Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 16 - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE MAGICAL-GIRL HUNTER GOES TO SCHOOL

  Juube

The Magical Kingdom was supposedly spearheaded by the Sages, but they had the important issue of the magic power being about to dry up that they were dealing with, along with the foolish struggle between powers that was also not going away. Not only was there political strife between the large factions headed by the Three Sages, but even at a lower level, such as within factions and in certain departments, there were internal squabbles and struggles for power. Day in, day out, someone, somewhere was having a conflict.

And so those opportunists who would try flattering whichever group was slightly bigger would keep their eyes on the direction of these struggles, large and small. To them, currently, the hottest topic was the conflict between the Caspar Faction and the R&D Department. Even if they didn’t publicly cross swords, those with sharp ears and eyes could tell what was going on based on the movements of people, money, and resources, and all the other various types of activity.

But very few knew the details of what the Caspar Faction and R&D were fighting over. It wasn’t known that Pythie Frederica, who had taken over the Caspar Faction in a short period, and the figure known as Old Blue—the first-generation Lapis Lazuline, who had complete control over R&D—were in a secret feud over who would decide the future of the Magical Kingdom. But the two magical girls in Meeting Room 4 of the Magical Girl Resources Department, which was guarded to the gills by all sorts of security, were a little more versed in the affairs of their world than most of the well-informed.

“Um, can I…?”

A magical girl with a puppet on her right hand raised that same hand—in other words, the puppet—and the puppet raised its hand just like the magical girl.

Juube, the silver-haired magical girl facing the whiteboard, did a half-turn on the spot and pointed her index and middle fingers at the puppet girl, Puppeta. “If you have a question, then go ahead.”

Being pointed at must have embarrassed Puppeta. She shrank away, but the puppet boldly opened its arms.

“Can’t Frederica and Lazuline make nice?” Puppeta asked.

“That’s impossible. Absolutely impossible. We’re ending that line of discussion here. Do you still have questions? If you don’t, we’ll move on… By the way, your puppet today is strangely cute.”

“There’s been a lot of activity with the magical-girl class, so I figured we can’t be too careful. I made contact with Rappy and made a puppet of her.”

“Not a bad precaution. And also, it’s cute.”

Juube smiled like you would at a child and petted the head of the puppet. The puppet waved its thin and transparent film, a magic wrap, in response. Puppeta was looking at her like she was gross, but Juube decided not to be bothered about it.

Juube wrote out some words on the whiteboard. Underneath Lazuline’s name, she wrote R&D Department in blue, and underneath Frederica, she wrote Caspar Faction in red.

“Typically, a single department could never fight with a large group commanded by one of the Three Sages. But it’s difficult to call R&D an ordinary department and also difficult to say that the Caspar Faction originally had much life in it… I suppose that goes without saying since Frederica has taken it over.”

Underneath R&D Department, she added Clients.

“A major part of the R&D Department’s expansion is that they’ve acquired multiple big-spending powerful aristocrats. They’ve formed a mutually beneficial cycle of accepting aid, pushing vigorously toward further research, and contributing their results to their sponsors. I’d say their operations are going even better than when we were there. But none of R&D’s clients are aware of what Lazuline the First is really after. R&D is researching the development of artificial magical girls; if their clients figure this out, they’ll realize this group isn’t good for the Magical Kingdom. I think that would make R&D a legitimate resistance group within the Kingdom.”

Underneath Frederica, she added Department of Diplomacy.

“The Caspar Faction is throwing a lot of money around to gather mercenaries. Acting as an intermediary between them and the Archfiend Cram School graduates is the Department of Diplomacy. In a community with strong ties across the board, people will invite more people—people who just want money, people who want to enhance themselves, people who want to vent their violent impulses, people bound by obligation—all sorts. However, the upper limit of the Archfiend Cram School will certainly be outrageous. They have multiple legendary magical girls. That’s if they can hire people like that, though.”

Beside Department of Diplomacy, she added Caspar Faction aristocrats.

“We can’t expect much from this end—politically or violencewise. The Elite Guard aren’t bad, but their specialty is just being an honor guard, and they have no real combat experience.”

Juube listed out more. This time, she moved away from the two factions and wrote in black: Information Bureau, the Lab, Puk Faction, and Inspection Department.

“The Information Bureau will fundamentally not support either Lazuline the First or Frederica. Both of them are enemies to the mainstream Osk Faction.”

