Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 3 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

NOTHING LEFT ANYMORE

  Nokko

Though it had been explained to her beforehand, Nokko was startled when she logged into the game and found herself suddenly in the library area with Pfle, Detec Bell, and Lapis Lazuline nearby. When Nokko was surprised, she wouldn’t be the only one feeling it, since she transmitted her emotions around her, so she calmed herself down as best she could and looked around. The full party was there, and Detec Bell and Lapis Lazuline yelped in shock as they looked around.

The Initial Location Switch Device that Pfle had acquired through R was a convenient item. It could change where a party would appear when they logged into the game. No matter how fast magical girls were, going all the way from the wasteland to their desired area was still a lot of wasted effort. Though new gates between the regions appeared in various places once an area was unlocked, like from the wasteland to the mountains or from the mountains to the library—they’d learned where these were from the map application—it still took time to get around.

There was one more reason that Nokko was glad to have the Initial Location Switch Device. Nobody said it aloud, but this was the more important reason.

It was because of how Masked Wonder had been murdered and her items stolen. The killer had done it in the period between when they logged in and when she would have met up with her party. They’d gotten her while she was alone. With this device, that interval would vanish for them. The whole party would be together from the moment they logged in.

The vague understanding that the culprit had been @Meow-Meow had proliferated among all the girls. In Nokko’s opinion, this was because Genopsyko had hinted that there was a traitor. Since she had already suggested that it might be the case, they believed she had sacrificed her life to tell them who it was. Nokko, who had been with @Meow-Meow and Genopsyko, didn’t think that was true, but if asked, So what do you think? she would stall and say she didn’t really know.

Nokko didn’t think @Meow-Meow was the culprit, but her opinion wasn’t going to convince anyone, and she wasn’t going to try to convince them. But she was certain there was still someone among them who meant harm, and she wanted to be as alert as possible for that. Nokko wasn’t a powerful fighter, so she had to rely on others to be alert for her as well. This meant that it was best for her to stick with her party as much as possible. If Nokko were some fantastically powerful magical girl, the game might have already ended by now. But that was just an escapist fantasy, so Nokko decided to focus on grappling with reality.

The proliferation of the theory that the traitor was @Meow-Meow also supported an idea that had been suggested earlier, that all the parties cooperate. The elimination of the suspicious individuals had eased their anxieties about talking to someone whose loyalties were unknown. Now that the end of the game was in sight, the two parties had the chance to cooperate whenever it was even slightly useful for completion. They were bringing each other hints, helping out when more numbers were needed, and attempting to share knowledge of the monsters as much as possible.

In the course of their monster-killing, the others brought the items Nokko’s party had requested—Clantail speaking little, Nonako Miyokata and Rionetta quarreling, and Pechka…being timid. She was always nervous and flustered. I’m surprised she was able to become a magical girl, if that’s how she is, thought Nokko.

Though it was technically “cooperation between all parties,” there were only two, so if both of them were of a mind to cooperate, that would end up happening. Even Melville, who was apparently off somewhere exploring alone, would pop up from wherever she had been to help them some, bearing hint messages she’d found or information regarding places that seemed to be quest-related.

And speaking of soloists, Shadow Gale was most likely by herself, too, but Nokko had no idea what she was doing and where right about then. Their party never encountered her, even though they explored every corner of the library area. She might have been somewhere else, but what would she be doing outside the library at this point? When Nokko had asked Pfle, she’d simply shrugged in a sort of blunt refusal, saying, “I suppose she’s just doing whatever she wants.”

Between the strength and nature of the monsters and the ability to avoid battles by sitting in a chair, the library area was, as the word “library” might imply, not as combat-focused as the subterranean area had been. This was also apparent in the quest to unlock the Evil King’s castle. Compared to the quest to defeat the Great Dragon, it required more brains—or rather, more persistence.

“I’d love to get some hints on the correct order here,” said Detec Bell.

“‘Squares into a circle,’ huh?” Pfle muttered.

“A bunch of the titles are the same, too.”

“The covers and pages are all the same. Only the titles differ. But you’re saying some titles are identical.”

Pfle and Detec Bell were discussing the order of the books. It was basically a code, so Nokko went around the library in search of books so as not to bother the pair. Not only was Lazuline a good fighter, but also her intuition was sharp. Even when monsters would catch them in a pincer attack from before and behind, she could deftly manage their attacks without even glancing over her shoulder. When Nokko was exploring with her, they never got caught by surprise, which was really reassuring.

“All thanks to my master’s trainin’,” Lazuline had said. Nokko was thankful to this master, who was now retired from being a magical girl, according to Lazuline.

There was an empty bookshelf on the eastern end of the library—without even a single book. What’s more, while most books in the library had only white pages, a few featured pages of such a deep red, Nokko suspected that if she ran her finger down one, it would dye her fingertip.

According to the hints in the library, collecting these books and setting them into the empty bookshelf in a specific order would open the gate to the next area. But though it had been hinted that there was a specific order, there were no instructions on what that was. They had to figure that part out on their own. Their only other hint was the phrase squares into a circle.

Pfle and Detec Bell’s heated discussion was about the order of the books. Nokko thought they should at least gather all the books before they started talking about that, but once they’d gathered about 90 percent, the pair had leaned in close to each another and started in: “No, it’s not this,” and “No, it’s not that.”

  Detec Bell

The moment before Shinobu Hioka had gone from the real world into the game again, she’d been unconscious. She remembered being in the karaoke booth drinking, and then finally belting out some songs, but her memories ended there. When she came to, she was transformed into Detec Bell, sitting on a chair in the library area. After about a minute of confusion, she found out this was the effect of the Initial Location Switch Device that Pfle had acquired through R.

Because R was so unreliable, it hadn’t really been a part of the strategy for Detec Bell’s party, but the device was convenient. Cutting their travel time short put her at ease. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to give R a shot if we’ve got the spare candy, she thought. But the game would probably be over before they had any to spare. Magical Girl Raising Project was finally reaching its climax.

With the help of Clantail’s party, and Melville, too, they collected enough of the red books to fill the empty bookshelf. They invited Clantail to help them figure out what order the books had to go in, but she had replied that they would leave the puzzle-solving to Pfle’s party, and in the meantime, their party would go kill some monsters to stock up candy. Melville gave them the same answer, so Detec Bell figured that perhaps their interest in this subject simply differed.

