Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 14 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

TROUBLE TO TROUBLE

  Ragi Zwe Nento

There was a folding chair, a plain metal table, and a diamond-shaped information terminal with a few cables extending along the ground. Ragi reexamined the stone-walled room once more: It was extremely barren, with nothing else, not even a window.

The magic cast on this building and the annexes, the island environment, and various other things could be comprehensively controlled and operated from this management room on the fourth floor of the main building. The environmental controls regulated sun, rainfall, and such for the healthy growth of the island flora, so such changes in the environment would also affect mages and magical girls. In other words, this was the most suspicious spot as to these incidents.

The string of incidents that had occurred the previous afternoon—the magical girls’ transformations coming undone and the mages passing out—had been resolved by consuming the grayfruit that grew on the island, and they judged that passing out a few to each person had more or less fixed that for the moment. But the fundamental cause hadn’t necessarily been elucidated or amended.

Before going to work, Ragi pulled one dull-colored fruit from his sleeve. He would feel better when he ate a fruit, but then his health would gradually go downhill—in other words, this indicated the issue wouldn’t be resolved through a single intake. Eating fruit as needed to manage his physical condition was a hassle, but he didn’t want to wind up in that state again.

Ragi leaned his staff against the desk and sat down on the chair with a heave. Opening his mouth wide, he bit heartily into a fruit like a much younger man. His teeth cut through the fruit, the juices running down his throat. Its invigorating sweetness and scent moistened his dry mouth, and it was as if its vibrancy filled every corner of his body. The weariness he’d felt only moments ago evaporated entirely.

Once he was done eating his second grayfruit that day, skin and all, he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and checked in his hand mirror to see if there was juice in his beard. Sataborn had developed and improved a wide range of products, from masterpieces to junk, but Ragi thought this qualified as one of the former.

Once he’d made sure there wasn’t even a spot of stickiness in his beard, that worry gone, Ragi began his task.

He started with chanting the password and tapping the terminal touch panel to boot up the device, then typed in the second password. The room went dark, and the edges of the cramped little space disappeared. The old mage was the one thing sitting alone in a vast, all-black space—even if he reached out a hand and turned around, there was nothing to touch, and even if he walked around or ran around, he wouldn’t get anywhere, either.

Ragi selected a simple magical formula for extracting information to get a grasp on the systems, and one after another, magical figures of every color rose into three dimensions. From here, he should have been able to get inside, but things didn’t go that easily.

It was made in an unusually complex way for a mere environmental management system. The creator—Sataborn—had not even considered that someone else would be using it after his death. Despite having written up a will in preparation for his passing, the man had left this part out entirely.

Sataborn had made use of new technology in every aspect of the island, and this was also a custom installation, with more and more things being added after the fact turning it into one big black box. He must have gotten really into it as he was making it. It’s fun to incorporate new elements when you’re making something—that much Ragi could sympathize with. At some point, Ragi had also started to enjoy reinforcing his own office security, poring over the latest thesis papers as well as literature on traditional defensive techniques in order to create an absolutely impregnable magical fortress. Ragi hadn’t made any considerations for his own successor for when he left his position, either.

But there was one key difference between Ragi and Sataborn.

Ragi was alive. When he let someone use that office, he could explain things to them.

Sataborn was dead. He couldn’t explain this system.

The mages had passed out, and the magical girls’ transformations had come undone. They didn’t know the cause. Though Ragi wanted to investigate this, he wasn’t even sure he could get the information to display in the first place. Magic he didn’t think he’d ever seen or heard of was running continually, while the information in the magical figures was being refreshed in units of milliseconds.

There was no point in continuing this. Ragi undid the simple magical formula. The magical figures disappeared one by one, and the whole enclosed space flickered, the darkness leaving to become just a small room again. Operating the terminal atop the metal table, Ragi closed the windows that had popped up, and in the end, the terminal went back to only having the standby light on, and Ragi sighed and stood from the chair.

Contact with the systems was difficult, and he didn’t know the cause of the incident. It wasn’t like there were no methods to brute-force analyze it, but he didn’t have the manpower, the tools, the materials, the magic power, the time, anything. That didn’t seem like something he should be doing right now. If he was going to investigate the cause in earnest, they should send everyone straight off the island, then bring in specialists once they were ready. Aren’t you a specialist? a voice inside him said irritatingly, but he restrained his anger by laying out a clear plan: He would lead the experts who came back to this island once they had the preparation and support, and he would work on uncovering the cause.

Ragi nodded. That was best.

When he emerged from the room, Shepherdspie and Mana were standing in the hallway and talking for some reason. The two of them stopped their conversation and looked at Ragi.

Ragi didn’t try to hide his bitter expression, shaking his head. “Forget resolving the malfunction. I can’t even guess as to the cause.” Seeing them both disappointed made him all the more privately irritated, but that wouldn’t change the facts. “That blasted Sataborn has been shoving in all his own new techniques, one after another. Studying it will require preparations and more. Can you arrange for about ten dozen magic gems, right now?” He glared at Mana and Shepherdspie in turn.

Though Mana seemed overwhelmed, she didn’t avert her gaze, while Shepherdspie got flustered and looked down. Mana was young, but being an investigator in the Inspection Department, she had spunk. Shepherdspie wasn’t even worth consideration. Sataborn should have used one-tenth of his passion toward research to educate his nephew.

“If we’re not going to dispose of this island by sealing it away, then the cause must be investigated and removed. I will offer my help at that time.” Ragi started to say, “For what that may be worth,” but became irritated with himself for being too self-effacing and said no more.

Pressing his lips shut, he made to pass by the pair, but one of them circled ahead of him. Mana was standing in Ragi’s way. “So then…,” she said like she was carefully choosing each word. “Then what sort of underlying cause…or reason could there be…behind all the mages collapsing and the magical girls’ transformations being undone?”

Ragi’s brow relaxed slightly. His wrinkles became shallower and fewer. “The most natural assumption is that the magical power in our bodies was lost.”

There had been differences in symptoms among the mages, too. Ragi had been feeling poorly before his collapse, and he’d remained unconscious from then until recovery. He’d also heard that Navi Ru had been fine right up until he had passed out but had remained out following that. Yol had maintained semiconsciousness but had been unable to talk, while Mana and Agri had been able to squeeze out some words. Shepherdspie had felt unwell but had been able to walk around, while Touta had been talking and moving around completely normally.

It was fair to say that the condition of each of these individuals, and its severity, was proportional to their magical power. You could tell at a glance that Touta had no magical ability, and you’d understand Shepherdspie was an incompetent from his clumsy use of magic. Agri and Mana were decently average, while Yol would be a little above that. As for Navi Ru, Ragi had known him since he was a newbie. His decency as a person aside, he had talent as a mage. You couldn’t get into the heart of the Osk Faction just through flattery and sucking up.

In contrast, the magical girls’ symptoms were all about the same. Magical ability between mages and magical girls may have seemed similar, but they weren’t. Magical girls didn’t need magic to live, and its disappearance wouldn’t affect their well-being. Having magic enabled them to transform into magical girls. If that magical power was gone, they wouldn’t be able to transform anymore, that’s all.

Listening to Ragi, Mana nodded deeply. She wasn’t reacting like she was surprised over a new revelation but like this confirmed what she already thought. Basically, she decided she was right based on comparing her own guess to what Ragi had said. Ragi started to get angry, but seeing Mana’s serious expression, he couldn’t bring himself to express that anger, and he left the two behind and walked off. Mana didn’t block his way or call him to a stop again. When Shepherdspie called after him, “Thank you very much,” Ragi didn’t reply and kept walking.

Was Mana’s seriousness out of professionalism? It didn’t seem like that was the whole story—Ragi shook his head. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. There was surely something Mana wanted to do. He should just let her do it.

Ragi had his own unresolved thought—one that was so trivial, he couldn’t even call it a real concern. Now that he was done with the immediate task in front of him—though issues of the inheritance were still left undone—he was free for the moment, bringing that trivial thought to his mind once more. And now it wouldn’t go away.

