Squish. A repulsive sensation, like rummaging through the slippery innards of a fish. Magi Black clenched her teeth and shouted the activation phrase for her finishing move.
“Miracle Screw Full Charge!”
A weight shift accomplished by stepping forward with her right foot. Riding the recoil transmitted from her toes, she channeled the rotational force of her waist and condensed all her power into the tip of her fist.
The mana that burst forth. A spiraling mana wave, which had purified countless aberrations until now, pulverized the monstrous tree made of hands.
But the result was not the same as before. The clash between aberrations and magical girls had always ended in ‘purification.’ A spectacle where white mana scattered ethereally and vanished, beautiful in its own way.
The current enemy was the opposite. Rotten flesh and dead blood scattered, writhing grotesquely until its final moment before its life activity ceased.
“Tch, disgusting! Disappear!”
Salamandine scattered flames at the perfect time. The fingers that withered and thrashed in the fire looked like something straight out of a nightmare.
“White! You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
The Hand Tree had proliferated repeatedly, but it hadn’t assumed a clear offensive stance. Syune judged that this was because the Hand Tree was not yet complete.
If that wicked magic had been completed, just what kind of horrific event would have occurred? Shuddering briefly, Syune immediately called out to Papirun.
“Papirun.”
[Understood-mohu. I shall track down the Four Heavenly Kings of the Ivory Tower at once-mohu.]
“Hey! Cotton candy! You think our Ivory Tower’s elegant Four Heavenly Kings would create such an abomination!”
[If it’s Sargasso’s treachery, it’s entirely possible-mohu.]
“That old man might be somewhat narrow-minded! But he’s not the type to make something like that!”
Sparks flew from Salamandine’s hair. Papirun shook his head. Perhaps because she was the youngest of Eibon’s Four Heavenly Kings, having awakened the latest, she sometimes tended to view the world too idealistically.
Had it not been for the rules established by the Mother of Fairies, the cunning Sargasso would have overturned the world several times over by now.
“…Papirun. Salamandine is right.”
[Mohu?]
“I saw it. A wizard who pierced an aberration’s torso with grotesque hands and stole its mana.”
[Mohu?!]
Papirun was bewildered. The more he listened to the story, the more so. Because the being embezzling mana from the Ivory Tower’s aberrations was something entirely different from ‘Eibon’s spiritual body.’
If Eibon’s spiritual body was, as the word suggested, spiritual and still physically powerless, then the shadow mage Cure White described was an extremely material existence.
Or rather than material, it might be more accurate to call it ‘corporeal.’ To think it could transform its own body so easily and create such a monster from a single right hand.
It was an existence quite different from the Eibon that Papirun knew.
Cure Black patted Salamandine’s back.
“Hey, hey. Don’t tell me some hidden fifth body of the Four Heavenly Kings popped out or something?”
“There’s no such thing! To begin with, even we don’t… Hah!”
Salamandine came to her senses. She had been leaking the Ivory Tower’s secrets to that terrifying ‘Magirist’ subordinate of the Mother Fairy!
Immediately kicking off the ground and leaping, Salamandine spun around and pointlessly perched atop a nearby streetlight. Cure Black tilted her head. As expected, if you wanted to deliver an important line, doing it from a high place was the only way to look cool.
“Today we joined hands to dispose of this abomination, but do not expect such luck next time! That is when I shall take you down!”
“Suuure. I left your lost stamp card at the Rabbit Cafe, so go pick it up.”
“Ah, seriously! This is exactly why I hate you, Magi Black! Just you wait!”
Magi Black waved her hand in farewell until Salamandine’s shadow had completely vanished, then turned her head toward Syune and Papirun.
The two were still discussing the shadow mage with serious expressions—though, as Salamandine would say, even a serious expression on the cotton-candy-like Papirun only looked cute.
‘Well, I guess it’s not something I need to butt into.’
Magi Black, Naihyeon (那異玄), was never the type to use her head. Rather than planning in advance for vacation homework or preparing for tasks, she would handle everything all at once depending on her mood that day.
The class president, Syune, was smart, and Papirun was cautious. The two of them would handle things well enough on their own.
“Guys, I’m heading out first!”
Having dispelled her transformation, Naihyeon cheerfully exited the park.
***
…only to run into a very strange man.
“Mister, this is private property.”
“Kuk.”
***
On the outskirts of Hikarious, a detached Western-style house stood alone within the forest.
Among the neighborhood children, it was known as the ‘Witch’s House.’
That was Naihyeon’s house. Strictly speaking, only as far as her legal address was concerned.
