Chapter 88: Why Is This Happening?

-Thud

"Ah... ah..."

Senior... disappeared into the Abyssal Hole.

With those cheerful words about going on an assignment and coming back.

"An... assignment?"

"This isn't a place you can dress up with words like that..."

It's the Abyss. The Abyss, of all places. I could understand if it were merely a country with poor public safety because it had been occupied by Abyssal Ones, but this was on an entirely different level. It was, quite literally, another dimension.

It was the place the mascots unanimously said was filled with Abyssal Ones, where ordinary beings from other dimensions would be contaminated by energy and die simply by entering, and where even if someone somehow survived, they would be surrounded and killed by Abyssal Ones the moment they arrived.

An assignment there? And she said she'd 'come back' from it?

"...Ahh."

I barely managed to hold on as my mind began to grow hazy.

I haven't actually seen Senior die for certain yet.

Even though... she died the moment she was sucked into the Abyssal Hole... No. I won't think about that.

She's still alive.

She said she'd come back, so she will. Alice doesn't lie or make empty promises.

"...Damn it. The coordinates have disappeared completely. It looks like she really was dragged into the Abyss."

"...She's still alive."

"Well... seeing how confident she was, she must have some kind of plan. I didn't think Alice would just go like that either... but whether she can come back is another matter... Can anyone get back here from over there? It's not like I know much about the Abyssal Ones' side, so this is..."

From the way she spoke so confidently, it seemed Ms. Emerald knew that Alice wasn't someone who would die so easily.

But that didn't mean Alice could really come back the way she would from an assignment.

"She'll find a way somehow... if it's Senior."

"Well... I suppose she will. She's the sort who'd threaten an Abyssal One into cooking for her."

"...Senior would?"

I thought about it for a moment, but... Senior as Ms. Sejin would probably have a hard time. As Alice, though, she might be able to do it.

As Ms. Sejin, she could probably catch an animal-like Abyssal One, roast it, and eat it.

And around then.

-Clunk.

"Aia. A lot has happened. I'm really tired. Seriously."

"What's with the baseball bat?"

"An emergency weapon. Aia was tired, too."

"That's not like you... Well... You must be tired, too... You worked hard..."

"Yay-"

Lady Aia approached with a silver baseball bat braced against the floor, then sat down beside Ms. Emerald and me.

"Now that the S-rank Abyssal One has been completely eradicated, the stragglers have lost a great deal of their strength as well. The ones remaining will either disappear like this or return to the Abyss on their own."

"...Haa. An S-rank Abyssal One on Christmas Eve. What a truly cursed day. Of all things, why did an S-rank have to appear?"

"Even so, compared with Leviathan, the scale of the damage is small. Alice deserves much of the credit, since she held it back from the moment the S-rank appeared. Of course, that is only by S-rank standards."

...Certainly, compared with the other recorded appearances of S-rank Abyssal Ones, the damage caused by this one was relatively small.

It could be called a momentous event... but there was a reason S-rank Abyssal Ones were classified as national-scale disasters. There had even been countries that were nearly ruined because of the appearance of an S-rank Abyssal One.

"...At this scale, the memorial service will be quite large, too."

"I suppose so... In the middle of Seoul... Haa. Come to think of it, Leviathan was at the Han River, too. Is it really because of the population density?"

"The fact that Abyssal Ones appear more frequently in places with larger populations is a statistically meaningful finding. The proportion of magical girls is also higher in such places, so a rapid response can likewise be expected."

"..."

"..."

It was an awkward silence.

The response could be considered perfect. Even for Alice, an S-rank magical girl keeping an S-rank Abyssal One in check alone, one-on-one, was an achievement even greater than what she had accomplished against Leviathan. This time, she had held it back from the very moment it appeared.

But...

"...Sob."

"...Hngh. I should get going now. The dimension has already closed up cleanly, so there isn't even a trace left... And there's the cleanup, too... If I'm going to look into all this, I need to save whatever time I can instead of sitting around here."

"There is good news. If Lady Aia's guess is correct, Alice crossed over into the Abyss. At least, she did not die."

"...What?"

"...How?"

That was something I never expected to hear.

I hadn't thought Senior was dead... but that was only a thought. The mascots had all said that anyone sucked into an Abyssal Hole would be contaminated by its energy and die before even reaching the Abyss.

If that was true, it meant Senior Alice had likely died in the dimensional rift before she could cross over to the Abyss... but Lady Aia guaranteed that she had crossed over alive, at least.

But how?

"Lady Aia's wand is with Alice right now."

"...What?"

"Huh?"

Neither Ms. Emerald nor I understood, so we stared blankly for about ten seconds before finally speaking again.

"What?!"

"What?!"

"An excellent example of the role of punctuation. A good example of how the exact same single character can have a completely different meaning."

"No! That's not what's important right now! What did you say?! Why is Lady Aia's wand with Senior Alice?!"

"Hey, don't tell me you seriously... I did see something flying earlier, but I thought you were giving us some kind of survival-assistance machine. That was your wand?!"

