The Line to Protect (8)

The Line to Protect (8)

“…Come to think of it, why should I be cleaning up after these kids anyway?”

As my eyes scanned across the sky, I could see a fierce battle taking place below. Or rather, it looked more like a one-sided beating than a fierce battle.

Some magical girls were rolling on the ground, while a naked girl enveloped in black flames was literally pummeling the magical girls who couldn’t even defend themselves properly.

“Well, you came here because you thought you needed to get information, didn’t you?”

Ren, who was clinging to my shoulder, grumbled. And when he puts it that way, I have nothing to say. After all, I had to come here as it was the only connection to get information about Mammoth.

“So you’re really not going to help?”

“I should intervene. I need to know where their heads are at.”

I returned my maximized vision to normal and increased my speed towards the ground. Before I knew it, my speed broke the sound barrier, tearing through the air and creating a sonic boom around my body.

I can see it. Their gazes upon me, their emotions filled with terror.

And even a gaze devoid of any emotion. I decided to subdue her first, ignoring the others. If I ignore her, she’ll keep bothering me till the end.

“What are you going to do?! You have nothing right now?!”

“There’s always a way!”

I crashed into the ground without slowing down at all. I could see the shocked expressions of both the cornered magical girls and the enemies.

*

“Arghhhh…”

“Keh-huk. Cough…”

A massive shockwave erupted on the deliberately cleared concrete dock, cracking the ground.

The resulting vibration and gust of wind knocked everyone down and made them stagger, without exception. A thick cloud of dust rose, enveloping the surroundings like fog.

“HQ… HQ, do you copy.”

One of the fallen organization members groaned, mumbling into the radio he was holding.

“Code Red… Taquilath. Taquilath has appeared.”

With trembling eyes, he watched the girl slowly emerging from the center of the impact, as the dust began to settle.

Taquilath, an SS-rank or higher magical girl considered one of the most dangerous anomalies within the organization. She gracefully jumped out of the large crater she had created, landing on the ground with a faint red glow in her eyes.

Her long black hair swayed. The frilled short skirt and uniform draped over her shoulders fluttered.

Her arrogant and piercing eyes, surveying the surroundings, were filled with indifference.

“If you don’t want to see blood, tell me where they are.”

“Kuh-huk.”

The shadow spread across the dim floor suddenly rippled, undulating across the entire surface. From there, a tentacle shot out and instantly wrapped around his neck.

“Wh-what are you saying?”

“Oh? Then just die.”

He took a step back as if it was natural, but he had chosen the wrong opponent.

What followed was a horrific sound of bones crushing from his own twisted neck, without a moment’s hesitation. His corpse, instantly lifeless, flew through the air and landed with a thud in front of another organization member who had been sitting on the floor.

“Wait! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”

“No? It doesn’t matter. Actually, I think I know where it is.”

“What… Argh!”

The other shocked organization member, having clearly witnessed the indiscriminate murder, opened his eyes wide and shouted that he would talk, but what he got in return was a beautiful girl’s sweet smile and a black spike that emerged from the rippling floor, piercing his heart.

“…It’s underground. Obviously.”

With a flick of her hand, she killed all the organization members present in one strike. She smirked and turned her gaze towards the abandoned factory where Aria had entered.

She could clearly sense the dense negative magic emanating from there.

“Behind you! Watch out!”

But the moment she turned her head towards that place, a sharp cry and the sound of small feet kicking off the ground were heard simultaneously.

“I’ve been had…”

Henna, the magical girl who had shouted the warning, wiped the sticky blood flowing from her head and muttered blankly.

The fist of the girl burning with black flames struck precisely at the back of Tequilas’s head. A shockwave erupted, and a terrible sound of bones breaking was heard along with it. Henna naturally thought it was Tequilas’s skull that had been shattered.

“Huh?”

However, at the sight that followed, Henna’s eyes widened in surprise. Although her hair fluttered with the shockwave, Tequilas didn’t move an inch.

Only the wrist of the experimental girl was dangling, broken.

“We can’t touch that child!”

“I know. That she’s not at fault.”

Tequilas turned his head towards Henna who shouted and smirked. The girl kicked without any hesitation.