Ragi had been feeling poorly ever since he had arrived at the island, and he’d had his hands full. So he’d been unable to consider the others around him, but thinking back now, Clantail hadn’t spoken with anyone but Ragi.

This hadn’t been the case with everyone else. Maiya and Marguerite had conversed like they knew each other, and Mana had introduced 7753 and Tepsekemei to the others. Navi Ru had smiled and clapped Agri’s back, and Yol had taken Touta off to her rooms. As for Shepherdspie… Ragi really couldn’t help but get the feeling he was unnecessarily intimate with the magical girls in his employ. Dreamy Chelsea, who had lashed out so sharply at Ragi, had been a woman of marriageable age in a bathrobe pretransformation, with sexual appeal and a rather alluring air—so Ragi had overheard Agri and Navi Ru discussing when they’d been relaxing in the great hall of the annex. Ragi had been privately irritated, thinking, Can’t you pipe down a little while you gossip? As he lay on the sofa of the same annex, Ragi had figured that Chelsea was probably Shepherdspie’s mistress. What indecent nonsense.

Shepherdspie’s disgraceful behavior aside, those girls had had some interactions. They had seemed to enjoy chatting among magical girls, between mages, or between magical girls and mages. Clantail hadn’t had that. As Ragi walked, his brow furrowed. The light of the sun slanted in the windows, lighting the dust that danced in the corridor.

Pulling his hat low over his eyes, Ragi held his breath and swept into that dust.

Clantail was a taciturn girl. She wouldn’t initiate conversation.

But…

If they went straight home after this, then only Clantail would have not gained any new acquaintances, and it would have ended as a job for her, while the others were all making friends.

Then “so what,” was the question, and it wasn’t like it mattered—but it bothered him. It was difficult to verbalize why, which made his irritation even worse. He shouldn’t be having any sort of concerns over Clantail—they didn’t have that sort of relationship. Just because someone he’d hired to come with him had nobody to have friendly chats with, how was that a problem?

After a lot of thinking and getting nowhere, Ragi was struck by a flash of insight. He reeled in the rope of his thoughts. It wasn’t that he was worried about Clantail. The problem was that “only the magical girl Ragi had brought was leaving without talking to anyone.” Nodding to himself like, “Yes, that’s it,” Ragi picked up the pace. Though he had been shuffled there against his will, he was still the head of the Magical Girl Management Department. He continued to fight off challengers to his authority on a daily basis. If those sorts of petty thugs knew that “only the magical girl Ragi had brought left without talking to anyone,” wouldn’t it call into question his suitability as the head of the Management Department?

Yes, that’s what it is, when you get down to it.

He would be mocked for being that Management Department chief who could bring only a magical girl with zero communication skills. That was bound to create even more challengers.

It was fair to say he had a general understanding of the issues that would come about from Clantail being left out of the circle of association. So then what would be the procedure to resolve it?

Should Ragi put in a good word about her with someone else? Should he introduce her, at least? But an introduction from the head of the Management Department would surely make anyone feel wary. And even assuming he would introduce her to someone, was there anyone he could introduce to her in the first place? The only mage here Ragi knew was Navi Ru. And he was a reprobate. Ragi didn’t know anyone else. There was just one magical girl he did know. That was 7753, the one accompanying Mana. There weren’t many magical girls with numbers at the beginning of their names and even fewer whose names were just numbers. It stuck out to Ragi every time he worked on the register. That’s an unusual name. It’s nice and easy to sort, he thought. Afterward, he discovered that she was a highly capable individual who worked for Magical Girl Resources.

Ragi took a firm step forward and smacked his foot down in the hall. So then what? She wasn’t even an acquaintance. He knew of her, but he was no one to her. It wasn’t the sort of relationship where he could introduce someone to her.

Despite knowing from experience that this kind of worrying never produced answers, Ragi couldn’t help ruminating on it. Pulling his robe up slightly so the hem wouldn’t drag on the floor, he walked down the hallway and down the stairs, where he happened to look out the window on the landing. Clantail was there. She was not alone.

Nephilia was standing at her side, petting her back. Clantail was staring straight ahead, letting her do as she pleased. She wasn’t reacting. Nephilia was letting out an eerie, muffled snicker. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

Ragi wondered if that meant the two were friends.

Coming to no conclusions after some consideration, he decided to call it better than nothing.

  Clantail

Clantail was in the courtyard. She’d decided that if anyone asked, she’d tell them she was enjoying the sun. But that wasn’t actually the case.

From this position in the courtyard, she could watch to see if anyone tried to go into the management room on the fourth floor, where Ragi was. She could also go straight to him in a single bound if anything happened there. In other words, she was basically standing guard.

If she was going to guard Ragi in earnest, it would be best to follow him into the room or stand in front of it. But considering the old man’s personality, following him around constantly would make him explode in a fit of temper. There was already a lot going on, and he had to be mentally and physically tired, but there was still work only he could do, and they had to have him keep at it.

This island was not kind to the elderly, so as long as they remained here, she would avoid causing him unnecessary anger when guarding him. There were some perplexing things going on, and there was no guarantee that they had come to a rest. At times like these, muscle was ultimately the most useful.

Anyone who saw Clantail would surely assume she was zoning out—good, because she was deliberately trying to appear that way. Her mouth was open slightly, her eyes aimlessly pointed upward toward the fourth floor.

A breeze happened to stroke her neck. She turned to the wind, and the sound of footsteps came shortly after. The person didn’t seem to be trying to hide their presence. They were being open about it.

“Ksh-shh…” The magical girl covered her mouth as a low snicker slipped out. It was the girl with a reaper motif and a large scythe over her shoulder—Nephilia.

Lowering her head, Clantail didn’t smile back. She didn’t have a specific reason for feeling the way she did, but she didn’t think she’d get along with Nephilia. Then again, it was rare Clantail felt she would get along with someone. Fighting was something else, but this was about socializing.

“He…o…,” Nephilia murmured.

“Hello.”

“Mind…if I…?”

“…Go ahead.” Clantail was standing guard under the pretense of sunbathing, so there was no reason to refuse. Maybe she could have made up some reason to refuse on the spot, but she wasn’t any good at things like that.

“Want…to talk…”

“Yes.” Right after saying that, Clantail thought that “yes” was a weird thing to say, but once the word was out of her mouth, she couldn’t take it back. She smacked her own bottom with her tail.

“Work…magic… Hear voices of the dead…”

Nephilia was saying she could hear the voices of the dead with her magic. Clantail’s tail swung wider. Her heart stirred. Hearing voices of the dead—what did that mean, exactly? Did she make contact with what they called “the other side”? Would Clantail be able to speak again with her old friends who had lost their lives?

There were so many things she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t get them out. No matter how she thought and thought, she couldn’t sort out what she wanted to ask or how.

Nephilia looked up at Clantail’s face and smiled. “Could I…pet…?”

“Yes.” This wasn’t the time for petting, but if Clantail said no, that would make it more difficult for her to ask any questions. Nephilia placed her right hand on Clantail’s back and slowly stroked it.

“So…,” Clantail started to ask, then closed her mouth. She cleared her throat quietly. “So, um, this magic to hear the voices of the dead…”

“Playing back…their voices from life…that’s all…”

Ahhh, Clantail thought. So it wasn’t like you could talk with the departed on the other side. Clantail kept her mouth shut to keep from blatantly showing her disappointment and nodded. Nephilia didn’t look at her face at all but her bottom. Her eyes were on Clantail’s drooping tail.

Expression serious, Nephilia gave her a tiny nod. “Often…get hopes up…and disappoint…”

“Oh, no.”

“Sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry.”

After a beat, Nephilia opened her mouth slowly, as if she was going to say something of grave importance. “Was called…clean up…Keek incident…work.”

Clantail felt even more sharply distressed than before. Now she knew why Nephilia had come to talk to her. But she didn’t know what Nephilia was after. She figured she had to say something, but the more she thought about it, the more her head was thrown into disarray.

