“What you say is true, but.”
Raban let out a sigh.
“Is there some problem, sawayo?”
“I already scammed Salamandine by telling her, ‘I’m a mascot.’”
Inian looked at Raban with an expression that seemed to say, Just where is this thing’s conscience attached? Feeling needlessly pricked, Raban waved his hands.
“I had no choice! If I’d left things alone, Na Ihyeon would have died! To burn down the Black Forest, I had to drag Salamandine into it, even if I had to exaggerate the facts a little!”
“You omitted ‘before I could harvest the negative thoughts’ from the beginning of ‘Na Ihyeon would have died,’ sawayo.”
Raban shook his head, having completely failed to hear Inian’s cutting sarcasm.
“Anyway, that’s how things turned out. Why would Salamandine ever want to come get counseling from a mascot? Unless we erase her memories.”
“If you have enough mana to erase memories, it would be better to simply store them, sawayo.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”
Inian sighed, resting her chin in her hand. This was a variable. To think Raban’s damned mouth had already been activated.
That black mage’s eloquence was a sure-kill move that never worked a second time, but absolutely worked the first.
Not because he was particularly silver-tongued, but because he created an environment where one had no choice but to be deceived.
From the second time onward, people would be on guard against his fraud, so the success rate of his deception dropped sharply. Besides, hadn’t Raban’s lie to Salamandine made her mistake him for someone on the mascot faction—though, strictly speaking, he really was an enemy?
Salamandine’s wariness must already be at its maximum.
Watching Inian tilt her head this way and that in thought, Raban gave her a look that said, Trying hard, aren’t you? and shrugged. Their positions had reversed from just a moment ago.
“Give up. Even if you rack your brains, what won’t work won’t work. Just like how you can’t get out of magical-girl mode right now.”
“Be quiet, sawayo. You are the type better suited to survival when you do not think with your head, that is why, sawayo.”
Raban was hurt, but Inian was serious. That black mage was truly like a beast; he was far more threatening when he ran wild relying on instinct rather than intellect.
This was something proven by Raban’s record of robbing the vaults of Demon Realm archdukes. His infiltrations based on “meticulous plans” were often discovered, but once he began fleeing without any room to think, he could not be stopped unless one was willing to suffer enormous damage.
“Living in a house with a proper roof and eating three square meals a day has dulled your beastly nature as a black mage, sawayo.”
While searching for a way to draw Salamandine in, Inian recalled the “wronged tale” Raban had told her last night.
“What did that magical girl Magi White say to you, sawayo?”
“‘It was you, black mage!’ I think?”
“That is a line I have said many times, sawayo. Did you not say she declared her ambitions while going on about some curse, sawayo?”
Raban mulled over the past. He had plenty of experience being blamed here and there, but it was his first time being scolded for casting a curse he had not even cast, so he remembered it with some care.
“‘You tempted me to devour those who might become my friends!’ Something like that, probably.”
“I have found the solution, sawayo!”
Inian clapped her hands and stood. That strange statement from the magical girl, and the mascots’ position as “guardians of magical girls.” If those two things were combined well, there seemed to be a breakthrough.
“What do you think the being Magi White was trying to absorb mana from was, sawayo?”
“Magi Black, I guess.”
“…Think about it, sawayo. Magi Black and Magi White are already friends, sawayo. If she says they might become friends, then it only makes sense if someone else is the candidate, sawayo.”
“They could just have a business relationship, couldn’t they?”
Inian ignored Raban’s pessimistic remark. That was nonsense only possible because Raban was the sort who had no friends even in the Demon Realm. Was it not only natural that if people fought together, they were comrades?
“Does it not mean she wants to befriend the Four Heavenly Kings, sawayo?”
Raban wanted to raise a pointless objection. Something like, Friends? Those kids wrecked Avon’s resurrection ritual and grit their teeth to beat the hell out of each other every time they meet. But he suppressed the impulse welling up from deep inside him.
“In other words! You need only continue disguising yourself as part of the mascot faction, sawayo! Invite Salamandine to counseling under the pretext of supporting the magical girl’s dream, sawayo!”
Because it was obvious that if he threw out an objection just for amusement at Inian, who was speaking with such conviction, it would come back as a physical rebuttal.
Here, rather than acting needlessly contrary, he ought to point out a practical matter.
“But how are you going to bring her to the counseling room?”
“That is the very definition of a foolish question, sawayo. From Salamandine’s perspective, you are a messenger of the mascots. If you say you have something to discuss and ask to meet privately, would she not make time even if she had none, sawayo?”
“That’s why I’m asking where we’re supposed to have that talk. It seems the mascots don’t monitor the inside of the counseling room out of consideration for student privacy, but the problem is getting her as far as the counseling room.”
