Chapter 26
Don't become too fixated on the fundamentals. Fundamentals are exactly that: fundamentals. You need to establish them firmly so you can move forward, but if you only obsess over the fundamentals, you can't advance. To use mathematics as an example, if you can't even add or subtract, then of course you can't move on to anything beyond that. But if all you can do is add and subtract, you won't be able to solve any problems, right? That's how it is.
Today's lesson centered on an explanation of magical girls' weapons.
The fact that you've made contracts and are here means that you at least know what your fundamentals are. Don't doubt your roots. The thing that appeared in your hand when you awakened and helped you defeat an enemy during your first deployment—that is your fundamental. Your root. Yes, the student in pink, you have your hand up.
"N-No, of course I'm not doubting you, Teacher! I'm just asking because I'm curious... I heard that some senior magical girls changed the type of weapon they started with. Why would they do that...?"
"That's a good question. Just as there are many junior magical girls, everyone has a different temperament. For instance... there are cases where someone uses a different weapon simply because it suits their personal tastes or because they care about their image as a magical girl, even though that weapon may not actually suit them very well. If they change weapons for a good reason unrelated to that, it means the type of weapon wasn't important to begin with."
It's a pain having to explain things like this one by one.
Even if you don't want to pay for a lecture, there would probably be some decent explanations if you searched through the countless XTube lectures out there. It's absurd that an S-rank magical girl ranked fourth has to give an intensive lecture to these wet-behind-the-ears kids.
"Technically, we call them weapons, but a magical girl's weapon isn't really something she uses to physically defeat enemies. It's a tool that helps her manifest her magical-girl power and defeat Abyss Ones. Alice is... not a very good example, since Alice really does swing this staff around... Hmm... Miss Sapphire, Miss Mia, would you each materialize your weapons?"
"Yes, understood."
"Yes!"
I didn't actually know what either of their weapons was, but since I figured neither of them was the type to fight by swinging a staff around like Alice, I had them do it anyway.
Mia's was a staff about as tall as she was, much like Alice's, while Sapphire's was a bracelet set with a blue gemstone.
In this case, Sapphire was the better example.
"Now, if you look at Miss Sapphire's weapon, it's a bracelet, right? Miss Sapphire, when you fight an Abyss One, do you attack it directly with this bracelet?"
"No."
"Then what do you use the bracelet for?"
"It helps with most aspects of using magic. It assists with the circulation of magical power, shortens the calculation process, and increases the efficiency of the magical power invested, allowing me to use more powerful magic with less magical power."
"Now, one last question. If it weren't a bracelet but another form—for example, a ring or a necklace—do you think its function would be affected?"
"If I changed it suddenly, it might take me a little while to adapt, but there shouldn't be any particular problems."
Good. That was exactly the kind of example that made things easy to understand.
"You heard what Miss Sapphire said, right? A magical girl's weapon isn't something she uses by itself to fight. You can think of it as a tool that supports a magical girl's combat ability as much as possible. As you grow, gain new insights, and change the way you fight, the tool you use can naturally change along with your combat style."
"Ahh..."
"Then you may be getting confused again. Earlier, I told you not to doubt your roots, but now I'm saying you can change your weapon. This is a point that confuses many junior magical girls. The 'weapon' that first appears really is the weapon that suits you best at that point in time. But your true weapon—the source of the power you use to fight Abyss Ones, the root from which your magic springs—is a completely separate concept, even if it is closely connected to that weapon. All right, that's all for today's lesson. Next time, we'll learn how to study and explore the root of each of your powers. For homework, write down at least five types of magic that each of you can use, and find the elements those spells have in common."
The lesson wasn't particularly difficult.
A university student wouldn't have trouble teaching a kindergartener a math problem, right?
If there was anything difficult about it, it was having to think of things I'd passed a loooooong time ago and now considered obvious common knowledge—things I wouldn't even find strange unless I deliberately brought them up. Even that was something I could prepare for, since the questionnaire I received through Sapphire gave me a rough sense of the students' level.
Still, I couldn't shake the thought, 'You need me to explain something this obvious before you'll understand it?'
"Then I'll see you all next time~ If you don't do your homework, Alice will get mad!"
[Stellar Shift]
"You worked hard filming today, too. I think the viewer response will be good this time as well."
...This is supposed to be good? Why? I spent all day explaining magical-girl weapons!
"If lots of people come to see Alice, Alice will be happy, that's all."
-BANG!!
"Senior!!! You worked hard today... Ack!"
"If this were a private occasion, I wouldn't mind, but please refrain from pouncing on Miss Alice in public."
"I can't meet Senior in private! These days, my life's one joy is getting to breathe the same air as Senior, even if only while we're filming this program!"
"I have Miss Alice's number. I'm her manager, after all."
