The Line to Protect (4)

The Line to Protect (4)

“What a cute act.”

I threw away the poor victim I had caught. Anyway, I’m a magical girl now. Since I can’t directly touch her, I just need to subdue her without using my hands.

I grabbed a steel bar that had fallen nearby, knocked down the girl who came at me again, and tightly bound her hands and feet with the freely bent steel bar.

However, this girl didn’t even scream, she just kept struggling.

A dense negative energy was emanating from her entire body. As expected, the experiment that took place in this terrible place was a crazy experiment from the premise of forcibly injecting negative magic into the girl’s body.

“Their presence is already fading away. It means they fled without a moment’s hesitation.”

My senses already detected a group of people moving away. They weren’t stupid, and I didn’t think we could catch them all if we chased them now in this underground facility.

“Ugh, aaargh die monster!!”

“I guess they’ll take care of the cleanup themselves.”

In the end, all we could do now was to eliminate the remaining stragglers here.

I easily sliced in half the one who was shouting and firing bullets, and sent my shadow flowing throughout the entire facility.

They were just small fry anyway. Whatever they said, however they begged, I just pierced, slashed, and tore apart all the living ones to death.

Being here in the first place meant they were worthless and pitch-black beings I could kill without hesitation.

“Taquilas!”

Later, when I left the facility full of corpses and blood, clicking my tongue.

What greeted me was not the ones who fled earlier, but police forces that seemed to have just arrived and the magical girl Aria.

“Long time no see. But you’re late, far too late.”

“You, did you kill people again?!”

Aria, no longer careless when dealing with me, bit her lip while burning red magic.

At other times I would have teased her for that look, but unfortunately, I wasn’t in a good mood either right now.

“I killed them. Exactly 73 people, I think… And in exchange, I saved 34 girls.”

“What..?”

“What if I hadn’t come? Sure, as you said, senior, 73 people would have lived. Instead, many of the 34 girls would have either died as sacrifices for illegal human experiments like the 21 children already sacrificed, or become twisted monsters.”

Was my words a bit shocking? Aria’s face turned pale in real-time. The police behind her were the same. A stir spread among them.

“Mamut, don’t just focus on bastards like that, do your job properly. What have you all been doing while his evil spirits were using possessed people to gather young girls for experiments all over the country?”

“…Watch your words. Mammoth is an evil that can’t be recklessly confronted. What do you know?”

“Oh really? Then how about we make a bet, senior?”

I smirked at Aria’s voice turning cold, seemingly hurt in her pride. Mammoth. He was certainly a bit of a handful. But that’s all.

“That egg ghost, what if I kill him? Will you admit it then? How incompetent, weak, and inefficient you all are.”

My eyes quietly met Aria’s crimson eyes in mid-air. At the same time, I read hesitation in those eyes. Afraid that I might actually kill Mammoth.

Still so young indeed.

“Hey! What are you all doing?! That kid has a capture order on him in the first place. Shoot! How dare such a young brat talk back to adults so impudently…”

“Oh my god…”

But an irritating voice that broke the mood rang out through the loudspeaker.

The man Ren clicked his tongue at was a middle-aged police officer with a half-balding head. Ignoring Aria’s surprised protest, he ordered his subordinates to open fire.

It was such an unexpected action that even I stared blankly for a moment.

“What are you doing?! Stop this right now!”

“You be quiet too! Who are you to give orders? I’m carrying out legitimate law enforcement here!”

Ignoring Aria’s words and continuing to squawk loudly, what could the poor subordinates do as he kept urging them on?

The unfortunate lower-ranked officers, who should be in actual combat, pointed their guns at me with reluctant faces, guilty of having a stupid and arrogant superior.

I raised my arms to cover my face. Taser guns and nets for capturing strange beings flew in, trying to restrain my body protected by shadows.

“Ah, let’s retreat for now. We’ve already lost the key targets anyway.”

Ren shook his head and tapped my ankle he had been leaning on.

But having transformed after a long time, I didn’t want to just retreat today. It doesn’t make sense to just take hits after being attacked first.

“Huh?”

As I moved my foot forward, a startled Ren fell face-first onto the floor. Ignoring him completely, I raised my killing intent.

Naturally, the gunfire decreased.

“What are you doing?”

