Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 18 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

SILENT PUPPETS

  Snow White

The courtyard always interfered with Snow White’s magic when she tried to hear people’s thoughts from outside the courtyard. She’d even had trouble hearing the thoughts of people inside the school across the courtyard. Once she entered the courtyard, she started hearing the thoughts of those within it, but then she could no longer hear anything outside it. There had to be some sort of barrier around the area.

But the opponent before her—the all-black Snow White—had no thoughts. Snow White could tell what it was. She had heard about how homunculi in the forms of magical girls had gone out of control in an accident. This was probably one of those. If it was a homunculus, then she wouldn’t hear an inner voice.

The little miniature garden, just thirty steps wide on one side, had been made a mess of. The dirt was dug up, the arches crumbled, the paving shattered, the ceiling fallen—it was less that the walls had big holes in them and more that they had just become holes. Blood flowed, arms flew, and legs flew, enemy and ally magical girls lying around all mingled together.

Her mind-controlled classmates and the Princess Lightnings continued their fierce battle. Even if a mountain of unmoving magical girls was piled up around them, they didn’t so much as look at them.

Just one thing, the old storage shed that was in one corner, was so unscathed that it was suspicious.

The Snow White–type homunculus had a weapon that looked just like the one Snow White wielded. She swung it down and then outward, sharply thrusting with frightening speed. With no inner voice accompanying these attacks, Snow White dodged desperately, leaping backward and into a group of Lightnings.

“Tetty!”

The brainwashed Tetty was now an enemy. Snow White knew that, but she still cried her name despite herself.

Tetty reacted to Snow White’s voice, blocking the sword of a Lightning that came slicing at her from behind and breaking it off in her grip. But the sword that she’d just broken shone brightly, and most likely emitted a lightning attack, as she staggered, and when she was about to get kicked, Mephis cut in. Yelling provocation to the enemy, she slammed them with her long tail.

Tetty’s, Mephis’s, and the other classmates’ minds were clearly off somehow, but she could still hear them.

And then there was the homunculus fighting before her now.

One Lightning was flung away by a kick, another had the weapon slammed down on her, and another failed to react to the thrusts from above and below and fell face down, vomiting blood.

All Snow White could hear from this magical girl’s heart was a sound like static. Was she not able to think, or was she thinking things that Snow White couldn’t understand?

To the right, to the left—every time she moved, a Lightning fell. While wielding a weapon that looked just like the one Snow White used, the all-black Snow White kicked and punched. But the speed and weight of her strikes was far greater than Snow White’s.

Each individual Lightning was not at all weak. Despite how they had comparable physical capabilities to Snow White’s classmate Lightning, the homunculus that looked just like Snow White was undaunted, scattering them in her wake.

In the sense that she was strong, maybe this was Snow White’s ideal. Snow White was weak. She used unfair, cowardly means, reading minds to figure people out somehow and just barely grasp victory. She had only ever been able to fight in a manner that contradicted the fine and fearsome name of the Magical-Girl Hunter. The homunculus before her wielded overwhelming violence against superior numbers and was silencing them. The feeling just wouldn’t leave her that perhaps this was the sort of magical girl worthy of fighting at Ripple’s side.

The Snow White–type homunculus didn’t only go right, left, forward, and back—she leaped and jumped, moving continuously in all three dimensions with blinding speed as lightning exploded belatedly behind her, wielding Ruler just as fast as a lightning strike, and even more Lightnings fell on their faces.

Slicing an enemy to her right, stabbing an enemy to her left, from there she leaped, and then right by a spot where there were quite a lot of scattered flagstone fragments, she swung up her weapon and brought it down again over a magical girl who looked like a lizard and human put together, laying her face down. The lizard magical girl leaped up, swiping with her tail, and the black Snow White turned her weapon vertically to block with the handle, blasting her toward the storage shed, where she rolled.

The lizard-person magical girl grew larger, her scales thicker and harder, her fangs sharper, her tail fatter, transforming into an actual dinosaur that howled to the sky.

With her hair shuddering from the howl, the all-black Snow White came forward. She had not attacked the magical girl who had been playing dead in order to finish her off. She had guessed that she was playing dead, with the plan of setting one enemy on another.

The Lightnings’ formation went out of order. Those who headed for the dinosaur and those who attacked other enemies crossed paths. Old Blue was still unable to return to the front lines, and Snow White couldn’t hear her thoughts.

Before she knew it, the Snow White–type homunculus was thrusting her blade against Snow White’s throat. With the tip pointed at her, Snow White finally realized that she had just been staring. The wall of Lightnings around her had come apart.

The weapon was swung at her. It was difficult for Snow White to even see.

