Truth.
The word Raban repeated so briefly came to Na Ihyeon as a heavy shock.
A man who had returned alive from the disappearance of Naju Pharmaceuticals, yet lost his memories. The truth that such a Raban had found was—
“Ihyeon, prepare yourself and look into this crystal ball.”
Na Ihyeon turned her gaze without even taking a deep breath.
…A rather familiar scene appeared. O Chanja, muttering about the “Naju Pharmaceuticals contract” that had troubled her all through last night.
Raban watched Ihyeon’s complexion as she peered into the crystal ball. Judging by her expression gradually hardening, it was certain she had been quite shocked.
However.
‘Somehow, the effect’s a bit weak…?’
Usually, if someone was told they were being targeted by a surreal monster like that, wouldn’t they react more dramatically, or refuse to accept reality altogether?
Several possibilities flashed through Raban’s mind. Since she was connected to Naju Pharmaceuticals, which had caused a mana disaster, she might have known a little about magic already.
‘Good. I have a rough idea of how to continue the conversation.’
Raban did not consider this a setback. The fact that a faint suspicion had remained in her heart also meant she had been desperately ignoring it until now.
It was time to draw her distrust of her family from the depths of her heart up to the surface.
“…Um, mister. How did you get something like this?”
Ah, the source of the information. So they were starting from here. Raban looked into Na Ihyeon’s eyes once more. He could sense no distrust toward himself.
Only the pure question of how an ordinary civilian with lost memories and not even a proper identity had managed to find a record of a clash between a magical girl and a monster. In a way, it was a perfectly reasonable question.
Therefore, of course, he had anticipated it.
“…Well, you see. After I met your uncle last time, I did some thinking.”
Uncle. At that word, Na Ihyeon’s shoulders flinched. Raban smiled in satisfaction.
“Do you remember how, when I first met you, I said the site had bad energy?”
Na Ihyeon nodded. Back then, he had only tacked on an excuse about feng shui because he had nothing else to say, but now things were different!
Because O Chanja (voice actor: Raban) had provided him with plenty of justification for slandering the real estate location!
“In truth, it wasn’t really an analysis based on actual feng shui. It was more like a gut feeling. For some reason, I felt uneasy, like you shouldn’t be in that place.”
And that intuition had grown even clearer after he met Charles. That was the excuse Raban had prepared.
A portion of the memories buried in his subconscious had begun to surface after meeting Charles. Through this performance, Raban aimed for two effects.
First, of course, to strengthen suspicion toward Charles. He had seen Charles and memories of a suspicious company’s secrets had come back to him. Naturally, wouldn’t Charles seem suspicious too?
Second, to increase trust in Raban himself.
In truth, the fact that he knew about Naju Pharmaceuticals’ dark secrets implied that Raban’s own past, at least as far as his backstory went, might not have been entirely clean either. To suppress any suspicion that might arise from that, he would reveal the truth himself in advance.
A perfect plan!
“After I met Mr. Charles, that uneasiness grew even stronger. I guessed that the source of that inexplicable anxiety might lie in my lost old memories.”
“…And?”
“Hikarious has a particularly high number of incidents involving magical girls compared to other cities. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. I heard the Naju Pharmaceuticals disappearance incident made it an environment where monsters are easily created.”
The aftereffects of a mana disaster could not be washed away by ordinary means. The power of magic had to be dealt with by magic.
“I followed the monsters the magical girls had to face. I intended to propose a certain deal to them.”
“Mister. Are you in your right mind?!”
With a bitter smile, Raban tapped his own head. Sometimes gestures were more efficient than words.
The implication was that someone who had already lost his memories could hardly be in his right mind. Na Ihyeon could not continue speaking.
“Well, you see, they were closer than I expected. Don’t worry. I didn’t do anything too dangerous.”
Raban shrugged once and continued his explanation. He intended to push through with momentum before Na Ihyeon could develop more detailed doubts.
“Meeting them at all isn’t safe….”
“Well, that’s true. But my gut told me. The Four Heavenly Kings would also be very interested in the Naju Pharmaceuticals incident.”