“Step aside, senior. It seems you all are misunderstanding something.”

Aria blocked those pathetic guys who couldn’t even pull the trigger, crushed by the killing intent directed at them. However, I ignored her and declared:

“You were shooting so boldly, so nonchalantly. You idiots were sure of it. You thought that no matter what you did, you didn’t have to worry about getting your heads cracked open by a magical girl until now, so you just kept shooting.”

“Step back. Laying hands on the police is really crossing the line.”

“This is why people these days need to learn that they might actually get their heads cracked open for being so arrogant. What makes you think you can act so high and mighty?”

“Step back right now!”

Aria shouted and took a fighting stance, blocking me to the end as I continued to advance.

But even her eyes were trembling. Not to mention that coward hiding behind her fragile back.

“I warned you… Kyaa!”

I wrapped Aria, who was rushing at me, in an exploding shadow and sent her flying. Someone of her skill level should be able to buy at least 10 seconds. And that was enough.

In that fleeting moment, I grabbed the nape of the buzz-cut guy trying to escape with the tentacles of shadow I had shot out and roughly slammed him to the ground.

“Ugh… urk…”

“Hey. I told you to speak up. You trash with your pot belly sticking out, acting all comfortable despite being just a cop. Who exactly do you think can protect you right now, and with what?”

I stomped on the chest of the guy groaning on the ground.

The very fact that I could lay hands on him like this was proof of how corrupt this guy was. The young male officer next to him might be weak, but he’s clean so I couldn’t even touch him.

“I, I am from the Korean National Police Agency…”

“Prosecutors, congressmen, they’ve all died by my hand while buying women, you idiot.”

“Argh!”

As I slightly applied pressure with my leg, I heard the sound of ribs slowly crushing beneath my foot.

The hands gripping my calf and ankle trembled, and blood spurted from his mouth.

Just a little more, just a little more pressure and this trash will die.

“Stop it!”

At that moment, Aria, who had rushed over, slammed into my body. We tumbled together, breaking through the outer wall of the villa and falling inside.

Before the dust could even settle, she quickly pinned me down, gripping my neck with her hands and pressing down.

“Surprised that your neck isn’t being choked?”

“Ugh…”

I used my thumb and index finger of one hand to forcibly pry her hands apart. Her arm muscles split visibly and trembled, but unfortunately, I’m stronger.

Shadows rose stealthily, forming into a fist, and struck Aria’s body straddling me as if hitting a baseball.

“Then let’s make a real bet, senior.”

“A… bet?”

I made an enticing proposal to her as she painfully raised herself from the shattered large TV she had crashed into.

“The organization that built an illegal lab here, controlled Mamut’s evil spirits, and conducted human experiments. I couldn’t kill their core members. Because their experiments succeeded, and they’re using an innocent girl as a weapon, so I, as a magical girl, couldn’t touch them.”

“That’s…!”

“You catch that organization, whether you cooperate with the police or not. In exchange, I’ll catch Mamut. Whoever catches their target first wins.”

Her eyes changed, seemingly liking my proposal. To be honest, I didn’t know why I was making such an offer. My heart had just slightly changed.

“If I win, I won’t go easy on you anymore. You’ll have lost your justification to stop me anyway, having proven your incompetence.”

“Then… if I win…”

She panted and hurriedly opened her mouth.

“You stop the killing.”

And she set her condition. I accepted that condition. Because there was no way she would win in the first place.

“…Then run hard.”

I dusted off my clothes and left the villa, leaving her behind.

The police officers who had watched their leader being miserably beaten now felt intense fear towards me and didn’t even dare to look me in the eye.

I liked that gaze. That’s how it should be. If you’re weak, act like it – don’t cling to others’ ankles, and when mercy is given, know your place and crawl on the ground quietly.

“I hope you learned from today. In a world where you can get your head cracked open anytime if you act up without knowing your place when you’re so weak.”

I retrieved Ren and flew up into the sky. And after ascending to a certain height, I disguised myself.

For now, the school must be in chaos.

The place I hid myself and headed to was none other than the underground laboratory I had just left.

“You, you’re not…”

“Rather than going back now and being interrogated without being able to explain, I thought it would be better to just be kidnapped.”

I put on the respirator and lowered myself into an empty test tube, smirking.