  Halna Midi Meren

The howl of some giant, unknown creature rang out, making the flagstones shudder, rattling as they collided. Halna saw a giant lizard outside her window, and seeing that it was colliding with the group of Lightnings, she touched her index finger to her temple half in relief, half in irritation.

Magical girls were fast. Even if she enhanced her own physical capabilities as a magic, it would be difficult to intervene. There wouldn’t be much effect if she were to support them blindly, and if she were to actually aim and try to use her magic effectively, that would inevitably put her on the front lines and make things more dangerous for her. The system that she had prepared in the courtyard had solved a number of those problems, but now she couldn’t use it anymore.

Now that she had sent out the Snow White base, they were no longer getting pushed back. In fact, they should even be the ones doing the pushing. But their superior position was always on thin ice.

Kumi-Kumi wielded her pickax with frightening force, shattering the ground, instantly assembling something else, and Lillian worked with her, whipping around her yarn to reinforce it. Two of the Lightnings who tried to go over to them fell into a pit trap that had been disguised by Halna’s illusion, and one of the Lightnings that tried to save them caught her ankle on a rope and wound up hung in the air, where Mephis punched her.

They were doing well. But now the enhancement would gradually wane. Halna would compensate for that. She was no longer able to use the courtyard sigil using the system, but if she directly sucked up power from the root, then she could still fight. What spell should she cast next?

A magical girl homunculus appeared, interrupting Halna’s train of thought. The speed of her appearance whipped up a wind that messed up Halna’s hair, and she pressed it down.

One could not enter the storage shed without Halna’s permission. Conversely, someone who did have Halna’s permission could even get into the hut without using the entrance. Even if they were operating on artificial personalities, their individual powers of judgment were no different from those of an ordinary magical girl–type homunculus.

Presently, the Snow White base was the most important fighter on the school’s defensive side. She would not come here without a purpose.

The homunculus’s hands were circled behind her, with someone on her back.

“Who is it?”

Carrying the person on her back around to her front, she showed her face to Halna.

It was a girl in a school uniform—likely unconscious, her eyes were closed. She was human. Halna knew her. Snow White—not the expressionless homunculus imitation that was waiting for orders in front of her. It was the real Snow White’s pretransformation form.

  Old Blue

By the courtyard entrance, Old Blue knelt down before a magical girl who was lying on top of piled rubble.

“You fought well,” she whispered in a voice that nobody else could hear, and closed Diko’s eyelids. Everything about her was completely humanlike, the way she felt included, but Old Blue understood her true nature. Now that she had lost her life, she was no more than a literal empty shell. Even if she looked human and felt human, this was not the body of a human. It was broken remains, mingled with homunculus.

Even understanding all of that, Old Blue quietly laid Diko down, eyes closed, in a corner of the hallway. She drew in a breath and got herself back in the game. She left her sentimentality behind. Ignoring the pain, she snapped her dislocated left elbow back into place. She couldn’t fully heal the bruise on her shoulder. She would go like this.

The Lightnings were running around the hallway in front of the courtyard. Old Blue was the only one who could reorganize them and assign them. Giving instructions from her headset, she ordered a charge into the courtyard.

Various things—a Snow White homunculus who was far stronger than the real thing, a magical girl like a dinosaur who had suddenly gotten up—had pushed the Lightnings into a tough fight, but ultimate responsibility lay with Old Blue. Diko had known quite well how Old Blue fought, and her coordination with Cranberry had kept Old Blue busy enough that she hadn’t been able to give orders. Diko had been stronger and her magic more powerful than Old Blue had known, with the strength from the homunculus’s body being combined with the principal’s magic. The enhancement had gradually lessened, but she’d still had some, even on the verge of death.

What had happened to Diko had been Old Blue’s blunder. Diko had been cleverer than the other students, and so Old Blue had thought there was no need to see her frequently. If Old Blue had just met with her, she would have been able to notice there was something wrong with her, but it was too late for regrets now. All she could do was get Halna Midi Meren to pay the bill to mourn her.

Old Blue glanced over to a lump of meat opposite from Diko that she’d been ignoring. It had brought her no joy at all to beat down something that looked just like Cranberry. At most, she felt that she had acquired some good material, as the head of the R&D Department.

Various sudden and unforeseen events had kept Old Blue tied up, resulting in her being unable to lead the Lightnings then, and Snow White had been kidnapped, too. She would regather the scattered Lightnings and have them attack the courtyard. This would mean that she had fewer forces to hold back Frederica and Ratsumukana-honome-no-kami, and it was a matter of time before they came to the courtyard.

There was no helping what was already done, but hindrances to what she was about to do would be no good. There was no response from the Ace of Spades. Her combat capabilities were far superior to those of the face cards, and she also had excellent judgment. She was not the ultimate and most unrivaled fighting force in the school right now, but she wouldn’t die so easily, either.