While she was discussing with Pfle, Detec Bell tried putting the books on the shelf a number of times and failed. The bookshelf wouldn’t accept books in the wrong order. It would make a beeping sound and spit them all out again. Then she would pick them all up and consider the matter again from a different angle.

Detec Bell tried holding the books over a flame. She tried sniffing them. She tried dripping water on them. Then Pfle informed her that she’d already tried all those things, so Detec Bell gave up on that. She flipped through the pages and racked her brains, wondering if there was some kind of pattern. Even using her magnifying glass, she couldn’t find anything.

Squares into a circle. Squares into a circle. Squares into a circle…

“Bell, Bell!”

While lost in thought, Detec Bell suddenly heard someone speaking to her. She looked up and saw Lazuline grinning at her. “What?” she asked.

“I think bein’ a detective’s a good idea.”

“…For who?”

“For me.”

“Why?”

“I always thought ya were this cool, clever detective, but I had no idea ya had all that passion bottled up inside! After I heard that super-enthusiastic speech, I just had to be a detective myself! And well, I’ve been thinkin’ lately that I can’t always have my daddy be payin’ for an unemployed magical girl. I’ll use all the skills my master taught me to work to become the Legendary Detective: Lapis Lazuline!”

“Oh…okay.” Now Detec Bell knew what she’d been babbling about and to whom while she’d been drinking. But now that she knew, she really didn’t want to be hearing about it at the moment. She didn’t want Lazuline to blab about anything else, and not just because the other magical girls would hear. She didn’t want Lazuline going on about Detec Bell’s drunken nonsense as if it were praiseworthy. “All right, then as your first step on the path to being a detective, come help me investigate.”

“Roger!”

Detec Bell had come to understand something from being in a party with Pfle: Detec Bell was not very good at solving puzzles. Back in the real world, she could use her magic and physical strength to solve mysteries, but the moment she had come into the game and had her magic restricted, she’d come to a halt. Pfle was abnormally sharp. Detec Bell couldn’t even feel jealous. She seemed very much like the famous detectives Shinobu had admired.

She ended up thinking, Well, maybe some detectives just aren’t as good at deduction. It was a little funny that she could consider the idea and be so calm about it. Now she couldn’t understand why she had been so upset back when Melville had left. Had she changed because they were close to their goal, or because Lazuline had recognized her? For better or for worse, Lazuline’s carefree antics made Detec Bell less anxious. Why had she been so paranoid before? It was all so baffling.

For her own part, Lazuline was humming as she fought monsters. Detec Bell couldn’t be like that, nor did she want to.

Detec Bell thoroughly searched the library area and came back with the last hint: First comes now.

“‘Now,’ hmm?” Pfle took a book in one hand. It was a book titled precisely that: Now. “So, beginning with the book titled Now…make the squares into a circle, hmm…?” Pfle muttered as she began setting books on the bookshelf. The title Now was three letters long. The next book in line had a title that was fourteen letters long. Next, she looked for a book that had fifteen letters, and after that, nine, and then she searched for a long title with twenty-six letters, then five, and then three.

3.1415926535897932…squares into a circle. That is to say, use the square books to make pi.

Pfle had figured out that you had to line up the books in the shelf by the number of letters in their titles to create pi, and they opened the gate to the Evil King’s castle.

  Shadow Gale

Each new area of the game had different smells. The wasteland area smelled like earth, the grasslands area smelled like air, and here, the odor of mold hung over everything.

Perhaps because it was a game, the smells wouldn’t follow you if you left an area. It wouldn’t get into your clothes or on your skin, either. That was an honest relief to Shadow Gale. She could put up with the earth and the grass, but mold had to be near the top on the list of smells she couldn’t stand. It would have been absolutely miserable if it had stuck to her clothes and skin and never come out. A magical girl should smell like flowers and fruit. If she had to appear with a whiff of mold, she’d be a joke.

The moldy smell hanging all around her, Shadow Gale set the Dragon-Killer in her firing device and pointed it toward the Great Dragon. The dragon threatened her with a deafening roar that shook the entire cavern. The first time she’d heard that sound, she’d shuddered from the depths of her soul, but by now, she’d heard it so many times that it just seemed repetitive and didn’t bother her.

She pressed the switch on the firing device, and the Dragon-Killer shot off. She got a perfect hit on the Great Dragon, and the earth trembled as it fell. This felt pedestrian to her, too. The first time, she’d trembled with joy at having defeated the Great Dragon all by herself, but that emotion had quickly evaporated, too. She didn’t even remember how many times she’d done this already.

By defeating the Great Dragon, she won the Dragon Shield. Now she didn’t even have to look at her magical phone. She knew the item was there.

Cautiously avoiding all the various traps set on the floor here, Shadow Gale left the cavern. Pfle had told her that as long as there was a player-killer out there, she should be extremely cautious when on her own, so Shadow Gale had set up a trap within the Great Dragon’s cavern. The trap would also fire mercilessly on anyone who stepped in innocently, but according to Pfle, if that happened, they were “just unlucky.”

But at this point in time, the library was the newest area, and everyone would be exploring and killing monsters over there. Shadow Gale would be the only one secluding herself down here, defeating the Great Dragon over and over.

She sighed. Midgame bosses generally didn’t respawn. But selling off the special item the Great Dragon dropped made the event recur and revived it. Pfle had been the one to discover this fact.

So Shadow Gale had to take the shield to the shop and sell it off. Once she’d sold it, she’d confront the Great Dragon once more. She could see no end to this loop.

  Pechka

A mysterious, sweet scent floated in the air, though it wasn’t the only thing here. The sparkling marble floors were starkly different from the old wooden floorboards of the library area. There was not a single scratch on the ground, and the tapping of hooves on it sounded pleasant. Though they were indoors, there was no risk of Clantail kicking through the floor, and she could freely transform into large animals.

Rionetta scowled and pressed her skirts in. “This floor is so sorely over-polished, it even reflects the underside of my skirts.”

“Yeah, and everyone wants to see a doll’s bloomers, hein?”

“If you must say such vulgar things, then please do it when I’m not present.”