“They won’t do it fundamentally, but will they do it practically?” The puppet Rappy, unlike the original, was blunt, outspoken, and forthright.

And when Juube responded, her tone was different, too. “Yes, yes. You’re smart. If it seems like it will become a one-sided game, then the Information Bureau might support one of them to even their forces and make them clash with each other—since doing that would leave whoever remains standing greatly damaged. Well, I doubt this is going to happen, but you never know what they might get up to.”

“There’s a lot of people who you never know what they might get up to, huh?” the puppet asked.

Juube responded with an exaggerated nod and answered gently, as if speaking to a child. “That’s right. It really is a problem. The Lab was engaging in cooperative development with R&D before, but I can’t say they’re currently getting along well. Stuff happened.”

“Stuff, huh?”

“They seem busy right now, but one or both of them might cooperate. Though I think it would be a milder form of cooperation, such as offering some of their research results. The Puk Faction isn’t able to do that. Of course they can’t—not only did they empty all their safes, they even sold off all their art pieces to cause that incident, and because of that they’ve been made to pay indemnities. Faction operations have been greatly restricted, with either punitive confinement or being banished from their residences, and their fighting forces have been whittled down. I doubt either the First Lazuline or Frederica will be thinking they need to push themselves to make them allies.”

“What about the Inspection Department?”

“It’s comparatively easier to understand their behavioral principle. It’s to crack down on bad guys. That’s ultimately just superficial, while behind the scenes, well, they do rummage around. At the very least, their field inspectors have essentially no political advocacy, and in that sense they’re easy to associate with. But if you’re foolish enough to ask them for help, they’ll probably get suspicious of you over nothing, and Frederica definitely has reasons to be suspicious of you, while Lazuline the First probably does, too… I don’t think either will be wanting to make friends in Inspection… Which brings me to my main point.”

Juube smacked the whiteboard and turned to Puppeta, who was staring back at Juube like she found this a hassle. The puppet, meanwhile, spread its arms animatedly.

“You mean that us at Magical Girl Resources benefit from cooperating with either of them.”

“That’s right. And it would be a waste to watch and wait when we have this much information. If we can get on the winning horse, then we should. And…”

She wrote a little x over Frederica.

“We can’t work with Pythie Frederica after we were so desperate to kick her out of Magical Girl Resources. Our sponsors would get angry about it, too. She’s an eccentric, so maybe she would just say, ‘I don’t really mind, let’s call it water under the bridge,’ and let it go, but personally I would beg off helping out with the things that Frederica is trying to do. It’s definitely nothing good.”

“So then we help R&D?”

“It’s better than helping Frederica. My background…and yours is R&D, but we were in public relations. We’re barely even acquainted with Lazuline…that is, Old Blue from Internal Affairs. I kind of doubt that she’d consider our help as an old comrade reaching out.”

“You don’t sound all that enthusiastic about this.”

“Well, you know. She’s a nasty old hag.”

She was merciless enough to sacrifice even her own, not just strangers. But she was affable and capable of getting a hold on your heart through just a few conversations, gaining her more and more devotees. Juube didn’t think or speculate she had the sharpest intellect out there. She had no confidence at all that she could sit down at the negotiation table with Old Blue and not get sucked in. Even if she thought of herself as a collaborator, there would be no guarantee at all that was a fact. She’d be constantly dogged by the risk that she’d be used to do Old Blue’s bidding and then thrown away.

“So then what’ll you do?”

“That’s my problem here. The various departments are all becoming very active in regard to the magical-girl class, so I think most likely something will happen in the near future.”

“In the near future? So then won’t they snatch the opportunity from under our noses if we don’t act fast?”

“If that were all it was, we’d be fine. But if, for example, Frederica’s side won and she greatly expanded her influence, she might well come to try to take over Magical Girl Resources again.”

“I don’t want that!”

“Neither do I. I think that to do something about the Magical Kingdom, it would be best for Magical Girl Resources to take the lead, but it seems we’re the only ones who think that. I wish Old Blue and Frederica would just take each other down instead.”

“That’s too convenient to ever happen.”

“Yeah, huh.”

Juube and the puppet shared a smile. Puppeta sighed.

  Snow White

Background checks on related parties had begun before her infiltration of the magical-girl class. That investigation hadn’t been done by Snow White. The professionals of the Inspection Department had looked into them for her, under Mana’s direction. This wasn’t the kind of research that would result in deaths just from some probing—like the confidential matters of the Osk Faction or the Lab—but she had acquired many pieces of valuable information that weren’t that easy to get.

