episode_0096

The Magical Girl Cartel is a healthy and good-natured group, contrary to its name, which sounds like a social cancer. What they do is manage cracks that help society, and they also manage public security on their own, so although it is illegal, it can be said to be a necessary evil.

Yumina introduced and entered the main base. I didn’t know how to react to the confident rationalization that a mafia group would make, so I just ignored it. It felt strange to see a child who had been depressed about how to treat the drug addiction of some people not long ago lie with a straight face. Well, it looks like the stage where drugs are distributed through internal transactions has been resolved. Or maybe he just got better at lying.

“You can leave your school bag here.”

Yumina, like a boss, showed me to the inner office as if she was using a separate office. It felt like the office of the president of some company, probably because money was spent on the interior design. The boss’s room was clumsily put on paper in front of the door! It really would have been like that if it hadn’t been labeled as such.

“There is an office, and the taste of power is good, right?”

I whispered softly and Yumina laughed.

“This is for receiving guests, and work is done elsewhere.”

Why do you need to do that? What a waste of space.

Yumina said that, but as if she had affection for her office, she was happy when a white-haired man sat on a chair and spun around and said that it was cool. Originally, it was like that, step by step.

“I paid a lot of attention to this place because it has a lot of influence on the public image.”

It is said that one wall was filled with bookshelves to emphasize the intellectual atmosphere. The biggest problem was what book to fill it with. When I took a quick look around, it seemed like Yumina had put a lot of things she liked out of the things she usually read. Just by looking at it, I can see that you are living your life thinking like this. There were many subversive books that I wanted to read.

Originally, this type of wall interior is a mix of famous classic literature, unread professional books, and unique bestsellers. A common method is to create the image of a cultured person through classical literature, show the authority of an expert through professional books, and reveal consensus and individuality through bestsellers. If you put books that really suit your tastes, people who don’t read books will just think that there are a lot of books and move on. There’s nothing to talk about.

Looking at the bookshelf, you can feel the inner feeling that this is a level of culture. Yumina always calls this person “young lady,” but I think it would be a good idea to do some self-reflection first before doing so.

No matter the result, it was hard to fill one wall with your own taste, so it was evident that a lot of care was put into it. With all this care, the boss room is right in front of the door! Why did you put that on it? I was a little surprised, but I didn’t need to ask.

“Cool! Smart! But why did you put the paper on the door? It doesn’t match the atmosphere of the room.”

The white head asked openly without notice.

“That was left awkwardly on purpose.”

Yumina just said that and did not add any further explanation. It’s an amazing design philosophy, but I don’t want to emulate it.

“Let’s go now. Our young lady came today to copy useful magic from magical girls, so she can’t just stay here.”

I passed the partition where magical girls worked on documents and headed to another department.

“Ah, boss! Look at this!”

From the other side of the hallway, a middle school girl hurriedly ran in with a piece of paper. I thought it was an urgent matter, but it doesn’t seem to be, and it seems like they just rushed in.

“I finished the report!”

“That’s great. Let’s take a look.”

I took a quick look and found that it was a performance report for a project. It seems like it was a project to improve security in a small area. They do all kinds of things.

“You wrote it well. It’s really great. Normally, it’s hard to complete it when you first write it. There are some parts that are lacking, but everyone misses that and you did a really good job.”

It’s not particularly great.

It seemed like he wanted to shower praise first.

“But it seems like the paper size is larger than the standard size. Why is that?”

The main point has come out.

“When I wrote it all down, it turned out to be two sheets. So I changed it to a larger size so I could print it as one sheet so it would be easier to read at a glance!”

It’s an amazing idea.

“It’s nice to be able to see it as you intended at a glance. It’s your first time, so you may have been in a rush to fill in the content, but you have a wide perspective by considering the audience. You’re talented. If you continue to gain experience and improve the level of completion, you will come out with excellent results.”

This is another amazing compliment.

“For example, using large-sized paper is a great choice considering the people who will write and read the report, but it is a choice that does not take into account how the documents will be stored and managed afterwards. A broader perspective depends on experience. “Everyone is bound to miss it at first.”

“Ah, that’s right. Reading isn’t the end. I’ll write it down again!”

When the other person left, Yumina breathed a sigh of relief.

“I just handled it well, right?”

“It seems like I overreacted rather than handled it well. Why don’t you appoint a gunner in charge here?”

“They assign a senior person, but the system is less organized, so people often come to me when they see me first.”