“That…,” Clantail began, then shut her mouth. Footsteps. Coming down the stairs toward them. After a little while, she saw a figure in the window. It was Ragi. He was watching them with an unusually kind expression.

“Let’s talk…later…,” Nephilia whispered. Her breath was slightly moist.

  John Shepherdspie

Ragi went off in a huff. He said he didn’t know what was behind this in the end, but Shepherdspie was relieved, regardless. Being around the old man made him nervous. For a high-class idler like Shepherdspie in particular, a sharp-tempered old man was basically his natural enemy.

The old man’s back went out of view down the corridor, and when Shepherdspie’s eyes shifted to look down, next his eyes met with those of a girl. She had the gaze of a passionate professional. Despite her youth, being the species that worked on the front lines, you might also call her a natural enemy to a high-class idler. A high-class idler had lots of enemies.

“Just to confirm this once more,” Mana began, “you have no guesses as to the cause?”

“Not at all, to be perfectly honest.”

“And nothing like this has ever happened on this island before.”

“I haven’t been living here that long, you know. This is the first I’ve experienced such a thing.”

“I see…” After asking this much, Mana’s expression suddenly relaxed. “Well…we’re past the time for inheritance and wills now, huh.”

Oh, Shepherdspie thought. He’d been tense, thinking this was an interrogation, but apparently he’d gotten the wrong idea. Shepherdspie wasn’t so bad at chatting. “I really don’t know what to do. And we have no idea what’s caused this mess, either.”

“Master Ragi seems to be struggling a lot, too.”

“Well, this is my uncle’s mess, after all.”

“Even Inspection had been considering formally adopting Sataborn’s barrier formulas.”

“Talent was the one thing he had in spades, unfortunately.”

“Was he an odd person?”

“He was an absolute eccentric.”

There was a moment of silence. When Shepherdspie looked back at Mana, she seemed more serious. “No matter what an eccentric he was, don’t you think the demand that we bring one or two magical girls was suspicious?” She had a different air to her now. Even Shepherdspie, who was slow in all areas, felt it. Turns out it was an interrogation after all. Going back and forth between acting casual and aggressive was bad for his heart, but this conversation wasn’t going in a direction for him to coldly push back by saying she was being rude.

“Huh? Suspicious? What is?” His voice cracked.

“I can’t see what conferring the estate would have to do with magical girls.”

“Well…true,” Shepherdspie acknowledged. “I suppose I’m forced to admit it’s suspicious. But you know—perhaps you’re not aware of this—my uncle Sataborn was such an oddball. He could have put in an article demanding that everyone come to the island walking on their hands, and I might just have thought, Well, this is him. He really was that sort of character.”

“But still…”

“Look—if there’s anything dubious, you should just do a thorough investigation after leaving. I would be quite grateful myself if you would handle it, as a professional. We have no idea what’s behind all these strange events, so we can’t leave things like this, after all.”

“Indeed.”

“And it’s quite awful to be stuck on an island with bizarre things happening for unknown reasons.” Swallowing the remark, “I wish I could have left with Maiya and Rareko,” Shepherdspie nodded.

Mana still looked unsatisfied, tilting her head, but Shepherdspie figured overthinking things was the nature of people of her profession. Her job required her to face down those who would do harm, so it was quite appropriate for her to regard others with suspicion.

“Are we done?” Shepherdspie asked.

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

“Due to the accident, we won’t have much more time left here, but if you could use that time in a way that suits you, um, I’d be happy—as the host.”

“Of course.”

“I doubt you’ll want to take a dip in the ocean, but you can at least enjoy yourself in the garden. There are quite a lot of plants on this island with beautiful blossoms.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Feeling fairly satisfied that he’d spoken appropriately for the elder in this exchange, Shepherdspie nodded. He did not add, “I still have work left, so this isn’t the time for me to slack off.” Talking with a younger person actually required more consideration than talking with your elders.

“Well then, pardon me,” Shepherdspie said as he passed by Mana, but after going five steps, she called him to a stop from behind. He was very careful when he turned back to her to keep a “What else do you want from me?” expression from showing on his face. “Is there something?”

“Thank you very much for the meal. I’ve never had such delicious soup before.”

This time, he took care not to let his joy show blatantly, nodding generously at her with the self-important attitude an elder should have. Shepherdspie turned away from her, and once he was heading off again, his cheeks relaxed. Despite telling himself off—someone might think of you as a soft uncle who gets all pleased just from compliments about his food—he still couldn’t help but smile.

  Mana

Once she tried talking to him, Ragi didn’t seem like a bad person—and neither did Shepherdspie. They were peculiar mages, but Mana couldn’t be criticizing others about peculiarity.

Being the host and a blood relative of the deceased, Shepherdspie was in the greatest position of control over the island, but he didn’t have the air of someone who would do such a thing. He didn’t come off like a conniving person who was pulling the wool over her eyes with incredible acting, either.

But still, the situation was suspicious, and it bothered Mana.

After watching Shepherdspie disappear around a corner, she opened the door of the management room that Ragi was investigating. The hinges weren’t oiled properly, and they creaked unpleasantly. Peeking in, the tiny room of about ten square feet contained only a chair, desk, and terminal with cables coming off it. There were no windows, and it was dusty. When she reached out to the terminal, pins and needles momentarily ran through her fingers. Mana drew back her hand and rubbed her fingers. This was a common type of “warning.” If she was to ignore the password and the set procedure and try to reach out again, she wouldn’t get off with just a warning that time.

She let out a quiet huff. This wasn’t the sort of thing an amateur could meddle with.

Closing the door behind her, she let out another huff through her nose. She didn’t like any of this.

She started to walk, wrapped up in her thoughts. She had a mountain of things to consider.

The letter’s demand to bring a magical girl bothered her like a little fish bone stuck in her throat. Though she’d basically written that off to herself before, figuring it had to be for protecting the heirs from wild animals, things were different now. They’d basically never encountered any wild animals since coming to this island, and she had nothing but doubts as to whether magical girls were really necessary. And then her thoughts flew to how each of the heirs treated magical girls. All of them were nothing but oddballs.

Navi and Agri had been talking about how Shepherdspie had a magical girl for a mistress. And now that they’d pointed that out, Chelsea had indeed been very like a mistress, being shamelessly in a bathrobe in that situation. There was also something dubious about her calling her employer Mr. Pie—and from how she’d flared up at Ragi, telling him not to speak badly of Shepherdspie, it seemed like there was a little more feeling there than a relationship connected purely by cash and contract. And as their host, Shepherdspie had recognized the personhood of the magical girls, doing his best to make them welcome. And his cooking was good.

Yol had spread out some sort of cards from a game and was in enthusiastic conversation with Touta. She’d clearly fallen for the charms of foreign culture. Mana had gone through a phase like that, too. At that age, everything was so brand-new and hopelessly fun. Yol didn’t act particularly arrogant even with Touta, who couldn’t use magic, and Maiya, the magical girl attached to her household, also seemed to be serving her with absolute sincerity. Her family had to recognize and value magical girls.

Agri seemed to have friendly relationships with magical girls, too. She said she’d paid them to come with her, but their relationship didn’t seem as calculated as that. She was easygoing and generous with them. The child of a mistress would generally have a hard time, so perhaps that was why she was generous with the people below her.

Ragi initially came off as a disagreeable mage, but it seemed like his anger came from a position of regarding magical girls as equals. In the first place, when magical girls dared attempt information theft, he should have dealt with them the proper way—getting their records and reporting them to the authorities. His decision to take them on personally was so childish, but at the same time sportsmanlike, in recognizing those magical girls as challengers. Had he always been like that, or had he become that way through working as the chief of the Management Department?

As for Navi—in terms of his résumé, he was a real-deal elite who someone like Mana could never hope to reach, but he wasn’t at all arrogant. Even when his subordinate Clarissa made fun of him, he just laughed. He didn’t take her to task for it. And with the other magical girls, as well—though he could be a bit crude—he talked, smiled, and clapped their shoulders like a neighborhood uncle. Mana had heard that the Osk Faction was harsh on magical girls—were not all of them like that, or was he just the type to draw a clear line between business and his personal life?