Rionetta and Nonako were at it, as usual. They never changed, even now, in the final area. It seemed like they were deliberately sniping at each other, even, keeping everything the same. Their fights seemed a bit more forced than usual. Or maybe it just looked that way to Pechka because she was anxious.

The final area: the Evil King’s castle.

It was a splendid, marble-wrought palace. The hallways, big enough for five Pechkas to lie next to each other spread-eagle, were decorated at intervals with sculptures, large statues, and great paintings in magnificent frames. But because of the “Evil King” part of the castle’s name, all the art had some twisted element to it: batlike wings growing from the back of a beautiful woman, or two curving goat-horns on the temples of a bearded gentleman.

After they had passed through the gate from the library area, they had immediately emerged into a hallway. The gate behind them was at a dead end, and the hallway extended before them about a hundred yards before it turned to the right.

“Everyone, good luck. Don’t let your guard down,” said Pfle, sitting on her magic carpet at their center. The assembled magical girls all nodded. The members of Pechka’s party weren’t the only ones there. Detec Bell’s group was there, too, along with Pfle, Shadow Gale, and Melville—who Pechka hadn’t seen in a while—and Nokko, too. Shadow Gale was eyeing Pfle a little resentfully. Something had probably happened between the two of them.

When they encountered monsters, they’d check the monster encyclopedia first.

They weren’t about to go immediately charging in simply because they’d discovered the Evil King’s location.

Going off on your own was strictly forbidden.

No rushing, no impatience.

Counting on her fingers, Pechka double-checked that everyone was there. It was looking like there’d be no particular issues if they proceeded as usual.

“Now then, let’s go,” said Pfle.

None of them were fixated on parties anymore. With the formerly solo Melville and Shadow Gale added to the group, they promised solidarity to each other.

In the lead were Clantail, Lapis Lazuline, and Rionetta. The second line consisted of Melville, Nokko, and Detec Bell. The third line consisted of Pechka and Pfle on her magic carpet. At the rear were Nonako Miyokata and Shadow Gale. Fortunately, the ceiling was over thirty feet high, so they positioned Nonako’s dragon in the air as a support/confusion tactic/scout for when the time came. Plus, it could also watch out for attacks from above.

This arrangement had most likely been decided based on their abilities, roles in combat or whatnot. But to Pechka, being separated from the allies she knew and positioned among magical girls she didn’t know very well was anxiety-and stress-inducing. She was beginning to timidly walk forward when she received a poke in the rear. Her heart leaped into her mouth.

“Relax, s’il vous plaît! I said I’d protect you, Pechka,” said Nonako Miyokata.

“Oh…of course. Um…thank you…very much.” Pechka was grateful and glad, and she felt she could rely on Nonako. But she would rather hear it in a way that didn’t give her a heart attack.

“Oh! Stop, stop!” A loud voice came from up front, and Pechka’s heart jumped again. “There’s somethin’ on the ground. It’s set to spring somethin’ on ya if ya step on it.” What Lazuline was pointing at looked just like a completely normal spot on the marble floor. “Man, it’s the final level, so there’s gonna be traps and stuff, y’know? I was zonin’ out since we ain’t seen nothin’ like that so far. I just found it at the last minute. That was real close, seriously.”

They all murmured anxiously. “Can you see anything?” “Yeah.” “Oh, you’re right—there’s signs it’s been tampered with.” “I can’t tell…” “But she says something est là.” “Wot a caereless mistaeke.” “Hmm…”

Some of the girls couldn’t tell at all, some at least noticed something was off, some could notice if they looked closely, and others could tell clearly even from a distance… Well, only Lazuline could do that. But apparently, there was some variation in what they saw.

Pfle clapped her hands. Everyone shut their mouths and turned their attention to her. “There’s no question that something is there?” she asked Lazuline.

“I mean, can’t ya tell just by lookin’?” The issue here was that some of them couldn’t, but Lazuline was operating on the assumption that they were all on the same page. They weren’t.

“I’d like to avoid any problem spots as we move along… It’s highly likely someone might inadvertently step on one of these.”

“So then should I mark it?” Lazuline suggested.

“That would be all right if what the trap senses is weight or body heat, but if vibration is the trigger, and it activates the moment it’s touched, it’ll be no laughing matter.”

“I’ve an idea.” Rionetta raised her hand. The way her ball joints bent was humanlike, extending elegantly to the tips of her fingers.

The sound of marble striking marble was obnoxiously loud and grating to the ears. The weight of the stone statue had to be measured in tons, and the vibrations reached all the way to Pechka over a hundred and fifty feet away. The large golem’s feet slowly thundered down the hallway of the Evil King’s castle.

“Right around there, is that correct?” asked Rionetta.

“Yeah, a little to the right…there, there, right there,” replied Lazuline.

The muscular marble statue, wearing only a loincloth to cover the necessary areas, dropped its foot on the part of the floor Lazuline indicated. As the powerful blast roared, purple flashes burned on the girls’ retinas.

“It seems that was a lightning trap,” said Pfle.

The marble all around was soot-black. The muscular statue that had stepped on the trap was covered all over in soot, too, but it still lifted its foot with a creak from the spot where the trap had been. Somehow, it could still keep walking.

“Hooold on just a sec, guys!” Lazuline trotted up to the center of the explosion site and then gave a wave. “The trap’s gone! Looks like once you step on it once, it’s done!”

“Fantastic,” said Pfle. “Well then, let’s proceed with this plan: We’ll have the statues scout for us and step on traps for us. That will be safest.”

A high-pitched laugh sounded out. Rionetta’s right hand was against her mouth as she laughed haughtily. “It seems that finally I can put my specialty to good use. I hadn’t seen a single doll thus far, so I worried that I might perhaps spend this whole game as just another fighter.”

“So a statue counts as a doll to you?” Nonako Miyokata remarked. “Your magic is unreasonably flexible, hein?”

“I shan’t accept such accusations from someone who treats everything from goblins to dragons as beasts.”

They had three marble statues in total: one with a black goat head, a human torso, and a goat’s lower body; a beautiful woman with large bat’s wings growing from her back; and the macho statue that had just crushed the trap. Rionetta said that a doll’s speed and ability to take a hit depended on what it was made of, and that the marble statues were slow to move and solidly built.

