Chapter 63
The world is wide, and it's full of all kinds of fucking assholes.
Representative examples include scalpers who use bots to buy up every seat despite having no intention of attending, people who create titles impossible not to click and then post disgusting pictures—or memes about studying the relationship between a title and its view count—once you enter, people who say whatever they want and then post character pictures to dodge responsibility for words aimed at themselves as though the characters had said them, and flying Abyss Ones.
All of them are self-righteous fucking assholes you can easily find around you, and they make you sigh the moment you see them.
Are there really that many flying Abyss Ones? At least, I see them often. Nightmare is a flying-type Abyss One, for starters.
'Probably because Alice can catch flying-type Abyss Ones...'
I frowned as I watched the Abyss One flying high in the sky, cunningly using the sunlight to stab at my eyes.
This was an instinctive human reaction, quite apart from Alice's concept, so it couldn't be helped. Fortunately, no one in particular seemed able to see my expression at the moment.
Ah. If you're wondering why flying-type Abyss Ones are fucking assholes, you can easily find the answer in the scene around me.
"Does anyone here know how to fly?! That Abyss One is way too high!"
"I-I can, technically, but only about five meters off the ground...!"
"Everyone who can fire projectiles, please fire as many as possible! Something that won't hurt anyone if you miss and it falls to the ground!"
"Does anyone have homing magic?!"
"I-I can, but its range is only five meters!"
"Would a guided missile with an effective range of five meters have any meaning?!"
"I'm sorry! My magic is just like this...!"
"...What can we close-combat magical girls with neither projectiles nor flight abilities do?"
"Don't think about eating popcorn! Protect the citizens! That Abyss One... will have to come down to use a powerful attack anyway...!"
The considerably more junior magical girls were struggling below. I had also been dispatched a little later than usual today, but seeing so many already gathered meant they were probably magical girls who had been pulled straight from their busy morning routines nearby. Or they might have been here from the beginning.
'This is why I hate flying types.'
I'd said that magical girls with flight abilities were a minority. And having a flight ability wasn't the end of it, either. Being able to fly and being strong enough to subdue an Abyss One were separate matters.
A magical girl specializing in transportation and rescue might possess movement magic on the level of Alice's technique even at C rank. In some cases, that was the entirety of that person's magic.
Naturally, magical girls like that couldn't subdue an Abyss One even if they could fly. In other words, magical girls who could fly independently and subdue an Abyss One were only found at A rank or above.
And almost all of those magical girls were famous. Their high rank was one reason, of course, but a magical girl charging alone at an Abyss One floating in the sky was a scene people still went wild over even ten years after magical girls first appeared, so it was bound to remain in many people's memories.
'...Which is why this is bad for me.'
The Abyss One was currently located quite high in the sky. The fact that it was still far above even though the place where I stood was the tallest building around meant that it was high enough that most magical girls would have trouble even hitting it with projectiles.
To make matters worse, it was cunningly positioned with its back to the sunlight, making it even more difficult to target with long-range techniques.
I pictured the situation in my head. What would I need to subdue that thing without attracting too much attention? Even if Starlight Shower could somehow reach it, I couldn't guarantee enough firepower to destroy it in one hit. Luna Blast wasn't a good technique for sniping a small, distant enemy, given its tendency to travel in a straight line. No, with the sunlight interfering in the first place, sniping it would be far more difficult than usual by any method.
If I launched an unnecessary attack, missed, and made it climb even higher... then things would become even more troublesome. The thing I could see in the distance was a white, carp-like monster flying as though it were swimming through the sky, and creatures like that usually gathered power in midair before unleashing a powerful attack on the ground.
Besides, even as Alice, whether I could fly faster than a carp swimming through the air was practically a gamble...
'...In one shot.'
I had to catch it in one shot.
Tokkaengi had told me it was A rank. But because of its tendency to fly so high, its defense was supposedly close to the average for the lower end of B rank.
If I landed my attack squarely, I could take it out in one hit.
'...Can I do it?'
None of the major techniques I currently possessed were particularly suitable.
Then the answer was simple. I just had to make a new one.
-Hummm
Creating a technique itself wasn't difficult. What was difficult was creating one that was practical and offered enough return for its risk.
Countless techniques had already been used once in that manner and then disappeared. This time would be the same.
What I wanted was a homing attribute that could hit a distant enemy without trouble, along with enough firepower to kill that enemy in one shot.
What I could put into it was magic power and... the wand that could be called the core of a magical girl's magic.
Magic was the power to deceive the world. To deceive oneself, and then go further and deceive the world.
A world with monsters and magical girls that couldn't exist in reality. Miracles that made things happen which could never occur according to the laws of physics. By deceiving myself and deceiving the world, I brought them into the world.
That was the definition of magic I had arrived at eight years ago.
-Vroooom!
