Chapter 17
Stopping the explosion itself was impossible.
Even setting aside the main body, there were twenty-five fists that had already lost their power and fallen to the ground, yet were emitting a red glow as if they could explode at any moment.
If Kariel, an S-rank support-type magical girl, were here, things might be different, but with only Alice and Rabiz, who specialized in attack and destruction, and one B-rank support-type magical girl, the three of us couldn't do much of anything... We were in a situation where we needed to flee immediately, so there was no way we could do anything useful.
They say the best defense is a good offense, but shooting a grenade whose explosion has already begun won't change anything. If we really pushed ourselves, we might be able to clear away five or six fists, but we'd be lucky if that didn't make matters worse. Rabiz and Alice were both magical girls capable of turning the city into a disaster zone, just like the Abyss One, if they failed to control their strength.
This was exactly why, whenever an Abyss One appeared—especially a high-ranked one—people were unconditionally ordered to evacuate.
They were bastards capable of casually reducing an entire city to a wasteland before leaving, whether or not the magical girls succeeded in defeating them.
Statistically speaking, far more people died after failing to evacuate in time, hiding somewhere, getting caught in the aftermath, and being crushed beneath building rubble than were killed directly by Abyss Ones.
-Crack.
Right. If busy modern people, being knocked around by daily life, could immediately evacuate whenever an Abyss One appeared, then Abyss Ones probably wouldn't keep visiting Earth so often in the first place.
The fact that they continued appearing on Earth no matter how many times we drove them away probably meant that, from their perspective, Earth was a good hunting ground.
[I've sent retreat signals to the magical girls nearby, too! As long as you three somehow escape, that's enough! I've handed the nearby civilians over to them, so hurry up and get out of there!]
[Hey! Alice! I'm far away from you, so I'll bolt in this direction! Don't worry about me—just escape among yourselves!]
One was Bunny's signal, and the other was Rabiz's.
...Wait a second. Does that support-type magical girl even have the ability to escape?
If she's B-rank, she should at least be able to protect herself...
[S-senior!! I don't have a mobility skill! I'm running away on foot for now, but...! I don't think I'll make it! Please save me!]
-Snap.
I take back the compliment I gave her earlier.
As expected, I hate juniors.
[Ah, there she is. Just wait a moment. Alice is coming.]
What else could I do? I couldn't just leave someone unsaved because I disliked her.
-Twist.
'Ugh.'
I had already located the magical girl's position, so after flying along on starlight for a moment, I spotted a blonde magical girl in a priest-like outfit running as hard as she could on two feet... Where had I seen her before?
"Grab on!"
"Senior!!"
-Tap!
"The explosion's coming soon! I'm going to speed up, so hold on tight and don't fall!"
-Swoooosh!!
"Aaaaaah!!!"
I grabbed the hand of the vaguely familiar magical girl and increased the speed of the starlight, beginning to escape the explosion's range.
Although our position was unstable, Alice's mobility skill was basically a one-seater, so I couldn't carry her on it as well.
Even though she was a support-type, she was still a B-rank magical girl. She should be able to withstand this level of acceleration.
"Senior! Ah, there's debris ahead!"
Starlight Shower.
-Boom!
"Wow..."
"Mr. Bunny! How much time is left until the explosion?"
[Thirty seconds! We're still within the danger zone!]
"I'll speed up even more!"
-Fwish!
"Aaaaaah!!!!"
I was flying faster than a car while holding onto her with one arm, so my appearance had to be a complete mess, but we had to survive first. Only then could we worry about our image or anything else.
What kind of disgrace would it be to die while protecting my image? Even if we had to show each other every possible ugly side, staying alive was the better option.
The one consolation was that all the civilians nearby had evacuated long ago, and most of the CCTV cameras would be destroyed by the explosion's aftermath anyway, so there wouldn't be anyone around to see us.
Besides, I wasn't interested in other magical girls to begin with.
"Junior! When I signal you in a moment, wrap us in your barrier! You can do it, right?"
"Y-yes? What?"
"The barrier! I trust you, junior! Alice's life and yours are in your hands!"
"...Huh! Yes! I-I'll try! No, I will! I'll definitely do it!"
People really did understand you better when you used stronger wording.
After all, when I said our lives were at stake, she understood perfectly even in that tense situation.
Ah, saying that my life was at stake was half a lie. In truth, that magical girl was the only one in real danger. Even in a situation like this, I was confident that I could somehow survive on my own if necessary.
It was just that I couldn't extend that confidence to include her, so I had phrased it that way.
It would be troublesome if an article came out saying that Alice had failed to protect a fellow magical girl right in front of her.
"S-senior? What do we do about the building ahead? Can you break that, too?"
"It's too late to break it."
"S-senior? Senior?!"
"Spread the barrier properly, as I told you. I'll trust you, junior."
I pulled up the magical girl who, until just moments ago, had been dangling by one arm, then hugged her from the front.
"W-wow..."