The statues would not be suited to fighting faster monsters but would be optimal for stepping on traps, Rionetta had proudly declared. Pechka also understood quite well how good it felt when your apparently useless magic had its moment of glory.

Since now they knew there were traps, their formation had been adjusted slightly. The three marble statues stomped along heavily over a hundred and fifty feet ahead of the group. “I could control quite a few more, but too many would become a hindrance, I daresay?” Rionetta commented.

Lapis Lazuline joined the statues as their scout, since she had been the first one to discover that trap. There had been some concern as to what Lazuline would do if they ran into monsters and she became the focus of their attacks, but she had said, “I’ll just hand one of these to Taily in the front. With my super teleportation powers, I can pop right over to her if something happens up there, so I’ll be okay.”

Lazuline’s magic was instant teleportation to her lapis lazuli. She could teleport anywhere as long as there was a gem there. If Lazuline handed one of her gems to someone in the rear guard, she could join them immediately.

Detec Bell gave Lazuline strict orders to come straight back to them if any monsters appeared, no matter how weak they looked, and Lazuline was deployed with the vanguard to scout for enemies and traps. And so they made their way forward, checking for threats as they went. Slowly and steadily, inch by inch, they proceeded down the hall. Occasionally, they discovered a trap, and each time, Lazuline and two of the three statues would retreat while the remaining statue set it off. There was a lightning trap, flammable gas with an ignition device, lines of spears, explosions, and a trap that looked like a like mysterious, glowing magic sigil. They couldn’t tell at a glance what that one did. Going through a number of the traps destroyed the statues, so Rionetta activated new ones from among the statues decorating the hall and incorporated them into their formation.

The hallway was long. It didn’t just seem that way because they were forced to advance so slowly. There were actually no rooms and no doors aside from the gates they’d first walked in through.

“I see,” Pfle muttered as she turned on her magical phone and examined the screen. Taking a peek from the side, Pechka could see she had launched the map application that showed them their surroundings. “It seems we’re going clockwise toward a center.”

The screen displayed a spiral-like shape. It went forward, then turned right, forward, right, forward, right, over and over. Now that she mentions it—she’s right. We’ve never gone left, thought Pechka. So far, they’d turned right twice, so that meant they were still circling the outer perimeter. The magical phone also displayed the current locations of their party members.

“Stop!” Lazuline called out from the front, and everyone stopped. About fifty yards ahead of the vanguard and a hundred ahead of Pechka and the rest, light was streaming in from one side of the hall.

Pfle checked the map displayed on her magical phone. “There’s an opening, about fifteen feet wide, that leads to a space of about thirty square feet. It doesn’t look to be connected to anything beyond. It may be a terrace of some sort.”

Lazuline walked briskly, craning her neck to peer at the opening that was letting the light through. Detec Bell’s fists were clenched and trembling as she muttered, “How can she act so unguarded?”

Lazuline, oblivious to Detec Bell’s internal anxieties, slipped nimbly into the light. This time, she poked just her head back out of it, then turned toward them. “Found the shop!”

“Ooh!” someone exclaimed. The girls all quickened their pace a little to join Lazuline, breaking off into groups to visit the shop and check out the goods.

Just as Pfle had predicted, it was a balcony that let in light and air from the outside. Its railing was finely ornamented with the same sort of devilish creatures featured in the paintings and carvings adorning the castle halls. On the middle of the railing sat a bisque urn about half as big as Pechka herself. When they activated their magical phones there, the displays indicated that the urn was the shop. Apparently, transactions were carried out by putting things into and taking things out of the urn.

Some of the girls wanted to discuss the shop’s items, while others were hungry and looking to eat something, and since these two suggestions didn’t conflict, they decided to take a break for a meal in front of the shop. Since there were now more than twice as many people as had been in her party before, Pechka was that much busier. She packed the debris from the broken marble statues into a pot and made congee with lots of vegetables and meat.

The smell of Pechka’s cooking wafted into the air, overwhelming the characteristic sweet scent of this area. The aroma of the dish sped up and slowed down, drafting around the group, with the motion from everyone’s spoons. This smell was far more calming. Pechka breathed a sigh.

“This is so good!” crowed Lapis Lazuline. “Crazy good! Y’all were keepin’ the good stuff to yourselves! It’s a crime!”

“So says the girl from the party that kept the hunting grounds to themselves. The gall,” Rionetta quipped.

“That’s different! Man, this is so damn good!”

“You don’t have to scarf it down so fast. No one’s going to steal it from you.” Detec Bell admonished Lazuline for her bad manners as the girl in blue intently gobbled down her food. Meanwhile, beside her, Detec Bell herself was eating as if her life depended on it.

Pfle’s demeanor belied the amount she was packing into her stomach as she commented on the seasoning, cooking method, and ingredients. Shadow Gale was still eyeing Pfle resentfully, but even so, she seemed to be enjoying the food. Pechka didn’t really understand what Melville was saying, and Lazuline wasn’t translating since she was concentrating on eating instead. But from Melville’s expression and reactions, Pechka figured she was probably being complimentary. Nokko helped serve everyone. As a maid, she was used to it.

Clantail’s tail was wagging widely, and for some reason, Nonako was proudly bragging about the food. Pechka didn’t let it show much, but in fact she was even prouder than Nonako that they all enjoyed her cooking. Pechka was bad at fighting, average at exploring, couldn’t solve puzzles, and didn’t have any other useful skills or magic. Cooking was the only thing she could do to make everyone happy, and it made her glad.

The smell of the food stuck to them, even after the meal was done. The congee’s aroma wafted on ahead, drowning out the sickly sweetness of the Evil King’s castle. Pechka prayed that it would last forever.

  Shadow Gale

The shop in the Evil King’s castle, the final area, was the final shop of the game, in other words. Of course the goods were powerful, expensive, and their circulation limit numbers were low.

There was a weapon +10 and a Shield +10. Both were insanely expensive. What’s more, they were limited to just one each.

“Only one of each item is for sale,” commented Pfle, “and they’re expensive, to boot. We wouldn’t be able to buy these even if we defeated a hundred fiends. The master predicted we’d all be scrambling to get at these first…assuming we weren’t united, that is.” But now they had settled on the goal of attempting to defeat the Evil King as a unified group. They just had to pool all their candy to buy the items, then give them to the players who seemed like they’d be most effective with them. “Their plan may have been for the players to fight among themselves over the limited number of powerful weapons. This means that in unifying, we’ve surpassed the master’s expectations.” Only the smug-faced Pfle knew how seriously she meant that.