Her shin hit his face precisely, but once again, instead of Tequilas’s straight nose breaking, only the girl’s shin that had cracked began to swell.

“Oops. Now you’re aiming for the eyes. That’s a bit troublesome, and I can’t just keep getting hit.”

The girl, who had been ordered to stop Tequilas at all costs, this time tried to stab her fingers into his large eyes, thinking that surely his eyeballs couldn’t be as tough.

And Tequilas, grabbing that hand, succeeded in slamming the girl to the ground with a clean motion. The magical girl contract allowed for defensive martial arts, not striking techniques.

“Stay like this.”

At the same time, he moved the shadows on the ground, instantly digging up the part where the girl had fallen. The experimental girl, suddenly dropped into a hole as deep as her height, ended up with only her head above ground as soil poured down.

It was overwhelming, from strength to technique, everything was overwhelming. Moreover, as always, she hadn’t even drawn her weapon. All the magical girls who had been struggling were left speechless at this sight.

“Now, go to the underground. Aria went there, but it’s too late!”

At that moment, Henna, still unable to move her body due to the intense pain in her struck abdomen, cried out desperately.

Aria had gone in alone to confront them, but there was still no news.

“You ask for this, you ask for that, you talk too much. Isn’t it shameless? I hardly have any good memories of senior magical girls so far?”

“Ugh…”

But what came back was Tequilas’s mockery, looking down with contemptuous eyes.

Not just Henna, but all the other magical girls at the scene bristled, but no one dared to step forward.

“You’re right. We probably don’t have the qualifications or the right to speak. But we’re just struggling anyway. Hoping that somehow, something will work out.”

“…”

Henna spat out bloody foam and stared straight back at Tequilas’s downward gaze. Then, smirking, she turned her body.

It was towards the abandoned factory that they had desperately called out to. After all, she had to go there to get what she wanted.

“Will you be okay?”

“It might not be easy. For now, Aria’s energy that I felt until just a moment ago is fading in real-time.”

Takillas stabbed the heads and hearts of the organization members that Aria had knocked unconscious, confirming each kill.

They arrived at the underground facility of the abandoned factory. Here, a thick negative magical energy was continuously flowing.

“Hmm, it’s faster than I thought, but she stalled for time quite well. Wait a little longer, Takillas. The experiment isn’t over yet.”

“…What are you saying, baldy?”

Thanks to that, she soon encountered the core members of the organization who were waiting in the underground facility where Aria had entered.

‘Takillas…’

Up ahead. From where she had been subdued, a new magical girl had come here alone.

Aria wanted to make a sound, but she couldn’t.

“Ugh!”

Once again, a fist wrapped in black flames was driven into her body. She let out a groan from her hoarse throat at the electrifying pain, as if her internal organs were being torn apart.

However, the strong hands firmly gripping both her arms prevented her from collapsing or escaping, as her legs had long since given out.

“The magical energy is being overlaid. Continue.”

“Argh!”

The experimental girl, receiving the order, punched Aria’s already battered body again with an expressionless, doll-like face.

The red flames that had been burning on Aria’s body had long since extinguished.

After that, with each punch that continued to land on her bare body, Aria could feel a foreign substance invading her body.

This cold, negative magical energy was contaminating and staining her once passionate magical energy along with the painful torture.

‘I can’t hold out much longer…’

Through her blurry vision from extreme pain, Aria could see the mascot Lulu crying and biting the uniform of the man who had grabbed her arm. It was a futile resistance since the mascot had no combat ability anyway.

Aria sensed that she was about to die.

And she knew her corrupted magic would go berserk. She wasn’t sure what form it would take, but she was certain that the rampage would manifest in a way that would help these people.

“Do you feel wronged? That’s natural. The losers in war lose everything. That’s what happened to you, and soon that arrogant little brat will end up the same way.”

Andrei had come to find her in the meantime. Contrary to expectations, he was in a good mood after dealing with the formidable enemies more easily than anticipated.

“…Idiot.”

“What?”

“What I’m worried about… isn’t that kid. It’s your lives.”

However, when Aria barely managed to open her mouth with a wheezing voice, his face hardened.

“!!!”

That’s when an enormous, terrifying, intense, and cold power explosively erupted from behind.