Without the Ace of Spades, she was going to struggle. But she had to act now, or things would get even worse.

Then let’s go.

The Lightnings were moving around restlessly. She couldn’t see the Snow White homunculus from the entrance area. She leaned forward to check inside, but she still couldn’t see it. For some reason, a number of the enemy fighters that were most troublesome right now had vanished.

Mephis and Tetty had also backed off into a corner of the courtyard. The thing built from mysterious objects was, Old Blue’s eyes saw, the joint Kumi-Kumi and Lillian defensive point. It hadn’t been there before. In front of it, the magical girls were fighting the Lightnings.

Old Blue soundlessly entered the courtyard. She was headed to the center, ignoring the defensive point.

She would not fight. She took a position where she would not be attacked and looked around the area. She looked closely at the courtyard. She looked. But she did not only look. She saw through to its true nature. Lightning bolts flew. Mephis Pheles was wailing. One of the Lightnings went flying, breaking down a wall as she went.

Old Blue wouldn’t lose her focus. She was capable of that.

So it’s here.

  0 Lulu

“Thank you very much.”

The lady statue bowed its head deeply. Overwhelmed by her polite attitude and strange appearance, she covered her mouth against the urge to blurt, “Oh, no, it’s nothing,” just clearing her throat instead.

She had repaired Miss Ril. She had also saved her from attack. Lulu was, to her, the one who had saved her life. She should not let this slip out of her fingers. If she had saved her life, then she had to get her to repay her double or triple. If this was who was at the end of the thread of fate that Lulu had reeled in with her magic, then all the more reason to not let go of her so easily.

“So you’re saying you got separated from the other magical girls.”

“While we were fighting, I wound up alone… Oh, there was a school announcement. It said to gather in the courtyard.”

“I heard that, too.”

Not sure as to how to explain who she was, she decided to say she was Snow White’s friend and a freelance mercenary magical girl. They were just mutual friends, but sometimes, it was best not to explain everything in such detail.

Lulu considered. She had read about the magical girl called Miss Ril in her documents and knew about her. When she held a metal, her body would change into the same substance as what she held. Her damage would also be repaired. Having picked up the goldstone Lulu had dropped, Miss Ril had completely changed her whole body. Right now, she was a giant goldstone.

So then in other words, by combining her with Lulu’s magic, wouldn’t she be able to generate some massive results?

This was very much a fateful encounter indeed, but there was no point in using her magic when there was nobody around.

“Isn’t it…rather quiet?” asked Miss Ril.

“It is,” Lulu agreed.

The two of them were lurking in the empty classroom, hiding behind the teacher’s lectern, but they no longer heard the sounds of battle, or the sounds of the Lightnings’ bolts, which had been particularly noisy. Lulu sensed no presences. Of course, she didn’t think the battle was over. This was the calm before the storm.

Was now the time to move? If they were going anywhere, it would be to the courtyard. But it would be very risky to move in a doubtful situation where she didn’t know what was going on—when that common-sense thought rose its head, she cleared her throat once more.

If it was a question of going or not, then she had to go. Lulu stood up, extending a hand to the crouching Miss Ril.

  Halna Midi Meren

It had fulfilled its orders not to kill Snow White—and to bring her over if she saw her. If it were a mage or magical girl that had done this, she would have praised them for pulling it off, but there was no need for that with a homunculus.

What should she do? If she were to put Snow White’s soul into the homunculus body, it would complete a perfect fusion, enhancing her combat capabilities even more. Being in a firefight meant Halna was strapped for time, but the fusion was simple and quick; she could start and finish it inside this shed just as usual. That was precisely why she had been successfully able to fuse students on school grounds without anybody noticing. If it were inside the storage shed, then she could use power directly from the root—then she heard a sound like powder being ground on a giant mortar, and vibrations reverberated up through the soles of her feet. Halna lifted her head. This sound—these vibrations were familiar. Thinking it couldn’t be, she ran up to the window and looked outside.

A magical girl in a blue costume stood surrounded by the Princess Lightnings. She was near the center of the courtyard. Chanting a spell with smooth and composed movements, she was moving her arms and fingers just as prescribed. In front of her, the place where an arch had stood before it had collapsed was opening up while making that “sound like powder being ground on a giant mortar.”

The flagstones opened up, revealing stairs beyond. Past those was the entrance area, and if you went farther on, there were the ruins.

It can’t be… Why?!

There was no reason for her to know the spell. But her pronunciation was correct. The movements of her arms, the movements of her fingers were all accurate. Had someone told her? Was there a spy on the inside? But the official way of getting in through the ruins entrance should only be known by certain people in very high positions in the factions. That was beyond the level of a spy or an informant.

