The Line to Protect (2)

The Line to Protect (2)

“This girl, I really need to do something about her after I get back this time.”

I carefully laid Kim Su-jung, who was collapsing towards me, on the bed.

It seemed like if I kept watching any longer, something worse might happen.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t think of a solution right away. After all, the facility I’m staying at is part of a government agency created to handle these kinds of situations.

For now, I carefully left the school in disguise to deal with more urgent matters.

And then I flew up into the sky in one breath.

“So, how are you going to find them?”

“…I don’t know. Let’s start by going to where they said they’d meet.”

Unfortunately, even for me who knows all the magic of the Demon Realm, there’s no convenient ability to accurately track a target without any clues. I decided to start by searching the place where Kim Su-han said he would meet Park Tae-jun.

That place was the back gate of the school. But, as expected, there was nothing at the locked back gate now.

“Excuse me.”

“Aaah!?”

I quietly dropped my invisibility in the corner and approached the public service worker who was dozing off on a chair.

He seemed startled by my sudden appearance and fell off the chair with a thud.

“Wh-when did you get here?! I didn’t hear… wait, isn’t it class time now…”

“Were you here during lunch time earlier?”

“Huh? Oh, no? I came back after eating lunch after opening the gate?”

He looked me up and down in confusion, then stuttered an answer when the question came.

It wasn’t very helpful. The system was more lax than I thought. The back gate was always open for the smoking area, used by school staff who smoke.

“That CCTV, can you see it? Or are you not allowed as a public service worker?”

“No, I can see it. But why do you…”

“Then hurry up and show me. I don’t have time right now.”

I moved my magical power slightly. The ordinary person couldn’t resist the force twisting his body. His face instantly turned pale, and his eyes filled with fear.

“Why, why am I…”

“A student’s life is at stake. Show me quickly.”

The fear that even Aria, an S-class magical girl and true warrior, couldn’t endure.

Unable to withstand the terror emanating from my shadow, he nodded frantically, not even knowing what he was doing.

“Did she get in a car? Damn…”

I could rewind the CCTV installed at the back gate on the computer in the nearby guard post.

Kim Su-han was visible among the people. She talked for a moment, then eventually got into a vehicle with Park Tae-jun, who was standing on the road outside the back gate. At least up to that point, it was a voluntary action.

“This isn’t enough. I can’t use tracking magic on digital data like this.”

“Then, what are you going to do?”

I clicked my tongue, hiding my body behind the deserted building again. The problem is, as Ren said, I don’t have the ability to find those who left by car.

“I’ll just leave it to luck, I guess.”

I keep calling Park Tae-jun, but this rotten guy is gritting his teeth and ignoring it. It’s the same whether I call from a payphone or hide the caller ID.

In the end, I took to the sky again.

“Park Tae-jun must have been possessed by an evil spirit. If evil spirits are running wild like this, this method won’t work. But if they’re moving with some purpose in mind.”

I recklessly flew across the sky. My target was the bustling city center where there would surely be people with dark hearts that evil spirits typically aim for.

I planned to find an evil spirit there and follow its trail.

“If it’s to find out Kim Su-han’s whereabouts, it’s a foolish choice. As we just saw with Kim Su-jung, possessed people only express their own desires!”

“If it’s Park Tae-jun’s desire, he would have probably summoned me, his recent trophy and plaything!”

Ren shouted while grabbing my hair, but I refuted directly. The clue must be in the movements of the evil spirits.

‘Found it.’

And not long after, I spotted an evil spirit crossing through the forest of buildings.

I quickly latched onto its trail. If it’s an ordinary evil spirit, it will soon burrow into a victim’s body, causing a rampage or moving according to the victim’s desires.

“Hmm?!”

The evil spirit instantly burrowed into the body of a salaryman who had just hung up his phone below the building.

I quietly landed in the adjacent alley and deactivated my concealment.

His eyes met mine. I clearly saw the murky energy swirling in those eyes.

