Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 8 - Chapter 5.5

INTERLUDE

The armor was familiar with the kind of features a player wouldn’t really notice if they were playing casually, like the bonus zones and warp points—not the sorts of things even a monkey could learn if it tried. It seemed safe to assume the armor had a human-level intellect; it only had difficulty communicating.

Shadow Gale pretended to purely enjoy the game. Occasionally, she’d get absorbed in playing and forget about her current predicament, but she was mostly pretending.

Since the armor girl had human-level intellect, it would be impossible to modify the TV or the game console while they played without the armor noticing. Shadow Gale’s magic could modify machines, but it couldn’t do the impossible.

As long as the armor stayed, Shadow Gale wouldn’t get her chance to escape. So then what should she do to get the armor to leave? No point in trying to get a game over since she’d probably just restart it.

On the screen, their two characters shot fireballs as they swam through the water stage.

What would happen if she rendered the game console unusable?

Shadow Gale eyed the console. Obviously, it was an old model. It was dirty, and the main power switch was missing. It looked like a little shove would break it. Shadow Gale had heard somewhere that with old game consoles, just the slightest shock would make them stop working.

What if, for example, Shadow Gale was to get so into the game that she flailed around with the controller? Then she would accidentally lose her balance, and when she set her hand down to avoid falling, it would land on the game console. Unable to bear the weight, the console would break. But that would be okay. Shadow Gale could modify machines, so fixing a broken game console was something she could pull of quickly.

A careless “ohhh” slipped out of her lips. Looking to the side, wondering, She didn’t find that weird, did she? she saw the armor girl was looking at the TV screen, focused on the game.

Shadow Gale looked back at the game, too. Doing it like that, she could modify the console very naturally and with the armor girl sitting right next to her. At a glance, it would look as if they were playing the game normally, but if she actually modified it so that she could request help from the outside, she’d be saved.

Let’s go with that.

First, Shadow Gale had to reach a point where it wouldn’t be weird for her to get so absorbed in the game that she’d flail around with the controller. Attempting to calm her racing heart, she pretended to be having fun with the game like normal until they reached the final level of the boss stage.

Shadow Gale had gotten pretty used to this game. The reflexes of a magical girl were suited to simple action games, too. Beating enemies and avoiding traps, they arrived at the boss’s location. Scary background music played, and the boss sprite, three times bigger than all the others, appeared.

The boss battle began. The armor’s character evaded attacks beautifully, aiming with precision for the boss’s weak spot with fireballs and steadily dealing damage. The boss gradually faded in color to show that its remaining HP was decreasing.

Shadow Gale could have focused purely on dodging to avoid getting hit, but that would be no cause for overreaction. Pretending to be a player who was trying to show off their skills like, “I’m not a burden, okay!” she deliberately leaped into the danger zone, jumped, dodged an attack with a “Whoops,” and did a wide swing of her controller to the right. Then she swung it left, nearly striking the armor girl in the head with it, somehow managing to adjust the position of her movement.

Now!

Shadow Gale’s body rocked unsteadily. Or rather, she made herself rock.

She put her hand down in an attempt to support herself. Her right hand was going down toward the game console. Right before she was about to stick out her right hand, she caught sight of the armor girl, holding her controller.

No matter how Shadow Gale had held her back, the armor girl had never mocked her, like Kanoe had. She’d pointed to the screen to show her the locations of hidden equipment. She’d let Shadow Gale take points on the bonus stages, perhaps to keep the point allocation from getting lopsided.

The memories of their brief playtime together rushed back to her, each place in the game she’d received kindness. Shadow Gale was about to trample over that kindness by deliberately destroying the game console. It was sure to make the armor girl sad. She probably wouldn’t expect someone she’d been doing friendly co-op play with would try to pull something like that.

Shadow Gale was hesitating. Her hand stopped. She clenched her teeth.

The faces of all the people who would worry about her absence rose in her mind—her father, mother, friends, and while she was at it, Kanoe, too. She remembered Patricia, who had gone down protecting her.

This was not the time to be getting emotional over this. She had to tell Kanoe that she was safe, to get her to come save her.

Shadow Gale made up her mind.

Reaching toward the game console, she swung down on it with all the weight of her body, but right before her hand hit, the armor girl caught her hand.

The console was safe. The armor girl brought Shadow Gale back to her original sitting position, and Shadow Gale muttered things like, “That was close,” and “Guess I got a little too worked up” as she scratched her head to hide her embarrassment. She’d forgotten that this armor girl had the reflexes of someone who could exchange blows with a combat-oriented magical girl.

The boss’s color faded, and eventually, the victory fanfare rang out. Having hit zero HP, the boss’s body exploded, and the words STAGE CLEAR came up on-screen—but it stopped there. The PAUSE button had been pressed. Not by Shadow Gale, but by the armor. When Shadow Gale gave the armor a sidelong glance, she found the armor looking not at the screen but behind them. This drew Shadow Gale’s gaze over, too.

Hmm?

She’d thought it was her imagination. It was not. A sound that was gradually becoming clear could be heard as far as this room—footsteps. Someone was coming down the stairs toward them.

Setting down the controller, Shadow Gale turned around on her knees. Had someone come? Was it the ice magical girl who’d captured her? Or was it someone else? Maybe this person had busted in to save Shadow Gale.

The footsteps came closer, loud enough now that anyone would be able to hear them. Then they stopped. Shadow Gale suppressed her anxiety as she steadily eyed the door.

There was a light knock-knock, and then without waiting for a reply, it creaked open.