Chapter 29: I Appreciate It, But...

-Blank...

"...Tokkaengi. What on earth happened to me yesterday?"

[I was in a situation where I was wondering whether I was going to live or die, too, so I'm not really sure...]

There was no filming today, but since early morning, Tokkaengi and I had been sitting blankly, only belatedly coming to our senses after the great storm that had swept past us before dawn.

Ah, since it was before dawn, was it today rather than yesterday?

Still, it felt like yesterday, so I'll just call it yesterday.

Anyway, yesterday, Tokkaengi must have hidden itself away very thoroughly after seeing what was happening around us.

Magical girls can also recognize other magical girls' mascots.

Normally, mascots don't approach magical girls they aren't contracted with unless there's a special reason, so this isn't common knowledge. But if a magical girl focuses her magical power on recognizing another magical girl's mascot, she can do so.

The reason one can't recognize a mascot while it is untransformed is not only that the mascot is hiding, but also that one doesn't even realize a mascot is hiding, making it difficult to see. If a magical girl knows that another magical girl's mascot is hiding, however, finding it isn't difficult.

And the person I met yesterday was Aia, the number-one S-rank.

She was impossible to read, but her skill was the real deal.

If she'd happened to sweep my surroundings with a magic-enhanced gaze on a whim and spotted Tokkaengi, there would've been chaos on the spot.

She had even seemed suspicious of a connection between my true self and Alice.

As I said before, Tokkaengi and I are bound together by fate. If I'm caught, Tokkaengi is caught too, and if Tokkaengi is caught, so am I.

And the outcome? Tokkaengi would be retrieved to the mascots' dimension and, in all likelihood, disposed of as a defective product, while I... would be as good as dead.

After our contract was forcibly terminated, living wouldn't really be living anymore.

-Crunch...

"...This won't do. I should at least practice my acting."

[You mean practicing acting like Alice? You're already exactly the same, though?]

"I still have to."

After I began living this way, I also practiced a tremendous amount to act like the 'Alice' people remembered.

I'd already lived as Alice for eight years, but the first two years of Alice's ten-year period of official activities were vastly different from the latter eight.

Fortunately, people seemed to be interpreting her disappearance as her belated embarrassment catching up with her and making her withdraw from public view, but... those first two years. The things the real Alice left behind were far too extensive.

Because she excitedly released albums and photobooks, not to mention figurines and all kinds of merchandise, I couldn't help feeling that the real Alice had left far too many traces behind.

Even if the two of us looked identical to other people, I could feel the differences between Alice and me no matter how many times I looked at us.

...Though it had been that way from the beginning.

-Flash.

"...Doesn't my hair feel a little dry today?"

[It's exactly the same as before, you know? A magical girl's transformation changes her into a set appearance unless the condition of her original body is truly awful.]

"I guess it's not truly awful yet. I can't say I've often felt that my condition was good."

[If you'd transformed before going to sleep right after you returned yesterday, you'd have been able to see things like dark circles even through the transformation, you know? At least now you've had a good night's sleep.]

"...Hoo."

-Twirl

I sighed as I twirled the pointlessly long white hair around my finger.

I wouldn't say it felt unfamiliar, not after living this way for eight years.

The basic appearance was based on the real Alice, who had been active long ago, and the current Alice was created by increasing the amount of fabric to minimize exposure as much as possible.

I still didn't like a grown man wearing white stockings clinging to his skin, but I had no choice, since without stockings I'd have to wear a skirt and expose my bare legs.

I disliked stockings, but I disliked exposing bare skin while cross-dressed even more.

The one consolation, at least, was that I'd developed a spell in time to keep people from seeing beneath my skirt?

This, too, was a spell derived from Stella Escape, Alice's greatest magic—one that ordinary people didn't know about.

Most people thought Alice's ultimate move was Stellar Shift, but in fact, even that was a derived spell.

Stella Escape was my masterpiece, a spell that implemented phenomena related to the distortion of light occurring in space, allowing me to manipulate light and, with a little strain, even manipulate reality.

It was one of the few original techniques I'd created rather than copied from the techniques the real Alice used, but even this was a pale imitation compared with the real Alice.

She hadn't been called the strongest of the first-generation magical girls for nothing.

Really, genuinely. The real Alice was incomparably stronger than I was now, and people had genuinely loved her.

No matter how long I acted as Alice, as long as I'd begun by putting on Alice's shell, pretending to be the real thing, and deceiving people, I couldn't be free unless I retired.

And the condition for that retirement... Since my contract was one I'd hastily inherited from Alice, it was identical to the 'real Alice's' retirement condition.

Eight years... No, even after the ten years the real Alice had spent as a magical girl, there was still no sign of meeting this vicious condition. What on earth was it?

"Hah."

Don't be surprised when you hear it.

The annihilation of the Abyss Ones.

Not merely bringing the Abyss Ones' invasion of Earth to an end, but annihilating every Abyss One—the ones beyond Earth, every last one in the other dimension known as the Abyss—and liberating not only Earth but every dimension suffering under the Abyss.

That was 'Alice's' retirement condition.

Even other magical girls, let alone ordinary people, would hear that and instinctively ask what kind of shameless condition that was, or whether the mascots had no conscience at all.

But even Tokkaengi couldn't curse that condition.

Because it was something the 'real Alice' had written herself.