"I will answer you one at a time. The reason Lady Aia's wand is with Alice is that Lady Aia threw it. And if you saw something round flying through the air earlier, you saw correctly. That was Lady Aia's wand. An ordinary Magi-cal machine would not have been able to cross the Abyssal Hole."

"No... Even so, you didn't have to throw it straight in... Wow. This is insane."

"..."

-Blank stare.

Lady Aia's wand was with Senior Alice right now.

Lady Aia must have confirmed that Senior Alice had crossed over based on that. If the wand had failed to cross over and vanished in the dimensional rift, it would either have become summonable again or affected Lady Aia in some way, regardless of its condition.

Since neither of those things had happened, she must have concluded that it had moved to an entirely different dimension...

-Ba-dump, ba-dump.

"Th-then... could she use that wand to come back...?"

"Lady Aia's wand has no function for opening dimensional portals."

"Then why did you throw it?!"

"But Momo will be very helpful. Alice is knowledgeable about many things, but she cannot compare with Momo's database. It is physically impossible for a human brain to contain more extensive knowledge than Momo, except for Lady Aia's."

"...When you put it that way, I don't really have anything to say. But... then our current fighting strength is... Alice is missing, Lady Aia has no wand, and... Wow. If one more S-rank appears in this state, this country is finished."

"Lady Aia trusts you all."

The complicated thoughts were interrupted for a moment. Practical concerns began to surface.

Missing persons. Their number always increases after Abyssal Ones appear. Especially when a high-ranking Abyssal One has appeared.

'...Ms. Sejin!'

Senior had told me. I was the only person who knew Senior's true identity.

And now that Senior Alice had disappeared beyond the Abyss, Ms. Sejin had naturally disappeared from Earth as well.

-Gulp.

'...I'm the only one.'

With an S-rank Abyssal One having appeared, it wasn't unnatural for one person to go missing. In the world as it was now, it was an extremely common occurrence.

But what if someone came looking for the empty house Senior had left behind? Or what if someone noticed that Senior was Alice because of some clue Senior had left behind?

There was no telling how long it would take for Senior to return. It could be days, months, or even years.

'...I have to protect it.'

They said it was polite not to touch a missing person's home, but public safety also tended to deteriorate for a while after an Abyssal One appeared.

At least during that time... until this confusion died down... I had to protect Senior... and Senior's traces.

"I-I'll go, too! You both really...! You worked so hard!"

"Huh? Uh, yeah. Right. You worked hard, too, Ms. Mia... Get home safely."

"I hope you regain your strength."

"...Yes! You too!"

Ms. Emerald and Lady Aia.

They were both strong and wonderful senior magical girls, legendary figures who had fought alongside Senior Alice as well... but I was the only one who knew Senior's secret.

And now, I was the only one who could protect that secret.

* * *

"...So, you're saying we should catch one of the cards and interrogate it?"

[There is some risk involved, but it is a reliable method. The information Momo can obtain from scanning the terrain and surrounding features alone is limited. We do not know how large the Abyss is, nor do we know what this garden is for. Nothing is happening at the moment, but we may be in a position where an enormous monster awakens once night falls.]

"...That is certainly true, but..."

After falling into an unfamiliar land without a single piece of information, we were suffering from an extreme lack of information.

We knew nothing about where this 'garden' was located within the Abyss, or what the garden was for. The only thing we knew, at least, was a handful of clues from what that knight had spouted. That alone couldn't provide us with a clue that would let us survive here and return to Earth.

[We are fine for the moment, but food is also a problem. If there had been a wild Abyssal One passing by, I would have recommended catching and eating it, but the only Abyssal Ones we have seen so far are the cards. Cards contain no nutrients, so eating them would only upset your stomach.]

"Eek. Eat an Abyssal One?"

"Maybe they can be eaten here. Abyssal Ones must eat something to survive, too."

On Earth, Abyssal Ones dispersed into smoke and vanished when they were defeated, so they couldn't be eaten. But things might be different here.

Then maybe I'd become the first person to eat Abyssal One meat. Haa. I'd become incredibly famous. Of course, that was assuming I made it back.

[I also recommend that both of you maintain your transformations as much as possible. In particular, if Miss Black Rose does not have enough magical power to maintain her transformation, she will need to receive some from Alice.]

"That makes sense. We don't know what problems exposing our ordinary bodies might cause."

"I-I can receive Senior's magical power?"

"You've already used quite a bit. I'll give you some now. Give me your hand..."

-Hesitate.

It was the moment I checked the sensation of the magic connected to Alice's wand in order to move the magical power.

-Vrrrrr...

"...Senior?"

"......What?"

Like the wands of ordinary magical girls, it was normal for Alice's wand to replenish its magical power over time.

However... she had definitely expended most of her magical power while fighting the knight and being chased by the Abyssal Hole. Even if time had passed since then, it had been an hour at most.

With the wand's magical-power recovery ability, it should normally have been about thirty percent full by now.

But...

............Why is it completely full?