Among that information was the history of the magical-girl class principal, Halna Midi Meren. She’d been assigned to the investigation team after the Cranberry incident came to light, had worked as senior staff on the scene, and had been highly praised for the extreme thoroughness of her work. Apparently, the more she investigated the incident, the stronger her desire to keep this from ever happening again had become. She’d even gotten teary-eyed over it.

That tracked with the class material that Arlie had brought her. They were only teaching things related to the Cranberry incident. Snow White was fully in agreement about preventing such an incident from ever happening again, but seeing such a bias in their study content made her wonder if “prevention of another Cranberry incident” was really all it was. Besides, the Magical Kingdom wasn’t so soft that you could establish a magical-girl class on lip service alone.

The day that Snow White first joined the class, she’d faced Halna in the principal’s office.

“Nice to meet you, Snow White. I’m Halna Midi Meren.”

“Nice to meet you, Principal Halna.”

Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her mage’s robes crisp. Her eyes were fixed on Snow White from behind her glasses, while her pointed ears made you think of an elf from stories. She had a pretty face—but that may have made her seem cold.

Aside from the impression she got from her appearance, Snow White could also hear the voice of her heart. All the sadness she had known during her investigation of the incident that the Musician of the Forest had caused continued to linger in her heart, and she thought of it as her mission to get the magical-girl class on track and educate all magical girls to keep such a tragedy from ever occurring again. She felt pain every time magical girls caused a new incident.

And she was irritated at those who got in her way. That anger was directed at those who had sent their members into the magical-girl class for the sake of expanding their faction and at those members who had been sent in. She felt adversely toward the presence of those girls and wanted them to get out right away. These were the things that troubled her.

Halna’s lips relaxed slightly, and she sighed. Though Halna was just as expressionless as before, Snow White felt the principal had softened just a little.

“I have high hopes for you,” Halna said.

Her manner of speech was, if anything, considerate toward Snow White. Halna wasn’t hostile. Snow White had taken Musician of the Forest, Cranberry’s, final exam, and publicly she was the one who had defeated Cranberry, so Halna figured she could be a major figurehead for the magical-girl class. She didn’t want Snow White to leave.

Snow White had no intention of being their figurehead. There were too many things that she had to do, and she couldn’t manage to deal with that on top of everything else. But if Halna was cooperative, then she was thankful. The problem only came if she wasn’t actually cooperative—Snow White would have to watch out for that. Puk Puck had also been cooperative, speaking purely in terms of the voice of her heart.

There were three types of people willing to meet with Snow White, knowing what her magic was: those who didn’t mind if she heard the voice of their heart, those who didn’t want it heard but were forced to meet with her anyway, and those who had some way of preventing her from listening in.

She should assume that all high-ranking mages were people to watch out for. Snow White had believed in her own magic, and she’d thought highly of Puk Puck based on what she’d heard from her. But then she’d been used to do the Sage incarnation’s bidding, magnified the damage, and increased the number of dead. She couldn’t afford to repeat that mistake.

Bowing her head, Snow White left the room.

Halna’s expression didn’t change until the end. “I’ll show you to the classroom,” she offered.

The teacher—a magical girl named Calkoro—was smiling awkwardly.

Snow White could hear hammering nails from the direction of Umemizaki Junior High School. It seemed they had some kind of cultural event that they called the Founding Festival, and the students were in a flurry of activity preparing for it. Even the sounds she was hearing were restless.

From the magical-girl class, what she heard mainly came from their hearts, and these were just as lively. There were voices loud and quiet—some wary of her, some frightened of her, and some concerned.

Now back in her civilian form, Koyuki Himekawa followed Calkoro to the classroom.

  Calkoro Culumff

Why was it one depressing thing after another? Calkoro’s motivation had been at zero over the course of her short teaching career, so one thing would be enough to leave her fed up—but it wasn’t just one thing.

One cause of her depression was the Magical-Girl Hunter, Snow White. Calkoro had assumed that she would be appointed as teacher and Calkoro would be relieved from duty, or even worse, Calkoro would be made to take responsibility for the incident with the homunculi and would be punished somehow—but fortunately, neither had happened, and Calkoro was to continue teaching. But that was a trial in its own way.