[Oh! Is it a new technique?]
Magic power gathered in the wand. As usual, when I filled the wand with magic power and swung it, the tip turned white, preparing to draw the trail of a comet.
But the trail it drew this time wouldn't be located here.
-Sliiide...
-Creeeak...
My shoes scraped across the floor, and the arm holding the wand was pulled far back. The wand in my hand had turned completely white and was shining so brightly that it was difficult to tell what it had originally looked like.
The technique's name was... Yeah. This would do.
[Comet Burst (Comet Burst)]
-Fweeeeeeng!!
The arm pulled far back swung forward with the recoil, and when the carp swimming through the sky met my gaze, the wand left my hand and shot away.
'Too late, asshole.'
-KABOOOOOM!!!!!!
The wand, which had become a rapidly spinning white comet, struck the carp and disintegrated in midair amid a huge explosion, scattering scales everywhere.
I had put 60 percent of my current magic power into the wand. Sixty percent might not sound like much, but it was 60 percent of an S-rank magical girl's magic power. It was practically a finishing move.
On top of that, I had thrown away the wand, the core of a magical girl's magic, entirely. It was an ultra-high-risk technique with both an enormous magic cost and enormous risk. Even if it was an A-rank Abyss One, if I couldn't take out something with the defense of the lower end of B rank in one strike, then I ought to have my ranking as the fourth-ranked S-rank magical girl revoked.
Well, of course, if that had really been the real Alice, she would have turned the carp into sashimi with Starlight Shower alone before I could do any of this.
-Flash
Having successfully dealt with the carp, I summoned the wand back into my hand. It was no longer glowing white like before, but had returned to Alice's ordinary wand.
"Done. Now let's go."
[Is this technique at least somewhat useful?]
"It's useful against unusual things like this, but it seems difficult to use under normal circumstances. Throwing the wand away entirely is a major risk, after all."
How much a magical girl depended on her wand varied from one magical girl to another, but in my case, it was by no means a small amount.
This wand itself was the one Alice had originally used. Since I was borrowing its power, my magic power would be severely limited without it, and I wouldn't be able to cast most advanced techniques.
It was a technique that involved throwing away that wand. Even if I could summon it back almost immediately, it would be quite troublesome if an Abyss One tried to strike at my weakness during that brief gap.
There was a reason I always carried the wand around while in Alice's form.
It was an object practically synonymous with Alice, so I carried it to maintain the concept, but it was also the source of my power in itself.
Ah, it wasn't as though I would lose my power if it broke. Given a little time, it would finish repairing itself in subspace, allowing me to summon it back into my hand. It wasn't something that broke easily in the first place, either.
If the wand breaking meant the end, countless magical girls would have retired long ago.
-Murmur murmur!
"W-what was that just now?"
"Didn't something come from the top of that building?"
"It must have been a magical girl?! It was definitely an amazing senior!"
'Ah, I really should go.'
Since I had been on the tallest building, no one would have seen me. And since the wand had turned completely white and emitted nothing but light, it would be difficult to guess that it was Alice's wand.
'My stock has already gone up a lot lately. It'd be troublesome if I became even more famous.'
[Stellar Aberration]
-Flash!
By the time I somehow made it home, about an hour and a half had passed since I set out.
-Yaaawn
'...I'm sleepy.'
But if I went back to sleep now, it seemed like the timing of my night's sleep would become awkward. It was a genuinely difficult dilemma.
-Knock knock knock!
"Se... Sejin! Are you inside? It's urgent! Please open the door, quickly!"
...Sigh.
In the end, sleep was out of the question.
I simply stretched my stiff body once, got up, approached the door, unfastened the chain, and opened it.
"What is it this time? It's still morning, and already..."
-Suddenly!
"This is yours, Se... That thing, right!"
The phone thrust toward my face displayed a picture of an unidentified white comet flying toward the sky.
...Who took this, and when? Do they keep a finger on their camera whenever an Abyss One appears? I'd always wondered.
They should be evacuating, yet here they were doing this in the name of protecting people. Seeing these photos while I was the one doing this made my blood boil... But what could I do? It had already been photographed.
"Come in for now."
...But did this woman realize it was me the moment she saw that? Was she really some kind of stalker?
The building only had the two of us living in it anyway, but I closed the doors and windows just in case and sat down.
"Hehe. When did you go there again so early in the morning? And that's a technique I've never seen before. What's its name?"
"...Let me ask you first. How did you know?"
"Huh? Oh. You mean how I knew even though you didn't reveal yourself? But... even if I roughly narrowed it down to magical girls who avoid public attention enough to deliberately hide themselves while hunting an Abyss One, use a white comet, and possess enough power to kill an A-rank Abyss One in a single hit, I could count them all on one hand."
...So hiding the wand and my appearance wasn't enough, huh?