  Old Blue

She made full use of her magic here as well, discovering the door that was hidden in the center of the courtyard and unlocking it. A square hole opened in the ground, and from there she could see stairs that went underground. Old Blue descended the stairs.

The sounds of clashing metal behind her grew distant. She made no sound, descending the stairs as quickly as one would walk in a straight line.

The walls were gray stone, and the floor and ceiling were the same. There was not a single crack. There had been spells cast on it. It had not only been strengthened but also made more resistant to magic. She couldn’t see the seams—had it been cut from a single rock? That would normally be impossible, but it could be done with magic.

With every step forward she took, the chill on her skin grew. The temperature was dropping. And not only that. There was something. The something beyond here was lowering Old Blue’s body temperature.

Another twenty steps from there, and the stairs came to an end. There was a room underneath that. According to her magic, this was the entrance area. This was still the entrance to the ruins, and not the ruins themselves.

Oh my…

There was a big stone gate. Even a giant homunculus would be able to pass through, and it was big enough a magical girl could look up at it. If she opened this, it would lead to the ruins. Keys of magic were meaningless before Old Blue. This was because the way to undo a lock was included in its true nature. Compared to what she had just opened, this door was simple.

She needed no particularly difficult methods or special tools. If she chanted a few words of the spell, the door would open, and with the physical strength of a magical girl, she would be able to kick it open, too. This was the level of being “more or less locked.” Most likely it had not been anticipated that thieves would get in this far. They had only known what to do and where in the courtyard to go in order to open the entrance to the ruins because they had someone special like Old Blue, and it wasn’t like anyone could do it.

While understanding this much, Old Blue did not open the door and turned her back on it.

This is impossible.

Going inside to do anything with the relic was out of the question. Even the Heart Lightnings, who had a strong resistance to magic, wouldn’t last long in there, never mind Old Blue herself. Had Frederica prepared something? If Frederica would destroy herself, that was one thing, but if she had some ploy to get in, that was bad. Old Blue’s side being unable to touch the ruins and only them getting free access would be the worst-case scenario.

She could not destroy the relic. The destruction of the ruins was also impossible. So then the remaining choice would be to eliminate Frederica, but that being the case, she had to get one more job done first.

  Halna Midi Meren

The door to the ruins in the courtyard was almost imperceptible. The entrance to the ruins was perfectly disguised and sealed by high-level casters gathered by the three factions. In order to open it, you would first apply, and after that the documents would circulate at the highest level and you would be made to wait months. All the while, you would lay the groundwork and build consensus, negotiating various things behind closed doors to finally get permission.

Last time, when they had opened it under the pretense of an inspection, fifteen high-level casters and a representative of Master Osk had been dispatched. Despite having gone that far to open it, since the Shufflin they had sent out didn’t come back, the survey team had been unable to proceed from the entrance, and they’d had no choice but to reseal it, spending just as much time and effort as when they had opened it.

Halna’s plan had been to arrange for multiple fused bodies that had the resistance of a homunculus along with a magical girl’s intellect, then make another application, thinking it had to work this time. But that door, which should have been shut tight, had now been illegally opened.

Even while trembling in shock, Halna did what she should do.

“Return to the courtyard. Get that blue magical girl with the long hair…and—”

Before she could order the black Snow White to kill Old Blue, she looked outside. The flagstones had opened all the way. And the magical girl was now gone. The doorknob turned. Halna panicked and turned her head to the entrance of the hut. The knob was going around.

It shouldn’t be possible to open this shed from outside. You had to chant the command word and turn the knob in the correct order. But the enemy had shown they could open the entrance to the ruins. Compared to that, just opening the door of the storage shed should be easy.

There was no time to think.

The knob turned all around. The door opened, and light shone in.

  Old Blue

The inside of the shed was packed with technical books and experimental tools. But the principal was not there. Old Blue went into the room, knelt down, and stroked the floor. Halna had been here just a few seconds ago. Had she used a teleportation spell to go somewhere?

She made a quick escape.

Halna wasn’t the only one there; also present was Snow White, unconscious and detransformed. Old Blue squinted as if overwhelmed by dazzling light. She had planned to take Snow White back with her. But pursuing that too far wouldn’t lead to anything good. It was frustrating, but she was forced to give up on that.

Snow White had been stolen, and Halna, who she had meant to have pay her bill at the end, had gotten away, and nothing was going well. Old Blue stood up and gave instructions from her headset.

“Our business is done. Prepare to retreat.”

After she gave the order, her gaze returned to the center of the room once more.

