Laban tried to resist, adaptably accepting the sudden change in situation. But Inian's violence overwhelmed the weakling black magician and then some.
“Kuaaak! If it comes to this, I'll call a Mascot!”
“Has this bastard finally lost his mind!?”
“You're the mad one! Our business has finally taken its first step, and now you suddenly attack me!”
“What's written in the business plan is fucking false advertising! It's to the point where even if the CEO absconded overnight right this instant, people would say, ‘Then why did you invest?’!”
Laban couldn't understand Inian's rage, but he knew what had to be done right now.
“Let's go home! Let's talk at home!”
The two of them had no desire to be caught by a Mascot while scuffling, hearing, “Should I turn this guy into a Magical Girl?” and getting hit by a beam that turns you into a Magical Girl.
Inian, who had been fuming, swallowed his resentment and nodded. If Laban didn't clearly explain the flaws in the main business plan the moment they entered the dormitory, he would beat him senseless.
“I'll be returning a bit late today.”
“Why, going to that RabbitSweets cafe with your school friends again? It is pretty tasty, though.”
“It's for something else. …But when did you go again?”
Laban shrugged. The profession of black magician was one where work-related stress tended to accumulate. Sugar was the perfect cure for stress relief.
“Salamandine's side has requested a meeting. I'll go extract information about the Ivory Tower, so look forward to it.”
“Very well. If you can't extract it properly, you'll be demoted to baron.”
“The legitimacy of my title is guaranteed by bloodline! It is not something bound by the recognition of the likes of you!”
***
Thud, thud, thud.
A knocking sound. Laban, who was unwrapping a triangular kimbap as usual today, scratched his head and opened the door.
‘He doesn't want to dirty his own room, so he always holds strategy meetings only in my room.’
What a fussy demon. Grumbling, Laban opened the door and was met by Inian with an utterly exhausted expression.
“Didn't you look like this yesterday too?”
“I've realized that brats who yap incessantly are better than perverted bastards. I suppose I'll have to go back to that neighborhood again.”
Laban tilted his head. Was there anyone among the Four Heavenly Kings who could be called a pervert?
“When they fought me, they seemed like they had some kind of philosophy or conviction.”
Inian forcefully swallowed the curse that had tried to leap from his mouth. That bastard lacked self-awareness.
It was only natural when one considered the appearance of the familiar that the black magician used.
If you didn't face that thing properly and fight with your all, a sense of crisis that the world might end would surge up, so no matter how trash-tier they normally were, they would go all out in such a situation.
“There was a lazybones who found everything in the world annoying, and one perverted bastard.”
The introduction was quite interesting. Laban tossed him a triangular kimbap as payment for the story and straightened his posture.
Inian slowly unraveled the tale of his meeting with the Four Heavenly Kings.
***
“Now, Dine Ifrit. Speak your piece.”
Dine Ifrit and Inian faced each other at RabbitSweets Cafe. Dine explained it was “to avoid drawing the Mascots' attention,” but to Inian, it simply looked like Dine's hobby.
“Why did you call for me?”
“First.”
Dine pondered for a moment. Inian had accepted her warning in front of the counseling room and hadn't displayed violent tendencies. He was someone she could more or less talk to.
Then perhaps it was okay to show a slightly more sincere attitude here.
‘After all, honesty is the most effective weapon against those sinister Mascot bastards!’
“Your goal is to return to your original dimension, right?”
Inian tilted his head and looked around. A gesture containing the question of whether it was okay to speak of such things in such a public place.
“Don't worry. I'm used to evading the Mascots' surveillance. Ordinary people can't hear our conversation.”
“That is correct. If I can also lift the restrictions placed upon this physical body while I'm at it, that would be ideal.”
“As expected. Then you must join hands with us.”
“‘Us’—weren't you on the same side as the Magical Girls? Your teamwork seemed quite good.”
He had heard the explanation from Laban, but asking like this felt more natural. At the calculated question, Dine let out a scoff and shook her head.
“No way. That was only joining hands out of necessity to deal with that horrible monstrosity.”
Inian wanted to give a standing ovation. How could she know Laban's true colors so well?
“We are fundamentally in opposition to the Mascots and their underlings.”
The Four Heavenly Kings. Homunculi chasing the footsteps of the great pioneer Eibon, who was banished by the dictator Mother Fairy.
