Charles thought.
About defeat.
He felt neither resentment nor anger. Black magicians were, by nature, those who survived even through petty and vile means and cried out for victory at the very end.
In that sense, that profound something he had regarded as his “junior” was truly black magician-like.
Magirist had called that being the “Shadow Magician.” The title itself seemed like an image it had chosen to avoid revealing its true identity, but for now, he would adopt that name.
Charles tried to guess the Shadow Magician’s identity. Could the Shadow Magician have newly arisen after himself, the last black magician of the old era?
No.
It was truly simple logic. The higher one climbed in black magic, the more expensive the required materials became. It had not been long since Charles had become able to observe every corner of Hikarious in detail.
But there was someone who gnashed her teeth at black magic….
“No. It is not merely that level.”
There was a Mother Fairy sharpening her blade. Why had Charles himself bothered to put up such a complicated and troublesome smokescreen as the Charles Foundation and pretend to be on the guardian fairies’ side?
It was to avoid their gaze. For a black magician newly emerged after the end of the old era to reach a realm like this, they would have had to use an immense amount of materials.
And upon detecting the anomaly, the Mother Fairy would have purged them with her own hands. Just like the black magicians of the old era.
If they were human beings of this era, the Mother Fairy could immediately dispose of them. But with her narrow-minded temperament, there was a high chance she would choose permanent preservation like the black magicians of the old era, rather than the convenient option of death.
Charles trusted in the Mother Fairy’s mission and abilities. If the Shadow Magician had been his junior, he would have been dealt with before he ever bore fruit.
A great magician possessing power equal to or greater than his own could never be a product of the new era. Then was he a survivor of the old era?
“That, too….”
It was not impossible, but the probability was low all the same. While gathering the Ochanja, he had steadily continued searching for his comrades from the old era. Yet their outcomes had all been the same.
Isolation by the Mother Fairy. Even Charles himself had been sealed somewhere so deep that he could only be recovered after a long period of preparation.
If he belonged to neither the old era nor the new era, then what on earth was he…?
Charles, who had been considering the possibility that he had appeared from an outer dimension, gave a faint laugh and shook his head.
Even those bastards from the “Bureau” are reluctant to set foot in this dimension. The main race that makes up the Bureau is human. Because their roots are similar to the humans of Hikarious, the Mother Fairy’s side would not strike first, but still.
They were treated fundamentally differently from humans of the old era.
If the Bureau offended the Mother Fairy, she could immediately carry out an execution. Her aversion to killing humans of the new era would likely be diluted when it came to humans of an outside world.
If she was like that even toward a race that at least had the shape of humans, how fiercely would she wield her blade of purge against other異 races?
A simple review could not explain the Shadow Magician’s identity. Charles began setting up and examining a hypothesis that was somewhat close to forced.
The conditions were clear. He had to be a human deeply connected to this world, enough to trigger the Mother Fairy’s aversion to killing.
He had to be able to build up black magical ability while avoiding the Mother Fairy’s surveillance network.
“Hmm….”
What if, among the failures of the old era who had been with him, there had been someone who had escaped with only their soul?
What if they had secretly held their breath and hidden until this era, then used the chaos created by Naju Pharmaceuticals to possess a human of the new era and take over that body?
With a hypothesis this radical, the sudden appearance of a great magician could be explained. But there was one problem.
The Shadow Magician’s unique magic, which produced negative thoughts by devouring itself.
If he were an existence with only a spirit body remaining, it would have been difficult to construct such “physical” magic.
One possibility flashed through Charles’s mind.
It was the opposite.
Not an old-era soul and a new-era body, but a new-era soul and an old-era body.
The possibility that a new-era soul would just so happen to possess a body from the old era, and that of a black magician at that, was extremely low. He would have to first consider whether an old-era body still remained at all.
However, Charles knew of one incident that could produce such a result.
“Rakshasa Hand.”
It was a hypothesis with an extremely low probability, far-fetched, and quite interesting.
If the Shadow Magician’s identity was Rakshasa Hand, then it explained why, despite being a black magician, he was hostile to Charles himself.
And how he had been able to create magic so fixated on the “body.”
Fortunately, the method to verify this hypothesis was simple.
Na Suhyeon.