There, breaking through the floorboards, the end of a root was poking out. It was fatter than the torso of a human. It would be a shock for anyone to see—if the end of a root was this big, then just how large would the main body grow? But to Old Blue, who saw not only its appearance but also its true nature, this was beyond merely shocking.

I see, I see, she said to herself. It made sense now how Halna had been supplying such a large amount of energy. The system of the whole courtyard, the absolute defenses of the storage shed, the variety of magic support—it had all been drawn up from here.

Looking straight at it made her feel dizzy. There was just so much information.

This was a part of the ruins. It had extended this far, aiming for the surface. Halna, the superintendent of the magical-girl class, had noticed it, appropriated it, and abused it. Frederica was after it, too. And Old Blue could not handle it. In other words, it would do quite a lot of harm and no good.

Old Blue’s eyes also read from it how she should dispose of it. Casting a spell, she made a seal with her right hand and placed her left hand on top of the root. From here, she would go through a number of steps to destroy it.

  Ripple

The school had been thoroughly destroyed to the point where there was no part that had gone unwrecked. Ripple did not try to restrain her restlessness, letting her emotions propel her running.

She remembered that day. She hadn’t been able to let Snow White fight alone. When Snow White had begged her to train her, Ripple had had no choice but to acquiesce, though she’d rebuked her for it. She couldn’t let Snow White challenge outlaws without any strength of her own.

Besides, Ripple wanted to help someone in even a small way; she wanted to be there for them, to give them courage—that was the sort of local magical girl she wanted to be. She felt like her relationship with Top Speed would have eventually become like that, if not for the exam. That was exactly why she thought it was wrong to force that on Snow White. She couldn’t quite rid herself of the doubt that she was trying to force Snow White into taking Top Speed’s place, so she hadn’t been able to really take that step to get closer to her.

As a result, Snow White had come to be called the Magical-Girl Hunter, and what had come of wishing to support her was Ripple being controlled by Frederica and stealing lives, causing trouble for lots of people and sabotaging Snow White without managing to accomplish a single good thing.

The ceiling of the classroom had fallen down, stirring up dust in the corner of the room. The dust got in the way, and she couldn’t see the ceiling anymore.

She knew that Old Blue’s crew was using her. She was fine with that. She had decided that if Pythie Frederica was going to make a move, then she would kill her before she accomplished her goal. Precisely because she had been controlled by Frederica, she knew better than anyone that she had to kill Frederica.

But in the end, she hadn’t even managed that much.

Every time she tried to do something, she wound up getting in Snow White’s way instead.

She thought of Snow White, of Frederica, and of Old Blue. Old Blue’s eyes could see through everything. Ripple expected her to sound like she was all-knowing, but just standing there talking to her made Ripple uneasy. Was Old Blue capable of defeating Frederica? Maybe. Ripple would’ve rather finished Frederica off herself, but she wasn’t going to be greedy. She was in no position to act that way.

  Halna Midi Meren

She made it just by a hair. Right before the robber stepped in, she managed to teleport herself. But she had been unable to get that far, limited to a teleport in the vicinity.

With Snow White and the homunculus, she leaped to the entrance of the ruins, then let out a sigh of relief. The big door had not been touched. It had been neither opened nor broken. The thieves had not entered into the ruins. That had to mean that they had come this far but then had realized the danger within the ruins and left without touching them. She would have liked to say, “Naturally, they’re mere robbers—”but the enemy had opened the door leading to the entranceway, and then had opened the door of the storage shed, after all.

She had to reconsider how she was looking at this. The courtyard system had also not broken by accident. Someone had broken it. The robbers were not merely some outlaws—they had the power to pry open magic security.

“For now…”

Halna was about to give orders, and then she looked up the stairs. In the chilly stone room, the temperature she felt was a few degrees colder than actuality. And the temperature her body felt now dropped further. Without the time to even think, Something’s coming, the whole room swayed.

She was rattled. This was not just an earthquake. Even if the entranceway was now open, it had been made so it would never shake from a mere incidental earthquake. In other words, something unanticipated was happening.

Before she could guess what that was, the flagstones cracked. Something the same as the root that had cut through the courtyard before thrust through the flagstones, breaking through the ceiling to try to go farther, but it immediately stopped moving, wrinkling up, weakly shriveling up just like a vegetable that had lost its moisture. The Snow White–type homunculus grabbed Halna’s arm and came in front of her. But what could it protect her from?

Something was happening. Or was something being made to happen? It was the robber who had set foot in the storage shed. They seemed capable of anything.

Halna chanted a spell. First, she chanted a farseeing spell, accessing the security camera in the storage shed to check the interior.

Her closed eyes reflected a scene that was not here. Books and experimental tools were scattered around. It had been ransacked. But those things were trivial. Seeing at the back of the room what had become of her dear root, Halna wailed. It was withered black and shriveled up.

