Light and Darkness (6)

Light and Darkness (6)

“Lana has been detained?”

“Not detained, but a tax audit and seizure… Anyway, you can consider it similar. She’s been firmly marked by the high-ranking officials of the council.”

“So?”

Ren muttered seriously, but I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous it was for him to pretend to know something by talking about tax audits and such. Seeing how Rene moves freely without any interference, it seems they don’t even have the power to stop her directly.

“It can’t be helped. Fairies can’t harm other fairies… No, anyway, that’s not what’s important right now!”

“Then what is important?”

“The council will impose sanctions. However, I know well that raiding our company would be meaningless. The president has been running the company transparently and cleanly all this time. If there’s an entity that wouldn’t raise dust even if shaken, it’s our president.”

“What? So there’s no problem.”

“No. Direct sanctions will come. Right at us!”

Ren pounded his chest as if frustrated. But I found it hard to sympathize with his anxiety. Direct sanctions, how on earth would they do that.

“I know what kind of being you are. But after all, the life you want to enjoy here is as a magical girl, not a demon lord, right? It won’t be easy to just ignore. In other words, you can’t respond by simply beating everything up. Besides, don’t you have more things to protect now?”

“If there’s no particular problem with Rena’s safety, then I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Does that mean I don’t need to worry about it right now?”

Although I felt annoyed, it was enough to know that they were going to try something. Also, I got confirmation that they couldn’t find out about my identity unless Lana spilled the beans.

I wanted to lead the demon realm’s army and crush those arrogant fairies, but I didn’t want to lose my current form by becoming hostile to Yggdrasil, my trading partner. So the only answer left was to wait and see what kind of tricks they were trying to pull.

By doing so, if we can grab a justification to present to Yggdrasil first, we can respond accordingly.

“As if I’m not busy enough already.”

I returned to the classroom with Ren perched on my head. Even though it was exam period, the classroom atmosphere during break time was as noisy as ever.

“…You’re going to teach me how to study? You?”

“The exams are right around the corner, and it seems like you’re not studying at all.”

As I was about to return to my seat, Park Tae-jun approached me and suddenly opened his mouth with an unexpected remark. It was so unexpected that I was slightly taken aback.

“Why are you so concerned? Did you say the same thing to Kim Su-han?”

“W-why are you suddenly bringing up that kid here?”

It was a question of pure curiosity, but he seemed to misunderstand and got upset. Well, I didn’t want to talk anymore about the poor girl who became a victim of Mammoth and eventually dropped out of school, unable to overcome the aftereffects, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Good grades have quite a few benefits, you say? These days, teachers don’t look at you favorably… but that can offset everything. For adults, no matter what you do, being good at studying is the best.”

“You’re not wrong.”

I snorted. Even though he’s been quiet and withdrawn since the Mammoth incident, this guy was originally like this. It’s unexpected that he’s bringing up this kind of talk suddenly.

“No. I think you have some other ulterior motive.”

[What nonsense are you talking about]

Ren, on the other hand, was possessed by Gung-ye and just spouted nonsense. Ignoring his gibberish, I thought for a moment and decided to just go along with it.

Anyway, Kim Su-jung was hanging out with her own friends, and thanks to that, I had no one to hang out with inside the school. I thought it would be better to have even a punching bag next to me rather than spacing out alone. Park Tae-jun, upon hearing my decision, brightened up and then started to clear his throat.

“You’re smart, so you’ll learn quickly. First, at lunch…”

“Wait a minute. What’s this?”

But our interaction didn’t last long. A sudden intense pulsation hit the scene. It was such a powerful energy wave that not only I but even the ordinary students were startled and looked around.

“They say it’s a monster!”

“I-it’s not far from here…!”

Students who took out their phones began to live-stream what was happening at the scene using the technology called the internet.

“No way! A dimensional gate has opened. A portal connected to Nevaros, which is occupied by monsters!”

“…Can it open naturally?”

Soon, Ren, who was communicating with somewhere, provided more accurate information. The opening of a dimensional gate wasn’t really surprising news to me.