Snow White was in the textbook, after all. There was quite a lot of text and zeal devoted to her. How should Calkoro talk about Snow White in class? What was expected of her? Was she supposed to say with a smile, “And so as you can see, Snow White is an amazing person. Okay, a round of applause, everyone,” and make them clap? That would reek of propaganda. The more headstrong magical-girl students wouldn’t accept that so readily. Even just thinking about that made her head hurt.

And then the second thing that was making her depressed was the special class that was starting that day. She would be teaching a module that wasn’t in the textbook, out of a booklet she’d been given—this must have been a very last-minute change. The booklet was very thin, and there were too many areas left up to the teacher’s discretion.

“A magically generated body operated by a quasi-personality also made by magic is known as a homunculus,” Calkoro explained. “We use the word personality, but this is something like an operating program and is essentially different from the feelings and natures of real people.”

It wasn’t like she didn’t understand the logic of explaining to the class about homunculi, for the students who had been harmed by them. But Calkoro thought that if you were sincere about explaining these things, you should take a little more time on it. She wanted them to actually make a textbook, rather than leaving it to the discretion of the teacher. Then she could do this more easily.

“And as for similar types of magical servants, there are also golems, which you all know of.”

A sour air wafted through the room. All the students’ faces were saying, “No, we don’t know.” For this class, Calkoro was even having to fumble around when it came to shared knowledge. She cleared her throat quietly.

“Research into golem formulae for creating servants goes back to ancient times. Homunculus formulae are a derivation created in the modern era. As for how they differ, any competent researcher will say they vary a lot—homunculi use formulae of ‘fluid generation and fixation,’ so if you make a pure inorganic substance with no magical composition in the base, then it’s a golem—they’re also different in size and in how much they maintain a human form. At any rate, in the public space, most homunculi are called golems. Since there is a sort of issue of registered trademarks.”

She thought she incorporated some humor, but the students didn’t even giggle. Calkoro quietly cleared her throat.

“Currently, the units that are mainly called homunculi are black, with a fluid composition. They are used in the defense of this magical-girl class, as well as used for our recreation time. Due to their sinister appearance, they are sometimes called demons, but this is slang and not an official designation.”

The homunculi that had caused the incident were prototype models carefully produced by the Lab, and so would be a little different from typical homunculi, but Calkoro didn’t touch on that. She continued just as if that hadn’t happened even though this emergency class was happening because of the homunculus incident. She probably had to take various parties into consideration.

“In recent years, we’ve developed the formulae to generate what are called artificial magical girls. This is a revolutionary technology that has become possible through separating the quasi-personality from the base and enhancing its functionality. Since they resemble homunculi, they will sometimes be confused with them, but they’re completely different.”

Apparently, artificial magical girls had been highly confidential for a long time; Calkoro was not in a position to know anything highly confidential, and she had only heard about it through vague rumors—hearsay of the hearsay of the hearsay. But now that the Shufflin magical-girl model was in regular circulation among aristocrats, public institutions, and the very wealthy, it couldn’t be called confidential.

But even so, no magical girls were going to learn this in class. It was valuable and important information. Calkoro looked over to see that Dory was abnormally fidgety and restless. Calkoro had heard Dory was affiliated with the Lab. She would surely understand the importance of this class. Mildly satisfied, Calkoro continued with the lesson.

  Drill Dory

Dory was far more mature than the other magical girls thought she was. Despite her dissatisfaction with what was being taught, she did nothing more than twist in her seat. She had enough discernment not to say something loudly and stand up or make a fuss or yell.

Calkoro’s emergency class wasn’t a problem for the first half. But once she got to the stage about artificial magical girls, it was nothing but problems. She explained artificial magical girls all as one category, but it was fair to say that absolutely everything about them was different, depending on the genre. It was totally absurd to say they were all artificial magical girls and that was it.

Most likely, the teacher was trying to talk about the Shufflin series. That was about all a mere teacher would have the opportunity to know. But Drill Dory had been created in the Lab, the highest and most unparalleled research institution that the Magical Kingdom could boast of. She couldn’t stand having an antiquated old generation like a Shufflin being treated like a representative for artificial magical girls.

She also didn’t like hearing people say that artificial magical girls resembled homunculi. That was too rude. The service life of a homunculus was short, at a few years, and what’s more, they basically had no intellect or ego. Even if the new models that had attacked them in the mountains that night were a little more like magical girls, they were still lacking in intellect and ego. They also had a major flaw: If you let them use unique magics, their service life would be shortened at an incredible rate. At the end of the day, they were consumable goods. And they smelled funny. Some units would even keep making that slorping sound, even when they were ordered to stay still. The way they would fall apart with a splatter when they were defeated wasn’t very pretty, let alone how they moved. Everything about them was not good. It was outrageous to compare them to artificial magical girls, of whom it was no overstatement to say were the pinnacle of magical girls.

