Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 4 - Chapter 4

Zombie Western

This story is set around when the survival game in Magical Girl Raising Project was reaching its climax.

Magicaloid 44 was a difficult one to evaluate.

In Calamity Mary’s mind, an “evaluation” was basically just answering the question of whether someone was strong or weak. Calamity Mary’s sense of Magicaloid 44 varied depending on the time; sometimes she was stronger, sometimes she was weaker. For example, if Calamity Mary were to fight Weiss Winterprison, the hairs on the back of her neck would stand up the moment they were within thirty feet of each other, before Mary could even see her. But when dealing with Winterprison’s partner, Sister Nana, no matter how close Mary got, she never felt the urge to fight her.

With Magicaloid 44, some days she was like Weiss Winterprison, and others she was more like Sister Nana. It was never clear whether she was strong or weak.

But it was unquestionable that either way, Calamity Mary couldn’t let her guard down around the robot girl. Magicaloid 44 had a solid ability to judge where she should go and who she should rely on. The fact that she’d bet on Calamity Mary indicated as much.

And so, now, Calamity Mary was drinking alone. As for why she was unaccompanied: Magicaloid 44 had not returned, even though Mary had been without her for a long time. She kicked the fuzz of the carpet with her boot and flopped down onto the soft leather sofa as she looked up at the needlessly extravagant chandelier.

When Magicaloid 44 had come requesting her protection, Calamity Mary had demanded that she kill one magical girl—it didn’t matter who. She would have to do at least that much if she wanted to surrender to Calamity Mary. That was just a matter of course. She didn’t need unprepared weaklings.

Calamity Mary rolled over and buried her face in the backrest of the sofa.

Magicaloid 44 had a good head on her shoulders. She’d know what fate awaited her if she were to ignore Mary’s demand and run. In other words, she wouldn’t. Her good judgment also meant she wouldn’t have gone after anyone who was too much for her to handle. She must have planned to kill someone low risk.

Swim Swim’s clique had numbers. Sister Nana had Winterprison with her. Ripple and Top Speed were practically joined at the hip. Musician of the Forest, Cranberry was operating solo, but she was strong. Of course, Calamity Mary wouldn’t let her win, but a fight against Cranberry would be a struggle even for her.

So the only possible targets left were the newbie magical girl and Snow White. And Snow White, having just lost her partner, La Pucelle, would be a better target than an unknown quantity like the newbie. All Snow White had was a lot of candy, and she wasn’t a great fighter. She had no guts, either. She would be the perfect target.

Before giving Magicaloid 44 the order to go kill someone, Calamity Mary had told her indirectly that if she did, it should be Snow White. Despite her considerable demand, she’d been quite thoughtful, in her own way. That was the least she could do as the more experienced magical girl.

One or two Snow Whites wouldn’t be a problem for Magicaloid 44. Or shouldn’t have been. But for some reason, Magicaloid 44 still had yet to get in touch with Calamity Mary. Two days earlier, the robot girl had left this room. And now she wasn’t just failing to make contact; Mary couldn’t reach Magicaloid 44 from her end, either. Mary texted and called but got no reply.

“Did something happen?” Calamity Mary rolled over on the sofa, sat up from her reclined position, and turned on her magical phone to summon Fav.

“Yes, yes, what is it, pon?”

“Tell me where Magicaloid 44 is right now and what she’s up to.”

“Oh…it’s not really a question of what she’s doing right now…”

“If someone killed her, then tell me who.” Calamity Mary put her magical phone on the side table and leaned in close to the black-and-white hologram. “Killing someone in my employ means they underestimate Calamity Mary. It’d ruin my reputation if I let this slide.”

“Hmm… But wouldn’t it be a little unfair for Fav to tell you, pon?”

“Fair, unfair—that’s rich, coming from you! I can tell you don’t give a damn. If you tell me, I’m sure things will go the way you want them to. I’ll guarantee it.”

Only three weeks earlier, the announcement had come from management that the sixteen magical girls born through the mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project would be reduced to eight. Every week, someone would be cut based on how much candy she held, and the magical girls at the bottom would die, without exception.

Already, three had been cut. Calamity Mary had also heard that one group had ganged up on some other magical girls in order to steal their candy. And then there was the announcement about new items for download—tools for killing one another presented under the pretext of “useful items.”