What’s really bothering me is that this whole situation might be intentionally orchestrated by someone.

“Wh-where are you going?!”

“Bathroom.”

I ended up fleeing my seat.

“You think the Fairy Council would deliberately do something like this? That’s impossible. No matter how stagnant and old-fashioned they are, there are limits!”

“I hope so.”

As I flew across the sky transformed as a magical girl, Ren listened to my words and angrily tapped my head repeatedly.

Well, it’s just an unfounded speculation for now.

“Rene’s ransom seems to be getting higher and higher.”

Stopping in mid-air, I smirked at the building-sized spatial rift that looked like torn paper.

Right now, that rift was gradually closing, wrapped in massive glowing chains. Among all the magical girls in this world, only two can deal with dimensional gates. One of them is here, and the other one was right there with her blonde hair fluttering. Even Rene herself seemed quite flustered.

“It’s, it’s closing. But we still don’t know. In that brief moment, how many monsters might have escaped and infiltrated this world.”

“Dealing with that is the job of magical girls, isn’t it?”

Indeed, my intuition was detecting gradually increasing killing intent and malice. It was always a mass of evil, but this was malice of a different magnitude.

More poisons unleashed into this already dizzying world. With people everywhere who didn’t hesitate to cultivate malice for their own gain, I couldn’t be certain this wasn’t intentional.

*

“Wow… there are so many magical girls.”

“Is that blonde one her? The magical girl Rene who said she’d judge the villains. She’s cool.”

The classroom that Takillas and Lee Jin-ah suddenly left. The students watched the scene being broadcast live through various channels and chattered.

In fact, for most people, the true justice that Aria and Rene were opposing, pondering, and trying to persuade each other about was completely unknown and irrelevant. They were simply afraid of and excited by the one-dimensional images and symbols of monsters and magical girls.

“Were you successful?”

“That’s true, but it’s only half the story.”

Meanwhile, there was someone who had no interest in the magical girls at the scene. Park Tae-jun, leaning back in his chair and answering a phone call from someone, laughed dejectedly.

“What do you mean by half the story?”

“After hearing the news, she suddenly left. She said she was going to the bathroom, but that’s probably a lie. Isn’t this too obvious?”

“…Still, nothing is certain yet.”

Park Tae-jun smiled bitterly, a smile that didn’t match his age, as he conversed with the manager. Trying to control an existence far beyond him, he found himself being dragged along rather than controlling, even though the other party was hiding their identity.

“More importantly… is your decision still valid?”

“You think I’m still too young and uncertain, right? But it’s not like I’ve grown up normally without seeing or knowing anything.”

Park Tae-jun glanced around as he spoke. The noisy classmates, including Kim Su-jung who was chatting enthusiastically with her friends, were clearly the same age as him.

But just as Rene had firm and clear beliefs through more experiences compared to Aria of the same age, so did Park Tae-jun.

Although he had absorbed and acted on the dark side of his family, after meeting Lee Jin-ah and experiencing the Mammoth incident, he learned to control it.

“My father always said investing in people yields the best results… regardless of whether that’s true or not, I can be certain. She’s someone I need to catch and keep by my side.”

“I understand.”

The manager sighed softly and eventually nodded.

‘He wasn’t the type to be controlled, but rather the one who controls. Is it because the other party is suspected to be a magical girl?’

The manager, putting away the phone that had just disconnected, sighed softly. It’s not like he had only known Park Tae-jun for a day or two; he knew what kind of tendencies he had.

Of course, after experiencing a harsh incident, it was better than before when he used to view people as trophies or tools, but from what the manager had observed, Lee Jin-ah, a female student whose inner thoughts were unfathomable even to the manager himself, seemed to have no thoughts at all compared to the emotions Park Tae-jun harbored.

‘Well, that’s how you grow up, by experiencing rejection and such.’

However, the manager soon shook his head.

Park Tae-jun had told him not to underestimate him, but in the manager’s eyes, he was still just a child. Rather, Lee Jin-ah, who smirked meaningfully every time she saw him, was more unsettling.