A number of experiments had been done in the past to attempt to fuse homunculi with magical girls. But Calkoro had heard that none of the subjects had lasted very long since their physical properties were closer to those of homunculi. The two groups weren’t like oil and water—instead, homunculi and magical girls were just so compatible that you couldn’t get the results you wanted.

The technologies of artificial magical girls and homunculi had been created to imitate the Sage incarnation system. The technology of transferring a soul to an incarnation to acquire an effectively limitless life span had been invented by the First Mage, but even now that was all a black box, and as of yet nobody aside from the Three Sages could replicate it.

But they were slowly approaching success—supposedly. Basically, artificial magical girls were the result of constant effort, overcoming many sacrifices and trial and error in order to get closer to the mysteries of magic. Homunculi, on the other hand, had more or less the same origin. These days, they were just a source of labor. There were no longer any technologists or researchers engaged with homunculi in pursuit of a Sage incarnation. Those would have been long gone, way before Dory had been born. The only people researching homunculi now were those interested in selling them. They only aimed to make them cheaper and more efficient, and just wanted to make a buck off them. They weren’t aiming high.

Then there was another type of artificial magical girl: the Princess series, which had been developed in the R&D Department, with joint development done for a time at the Lab as well.

Apparently, several of the formulae they’d used had been the same as with Dory’s group. But since the trash at the R&D Department had walked away with the results, the Lab hadn’t gained anything from them.

Dory basically saw them as enemies. But she still felt some natural hesitation about attacking Princess Lightning. It wasn’t just that causing a squabble in the class would make a lot of trouble—Lightning was also kind of scary. However, Dory had made up her mind that if she ran into any other Princesses, then she’d stab them with her drill. That said, one of the Princesses had saved Dory’s life when she’d been attacked in the mountains by homunculi, so she decided to forgive them.

And that wasn’t the only reason. She’d heard that the Princesses were modeled from humans with no magical aptitude—so they could never beat Dory, who was modeled from a magical girl. They might stand a chance against an early model like Arlie, a unit who had also left the Lab early and hadn’t upgraded her equipment, but a newer model like Dory was a completely different story. That’s why, as a superior being, she so generously forgave them. This proved that Dory was particularly sensitive.

Calkoro’s class skimmed briefly over artificial magical girls before delving into the history of the development of homunculi. It seemed that the most irritating part was over for now. Dory sighed, then she happened to notice Arlie looking at her with concern. That kind of made Dory mad, and she kicked Arlie in the shin at an angle no one else would see.

  Tetty Goodgripp

Tetty had known about the magical girl Snow White since before she had transferred in—because she was mentioned in their textbook. Her name had come up more than once or twice in their class. Tetty had memorized everything the textbook said about her: that she had started by beating the fearsome magical girl called the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry, and that even now she traveled all over the world to take down wicked magical girls and mages and other sorts of bad people.

And this Snow White had joined their class.

Of course, Tetty had never had a classmate with her name in their textbooks before. She’d never even heard of such a thing. It was like a historical figure becoming a classmate. If you thought about Oda Nobunaga or Tokugawa Ieyasu joining your school, you could understand what a sensational event this was.

Of course, the school would bow their heads and say how glad they were to have her. It was like a private school with a strong sports team scouting for new talent. Even after joining the class, she would probably get special treatment.

Tetty was rather attached to her position as magical-girl class representative. There was a mercenary element. She figured that having this trophy would mean a bright future. She took pride in having been chosen from the rows of the elite in the class, and she was fond of all the events that she’d managed as the student rep—these various elements would only grow, increasing her attachment even further. But once Snow White had transferred in, Tetty had given up on being student rep. Snow White was an honor student. And she was in the textbook. Tetty would never say that she was a better student rep than Oda Nobunaga or Tokugawa Ieyasu.

And then ten days passed since Snow White had transferred in.

Contrary to what Tetty had been so sorrowfully prepared for, absolutely nothing came up about the position of student rep—in fact, Snow White wasn’t named leader when she was put into Group One, so Tetty continued to occupy both roles as group leader and student rep.