Then you can just hand it over to the person in charge, and you’re going through a hard time.

When I arrived at another department, a magical girl was leisurely drinking coffee with a lollipop in her mouth.

“He’s our action leader and he really likes magic.”

“Oh, boss. That’s the magic I did.”

The action leader pointed to a magical girl carrying a stack of documents and made a sound effect. With the magic circle, the girl stumbled with an awkward gait. The documents fell to the floor. Wow? The action leader burst out laughing when he saw the devastated girl.

“Go right away and apologize and help me.”

“yep.”

Yumina touched her forehead.

“What is the principle?”

“It’s adhesive. You probably just glued one shoe to the floor. It’s huge, right?”

That’s really amazing magic.

Yumina looked at me as if I was wondering how she was, so I smiled patronizingly.

“The reaction is not good. Is it bad?”

“I see.”

“Where are you going? It’s really good magic.”

That’s right.

Yumina didn’t seem to like the lukewarm response. It’s not even his magic, but seeing him do this makes me think he has feelings for the members.

“If you attach both hands, you can prevent them from loading. If you attach a shell that escapes from the gun, you can disable the firearm. If you go too far, you can fix the steering wheel of a pursuing car and cause a car accident. To use it safely, put your coat on the opponent. “It’s possible to easily subdue it by throwing it.”

I think the idea is a bit biased.

The response was still lukewarm and Yumina’s expression turned sullen. He seems to have a lot of affection for his subordinates.

Well, it’s not a good idea to say this directly.

“It’s really practical and nice.”

When I actually tried to say it out loud, I felt a little embarrassed.

“…I don’t have the form when writing.”

It’s a really good magic, but it doesn’t make you a wizard who uses bad magic like adhesive magic. There has to be romance in magic, that’s what it is. This Archmage is an expert in adhesive magic. Just imagining such an introduction would tarnish the wizard’s reputation.

“…Does our lady care about that?”

It was a look in his eyes that saw something was wrong.

“No, this is important in its own way.”

I feel like my pride is being touched and I want to explain, but there is no good way. If I can’t convince you, I’m going to go to bed feeling embarrassed, but what can I do?

When I turned my attention, avoiding Yumina’s gaze, I saw two magical girls fumbling around with documents on the floor. What are you still doing? Shedding paperwork is bad for your mental health, but objectively it’s not a big deal. This is because pouring it does not mean that it will mix too much, so all you have to do is return it to the form in which it was poured. If it was a document to be delivered to a boss, it would be difficult because it would look bad.

Looking closely, it seems that the action leader who was trying to help me gathered the documents in a jumbled manner and gave them to me. The magical girl who had piled up the documents was reorganizing them, pulling out the documents one by one.

I had a good idea.

He raised one hand and snapped his fingers as if to ask Yumina to look. In fact, it was a meaningless movement, but anyway, the magic was activated according to the beat. The stack of documents that the magical girl was organizing broke into pieces and floated in the air.

It’s a bit of a headache, but… … . I concentrated my mind and felt the difference in magical power density between the white paper and the ink-stained area. It was useless to read the entire content, so I categorized it by just scanning the page numbers and titles. The documents floated in the air and moved simultaneously before being organized into one.

I looked back at Yumina, gesturing to the stack of documents with a slightly smug feeling.

“Wow, our lady is amazing.”

Yumina, who was impressed, asked as if something suddenly occurred to her.

“But what is the effect of snapping your fingers? Some kids say that too, but when I ask them, they don’t give me an answer.”

I looked at him wondering if it was a joke, but his eyes turned out to be sincere.

Along with my panic, various excuses came to mind. From flimsy excuses such as that snapping your fingers disturbs magical power and creates an environment that makes it easier to use magic, to more plausible excuses like that snapping your fingers acts as a psychological trigger and makes it easier to use magic.

Psychological?

Yeah, psychological.

It’s not a psychological reason.

… … I became embarrassed.

“That’s right, I guess I ate it all.”

After talking about it, I feel a little better. People can do that. The problem these days is the lack of romance in life. As an individual fighting against modern cynicism, I could live a shameful life according to the principle of free personality. no problem.

He didn’t answer why he snapped his fingers, but Yumina didn’t question him. He looked at me curiously, as if he was just asking me a casual question, and then left the department, saying he would show me other magic.

In the corner of the hallway, a gray-haired man was fiddling with Schrödinger’s white paw and talking.

“You look so cute!”

