then swallowed. “Mei just had a close one.”

“Why are you transformed?!” Maiya demanded.

“This is a valuable food.”

“What are you talking about? I’m asking why you’re transformed!”

“Mei is kind. That’s what Weddin said. So Mei saved ants, too. And spiders. This time, Mei decided to save birds, too. If Mei sees the Toshishun, he’ll get saved, too.”

Maiya stopped trying to talk to her. All that she was getting was nonsense and something from Akutagawa stories. It was clear to see that Maiya suspected this person was funny in the head. It was hopelessly hopeless for someone who could casually kill all of them if she wanted to be crazy. Nephilia covered her mouth, shoulders shaking. This was frightening enough that even she would try to restrain her laughter.

Mei’s face was extremely difficult to read. She didn’t try to communicate nonverbally what she was thinking. She was different from any humans Rei knew. She was also different from any magical girls Rei knew. Never mind classifying her, Rei couldn’t even search for anyone similar.

“In other words.” That wasn’t Maiya. Nephilia, shoulders shaking, opened her mouth. The tone and inflection of her voice was quiet and calm. “You’re kind, so you’ll help us out?”

Mei nodded. Having managed to communicate with her even slightly was like a miracle. She floated toward them. This time, none of them tried to back away. They timidly came closer instead and looked at the metal box Mei thrust out like she was trying to show them—it was a cookie tin—which was crammed with gray fruit—

“Mei!”

On top of the hill. Rei thought it was a mage, but it turned out it wasn’t. It was 7753, who had stayed behind at the main building. She’d been wearing pajamas before, but she was wearing mage robes and a cape now. She must have borrowed them because she didn’t want to be in that embarrassing attire forever. Probably from Mana.

“You’re all right! What a relief!” she practically shouted. Nigh tumbling down the hill, she raced down the slope, spreading her arms wide to embrace Mei, but then passed through her. 7753’s shout turned into a yelp, and since Maiya and Rareko stepped smoothly aside, there was nobody there to catch her, and she fell and went rolling farther down the hill, tossing up dust as she went.

This time, Nephilia didn’t cover her mouth as she snickered ksh-shh.

  Miss Marguerite

The problem was on the way to being solved. There were enough of the “gray fruit” that could be picked from the “gray trees” that grew wild on the island, even with a large number of people eating them. The mages were all revitalized, and the magical girls were able to transform again. Even if they didn’t know what had caused things, even just knowing a method to handle it made a big difference.

“Hey, Miss Marguerite?” Touta said.

“What is it?”

“Why was I the only one who could walk around and talk normally?”

“I figured you’re not being treated as a mage.”

“Aw, seriously…?”

Though this had produced one disappointed person, rather than getting down about it, said disappointed person was glad of the other mages’ recovery and looked to be enjoying a chat with Yol that was rather sprinkled with specialized terminology. They were apparently talking about a card game. Marguerite felt mildly guilty about having ordered him to leave the cards behind because games were unnecessary, but from another angle, you could also say that made it so they would play another day. It would be perfect to help Touta make connections.

Though it remained an issue that they couldn’t use the gate, John Shepherdspie, who managed the island, told them: “There’s an external battery. If you put that in, you might be able to make it work.” So Maiya and Rareko pulled out the six-inch black cube as well as some cables and such from the storehouse and headed for the gate.

Agri, Nephilia, and Love Me Ren-Ren stayed inside to discuss something. This inheritance meeting couldn’t be said to be proceeding according to plan at this point, and it would probably be canceled. They would have to try again at a later date, and Marguerite assumed there would be a wait until then. Was the trio discussing a new contract for that time, or were they talking about something else? In Marguerite’s opinion, the mage named Agri was clearly fishy. Even if they hadn’t only just met, Marguerite wouldn’t trust her. Marguerite had asked Mana and 7753 to station themselves in the large hall of the annex. The only way out of the annex was to exit through the large hall, so there was good reason to put them there.

When Navi saw the destruction of the main building, he was in shock and groaning. Why is he so depressed when it isn’t his…? Marguerite wondered, but she remembered that this place could become Navi’s. Maybe he’d been gunning for it. He ordered Clarissa to investigate the scene, but it seemed things did not turn out how he’d hoped, and his shoulders slumped.

Ragi, on the other hand, had become more energetic. Or rather, it was less energetic and more enraged. He yelled at Shepherdspie for failing to manage the island properly, while the portly man shrank away in shame. They still hadn’t even figured out the cause of this, after all. While in contrast with her apologetic boss, one of the magical girls who Shepherdspie had hired, Dreamy Chelsea, argued back fiercely. She doggedly opposed Ragi with rather incomprehensible counterarguments—like would you blame the landlord if a satellite fell and hit your head?—and with the dispute rapidly heating up, Pastel Mary attempted to stop it by creating sheep, but she must have made too many, as the master couldn’t keep them all under control, and some went wild, and though everyone else managed to dodge or avoid them, Navi was the one person left squatting there, swallowed by the herd of sheep.

Clantail transformed her lower body into a goat to herd the sheep together, and though Ragi was still angry, he was shown to the “management room” to investigate the cause of the incident. Shepherdspie apologized to him as he led the way, while Navi—who was getting hit over and over again—had Clarissa looking after him. When Tepsekemei came flying down, Chelsea pointed at her and yelled about it, and Mary tried to stop her and fell, going headfirst into the mud. Touta and Yol laughed as they went to go save Mary.

Marguerite was the one person apart from the others, watching. There was a lot of commotion, but it was the commotion of peace. Things were heading to resolution, and everyone was sighing in relief. They were at ease that they weren’t headed to disaster. It should be fine. There were no problems.