You may consider yourself lucky. Alice was known to be extremely sensitive to physical contact, and she would never get this close to someone—much less initiate it herself—unless it was a truly urgent situation.
[Five seconds until the explosion!]
"Junior. We're going to pass over this building. I'll leave the impact afterward to your barrier. Understood?"
Even if she hadn't understood, there was nothing I could do. There wasn't enough time to explain further.
"Y-yes! Of c..."
Stellar Shift.
-Flash!
-KWA-BOOOOOM!!!!!!!
"Aaaaaah, Senior!!"
-Roll-roll.
We had already gotten well clear of the explosion's range, and there had also been a building to use as a shield, so all we had to endure was the debris that would fly afterward and the acceleration we'd built up while flying.
I had calculated that, since I was holding her tightly and had reduced the barrier's size as much as possible, the barrier produced by a B-rank magical girl would still be strong enough. Fortunately, that calculation proved completely correct.
We rolled for quite a while before finally crashing into a small wall and coming to a stop, but the barrier around us properly blocked the impact of the fall, the large and small stones on the ground, and finally the impact of colliding with the wall. Thanks to that, despite the dangerous stunt we'd pulled, we came out of it without any significant injuries.
...Phew. Are you all right?
"E... e... My head hurts so much..."
"It's probably because you're dizzy."
The barrier could block physical impacts, but it couldn't prevent the sensory confusion caused by rolling around on the ground.
We were currently in a position where I was underneath her, and she was on top of me with her face pressed against my chest. I quickly moved her off to the side.
Of course, I didn't simply toss her aside. In a manner befitting Alice, I carefully eased her out of the position and laid her down comfortably.
"Junior, are you all right? Alice flew as carefully as she could, but are you hurt anywhere?"
"The world is spinning..."
"You'll feel better after some time. Alice will stay by your side until then."
To be honest, I wanted to leave now that I'd saved her, especially since there didn't seem to be any Abyss Ones nearby. But, given Alice's persona, I couldn't simply abandon a fellow magical girl who was in such poor shape and barely conscious, so I had no choice but to crouch beside her and keep watch over the self-proclaimed junior magical girl.
I hadn't gotten a good look at her earlier because things had been so hectic, but she was the one who had nearly been killed by a B-rank Abyss One a few days ago.
The combination of blonde hair and a fantasy-style priest outfit was common enough among magical girls that it wasn't easy to distinguish her, but the way she had squealed and called Alice 'senior' had stuck in my memory.
'...She is rather unusual.'
To be honest, saying she was pretty was meaningless, since the average magical girl's appearance was so high to begin with. But in other respects, she had quite a few distinctive features.
Even while lying down, the two mounds of flesh making their presence known were certainly quite large, but considering the girls who promoted their figures as a major asset, they weren't so extraordinarily large that they stood out above all the rest.
Compared to those girls, she was considerably short.
Alice's height—that is, my height—was fairly short for a man, though not exceptionally so by female standards. If she was short even compared to me, then by any absolute standard, she really was short.
So, to put it bluntly,
Despite being short, her breasts were remarkably large.
Normally, if one side was small, the other tended to be small as well, so the mismatch made for a rather amusing character trait.
...It might look a little strange to evaluate her like this while sitting beside her unconscious body, but I was merely organizing objective facts.
Anyway, as I said earlier, the three types of people I hated were women, younger people, and magical girls, so I felt nothing toward this self-proclaimed junior magical girl, who checked all three boxes.
I hadn't asked her age, but judging by the way she spoke, there was a 99% chance she was younger than me. Surely she wouldn't have that kind of gimmick if she were older than me.
Since we're on the subject, the most honest thing about magical girls—whose appearances changed dramatically with a single transformation—was their figure.
Their hairstyles, eye colors, and faces could be completely changed with nothing more than makeup, but their bodies didn't receive much enhancement from the transformation. They could lose a little weight or enlarge a particular area, but the range was limited. Apparently, even if they focused on it as much as possible, the most they could do was increase their cup size by one size or so.
It was a tip I'd overheard while reluctantly getting dragged into the girls' talk the others were having once.
Sometimes, when I saw antis criticizing or mocking Alice, they said she was flat... but from my perspective, it didn't bother me at all.
I'm a man, so naturally I'm flat.
If I had to stuff padding into my outfit every time I went out, I would've killed myself long ago.
It didn't matter much when people saw me from a distance and thought, 'Alice is really flat,' but when I was pressed closely against someone else like just now, I had to be careful. No matter how small they were, there were fundamental differences between female and male bodies, so I couldn't let her keep touching me so openly.
She probably hadn't had time to notice because the situation had been so urgent, but if she'd had time to leisurely savor(?) it, she might have thought, 'Isn't something a little strange?'
That's why women like Emerald were the people I was most wary of.
I could picture it all too clearly: if I let her touch me once, she would lose all sense of boundaries, start groping me here and there, and realize that something was suspicious.
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