Right now, this man is in a completely possessed state, just like Kim Su-jung was earlier.

“Do you know me? Do you have any business with me?”

“…No, not particularly.”

He said with a smile. His condition seemed so calm and normal that other people passing by us didn’t pay any attention.

So far, I couldn’t be certain whether this was a rampage state or not.

“Goodbye then.”

I can’t pry unnecessarily since there’s no reason for suspicion. If the recently spread evil spirits are moving under the same orders, Park Tae-jun and this man should show the same stance.

If that’s not the case, then the evil spirits are just expressing people’s desires as before…

“A student being here during weekday lunch, perhaps you got lost while coming for a field trip or something?”

However, the moment I turned around, he held me back with a gentle tone.

Ren, who was sitting on my head, grumbled that it was nonsense, but I had a hunch right there.

“Yes… I think so.”

“Oh dear. This is troubling. In times like these.”

When I turned back around with a slight smile, he looked down at me with a grin.

“I’ll take you there, follow me.”

He naturally encouraged me to follow him. That kind smile and gentlemanly, relaxed demeanor.

To anyone looking, he had the face of a nice middle-aged man who would… help a lost child. However, it’s not a wise action in times like these.

“Okay.”

Of course, I accepted his offer.

[Pak Taejun also lured Kim Suhan, and this man is trying to take me, a complete stranger, under the pretext of helping. Do you see the pattern?]

“…Taking away a young girl? If the opponent is Mammoth, anything is possible.”

Ren was still skeptical. But the moment this salaryman who guided me put me in his car saying he’d take me home, and started the car.

Both I and Ren became certain.

*

“Cooperation with Mammoth was not simply a matter of strengthening our forces, but a crucial moment that would become a turning point in understanding and utilizing the mysterious power that magical girls handle, ‘magical power.'”

Research Director Andrei muttered into the recorder he held, leaving a record.

The command and control room where he was now stationed was equipped with devices that could monitor the entire bunker facility disguised as a villa.

“And to utilize that, we gather magical girl candidates of the right age to be test subjects using the evil spirits spread across the entire country. Hm… these mass human experiments will make a great contribution to the record of humanity’s evolution to the next stage.”

On the screen he was looking at with a smirk, there were girls being transported to the facility in real time by the possessed. All of them children in their early to mid-teens.

It was the most common age group to be selected as magical girls by fairy companies.

The girls who were forcibly moved to the facility were all tightly restrained on experiment tables.

Those who couldn’t get on the experiment tables were put into large test tubes and forced into a deep sleep.

“Everyone’s attention, both the police and magical girls, will inevitably be drawn to the mammoth suddenly causing havoc in Japan. In this gap, we will move as quickly as possible to fulfill our wishes.”

Andrei nodded with satisfaction.

The plan was perfect. The mammoth, a massive disaster, not only provided sufficient data but also served as an excellent bait as predicted, and in the meantime, the organization acquired a large number of test subjects.

If one knew how difficult it was to find healthy girls for experiments, this opportunity was worth its weight in gold for them.

“Start the experiment! We need to minimize the time. We have more than enough subjects anyway. Inject! Inject!”

He immediately started the experiment while ordering to save time.

In fact, they judged that it was impossible to hide everything perfectly even with the mammoth mobilized, so their decision was to obtain as much data and results as possible before being discovered.

“Is it painful? What’s being injected now is extracted from the blood of magical girls. Still, endure it. Your sacrifice will benefit everyone.”

Andrei, who personally came to the laboratory, stroked the head of a girl who was screaming madly through a gagged mouth while restrained on an experiment table with needles all over her body.

This was happening simultaneously on dozens of experiment tables placed all around.

Despite the desperate struggle, the syringe attached to the machine pushed its contents to the end.

“Ah… she died from shock.”

“As expected. Incinerate the corpse and retry with a lower dose on a new test subject.”

As the convulsing girl went limp after spewing blood, he cleared away the corpse and laid down a new test subject.

This was a scene that would continue to repeat, and he considered it a natural cost.