Tetty was less relieved and more confused. Hadn’t Snow White been invited as a leader for the next generation? Tetty considered that maybe it was expected that she step back of her own accord, but Calkoro didn’t approach her. It didn’t seem like the other students questioned the current situation, either, so she just kind of continued as the student rep.

There was no activity from Snow White’s end. Of course, there was no direct violence, but also no verbal demands or indications of any intentions via her attitude. It seemed that she had no complaints about being neither student rep nor group leader.

Everything about Snow White was different from what Tetty imagined. She was sort of mature, with a calm attitude that made her seem less like a middle schooler and more like a high schooler. She wasn’t the vengeful warrior written of in the textbook—she was composed and, if anything, relaxed.

And she wasn’t especially talented in terms of physical ability. She was a little below the middle of the class. Mephis had probably been expecting her to be as athletic as a legendary warrior; she seemed disappointed after their rec time.

Maybe her magic was special, but Tetty didn’t quite understand how hearing the thoughts of people in trouble worked. She figured that basically, you just had to not be in trouble—except Tetty had a lot of worries in general; did that count as being in trouble? It was embarrassing for all her worries to be known, but Snow White didn’t appear to be particularly bothered. Tetty felt too awkward to ask Snow White about this herself, so she decided things were fine like this.

Snow White didn’t have any lofty ambitions, and she didn’t look down on her classmates, either. At the very least, that’s how it seemed to Tetty. She’d so rudely assumed that Snow White would be an intolerable honor student. Snow White was incredibly kind with Arc Arlie, who she’d already been acquainted with. She took care of her just like a mom, wiping her mouth during mealtimes, and when she fell during rec time, Snow White would immediately rush up to her and help her up. Gradually, Tetty grew less wary about this new classmate.

Within a few days of Snow White’s transfer, Tetty, Miss Ril, and Rappy Taype were chatting with her like normal. Snow White also quickly became friendly with magical girls outside their group, like Mephis, Adelheid, and Sally. Dory was the one person who wouldn’t quite open up. Seeing her clear wariness toward Snow White as well, Tetty found it a little baffling that this was Snow White’s first meeting with Dory when she was friends with her sister, Arlie—but now Arlie was joining in, as they were close enough to chatter and laugh about things.

Yes, she came off like a nice girl. She would smile, scratch her head with an awkward look, make jokes, and bow her head to say thank you; she was a normal classmate in every way, with nothing nasty about her. Snow White was sort of like an upgraded version of Matsutani, a student who had transferred into Tetty’s class in the third grade.

It wasn’t that Tetty didn’t feel positively toward Snow White. But she was also observing her coolly. The possibility that she had come to steal the seat of student rep was not zero. That’s exactly why she thought Snow White was a good girl, but at the same time, she also wondered, Maybe she’s a little too good?

It wasn’t just Snow White herself—the things in the textbook were pretty unrealistic and were written more like a story than actual history. You could even call it mythological. It wasn’t as if all accounts of Snow White were correct. But at the same time, you also couldn’t say for sure that all of it was a pack of lies. What if Snow White was actually cruel and merciless, but she just kept that hidden?

In retrospect, Tetty figured that even Matsutani from the third grade had done something similar to get by in the world. She’d put on a kind of act to fit in well with a new environment.

What was Snow White trying to do? Was she really nothing more than just a transfer student? The more Tetty thought about it, the further she got from any conclusions, and since she was such a good girl, thinking about how she couldn’t stop focusing on this made her feel horribly guilty. It would be unbearable if this counted as being “in trouble” and Snow White read her mind.

Tetty hadn’t been aimlessly going to school over these past few months. Even outside of class, she had learned and grown. When you couldn’t understand something, you should just ask someone who seemed like they did know.

“Oh, Snow White.”

Satou, who was in the courtyard weeding grass, nodded without any kind of grimace. “She’s affiliated with the Inspection Department.”

“The Inspection Department?”

“They deal with wrongdoing by magical girls… In other words, I suppose they’re something like police officers.”

“I see,” Tetty replied as she pulled out some weeds. Long, long roots that seemed like they would need a hoe or spade slowly came out of the ground, and she tossed them into the steel bucket behind her. Grabbing a second weed, she asked Satou, “Which means…someone is getting investigated by the police?”

The very first person who came to her mind was Kana, who had just been released from prison.

But Satou smiled and shook her head. “No, no, I don’t think that’s what it is. You know there was an incident before, right? The one where tons of homunculi showed up. I think Inspection is more worried about that.”

