Chapter 2
"Haa…."
I paced around in front of the firmly closed door for a long while before letting out a sigh.
Even when I asked her to open the door, she wouldn't.
Well, when you look at it that way, it's only natural.
You wake up, open the door, and find some winged lunatic claiming to be an angel and asking to talk. Who would happily invite them in?
Even I would shut the door while saying I wasn't interested in hearing about their religion.
No, but I really am the one getting a raw deal.
These aren't fake wings. They're real wings….
It's not like I put these on because I wanted them….
"How did this happen…."
Eventually, I crouched beside the door that wouldn't open and recalled the past.
* * *
Magical girls.
It's a term for those who protect love, hope, and justice.
I like magical girls like that.
Magical girls who, even when injured and knocked down before a gigantic enemy, never bend or break, but see their will through.
Magical girls who smile brightly and speak of love even when everyone turns their backs on them and throws stones.
Magical girls who cry out for hope and shine at the forefront, even in the face of endless despair.
That's why I like even the childish attack names, embarrassing transformation sequences, and cheesy friendship scenes.
How should I explain it…. Yeah. Because it's romantic.
It's picking up a weapon and steeling oneself to fight because otherwise others will get hurt, even while crying behind the scenes and saying you hate pain and want it to end.
It's letting someone precious go with tears while embracing the dead person's will instead of hatred and continuing to fight.
A human being who gets back up and fights again, no matter how many times adversity makes them fall, hurt, and break, and ultimately wins.
A hymn to humanity.
Yeah, I like stories that celebrate humanity.
That's why I hate stories that deal only in despair and sorrow.
Of course, some people might like such stories, so I don't particularly curse or criticize them.
Everyone has their own tastes.
Someone might prefer finding happiness amid hardship to the idea that happiness comes after hardship.
But not me. Happiness must always come at the end of hardship.
Hardship that never ends isn't hardship. It's simply wrong.
That's why, when I read this work, I thought:
'You fucking asshole of an author. Is a magical girl killing herself because she can't overcome her own emotions supposed to be a hopeful story?'
This isn't hope. It's something wearing hope's mask.
Why the hell would you do something like this?
It's common sense that magical girls are symbols of hope, not icons of despair.
If you'd at least put regret, despair, and misery in the tags from the beginning, I might understand, but you fucking asshole—you slapped a hymn to humanity on it and then pulled this shit?
Where the hell is the hymn to humanity in this?
And what? A magical girl driven to despair by anguish no one understands becomes a villain?
You fucking asshole, then you could just not write it that way.
You inflated the cast like crazy and twisted the plot into a goddamn mess you couldn't handle, and now you're tormenting a perfectly fine character into killing herself just to reduce the cast—is this really your best solution, you fucking asshole?
Fuck, couldn't you at least give her some head pats? How badly did you mistreat her to break a perfectly fine girl like that, you fucking asshole?
Why flip the whole thing upside down out of nowhere when it was going fine?
Why? Seriously, why? I really don't get it—why?
No, you crazy bastard of an author, where did all the love and hope go?
How is tormenting a girl until she goes insane love and hope?
Isn't that grounds for disqualifying a magical girl? And aren't you disqualified as an author?
Why do you use the characters you created as disposable tools like that?
And then｜... ｜...｜...
I rubbed my chin as I watched the cursor blink.
"Is there anything else to write?"
I slowly reread part of the 5,700-character note I'd written, pondering it more seriously than I ever had when writing.
Hmm. I don't see anything that particularly needs revising.
All that remained were the section beginning, Author, I'll explain just how fucking shitty you made the story—, and the one beginning, Author, why did you interpret the characters you created in such a fucking moronic way?
I think I could finish it in about two hours, so should I go eat something first?
Maybe it was because I'd been sitting for three hours already, staring at the monitor. My eyes hurt like hell.
"Gnnngh…!!"
I stretched my arms and legs, and just as I was about to get up from my seat—
[You say some interesting things, don't you?]
A shiver ran through my entire body at the voice crackling with static from the speaker.
My speaker had broken more than three months ago, and I'd left it there as nothing more than a decoration.
[I understand perfectly what you want to say.]
No, more fundamentally, it made no sense for sound to be coming from a speaker that wasn't even plugged in.
[If you like magical girls that much, go take care of one yourself.]
After that, the room filled with blinding white light, and I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them….
And I'd ended up like this.
I had become an angel with snow-white hair, snow-white wings, and a halo above my head.
Not a magical girl who looked like an angel, but a real angel.
I let out a deep sigh and waved my hand.
A translucent window appeared before my eyes.