Everything about this situation was steering them toward a kill-or-be-killed bloodbath.

Middle schooler Ako Hatoda had been suicidal when the magical girl in white had saved her, and that had been the trigger for Ako to become Hardgore Alice.

Suffering under her father’s sin, Ako had agonized over her own helplessness, tormented with the belief that death was her only option. Her savior then had been a magical girl, which she had thought only existed in anime and manga. Her savior had dirtied her pretty, pure-white outfit to find the house key Ako had dropped earlier. The girl had given her such a happy smile that it gave joy to the ones who saw it, too.

Once Ako found out that magical girls were real, she spent some of her savings on a smartphone. She begged her aunt and uncle to pay for a monthly contract so she could start playing the mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project—which rumors said could make players real magical girls. Ako’s goal was to gain those powers, nothing else. If she couldn’t do it, she would die. Not only because she was determined. She’d meant to die to begin with. She would only be resuming her original plan in that case.

Ako literally devoted her life to this goal, sacrificing the time she needed for other things—beginning with sleep—to tackle Magical Girl Raising Project. She didn’t just play the game to the point of collapse. She kept playing even after she collapsed, and as a result became a magical girl through sheer obsession.

She was a magical girl in black, the opposite of Snow White. Next to each other, they would surely strike a beautiful contrast. Everyone would be talking about the white and black magical-girl duo. Ako, transformed into Hardgore Alice, would help people together with Snow White.

This was her dream.

Hardgore Alice’s magic was quick healing. As an experiment, she pierced her palm with a needle, cut it with a chisel, burned it with a lighter, and more, self-injuring over and over, but any wound would heal up in a flash until it looked just as it had before. With this magic, she could protect Snow White from any nasty magical girls.

And Hardgore Alice had, in fact, succeeded in protecting Snow White just the other night. A robot had cut off her head without so much as a word, but before she could go for Snow White, too, Alice had destroyed it. When Alice had stabbed through the robot’s chest with a spear-hand, the robot had transformed into a woman and fallen facedown in a puddle of blood. That was all Alice needed to know the robot had been a magical girl. Alice had also understood that she had killed a person.

She had felt no despair at arriving in the same position as her father. She’d trembled with a sense of accomplishment at successfully protecting Snow White.

Alice had pressed the rabbit’s foot, an item that had cost her years of her life, into Snow White’s hand and left. Afterward, even once she was home, even the morning of the next day when she went to school, she was still elated. Alice’s magic was more powerful than she had imagined. It wasn’t just that her wounds would heal quickly. Even if her head was cut off, she wouldn’t die. She could walk around with no head and could even quickly regenerate it. This wasn’t like a lizard dropping its tail. Not even a protozoon could regenerate like this. This was real magic.

With this power, Hardgore Alice could protect Snow White. She could repay her.

The previous night, they had parted ways without resolution. Snow White had vanished before Hardgore Alice could even notice she was gone. Alice figured she would greet Snow White properly that day, for sure. She would take her hero’s hand as an equal to tell her, “Let’s work hard together.”

Night fell, Ako transformed into Hardgore Alice, and she rushed over to Kubegahama. Another bad magical girl could come after Snow White, just like the other day.

Ako jumped onto the back of a small blue truck parked on the shoulder of the road and bounded to a white truck stopped on the opposite shoulder of the four-lane highway, then over onto the roof of someone’s house.

There was a whiff of salt in the wind. About one in every two hundred roofs in this area belonged to a tackle shop. The ocean was nearby. She was in Kubegahama. And Snow White was here.

Sister Nana had taught Hardgore Alice that a magical girl’s hideout should be away from populated areas. So Snow White would be somewhere people didn’t go. It would be an abandoned warehouse, the top of a fishing co-op building—someplace like that. Perhaps it would be in a deserted alley or under power lines. And no matter where Snow White was, if Hardgore Alice wanted to find her, it would be best to search from on high. Magical Girls had exceptional vision and could see well in the dark.

Kubegahama was Ako’s home, so she didn’t need research to know the location of the highest spot in town. There was a particularly large iron tower on a hill near the swimming beach. The top of that was best.

