Ch.39Chapter 7. Enemies in the Same Boat (8)

The hatch was thick.

While the metal plating used throughout the antenna was quite thin, it was exceptionally thick near what seemed to be something important.

Naturally, my blade didn’t penetrate easily.

“Stab harder! Push it in with more force!”

And most annoyingly, James, who had conveniently perched himself on my shoulder, shouted that.

Does he think I’m some heavy machinery that operates on verbal commands?

He looks like a hamster, and I’ll admit he has some cute qualities. When I touch him, he feels soft and squishy, like rice cake. If he were actually my pet hamster, I might want to pet him every day.

But no matter how cute someone looks, bad manners will only earn them resentment. That’s exactly how I felt right now.

What’s more frustrating is that I can’t think of any other way to break this thing.

“Argh! Why don’t other magical girls have weapons?! If you’re going to transform, do it properly!”

…

Well, if you’re going to complain like that, you haven’t properly researched my transformation either, have you?

Come to think of it, it’s always been like this.

Even when I was a Combatant, they never gave us complete information, claiming it was to prevent leaks of classified material.

Sometimes they didn’t even have information to give us in the first place.

In the end, it’s always the Combatants who have to deal with the consequences.

Plus, there were many times when executives would unnecessarily come to the field and try to take command, forcing us to directly confront the attacking magical girls.

There were also frequent occasions when they’d pick fights not because they could win, but literally just for the sake of fighting.

“…”

Now that I think about it, it’s infuriating.

Do they even realize who’s really doing all the hard work here, while they’re busy running their mouths?

As that thought crossed my mind, my blade turned even darker.

It even extended further forward.

“Yes! That’s it, that’s it!”

I’m not happy to receive praise from you. It’s been that way since we worked at the company.

If I had to put it plainly, we’re only working together out of necessity. Neither of us has the slightest intention of truly trusting the other.

I grabbed my right blade with my left hand.

“—What are you—”

And before James could finish speaking, I snapped the blade off with my hand.

“…”

Why not?

After all, it’s a force generated from energy produced by my body.

And seeing how it can cut things, it clearly follows some physical laws.

Magic is so conveniently arbitrary. How wonderful that its use can completely change depending on how the user thinks about it.

I gripped the blade firmly with both hands, and—

BANG!

—I brought it down with all my might.

Is this how primitive humans felt when using hand axes in the Stone Age?

With the pointed end of the blade facing downward, I repeatedly struck the hatch’s lock with all my strength.

CLANG! CLANG!

After several brutish, terrible sounds,

PING!

With a somewhat anticlimactic sound, the blade sank into the lock. Then came a metallic pinging noise.

Rather than completely destroying the hatch, it seems that after taking multiple impacts, some important component inside had broken.

I pulled the blade out and carelessly tossed it aside, watching as its color gradually faded. Energy separated from my body seems to disappear slowly.

Without drawing another blade from my right arm, I reached into the hole in the hatch and opened it.

Like something out of a movie, an incredibly thick metal door opened, revealing a space just large enough to fit a fist inside.

“Ooh!”

James, who had kept his mouth shut while I was venting my frustration on the hatch, cheered when he saw what was inside.

“Is this it?”

“Yes, it is!”

“Can I touch it with my bare hands?”

“The energy circulating in the device is magical energy, so it won’t harm your body. Especially not yours.”

I cautiously reached out my hand.

Surprisingly, there was no electric shock or heat. It didn’t even feel like something complex was operating.

A somewhat intricate object—too mechanical-looking to be decorative, yet too quiet to be a machine.

But once I took it out and examined it, I immediately recognized what it was.

“…A generator?”

“How did you know that?”

When I muttered this, James immediately asked with an extremely suspicious look.

“…Because I’ve seen generators before.”

I quickly covered up my slip.

Yes, I have seen one before. It looked a bit different and was much larger, but still.

Actually, what I saw wasn’t exactly spherical. It had so many wires connected to it from top to bottom that it would have looked like a pillar if you didn’t look closely.

But such personal judgments don’t matter. James won’t know unless he becomes me anyway.

At least the fact that it was captured on the helmet footage is true.

Yes, I had seen this before during a raid on a Galactic Federation facility.

If Blossom hadn’t been there, it might have been my first successful mission.

Though I suppose it would have been strange if there weren’t magical girls at such a place, making this assumption meaningless from the start.

“You have a good eye. That’s right. Generators generally share basic principles, so they look similar. But this one is much more advanced—far beyond what the Federation possesses. Their energy is much larger and harder to control this way.”

The energy output of individual magical girls is much less efficient than what the company’s Combatants can produce. But that’s precisely where the problem lies.

The more delicate electronic devices become, the greater the risk of damage when overloaded. Of course, if the device is important, various safety measures would be implemented, but in the case of magical girls, even with those precautions, the output is so large that the generators had to be bigger.