What…? How could they…?

What was done was done, and there was no point in lamenting it now. She should think about what to do from here on out. Even understanding that, she couldn’t help but grit her teeth. But Halna was not even given the time for regret.

“Excuse me.”

Wondering what it was this time, she looked toward the voice. Kumi-Kumi and Lillian were both hanging their heads.

“We have a report. The enemy has retreated,” said Lillian.

“Huh? Why?”

“We believe they might be wary of these…tremors. Apparently, the ground is bumpy, and if you’re not careful, then you’ll trip and fall.”

They fled because of the tremors? Could she assume it was something that simple? Didn’t they have some kind of plan? The thoughts started going around in circles in Halna’s head, and she fixed the position of her glasses and pulled herself together.

It was a fact that the enemy had retreated. So then they should use that fact. Though this hadn’t been planned for, Halna was at the entranceway. She would use this place, this situation. It would be better than returning to the storage shed, which was no longer safe. She didn’t know what sort of traps might be left there.

Halna turned around and looked toward the ruins. The big door at the back of the entrance area remained shut. That had not been touched. Which meant that they hadn’t touched what was within, either.

Halna turned back to Lillian and Kumi-Kumi. “Go into the ruins. Find the relic and bring it to me,” she ordered.

“We’re in…the middle of…making a base in the courtyard…,” said Kumi-Kumi.

“Never mind that. Obtaining energy is our top priority.”

“What is…the relic…?”

“I don’t know. Find something that looks like a relic and bring it back here. You two are the only ones I can trust with this. Set up some safety lines, too. If things take a turn for the worse, then pull on them immediately. Got that? I’m counting on you both.”

She was irritated at Kumi-Kumi for speaking so slowly, even at a time like this, but yelling wouldn’t get her anywhere. She told herself that it was a good thing that they had their own powers of judgment, unlike homunculi.

She would make the fullest use of this time. If she could come back with the relic, that move would turn things around, and worst case, they had the lifelines, so they could come back, at least. Even just checking how things were inside would be worth it. Even if the two of them would complain about it, this should be for the best.

Of course, though they were capable of offering their opinions, they couldn’t say no to her. When Halna chanted the spell to open the doors, the two magical girls vanished in the literal blink of an eye, and Halna wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

A regular flesh-and-blood mage or magical girl couldn’t simply walk into the ruins. But the bodies of fused magical girls were incredibly similar to those of homunculi. They were highly resistant to magic, and they could withstand a certain amount of activity within the ruins. The problem with homunculi was their inferior intellect and powers of judgment, so even if they had the resistance, they had been unsuited to exploring the ruins. But these fused bodies with the intellect and judgment of magical girls had the best of both worlds, so to speak.

The original purpose of the fusion had been to search the ruins and plunder the relic. While the fusions weren’t yet perfect, the situation being what it was, she couldn’t be asking for too much.

Halna glanced over at the doors and immediately averted her eyes. Impenetrable darkness lay beyond. But the doors even just being open gave her the chills. She wanted to close them right away, but she had to keep them open until Kumi-Kumi and Lillian came back.

  Pythie Frederica

Fighting with her newfound powers was only fun for a brief while, and she quickly grew tired of it. She had no love for bullying the weak. And now was not the moment to be wasting time on such things. So Frederica changed how she operated. She stopped using her power as an incarnation to its fullest, shaking off the same-faced group that gathered around her, and changed course to moving covertly.

She slipped under the floorboards, covering herself in dust as she crawled along at a frightening pace. No spiderwebs caught on her face. Looking at the marks on the ground, more than one magical girl was already on the move here. When she twitched her nose, she caught the smells of multiple magical girls, and one of them was the scent of the white flower that decorated Snow White’s head.

It had been so long since she’d smelled this fragrance, it made a smile come to her face. If time had allowed it, she would have liked to enjoy the scent here until she was satisfied, but unfortunately, it was just about the arranged time. But still, it seemed that Snow White had stayed safe so far. Frederica silently praised her: Just what I expected from Snow White.

From what she could see of the activity of the Lightnings outside, it seemed they were trying to focus their forces in the courtyard. Despite how unexpected this raid had to be for them, the school was still holding out. Either the students or the teachers, or both, were truly capable.

Quietly while also quite rapidly, Frederica rushed right under the hallways and the classrooms. More precisely, she was crawling through.

On the way, there was a violent tremor. An activation was occurring. Perfect timing—but on the other hand, that meant she couldn’t afford to be late. She would hurry. She would not be impatient. Haste makes waste. She would keep her priorities flexible.

