Chapter 36: Love and Peace (5)

“Headquarters… are, are you… listening…?”

There was a distinct tremble in her voice.

It was clearly a terrified voice.

Even those listening through the radio could easily tell that the girl was frightened.

“P-please… a-answer me… please…”

[…]

The owner of the voice desperately called for Headquarters, but, unfortunately, no reply came back from them.

“I-I said… I didn’t want to do this…”

The girl, her face pale, muttered with a voice tinged with tears.

It was a truly desperate situation.

Until now, living under the unusual occupation of ‘magical girl,’ she had never once faced a crisis of this magnitude.

The fellow magical girls dispatched with her had all either died right before her eyes or been snatched away by the giant jaws of that thing.

Other than a senior who barely managed to escape the dimension with severe injuries, it was practically a total annihilation.

And she herself—she had always been too weak to even be considered a proper combatant.

She had no abilities other than being slightly faster than the others.

She hadn’t even received an Artificial Lemegeton implant.

“H-hic, huuu…”

Unable to hold back anymore, the girl began bawling, her face a mess of tears and snot.

It was a pitiful sight, but no one was around to care about her dignity.

‘A-a purge…?’

Among magical girls, there were widespread rumors about the “purge” of useless magical girls.

It seemed like she was this round’s target.

It was unfair.

Sure, she was useless, but she hadn’t committed any crime worthy of death.

…But still.

‘W-why the senior…?’

The senior had been allowed to retreat.

Maybe they weren’t considered disposable?

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been abandoned to such a death trap.

They wouldn’t have been left to suffer such grave injuries.

With survival instincts kicking in, the girl sat there and thought hard.

‘Maybe… I’ve been abandoned?’

Being abandoned would actually be a blessing.

If she somehow survived this hellhole, she could disappear into some rural village, and the Administration wouldn’t bother finding her.

She wouldn’t have to do any more of this life-threatening work.

‘Can I survive…?’

Of course, surviving was the first and foremost priority.

There was no way she could stay in this decrepit building—no, this pocket dimension—and continue playing death tag with a monster.

With messy blue hair, the girl started crawling across the floor, desperate to get away.

It was pure instinct. A deep, gut feeling that staying there meant death.

This whole situation was nonsense.

There had been no mention of fighting monsters like that.

At most, she’d thought it would be a mission to take down a rampaging magical girl.

That’s why she hadn’t volunteered.

Because she was scared.

Because she would only be a hindrance.

At the Kobe branch office, she’d mostly just eaten up resources while doing nothing under the excuse of “waiting for her Artificial Lemegeton implant.”

Originally, all she had ever wanted was to live a peaceful, leisurely life—not become a magical girl.

This blue-haired, disheveled girl, a second-generation artificial magical girl designated Formula 9, was Sora.

That had been her modest dream.

But somehow, for some unfathomable reason, Headquarters had specially assigned her to this mission.

And this was the result.

Sora’s sole focus now was survival.

She had no interest in any grand mission or ideals of magical girls.

To put it nicely, she was a citizen with humble dreams.

To put it bluntly, she was “a lazy, incompetent parasite shirking her duties.”

Sure, other magical girls called her that, but Sora didn’t care.

What mattered was staying alive.

“Y-you are… listening, right…? If I’d known it would be like this, I-I never would’ve… become a magical girl…!”

Too terrified to think straight, Sora began yelling at the Administration headquarters.

She had to vent somehow or she would break down completely.

Of course, it wasn’t like she had chosen to become an artificial magical girl of her own free will.

Her father, deeply in debt to the yakuza, had sold her off—whether for prostitution or organ harvesting, it didn’t matter to him.

After a long and complicated series of events, she ended up being sold to the Administration’s Kobe branch in Hyogo Prefecture.

And that’s how Sora became a magical girl.

“Kigeggeggegeggek—”

While Sora was drooling and lamenting her fate, a distant, resonating sound echoed—the monster’s cry.

“H-hiieek…!!!”

Sora, seized by terror, started sprinting again.

The deadly game of tag was far from over.

Sora was trapped in an abandoned concrete structure, or more precisely, a dimensional domain created by the evolved creature.

It had made its nest in the sliver between dimensions.