But our side is different. Both the minimum and maximum outputs are extremely small, so we’ve had time to gradually build up our circuit research starting with minimal energy. Plus, we’ve been utilizing energy for quite some time.

“This is a brilliant achievement of company technology. While our circuit technology may not quite match the Federation’s level, our generator technology is at least half a step, or perhaps several steps ahead.”

That’s a pretty vague way to describe being “ahead.”

“So as long as we don’t hand this over to them, we can maintain that gap. And while we’re at it, let’s use it abundantly ourselves! How about making weapons with this?”

Don’t start talking like a mad scientist after just complaining about my lack of weapons.

Or wait, maybe that’s exactly why he’s talking like this? He is a mad scientist after all.

Anyway, this will be quite important for us. If I take it, both the company and the Federation will be frantically chasing after me, but they’re already doing that anyway.

Just as I grabbed it and stood up—

“Look over there!”

Someone shouted from below.

They weren’t talking to me.

When I looked up, I could see exactly what they were pointing at.

Actually, I couldn’t help but see it. There was a loud noise, like something exploding, followed by gunfire. It was coming from an upper floor, far from the Combatants who had been chasing me, indicating that magical girls had finally entered the building.

And from there, I saw someone falling.

Before I could even worry, Blossom leaped toward that person in a split second. She grabbed the person’s arms with both hands, using all her strength.

The fall stopped. But it was far from a safe situation.

For some reason, Blossom couldn’t fly upward with her usual strength.

Instead, she continued to descend.

That would have been fine. At least the person wouldn’t hit the ground head-first with their full weight.

We should escape before the magical girls get here.

I don’t know how to escape. I never considered how to go back the way we came. To escape, I’d either have to break through upward or create another black hole.

I made eye contact with Hayun.

It was probably coincidental. Hayun had looked up as if surveying her surroundings, and I happened to be in her line of sight. Well, the only thing worth looking at up here was this massive antenna. I must have been very conspicuous in the middle of it.

And then, the two of them fell.

“Huh?”

I let out an involuntary sound.

The next thing I knew, my body was moving on its own.

“Squeak!? Wait!?”

By the time James cried out in shock beside me, I had already jumped off the antenna.

“Ah.”

I just realized I can’t fly.

But strangely, I didn’t feel the floating sensation characteristic of falling. There was no chill running up my spine.

Instead, my vision was directed upward.

Am I flying? No, that wasn’t it.

Instead—

CRASH!

I heard that sound from behind me. People were shouting too. “Get out of the way!” That’s probably what they were saying.

I didn’t have time to look back, but I think I heard something collapsing.

KEEENG—

That sound came from my hand.

“T-the generator…!?”

I could hear James crying out in shock.

But my gaze remained fixed on the sky.

Even as she fell, Hayun didn’t let go of that man’s hand. She was grimacing as if trying to rise back into the air. Her face was pale.

Yes, she wouldn’t have dropped him intentionally. There must have been a reason.

But as soon as Hayun saw me, fear washed over her again.

The current situation was confusing the magical girls.

They probably came here for the generator I’m holding. James must have already leaked that information.

So I thought we might end up fighting when we met.

I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to hurt Hayun.

That’s not what I want.

…No. Probably not.

I tried to suppress the emotions creeping up from the depths of my mind.

You wanted to win, didn’t you?

You’ve felt that way ever since you found out Hayun was the protagonist. You were so jealous you couldn’t sleep at night when you saw that you couldn’t catch up to her even though you had a whole year’s head start.

While thinking she “had everything.”

I couldn’t deny it.

But at the same time, it was also true that I didn’t want to hurt her.

These two contradictory emotions were clashing violently within me.

I stretched my hand forward.

Hayun looked at me with her still pale face.

It was a face filled with fear.

Because she was falling? Because this situation was hard to accept?

Or because she was afraid of me?

I’m not sure. There’s no time to talk. Despite knowing each other for so long, I still don’t understand.

Neither her feelings nor my thoughts.

I felt a slight thrill in this situation.

For this moment at least, I was above Hayun. The one who always got beaten up was now rushing to save Hayun.

But that thought vanished without a trace shortly after.

…How?

I don’t even know how to do this.

“…Ah.”

That’s right.

I jumped up with all my might, but I didn’t think about how to land. And I was already at a high place to begin with.

Now I finally understood the situation.

Since I had jumped with all my strength toward a place much higher than where I was, I was essentially falling from a much higher place than if I had just fallen normally.

The floating sensation I hadn’t felt until now—like riding a downward-plunging amusement park ride—enveloped my body.

Goosebumps rose all over my skin. I flailed my limbs.

But unfortunately, I couldn’t float in the air like when I was transformed.

Beside me, the mouse was squeaking frantically. Perhaps he was letting out cries that even the translator couldn’t interpret.

Hayun and that unnamed Combatant were in the same situation.

From below came continued screams and shouts.

“Squeak!?”

I grabbed James.

And threw him upward.