The Lightnings probably planned to muster their forces, reorganize themselves, and attack again. That would be giving Frederica’s happy friends a little bit of leeway. She didn’t know how many of them remained, but so long as they threw things into chaos for her, things were sure to be more interesting.

Frederica thought she must have looked like a cockroach—in other words, she was being logical. She passed under the rubble.

She didn’t know where Kana, Snow White, and Old Blue were—so this was a bit of a fumble, but she could make some guesses. Either they were in the courtyard, or they were heading there—one or the other.

Although a little uncomfortable at the moment, Frederica was able to think. Her dark gray brain hadn’t declined at all—in fact, it was working even better ever since she became Kashiki-akarukushi-hime.

First, they would know already that Frederica was here. After fighting that much with the Lightnings, there was no way reports hadn’t reached them. So then Old Blue would be operating on the assumption that Frederica was Frederica.

And if they were gathering their forces in order to launch a major offensive on the courtyard, then what would happen in the case that they were attacked by Frederica and her mercenaries from behind while they were right in the middle of their assault? That wouldn’t be very good for them.

Was Old Blue still not worried, even understanding that? If she was fully prepared to strike back even if Frederica attacked her from behind, then wouldn’t she have conquered the courtyard to begin with? Frederica could not let herself be confused by the impact of the massive force of Lightnings. No matter how they whittled down Frederica’s minions, Old Blue was not at all the superior force.

As for my next move… All right.

In addition to the information from sounds, she inhaled plenty of air through her nose to acquire scent information. Frederica’s body right now not only had stronger limbs and more resilience; her senses were far sharper than before. When enjoying a magical girl’s hair or the flavor of coffee, she had been aware of her excellent sense of smell, but compared to now, that was equivalent to trying to see through muddy water.

Now then, this is it.

She came to a stop. Raising her body, she destroyed the floorboards with the top of her head and leaped outside.

  Old Blue

The shaking made it difficult for even a magical girl to stay on her feet, and it went on and on, with cracks protruding from the already completely destroyed earth of the courtyard. But the Lightnings were still trying to fight, while Mephis and Tetty looked confused as they fought back. Old Blue concealed herself from them, swiftly moving from one stack of rubble to another, then behind one Lightning to the next, safely passing through the door of the courtyard to come outside.

The activation was beginning. It wasn’t because she had destroyed the end of the root. That had just coincidentally happened at the same time.

Old Blue ran through the hallway, selecting a few of the Lightnings that had been standing by outside to order them to be her guards. From her headset, she gave orders to all Lightnings to get away from the courtyard. Right now, it would be dangerous to fixate on the ruins and continue to stay in the courtyard. It was difficult to predict what would happen with the ruins now that they had been activated, and if they were foolish enough to get involved, they were bound to get hurt.

She would reorganize the Lightnings and rally her forces, and then she would launch an assault. This time for sure, she would take the courtyard. The activation would be sustained for a fairly long time, but it wouldn’t be moving this violently forever. Right when it paused would be her chance.

Old Blue changed the channel on her headset, giving particular instructions to each team of Lightnings as she continued to run. She should not stay in one place. This was not the time to be relieved that it was over. Things were still in motion.

The activation was not the end of it. It was ultimately just part of the process. Things started now. She couldn’t say she had gotten a complete grasp of the root just from seeing it, but even so, she could assemble something based on guesswork. This was an area Old Blue was good at.

She turned a corner in the hallway, going ahead, then next taking a right, and there, she came to a sudden stop. Giving instructions to the Lightnings following her, she had them remain on guard while she took a step forward.

What barely remained of the floor broke open, and a magical girl leaped out.

“Oh my… You look quite different now,” said Old Blue.

“They say the wise are the most adaptable.”

Pythie Frederica. Now she was Kashiki-akarukushi-hime. She had changed her body, and was enhanced.

What an aggravating magical girl to run into. Frederica must have been aiming for this, as her smile was sincere, and that was even more aggravating. But this encounter was not entirely a bad thing for her. Old Blue came forward, aiming for Frederica’s jaw with the palm of her hand, and Frederica dodged with a smile. Frederica countered with a punch thrust toward her.

  Pythie Frederica

One strike, two—surprisingly, Frederica’s attacks were turned aside. With the physical capabilities of an incarnation, even just skimming her should be able to break bones, but Old Blue turned her strikes aside softly and gently, her palm nearing Frederica’s face. With the body of an incarnation, she would take no damage. In fact, smashing that fist with her forehead could break Old Blue’s bones.

…No!

Frederica leaped backward. Old Blue followed her closely. Though she should have been pressed, though there was no way she could have anticipated this encounter with Frederica, she even wore a thin smile on her face.