Raban confessed that he had used certain means to come face-to-face with the Four Heavenly Kings. And the proposal he had made to them.
“‘I will share the memories I recalled with you, so if you know anything about the Black Forest, tell me.’ That was the deal I proposed. Fortunately, they accepted it.”
“…So you received that crystal ball?”
Raban nodded and rolled the crystal ball over his hand. Putting on a deliberately disappointed expression, he continued with the sentences he had carefully prepared.
“The Ivory Tower people didn’t know the exact details about Naju Pharmaceuticals either. Well, if they had known that much, they wouldn’t have needed to accept my deal. But a few things became certain.”
The Black Forest was the result of experiments injecting dark mana, or at the very least, of unauthorized dumping of dark mana.
“Ah. Dark mana is a power that’s something like the opposite of the sparkly magic magical girls use. Don’t worry, I don’t know why I know that either.”
Humor no one could laugh at. It had no effect in easing the atmosphere, but it was enough to give the impression that he was considering the listener’s feelings.
Raban added to this the story of the mugwort that had grown in the Black Forest. The first meeting between him and Na Ihyeon.
“There are things I noticed while picking mugwort. In the Black Forest, there were many wild greens growing even though they weren’t in season. That was probably because of the dark mana too.”
The results of dark mana injection were usually not pleasant.
Plants blooming at times when they originally should not have flowered were part of that. On the surface, it was merely a slightly curious phenomenon, but if one interpreted it a little broadly, was it not the result of the desirable order of nature being disrupted?
“Ihyeon. I still don’t know what your uncle really did at Naju Pharmaceuticals. But I want you to know this.”
You must not go near the Black Forest.
It was a somewhat hollow conclusion to Raban’s long explanation.
“What’s that, mister? You made the atmosphere so serious and all. The villa there already got blown away anyway.”
A hollow laugh, as though all the strength had gone out of her. But this was exactly what Raban had intended.
If he openly told her to suspect her family, and that family was the only blood relative she had left after the disaster, she would naturally feel resistance.
One must not be impatient when trying to bring down a castle wall. Today, it was enough to strike it once.
“That’s fortunate. If your friends say they’re going there for a test of courage, stop them. Not just you—no one should go near the Black Forest. I’m telling you, the site really has bad energy.”
At that moment, Na Ihyeon recalled her meeting with Reshef. Uncle Charles had said he would completely demolish the burned villa and build a facility for the Nachal Scholarship Foundation.
The “facilities” of the scholarship foundation would also include dormitories for the comfortable commute of children living in remote areas. What was her uncle’s true intention?
“…Mister. Hypothetically.”
“Yeah?”
Raban, who had been praising himself with thoughts like, ‘I really acted well today; once I make it back to Earth, I could audition to be an actor,’ looked at Na Ihyeon with a blank expression.
“…If you had to go somewhere like a test of courage? Somewhere a little dangerous, but you couldn’t be sure it was really dangerous? What would you do?”
“Ihyeon. Anyone can tell what you’re saying right now is, ‘I should go to the Black Forest,’ isn’t it? Absolutely not. I’m against it. You must not.”
‘If my precious negative-thought reactor suddenly dies an untimely death, I have no idea when I’ll ever be able to return to Earth!’
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
Ihyeon raised her voice, her face flushing. Raban nodded reluctantly, as if to say he understood.
“So it’s something you’re curious about, but too scared to go alone. Roughly like a haunted house at an amusement park, right? That’s simple.”
“What would you do, mister?”
“I’d go with a friend. Even if you collapsed from something absurd like a heart attack in the haunted house, your friend would call an ambulance, wouldn’t they?”
At the end, Raban added, “That doesn’t mean I’m telling you to go to the Black Forest.” It was the sort of line an adult would say while watching a child sent out of the house. Na Ihyeon snorted.
“I told you, it’s not like that.”
Na Ihyeon waved her hand and opened the door to the inner room of the counseling office.
With one foot already outside the door, she spoke as if whispering.
“…Mister, I know it’s only natural to be curious about your past. But still, don’t get too close to the Four Heavenly Kings. They’re kind of dangerous.”