They decided to give the weapon +10 to Melville and have Clantail use the Shield +10. Of course, receiving powerful weapons was not entirely cause for excitement. In accepting this powerful weapon and shield, these girls were essentially being told that they’d be fighting at the front of the pack when the time came. I’ll just do my best not to get in the way, Shadow Gale was thinking, when Pfle said, “Oh, Mamori. You have the Dragon Shield, the strongest of them all, so be sure to fight the hardest. I’ve entrusted you a very important position at the rear because I have great expectations for you in combat.”

“…Can I trade with someone else?” Shadow Gale asked.

“You’ve been using it longest, so you must be used to it.”

Shadow Gale wanted to slap Pfle’s face for making such a remark so nonchalantly. Would she at least be allowed to flick her on the forehead?

The other items included a “stun gun”—this late in the game, for some reason.

The stun gun on sale at this shop was a “stun baton” type, and it was used by touching it to your opponent and pushing a button on the handle with your thumb to send an electric current running through it. The encyclopedia said its effect on enemies of the “evil” class was instantaneous, knocking out any evil-type enemy immediately and keeping them out for thirty minutes.

Then there was the even more confusing “flamethrower.”

The flamethrower, successfully shrunk to machine-gun size, was small enough that it was easy to handle and swing around, even for a small-statured magical girl. Just like the stun gun, it was very effective on evil-type enemies, and three sprays of flame would burn the enemy black.

Shadow Gale purchased a flamethrower to test it out, pointing it at the sky off the terrace and pulling the trigger. It spewed a massive flame about six feet in diameter, and the heat and size of the flames made her wince and yelp.

“By ‘evil-type,’ do they mean the fiends and wraiths?”

“Those are demon-type, apparently.”

“That’s so confusing…”

“There are no evil-type monsters in the monster encyclopedia. Most likely, right here…” Pfle pointed to the ??? spots in the monster encyclopedia. There were only two types of enemies left that were listed as question marks—in other words, two that they hadn’t encountered yet. “…is where the evil-type monsters go.”

Two types left, and one of them, at least, would be the Evil King. The other would be a secondary boss before the Evil King or random encounters that would show up on their way there. Of course, even if they were the latter, that didn’t mean they were trash mobs. Often, large numbers proved far more daunting than a weaker boss.

“I wouldn’t even be able to laugh if we beat the Evil King with a stun gun or a flamethrower,” said Shadow Gale.

“It would be a fitting end to this ridiculous mess.”

They took turns on watch until the meal was over, set up their formation again, and resumed their advance. Shadow Gale was marching after them all at the tail. The sight of the whole crowd going forward, shields up (aside from Melville, who couldn’t equip a shield due to the nature of her weapon) reminded her of a bomb squad she’d once seen on TV.

Nonako Miyokata, who was at the rear with Shadow Gale, poked Pechka in front of her to talk to her. Every poke startled Pechka, making her jump, and Shadow Gale had to feel sorry for her. And since Nonako didn’t seem at all like she was paying attention to their surroundings, that meant as they walked, Shadow Gale had to be on guard for attacks or followers from behind. It was exhausting. But still, she cheered herself up by telling herself she had a better deal than Lazuline and the three up front doing the hard work of searching for traps as they advanced.

Their progress was slow. They would occasionally set off traps, then turn right and go forward again, over and over. Since the hallway went in an inward-turning spiral, the farther they got, the shorter the straightaways became. Shadow Gale turned on her magical phone and activated the map application to check how far they’d come. One player icon was displayed about two-thirds of the way down the route. We’ve gotten pretty far, she thought, but at the same time, she recalled that she was the only member of her party, so she didn’t feel much better.

From that point onward, they continued to prioritize safety as they advanced, intermittently breaking for meals and dealing with over a hundred traps until the whole party arrived at their goal point.

While everything around them—walls, ceiling, and furnishings—was white marble, what blocked their way at the end of the hallway was a wooden door. They didn’t have to speculate about what lay beyond it. Someone blew out a breath. Shadow exhaled a deep sigh as well. The game was about to end. The road had been long. It had been only around two weeks, but it had felt so, so long. Six people had died to get them this far.

Lazuline, who had been checking the door, raised both her arms to make a circle. “No traps.”

“Is it locked?” asked Pfle.

“Nope. I figure pushin’ it should open it up.”

“Then please do.”

Lazuline gently pushed the door, and it opened inward with a creak. When they peeked inside, it seemed to be a room. What looked like an armor-clad knight and plastic robot stood side by side. They seemed like decorations—but then they started moving, and the magical girls raised their weapons and shields.

  Nokko

The knight had horns like a dragon and a large, reptilian tail…and if the tail was anything like the horns, it was probably a dragon’s, too. Nokko was startled, recalling @Meow-Meow, but the knight strode toward them, heedless of her reaction. A helmet and face guard covered its head, casting its visage in shadow, so she couldn’t really see it. Swiftly, the knight pulled a massive two-handed sword from the scabbard on its back.

The robot was floating in the air. There was something like a backpack strapped to its back, spurting flame. Its red eyes were plastic, just like its body, and its whole form made it clear that it had been created by people. In midair, it spread all four limbs out, and small objects flew out of its backpack toward them, trailing white smoke.

—Missiles?!

Nokko held her shield at a diagonal, dropping her right knee to the marble floor to prepare for the impact. She felt the thunderous shaking of the explosion as thick white smoke billowed up. It looked like someone else had blocked it. Then something sliced through the white smoke above. When Nokko raised her head, the robot had paused in the air, splayed out again. Nokko was about to turn her shield around to face the new direction when she heard a cry from behind her. Following that came the sound of metal hitting metal.

“It’s an Evil King’s Knight and a Hell Jester! Nonelemental! No weaknesses or strengths!” Pfle, in the middle of checking the monster encyclopedia, took a hit and was slammed into Nokko’s back.

Shield still up, Nokko rolled forward, then somehow regained her balance with her shield facing above her when heat and another shock hit her and launched her backward into a wall. Pfle was grimacing, but she continued to cling to her magic carpet, refusing to let go and just barely staying in place. She wasn’t looking at the monster encyclopedia anymore; it had been knocked to the ground. She yelled, “No weaknesses or strengths! Just hammer them down!”

