Light and Darkness (1)

Light and Darkness (1)

This is just taking the first step. Renée tried to reassure herself. Since it’s impossible to act indiscriminately and nonchalantly like Tachylas, she held onto her resolve with a strong mind.

“As I’ve said many times before, Code Red dislikes people…”

“Such regulations should also be abolished now.”

Renée, who silenced Fluffy, headed straight for her destination. She already knew where the targets were.

All that remained was to eliminate them.

It was lunchtime at the high school, with students swarming the playground and corridors.

Hovering in the air, Renée cast a spell. The magic circle that started from her hands grew enormous and enveloped the school in an instant. Originally a protective spell to block external threats, it could also be used to trap those inside.

“Wh-what is this?!”

“We can’t get out. We’re trapped!”

Naturally, panic immediately ensued inside the school. People who hadn’t yet noticed her floating in the air were flustered and confused by the mysterious magic circle that had trapped them.

Calmly observing the scene, Renée slowly descended towards the rooftop. The other students weren’t her targets anyway.

“Eek!”

“You too… your insides are pitch black. Even though you don’t look like it on the outside. Are you truly evil?”

A male student who was secretly smoking on the rooftop was the first to spot her. When she actually faced him, she merely glanced at him once before ignoring him and passing by.

From the beginning, Renée didn’t believe in the magical girls’ ability to detect evil people.

“Why should I follow the standards you’ve set?”

“Th-that’s…”

Fluffy was at a loss for words again.

The ability of a magical girl to identify and punish evildoers solely based on her own experience and judgment was a different standard from Tequilas, who only used it as a condition to determine whether or not they could harm others.

“Good and evil, even that standard is ambiguous and cannot be the basis for merit and guilt.”

“That’s true, but…”

Renée opened the rooftop door and descended the stairs, entering the noisy hallway.

As she strode down the corridor with her blue eyes shining and a subtle magical aura surrounding her, people who had been in an uproar due to the sudden incident instinctively closed their mouths and stepped back.

The energy Renée possessed was on a different level from ordinary magical girls.

If the power Tequilas emitted was fear itself, created through countless killings and struggles, her power was the pressure emanating from the noble and pure magic of a sorceress.

She headed towards her destination, passing through the students who were watching her intently without ever taking her eyes off them.

“Uh, uwaah…”

“17-year-old Kwon Seong-su.”

The place she arrived at was a classroom. Inside was a short-haired male student with a somewhat large build.

As one of the main instigators of this incident, he seemed to have been waiting for her to come find him, as he was about to flee the classroom.

“Ah, no! Fuck, please spare me!”

Renée summoned crystal-like chains from a magic circle floating beside her, wrapping them around him and dragging him over.

“Aaagh!”

In a situation where no one, including his girlfriend who had been chatting with him until just moments ago, could open their mouths, he turned pale and was dragged along, unable to resist as he knocked over desks and chairs while wrapped in chains.

“No…”

And with that, he was sucked into the magic circle and disappeared. He had entered the subspace owned by her. Even as Kwon Seong-su’s screams cut off the moment he vanished into the magic circle, no one could make a sound.

“None of you are without sin. In my eyes right now, there isn’t a single clean person in this place. And I think so too.”

In such a situation, she spoke first, looking around at the students.

“I understand completely. If you’re weak, it might be overwhelming just to take care of yourself, regardless of the circumstances. You might think it’s not your business. But I can say this for certain: You are not actually weak. Don’t… think of yourselves as weak.”

Turning around, she left one last message for the students who were also bystanders in this incident and then left the classroom.

This was just the beginning. The other perpetrators who heard the rumors would be running away like crazy, and she planned to hunt them down slowly.

The moment she snapped her fingers, the protective barrier surrounding the school began to shrink. Like a trap closing in on cornered prey.

“No!”

“Please! I was wrong… Aaagh!”

Ren’s hunt didn’t take long.