“Sure, sure. Little Na Ihyeon. You mustn’t go to the Black Forest. It’s a promise with mister.”
“Oh, seriously!”
***
What Na Ihyeon had asked Raban about had not been a metaphor for the Black Forest.
There was someone who could tell her about Charles’s true face right now, wasn’t there? Reshef, the executive of the scholarship foundation who had come to lead the Black Forest reconstruction plan.
If, according to Mister Raban’s reasoning, Charles had inherited Naju Pharmaceuticals’ dark past—
Then the executives of the scholarship foundation, which could be called Naju Pharmaceuticals’ successor, must also be sharing some of that secret.
The secret related to O Chanja, who had appeared in the Black Forest last night.
Until just moments ago, she had not been able to muster the courage to interrogate him. Even though she had sensed that Reshef, who had said he would be carrying out some business in the Black Forest, was the most suspicious person.
The reason was simple. Reshef, and by extension Charles, were among the few social connections Na Ihyeon had left. Suspecting her own kin with her own hands, walking toward isolation on her own, was more than she could bear.
However, what Raban had casually told her just now—that she could go together with a friend—made her steps lighter.
She had friends now. Friends who, if her family was doing something bad, could help her drag them back and stop them.
“If one person can’t do it, two can; if two can’t do it, three can!”
***
Reshef, who was hard at work today as well preparing the construction of the scholarship foundation’s branch, felt an inexplicable chill.
A magical lifeform’s intuition was closer to a magical revelation than mere superstition. Reshef meticulously analyzed the surrounding risk factors.
No matter how much he thought about it, there was no way thugs hired by the Mother Fairy would suddenly come tonight, saying they wanted to see his face, and start throwing punches.
His lord’s scholarship foundation had established a secret cooperative relationship with the guardian fairies, had it not?
His lord had informed the fairies in advance of the reason for selecting the foundation site, in order to avoid arousing their suspicion. The pretext was that they would “secure unstable locations where dark mana had accumulated in advance and suppress mana disasters.”
The fairies also held no particular suspicion regarding his lord’s identity. The title of whistleblower from Naju Pharmaceuticals, and the achievement of stabilizing dark mana condensation sites located at key points around the world. His lord was the guardian fairies’ closest collaborator.
After last night’s incident, a fairy—an old compatriot—had indeed visited Reshef as well, but showed no particular suspicion. Since he had separated the “shadow” and the “main body,” it was only natural that they could not sense a mana reaction from him.
Reshef merely acted like an ordinary fool trembling at the sudden appearance of a monster, and that was the end of it.
He had even been praised for joining Nachalsu’s great cause despite experiencing such fear. The fairies had no reason to suspect him.
And yet, what was this chill running down his spine?
***
On the rooftop of the hotel on the outskirts of Hikarious where he was staying, Papirun asked the magical girls in a trembling voice.
[Girls, are you really sure this is okay, mohu?]
“Yeah. Why not? White said she learned how to deal with Blood Vessel Man’s magic, right? We just barge in, tie him up with ribbons, and come out.”
[But what if he’s an ordinary person, mohu?]
“It’s okay. My ribbons don’t have any special effect on ordinary people. We can just say we happened to come in while chasing a monster. As for the room, well, the barrier will repair it.”
[White’s gotten a little aggressive since tussling with Blood Vessel Man, mohu…]
The operation was simple.
From the hotel rooftop, they would descend on a ribbon, break the window, and enter. First, restrain Reshef with a ribbon that would make the voice of truth come out—then, if it turned out they were wrong, flee at full speed.
“Then. One, two, three!”
A dizzying sensation of falling washed over them. Reshef’s guest room was four floors below the rooftop. Amid the lights shining in the rooms, the magical girls’ dynamic vision accurately caught sight of a figure wearing an especially white suit.
Mana flowed along the ribbon. As the ribbon drew a parabola, the two magical girls thrust their feet forward.
Crash! Amid the shattering sound of the window breaking into pieces, a girl’s cheerful shout rang out.
“Magical girls! Hands up!”