Through the billowing white smoke, Nokko could see a faint black shadow fifteen feet ahead. It was raising something up. Nokko braced her shield and blocked the attack, but her arm felt numb. After blocking a second and then third attack, her arm couldn’t handle any more, and she dropped the shield. It hit the floor with a clang, and she abandoned it there and darted to the side. The knight’s sword left a violent gash in the marble floor, a visceral reminder of the knight’s physical prowess and sharp blade.

Gradually, the white smoke cleared. Rising to her knees, Nokko looked around in horror. Lazuline and was trading blows with a knight; Melville was targeting the robot flying above them with her javelins; Nonako and her dragon had trapped another knight between them in a pincer attack; Rionetta and Clantail were defending Pechka from three more knights; Detec Bell and Shadow Gale were being pushed farther and further back, unable to even attack; and Pfle huddled on her magic carpet, shield still up, continuously blocking a stream of attacks and unable to escape. There were as many enemies as there were magical girls.

Each and every one of them was stronger than any monster so far, aside from the Great Dragon. The knights’ swords were unusually powerful and heavy, and Nokko couldn’t even block their strikes entirely. Her arm was still tingling, and she couldn’t get it to move right.

Now that Nokko was without her shield, the enemy swung at her again. She jumped back to avoid the blow…but couldn’t dodge it entirely. She hadn’t escaped the knight’s range. Its sword was massive and long. Nokko swung her mop, throwing her entire body into a strike against the flat of the knight’s blade to forcefully change its trajectory. But the power behind the knight’s swing knocked her down, and she banged her shoulder against the wall. She couldn’t dodge the next swing, so she blocked it with her mop in place of the shield. The lone hit bent her weapon +7 mop, which she’d paid a high price for in candy.

Someone screamed—Pechka. Nokko wanted to plug her ears. Screaming was not what she wanted to hear right now. She mustered an aggressive desire to destroy their enemies to take over her heart. She filled herself with the kind of fighting spirit that would make you put your life on the line for the sake of your allies, to fight heroically, and spread it to the others around her. If any of the girls had the time to scream, she should be taking down one more enemy instead. She transmitted these feelings to all around her.

Nokko stood up, smacking the knight’s sword hilt hard with her bent mop to lock weapons with her enemy, but the knight easily knocked her back again. It was so much stronger. I’m not going to let this beat me, she thought, and she struck it again with her mop as she launched her indomitable spirit around her.

Pechka raised her shield and joined the front lines, which lessened the strain on Rionetta and Clantail, who had been forced to protect her. Clantail pulled out her magical phone and switched it on. Countless spears had been thrust into the floor around her. Clantail transformed her body into a great octopus, grabbed a spear in each tentacle, and assaulted the knights. At this point, it was hard to tell who was the monster.

Nokko kept on praying. Fight, fight, fight, fight.

Melville focused on fixing her aim, ignoring the missile coming at her. The blast hit her as she flung her javelin to destroy the robot’s booster. The robot lost its balance, went into a tailspin, and plunged into the floor. Blood streaming from her head, Melville chucked another javelin to destroy the robot’s head entirely. But though that should have finished it off, it raised itself up again. What? thought Nokko, but the robot immediately grabbed at one of the knights fighting nearby. This confused Nokko for a moment until she figured out that Rionetta had to be controlling it.

Lazuline slammed a knight into the wall with a roundhouse kick, then rushed in for a flurry of punches from both hands, hammering the thick metal armor out of shape.

Waiting until the moment a knight raised its sword, Pfle leaped at it from her magic carpet, wrapped her arms around the knight’s neck, and wrenched it upside down.

Unable to withstand the coordinated assault from Nonako and her dragon, another knight dropped its sword and fell to its knees, and Detec Bell and Shadow Gale were somehow managing to hold their own, too.

With things like this, one of them would surely come in soon to help Nokko. Brandishing her mop, Nokko was relieved.

Defeated, the knights fell to the ground in pieces of armor. The robot remained as a lump of plastic and iron, away from them in a corner of the hallway. In two hours, it would vanish.

Nonako was indignant. “I can’t believe they didn’t give us any living créatures!”

“Now then. Are we ready?” said Pfle.

They had healed up. The recovery medicine had cured all of them, both the girls with serious injuries and the ones who’d received milder wounds. Those like Nokko, whose weapons had broken, borrowed from those who had extra. All of them were 100 percent prepared, weapons and shields at the ready. They heard the tense hum of Melville pulling her bowstring taut.

The room the knights and robot had occupied was perfectly square, about thirty square feet in area, and there was a door on the other end that led onward. It was a size smaller than the way they’d come in, but garishly decorated. It was metal, engraved with faces in various states of agony. Its black shone in contrast with the white of the marble. It was sickening, pompous, and sinister.

Nokko looked at the map application on her phone. The room beyond this door was the end of the Evil King’s castle. That meant once they opened this door, they’d have reached their goal.

Lazuline, done investigating the gate, made a circle with her arms. “No traps, and it’s not locked! It opens like normal!”

“Good,” said Pfle. “Then everyone, to your positions.”

Their strongest fighters were at the front, those who weren’t as good came next, and those who were, frankly speaking, more of a drag, came after that. Melville, who could attack from a distance, followed at the rear.

“We’re prepared. You’re all powerful. But still, as long as the Evil King’s strength is an unknown, our powers may not be enough. If it seems victory is impossible, run as fast as you can. As long as we all survive, there will be a way.” Pfle shot Clantail a look, signaling her to slowly, carefully open the door.

The room was completely undecorated on the inside, featuring only a single chair inside the pure-white marble space. It was magnificent, the sort that a king would sit on in a game, in manga, or some other story. It was worthy of being called a throne. Nokko glanced at Pechka beside her. Pechka looked like she didn’t understand what she was seeing.

Cautiously, Clantail and Lazuline entered, and the other magical girls followed. Even once they were inside, nothing happened, and the girls gradually became bolder and willing to explore more freely. Still, nothing. The room was silent except for the noises the girls made themselves as they milled about.

