Chapter 33
"Siyeon~ What are we having for dinner... Huh? What are you watching?"
"An old video of Miss Alice."
"Ooh. That's my little sister. Working hard even though it's not work hours."
-Thud
"If you just got off work, go wash up first. And don't put something heavy on someone else's head."
"Sniffle. You used to let me do it."
-Scrape
While searching for old videos of Miss Alice as her manager, I was interrupted when my older sister came home from work and naturally pressed down on my head from behind the chair.
I have them too, but honestly, I don't really understand why people are interested in unnecessarily large lumps of flesh.
Their only biological functions are giving birth and nursing a child, and if being smaller doesn't interfere with those abilities, there's no reason to prefer them large, is there?
They also make it difficult to wear pretty clothes. They're terribly inconvenient.
My sister said that using them to hug cute magical girls made the girls go all woozy, but I had never felt any advantage to them.
I was still attached to the clothes I'd had to throw away because I couldn't wear them anymore.
After I became a magical girl, my outfit was automatically made to fit my body, but... by then, I was already used to suits, so my magical-girl outfit was designed to look more like a suit, too.
"Sis."
"Hm?"
"But don't magical girls dislike being hugged like this? I don't think being buried in someone else's breasts would feel very good, even if they're the same sex."
"They all seem to like it. Their faces turn red."
"What about Miss Alice?"
"With her, I guess we'd have to succeed in getting close before we'd know. I don't know why she hates me so much."
I pictured it for a moment.
Alice was probably in the low 160s in height. If she stood beside me, at over 170 centimeters, her face would be around my chest.
All I had to do was move close and hug her, and I'd be safely buried in her brea...
-Pop
'?'
'Even if you're Miss Sapphire, you can't monopolize Alice!'
...before I could, she dodged to the side using the teleportation technique she so often used.
'...You're the same even in my imagination.'
If it was just my imagination, why not let me be a little selfish? Was it really necessary to maintain that persona even here?
"Sis. Is Miss Alice's thing really just an act?"
"I told you it is. She once got angry and yelled at her juniors right in front of them. That's not her real personality."
"So she kept up that act for ten years?"
"That's what makes her incredible. I wouldn't have been so drawn to her if she weren't."
...That didn't sound like something someone who hugged her junior magical girls and called them cute every single day should say.
"Why? Are you interested too? Alice is cute."
"You're the one who made me her manager. I need to know everything I can."
"But she hardly leaves any videos behind... Oh, it's a Leviathan video. This must have been hard to get."
"It was."
Miss Mia sent it to me.
She'd boldly declared in front of her manager that downloading and backing up videos were essential to being an Alice fan. Since I was curious too, I decided to let it slide for now.
"Wow. What a memory. This was the first and last time I ever saw her lose her composure."
"How did she lose her temper?"
"You know Leviathan appeared in the Han River, right? Since something like that had appeared in the middle of Seoul, naturally, all hell broke loose. Leviathan itself was bad enough, but since it was an S-rank Abyss One, A-, B-, and C-rank Abyss Ones followed it, too. It was a complete disaster."
"Did she lose her temper because it was difficult?"
"No. She rounded up every junior who was trying to save people by sacrificing her own life or die together with an Abyss One, and she was absolutely furious. 'Are you magical girls trying to die? Are you insane? If that's how you're going to be a magical girl, cancel your contracts and go back to being civilians,' and so on. There was some swearing mixed in, too."
"...?"
I couldn't picture it.
The pure, cute, lively Miss Alice getting irritated, losing her temper, and swearing?
"...And then?"
"The scene after that is this. Leviathan periodically supported the nearby Abyss Ones with water-pressure cannons, so the other magical girls couldn't do much. If they went after Leviathan first, the other Abyss Ones became a problem. But if they went after the nearby Abyss Ones first, Leviathan became a problem."
"So she drew Leviathan's aggro alone?"
"Yeah. It required enough mobility to dodge an S-rank Abyss One's attacks, enough attack power to periodically inflict meaningful damage on Leviathan and keep its attention focused on her, and the stamina to keep doing all of that. She managed it."
Even at a glance, it was clearly no easy feat. Magical girls' magic was especially likely to specialize in a single field, making it even more difficult.
"How powerful were the water-pressure cannons?"
"If one hit a building, it sliced clean through the concrete."
"You'd die if it hit you."
"Unless you have at least A-rank defensive power, yes."
It was a difficult condition to meet unless you were an A-rank magical girl specialized in defense, or an S-rank who had invested heavily in defensive power.
"What about Miss Alice?"
"Her? She's the type to kill before she gets hit, so her defense is pathetic. A glancing hit might be fine, but if it landed properly, she'd be done for."
If even my sister, who was wearing such rose-colored glasses when it came to Miss Alice, rated her that way, it must have been true.
"But seeing as she's perfectly fine now..."
"She pulled it off. She kept Leviathan occupied by herself for four hours. She didn't merely draw its aggro, either. She lured it somewhere else, and after the magical girls who had finished clearing out the surrounding area rushed in and defeated Leviathan, she even landed the finishing blow. Things were a real mess back then."
"...Wow."
That was a genuine exclamation of admiration.
Even just hearing about it, it was clearly no ordinary achievement.
Calling her the MVP wasn't an exaggeration at all. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say she'd contributed more than half of the total effort in the Leviathan raid by herself.
"Have you watched this? I was busy fighting another Abyss One back then, but whenever I happened to see her flying around, all I could do was marvel."
