Light and Darkness (2)

Light and Darkness (2)

“This, this is…”

Arrogance, carelessness, and delusion.

The magical spear, shining like ice or crystal, shattered itself and pushed its fragments deep into his pierced organs and flesh. Only in the moment his breath was cut off did he realize his mistake.

Renée’s eyes, looking down at him as he fell, never hesitated or wavered for a single moment. She had experienced death enough times through fierce court intrigues and her path of training.

Its inner self is different from that of an ordinary high school student on Earth.

“Ah…”

At the moment when the cold corpse fell to the floor, bleeding profusely, no one dared to open their mouths. In fact, the magical girls of Code Red were few and far between in this era. To begin with, there was no one in this place who was accustomed to death.

“Why are you all so shocked? It’s the truth of the world that if you try to kill others, you should be prepared to die yourself.”

“Ahhh!”

Renée broke through the thin ice and shoved those who hadn’t been put away yet into the subspace. As soon as Principal Kim Chan-seok and others who were screaming with pale faces completely disappeared, she turned around.

She was planning to go to the rooftop. Those captured there would be judged.

“Wait a moment.”

“…Who are you?”

“Just an insignificant researcher. Also a colleague of the person you just killed. I just want to ask one thing, what exactly are you trying to do?”

It was him who stopped her steps at the last moment. Wearing a white coat, the researcher from The One Road opened his mouth with a slightly nervous face.

“What a magical girl does.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. Magical girls…”

“Don’t you be mistaken. Compromising with reality, conforming to society, and succumbing to evil are things that magical girls should never do.”

“…”

He closed his mouth in confusion at Renée’s rebuke. On the contrary, Renée had no hesitation or doubt in her ideology.

Magical girls are transcendent beings. She firmly believed that using that power to compromise with reality’s limitations, rather than changing them, would make it lose its meaning.

‘…So come quickly, Aria. I want to hear your thoughts.’

Renée, who had climbed to the rooftop alone, looked up at the clear sky.

Police, Management Bureau, and broadcasting vehicles had already urgently arrived at the playground, but the being Renée was waiting for now had not yet appeared.

“Ri-right now, something is happening on the rooftop. What the new magical girl, whose activity name has not yet been revealed, is trying to do…”

The reporter dispatched urgently was broadcasting the scene to the camera with a slightly trembling voice.

The police and Management Bureau personnel, whose vigilance had been heightened to the extreme due to Takilas’s appearance and rampage, also raised their tension and watched Renée’s actions.

“We must stop her. She’s definitely going to kill them.”

Oh Yun-seo, the director of the Management Bureau, was no exception.

With a pale face, she bit her lip while looking at the rooftop. Renée began to take out the captives from the subspace one by one, and then tightly bound them with chains of magical power, precariously hanging them on the railing while they cried and screamed.

“Damn it! Why are there more and more crazy women like this these days!”

“She’s putting on quite a show. What on earth is she doing?”

The reactions of those around showed how Renée’s actions appeared to others.

Both high-ranking police officers and other team leaders who came with Oh Yun-seo cursed Renée, all looking disgusted. Some of them even clicked their tongues, saying she should just kill them cleanly like Takilas did, asking if she was a psychopath.

‘A show. That’s right. She’s putting on a show right now. A show for everyone to see. What’s her intention?’

However, Oh Yun-seo, who had been studying magical girls regularly, roughly guessed part of Renée’s intention. As she expected, Renée was waiting for more people to gather.

“Henna. I’m sorry, but please stop her. She’s definitely going to kill those people. We’ll have to talk to her afterwards.”

Oh Yun-seo frowned and turned to speak to the magical girl beside her who was holding a large spear.

Aside from everything else, she was thinking of saving the people first.

“…No. I’m sorry, but I can’t intervene.”

“What?”

“I’m a bit surprised too… Anyway, she’s apparently from the same company as Takilas. Moreover, it seems she’s not unfamiliar with Takilas either. I don’t want to face retaliation.”

However, the magical girl Henna shook her head with a bitter smile. It was because her mascot had firmly dissuaded her.