"What?!"
...How did those two get so close in the meantime?
I suppose they must have met separately while I was gone.
Alice disappears the moment filming ends, so if they'd gone out for drinks after work, it wouldn't be that strange for them to have become this conspicuously close.
People tend to get close quickly after sharing a drink, after all.
They do seem to bicker a bit, but magical girls are supposed to grow through fighting.
At that level, I had to consider them close.
I'd heard that quite a few first-generation magical girls had actually come to blows with one another.
Alice? Alice wouldn't have done something like that... probably.
Especially the first generation... To be honest, I don't properly know the first two years of the real Alice's official period of activity.
I wasn't Alice myself back then, and after things turned out this way, I had to desperately play Alice. I combine what Tokkaengi, who had been with Alice since then, remembers with all the information circulating on the internet and everything I know about Alice, then act out an Alice who is as similar as possible to the Alice people know.
So, without any particular information, I can calculate how 'Alice' would act in a situation like this and act accordingly. But if a magical girl who really worked with Alice in the past asks me, 'Do you remember that?' I have nothing to say.
Tokkaengi's memory has its limits, and asking someone who can't even remember what they ate for dinner the day before yesterday to recall something that happened between another person and Alice up to ten years ago? It's hard to expect anything to come to mind. And even if something did, I'd first have to question whether it was a proper memory at all.
For reference, dinner the day before yesterday was a 2+1 cup-noodle deal from a convenience store.
'Tokkaengi. Don't you think the juniors are in pretty bad shape these days?'
[It can't be helped. Many humans with the talent to become magical girls have already been discovered.]
Anyone interested in magical girls has probably heard it at least once: 'Magical girls these days are inferior to the magical girls of the past.'
It's a stereotypical old-fogey remark, so people don't like hearing it, but it was actually true.
Magical girls these days... compared to magical girls of the past, especially the first generation, their abilities were blatantly worlds apart.
The reason was simple.
The first-generation magical girls were the most talented among the humans the mascots chose in the earliest days—those who were capable of forming magical-girl contracts at the time.
When Abyss Ones first appeared, there were only a small number of mascots dispatched to Earth, so they made contracts only with the most talented humans among those eligible. But as time passed and the numbers of mascots and magical girls grew, there were hardly any gifted seeds left like there had been in the old days.
And Alice was the magical girl renowned as the strongest even among those first-generation magical girls.
I might think of myself as an amazing magical girl who, over the past eight years, had done a good job playing Alice, defeated many Abyss Ones, and even single-handedly drawn the attention of the S-rank Abyss One Leviathan to create a chance for victory, but...
Alice was more than that.
To put that absurd strength into terms anyone could easily understand:
She was the only magical girl in the world to defeat an S-rank Abyss One alone. Unofficially, at least.
Even though the power I use is only a fraction of Alice's true power, gathered from the power Alice once used, the fact that I was still the fourth-ranked S-rank magical girl meant that if the real Alice had been...
-Pop!
"Miss Alice. Please, have some. It's chocolate milk."
"Th-thank you, Miss Sapphire."
That startled me. I was in the middle of thinking about something else.
...
Ugh, I don't want to drink it.
I do like sweet things, but pouring chocolate milk from a tumbler straight into my mouth was a little burdensome.
I just want some bottled water.
-Gulp-gulp
'Ugh...'
No matter how sweet it was, drinking something I didn't particularly want wasn't a pleasant experience.
But I couldn't frown, either.
Alice wouldn't do that.
"Phew... Well then, everyone worked hard filming today, too. Alice will be heading out now."
"Get plenty of rest, Senior!!!"
"Have a good weekend."
"Haha... We do plan to edit over the weekend... Everyone, have a good weekend."
-Flash!
Before shifting, I set down the chocolate milk, used Stellar Shift to move, grabbed a water bottle that had been lying in a corner, and disappeared by teleportation.
The time between those actions was less than a second—just a fraction of a second.
My passive blocked the camera, and since it had still been pointed toward where I'd been facing before I left, there was no way I'd be caught. A perfect crime.
-Gulp-gulp
"Whew. I can breathe now."
It's been eight years since I started acting as Alice.
There were things I'd grown used to and things I hadn't, but fundamentally, living a life in which I pretended to be someone else instead of myself wasn't a particularly good life.
Once you add the fact that getting caught acting out that role would very likely end my life, the stress of being stuck in a situation where acting was irritating but quitting wasn't an option only intensified. But no matter how intense the stress became, I still couldn't quit, so all I could do was watch more stress pile on top of the already intensified stress.
'Alice...'
-Grit
It was the name I'd heard others call me since what happened eight years ago—and the name I'd heard others call me even before that.
Regardless of when that period may have been,
There has never been a moment when I liked this name.