Chapter 12: Towards Death (6)

‘…’

Consciousness was hazy.

‘…What was I doing again?’

It felt like a chunk of memory had simply vanished.

For Ianna, this was practically routine, but not for me.

I was dumbfounded by a surgery I had never once experienced in my life.

Not that I felt any pain—this body had severely limited sensory perception.

But an eerie discomfort wrapped around my entire body.

It was like being smeared in sticky tar from head to toe, as if something clingy and unpleasant was slithering across my skin.

I flailed my arms and groped around, but there was nothing.

Only faint surgical scars remained.

[Director, Chunching and Heosang have returned.]

“…Oh.”

The voice of my adjutant came through the intercom in the operating room.

Right. This was the turning point.

Ianna gets killed by the two of them.

More precisely, by Chunching, who infiltrates the Bureau with Heosang’s help.

With her second Lemegeton, Chunching completely erases Ianna—leaving not a trace behind.

She doesn’t even know why she dies.

I didn’t want that ending.

I wanted to survive, and if possible, return to my original world.

To survive this novel, I absolutely must not make enemies of those two.

And this applies to all magical girls, not just them.

Ianna’s body had lost all magical girl power.

Without life-sustaining surgeries, she’d be dead.

In her current condition, she couldn’t even defeat a child, let alone a first-generation synthetic girl.

She had no way of fending off magical girls.

The Bureau was the same.

As long as she was useful, they wouldn’t discard her.

They’d keep using her body even if they had to destroy her mind.

To survive, I couldn’t afford to antagonize the Bureau.

But that didn’t mean I could cooperate fully and become the obedient pawn the magical girls assumed her to be.

Like it or not, a rebellion was inevitable.

The core theme of the novel revolved around the magical girls’ uprising.

If I stuck with the Bureau, I’d be killed during the rebellion.

If not by Chunching, then by another magical girl who might hate me for any number of reasons.

The key was to balance both forces: The magical girls and the Bureau.

Ideally, they’d destroy each other.

But if both disappeared, there’d be no one left to deal with the Unknown Entities.

‘Crusade of Magic.’

The novel began with this.

A massive holy war where magical girls from around the world were sent to breach a dimensional rift that opened in Jerusalem.

Though the frequency of Unknown Entity appearances dropped drastically afterward, it was far from over.

The entities hadn’t been eradicated—just lying in wait.

They had begun to show interest in the magical girls who had invaded their realm.

In Ianna’s memory, the number of Unknown Entities in the deep layers exceeded the billions.

One by one, magical girls fell.

Ianna, who led the expedition, deemed the mission complete and gave the order to retreat.

As a result, countless magical girls were left behind—alive or dead—to be captured by the Unknown Entities.

It wasn’t Ianna’s fault.

She had fought with all her might using the power of Janwol.

She had even opposed the expedition from the start, believing it to be impossible.

Thanks to her, the surviving magical girls returned, and the expedition was publicly declared a success.

Those who knew the truth were silenced or had their memories erased.

No one blamed Ianna.

No one could.

That wasn’t the problem.

The Unknown Entities, after absorbing countless magical girl corpses, began to gain intelligence and power.

They were entering a new stage of evolution.

They stopped killing magical girls on sight.

Instead, they began to see them as useful resources and started capturing them.

Even now, some of the magical girls captured during the Crusade were probably serving the Unknown Entities in various ways.

They became extremely cautious.

They didn’t want to reveal their evolution to humanity.

That’s why they became less visible.

Now, they were gauging magical girl power.

The recent appearance of a Mortus-level Unknown Entity was likely a test.

The Great War.

As the Bureau’s magical girls became more divided—

As rogue magical girls lost themselves and went berserk, taking the lives of countless humans—

The final war for the fate of all living beings would begin.

‘…’

Of course, only I—who read the novel from start to finish—knew this.

Even the part about it ending in a bad ending.

My head throbbed.

‘…What kind of difficulty level is this…?’

I closed my eyes and slowly thought things through.

The branching point had shifted.

The event that caused the two to vow to kill Ianna was now resolved with only one casualty.

There was no massacre of magical girls.

And the blame for their deaths no longer rested on Ianna.

Their hatred had likely softened.

Which meant, I had to win them over—get on their good side.

A little conversation and a good meal should do the trick.

That’s why I had prepared chocolate.

To be honest, I was a bit excited.

Heosang had been a dear junior of mine.

I wanted to be close again, even if just for a moment.

Being alone was hard. It was painfully lonely.

Like being stranded on a deserted island.

I needed a friend. Someone I could truly share my heart with.

That was… my, no—Ianna’s wish.

With excitement brimming, I waited for them.

I was sure they would come.

Surely, they’d want to apologize. For their suspicions. For their rudeness.

And they’d say thank you—for helping defeat the Unknown Entity.

Then, I’d hand them chocolate and say it was all right.

I’d smile and reach out my arms.

Ianna’s mind had half-regressed to a childlike state.

I couldn’t think of a better plan.

If I could open my heart to them—

One day… I’d tell them the truth.

Secretly, without the Bureau noticing.

And they’d understand what I’m going through.

A disposable scapegoat, barely clinging to life.

Starting with them, I would win over more magical girls.

Controlling the Bureau was the only way to survive.

If I could reduce the rebellion, mend the conflicts, and have the magical girls fight the Unknown Entities together—

Then maybe, just maybe… I could survive.

A sliver of a hopeful future glimmered before me.

‘It’s a perfect plan…….’

Even Ianna’s brain seemed impressed.

And to make this grand master plan a reality—

Becoming friends with them was the first step.

About three days had passed.

I’d been holed up in my room.

The chocolate I’d stored at room temperature had melted.

My adjutant quickly bought new ones, and this time, I stored them safely in the mini fridge inside my room.

I waited endlessly for the two to recover.

Magical girls healed far faster than normal humans, so they should be back on their feet within a day.

‘…They’ll come. I know it.’

My heart pounded.

I clutched the precious white teddy bear on my bed and practiced all day.

What to say, how to accept their apology, what singers they liked—every type of girlish small talk I could think of, I rehearsed night and day.

For three days, not even Hojoon or the Bureau interrupted me.

“If I say… it was all a misunderstanding… will they believe me?”

“They will. Of course they will. We used to be so close…”

I muttered to the teddy bear, grabbing its limbs. It was a habit of Ianna’s.

‘…Someone might be watching. Just in case, I’m acting like the usual Ianna. She never had childish hobbies like this.’

The thought of someone watching made me blush with shame, but the more I repeated the lines while hugging the bear, the calmer I became.

It’s not like anyone was actually watching.

And this much of a hobby was…

Right as I was flailing around on the bed—

“Director? Heosang and Chunching have requested an audience.”

“L-Let them in…!”

They had come.

Ianna’s brain was filled with excitement.

So was mine.

‘…We’ll be friends again. Definitely.’