Hardgore Alice headed for the iron tower, checking the top of the fishing co-op, back alleys, and other places along the way that seemed likely to hide a magical girl. Running atop the chain-link fence around the elementary school grounds, she jumped to the top of a streetlight, then leaped again to grab ahold of the wall of the school building and clamber onto the roof. She could see the iron tower on top of the hill just ahead.

Right when Hardgore Alice was about to jump down, her stomach burst open in an explosion of blood and guts.

The Izhmash Saiga-12 is a shotgun manufactured in a certain chilly nation. As a member of the AK family, it’s unsurprisingly cheap and also offers great durability. This semiautomatic carries more cartridges than the weapons they call shotguns in Japan. Powered with Calamity Mary’s magic, it could turn even a magical girl’s body into little more than a crushed tomato.

Calamity Mary did not forgive insults. Killing Magicaloid 44, who had been operating under her command, was a clear insult. She had to lay down the law, or the others would all treat her with contempt. And if she became the target of contempt, it was over.

Fav had told Calamity Mary that this magical girl, this Alice in Wonderland wearing pitch-black, was named Hardgore Alice. Calamity Mary didn’t know where the girl was rushing off to, but her sprinting without looking back had allowed Calamity Mary to get close and nail her with a point-blank spray of shots. Hardgore Alice had not been cautious enough.

Mary didn’t know what sort of magic Alice had, but it didn’t seem like much. If it had been enough to kill Magicaloid 44, then the loser must not have been that good. Calamity Mary pushed the body away with a kick to the ass and looked up at the sky. She felt like the stars were prettier here than in the Jounan district. It never got dark there the way it should at night. As the starry sky entranced her for once, what brought her back to reality was a sensation of floating.

Her footing didn’t feel solid. The ground was above her. Had gravity been inverted? No. Something was tightly holding on to her ankle. Before Calamity Mary even had the time to think, she was slammed into the concrete. She just barely managed to break her fall, but her bones creaked with the severe impact. As fragments of concrete scattered around her, she tried to see who her opponent was, but her body was twisted around. The grip on her ankle held firm. This time, she was swung around horizontally and then flung into the air.

This was the school roof. If Calamity Mary didn’t do something, being launched into the air meant falling all the way to the ground. From the special item hanging from her belt, the four-dimensional bag, she pulled a rope and tossed out one end of it. Given her cowgirl theme, she had of course mastered lassoing. She hooked the loop of the lasso around the iron fence and yanked hard. The fence bent nearly to the point of breaking, but Calamity Mary swung back onto the roof with the help of her rope.

The spray of shots had hit Hardgore Alice all over. And now that Mary was actually facing her, she could clearly see the girl’s abdomen was blasted open. But even eviscerated as she was, she was still moving.

Mary dodged a punch and blocked a kick. Alice was fast. And she was strong. In terms of pure physical strength, she outmatched Calamity Mary. She could well be tied with Weiss Winterprison to rank as the strongest among the local magical girls.

And her endurance surpassed even Winterprison’s. Even with her internal organs surrounding her, she moved with energy. Calamity Mary feinted a third time without attacking, then a fourth, falling back onto the ground instead. Pointing her gun upward, she aimed for her enemy’s head and pulled the trigger. The dark Alice’s skull and brain burst open, and she fell backward.

With a sigh, Calamity Mary rose to her feet—and then immediately, her breath caught again. The moment Mary stood, Hardgore Alice, headless, stood up as well and charged her. This wasn’t just about simple endurance anymore. Mary leaped backward to dodge Alice’s rising attack.

Alice’s face was in smithereens, which obviously should have prevented her from seeing, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She kicked, punched, threw slabs of concrete, and ripped the twisted iron fence off the roof to sweep it around at her enemy. Calamity Mary crouched immediately, but she failed to dodge entirely, and it sent her ten-gallon hat flying through the air.

She fired the Saiga 12 from her hip, aiming for Alice’s ankles to stop her from running around. Then again. Facing her fallen opponent, Mary fired and fired until her clip was empty, transforming Alice from a crushed tomato into meat sauce.

With her enemy finally incapacitated, Calamity Mary felt relieved—and as soon as she realized that fact, she was irritated. She was about to give Hardgore Alice one last kick when she noticed something. The corpse in front of her was moving. It wasn’t the spasms of the dying. It was struggling, with intent to move.