While this gloomy atmosphere did stimulate her sensibilities, the Western-style house in the Black Forest was not somewhere she particularly wanted to come and live.
Because memories she would rather forget remained there.
But there was a ‘promise.’ A request to come home and sleep at least during the full moon and new moon, several times a month. Today happened to be a moonless night. And so, the moment she stepped into the house she did not miss.
Naihyeon discovered a man eating grass.
On the trail of the Black Forest where the Witch’s House was located, he lay sprawled on the ground.
“Uh… are you an industrial spy here to dig up Naju Pharmaceutical’s secrets?”
Munch, munch, munch. The man, who had been trying to say something, moved his mouth hurriedly, perhaps blocked by the clump of grass filling it.
The poor man, having chewed and swallowed the wild grass, spoke urgently at a speed close to rap.
“Wait just a moment. This is a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding or not, I was joking.”
There was nothing left in the Black Forest for an industrial spy to steal. Rumors said the forest had turned black because of experiments by Naju Pharmaceutical, or something to that effect.
But Naihyeon, who had played in this forest since childhood, remembered that this forest had originally had a rather gloomy atmosphere.
“What misunderstanding could I have about a man eating mugwort out of season? The days when industrial spies swarmed here are long gone.”
Naihyeon looked at the poor man with pity in her eyes. Just how hungry must he have been to crawl all the way here and eat grass?
He had all four limbs intact, yet here he was secretly entering the forest in the middle of the night, imitating a herbivore. She figured he must have incurred a massive debt and fled in secret.
“Hikarious City Hall runs a homeless rehabilitation program, you know? And even if not, many of the religious facilities around here serve free meals every morning.”
“No!”
Raban was bewildered. To think he would ever be treated as a homeless person.
‘Kuk…’
It was true that he had been eating mugwort until just now, and it was true that he was hungry. But the more important reason was that mugwort was a magical catalyst with a considerable history in witchcraft.
Was it for nothing that the image of a witch grandmother boiling various wild herbs in a large cauldron came to mind?
Raban’s eating grass was the result of rational judgment.
Originally, laying hands on this city’s products—it seemed its name was Hikarious, from what he had gathered here and there—was not desirable.
From observing the city for several days, all of the city’s mana was bound to something of unknown identity.
There was good reason why magical girls deployed immediately whenever aberrations appeared, and why restoration magic activated quickly no matter where in the city was destroyed. Something extremely powerful—something Raban himself hypothesized to be a mascot force—had seized the entire city with a barrier.
How troublesome would things become if he carelessly touched this mana-dictator’s city and stimulated the barrier, drawing in magical girls?
However, the forest on this city’s outskirts was somewhat different. He didn’t know the exact reason, but in this place alone, the barrier’s dominion had weakened, and residual mana freely surged forth.
The weeds here, periodically steeped in mana, had reached a level worthy of being called spirit herbs. Raban had been keeping a close watch on this forest at Hikarious’s outskirts.
It was an emergency mana recovery site in case of emergency. However, he had refrained from approaching directly, assuming that there was no way a mage hadn’t already claimed such a strategic convergence of mana.
But for the past few days, he had seen no one entering or leaving this forest, including the Western-style house. Already lacking mana and hungry to boot, he had thought to at least eat some mugwort.
‘Of all times, someone shows up just as I’m trying to fill my stomach…!’
What gives, was his luck really this bad? Raban wanted to sigh.
Granted, his luck had hit rock bottom the moment he fell into another dimension while living peacefully on Earth. Even so, he had thought that misfortune would at least favor him in the field of survival.
‘Does something like the laws of this world hate me?’
***
The poor homeless man, who had been about to argue something, eventually lost his words and grew dejected. Naihyeon approached cheerfully and patted the man’s back a couple of times.
“Mister, cheer up! I don’t know what happened to reduce you to eating grass, but everyone in Hikarious has a story or two. If you’ve got both arms and legs, you can get back on your feet!”
Phone numbers recited in a bright voice. She even tore out a page from the notebook she carried and wrote them down. It was a considerate gesture, as she worried he might not have a cell phone after being chased by debt collectors.
“This is the gambling addiction counseling center’s number, and there’s a public phone in the park over there. Or you can just go straight to city hall. Their job placement office does a pretty good job. Do you have any certifications?”
‘This brat…!’
Raban had grown to hate this cocky silver-haired girl.
“Ah, right. If you’re hungry, want to get a bite before you go?”
The plastic bag in Naihyeon’s hand rustled.
“They’re all retort meals, but I bought plenty.”
Raban found himself grateful for this kind silver-haired girl!