“Hold on. There’s something written on the back of the chair.” There were markings like text carved into the marble backrest. Pfle activated Translator Buddy to translate the writing into Japanese. The display on the app said, The Evil King is absent and is currently being chased around by fifteen magical girls. Please come again.

“…What?” Pfle touched the throne with her hand, and then her magical phone sounded with an alert, signaling the arrival of an announcement.

A player has reached the Evil King’s throne and fulfilled the condition for memory unlock. The Evil King’s crisis will raise the monsters’ morale. The monsters’ level will now rise.

On a basic level, the message had to mean that the monsters had gotten stronger, but Nokko didn’t understand what was going on or why.

“Where…is the Evil King?” Clantail muttered.

None of them could give her an answer.

  Pechka

They investigated every inch of the throne room and still couldn’t find a thing. They searched the castle but uncovered no messages or hints—and of course, neither did they encounter the Evil King.

They were all confused and angry. It was as if the ladder they were climbing had suddenly been moved. Right when they’d been thinking they had nearly reached their objective, that they could finish this game, the goalposts had vanished.

Pfle used her magical phone to summon Fal. Even before she started asking questions, Fal was agitated and bouncing side to side, scattering gold powder. “The Evil King must exist, pon. Absolutely, pon.”

“But the reality is that no one’s here,” Pfle replied.

“The Evil King absolutely exists, pon. The defeat of the Evil King is the game’s win condition, pon.” Fal twisted three times in midair before returning to the original position. The cloud of golden powder made it difficult to see the black-and-white form. “Your enemy must be somewhere…somewhere, pon. Maybe in one of the other areas, pon.”

“I’ll ask this one more time: the Evil King must be inside the game, is that correct?”

“The Evil King absolutely, one hundred percent has to be here, pon. The game was made to be possible to complete, pon.”

The Nonako, Rionetta, and Pechka trio was sitting in chairs in the library area. Nonako and Rionetta’s expressions were both grim. Pechka figured the look on her own face had to be full of despair, too. They couldn’t find the Evil King. The final enemy, the one they absolutely needed to finish the game, was nowhere to be found.

Right now, all the magical girls were searching around again to make sure they hadn’t overlooked it somewhere in one of the areas they’d explored so far. Clantail was absent, off helping another team that needed another fighter. Nonako, Rionetta, Pechka, and Nonako’s pet dragon were the team in charge of exploring the library area.

The library area was comparatively small. And since they’d scoured this place for the red books needed to unlock the following area, this was also the most thoroughly explored of all the areas. They didn’t know what else they could find. They tried searching different places at random, knocking down bookshelves and kicking over the long tables in search of hidden doors and rooms, but they couldn’t find any clues anywhere. Tired of searching, they fought monsters instead, but that just wore them out, so the trio ended up just sitting on some chairs and sighing.

“Perhaps the Evil King isn’t anywhere,” Rionetta said to no one in particular. “Perhaps this game has no Evil King at all, and this quest is all a fool’s errand to defeat a nonexistent boss.”

“Mais, Fal said the Evil King is somewhere,” said Nonako.

“Do you sincerely believe we can trust that creature?!” Rionetta smacked the table, and the one hit broke the old, tilting piece of furniture in a cloud of dust and wood chips. Then Rionetta kicked the broken table into a bookshelf where it smashed into a mess of countless wood shards on the floor.

Pechka bit back a shriek. Seeing Rionetta storming around frightened her, but she figured that if she made any noise now, Rionetta might get even angrier and turn her rage on Pechka. So she couldn’t say anything. Pechka was tired, too, and utterly disheartened at the missing Evil King, but even so, seeing someone angry made her jumpy. In this way, Pechka’s cowardice helped her avoid conflict, but she wasn’t the only one present.

“Shut up,” said Nonako.

“What?” replied Rionetta.

“What does yelling and hitting things solve, hein?”

“Well, aren’t we self-important?”

“There’s nothing good about négatif thinking.”

“Then why don’t you suggest one decent idea? Feel quite free to usher in the Evil King from who-knows-where. Perhaps you could rescue all of us from this place.”

“If I could, I’d have already done that, t’sais?”

Rionetta stood up. “Your constant pseudo-foreign interjections are driving me perfectly mad.”

Not to be defeated, Nonako Miyokata stood up as well. “You have a problem with my personnalité unique?”

“I’m saying that attempting to define your personality based on such a trait reveals a terribly plebeian character.”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from the charactah with fake posh ahticulation, dahling!”

Rionetta grabbed Nonako by the collar. “You’d do well to consider that my patience is not infinite!”

The pair’s voices were swiftly rising in both volume and pitch. Pechka wanted to plug her ears, but she couldn’t do that. Conversely, she couldn’t stop them, either. She couldn’t even burst into tears. All she could manage was to half stand from her chair, flustered and fidgeting.

Rionetta gripped Nonako’s collar even harder, wrenching her to her feet, while Nonako grabbed Rionetta’s right hand in an attempt to stop her. Rionetta grabbed the interfering wrist with her own left hand, and both of them leaned in close to glare at each another.

Nonako’s dragon roared. The sound was unlike that of a bird or beast, a cry of anger that they’d heard many times before in the subterranean area. It roared once, spreading its green wings wide and swooping at the pair. It opened its great maw, lined with rows of sharp fangs, to crunch into Rionetta’s right shoulder.

Nonako was startled, and so was Rionetta as she silently shouted with rage. She flailed her right arm, but the dragon wouldn’t let go. Nonako ordered the beast to stop, but it didn’t seem to hear and kept its fangs in deep. Rionetta smashed her arm and the dragon’s head into a bookshelf, but it still wouldn’t let go. In fact, it tightened its jaws even more. They could hear something in Rionetta’s arm break.

Rionetta screamed and extended the claws on her right hand. Pechka stood up from the chair, and Nonako leaped at Rionetta in an attempt to stop her. But she was too late. Just as she’d done many times before in the subterranean area, Rionetta stroked the dragon’s neck with her claws. The weapon she wielded now had higher plus modifications than the ones she’d used back when fighting in the subterranean area, so she cut open the dragon’s hard scales like so much papercraft, slicing deep into skin, muscle, fat, blood vessels—everything. Even from where Pechka was standing, she could see how deep the wound was. An instant later, blood was spurting from the gash.

