As Magi Black gazed intently at the mugwort rice cake (so she claimed) that resembled a solar eclipse, Raban observed her.
“Mugwort rice cakes, well. I had occasion to eat them recently.”
Magi Black’s explanation was ordinary. Relieved that her tone held neither suspicion nor curiosity toward him, Raban continued his questions.
“Then could you also explain the modifiers in this drawing?”
Just as Magi Black was about to answer, Raban stroked his chin and said, “Wait.” After a brief pause, he added another question.
“Do the words written here make sense to you? In the sense that they are descriptions of yourself.”
Before beginning the interrogation in earnest, Raban added a layer of cushioning. He could not allow her to feel that he was showing an excessive interest in the client as an individual—in other words, as if he were prying into the magical girl’s identity.
Magi Black nodded without hesitation.
“Soft,” or “doesn’t look very good on the outside.” If they were all talking about her own nature, she could understand them.
After hearing Magi Black’s agreement, Raban fell into thought.
‘Does it mean she gives off an impression so frightening that people won’t approach her, but she’s kind on the inside?’
Raban pondered.
By the standards of his school days, students with hairstyles that would have made teachers scream and collapse were scattered all over Hikarius.
Take Magi White over there, for example—Syune White, the mascot’s strongest limb and the control device planted in the high school.
Even though she was acknowledged by both the students around her and the teachers as a model student, her hair itself was pale violet. Strange hair that, on the Earth Raban knew, could only be reproduced with dye.
‘If I’d been a student, I’d have been too intimidated to even talk to her….’
But in Hikarius, that level of appearance was common. Even Dine Ifrit, Salamandine’s cover identity, was regarded as a sickly young lady and a model student despite having hair the color of blazing flame.
This alone would not narrow down the suspect.
Then he would have to dig deeper.
“What do you mean by soft?”
This time as well, Magi Black did not hesitate to offer an explanation. It was strange. No matter if he was a specialist entrusted with maintenance by the mascot, had that specialist himself not denied his own expertise over and over?
In such a situation, for her to calmly explain her own inner world like this created the suspicion that, rather than sincere trust, she was deliberately showing only the parts she “wanted to show.”
‘Even considering the possibility that it’s a disguise, it’s still valuable.’
How often did one get to look into a magical girl’s inner self in a situation without threats?
Raban quietly watched that terrifying weapon of destruction describe herself as “strong on the outside, soft on the inside.”
By coincidence, it was an attitude close to “silence for conversation,” the exact opposite of the “silence for ignoring” that Raban had just acted out.
Responding with a calm smile and a comfortable atmosphere, without urging her, so that the client could reflect sufficiently on herself.
Na I-hyeon calmly revealed her own weakness.
It was just that the weakness Magi Black testified to about herself did not resonate with Raban.
‘If she really is strong outside and weak inside, shouldn’t she have conscientiously let out at least one “Eek, scary” when she saw the blood-vessel familiar?’
Magi Black’s actions had been the exact opposite. After neutralizing the clinging blood vessels with swift strikes, the moment she understood that wide-area annihilation was necessary, she ended the situation with a finishing move.
As someone who had been on the receiving end of every single blow, Magi Black’s self-confession of “I’m actually afraid of a lot of things, and I get lonely and stuff….” was nothing more than the technique of a hunter approaching prey with its claws hidden.
‘No, no….’
Right. In her own mind, she might look terribly fragile. It was common for objective reality and subjective perception of a situation to be separate things. Raban asked a more intimate question.
“When you say loneliness, what do you mean?”
This was a point worth noting. The fact that she mentioned loneliness despite having a companion called Magi White by her side suggested the possibility of discord with White.
Magi Black turned her head with a faint, wistful smile.
“White is a good friend, but, um. Even so, there are times when I miss my family….”
“If it is difficult to speak of, you may stop there. This drawing therapy is merely a method for you to recognize the fatigue you feel in a more objective way, not a coercion to pour everything out to me.”
As he said this, Raban, buoyed by the more relaxed atmosphere, wanted Magi Black to share more clues.
Na I-hyeon gladly accepted Uncle Raban’s consideration and decided not to say anything more.
Seeing Magi Black maintain her silence with a gentle smile, Raban instinctively knew that no more clues would come out.
‘Then shall I end the personal investigation here?’