Touta wasn’t even a mage in the first place. But still, seeing how a magical girl of Marguerite’s caliber was earnestly guarding him, Mana thought he had to be of rather good character, even if he was a child. Marguerite wouldn’t get so serious just because he was related to Death Prayer.

She did wonder if she was overthinking this. Shepherdspie had said they’d be able to go home soon. That was correct. He was right. But Mana still couldn’t help but think about it. A normal person would see this as needless. But even if it was, thinking about it made a chill run up her spine. Not knowing the cause made her even more uneasy.

She’d been this way ever since that time. After that incident, Mana always felt anxious about things happening for reasons unknown to her.

She knew why she was like this—it was that incident in B City.

Something had happened. But she still hadn’t managed to get a grasp on it. Back when they’d been trapped inside that barrier, if she had been able to get even half a step closer to something like the truth, wouldn’t things have turned out differently? Mana had tossed and turned in bed many nights with thoughts like this before going to sleep. She’d solved the B City incident in her dreams more than just a few times, with Hana at her side saying, “That was tough, huh”—and then she woke up.

Just thinking about things like this made her jaw clench in an attempt to digest her regret and frustration. But Mana was still alive, and the regrets and frustration of the dead had to have been even worse. Their deaths weighed down on her one after another, and in order to withstand their weight, she had to clench her teeth and move on.

Voices coming from outside drew Mana back to reality. They were cries and yells.

Looking down and out the hallway window, she saw people crowding. It looked like they were surrounding someone. It wasn’t just one person being angry. She could also hear crying.

She ran. Racing along the stone corridor, she jumped eight steps, but she failed to take the impact of landing and staggered. She somehow caught her weight on the railing but then fell on her knees. She couldn’t be giving in to pain now. Scolding her legs, Mana got up and ran again.

The voices were getting closer and closer. Making sure not to touch the crumbling wall, she made it outside. Ragi and Shepherdspie were already up ahead. Ragi looked like he’d swallowed something sour as he clenched his staff. Shepherdspie was in such a dither that Mana felt bad for him.

Shepherdspie must have heard her coming, as he turned back. As soon as he saw Mana’s face, he moaned, “Ahhh. It’s terrible. A terrible thing has happened.” His voice cracked.

Mana lowered her voice, meaning to calm him as well as herself. “What happened?”

Shepherdspie’s gaze wouldn’t settle, restlessly moving right, left, then back. Mana looked beyond his obese figure to where his attention lay—on a clump of people. Agri, Nephilia, Navi, Clarissa, Clantail, and 7753 were all turned away from them. Ren-Ren was standing idly by the open hole in the wall of the main building. The one slumped in the center—was that Rareko? Marguerite stood to the side with a stricken expression. Yol was clinging to Rareko and sobbing, while Touta was rubbing Yol’s back.

“That’s…,” Mana began.

“Maiya is, um, how do I put it—she’s passed,” said Shepherdspie, making Mana’s face stiffen, and she looked back at Shepherdspie. He staggered as he flinched back, his gaze darting around restlessly before he eventually looked down at the ground. “Um, according to Rareko and Miss Marguerite, the gates have been destroyed, too… Ahhh, oh dear, why—how has something like this happened?”

“The gates? Both of them?”

“No, um…yes. The south and the north, both have been destroyed.”

Dreamy Chelsea poked her head out from the main building to see what was going on. She tried talking to the group, but nobody would explain. Ren-Ren was closest, so she pressed her for information; then she heard the news.

Mana drew in a deep breath. She tugged the brim of her hat down to hide her face, letting out an exhale that was longer than her inhale. Once she was sure her heartbeat had slowed a little, she lifted the brim of her hat and showed her face. “You’re saying that Maiya has passed away?”

It took Shepherdspie a few seconds to realize she was speaking to him. His eyes flicked all around again, and then with a surprised look like he just remembered that he’d been the one talking with Mana, he nodded. Mana bit her lower lip as she waited patiently.

A few seconds before Mana reached the limits of her patience, Shepherdspie started talking. “Ah, yes. They said Maiya, um…was killed.”

“Was it murder?”

It took Shepherdspie a further few seconds to reply. It probably wasn’t that he didn’t want to reply or that he was being careful with his wording but that he was just confused. “Ahhh, yes. Since I’m told she’d been slashed open and was bleeding…”

“She wasn’t caught by a security installation on the island or something like that?”

“Ah, yes…I mean, no. There isn’t anything that would stab a person. Or rather, never mind killing someone, there just isn’t anything that would harm a person.”

The one who managed the island was saying it wasn’t some security system. The only other option Mana could think of would be the wild animals that were apparently on the island, but no wild animal could kill a magical girl. In other words, she’d died in a manner that could be nothing but murder.

But despite her ominous feeling being proven correct, Mana couldn’t at all bring herself to think, Look, I told you so. All she thought was, Why did this have to happen? Things you didn’t want to happen would generally happen. That was what the Inspection Department existed for.

Mana gazed upon the magical girls and mages of the group in turn. 7753 was just as upset as Shepherdspie, eyes wandering in every direction. Navi Ru’s right hand was over the upper half of his face with his chin turned up at the sky, while Clarissa was looking at him with an expression like she had swallowed lead. Agri had gone pale and was cross-examining Rareko about something, while Ren-Ren, now done explaining to Chelsea, was trying to comfort her. Yol did nothing but cry, and Touta also looked like he was on the verge of tears as he stroked Yol’s back. Ragi was tired to the bone, sitting down heavily on the stone steps, while Clantail stood at his side. The only one who was the same as always was Tepsekemei, who was drifting in the sky as Dreamy Chelsea yelled at her, “Stop floating around!”

Mana touched her own face. She probably had a miserable expression, too.

Nephilia was talking to Marguerite, who looked sour as she responded. Marguerite seemed to have a hard time hearing what Nephilia was saying. She leaned an ear close, and they exchanged a few words, and when she looked up again, her eyes met with Mana’s. The two of them gazed at each other for a few seconds at most. Mana was the one to avert her eyes and turn to look behind her, leaving the group and walking a few steps before turning back again to face everyone.

Nephilia was speaking to Agri. Marguerite, who had been at her side, was gone.

Mana put her hand in her pocket to take the tiny stone there in her palm. The crowd was still caught up in the confusion and turmoil, with nobody able to give any decent instructions. But it was always good to make doubly sure. You couldn’t be sure none of them had a listening ear perked up.

Mana rapped her middle finger three times on the center of the stone, the part that was slightly indented. The commotion of the group over there suddenly became muffled. It was as if she was hearing their voices from a distance. Now she wouldn’t be heard, either.

They said these rocks had originally been used among aristocrats. They’d been convenient for private conversations at balls or parties. They were in general circulation these days, and the Inspection Department made regular use of them as a magic item. They would change the flow of the air and make it so voices wouldn’t slip out.

“Maiya was killed from the front.” From behind Mana and to the side came Marguerite’s voice. Times like these, both of them having come from Inspection would make this process more efficient. She knew what Mana wanted to ask.

“Was Maiya strong?” Mana asked.

“I don’t know if I could have beaten her in a fight,” Marguerite replied.

“That’s significant. Could anyone here have beaten Maiya in a fair fight?”

“You never know which way a fight between magical girls will go.”

“Is it possible that Rareko could have killed her?”

“Maiya was probably Rareko’s combat teacher. It looks to me like she still hasn’t surpassed her teacher, but…”

“You never know which way a fight between magical girls will go.”

“Exactly.”

Mana sighed. That a fight could have gone either way was a useless piece of information. So she started over and asked about the gate. “Can’t we repair the gate? How was it broken?”

“It was physically destroyed. Apparently, some parts were taken away.”

“Parts? What do you mean?”