The dragon hit the floor with a thud. Nonako burst into tears as she tried to use a recovery medicine from her magical phone, but it wouldn’t work. Rionetta was paler than Nonako, her injured arm dangling as she watched Nonako mashing her magical phone. Rionetta’s right sleeve was torn, exposing her arm. The holes in it were equal to the number of the dragon’s fangs, and it was even cracked, too. She looked just like a broken and discarded doll.

“Pechka…” Maybe it was just because Pechka thought she looked like a cast-off toy, but Rionetta’s voice seemed empty and artificial. She was apparently addressing Pechka, but it sounded like she was just talking to herself. “Will you…come with me?” Rionetta turned to face her. She had to have been looking at Pechka, but her eyes were empty. “I’ve not at all lived a good life, and I’m not worthy enough to be inviting anyone to join me, but…still…”

Pechka bit her lip hard. She didn’t know what she should say or how she should say it. She was trying to think of the thing to say that wouldn’t cause conflict or harm to anyone, but she couldn’t. She had something to say that might hurt to hear, but she couldn’t gather the courage to say it aloud. The determination that had welled up inside her back when they’d fought the knights and robot in the Evil King’s castle had long since vanished.

Rionetta looked at Pechka, who replied with neither a yes nor a no and just watched her with tears welling in her eyes.

Rionetta smiled weakly and shook her head. “Good-bye.” She turned away from Pechka. A spray of red mottled her back. Red liquid dripped from her claws. The stench of blood wafted from every inch of her body.

“Wait!” Nonako Miyokata snapped at Rionetta as she began staggering away. “How do you plan to settle this, hein?! Don’t you dare think you can just run away!”

Rionetta didn’t stop. She passed by the fallen chair and kept walking on.

“Je vais sue you! You’d better pay damages before you go!” Nonako yelled, red-faced. She’d been holding her dragon until just a moment ago, so her face and shrine maiden outfit were dripping blood. Rionetta didn’t stop walking and slowly wobbled away way.

“Poupée putain!” Nonako cursed viciously at Rionetta and then ran after her.

Worried that Nonako might hit, kick, or scream at her, Pechka reached out, thinking, I have to stop her—and then she noticed the dark shadow on Rionetta’s back.

“Watch out!” Pechka’s cry seemed to snap Rionetta out of her listless stride, and she sluggishly responded to the fiend’s attack, sitting down on a chair a little ways away from the others. She must have sat down hard, as the chair rocked wildly. Rionetta flailed in her seat in an attempt to regain her balance somehow, raising her arms—and then the chair grabbed them. The seat under her transformed into a black angel and flipped them both over, pulling Rionetta from her unstable position to slam her down onto the carpet.

A fiend had transformed into a chair. None of the enemies in this area had done anything like that before. The monsters had always attacked them in a straightforward manner, and the party would beat them up. And when they transformed, they’d only ever turned into living creatures. Come to think of it, the chair Rionetta had sat on had been all by itself. So had one fiend transformed into a chair beforehand to lie in wait while another prepared to attack? Pechka ran after Nonako.

The fiend held Rionetta down while its partner kicked her face as if it were a soccer ball. Once, twice—with the second kick came an awful sound of cracking wood. When the fiend raised its leg to unleash a third kick, Nonako arrived to stab it with her ritual staff. A dark palm stopped her attack, grasping the rod. A wraith had passed through a bookshelf to appear in front of Nonako, blocking her way. The fiend swung its leg down for another soccer kick, and no one was there to stop it as it knocked Rionetta’s head violently to one side. The bonnet on her head fluttered into the air.

Pechka put her hand to the holy charm hanging from her neck, clenching it. Since she had this, she could damage the wraith with her attack.

Pechka swung her spatula, and the wraith slipped forward to avoid her strike, then paused and leaned up against Nonako. Wraiths could pass through objects. This still held true with the human body. The wraith sank partway into Nonako’s body, and Nonako panicked. She flailed her staff around but failed to connect. The wraith had blinded her with its body.

The fiend responsible for the vicious soccer kicks transformed into a thin, stringlike snake, and passed into the wraith covering Nonako’s face. Pechka swung her spatula three times at the wraith, ripping its form to pieces to repel it and remove the blindfold over Nonako’s eyes.

Then she smacked the demon holding down Rionetta with her spatula, over and over—wham wham, wham, wham, wham—scattering the black shadow.

Rionetta’s bonnet had come off because the string under her chin had been cut, but she was still alive. Her disheveled hair swayed this way and that as she got to her feet, pointing behind Pechka, mouth open wide. Pechka turned around. Nonako was there. Her eyes were bulging, lips pressed tight. Blood flowed from the corners of her lips, gushing out from her bloodshot eyes and nose. Her closed lips weakened, and she spat out a clot of blood with a cough before she fell over backward. The thin, stringlike black snake tried to slither out of the red mass, but Rionetta swiped at it with her claws, slicing it into five pieces. It dispersed into a black shadow and disappeared.

Pechka selected a recovery medicine from her magical phone. Her head was all mixed up—she was panicking, confused, and crying—but this one thing, she could manage calmly. The recovery medicine that she’d tried using on Nonako wouldn’t work. It was still inside her magical phone. She tried over and over again, but got the same thing. She couldn’t use the recovery medicine. Pechka dropped to her knees on the wooden floor. A large splinter stuck in her knee, making it bleed. Her shoulders heaved as she breathed. She didn’t want to understand what had just happened.

None of this had ever happened before. A demon transforming into an object to take them by surprise, a wraith using its own body to blindfold them, a fiend infiltrating the body to attack from the inside—none of this had ever happened before.

—Oh. The Evil King’s throne.

When the Evil King’s throne had been touched, it had brought up some kind of message on their magical phones. It had said something about monster levels. In other words…this?

Pechka heard footsteps and turned toward them. Rionetta was walking away. She’d turned her back on Pechka and Nonako and was trying to leave.

Pechka yelled, “Rionetta!” She didn’t know what to say after that. It was just like before. She’d been unable to say anything, and because of that, now Nonako was on the ground. The recovery medicine wasn’t working. In other words, she was dead.

Rionetta paused. “Why…? I’m…just…,” she muttered and then started walking again. Her head was unsteady, and her bonnet dangled from her right hand, as her left supported her broken arm.

Pechka merely watched her go.