“Tch.”
A woman sat with her legs crossed, clicking her tongue over and over as if something had been irritating her for some time.
Her direct subordinate, Crystal, could only watch the scene with suspicion.
After all, that woman was none other than Lapis, the leader of the evil organization known as the Silver Corps.
The Lapis that Chris knew was not someone who was swayed by personal emotions, so seeing her express anger so openly was extremely rare.
But it was not as though there was no reason for it. Lapis’s unique magic, which had never once been wrong until now, was being denied in real time.
The power to read fate was the ability that had helped make the Silver Corps the most sinister organization in the world.
By grasping the future that would soon occur, they could earn more than enough funds.
Through that, the Silver Corps came to boast financial power that could practically be called infinite.
Magical girls with overwhelming mana sometimes deviated from the predicted future, but fundamentally, they did not stray from the predetermined flow.
However, there was one person who had slipped cleanly out of the trajectory of that ability and was leisurely enjoying his daily life—
Why hide it? It was Jade, who belonged to the Operations Support Department together with her younger sister, Amber.
‘If this world were intentionally rejecting humans from another world, that man would have died somewhere long ago.’
A human’s fate was not something that could be changed so easily.
Everything had a fixed lifespan, which was why there were people who survived unharmed even after being caught up in natural disasters.
Of course, the opposite also happened—people suddenly meeting death in places with no danger whatsoever.
In that same way, Jade’s lifespan had already been in a precarious state from the moment he fell into this world.
As if a time bomb that could go off at any moment had been attached to his heart.
Lapis had foreseen that in advance and, in order to let him spend what remained of his life as ordinarily as possible, had given him the name Jade and a job—
‘…And yet he’s still running around perfectly fine. He doesn’t even show any sign of being hurt.’
It had already been a year since she began waiting for his final moments.
Far from dying, Jade was vigorously training his muscles at the gym.
‘It must be because of whatever trick that little brat pulled.’
There was only one possibility she could think of. The existence of the magical girl Ruby, who was strangely obsessed with Jade.
At some point, Jade had been forcibly injected with mana by her.
In other words, he had taken into his body one of the primary substances that composed this world.
‘…It’s a bit forced, but if I think of it as him adapting to this side through that method, it does make sense.’
Making an irregular adapt, deceiving the world as though he had existed here from the very beginning. That was Lapis’s conjecture.
But was it really possible to avoid death simply by circulating mana through one’s body?
‘As expected, that alone isn’t enough. It would be more reasonable to assume she planted something else in him.’
In truth, Lapis had recently been keeping track of Jade’s daily life to some extent through the listening devices and GPS she had planted on his body.
They were the crystallization of science and technology she had once created with the help of the executive Citrine.
Since there was no concern of them being detected by mana, she had been able to uncover his lifestyle patterns without being caught.
‘Lately, it seems he’s gotten close to Magical Girl Mica.’
The moment a human’s fate was greatly shaken was when they formed a connection with another human.
In other words, depending on contact with a specific other person, it was possible to escape a dangerous track.
‘Just off the top of my head, there are three magical girls, on top of the young lady of Brilliant… and even my younger sister.’
In fact, Rabi had subtly engineered situations so that Jade would encounter other magical girls, arranging their relationships.
At the three-way meeting at Jewelry Academia, she had him run into Sophia; at the gym, Ruri.
‘Are you trying to tell me that flirting with girls is the way to avoid death?’
In any case, to verify this fact, she needed data. Data that she could observe from close by.
‘It doesn’t sit well with me to move exactly as my archenemy wants, but…’
However, Lapis was not some half-baked villain who would easily cast aside a subordinate.
Drawn by her charisma, every small fry in the Silver Corps had pledged loyalty to their boss.
‘It’s worth testing.’
Lapis met the eyes of Chris, who was staring blankly at her from the side.
“Chris. There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
***
It had already been two weeks since I started regularly going to Brilliant’s gym.
Thanks to Ruri’s precise training regimen and Brilliant’s state-of-the-art exercise equipment, my body had ripened quite a bit.