The barrier, now reduced to the size of the main school building, only prevented the escape of those she had targeted, while others screamed and fled en masse.

Soon, she caught all the main culprits who had become like rats in a trap and shoved them into a subspace before moving on to another location.

This judgment wasn’t just for the perpetrators.

She intended to hold accountable those associated with the system that had failed to function properly and ultimately betrayed and abused its members.

“What is this…”

“Is it really just us who can’t get out? That can’t be!”

At the main entrance leading out of the main building.

There, several people were frantically pounding on the bluish, translucent barrier with their hands.

Principal Kim Chan-seok and a few other staff members who were determined to cover up this incident cried out desperately in front of those who had escaped unscathed and were now staring inside, not knowing what to do.

“Can’t you feel it? Why they escaped safely and you can’t.”

“Aaagh!”

Behind them, Ren appeared, coming down the stairs with the sound of clicking heels. Kim Chan-seok, who had screamed, fell to the floor with a thud, but he didn’t have time to feel the pain.

“Who are you? Who are you to commit such a terrible act!”

“I don’t know if you’re asking because you don’t know, or if you know but refuse to acknowledge it. Of course, that’s not important.”

He cried out desperately, but she showed no change in expression. Her machine-like demeanor, different from Takilas’s madness, was enough to instill a different kind of fear.

“Aaaaargh!”

Kim Chan-seok and others, entangled in chains, were dragged along, screaming as their nails broke while scratching the floor, but resistance was impossible.

Just as they were being dragged into the magic circle.

“…Who are you?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask you, rookie Magical Girl.”

Her chains were broken. And by an attack imbued with magical power.

“P-please help us!”

Kim Chan-seok, brightening up, desperately called out to that person.

As the hood was removed, the identity revealed was that of an ordinary young man. However, his affiliation was with The One Road, and just moments ago, he had been demonstrating his magical abilities to the students.

*

‘What’s going on?’

Despite his outwardly calm appearance, he was actually in a state of extreme tension right now.

Due to the nature of the organization, he was well-versed in data about Magical Girls. After all, the power they possessed was barely understood after analyzing hundreds of Magical Girls down to the cellular level.

Therefore, the power possessed by Magical Girls was essentially their power.

Structure, operating mechanism, utilization methods, compatibility, effects, and so on.

However, to his eyes, which had undergone rigorous training, Renee, who stood before him now, appeared to be a unique existence compared to other Magical Girls he had seen so far.

This magic, which she used after bone-breaking efforts since childhood with her innate talent, was a fragment of ancient magic that had almost no casters even within the Empire.

“Anyway, I think it’s best to stop. It doesn’t make sense for a Magical Girl to treat the principal like this when he’s not even a dangerous criminal caught in the act…”

“That common sense. It can change at any time. Also, you have no right to interfere with my actions.”

He tried to stop Renée at first, but it was futile. His brow twitched slightly.

“…Indeed, a transformed magical girl lives outside the law and order. Sounds good? On the contrary, it means you can’t receive help from that law and order.”

Now he didn’t hide his hostility.

He ignored the urgent cries of his colleague coming through the communicator in his ear. His competitive spirit was rising. This superhuman power he now possessed. It was clearly an enormous and strong power.

‘Of course, it’s absurd that such immature young girls wield this amazing power as they please.’

He grinned and launched the first attack.

If the opponent was a magical girl, he had no qualms about assaulting or killing her. They didn’t belong to this world anyway. From the moment he got this power, he looked down on and disregarded magical girls.

The attack he attempted was a strike that sent wind infused with magical power in the form of a blade. It surely had the power to cut through thick rebar in one blow.

“Is that all the power you’ve got? Sending wind.”

“…Huh?”

However, the wind blade he shot couldn’t even scratch the barrier Renée had put up in front.

He tried to continue his attacks reflexively in his confused state, but even that failed.

He blankly looked down at his own body. It was after a single magical spear shot by Renée had already pierced his stomach without the slightest hesitation.