-That is a natural fact.

What are they doing?

-You are cute too.

“really?”

―I admit it, so it’s true that it’s cute.

“Wow! I’m cute!”

The gray hair was jumping up and down as if it was happy with Schrödinger’s lip service. There is synergy in a bad way.

* * *

When I collected only the best magical girl magic, it was really practical and good, but I wasn’t satisfied. It’s so lamely practical.

“It can walk on walls regardless of gravity. It can maneuver in three dimensions in urban combat and is very useful in infiltration operations.”

“It’s really practical. But now that I think about it, doesn’t it mean that I can use adhesive magic as well? Is there any distinct advantage?”

They say there is none.

It’s the magic of backward compatibility.

The magical girl became sullen. I guess I was also feeling a sense of entitlement. Oh my.

“What I wanted was something unique, amazing, practical, cool, and somehow perfect magic. For example, space-time magic.”

“That’s just the great thing about Laplace.”

I’m sorry. It’s even more unfortunate that that amazing magical girl doesn’t work and just sits around at home wasting food.

―There are many things you wish for as a customer.

“that’s right!”

Why have they already become friends? Is there a consensus that normal people cannot reach? I guess the reason I wasn’t satisfied with the magic was because of one cat and one high school girl.

Still, it is a small achievement to increase the variations of elemental magic by looking at elemental magic. Until now, I’ve never felt that the magic’s power was lacking, so I didn’t have much appreciation for it.

A loudspeaker sound could be heard from outside the building. I did something, but the police introduced themselves and said that if I turned myself in, they would go through legal procedures and send me back home safely.

“Don’t worry, it’s a regular event. It just so happens to be a good thing. Do you want to take a look?”

“I miss you!”

“Okay, well, let’s meet from the upstairs window. They’ll be protesting at the front door, so you’ll be able to see it from there.”

A police officer comes proudly through the front door and speaks openly through a loudspeaker.

Several police cars and about 15 police officers had arrived and were setting up barricades. There are more people than expected? Is this a serious situation? Is this a situation where you need to quickly go home and sleep?

When I took a quick look at Yumina, I saw that she was watching the police closely through binoculars to see when she had been taken out. It was a subtle expression that was neither serious nor completely comfortable.

The magical girl who was the action leader approached me next to me.

“Boss, there are no dangers other than the visible personnel.”

“Have you scouted the secondary range?”

“Because there were guests, we were watching closely from the beginning, and although we haven’t been able to check the entire secondary range yet, we have checked all the major streets. Even if a small number of people sneak in, it’s impossible to do so on a large scale.”

“It’s not even a two-pronged tactic? Then why did you come?”

Umm… … .

Although it’s okay to interrupt a serious conversation.

I quietly clung to Yumina and asked.

“Is this dangerous?”

“It’s probably more of an uncomfortable situation than a dangerous one.”

“The police are gathered around with rifles in hand?”

“That’s strange. If they were really going to do it, special forces should have made a surprise attack or installed machine guns. But it’s not like a few people just came with pistols like usual.”

“Shall we sweep it away?”

“That’s absolutely not possible. Control the kids, continue scouting, and wait for now.”

Meanwhile, the police were still talking through loudspeakers. You have a child of a similar age, and you think of him or her when you come here. whatever.

Is it strange over there, is it strange here? As I was in confusion, the security team leader approached me.

“There is a possibility that an unexpected situation may occur.”

“For now, let’s watch. What do you think is happening?”

The security team leader thought for a moment, then leaned down and whispered. My mouth dropped open at the absurd answer.

“Boss, reporters are approaching.”

“It’s good news, except I don’t know the situation.”

Soon it became clear what the situation was. Reporters flocked to take pictures of the police officers with the Magical Girl Cartel’s headquarters in the background, and then a middle-aged man came out of a police car that was parked far away. It was absurd to see him smiling and shaking hands with reporters while wearing a gold badge on his suit.

The member of the National Assembly took a seat in a good place for taking pictures, gave a speech saying that he would be a member of the National Assembly who pragmatically uses hard-line and appeasement measures, and quickly left with reporters.

“Well, since the general election is coming soon… that’s really good news. Although I feel bad, it’s going as planned.”

Yumina muttered.

The action leader, who had been reporting nervously the entire time, chewed on a lollipop, threw the stick out the window, took a cigarette out of his pocket, and put it in his mouth.

One of the police officers who was withdrawing looked up and cleared his throat. It’s hard over there too.