The surrounding rubble was flung about. Before the scattered bits could fall, Old Blue and Frederica clashed, swapping positions, clashing again, and Old Blue broke through a wall with her back, going into the old school building.

Having anticipated what Old Blue would do, Frederica decided to ignore her and rout the Lightnings. This was the most straightforward thing to do, and it would help her outmaneuver Old Blue. So she had thought.

The lightning bolts coming from behind were fired as if they were ignoring Old Blue’s presence, but despite that, they didn’t touch Old Blue at all, surging toward Frederica only. Even if the lightning did touch her, it shouldn’t damage her much, but she didn’t want it giving Old Blue an opening to attack her. Forced to evade, she had even fewer places to back away.

These Lightnings moved differently from the ones she had fought before. There were three of them. So these were Old Blue’s guard? They were most likely not simply Lightnings. They were disgustingly well-coordinated with Old Blue. The suit that she got a glimpse of near her shoulder was spade—she couldn’t see the number, but if this followed the law of Shufflins, then it should be correct to assume it was a higher number.

Frederica breathed a little sigh.

It wasn’t that Old Blue had known what she would do. She had also not laid a trap for her. But despite having not predicted their encounter here, she had anticipated a fight with Frederica—no, a fight with an incarnation.

Stepping right, then left to avoid the thunderfall, Frederica went from a left kick to a right spear-hand at point blank, using her skirt as a blindfold, but Old Blue was already gone—she just about captured Frederica’s arm, and Frederica backed off automatically, and there the lightning fell again.

She peered into Old Blue’s eyes. They were pale blue, the color of Lapis Lazuline. In the middle of a bloody battlefield, the scent of nemophilas was so strong that it was almost choking.

A knife-hand, a scratch, a low kick, lowering her stance all the way down to knee level for a low tackle—Old Blue read all of it, and nothing connected. Conversely, Old Blue almost caught her, making her hastily draw back, where she was struck by a follow-up attack, forcing her to go around evading in a panic.

She was fighting an ordinary magical girl. Old Blue had even once lost to the Musician of the Forest, Cranberry. It seemed doubtful that she could injure the body of an incarnation. But watching the attacks come at her, Frederica avoided them reflexively. A part of her close to instinct was screaming that she could not take those attacks.

It was also difficult to defeat the Lightnings first. Old Blue was conducting herself so as to keep her from doing so. Frederica could not bulldoze them with the physical strength of an incarnation. Though all her stats had to be superior, between their technique, experience, and coordination, they had her where they wanted her.

How amusing… But what’s this?

While fighting, Old Blue and the Lightnings were gradually moving away from the courtyard. Even as Frederica followed them, she was confused. They were moving away from the courtyard precisely because Frederica was following—but if Frederica took this as an opportunity to head to the courtyard, then what did she plan to do?

  Calkoro

The wild bouts of shaking came in succession. Calkoro deduced an answer for that with her abacus. The epicenter was underneath the magical-girl class. It was near the surface. This was clearly no ordinary earthquake. There was something happening, but Calkoro couldn’t tell what.

The sounds of struggle were fading. There were also fewer footsteps running around the school.

Calkoro had sneaked along under the floor and then over the ceiling, then through the rubble, and when she’d made it to the courtyard somehow, she’d found it no time to go in at all. Courage crushed, Calkoro turned back the other way. But then where would she go? She had no goal. Clearly, the sounds of conflict were diminishing, so then maybe it would be best to continue hiding and wait until the robbers were gone, or maybe until the authorities came, but doing that would make her conscience prickle.

She was not at all a good teacher. But even so, a teacher was a teacher. When the homunculus incident had happened, Calkoro had gone into the mountains. She had neither run nor waited for help. You could call that indulging in heroism, but it was also fair to say that she’d been able to show magical girl–appropriate courage. Put that nicely, and it was a good thing; put it badly, and it would be a bad thing. All things had two sides that way.

There was no time to be waffling around. So with the thought of doing the minimum, she headed to Halna’s office. It was empty. She sneaked around like a mouse, and seeing the heavy wooden office door had been destroyed, she sighed. Of course, the office had also been ransacked. The heavy metallic safe had been cut clean in two, and documents were scattered about. Perhaps it could be called fortunate that there were no bodies or any bloody marks. Was Halna still alive? Thinking about it didn’t get her any answers.

She searched around under the desk and behind the sofa, but Halna was not there. Calkoro’s brow furrowed slightly. She picked up a single document and swiftly read over it, searching for two, three pieces, fishing through what remained in the safe. Then she turned back toward the courtyard.

Her expression gradually turned severe and eventually became an expression of clear anger.

Crumpling up the document she held had in her hand, she tossed it away, and then she set off once more for the courtyard—sneaking along so that nobody would discover her.