“…You look like a different person.”
“The atmosphere around you is completely different from usual… Gulp.”
Amber and Sophia looked at my body with expressions of wonder.
I felt like I heard the sound of someone swallowing at the same time, but that was probably just my imagination.
“I didn’t expect it to be to this extent either. There are constitutions where muscle won’t build even after a month of effort…”
Even Ruri, who had been watching over my workouts all this time, couldn’t hide her surprise as she muttered that.
Of course, growing this much in such a short time was a good thing, but because everything was going too smoothly, it actually started to scare me.
“No matter what, I’m not planning to bulk up like a bodybuilder.”
What I had originally planned was only moving my body moderately to make up for my lack of exercise.
At first, I had thought about putting on some muscle to surprise Rabi, but now it had reached the point where even I was having trouble accepting my own transformation.
Once my vacation ended and work at the Silver Corps started again, I probably wouldn’t have the leisure to exercise anyway.
“I’m satisfied with this level for now. Even this much makes me far healthier than before.”
“…Understood. Considering your frame, Sir Jade, even if you take a break from exercising for a while, you likely won’t lose too much muscle.”
She added that explanation while staring intently at my body, as if she found it somewhat regrettable.
Since she herself had a constitution where muscle didn’t build easily, she probably thought it was a bit of a shame.
‘She’s kind of cute.’
Ever since we first met, she had given off a somewhat cold impression, but now that we had gotten closer, she unexpectedly had sides where she expressed her emotions quite well.
If she hadn’t been a magical girl, we might have been able to get along even better.
“Well, I’ll still be coming every day during my vacation, so keep coaching me.”
“I will. For the time being, I’ll put together a regimen that strengthens your inner muscles.”
So-called functional muscles, then. If I could build strength while only moderately increasing muscle, that was exactly what I wanted.
“Then let’s all play table tennis! Two on two!”
Amber, who had been obsessed with table tennis for a while now, finally dragged everyone here into it.
“My, that sounds like a good idea.”
Sophia nodded in agreement, as if she didn’t particularly dislike the idea.
I also thought it was better to enjoy sports like this from time to time rather than only blindly exercising.
“Then let’s switch teams around as we go. First…”
And so, as the four of us enjoyed table tennis, the day passed by.
For the record, the team with Ruri on it inevitably won by a landslide.
***
That night.
“Ah… I forgot to buy dinner.”
After showering and returning straight home, I muttered that with a blank expression.
When I casually opened the refrigerator, I found a few ingredients I couldn’t even remember buying.
‘I do have ingredients, but cooking at this hour is a pain…’
I had learned a fairly wide range of cooking, but honestly, making food was annoying, so I always just threw together whatever.
Of course, when it came to desserts I made often, since I served those at the shop, I put at least some passion into them.
But when it came to making meals for oneself at home, it was probably human nature to not want to put in the effort.
‘Should I just make do with cup noodles? I bought a whole box last time.’
In this world, where magic was valued more highly than science and technology, there was a sense that development was a little slow, but fortunately, ramen, the soul food of the Japanese, existed here too.
Thanks to that, I could at least modestly avoid starving and get through breakfast or dinner.
“First, I’ll boil some water—”
Ding-dong—!
“……?”
At the sudden sound of the bell, the hand holding the kettle stopped reflexively.
When I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, the current time was roughly 9:30 p.m.
It was absolutely not the sort of hour when a guest would visit.
‘Is it Amber?’
I couldn’t think of anyone else who would come looking for me at this time.
There was a possibility it might be Rabi, but she herself had said this was a busy period for magical girl activities…
‘Then it must be Amber.’
Why had she come all the way to my room again when we had just been together? For someone who lived in a mansion, she really did come to this shabby room without hesitation.
In any case, it would be rude to keep her waiting, so I strode over and opened the front door without the slightest hesitation.
Click—
“Ah…”
To state the conclusion first, the guest who had arrived at this late hour was not Amber.
Chris, dressed in casual clothes like when we had once gone out to the park together, was standing in the hallway, blushing as she studied my expression.