“Someone actually tried to repair the gate once. Rareko. Her magic to fix broken things would be perfect for this situation, but she says she can’t repair the gate because the whole part that connects to the power is gone. Her magic can’t create a device from nothing.”

“What if the culprit wanted the parts…? No, there’s no way. No robber would cut off their own escape. Does that mean someone who knew about Rareko’s magic broke it so that it couldn’t be fixed?”

“Or Rareko herself did it.”

“Was it an outsider who did this? Or one of us? What do you think, Marguerite?”

“If it was one of us, they must have done something fairly strange. Everyone was here when Maiya was killed. Rareko was the only one who went to the gate with Maiya.”

“So then someone we don’t know?”

“We can’t be certain of that, either. It’s called magic because it does the impossible.”

Mana cracked open the corners of her mouth, letting out a breath slowly, so that nobody would notice her sigh. Marguerite stopped talking then, so maybe she did notice after all.

A question slipped from Mana’s lips with the tail end of a sigh. “So we can’t prove anything?”

“When it comes to either magical girls or mages, you can only ever acquiesce and say, ‘That’s just how it is.’ You should know that, too.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I know.” After a pause, Mana continued. “Let’s have 7753 investigate.”

“With her goggles? You planning to do the same thing as before?”

“We change the settings, of course. To Maiya’s murder and the destruction of the gate. And…” Mana’s lips snapped shut. She locked eyes with the old mage looking at them. Mana quickly moved her fingers in her pocket, returning the airflow to normal. Ragi’s voice became audible. The old man was talking fairly loudly.

“…is. Then we should have 7753 use her magic. If we’re going to investigate these matters, we must first make sure none among us is scheming something.”

Mana remembered that the old man was the head of the Management Department. It wasn’t surprising for him to know what 7753’s magic was. Mana’s eyes shifted from him to the others. Everyone was looking at them. 7753 was giving her an imploring look, too. Mana wanted to sigh, but with all these eyes on her, she couldn’t do something so unseemly.

  7753

Whenever 7753’s goggles were needed, it was always for checking something bad. It was fair to say there were basically no occasions when she used them in a decent and amicable way, and everyone walked away happy. It was being aware of this that made 7753 so miserable about this situation, but it wasn’t like she was okay with the fact that someone had been killed, either. It was just that it would always feel nasty.

7753 had sneaked looks at subjects with her goggles before, but this time, everyone was looking at her. She couldn’t be taking sneak peeks now. And not only that…

“Oh no, no, no,” insisted Navi. “That’s not happening. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

No matter what sort of emergency or bloodbath was going on, someone would always bring up the most convenient line: invasion of privacy. Even if they made it through this safely and went back home, he could be socially assassinated if his bad deeds were exposed through 7753’s magic, after all.

Navi kept repeating, “Can’t have that. Nope, not happening.”

Ragi snorted, making his full white beard jump as he thrust the end of his staff at Navi. “Because you’re up to no good, no doubt. Just accept that there’s nothing to be done about your bad deeds being exposed over this. There will be mercy if you resign yourself and let yourself be arrested.”

“Hold on there, old man,” Navi shot back. “I wish it were just about me. But you can’t say it won’t stir up trouble for the whole faction. I could say, ‘I was just following orders. Master Osk told me to do it’—I don’t know whether that will pass with the other factions until I try, but I don’t even want to make an attempt.”

Ragi’s face turned red startlingly quickly, and he began swinging his outstretched staff but then staggered, and Clantail caught him. Leaning on Clantail, Ragi swung his staff around. “Talking as if Master Osk is the don of a gang of criminals! You garbage! You don’t have a smidgeon of respect! That’s right—you’re dag-nabbing trash! How dare bottom-dwelling filth take Master Osk’s name in vain!”

“That’s going a bit far. I am more or less a member of the faction, you know. I’m gonna say the boss’s name.”

“Then leave the faction! It’s because of you miserable lot that the honor of Master Osk has been besmirched!!”

Mana stepped forward. It seemed 7753 wasn’t the only one worried that if they let those two continue, it would never come to an end—Shepherdspie looked a little relieved, and Agri’s fed-up expression faded a bit, too.

“You can change the settings to make the goggles display different items, right, 7753?” Mana asked.

7753 seemed flustered about having the discussion turned to her, but she nodded. “Yes, yeah, yes, that’s right. I can’t see absolutely everything all at once.”

“So she says. So then could you make it show only about Maiya’s murder and the destruction of the gate?”

Navi groaned something under his breath, looking distressed. Agri raised her hand and followed with, “If that’s how it works, I’ll let her see,” and Shepherdspie nodded again.

Finding out that he was the only one against it, Navi nodded as well, reluctantly. “If that’s all it is, then fine. It’d be a hassle to have everyone suspect me,” he added, like an excuse.

7753 set the goggles and let everyone see what she’d done. She lent the goggles to Navi to show him that she couldn’t see anything aside from those settings and had him look at Mana and 7753 through them.

“Well, this should be fine,” Navi said.

Investigating whether anyone had destroyed the gate or whether there was anyone who had killed Maiya, each time she changed the settings, she would get everyone to check again in detail, and the result was: nobody. 7753 breathed a deep, heavy sigh. Though the mood among the group had eased a bit, and they’d started to talk, it was just slightly better than before. They weren’t exactly relaxed or calm. There was still someone lurking on the island who had killed Maiya and destroyed the gate.

“No, hold on.” Dreamy Chelsea raised a hand. “You haven’t checked everyone yet, have you?”

“Huh? Haven’t I?” 7753 counted down on her fingers. Navi and Clarissa. Ragi and Clantail. Touta and Marguerite. Yol and Rareko. Agri, Ren-Ren, and Nephilia. Shepherdspie and Chelsea.

“The sheep girl isn’t here,” Mana commented from beside her.

“Oh, now that you mention it.” 7753 recalled the incident where Navi had been swallowed up by sheep. She’d been so overcome by the sight of the charging sheep that she had forgotten that situation was due to a magical girl.

Chelsea said, “Huff, huff!” out loud, pointing to her own heart. “Chelsea’ll be mad if you forget May-May.”

“Ohhh, no, sorry,” 7753 apologized. “I didn’t mean to forget… Is she in the main building?”

“Yep. Mr. Pie told her to clean up the kitchen.”

Shepherdspie nodded and added, “I thought I asked you, too,” but Dreamy Chelsea interrupted her boss before he could finish.

“May-May isn’t a bad girl, so she wouldn’t kill anyone or break anything, though!” she declared with full confidence, putting her hands on her hips. She followed that with, “Because no magical girl is a bad girl.”

“Do you think the sheep person is the culprit?” 7753 whispered to Mana, beside her. “She really doesn’t seem like she’d be the one.”

“Not on the surface, at least… Marguerite, do you think Pastel Mary could have killed Maiya?”

Marguerite tilted her head right, then left, then put it in its original position. The blank look on her face gave the gesture a sort of surreal humor. “That girl would lose her balance just from running normally. She couldn’t possibly defeat Maiya with martial arts.”

“And with magic?”

“If she ordered her sheep, she could kill someone far away…perhaps. But Maiya would never be killed by a sheep.”

“She didn’t look as if she was handling the sheep very well, either,” said 7753.

“What about if all that was acting, and she’s been hiding her true nature…?” Mana said.

Marguerite lowered her chin at a vague angle that might have been a nod and might not. “Though it seems unlikely, it’s not impossible.”

Mana and Marguerite both looked at 7753 at the same time. Overwhelmed by their two hard expressions, she felt ruffled but nodded. “Then I’ll investigate the sheep person…Mary as well.”

Mana told that to Shepherdspie, and he ordered Chelsea to go call for her. Chelsea continued to complain, “May-May would never do something like that,” but she went back to the main building.

Learning the culprit behind the destruction of the gate as well as Maiya’s murder was not among them finally eliminated the obstruction to the group’s cooperation—and source of suspicion.

Mana touched her right index finger and thumb to her chin. She looked thoughtful. “If we can work together, then we have to be completely thorough…”

“Yes, of course,” 7753 agreed.