Marguerite put a hand to her hat and pulled down the brim. She was always the one person worrying even when things were going well—it was necessary for her to worry. There was more sense in this than everyone smiling optimistically. But she couldn’t deny that this disposition caused her suffering.

Marguerite averted her gaze from the scene before her and looked back. It was the forest. The layers of trees kept her from seeing through it. Marguerite focused her hearing on the forest. Something was coming this way. It was fast. Too fast for an ordinary creature to move. She put a hand on her sword. Even if it was sheathed, she could draw it out without a moment’s delay.

She could clearly hear footsteps. They were panting hard. She could see them. Those mage-style robes—it was Rareko. Her expression was twisted up as she ran. Her eyes met with Marguerite’s, and she gave her an imploring look. Avoiding trees and roots, Marguerite trotted into the forest to face Rareko.

“It’s bad… It’s bad…real bad,” said Rareko. “The gate…the gate is broken.”

Marguerite scowled in spite of herself, increasing her bitter feelings. “The battery didn’t work?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“There was an accident? Or was it too old and worn out?”

“It’s really not anything like that. It was like the door was totally cut in two.”

She was saying it had been broken in a way that could only possibly be from deliberate destruction. Marguerite consciously brought her eyebrows together. She made her expression blank, settled her tone of voice low, and asked, “Where is Maiya?”

“She’s run off to the north gate to secure it. She told me to come back here and only tell you…”

Not a bad decision. Or so it seemed to Marguerite. So then what should she do? She hadn’t been granted enough time to fully consider this matter at length. “Don’t tell anyone that the gate has been broken.”

“Huh? Oh, right.”

“And keep watch to see if anyone is doing anything strange.”

“Yes, right. Underst—”

Marguerite ran off without listening to the end.

Mana had whispered into her ear, “I had 7753 investigate to see if anyone knew about what caused this situation.” Marguerite had been impressed, thinking Mana had managed some good work despite her incapacitation—but then Mana said she’d just been overthinking it. In other words, the result of her investigation was none of them. None of them had deliberately caused this. So then was someone trying to take advantage of this situation to pull something? Agri’s trio was in her rooms. Mana and 7753 were in the big hall, Shepherdspie and Ragi were at the management room, and Maiya and Rareko had headed for the gate. All the other mages and magical girls had been under Marguerite’s eye.

Mages would sometimes have demons serving them. They would be capable of destroying a gate without leaving the main building. And magical girls had magic. They could use it to destroy something far away. All of them were equally without alibi.

These gates couldn’t be destroyed so freely. They were magic gates, made to endure despite continual exposure to wind and rain. If what Rareko said was correct, then someone had destroyed it deliberately. Marguerite bounded off the earth and leaped between the trees. How possible was it that Rareko’s report was incorrect in the first place—no, that was unlikely. Marguerite did ultimately trust Maiya, and upon realizing that she also trusted Rareko, since Maiya had faith in her, Marguerite snorted. Rareko had chosen a poker as her weapon, and she knew how to use it. The way she wielded it, her footwork and stance were all the same as Maiya. It was fair to assume Maiya had been the one to teach her how to use a staff. Maiya teaching her own skills meant she recognized Rareko as one of her own, a subordinate. You wouldn’t teach someone you can’t trust how to fight. That was basically telling them your weak points.

Marguerite leaped over a thick root and jumped diagonally off a bare stone face.

She didn’t properly understand what was going on in the first place. She was standing atop something terribly vague—without knowing if this was earth, concrete, asphalt, or if perhaps she was over thin ice, she was standing here because it would support her weight for the moment. Being in a situation where she had to trust someone “because someone worthy of trust believes in them” was making that even worse.

Ocean salt tickled her nose and quickly became a strong, unconcealable smell. The woods came to an end, and Marguerite emerged in a rocky area. She saw the gate immediately—and bit her lip hard. Violence and brutality were apparent in its twisted, destroyed remains, as if it had been ripped open aggressively. The touch panel had been crushed, and the top and bottom of the door were in separate pieces. Marguerite was alert as she drew her sword. She sensed no one.

Sliding her feet along the ground, she approached the door and noticed that behind it was a pool of red liquid. It was dark. She knew what that liquid was. The question was whose blood it was—but she discovered that quickly as well. There was a woman in a suit lying facedown. A stick lay in an indentation just a few feet away, and it was wet with seawater.

Its passion-pink and white-striped pattern was vivid to the eye, like some kind of candy. It was unmistakable. That was the magical steel staff Maiya used.

Marguerite touched the body and turned it over. Its expression was horribly contorted in agony. It was Maiya.

If her steel staff was lying there, then she must have been transformed. She had died while transformed and dropped the stick, and it had tumbled away.

The waves rolled in, crashed against the rocks, and scattered in spray. The seawater mingled with the large pool of blood.

Maiya had been a true master of the staff. They said that facing off against her, she would bewitch you with the movements of her body, her footwork, and the way she handled her staff. She had fought on par with the most active of the Archfiend Cram School graduates who were at the top of the school, and her name had always been ranked near the top in their events.

Who was capable of killing Maiya? This wasn’t a feat a demon or homunculus could manage.

And what’s more…

If you were to take this wound at face value, that meant she’d been killed by a slice to the front. Killing Maiya with a direct frontal attack would be fairly difficult, even for Marguerite.

Marguerite apologized to Maiya in her heart, picked up the staff, and ran for the main building. You could say she apologized for abandoning the body, and you could also say she apologized for taking away her staff, but ultimately, it was most accurate to say she apologized because she wanted to.