“You piece of shit.” Mary drew her Tokarev and fired until it was empty, and then emptied the clip of her AK, too. The roof of the elementary school was flooding with blood. And then, right as Mary was thinking, She’s got to be dead now, the thing that should have been a corpse twitched. Despite having been destroyed to the point of unrecognizability, it was still alive.

Calamity Mary pulled out multiple hand grenades, pulled the pins, and tossed them all over the roof as she jumped down to the ground. After exactly three seconds, there was a huge explosion. Those had been more than mere hand grenades. They were super weapons, powered up by Calamity Mary’s magic. Watching the wreckage of the roof fall down, Mary was certain that this must have killed Alice. Running up to the roof again, she found the explosion had not blasted only the roof. Even the classrooms on the floor below had been blown open, and in the center of one of those rooms was a squirming lump of meat.

A fat vein popped out on Calamity Mary’s temple.

Drawing her army knife, she sliced the meat into ten parts and scattered them. Nine of the pieces stopped moving, but the largest part continued writhing. Its wounds healed so fast, she could see it happening. It was trying to re-form its human body.

Calamity Mary pulled out a bottle, cautiously opened the lid, and poured the contents over the meat. This was concentrated sulfuric acid imbued with Mary’s magic. It would do worse than burn and inflame the skin. Smoldering white smoke rose from the flesh, and an awful smell, the kind that would hit your stomach directly, wafted up and dispersed in the wind. The acid opened a hole in the floor of the classroom, but the lump of meat was still moving. Mary poured out a second and then a third bottle of the acid. She would erase this thing and make sure not even dust was left.

The acid burned all the way from the third floor to the first, and Calamity Mary followed it down, pouring on more and more. The meat melted, the lump disappeared, and Mary pumped her fist in victory. She was wiping the sweat off her forehead, thinking she could feel relieved and go, when she realized the meat was re-forming within the sea of sulfuric acid. It was moving.

She felt dizzy. I’ve got to be mistaken. But even when she rubbed her eyes, the lump of meat wouldn’t go away.

Calamity Mary pulled a jug of gasoline from her bag, poured it out, struck a match, and threw it in. The fire flared up with near-explosive strength. But even burned to cinders, the lump of meat still writhed. Calamity Mary stomped on it again and again, but yes, it was still moving.

She gave a thin smile. She’d never been so humiliated in her whole career as a magical girl. She pulled an oil drum out of her bag. As long as she could carry it, anything would fit in her four-dimensional bag—even a big oil drum or liquid concrete. Mary stuffed the meat into the oil drum and then poured liquid concrete out from her bag on top of it. She filled the drum, then stuffed it back into her bag.

Calamity Mary could hear sirens wailing outside. She had to get away—now. She was headed to the harbor. She would sink the drum to the bottom of the ocean and end her work for the day. Then it would be over. Done. Finished.

A few days later…

When the dropouts were announced in the chat, all Fav said was “This week’s cut was Magicaloid 44.” No other names were called.

Calamity Mary laughed. Alone in a club VIP room, she cackled until her shoulders shook.

A dark feeling was settling on the bottom of her soul. She had to blow it all away. For that, she needed a party. Not just a kill. This demanded an extravagant, bombastic, blood-splattering, flesh-scattering tragedy.

The thought of Ripple ran through her mind. But she alone wasn’t enough. Calamity Mary needed more sacrifices to quiet her heart.

Winterprison was relieved.

They had found two other magical girls who sympathized with Sister Nana. Calamity Mary wasn’t worth talking to, Cranberry had attacked them out of the blue, Ripple was uncooperative, and Top Speed didn’t want to rock the boat. All their other encounters so far had wounded Sister Nana’s heart. Now, finally, they may have gotten a start, at least.

Snow White and Sister Nana were shaking hands, both looking excited as they agreed to work together. Behind them, Hardgore Alice was observing them intently.

Winterprison brought her willowy eyebrows together just slightly and sniffed. She smelled salt. She looked toward Hardgore Alice, and their eyes met. The smell of the sea was wafting around her.

“…Did something happen?” asked Winterprison.

“No, nothing really.” Hardgore Alice broke eye contact with her and looked over at Snow White and Sister Nana again.

If Alice herself said it was nothing, then it had to be nothing. Winterprison gave a small nod.