Satou was probably someone well-informed within the Information Bureau. The mage was privy to a bunch of information that a simple janitor couldn’t know, and when Tetty asked, she would tell her about it. If Satou said so, then it was fair to see it as pretty trustworthy information.

Tetty nodded. “I see. So she came to investigate the cause of the incident… But if that’s what it is, then shouldn’t they just do a normal investigation? Would she need to bother joining the class as a student?”

“I think maybe Inspection is interested in things—enough that they want to send in an inspector, rather than do a normal investigation…although I think it’s good that people like that are passionate about their work. If there’s no problem, then there’s no problem, and it’s obviously best for them to come to that conclusion for us. It would also be good for them to figure out how to prevent further incidents.”

From the way Satou was talking, Tetty understood that it had been “just an accident,” and she was privately relieved. That had been the first time in her life she’d ever experienced anything so terrifying. She never wanted something like that to happen again, so even the words “prevention of further incidents” reassured her a bit.

Satou looked up at the sky and slapped her leg. She then took up the towel hung on her belt and wiped the sweat off her forehead; a few pale hairs from the mage’s bangs were stuck to it with sweat. A beat later, the mage seemed to have realized something. “Ah,” she said, hurriedly turning back to Tetty. “Sorry, sorry! Look at me, babbling on about the incident when it must have been so frightening for you.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine.”

“Goodness, that was thoughtless of me. I should reflect on that.” Satou wore a guilty expression as she rubbed her face with her towel before putting it back on her belt.

Tetty was aware that if anyone was going to be feeling bad, it should be herself. She waved her hands in front of her face. “No, I was the one doing all the babbling, Mr. Sat—,” she started to say, then hurried and shut her lips. “Mr. Satou” had just about popped out of her mouth. If Tetty let slip that she had been calling the mage a nickname she made up in her head, apologies wouldn’t cut it.

Satou stared curiously at Tetty. “Sat…?”

“Uh, no, never mind, it’s nothing. I was just saying…I shouldn’t have sat down with you and started babbling like this.”

“That’s quite the exaggeration.” Satou’s shoulders shook with laughter. “I thought for sure that you’d given me a nickname and been calling me that in your head.”

Tetty almost choked but somehow stopped before it got to her throat, and she flashed a dismissive smile.

“You started off with ‘Sat,’ so I thought you were calling me Saturn.”

The image of Saturn devouring his own child with a terrifying expression rose in her mind, and now Tetty did choke. After a few coughs, she somehow calmed down. “Please, I would never call you something like that.”

“Ha-ha-ha, goodness. Silly me.”

Tetty wondered just how much better of a comparison it would be if she said she’d been calling the mage Satou because the janitor had a similar air and personality to the old man Mr. Satou Tetty used to know. But she dismissed that idea, figuring now wasn’t the time to be thinking about such things. She should change the topic to a higher priority subject.

“But, um, you know. If Snow White has come to the magical-girl class to investigate the incident, does that mean that once she’s done investigating, she’ll transfer out again?”

“Hmm, I don’t know about that. Snow White is the absolute greatest magical girl we could get as a class emblem, and I’m sure the higher-ups won’t want her to quit. She’s still young, and it would certainly be worthwhile for her to study and graduate from here, so I hope she continues while also being an investigator.”

  Classical Lillian

Group Two gathered behind the school building early just about every morning, all of them in magical-girl form, to have a meeting. At this time of day, the school clubs would be having morning practice. Depending on how they were feeling and how much they’d slept, some of Group Two seemed like they’d fall over any minute, or had their heads swaying back and forth, or came in with bedhead. It was concerning, even if you’d look decent once you transformed. When things were really bad, sometimes they’d even come late, and Mephis, who dealt with Kana’s barrage of questions about how to read manga or demands that she wanted to read more, was sometimes absent.

Lillian was the only one who had never been absent or late. Without Lillian’s magic, the group couldn’t put up the area detection net. Magical girls’ senses were sharp, but any spies would also be magical girls, so this was a risky situation. Lillian’s daily routine was to wake up before the other members and string her yarn around the school building and the asphalt and such. Once she was done, she would welcome the other members of the group.

Since Lillian was the only one doing this in addition to regular activities, she bore a greater burden than the other members. But Lillian wouldn’t say that out loud. If she whined and complained like Pshuke, someone might take notice of her for the moment, but it would always make them like her less. Lillian wasn’t going to make things difficult in Group Two and demand that conditions improve. There was nowhere else for her to go, so she wanted to make things as comfortable as possible for herself.