“We must be united against external threat, or even more could die.”

“No way do we want more of that.”

Mana looked up. 7753 was drawn to look up, too. The sky was red. The sun was starting to set. Magical girls could see in the dark, but most likely, whatever they were dealing with was a magical girl or something like it. They should assume things would get more dangerous. Mana was about to say as much when Agri raised her hand.

“Hey?” Seeing nobody was stopping her, Agri continued. “My Nephy says she can hear dead people’s voices. If we could hear Maiya’s voice, maybe we could learn something.”

It looked like Nephilia said something after that, but 7753 couldn’t hear it. Nephilia tugged Agri’s sleeve, with her lips pulled down in reluctance as she shook her head. Clarissa pointed to that, saying, “But, like, it looks like she doesn’t want to do it, though?”

“Nephy hates using her magic,” Agri explained. “She doesn’t like touching dead bodies. But this isn’t the time to be saying stuff like that. I think we should have her do it, even if she doesn’t like it.”

Nephilia nodded a few times and said something, but it was so soft, 7753 couldn’t hear it.

As if prompted by that, Mana lowered her voice, too. “The voices of the dead? What do you mean by that?”

“Like I said,” Agri began, “that’s what Nephy’s magic is. She can hear the voices of dead people.”

7753’s heart leaped out of her throat—or it felt like it did. The words “voices of the dead” sank into her ears. Before her head could even absorb the words, she hugged her arms around her body. If the dead could speak, what would they say to her? What would they want to say? This wasn’t fear. It wasn’t exactly remorse, either. Indescribable feelings coiled within her and wouldn’t go away.

Looking angry and upset, Mana pressed her lips shut. Marguerite stepped forward from the side to stand by Mana and lean toward Agri. “You mean like a séance?”

“No, she said she doesn’t ask ghosts questions or anything like that,” Agri told her.

“Sounds fishy,” Ragi spat quietly, but Agri just flicked a glance over to him, ignoring that to turn back to Marguerite. “Um, so. By…touching the bodies of dead people? She apparently hears the words the dead person said. Basically, it’s like, she just plays out a record of the sound, as is.”

7753 heaved out a breath. She hadn’t even realized she was holding it. Wondering about Mana, she looked over at her to see she was biting her lower lip, looking even more serious than before as she listened.

Scratching his head, Navi cut in. “So she can’t ask the dead questions, and the dead can’t start talking as they please. It’s just repeating exactly what they actually said?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” answered Agri.

“Maybe this’ll sound rude, but that ain’t gonna work, is it? She’s probably said something like gwaagh or augh, and not words that mean anything.”

With her head hanging, Nephilia mumbled something, and Agri, whose ear was close, nodded “mm-hmm” and then looked up. “She says that by touching a person longer, she can go back to hear what they said earlier.”

Navi groaned, expression grim—7753 felt like she’d seen him like this multiple times that day—and seeing that, Agri closed one eye. “What will we do? In order to use Nephy’s magic, she needs, um, Maiya’s body.” That slight hesitation may have been out of concern for Yol. She was a slight distance away in Rareko’s arms, shoulders trembling.

Marguerite reacted instantly. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Of course it’ll be dangerous. I know that. I can’t let Nephy go alone,” said Agri.

Mana tilted her head. “So do we all go together? To the place where Maiya was lying.”

Ragi poked the ground with his staff. “It would be a bad idea to leave this place unattended. Let the management terminal get broken by some rapscallion and just you see, it would be a disaster.”

“So we send a few people over?” Mana suggested.

“B-but—but listen,” spluttered Shepherdspie. “Wouldn’t splitting up here be t-too dangerous?”

“If we can get it done quickly… How long does Nephilia’s magic take?” Mana asked Agri.

“She says it doesn’t take long.”

“Now hold on there. Is it even worth doing all that to hear Maiya’s voice?” Navi griped.

“We won’t know that unless we hear it. Stop opposing us over every little thing, mister,” Agri shot back.

“I’m just talking about what’s reasonable.”

Though the exchange went on, in the end, they decided that Nephilia and a few magical girls would go to the place where Maiya had been lying. Agreeing that they would hurry back if anything happened, Nephilia, Marguerite, Tepsekemei, and Clarissa would head to the scene, while 7753 stayed behind with the rest, praying in her heart that things would look up even slightly.

  Touta Magaoka

Somehow, it didn’t feel real at all. Maiya had been totally fine just a while ago, and now they were saying she’d been killed. They said the gates had been destroyed, and they couldn’t go back. Touta was scared, of course, but it was like none of it was real. Comforting someone else had provided a bit of a distraction, but now his mind was spinning in circles. Things like a murder and the gates being broken to keep them from getting out were happening in real life—even though this was a bright, sunny, and warm southern island where it seemed things like that would never happen.

His head and his heart were spinning around, but his feeling of wonderment was enough to blow all that away. He’d heard that magical girls’ magic was amazing, but seeing them actually do it surprised him and made him think, I saw something like this in anime! The magical girl called 7753 pulled out a pair of magic goggles and claimed that you couldn’t hide anything from her when she looked through them.

Some of the adults looked like they really didn’t want to do it, while others were more vocal with their anger. 7753 seemed uncomfortable and flustered—and just having a bad time.

Seeing 7753, who he’d been so amazed by, pitiably bowing around to everyone made him remember. This wasn’t a situation to be feeling amazed about. Yol was still crying. She said that Maiya had always been with her and that she always nagged her—but if they’d always been together, that was just like family. For Touta, that would be like his great-aunt. If he heard she was dead, of course he would cry. He hadn’t known Maiya very well, since they’d only just met, but seeing Yol sad made Touta sad, too. Though she’d only been standing tall and talking about how “meet meta is part of strategy,” now her back was hunched.

That was why Touta stayed by her side. Marguerite had told him to cheer her up, but he understood that without being told.

When he looked at Yol, he thought, I want to comfort her, but I don’t know what to say or I want to protect her, but I don’t know what I can do, and he just didn’t know, but he rubbed her back for her anyway. But he figured it would be better if he could manage something else.

7753 apologized, and other people got mad, but in the end, things wound up with everyone deciding to work together in lieu of there being someone frightening. If this were a detective manga, it would have gone more like, “There’s a culprit among us!” but 7753’s goggles kept that from happening. They could unify as a group to struggle through. Magical girls are amazing, Touta thought.

The adults were discussing, saying, “Let’s do this” or “Let’s do that.” They’d decided that first, they would have Nephilia use her magic to hear the voice of the deceased. Marguerite looked serious as she told him, “If anything happens, depend on an adult. But if it’s hopeless, then take Yol’s hand and run,” and Touta nodded back with an equally serious look. She told him one more thing that sounded very difficult: “Be brazen like Death Prayer…like your aunt. You’re a blood relative, so it shouldn’t be impossible for you.” But Touta nodded anyway. Marguerite remained stone-faced as Touta looked back just once, and when he looked up front again, she was already gone along with the other magical girls.

Touta paused, letting those words sink in. Then he said, “I’m going over there for a sec,” and left Yol and Rareko. He approached 7753, who was behind Mana. “Um, can I talk to you a minute?”

“Pardon?” 7753 lifted her goggles up over her school hat. She wasn’t constantly looking at everything through her goggles.

“Would you mind…checking me?”

“I already did. It’s okay. You don’t need to worry.”

“No, I mean if I have a potential for magic.”

7753’s eyebrows went into an upside-down V, pulling firmly downward. She was clearly feeling awkward. She flicked a gaze at Mana, who was talking with the other adults. Mana’s appearance resembled a child’s, but when she talked, she had the air of an adult. Maybe that was because she was a mage.

“Well then, let’s take a look.” 7753 brought the goggles down to look at Touta.

Touta stood at attention and looked back at her, fingers straight as boards at his sides.

“Um…not yet, it looks like,” 7753 told him.