“Hmph. I can simply take her there under the pretext of asking her to show me around the school, sawayo.”
“Damn it, are you a genius?”
***
“Sargasso. That… ‘Sawayo’ one. What do you think?”
Strangely enough, the code name the guardian fairies and the Four Heavenly Kings had given Inian was the same. It was because her “sawayo” manner of speaking was so distinctive.
“……”
“Hey. Sargasso!”
Only after Salamandine called his name two or three times did Sargasso come to his senses with a “Huh!”
“My apologies. I had something to think about regarding the crocodile demonic beast. What did you say?”
“I’m talking about that Sawayo girl who beat down the crocodile demonic beast.”
“Hmm. She did possess no ordinary power.”
Contrary to his high evaluation of her power, Sargasso did not seem to have any interest in Sawayo as an individual. Thoughts of the crocodile demonic beast kept drifting endlessly through Sargasso’s mind.
‘That mana was definitely…’
“But no matter how strong she may be, is she not a being from another dimension? Now that the disturbance is over, she must have returned to her homeland.”
“Nope. She transferred in today?”
“…?”
Unable to understand the situation for a moment, Sargasso asked who had transferred where, and only after confirming it several times did he look up at the ceiling of the Ivory Tower and mutter.
“What is the world coming to? What are those fairy bastards thinking, accepting an otherworldly monstrosity as a student…”
“Oho! Are you speaking of the young lady with those beautiful wings?”
“Dunamis… Have you already forgotten that thing’s intimidating form? The Mother Fairy’s authority may have altered its shape, but its danger remains unchanged.”
“What are you saying, my friend Grata? Before and after her transformation, the beauty of those crow wings remained unchanged!”
“Ah, damn it. Grata! If that birdbrain keeps chirping next to me, I can’t think straight, so take him out!”
When the rock giant dragged the handsome young man with eagle wings away, Salamandine focused on the agenda once more.
“As you admitted, Sawayo’s combat power is no joke. She easily subdued the crocodile demonic beast that even two magical girls had trouble dealing with, didn’t she?”
Sargasso stroked his beard made of water and expressed his doubt with a, “And?”
If such a powerful third force had infiltrated Luxtiera High School, they ought to do their utmost to grasp the situation.
“How about bringing her in?”
“Into what?”
“Our Ivory Tower!”
***
‘Ugh, that stubborn old geezer.’
For a while, Sargasso had scolded Salamandine, saying, “How dare you try to bring a monstrosity into the temple of knowledge founded by the great Lord Avon!” but he could not win against a majority vote.
Dunamis had actively supported recruiting her with an “Ohoho, I love wings,” and Grata, too, had agreed to secure stronger fighting power in preparation for the recent abnormal phenomena.
Sargasso, massaging his own head as if he had a headache, asked again before giving final permission.
‘Still, this is surprising.’
‘What is?’
‘With your personality, I thought you would say you wanted to fight her, yet here you are using such a conciliatory measure.’
‘Ha! A battle requires both wisdom and martial might in equal measure!’
That was what she told Sargasso. However.
“……”
Salamandine thought about the reason the idea of recruiting Sawayo—that is, Inian—had occurred to her.
It was because of Magi White’s words: “those who may one day become my friends.”
If a magical girl reached out to the Four Heavenly Kings, then the Four Heavenly Kings, too, could reach out to another being…
‘Grr, for me to have such weak thoughts!’
Dine shook her head. She was not trying to become friends with those girls.
‘That’s right! Strategy! I’m stealing the magical girls’ strategy and using it myself. I’m interfering with their reinforcement of their forces.’
After slapping her cheeks a couple of times to gather herself, Dine quietly opened the back door of the classroom. From the noisy, bustling class came greetings of “Hi.”
“Good morning.”
As Dine, she returned a demure greeting while looking around. In a quiet, secluded place where the eyes of others could not reach, she would lure Inian out.
Thus began an incomprehensible contest between a Four Heavenly King trying to draw a Demon Realm archduke into the Ivory Tower, and a Demon Realm archduke trying to draw a Four Heavenly King into the counseling room!
***
Dine thought.
‘Aah, honestly!’
Why is she so popular?
She understood that people fussed over her because she was tiny and cute. But did they really have to sit her on their laps like some teddy bear? Why were the students at this school so friendly?
***
Inian thought.
‘Is she truly a monster?’
Dine was far too much of a model student.
The notebook Inian had briefly glanced over was filled with highly legible, well-organized notes, and her share of answering questions in class was practically split evenly with a student named Schnee. Why on earth was she so serious about school life?
***
The Four Heavenly King and the Demon Realm archduke tried to approach each other during every break, but there were far too many students surrounding them, and they failed to make contact.
The two girls realized that lunchtime would be the time to act.