[Race: Angel] [Gender: None]
[Rank: Seraph (שרף)]
[Trait: Honorific Speech (No Bad Words! Angels Are Kind to Everyone and Always Use Nice Words!)]
[Ability: Infinite Love (Your Love Never Runs Dry!)]
[Height: 147 (Fixed)]
[Weight: 47 (Fixed)]
[You are an angel! Please tend to the wounded hearts of the magical girls who give humanity love and hope! All abilities necessary for this are provided!]
At a glance, it looked like a status window, but in reality it was just a stylish instruction manual.
It was saying that I would live in this body from then on, so I should get used to it――.
'Even my height and weight are fixed….
I was going to have to live at this height for the rest of my life.
No, and what the hell was Infinite Love supposed to be, anyway?
Could this even be called an ability in the first place?
I wasn't thrilled, but what could I do if they called it an ability? I just had to accept it….
'It would be nice if I could step in and solve the problem myself.'
This crazy author had even imposed conditions like these, as if planning to stop me from stepping in with some trashy 'Problem solved! End of Part Three!' plot.
[You are an angel! A noble being cannot interfere in human affairs!]
[You are an angel! A noble being can neither be wounded nor die! (But you still have senses, so be careful!)]
[An angel who forgets the conduct expected of an angel will fall from grace (墮天)! (It hurts a lot!)]
Looking at it this way, it gave me a strange feeling, as if I really were a character the GM had made to manage a server.
But that's me now.
"At least you could have made me a magical girl too…."
I leaned my head against the wall and let out a deep sigh.
"What am I supposed to do now…."
Magical Girl Black was the first magical girl whose mental state fell apart in the original.
Among people who had read the original, it had gotten to the point where they joked that she was called Magical Girl Black because her mental state had blacked out.
That's why I came here first, but I'm in a state where I can't even face her, let alone talk to her.
Well…. Considering everything Yoo Seo-ah went through, I suppose it couldn't be helped.
"At this rate, I can't do anything…."
All I could do here and now was let out deep sigh after deep sigh.
Just then, as I crouched beside the door, repeatedly sighing and wiggling my toes.
Click―…
I whipped my head around at the sound of the door opening.
The person behind the sound was, of course, Magical Girl Black, Yoo Seo-ah.
"Ah."
Yoo Seo-ah looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask whether I was still there, then tried to close the door again, so I stuck my foot in before thinking.
"W-wait! I'm not some suspicious stranger! Just let me talk to you for a moment…!"
"I don't know who you are…! Just don't worry about someone like me and go away…!"
Maybe it was because she wasn't just a magical girl but a Magical Girl (Physical).
It felt as if I'd stuck my foot into a bear trap, not a door.
"Ow ow ow! Please don't force the door shut—just let me talk first…!! Ow! It really hurts!"
"Urk…."
Perhaps reacting to my cry that it hurt, the door opened a crack.
I was supposed to shove my body through at that point, but my foot hurt so much that I reflexively pulled it back out.
With nothing blocking the door anymore, what do you think happened?
Well, it's obvious.
"…Serves me right."
Bang!!
The door slammed shut, and I examined the foot caught in the gap.
The claim that I couldn't be hurt or killed apparently wasn't a lie; my foot was perfectly fine, so intact you'd think nothing had happened.
"Ow ow…."
But why did the pain remain?
That's really too much.
"Still, this is a problem…."
I had to at least try talking to her to get anywhere, but to be blocked like this right from the start….
I spent a while wondering what to do, gently rubbing my little foot until the pain subsided.
[Please tend to the wounded hearts of the magical girls! All abilities necessary for this are provided!]
…Maybe there was one way?
* * *
Cigarettes.
I want a cigarette.
Because I can't sleep when my mind is clear.
Smoking doesn't change anything, but at least I can switch off while my eyes are closed.
[It hurts…. It hurts….]
[I don't want to die! I hate pain!!]
[I can't see…! My eyes…! What happened to my eyes…!!]
At least then I wouldn't have to listen to these horrible sounds….
So I have to smoke.
For my sake. For my mental health.
I looked at my trembling hand and sighed.
'Right. Let's not worry about it.'
Yeah. Whoever's outside is none of my business.
My cigarettes are more important than some lunatic who thinks they're an angel.
I'd made up my mind and was standing in front of the entrance, about to go to the convenience store, when—
Srrrrk――….
"Ah. Hello? You wouldn't open the door, so I just came in. Do you have a moment?"
The angel who had been standing outside passed through the door and came inside.
Literally, they passed through the firmly closed door.
"What is this."
Was I seeing hallucinations now, not just hearing voices…?