He would target Magi Black.
***
Raban received Papirun. The matter at hand was that he wanted to ask for counseling for the magical girls.
In truth, Papirun’s visit came later than Raban had expected. He had thought the counselor summoning button would be pressed immediately after the decisive battle with the Ochanja ended.
As for the reason the timing had been delayed in various ways….
“They were laid out?”
[That is right, mofu….]
Raban tilted his head. It was quite a strange thing to say.
In this battle, at least, the magical girls had had little reason to be exposed to black magic power.
Ordinarily, the battle with the Ochanja alone should have exposed them continuously to black magic power, but at the time, Charles had turned himself into particles and was controlling the entire space. The density of black magic power in the air had been high, but it was not a situation where it would indiscriminately cling to them and cause contamination.
The same was true after the Predatory Ecosystem was deployed. Raban himself had received and digested every last speck of the remaining black magic power.
At most, there was the final self-destruction of the Storm Demon….
“Ah.”
Now that he thought about it, he had not finished eating the Charles dish.
They must have inhaled the smoke produced when the Four Heavenly Kings burned Charles to a crisp and ended up groaning in pain. Raban furrowed his brows.
“The model answer I should give in this situation is!”
“What on earth is happening in this city?”
It was the “I don’t know anything” strategy.
[…….]
“Hikarious is a vast city, but precisely because of that, it is difficult to completely avoid people’s eyes. The great collision that occurred on the outskirts of the city this afternoon… It was quite different from the usual battles with magical girls, was it not?”
Meaning, it was different from previous fights that, at most, had them scuffle in some park and end with a “Just you wait!”
Both in scale of battle and in the damage suffered by the magical girls.
“I cannot be certain, as I have lost my memories. Still, I have eyes and ears that have seen and heard. The monsters the magical girls originally fought likely could not have inflicted such deep wounds on those children.”
[That is right, mofu.]
Raban made as if to say something, then stopped. Perhaps, from the mascot’s perspective, it looked as though he had barely swallowed the question of “Why must those children endure such battles?”
Raban, who struggled to control the smile trying to rise, feigned an even more solemn attitude.
“As I said at the beginning, I will say it again. I am not a professional. I do not know why their burden must be reduced in this way rather than through magic, but if they must steady their hearts through counseling, then you should find someone more suitable.”
In truth, Raban knew better than anyone why they were using counseling rather than magic.
“It’s not very efficient.”
Even if they poured in that magic power of dreams and hopes as soon as they arrived to remove the black magic power, mental scars would remain.
Even if they removed that pain through something like magical memory erasure, what would they do if the girls were exposed to black magic power again next time?
Rather than endlessly consuming magic power like that, they were probably thinking of strengthening their minds to the point that they could laugh off contamination by negative thoughts.
What a terrifying idea! A honing process to raise them into more powerful weapons!
This was the perspective from which a black magician (self-proclaimed average black magician morality) viewed the world.
[I am sorry, mofu. But there is a reason we cannot find someone else, mofu….]
Raban listened carefully to the mascot’s words. Those cunning balls of fur might lie, but even so, was this not a good opportunity to learn the inner circumstances of the terrifying mascot faction?
Several reasons passed through Papirun’s mind. First of all, Raban lived in the annex of the staff dormitory at Lux Tiera High School. People who lived somewhere beyond the guardian fairies’ reach would find it difficult to respond swiftly if they were attacked.
Another reason was his ability to keep his mouth shut. Although Raban had realized Schnee’s identity, he had not hinted at that fact to Schnee in any way while at school.
It was difficult to find someone who knew how to remain silent about another person’s secret.
Papirun considered this and that, then decided to explain only the key reason.
[The most important thing is that the magical girls themselves show trust in the person called Teacher Raban, mofu. A considerable amount of intimacy has already formed between the clients and the counselor, so we do not know whether counseling with someone else would have the same effect as now, mofu.]
A strange light entered Raban’s eyes. If the intimacy between the magical girls and himself was that great, it meant he had set his direction reasonably well.
“…For now, I understand. Should I go to the school counseling room?”
Raban pondered how he should run his mouth this time to efficiently raise their intimacy.
And also how to naturally probe whether Na Ihyeon was truly Magi Black.