-Click
My sister placed her hand over mine, which was holding the mouse, and played the video.
It wasn't a proper recording, so the image quality and camera angle were poor, but the scene captured on-screen was still more than worthy of pure admiration.
Leviathan was an Abyss One in the form of a gigantic sea dragon. It could use magic on its own and fire water-pressure cannons through the air, not just from its mouth. Its enormous body sensed the mana around it, so even if its head was far away and only its tail was visible, the location was still within the water-pressure cannons' range. That troublesome characteristic had been documented.
Despite that characteristic, how could she possibly make every attack focus on her?
The method itself was simple.
She just had to lure the Abyss One into pouring every attack it had onto her.
For example, she could provoke it by putting on a hair-raisingly close exchange of attacks.
-Rumble-rumble-rumble!!!
When it rose up, filling the vast Han River, the monster could be called an incarnation of a natural disaster that reduced even ordinary skyscrapers to mere 'things.' Yet it was chasing only one magical girl.
The magic beneath her feet, made up of tiny stars, scattered glitter and left a trail behind her, inevitably stinging the eyes of the magical beast pursuing her. Whenever it opened its enormous mouth, seemingly large enough to swallow a whole building, and lunged at the magical girl, she reappeared somewhere else.
-Whoooom!
-Kuwaaaaaaa!!!
When more water-pressure cannons than one could count on one's fingers surrounded the magical girl, she dodged them with a margin of only one sheet of paper, minimizing unnecessary movement. Meanwhile, she swung her wand with uncanny precision to divert the cannons she couldn't dodge, as well as those headed toward civilians if she continued straight ahead.
Even with the poor video quality, it was a perfect and beautiful sight, as though it had been choreographed for a movie.
"...What is this?"
"Broken CCTV footage? And who was filming in the middle of all that? Either way, it's amazing. Anyone with enough presence of mind to film in a situation like this has the makings of a magical girl."
"Can you do this, Sis?"
"I can confidently turn into Eme/rald after getting my waist sliced in half by a water-pressure cannon within ten minutes. Those attacks exist to be dodged in the first place. Trying to withstand one head-on is insane, and I'm not that mobile anyway. It's a bad matchup."
My sister's fighting style could be simply described as a glass cannon. She instantly released the magic stored in her jewels, poured out several spells at once, and defeated her enemies as quickly as possible.
No matter how much of an S-rank my sister was, she couldn't defeat Leviathan with a single barrage. Leviathan, enraged by the magic striking it, would retaliate against her, so it was easy to imagine how that scene would end.
"Your rank is higher, though."
"Because my company is included in that ranking. If we were ranked purely by combat power, Alice would be higher than me."
"...Hmm."
"So, are the lessons worth attending? I watched them, too, and they are definitely interesting, but they're not really for someone at my level. Once you reach about my rank, you've already established your own theory of magic. Still, it seems like it could be a good opportunity for you."
"...Did you assign me to her on purpose?"
"Huh? It served two purposes. Having a trustworthy little sister by her side to reduce Alice's wariness was one goal, and it would be even better if you learned something while spending time with Alice. Oh, I heard the student who pays the most attention in class gets a chance to take a walk with Alice. Could you transfer that to me? I'm willing to buy it."
"Leave things like that to the juniors..."
"Aww."
In fact, someone at my sister's level would probably have a fairly high chance of forcibly hugging Miss Alice if she really tried, but that would no longer be physical affection. It would be harassment, so it was something she shouldn't do.
No matter how much my sister went around hugging people without asking for consent, they were at least people she could ask for forgiveness afterward. Forcibly hugging someone like Miss Alice, who clearly and firmly refused, would be ethically problematic, and Miss Alice would almost certainly hate it, so that was probably why my sister didn't bother trying.
People who usually went around grinning foolishly could be truly frightening when they got angry.
-Beep
"But aren't you going to sleep? Why are you still wearing your suit?"
"They told me to go support the operation to take down the Nightmare Queen tonight."
"Oh, is it that time again? Have a safe trip. I'll be asleep by the time you get back."
"You're not even going to say you'll wait until I come back, even as a joke?"
"Come on, it's not like you'll be gone for just a day or two. I'm going to bed first. Yaaawn..."
* * *
"Mmm. I slept well. Tokkaengi, what time is it?"
[11:30 p.m. You woke up at exactly the right time.]
"Perfect. I'll grab a quick bite and get ready to head out."
The Nightmare extermination would begin at dawn, so I had managed to get some extra sleep without waking in a panic and rushing out to fight while half-asleep.
-Bubble bubble
-Slurp
"I hate Nightmares, but... they said I'd be support. Nothing major should happen."
[In the end, they've decided on two S-ranks, including Alice, and one A-rank.]
"Who are the S-ranks? Think I'll get to see Kariel?"
[I don't know yet. I guess we'll find out when we get there.]
"It would have been nice if we could find out in advance."
-Sip
Since the words came easily, I seemed to be in decent shape today.
For some reason, the frequency of my nightmares had also dropped considerably over the past few days, so I could honestly say I was in quite good condition.
Magical girls' combat power fluctuated according to their condition, including their mental strength.
Well, it wasn't as though fighting Abyss Ones was anything new.
With two S-ranks and one A-rank, we should have been able to deal with a Nightmare Queen without any trouble and return, so I wasn't particularly worried.
...I should have found out in advance who was coming, even if it meant grabbing Tokkaengi by the collar.