“Takilas…!”

Oh Yun-seo flinched when she heard the name Takilas.

Once that name was mentioned, it became impossible to even make a request. A living disaster that defies common sense and cannot be stopped by any means.

That level of gravity.

‘Eun-seo.’

After Hena left, Oh Yun-seo clutched her phone. The number of Magical Girl Aria, Han Eun-seo, who wasn’t answering no matter how many times she called, kept appearing on the screen.

“You look worried. Afraid that young magical girl might kill them.”

“Ugh, you’re stating the obvious.”

Oh Yun-seo wasn’t the only one agonizing. The head of the Management Bureau’s intelligence team, who was essentially in charge of the scene, frowned at those who approached discreetly amidst the chaos.

“It’s already Code Red. What are you hesitating for?”

“Don’t speak so lightly. We haven’t properly measured the target’s level, and we still haven’t heard their exact purpose.”

Those who approached him were people from The One Road, and he instinctively regarded them with caution. As a senior official of the Management Bureau, he knew well what kind of group The One Road was.

“But if we continue like this, won’t we end up with another terrible troublemaker?”

“You speak as if there’s some solution.”

“I might answer that there could be.”

The researcher from The One Road glanced back and smirked. The intelligence team leader looked in that direction with a sour expression and saw several people who seemed to have finished their combat preparations, checking their equipment and standing by.

“You may know this, but one of our team members was killed by that girl… I mean, magical girl. If we have the approval of the Korean government, we can step in and try to subdue her. We’re familiar with fighting magical girls.”

The intention was blatant. For a moment, the intelligence team leader’s eyes wavered. Though he couldn’t trust them, they were undoubtedly a usable force right now.

“…No. Please wait a little longer.”

However, he ultimately rejected their proposal.

“After all, that child is still a citizen of this country.”

“Hmm, you’ll regret not making a decision…”

The researcher with a hardened face spoke mockingly, but at that moment, he wasn’t looking at the researcher’s face.

Everyone around turned their heads towards that direction.

“Aria.”

There she was. Perhaps the only magical girl in this land who didn’t fear the name Takilas.

*

“As expected, you came.”

“…Were you waiting for me?”

Kicking off the air and landing with her heel blazing with intense magical power, Aria shattered the barrier Rene had put up and landed on the rooftop in one breath.

Rene himself was faintly smiling, while Aria’s eyes kept wavering.

“I wanted to hear your thoughts. Well, even after seeing these results, is your conviction still firm? That we must settle for reality?”

“Ugh…”

Aria flinched at Rene’s question.

In fact, Aria herself was the one most shocked after hearing the results. She desperately hoped that the beliefs and justice she had tried to protect were right.

However, that faith was betrayed by those who tried to cover up the incident and those who knew no remorse.

“There, there have always been unjust victims. Because nothing in this world is perfect. But we’ve been continuously developing, correcting errors, and getting better. We’re helping with that…”

“…What do you think a magical girl is, exactly?”

Rene smiled bitterly as he watched Aria rambling helplessly. At the same time, Aria’s words came to an abrupt halt.

“The will of the magical girls that I’ve seen, heard, and inherited from Yggdrasil is not so weak. The pure and powerful passion and hope of girls who change the world and twist reality. I judged that to be our reason for existence.”

Why do magical girls exist? This obvious fact that even the fairies and mascots tainted by the secular world had long forgotten.

Ironically, it was a magician from a foreign land who saw through this fact in an instant.

“It didn’t have to be magical girls. Whether magical girls, knights, or a group of heroes, what was needed in the end was a new system and power for innovation. For me, magical girls had to become such beings.”

Rene’s eyes sparkled as she looked at something bigger and farther away. For her, magical girls were already an opportunity to bring about change in her homeland in the future.

“So tell me what you think. Why should we compromise with the existing reality? I’m asking if there’s any reason not to enlighten the weak and ignorant with this power.”

Her calm words struck Aria’s heart. Aria’s lips trembled slightly, and she couldn’t easily open her mouth.