“We are researching dimensional gates in order to find traces of the pioneer Eibon, who departed for the outside of the outer dimensions.”
“Since I must return to my original dimension, are you saying our interests align?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Inian nodded. It was a rational and trustworthy reason. In this world sealed off by Mother Fairy, various methods to open a gate connecting to the outside would certainly help Inian as well.
However, there was one thing that bothered him.
“Is there no influence from the Administration Bureau?”
“Administration Bureau?”
To Inian, it was a matter of common sense. The Dimensional Administration Bureau. To a demon who crossed between multiple dimensions, it was a familiar yet annoying existence.
If you asked Laban, the group would prompt a rather twisted explanation of “a Fair Trade Commission on a multiversal scale,” and they were quite sensitive to the collapse of boundaries between dimensions.
But Dine couldn't understand the intent behind the question.
“There's no organization other than the Mascot imperialists? Though they do manage the Magical Girls.”
An ignorance so pure it could be called blank white. Inian pondered for a moment, and soon realized the reason.
‘Entering Hikariars must be suicide.’
Entering this world is easy, but leaving is difficult. From the Administration Bureau's standpoint, it's a hellish dimension where the more you get involved, the more power you waste.
‘I won't need to worry about them.’
“Very well. Please guide me. Since you said ‘us,’ you are not alone?”
Dine raised one corner of her lips. The smile of a schemer whose conspiracy had succeeded. She rose from her seat, carefully finished accumulating points and stamping her stamp card at the cafe, then headed outside.
The place Dine headed was a campground on the outskirts of Hikariars.
“Wait a moment. I'll light a fire….”
***
“Hold on.”
“What is the problem?”
“Don't tell me you're trying to say the Ivory Tower's base was a camper van? It was an organization of four people living in a camper van?”
Inian sighed. His imagination was too abundant in strange directions.
“It is a condition for entering those fellows' base. They can create a gate through the element each one symbolizes.”
“So Salamandine needs fire, and Sargasso needs water to create a gate?”
Laban, who had been stroking his chin in thought, muttered unconsciously.
“Then Grata would be the hardest to hunt.”
“…Are you already thinking of betraying your would-be allies?”
The logic was understandable. Places without water or fire were easy to find, and wind wouldn't blow indoors either. Even if the Four Heavenly Kings tried to generate their respective elements with their abilities, they could be blocked with proper preparation.
But earth was different. Most places you stood on were ground. If cornered, Grata could simply return to the Ivory Tower.
But that mindset, preparing to stab them in the back before even properly forming an alliance.
“This is why you shouldn't associate with sinister black magicians.”
“Bullshit. You're more sinister than that black magician. So, you followed through the gate opened by the campfire, and who was there?”
“Rather than ‘who,’ it would be more accurate to say ‘what’ was there.”
***
Beyond the gate of flames, the place they arrived at was filled with starlight. To Inian the demon, it was a very familiar sight.
“Is it starlight flowing in from a dimensional rift?”
“Oh. You recognized it right away? Among us, only Sargasso can use it properly.”
Thud. She tapped the floor with her heel. The walls of the Ivory Tower, made of a transparent crystal-like substance, were accumulating the light of the dimensional boundary pouring down from outside the tower.
“Let's go. They should be gathered in the central area by now.”
Passing beyond the crystalline perimeter, a space surging with boiling lava and flames burst forth.
“This is the space assigned to me, but there's nothing much here. It's just a formality you have to go through to reach the center, so ignore it.”
At the edge of the red wave stood a single white door, carrying a faint golden hue with an atmosphere completely disconnected from the surrounding space.
A color as if ivory had been carved and polished. Dine tapped, tapped on the door.
Then the door opened.
Beyond the ivory gate was a giant sculpture dyed in the same ivory hue. A statue of someone wearing a robe and raising a staff, hair flowing down from beneath the hood.
Three figures were reflected before the giant statue.
“Let me introduce them. The damp one is Sargasso, the dull one is Grata, and the one running while flapping wings… huh?”
Dunamis rapidly approached, flapping her eagle wings. The moment it reached Inian, it knelt on one knee and spoke.
“Ooh, how sorrowful this is! Why has the noble one hidden the most beautiful part of the flesh? Show us thy beautiful pinions!”
“…Ha.”
First impression ruined.
Salamandine covered her face with her hand.