He was disappointed to hear that. He was so downtrodden that he couldn’t consider that “not yet” meant it might grow in the future.

“What about a potential to become a magical girl?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“I heard that the potential to become a mage and the potential to become a magical girl are a little different, and, um, I was told that even guys could occasionally become magical girls.”

7753 lowered her goggles, then raised them again faster than before. “It seems like basically no.”

“…Did you look carefully?”

“I did… Oh, are you unsure because I was so fast? It’s just that whether someone has the potential to be a magical girl is something I check a lot, so I can set it really fast.”

Touta was disappointed. Bowing with a “Thank you,” by the time he trudged back to Yol and Rareko, Yol had stopped crying. But when he saw her sad, sad face and their eyes met, he thought, Ahhh, maybe I’ve gone and messed up things. She had that sort of look. Touta regretted leaving her behind. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Yol said. “What did you ask?”

“Um…” It was difficult to admit that it was whether he had the potential to be a mage. Yol and the others all took for granted that they were mages, but Touta had his hopes dashed—at the very least, he couldn’t mention it without shame.

“I was asking if maybe I have the potential to be a magical girl,” he told her finally.

“A magical girl? Why?”

“If I could become a magical girl…” It was too embarrassing to say something so arrogant like, “Then I could protect you.” He could never say that. He couldn’t offer other reasons like how then he’d be able to console her or that he’d be able to encourage her. He couldn’t say anything like that. Marguerite had told him to be brazen like his aunt, but this probably wasn’t what she meant by that.

“…I thought maybe it’d be safe and convenient,” Touta said.

“It’s difficult to become a magical girl, you know. Especially for boys.”

“Yeah. But I heard it happens sometimes.”

“I couldn’t become a magical girl, either.”

“You too?”

“If you ask, you can get them to test you. There are a lot of people who will administer a test whether you’re an adult or a child. I got some medicine and took it, but nothing happened…”

When she talked about the past, Yol looked a little cheerier than when she had been crying on and on. When Touta flicked his gaze up, he saw Rareko was now the one with tears welling up in her eyes.

  Rareko

Maiya was dead. That meant radical change for Rareko’s life. Not in a good direction, of course. That would never happen. Her life was going to change in an overwhelmingly bad direction. If she stood around crying like Yol, nobody was going to comfort her, and even if there had been someone, tears wouldn’t fix anything. Right now, she had to act, with her sights fixed on after Maiya’s death.

But what made it hard was that it would be a bad idea to do anything too blatant. If she wasn’t standing by Yol’s side sadly looking down or something, people would think she was an ingrate who didn’t even mourn her master’s death. Maybe Rareko really was an ingrate, but that was Maiya’s fault. The way she’d done things, Rareko would never consider her debt a true one. But even if Rareko insisted that, nobody was going to listen.

It was best to just pretend to mourn the death of her benefactor. There was nothing to gain from being thought an ingrate. The appearance of mourning Maiya’s death wouldn’t harm her.

Rareko kept thinking to herself. What she had to do right now was think. Letting Yol and Touta’s stupid, boring chatter go in one ear and out the other, she immersed herself in careful deliberation.

Maiya had been Rareko’s teacher and her sponsor. Despite being a magical girl, Maiya had behaved like a mage, and she hadn’t been criticized for it, either. She’d been the most senior in service of Yol’s household, and she’d been treated about as close to a member of the family as you can get.

It was Maiya’s high position in the family that had permitted her selfishness. If a regular servant was to bring in some dirty brat from who-knows-where and say, “Starting today, I will make her my apprentice,” she would be fired on the spot.

Rareko had been allowed to live in that house because she was Maiya’s apprentice. With Maiya gone, she could no longer live there like before. She would probably be tossed out. She’d been taken in by Maiya so young that she could hardly even remember anything before then, living only for training, house chores, and errands. Even if she went somewhere else now, she didn’t know what she could do.

Rareko was an orphan without a single person to rely on—not parents, children, brothers, sisters, relatives, or a lover. There was no home for her to go back to. She knew better than anyone that she wasn’t strong enough to be able to make a living as a magical girl. She would never be as good as Maiya in staff combat. Her magic had decent utility, but she’d been forbidden to use it freely, and she hadn’t had the opportunities to consider how to make it useful, either. Even if she was to try making a living on her magic now, she had no idea how feasible that was.

Maiya had been strict. She’d worn a severe expression ever since they’d first met. Rareko could easily have died on any occasion back then—she’d be tossed this way and treated cruelly, tossed there and worked to the bone—so you’d think Rareko would have clearly seen Maiya as a savior, but Rareko didn’t feel at all like she’d been saved.

Maiya had controlled Rareko with yelling, hitting, and kicking. Her educational practices were more than just a generation too old—they were two or three generations out-of-date, and Maiya never even doubted those methods. She believed that was the best way because she’d been raised like that herself. Not that she ever said that out loud, but Rareko had to assume that was what it was.

Since Maiya would resort to the rod when it came to matters of cleaning or kitchen work, it went without saying that was also the case for martial arts. Maiya had always had a staff, while Rareko had been given a staff after the fact, so they were at two completely different starting lines—but Maiya didn’t care, adopting the Spartan approach of, “Of course you can do it. You’re just lazy.”

If you train, you’ll get stronger. But it’s not like it works like that for everyone. Rareko would never surpass Maiya through training methods that were harsh all of the time—not in a hundred years could Rareko win. Everyone understood that, even Rareko herself, but Maiya was the one person who still didn’t get it, and so Rareko had spent every day in endless training.

She recognized she was still alive, but it wouldn’t have been surprising for her to die at any point. Rareko knew about an organization of crazy magical girls who would train until they almost died, but they did it because they liked it. They weren’t being forced into it.

Rareko was not someone from three generations ago; she was living in the here and now. Getting hit and kicked wasn’t okay anymore, and each strike built up her resentment and anger further. It was because of Maiya that she had come to worry about what other people think. It was Maiya’s fault that she’d become a two-faced person. It was fair to say that she had managed to survive somehow by making everything Maiya’s fault.

This quiet anger that didn’t show on the outside—that she didn’t dare express—had only ever caused her stress, but it was good that her anger kept her from being sad about Maiya’s death. Thanks to that, she could think clearly.

She mentally ranked her priorities. First was her own life. She had to be alive, or everything else was meaningless. Second was to get off the island alive. That was important. Maiya hadn’t been a good master or someone who should be commended as a person, but she had unmistakably been strong. And not just compared to Rareko—she had rarely ever lost to any magical girl. If Maiya had lost, that meant her opponent was exceptional. Rareko should avoid fighting them at all costs.

It wasn’t like none of the magical girls here seemed strong. Miss Marguerite in particular was an old acquaintance of Maiya’s, and Rareko had heard they’d run into each other a number of times at Archfiend Cram School events. A magical girl who would go to an Archfiend Cram School event couldn’t be weak—in other words, Marguerite was strong. Maiya wouldn’t even acknowledge the human rights of weak magical girls, but she’d spoken to Marguerite with decent respect. So even if she wasn’t as strong as Maiya, she had to be at a similar level.

Even if it was impossible for Marguerite on her own, maybe she could defeat the enemy if she had some backup. Of course, Rareko didn’t plan to be that backup. She would play the poor magical girl who had been crushed by Maiya’s death and pray that with luck, Marguerite would finish off the enemy. If someone as capable as her couldn’t win, then Rareko just had to buy some time until help came.

Those who died were weak, and those who survived were strong. This was the one thing Maiya had taught her that she liked.

Rareko’s eyes flicked down at the two children. Touta must have said something, as Yol’s lips were quirked up a bit. With the basic assumption that she would leave the island alive, next, she had to think about her future course after escape. If she could curry favor with Yol, she might somehow be able to ask about continuing her employment. So then what should she do to get into Yol’s good graces? She was unused to flattery and adulation, so should she forget that and search for another way to live?

Rareko once again threw herself into the ocean of thought.

  Miss Marguerite

Fortunately, no problems cropped up.

