[Hey, Grand Duke of the Demon Realm, do you have enough mana ready?]
For a moment, Inian forgot what to say. Weren’t they in a position where both their mana reserves had hit rock bottom, forcing them to set aside old grudges—though, in truth, those had been updated quite recently as well—and join hands?
[Would I, sawayo?]
[If you don’t, then make some! Think of it as the only way I can return to the Demon Realm too, and approach the task with a sense of ownership!]
[Have you truly gone mad, sawayo?]
Raban’s tongue, or perhaps his head, had begun to seize up again. Inian knew full well that when Raban’s mind reached its limit, something in him flipped and he began spewing abnormal reactions.
And she also knew that Raban was at his most dangerous then. Inian recalled the moment when, after she had gone to the trouble of chopping Raban to pieces, he had spouted the insane line, “If I die here, the bomb I planted in the Grand Ducal Castle will go off.”
Half of it had been a bluff, and half of it had been true.
Raban had indeed planted a bomb.
Only, it had not been in the Grand Ducal Castle, but in his own head.
At the time, Inian had not believed Raban’s words.
Her cool analysis told her that no matter how seasoned a black mage Raban was, planting a bomb in the Grand Ducal Castle was impossible. Even if he had truly prepared a bomb by using some traitor on the inside, she was confident that she could kill him before the mana signal for detonation was released.
Since she had been fooled by the black mage’s lies several times before, anyone would have said the correct answer was to take his life without being swayed by Raban’s nonsense. She could not give him time to chant a spell.
…Raban had induced Inian to attempt a swift kill.
Even now, thinking back on the moment when, at the same time she smashed the black mage’s head, her own right half was blown apart and the chunks of flesh she had chopped up fused into Raban Mk. 2 and fled, made her feel dizzy.
The telepathic wave Raban was sending now resembled his tone at that moment. The anxiety of a gambler staking everything he had, and more than anything, exhilaration.
[Then speak, sawayo.]
[Your Mystic Eyes are called petrification and the like for convenience’s sake, but their true ability is closer to conceptual fixation or time deceleration. If we use that, we should be able to slow the Banqueter’s mental activity as well!]
Raban explained his plan to freeload off the Banqueter’s mana. Since the Banqueter, not knowing its place, had swallowed the blood-vessel familiar, he intended to use that and drain the Banqueter’s mana in reverse.
He would add a slight variation to that plan.
While the Banqueter’s ego was stunned, Raban would go beyond seizing its mana furnace and alter part of the Banqueter’s body.
Inian made a sour face. The mention of bodily alteration magic had brought back the moment after the great explosion when lumps of flesh had gathered together and fled.
[If we magically seize the Banqueter, Charles will know, but how could he tell if we merely make a mouth on the Banqueter’s side? Magically, it’s a separate entity!]
[…I understand the plan is to borrow the Banqueter’s mouth and spout words that will cast suspicion on Charles, sawayo. But how do you intend to convey that to Na Ihyeon?]
From what Inian had seen so far, mascots were an extremely meticulous race.
It showed even in their efficient administration: gathering and managing, at Lux Tierra High School, people overflowing with enough mana to awaken as magical girls, or masses of negative thoughts that could become seeds of monsters.
Considering the terrifying negative thoughts Na Ihyeon harbored, she could not be among the magical-girl candidates powered by the mana of dreams and hope.
Even if they attempted a slander filled with their very souls here, there was a high chance it would be preemptively censored at the mascot level before it ever reached Na Ihyeon.
[Surely you do not intend to gamble on the unlikely possibility that Magilist is Na Ihyeon’s friend and will pass along the news, sawayo?]
[Your imagination is lacking! Look at the bigger picture!]
What had been the purpose of Raban getting Inian hired undercover at the Ivory Tower?
It had been to secure the bare minimum of material needed to slander Charles.
[I just have to say I discovered it while investigating the past and tell her the record of this fight. It raises my credibility while lowering Charles’s.]
[Wouldn’t a student with common sense wonder how you obtained a magical girl’s combat record, sawayo?]
Raban laughed. This was the greatest masterstroke of all.
[I’ll say I begged Salamandine for it and got it from her.]
[…?]
A smooth explanation followed. Those suspicious mascots had been watching Raban ever since the day he filed a relief application at city hall as a victim of a mana disaster.
Their suspicion was surely continuing even now. After all, Salamandine, that tactless member of the Four Heavenly Kings, kept visiting the counseling room.
[Wasn’t that because you called her there, sawayo?]
Raban ignored the slander from the Grand Duke of the Demon Realm, whose base character was on the level of a Demon Realm baron. If he had his way, he would have demoted her to squire or commoner.
[With my outstanding intellect! I discovered Salamandine’s identity! And made some kind of deal with her to recover my lost past—that’s the setup!]
If someone suspects you, give them a reason to suspect you. Raban decided to faithfully carry out that maxim of the internet age.
To be honest, from the mascots’ perspective as well, the alternative fact that he was an ordinary person who had traded with the Ivory Tower to recover his past would be more believable than the truth: that a black mage who had drifted in from another dimension was preparing to scam minors because he had no mana.
[You lunatic. Are you trying to cover one scam with another scam, sawayo?]
[Hmph! Let’s call it an unavoidable sacrifice for the sake of maintaining our business going forward.]
If this con succeeded, there were three major benefits Raban would gain.
