Ch.56Chapter 10. What Can Be Done (3)

After cleaning up for about a week, the place became somewhat habitable.

Though that only meant it met the “bare minimum” requirements and was definitely not somewhere to stay long-term.

I tore off all the moldy wallpaper. The old cement or concrete walls underneath seemed to have some mold-like substance too, but much less than what had been on the wallpaper.

Thanks to storing all the remains of the robot James had been using in my subspace, I was able to make use of the lanterns, flashlights, wired earphones, and cheap speakers I’d bought before leaving Pang Pang’s house.

I even made a radio to listen to the news.

There was nothing I could do about the gas situation, so I decided to use the fireplace that came with the house. It would produce smoke, but that couldn’t be helped. I could only try to minimize it as much as possible.

Then again, being this deep in the mountains, who would even notice? James said he’d figure something out anyway.

Good grief, a fireplace. Well, at least it kept the floor warm without needing a boiler. Keeping the house somewhat warm and dry would help control the dampness.

While rationing the remaining spam, I listened to the radio James had made for me.

[We understand the Black Magical Girl is still being tracked, but is there any new information?]

[No, the government still hasn’t located the Black Magical Girl. According to officials, they’re considering the possibility she fled overseas using her independent warp technology.]

Fled overseas, huh.

I had considered that option too.

Rather than hiding in some corner of the Korean peninsula, it might be harder to find someone in the middle of the Amazon rainforest or the vast Siberian tundra.

But that would create its own problems. If the circuit malfunctioned and I couldn’t fix it, or if my emotions became too stable to use the circuit, I’d be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

My ultimate goal is to find a normal life, not to be permanently separated from society. If that’s what I wanted, I would have just confessed to crimes I didn’t commit to the police from the start.

The radio continued discussing how to capture me.

Deciding there was nothing more worth hearing, I turned it off.

I didn’t need to worry about batteries. Everything ran on circuit power.

“I should have grabbed some of those armor parts the kaijin were wearing.”

“We can consider that next time,” James said.

“You think we’ll meet those things again?”

“The possibility is substantial. If they could make that many once, they can make that many again.”

“…”

I fell silent for a moment.

“Those kaijin… did the company create them directly? Do you know anything about that?”

“I don’t know. Noir Corporation is a massive company. It wouldn’t be surprising if the ‘current chairman’ created them using company funds, since he had his own research institute.”

I said nothing.

James didn’t press me for a response either.

In the webtoon, kaijin seemed to occur naturally.

That’s probably not entirely wrong. Most kaijin are likely like that.

But if someone discovered the conditions for kaijin transformation…

If they could artificially induce it…

All those alien kaijin were originally normal people. They might have been unfortunate tourists who experienced something terrible on Earth, or people who came here to work for money.

Once they become kaijin, neutralizing them is unavoidable.

In that process, it’s inevitable that the transformed person gets hurt.

But if there are humans creating these kaijin…

And if the place I worked for was an organization creating kaijin…

Did I choose my workplace too carelessly?

“…I’m going to sleep,” I said, putting the empty can in a plastic bag and tying it tightly.

“That’s a good idea. Staying up late won’t noticeably improve our situation.”

You never know how to say things nicely, do you?

I tossed the plastic bag into a corner of the room and crawled into my one-person tent.

The tent was cramped. It could barely fit another person of my build.

Still, the ceiling of the narrow tent wasn’t as depressing as the room’s ceiling, so it felt a little cozy.

Tomorrow, maybe I’ll plant some seeds in the field.

With that thought, I closed my eyes.

*

I don’t remember setting an alarm.

I finally grabbed the device making that terrifyingly loud noise.

With eyes barely open, I looked at the object.

It was a pager.

I pressed the button to silence it and got up.

My heart was pounding.

Was Hayun calling me? Or had a magical girl summons been issued?

Either way, it wouldn’t be good news for Hayun.

I thought the circuits had been recovered…

I got up from my spot.

“James.”

“I’m aware.”

James was already mounted on his drone.

The open drone was playing radio sounds.

[…do not approach the kaijin, and calmly follow the guidance of nearby officials…]

“Alright. Let’s go. Can we tell the location from the pager?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the pager. A location appeared on the small screen James had created.

It was a place I knew, though I’d only been there once.

The highest frequency of kaijin appearances is in Seoul, with most others appearing in the metropolitan area.

Despite all the talk about tourism, the places where aliens can freely move around in this country are quite limited. The government doesn’t particularly like illegal residents increasing.

Other places where kaijin appear are typically metropolitan cities where many people gather.

Could that also be related to the company?

I closed my eyes.

*

When I opened my eyes again, a scene with a sense of déjà vu unfolded before me.

A massive rampaging kaijin.

And police surrounding it, struggling against just one kaijin.

But the magical girls hadn’t arrived yet.

When I appeared, all eyes turned to me. The police all looked up to see me floating in the air.

A hammer had somehow appeared in my hand.

I extended one arm.

Black matter erupted from the circuit and covered my body.

Now I remained calm even as it covered my vision, mouth, and nose.