Most magical girls had an equal partnership with their mascots, and even when there was a hierarchy, the mascot usually held a little more power. However you looked at it, mascots were the source of magical girls' power, and most magical girls were naive enough to be poor at gaining the upper hand in negotiations with others.

But 'Alice'... was the opposite. Tokkaengi had approached 'Alice,' who possessed a dazzling aptitude for being a magical girl, and from that moment on, Tokkaengi had already been under Alice's thumb.

To the point that it couldn't even stop a magical girl from arbitrarily setting an absurd retirement condition and signing the contract.

...Yeah. As you could tell at a glance, the real Alice hadn't even intended to retire in the first place.

I don't know whether she truly intended to annihilate every Abyss One, or whether she'd simply inserted an impossible goal so she could remain a magical girl for the rest of her life. Tokkaengi doesn't know, either.

That girl had always been utterly incomprehensible.

-Ding-dong!

-Startled!

-Flash!

"Mr. Sejin! Are you awake? I was worried about you, so I bought some porridge! May I come in?"

"...Ah."

...I had no idea how things had ended up like this.

Under normal circumstances, I should have refused...

-Creak

"Did you sleep well? I got off work a little while after that, slept for a bit, and just woke up myself. When I got up, I thought of you. If you're okay with it, would you like to eat together? I happened to be craving something warm today, too."

"Ah... Um... Well..."

-Growl

"...Just a moment."

"Oh, take your time cleaning up. I keep my place messy, too. Hehe."

Could it be the tradeoff for acting bright and cheerful whenever I was in Alice form?

When I was in my true form, I found it difficult to deal with other people.

Especially after going through something like yesterday, I had even less idea how to handle things.

In fact, since I'd spent more time talking to people as Alice than as my true self over the past eight years, it was hardly surprising that my social skills had been completely wrecked by now.

The excuse that I disliked other people, which I'd used to drive them away, was actually closer to the plain truth than an excuse.

'...I do owe her one.'

Saving Mia while I was in Alice form could be considered a debt, too, but saving people was simply what a magical girl was supposed to do, so I didn't count it as one.

I'd only done what I was naturally supposed to do.

And Mia had also saved me from the Abyss One yesterday, so by that logic, we were even... Though, to be honest, the debt I owed her for saving me from Aia was greater than the one for the Abyss One.

It had been a little... different from the kind of help I had expected, but I couldn't deny that it had been effective.

Thinking back, I doubt any relationship other than being lovers would have been enough to stop Aia's pointlessly passionate advances—not even if Mia had been a magical girl I'd met for the first time that day, let alone merely a friend.

'A magical girl, of all people, going around prying phone numbers out of civilians.'

...But it was hard to criticize her for that, either.

I'd heard that it was fairly common among magical girls to hit on a handsome civilian they'd rescued if he happened to catch their eye.

It wasn't as though magical girls were forbidden from dating in the first place.

Anyway... I couldn't deny that if this woman hadn't helped me, rejecting Aia's advances would have been about twenty times harder.

With my social skills, and against a magical girl I found uncomfortable at that, I wasn't very confident I could turn her down nicely and send her on her way...

In this form, I'd always relied on making myself look prickly so that the other person would be discouraged from approaching me in the first place.

If someone approached me like that, saying I resembled someone she knew and that she'd fallen for me at first sight... even if Mia hadn't been there, I probably would have used having someone already as an excuse and run away, so I had no reason to blame Mia.

If anything, she'd given Aia more solid proof and made her back off.

"How's the porridge? Is it to your taste?"

"...Yes."

"There's plenty, so eat your fill. You need to eat something hearty to regain your strength when things are tough."

"...Thank you."

I said that, but I didn't eat much in general.

At most restaurants, if I ordered a single serving, I usually couldn't finish it and ended up leaving some behind.

"Has Aia contacted you, by any chance? Or come looking for you?"

"...Neither."

"Hmm... A woman's intuition tells me she's not the type to give up easily. She might show up out of the blue someday. Honestly, with Miss Aia, it wouldn't be strange if she somehow found your number, Mr. Sejin."

"...I see."

Magical girls' magic came in all sorts of forms.

She'd hacked the convenience store's CCTV under the name Magical-Hacking just yesterday, so there was no guarantee she couldn't find my phone number.

She already knew I lived in this neighborhood just from the fact that I'd been here at that hour, so she could even come straight to my front door.

'...Sigh.'

Should I move?

I still had quite a while left on my lease with the old landlady, and moving would be a headache since it would be hard to find another place with conditions this good.

"So I was thinking... Just in case Miss Aia really does come looking for you, would you take a few pictures with me as if we were a couple?"

"...Huh?"

"I'm not actually asking you to date me...! Just to take some pictures. Wouldn't it be easier for you to show Miss Aia those pictures and convince her we haven't broken up when she comes?"

"..."

Taking a few pictures wasn't difficult.

But even so, something about it bothered me.

No matter how meddlesome she was, would someone really go this far to help another person?

We didn't even know each other that well.

"...What about you, Miss Shin-ah?"

"Huh?"

"I appreciate your helping me, but... Is there a reason you're going this far to help me?"

I knew she was an Alice devotee, and that she was meddlesome.

Even so, this seemed like too much.

It felt as though she was getting far too deeply involved for it to be merely a favor.

"Ah... Um... Actually..."

The ulterior motive she revealed to me was...