First, the suppression of suspicion from the mascot forces. By presenting Raban’s vague identity in a more concrete form, he could prevent excessive vigilance beyond what was necessary.
If it was nothing more than the desperate struggle of an ordinary person with excellent deductive ability, then the mascots or their higher-ups would not take him too seriously.
‘Being hit by a beam that turns me into a magical girl like Inian was is absolutely out of the question….’
Second, an explanation for the situation in which he continued meeting Salamandine. This was an extension of the first reason.
If Raban was buying information about his past from Salamandine, the mascots would not find contact between a member of the Four Heavenly Kings and an ordinary person strange.
Third, the spread of suspicion toward the Rakshasa Beast.
In truth, this was the main objective. To slowly plant doubt in Na Ihyeon and proceed with the groundwork for mining negative thoughts.
All of this was an idea he had come up with the instant Inian had notified him, “Let’s draw on a bit of mana.” The Grand Duke of the Demon Realm shuddered.
‘He wasn’t fudging things like this when he worked at my company too, was he?’
***
“Ghh! Miss Inian, dodge!”
The Flayed Bull stamped through the air as though dancing. Invisible pressure poured out in every direction. Wary of Dunamis’s mobility, it had simply projected its force in all directions.
It had not aimed at Inian so much as she had merely been inside the attack’s range. She had paid too much attention to her conversation with Raban.
It was too late to dodge. Inian braced herself for the coming impact.
“Not so fast!”
“This is the reverse of last time, Miss Sawa-yo!”
And before her, two magical girls descended. Fists wrapped in mana struck the air. The shock wave of the torn atmosphere canceled out the pressure from the Flayed Bull.
“Magilist! Is today a temporary alliance?”
“Can’t you tell by looking? Your wings at least have that fluffy charm, but that thing is just a monster!”
The Flayed Bull recognized the sacrifice its lord had so carefully raised. There was no need to break it here immediately, but it would interfere with correcting the livestock.
Then appropriate measures had to be taken. At the very least, enough that it could not interfere with the present discipline.
The Flayed Bull’s eyes shone. Its mane tangled and intertwined into a bizarre shape, forming something like a net.
Inian recognized the pattern. It was a magic circle. A technique that built a magic circle by reshaping its own flesh. The black-magic capabilities of the Banqueter’s master were above ordinary.
Just as the Grand Duke of the Demon Realm revised Charles’s danger level upward, a strange ringing like tinnitus echoed in the magical girls’ ears.
At first, it was meaningless noise, like radio static. But gradually, it began to take on a distinct tone.
To Schnee, it was a scream.
The moment Naju Pharmaceutical vanished. The people being sucked beyond it. A gravitational pull as mighty as a cosmic black hole spread outward from the place where Naju Pharmaceutical had existed.
Buildings collapsed. The ground was dragged away. People’s limbs stretched and twisted like dough before finally being absorbed toward the center of a terrifying light.
It was a scene as though Naju Pharmaceutical itself had been the stopper of a bathtub, and with the stopper removed, the water called reality was falling away beyond.
Those swept up in the rippling space were never seen again.
Schnee Heidel had been in the middle of that tragedy.
To Ihyeon, it was a whisper.
Malice that reached her ears no matter how she tried not to hear it. Fingers pointed with fear and contempt, saying that thing was blood of the Na family.
Her only surviving blood relative had vanished after saddling her with nothing but the duty of managing the lodge in the black forest, and everyone around her knew the young lady of the Na family.
It was around then that she had cut her hair short. Long hair was too easy to soil.
Over it came the sound of sobbing from the time when she had struggled alone with scissors in hand, half crying.
Simply drawing close brought auditory hallucinations that stabbed into the brain.
Magi White’s hand caught Magi Black’s swaying right hand. The body that had been about to lose balance and pitch forward returned to its place.
“…Schnee?”
“Phew. As expected, thoroughly previewing and reviewing curses helps. It’s similar to that blood-vessel human’s curse from last time, so I can endure it.”
“So Black should study a little harder too.” At the sight of her friend smiling with unusual smugness, a faint laugh appeared on Magi Black’s lips as well.
“Yeah. It raises my motivation to study more effectively than most motivational videos!”
The instant the two gathered their resolve and began raising their mana in earnest, behind the magical girls, Inian’s eyes shone with the Flayed Bull reflected in both pupils.
Strangely enough, the Grand Duke of the Demon Realm was thinking something similar to her contractor.
‘How dare that rootless mongrel use eye magic in front of me?’
***
[Na, Na, Na… blood of the Na clan. Where is the sacrifice of our contract…?]
From deep within the Flayed Bull’s body, a strange voice rang out.
***
Resheph was bewildered.
That was not his voice. No, he could not even move his shadow right now. The shadow was frozen as though nailed to the air. He could not twitch a single strand of his mane, nor blink an eyelid.
Amid frozen confusion, something that was not him continued to speak.
[On the day this land’s seal comes to an end, the sacrifice that must rightfully be taken…. Where has the sacred body consecrated by our mana disappeared to?]
It was exposing his lord’s plan.
***
[Raban, do you actually know what you are saying, sawayo?]
[What are you talking about, Inian? Do you think Charles will come here and explain himself?]
It was a simple matter of interpreting the clues already available more aggressively and shouting out the most suspicious and dreadful possible future.
Adding a little exaggeration to alternative facts was Raban’s specialty.