James let out an inarticulate cry as he shot straight up.

Next, I reached out my hand and grabbed Hayun’s hand.

I pulled her toward me. Fortunately, the circuit was working normally, so my strength was functioning. I could pull both of them at once.

“Jieun…!”

When Hayun called my name, the sound of the circuit spinning grew louder.

With my remaining left arm, I hugged the generator to my chest.

Then I concentrated my power, trying to direct the energy toward my back if possible. Though I wasn’t quite sure how to do that.

How much time do we have left? I’m not sure.

I listened as carefully as I could. Through Hayun’s voice calling my name, I could hear people talking.

I tried to recall my memories. From what height could a Combatant survive a fall?

“…”

About 5 meters should be fine. The suit looks intact.

Relying on my instincts, I waited until we were as close to the ground as possible, then kicked both of them upward at once.

“Jieun!?”

Hayun called my name but rose upward. The circuit wasn’t working properly, and when I let go of her hand, she couldn’t hold on.

The two of them floated upward.

Due to their falling momentum, they didn’t rise very high. That’s good. At least I could stop their fall.

And I—

THUD.

I exhaled at the impact that nearly knocked me unconscious.

But it was bearable. My body wasn’t shattered. The magic had protected me.

Besides, there was no time to rest.

I got up, and without even properly regaining my balance, I jumped back into the sky.

I heard Hayun and the Combatant hit the ground, but from their groans, I could tell they weren’t dead. Even if they were injured, the magical girls would treat them at their infirmary. The same went for the Combatant.

Glancing down briefly, I saw people gathering around them.

“Squeak!”

I turned toward James, who was still falling. It was good that I had thrown him straight up. Fortunately, I could time it right.

“I’m—I’m going to die…!”

James was covering his eyes with both hands, shouting like that.

He didn’t seem to notice that I had caught him.

BANG!

Once again, I landed on the ground. This time, instead of my back, I managed to land on both feet.

“…Haah.”

After barely enduring the pain, I let out a long breath.

…We survived. All of us.

“What, what were you doing!? Why did you do that!? Were you trying to get yourself killed!?”

Belatedly realizing I had saved him, James’s first words weren’t of gratitude.

Well, I was in the wrong this time. Throwing him up into the sky was a bit much. It was something I did without thinking properly, but I almost failed to catch him. James nearly ended up like a mouse flattened by a car.

Only after catching my breath could I properly assess the situation.

…The antenna was tilting to one side.

It hadn’t completely collapsed yet. But it looked like it would soon.

The building wouldn’t collapse if the antenna fell. They must have calculated for that. That’s probably why the outer part of the antenna was strangely soft.

But even if the sideways-falling antenna hit the wall and bent or crumpled, no person caught between them could survive being crushed by an antenna.

I looked around.

The magical girls were hurriedly coming down from above. They were shouting something as they descended toward where the Combatants were gathered.

The people below were fleeing in panic.

Sparks were flying from the floor.

It was happening because water had been poured over the wires I had cut. Idiots. They were so focused on one thing that they didn’t think about anything else.

Wearing a combat suit would probably prevent death, but—you never know.

KEENG—

The generator still clutched to my chest was spinning vigorously.

…And it seemed to be giving me its power. Just my jumping had been enough to bend the antenna.

Alright. I’ll give them a warning.

I drew my blade.

I roughly cut a piece of nearby concrete, creating a fairly large chunk that I dragged with one hand.

Jumping up with all my might, I forcefully slammed it into one of the sparking puddles.

THUD!

With a loud noise, one of the sparks stopped. It was just a huge chunk blocking it, but it worked.

The sound drew everyone’s attention this way.

“…”

By the way, James was still clutching my shoulder tightly, trembling. His fur was still wet, but he wasn’t shivering from the cold.

“Everyone run away!” I shouted.

“That thing’s about to collapse. It’s probably dangerous to stay in here.”

I held up the generator.

“It’s already over. You’ve failed. Don’t risk your lives for something that’s already failed. Just go.”

The magical girls supporting Hayun turned their eyes toward me.

…Ugh.

While Hayun didn’t particularly frighten me, I felt a slight fear the moment I saw the others. I had fought them several times before and even felt a strange defiance, but—

Well, I might be able to endure a fight somehow, but losing this would make everything meaningless.

The Combatants began to back away, then started running. They didn’t even think about shooting at me. Good thinking. The best strategy was to escape before the antenna collapsed.

Rose turned toward me.

My heart raced when I saw that.

James squeaked and gripped my shoulder tightly.

The generator spun vigorously again—

And behind me, I felt the wind blowing again.

A wind pulling me in.

Ah, so this is the sensation.

Feeling that same sensation of being sucked in as before, I thought again.

When I desperately want to escape.

When I’m terribly afraid of something.

This power seems to activate at those times.

…Ha.

The exact opposite of magical girls’ power.

The last thing I saw was Hayun, watching me with a pale face.