Lillian didn’t think that she could become someone’s number one. Obviously that was out of the question in human form, but even as a magical girl, it was unlikely. She hadn’t even managed to become number one to herself. She thought of herself as a magical girl who couldn’t be a protagonist. Magical girls were all amazing, but there were different levels of amazing. Lillian couldn’t even get top billing in the tiny community that was Group Two, so she’d generally play a small part or at most a supporting role. Actually, it was close to a miracle that she’d entered the magical-girl class. There were plenty of magical girls in the Elite Guard who were more capable, or brighter and more beautiful. She’d been chosen just because she was in the right age range. If that wasn’t a miracle, then what was?

It wasn’t like she was pessimistic or contrary. She was just comparing herself and the world with an objective eye, and based on that was living a constructive life with what seemed like optimal methods. Even if she couldn’t become someone’s number one, even if she couldn’t become the sole protagonist, she could be needed. A supporting role had their own way of being useful. The phrase “unsung hero” had such a nice ring to it. That was what she ought to aspire to.

And so Lillian went through her routine every single day. Never slacking off and never cutting corners, whether there was rain or wind, Lillian strung up her yarn. On the rare occasions when her group members voiced their thanks, she was happy. That made her feel needed, and it nourished her.

Ten days after Snow White had transferred into the magical-girl class, Lillian started arriving at school a full fifteen minutes early. You couldn’t let your guard down for a second with the Magical-Girl Hunter Snow White. It would be dangerous if Lillian didn’t extend the range of her knitting even farther. Snow White didn’t typically seem like the sort of magical girl who would listen in, but it wasn’t safe to make that judgment after just ten days. This was the Magical-Girl Hunter—it would be nothing for her to give off the sort of impression that would deceive someone like Lillian.

After arriving at the school through the gate, she put a hand to her waist and stretched her back, bending her upper body to the right, to the left, backward, then forward, and then she got started. The topic of discussion that day would probably be Snow White. Since it wouldn’t do to be overheard by the very one they were talking about, naturally, Lillian’s once-over would be thorough.

She focused particularly on the back of the school building, where the group met up; from there, she leaped onto the roof and strung up her yarn. Since she was on the left and could be seen from the Umemizaki main school building grounds, she whizzed around quickly to string up her yarn, climbing up onto the roofs again to go to the right side of the school building next, then came down on the side where she was hidden from Umemizaki. With a lot of trees and shrubs here, you couldn’t see in from the outside, so the area would be vital for concealing yourself. Lillian strung up her yarn assiduously.

She camouflaged her yarn so it couldn’t be seen by putting dirt over it and hiding it with leaves. Then, as she lifted her head to move on to the next task, Lillian sniffed. A scent reminiscent of sweet fruit tickled her nose.

She narrowed one eye. The scent was thick. This was too close for it to be some sports team out on the field having brought in an assortment of fruits to refuel. It was right there. But you wouldn’t be smelling fruit around here. Just what on earth did this mean?

She sniffed again. The smell was stronger. She looked around the area, but there was nothing that looked like it. Lillian cautiously took one step after another. It was fragrant. She felt like she could drown in the scent. She took three steps, four steps from there, five steps, and on the sixth step, she stopped.

She hadn’t even noticed the color. A flow of air dyed a pale pink was swirling around. It was just as thick as fog. She couldn’t see even one step ahead.

This was supposed to be morning at school. She didn’t know where she was now. Something was going on. Lillian covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve. There was more to this smell than it seemed. She had been lured here. She shouldn’t have proceeded any farther—she should have turned back immediately. But it wasn’t too late for her yet.

She reeled back the yarn she held in her right hand, gradually aiming for her original position bit by bit. First, she had to get out of here. She reeled back bit by bit, and then there was a sudden movement of the air. The air swirling around her shifted, and a hand flew out from within the pale-pink mist, grabbing Lillian by the shoulders and drawing her in with fearsome strength.

“There we go.”

She had strung up more of her yarn than usual. Now no one would be able to eavesdrop. Lillian checked her magical phone. Seeing it was just about time to meet up, she tilted her head. She could have sworn she’d had more time, but for some reason, she’d only just barely made it on schedule. Upon further consideration, she thought that maybe she overdid it a little bit. She then leaped down from the roof to the group’s meeting spot.