“Good. Completing even one drawing is a big leap. The phrase ‘strong on the outside, soft on the inside’ is also quite worth paying attention to.”
“Paying attention?”
“If you are objectively aware of your own tendencies toward external stimuli, doesn’t that mean you have experienced that much stimulation?”
Magi Black fell silent. Raban, finding no particular interest in her unshaken expression, moved on to the next step.
“The deeper one goes into talking about oneself, the more difficult it becomes, so shall we talk about something else this time?”
The information Raban wanted was the state of tonight’s battle.
With Charles’s limbs defeated and the Ivory Tower not moving, who on earth had provoked the magical girls?
“Now that I think about it, this is something I should ask both of you together. It’s a little different from counseling, so let’s go outside and talk.”
***
After hearing this story from Raban, Inian tilted her head.
“The magical girls told you such important information just because a suspicious person like you asked? To think the mascot is running a business with children who have that kind of mindset—is he in his right mind?”
“Heh, heh, heh. How amateurish. I came up with a good excuse, you see.”
The excuse Raban prepared was this: depending on the form of battle against the enemy, the rate of contact with black mana would change, so by examining what sort of attacks the enemy they had faced this time had used and the degree of distress they had felt when those attacks occurred, they could distinguish the severity of the threat.
“It’s not originally something I should be doing, but since I’d come up with the idea anyway, I said I’d help them organize it.”
It was a fine performance as a good adult. Inian was sickened by Raban’s acting.
“Wow… And what did you hear with that excuse?”
“They said it was the same kind.”
Raban spoke the main point, with the head and tail cut off. It was the most crucial information from the magical girls’ testimony.
“The same kind as what?”
“What else? You know, those guys with the name that sounds like they’re going to eat lunch. The Luncheoners.”
Inian furrowed her brows. There were many directors in Charles’s foundation besides Reshef. So she had suspected there would be more Luncheoners, but she did not know why they would appear in Hikarius right now.
Was it not an act that would only add to Charles’s suspiciousness?
“Is it a diversion to rescue Reshef?”
“Your imagination is lacking.”
Raban was different. He could immediately guess why the Luncheoners were drawing unnecessary aggro.
“If late, in a few days. If fast, in a few hours. Charles will be kidnapped.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“Because that’s what I would do.”
Raban briefly explained Charles’s intentions as he understood them. Reshef’s exposure was a disaster that rendered meaningless all the trust resources Charles had built up with the mascot until now.
Therefore, he had to give the impression that he and Reshef were not in the same group.
“The easiest way to express that is a staged kidnapping. That ‘at some point,’ Luncheoners had infiltrated the foundation and were using Charles and his foundation.”
This attack was groundwork to give the impression that the Luncheoners’ decision-making was somewhat impulsive and violent.
When their identities are exposed in Hikarius due to an unexpected attack, the Luncheoners bring forward their plan—which until now had not even existed—kidnap Charles, and use him as a hostage and a bargaining tool against the mascot’s forces.
That was likely the picture Charles was drawing.
“This would make it easy to launder Charles. He could even push a certain portion of the responsibility onto the mascot. He could say that he is someone who knows about magic but cannot handle mana, and hadn’t he left security procedures for these matters to you?”
He did not know whether Charles and his foundation had actually entered into a kind of protection contract with the mascot, but Raban predicted there was a high probability of it.
Since one of the foundation’s ostensible duties was scholarship support, there must have been broad support for current and former magical girls. It would be reasonable to attach at least a condition that some of them be used as Charles’s own guards in times of emergency.
“If you make this kind of contract, you can check the locations of strategic weapons. An excuse like saying it’s better to know location information in order to establish an effective emergency contact network would be enough.”
Raban summarized the advantages Charles would gain from this move.
First, removal of suspicion toward himself.
Second, creation of an alibi that would allow him to personally reveal his abilities as a black mage under the cover of pretending to be kidnapped by the Luncheoners.
Third, restructuring of the business environment.
“This is the most important. As long as the Luncheoners exist, the mascots’ capabilities will be concentrated on Hikarius. If it were me, I’d use that time to reorganize my bases in other regions.”
Inian opened her mouth. Despite not using his head properly most of the time, when it came to seeing through schemes like this, his intuition was nothing short of animalistic.
“…As expected, your vileness is equal to Charles’s, if not greater.”
“Ah, you don’t know? This is what’s called black magical wisdom.”