It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but apparently I’d already adapted to it.

Perhaps it’s like how elaborate transformation scenes in comics eventually get skipped and replaced with just a flash of light once you’re past the midpoint of the story.

My vision cleared.

Fortunately, the kaijin couldn’t fly, so it didn’t attack me while I was transforming.

“How impressive. If it had thrown something, you would have been hit during that time.”

This guy always has to add something extra.

Well, I suppose if he ever genuinely compliments me, something must be seriously wrong with the world, so it doesn’t matter.

“I just woke up and came here, so I might be a bit confused about the order of things.”

I said that as I descended.

“Urrrgh…?”

The kaijin didn’t attack me immediately upon seeing me.

I looked at the kaijin and thought:

What a bizarre appearance.

Some aliens, like Pang Pang, only differ in skin color, while others resemble animals. Some have bodies composed of what humans would consider inorganic materials.

Those closer to inorganic materials often don’t even look like living beings at first glance, so people rarely find them disgusting. But sometimes, those resembling non-human creatures make you think rudely, “How did they end up looking like that?”

So… its face somewhat resembled a “crab.”

If it had just been a crab head on a human body, I might have just thought it looked funny, but the “body” part of the crab was like a squishy mollusk.

It had the form of a crab, but looked like an alien creature clumsily imitating a crab. It even had awkwardly placed internal organs.

Well, it is an alien life form, but…

I was wondering why it was considered a kaijin when—

Pit.

That sound came from the kaijin’s head. The amorphous part briefly trembled.

I saw “spit” flying toward me. It combined the two images that Koreans typically associate with “spit” into one attack.

I dodged to the side and felt a slight heat near my face.

Thwack!

“Argh?!”

I heard a police officer who got hit by the spit instead of me cry out in shock.

Looking back, I saw his shield melting.

All the metal and plastic parts.

…Does acid melt plastic too?

“It seems to be a combination of acid and extreme heat. That facial part is probably at a temperature too high for your body to withstand.”

“That’s quite troublesome.”

I frowned as I looked at the kaijin.

Now I could see that the amorphous, transparent crab shell was bubbling and boiling inside.

The “eye” part of the crab was stretched taut as if about to burst. I once saw a parasite infecting a snail’s eye on TV, and it looked almost like that, minus the visible, writhing, colorful parasite body inside.

It looks like it’s in pain.

Looking around, I saw melted wires on the ground. There were also bullet-like objects similar to what had been shot at me before, but most had already melted.

So this kaijin is different from the combat-type kaijin I’ve encountered so far.

“…”

How should I deal with this?

To be honest, this isn’t a good match-up for me.

“Will the hammer hold up?”

“It should be fine as long as you don’t embed it inside the body. I anticipated this to some extent. However, we should worry about some functions malfunctioning. I recommend not using the main propulsion system.”

That makes sense.

Using the propulsion system would half-open the hammer.

I turned the hammer around in my grip, with the front facing backward.

I can use the auxiliary propulsion system without opening the hammer.

The kaijin remained still until then.

It doesn’t seem to be the wildly rampaging type.

Was its first attack because I entered its territory?

…Is it discriminatory to say that? It’s still an alien, even if its rationality has evaporated.

It probably doesn’t matter.

I’m not on the side of justice.

I’m here not so much to defeat the kaijin as to get back at those who screwed me over.

There’s still no sign of the magical girls appearing.

It will take some time for them to receive their circuits again.

I want to see them admit they dug their own graves. Of course, the higher-ups in such organizations usually have hardened minds, so it will take some time.

In the meantime, I’ll gradually destroy their facilities, and if possible, find out the Noir chairman’s location.

I needed to be competent. Elusive and strong.

So they would deeply regret treating me the way they did.

“Alright.”

I said to myself, and ran.

Clockwise, with the kaijin at the center.

The kaijin turned toward me and spat, but couldn’t hit me.

My physical abilities are temporarily at a level that can match all the magical girls. It’s not something a non-combat type kaijin can easily keep up with.

Even turning sideways takes time.

Running with all my might, I jumped diagonally upward.

The kaijin’s eyes followed me, but were a beat too slow.

Didn’t he say not to embed it directly in the head?

Then I’ll strike briefly. Not the head, but the shoulder or arm area.

No matter what it looks like, if all its limbs are broken, it will be neutralized—

Pit.

But I soon had to revise that plan.

“Eek?!”

I panicked when I saw spit spraying toward me like from an atomizer and quickly twisted my body.

My airborne body twisted and lost balance, falling.

I barely managed to land on my feet. I maintained my balance without falling, but this time a spray of spit flew directly at me.

Reflexively, I swung my hammer to deflect it—

The hammer’s surface sizzled, leaving a melted mark.

Seems like mana can’t completely stop this.

I jumped back to create distance.

“…”

What should I do?

I came charging in confidently, but now that I know what I’m dealing with, it will take some time to figure out a strategy.

…The magical girls probably would have caught it more easily.

If it’s a ranged attacker, I should use ranged attacks too—

“Wait.”

I looked at the sleek drone floating beside me.