With Marguerite leading the way, they soon reached the place where Maiya had lost her life. Her body was still there, untouched.

It was just as miserable on the second look as the first. Marguerite wanted to tear her eyes away, but she couldn’t let herself do that. On the way, she watched out of the corner of her eyes how the other magical girls moved. Tepsekemei flew in the sky, so it went without saying that Marguerite needed to keep a watch on her, but Clarissa was also fast, with a mastery in the movements of her body. Marguerite could assume she had far more experience than you’d expect from her human age. Nephilia, on the other hand, was a little slow, but that was just compared to the others here; she was about average for a magical girl.

Before their group came here, Mana had seemed to be worrying about various things. Marguerite couldn’t say for sure that her worries were baseless. That was precisely why they would be relying on Nephilia’s magic, on the hope that it would be some kind of clue. Marguerite knelt down and prayed awhile, then beckoned for Nephilia. Nephilia retreated a half step and drew her chin back. She didn’t seem very happy about this—in fact, she looked reluctant. She was muttering to herself.

Marguerite leaned her ear close to pick up what she was saying. “What? …It’s too…gruesome…so you don’t want to touch it…?”

Clarissa booed. Marguerite put her right hand on her hip and looked down at Nephilia. They were clearly not going to let her return without doing anything.

Nephilia still wanted out of it, but she must have sensed that she wasn’t going to be allowed to back out, as she dragged her chin up, and though she was as slow as possible about it, she got moving.

She slowly descended into a formal kneel beside the dead body and timidly reached out to Maiya’s head—she drew back once, then extended her arm again, taking plenty of time until she touched her and finally began to stroke her. Once Nephilia had begun stroking her, the negative emotions disappeared from Nephilia’s expression, and she picked up speed, stroking the body’s head. It had stopped bleeding by now, but the ground was still dirty. Nephilia’s knees were wet with blood. She paid them no mind.

Marguerite watched Nephilia but kept her attention fixed on the other magical girls as well. Tepsekemei remained continually blank-faced before the gruesome body as well as the change in Nephilia. Since this one was Mana’s companion, she probably wasn’t a bad person, but she was unquestionably an oddball. Clarissa was what you’d call “creeped out,” her catlike ears slightly lowered as she watched in disgust. Whether that was a good reaction or not, she was easier to understand.

Then Nephilia cried out. It was the shriek of someone dying. Marguerite automatically put her hand on her sword hilt. But it wasn’t Nephilia’s shriek. It was Maiya’s voice. Tepsekemei spun once in midair, and Clarissa cried out in astonishment. Nephilia ignored the others’ reactions and continued to stroke. She looked kind of abnormal. What with the sound of Maiya’s voice, it looked as if she were summoning a spirit. Even though Marguerite knew she wasn’t, that was what it looked like.

“All right, then. If you’ll resist, I’ll show no mercy.” That was Maiya’s voice. It had come clearly out of her mouth. It was not Nephilia’s hard-to-hear muttering.

“What are you talking about? Figure that out yourself.”

It was going back in time.

“Who are you? What are you doing on this island?”

It kept going back.

“You…”

Nephilia stopped moving. Her eyes focused again, and Marguerite got the feeling their color darkened somewhat, as well. “After this…talk…Rareko…”

“You mean after this is a conversation with Rareko?”

Nephilia nodded. She looked like herself, the Nephilia Marguerite knew—sleepy-looking, no longer seeming possessed.

Marguerite played the “words from Maiya” that Nephilia had emitted backward in her mind.

Maiya had said, “You…” when she’d encountered someone. It was fair to assume, “What are you talking about? Figure that out yourself,” was in reply to something the other person had said. And then before that, she’d said, “Who are you?” In other words, it was someone unknown to Maiya and also just one person. And from how she’d asked the question, it was something or someone that was humanoid, or at the very least it had to be someone who looked like you could talk to them. And…Marguerite was about to think further, but before she could, a voice came from behind her. It was Clarissa.

“I get that you wanna think about it, but like…” Marguerite turned back to see Clarissa with a crooked smile, jabbing behind her with a thumb. “Wanna go back? Standing around here is risky and scary, and I did basically leave my boss back there.”

Marguerite didn’t even have to consider it. Clarissa was quite right.

Regretting that she’d gotten lost in her thoughts, Marguerite nodded, then lent a hand to Nephilia to help her to her feet. The four magical girls headed back the way they’d come, while Marguerite mentally apologized to Maiya for having used her body.

  Love Me Ren-Ren

The explosive air had dissipated. It really was a relief. Ren-Ren was the worst at handling that kind of tension, the sort that would pop if you pricked it. She wanted everyone to get along, even if it took a few lies. She knew some people would disagree with her, but that didn’t change her mind. That was ultimately just her opinion, and it wasn’t like she would force it on anyone else.

It was a huge boon to learn that the culprit wasn’t among them, and she could really understand just how strong and incredible 7753’s magic was.

Agri started to talk a little more cheerily, too. She was the one Ren-Ren was the most concerned about right now. Ren-Ren receiving money, her being hired was nothing more than the impetus. Agri said that she hadn’t been blessed with regards to family, and Ren-Ren wanted to put that in the past. Ever since coming here, Agri’s eyes had been trailing the other mages’ backs. They moved in flickering glances to examine hems and sleeves. She’s looking at their robes, Ren-Ren thought. Everyone else’s robes were beautiful and well tailored, while Agri’s were old and frayed. She put on an act like she wasn’t bothered by such things, but it was getting under her skin.

Ren-Ren thought that unhappiness was the accumulation of little things like that. She wanted Agri to be happy from now on and forever. That was Ren-Ren’s wish.

Agri occasionally looked at Navi. He was tilting his head and cracking his neck as he looked off in the direction Clarissa and the others had gone. Ren-Ren thought he had to be worried. Ren-Ren was worried about Nephilia, too. They knew someone scary was out there, but they wouldn’t get anywhere unless Nephilia went—even though she wasn’t a fighter.

Yol was able to talk now. Someone dear to her had just been killed, so of course her heart was reeling. But still, what mattered was that she’d stopped crying and that she was talking. The most important thing was that she was well, and the second most important thing was how others felt. Ren-Ren hadn’t spoken much with Yol, but it only took a glance to see how cute she was. Smiling always suited a cute girl better than crying. Seeing such a cute smile would make others happy, too.

With 7753’s magic, they’d learned that at least there was no culprit among them. That had enabled them to bring the whole group together to cooperate against an outside enemy. This was quite important. Agri was firing off propositions, too: “Let’s make the main building our base… How about we try making some kind of alarm clappers?” Everyone was brainstorming together.

But there was still one magical girl they hadn’t checked.

Ren-Ren glanced at Shepherdspie. He was the one person looking glum and digging his toes into the ground. It seemed even he thought Chelsea was taking too long.

Only Pastel Mary, who materialized pictures of sheep she drew with her pastels and controlled them, still hadn’t shown up. Dreamy Chelsea, who’d gone to get her, also hadn’t come back.

The mages discussed a magical defense, while the magical girls were talking about a rotating watch and doing rounds. In order to get off the island, first they had to protect themselves. They decided that repairing the gates and contacting the outside could come after they’d largely perfected their defenses.

As they were discussing, they heard a nasty cough that kept going without a break. Clantail rushed to her employer at a trot, lending him a hand to make him sit on the steps. Ragi seemed to be quite unwell.

Ragi was basically the specialist when it came to magical defenses, and he couldn’t keep going if they left him like this until he passed out—and that would also be a problem, ethically speaking. And Ren-Ren thought everyone should be well.

Shepherdspie went back to the estate in order to fetch the grayfruit they’d stockpiled, and when he came back, Chelsea was with him. He was dumbfounded, and Chelsea was disconcerted.

Chelsea muttered, “Mary isn’t there. She isn’t anywhere.”

Shepherdspie groaned. “They’re gone. The grayfruit we picked are gone.”

Ren-Ren put on an expression of surprise, opening her mouth wide to look back at them.