“W-why are you looking at me like that?”

Sensing something ominous in my gaze, James spoke with slight panic.

Well, it’s nothing special.

If I win, you live too.

So let’s cooperate a bit.

When I grinned, the drone trembled.

*

“What? What do you mean?”

Hayun asked with a somewhat bewildered voice.

She wasn’t the only one here.

All the other magical girls she usually fought alongside were present.

Their expressions varied, but they had one thing in common—none of them looked particularly positive.

“We… don’t need to go?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The human civil servant said stiffly.

“Just that it would be better to go at a more opportune moment.”

“A more opportune… timing?”

Hayun frowned as she asked.

“…Last time you went when it was too certain. This time…”

“You’re telling us to go even later?” Ju-a asked incredulously from the side.

“…”

But getting angry here would only trouble the civil servant.

This person wasn’t even originally someone who did this kind of work.

More precisely, “this kind of work” didn’t exist in the first place.

It was a position forcibly created after the Federation took back the circuits.

They store the circuits retrieved by the Federation and redistribute them to the magical girls when needed. And they help make resolving situations a little easier.

And to prevent the magical girls from effectively resisting this fact, they put the lowest-ranking civil servant at the front.

The higher-ups are so high up that voices can’t reach them. Getting angry at the civil servant here would only result in responsibility being passed around in circles without any proper answers.

“The assessment shows that the Black Magical Girl cannot handle the kaijin alone. So you should wait a little longer—”

“You’re telling us to capture both the kaijin and the Black Magical Girl,” Hayun interrupted.

Her expression was much calmer than before.

It was the expression of someone whose emotions had crossed a threshold and now didn’t know how to express them.

“What happens if we don’t move?”

“If the opponent is weakened enough, we might be able to capture them somehow. Even if the attempt fails… they’ll be more careful next time.”

“You mean you hope she’ll be too scared to help again even if a kaijin appears.”

“…”

Naturally, the civil servant didn’t have the authority to answer such questions.

Or perhaps they were just shifting their responsibility to their superiors.

“Ha.”

Rose, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, let out a laugh of disbelief.

Everyone’s attention turned to her.

“Fine. Let’s see if things go according to your plan.”

Then she walked over and plopped down in an empty chair.

Seeing Rose cross her legs and shrug, Hayun also went to sit down.

After that, Iris, Dalia, and Delphinium did the same.

“…”

The civil servant seemed relieved at this sight, exhaled softly, and returned to their duties.

“…”

The magical girls remained silent.

Hayun slowly felt worry rising in her chest again.

Would Jieun be able to hold out until they arrived?

Going without equipment wouldn’t help at all. It would obviously be a hindrance. Earthlings can’t use magic without circuits.

So for now, she could only wait anxiously.

Cherry, who had followed her here, sat next to Hayun and looked up at her with worried eyes.

*

“Zzzzt?!”

Every time I torment James, I notice that words that can’t be translated into Earth languages seem to come out as these kinds of sounds.

It doesn’t seem like a simple scream, probably some extremely vulgar curse that the translator can’t understand.

Is it not a deep learning translator? Well, I’ll think about that later.

When I grabbed James’s drone and threw it hard, the kaijin’s head naturally turned toward the drone.

Pit, pit.

It spat rapidly, but James, apparently not wanting to die, did his best to move the drone and avoid it.

And while at it, he used the laser attached to the drone to sear the kaijin. That’s only natural. The kaijin started moving vigorously toward James, seemingly irritated.

“Good, James! Keep moving in a zigzag pattern!”

“I’ll kill you when this fight is overrrrr!”

He seems to have forgotten that his drone runs on my energy. If he wants a fight, I’m all for it. I have a generator too.

Despite his rough speech, James still knows the difference between what he should and shouldn’t do.

As he flew in circles at the maximum distance where the “spit” could reach him, the kaijin’s attention became fixed on James.

Good.

I bent down and picked up several partially melted wires.

Using my grip strength, I crushed them. The thick steel wires became ball-shaped without much difficulty.

I tossed it up slightly—

Clang!

Then hit it with my hammer.

The hammer head, which I held short, struck the steel ball like a baseball bat.

Whoosh!

Is that the sound a bullet makes when it passes by your ear?

The improvised steel ball flew like a shell, barely missing the drone and embedding itself forcefully at the kaijin’s feet.

Bang!

The steel ball, which contained no explosives, exploded. Probably because it had softened from the propellant fire from my hammer.

Or maybe my common sense has been destroyed again, resulting in something a bit fantastical.

Whatever.

The kaijin looked at me with a somewhat startled expression, one foot raised.

James, who nearly became ham from that flying steel ball, also looked at me.

I can feel him cursing just by looking at the drone. That’s kind of amazing.

Hmm.

I bent down again and picked up another piece of wire.

Well, let’s move on to the next ball.

I grinned as I looked at the kaijin.

And watching the kaijin move urgently, I thought:

Yeah, now that we’ve started fighting, you can’t just stand there, can you?

If I’m zipping around, you should show some effort too.

Don’t make people angry.