Sora knew there was no way she could escape like her senior.

She simply didn’t have enough Ether energy.

“S-Senpai… p-please… take me… with you… too…”

Frustrated to tears, Sora screamed into the darkness, but only the monster’s resonant cry answered her.

She couldn’t see an inch ahead.

Only darkness filled the space around her.

Sora was relying purely on instinct to survive.

And then—

[Senpai… p-please… take me… with you…]

All of Sora’s desperate mutterings were being transmitted to the Administration.

The camera implanted in her eye was still sending a live feed.

Although dimensional domains had a special kind of force field that prevented outside orders from coming in, outgoing transmissions were still possible.

However.

That was only true for the local branch offices across East Asia.

The Administration’s main facilities, with their specialized equipment, could even pierce through that force field if they adjusted the frequencies properly.

“Is the calibration finished yet?”

“We’re adjusting based on the information received from Kobe. We expect about five more minutes.”

“Hurry.”

Right now, Hojoon’s best strategy was to keep the evolved creature trapped inside the domain until the Wish Magical Girl responded.

The number of artificial magical girls sacrificed had already reached double digits.

Initially, all the local branch offices had picked up the runaway magical girl’s signal and dispatched operatives independently.

Aside from one survivor, everyone else had been devoured by the creature.

As a result, the evolved entity, having absorbed dozens of magical girls, had grown to an unmanageable size.

Now it was trying to leave its domain.

Though my heart ached for the magical girls who had died, I forced myself to stay calm.

Once it finished hunting Formula 9, it would probably move into the East Sea.

It would seep naturally into the ocean.

Seventy percent of the planet was water, and deep beneath the waves lay unexplored realms beyond human reach.

If a creature that didn’t even need to breathe entered the sea…

It would be annihilation.

The Administration’s secrets would be exposed.

The existence of magical girls and evolved creatures would be revealed to the world, starting with countless civilians being devoured.

And even worse—

The creature was pregnant.

A sudden memory of Ianna’s surfaced.

‘Evolved creatures still retain the instinct to reproduce.’

No matter what, they fought to create more of their own kind.

Ianna once witnessed an evolved magical girl.

It had transformed into a massive plant-like organism the size of an apartment complex, able to move by slithering its roots and whipping its tentacles.

And—

It tried to plant its seeds into captured magical girls, inserting them into “there” with enormous tentacles.

A horrifying scene.

The evolved creature had to be stopped, no matter the cost.

Surely Hojoon knew too—where the domain had appeared, and where it would head once it broke free.

We needed a Wish Magical Girl.

Nothing else could stop that monster.

Not even Heosang or Cheonching could guarantee victory.

My instincts screamed it.

Resolving myself, I prepared to call out to the Wish once more—but—

“Ugh.”

A splitting headache tore through me.

My thoughts jumbled into a chaotic swirl, stabbing at my brain.

Just watching the situation unfold on the monitor was exhausting beyond belief.

I struggled to remain conscious, but I was reaching my limit.

Mental fortitude.

What I realized I needed most was the mental fortitude that only someone like Ianna had.

The unbreakable will that had resisted the madness of magical girls and endured years of torture.

Only that could withstand the agony that felt like every bone being pulled apart, and the migraine that felt like my skull being crushed.

At the very least, in this moment, I vowed to give it everything I had.

Because Ianna would have wanted that.

“Director, are you all right?”

“Y-yeah…”

Ianna responded, though she pressed her hand against her forehead to endure the pain.

Her face was turning red, and she was breathing heavily.

“Deputy Director! We can connect to Formula 9!”

“Connect immediately.”

The Administration’s internal network was extremely complex to prevent espionage.

Connecting to a field unit took time through multiple layers of encryption.

[No, no, stop… don’t come any closer…]

On the other end, Formula 9—Sora—was sobbing and running for her life.

She dodged the creature’s swift movements against the walls with almost supernatural reflexes.

“…Can you hear me?”

[H-Headquarters… no, the Control Room…? P-please… g-grant permission to retreat, please…]

Sora was trembling, a mess of tears and snot.

But sadly—

Hojoon rejected her plea.

“There will be no retreat. The Wish Magical Girl is coming. Please hold out just a little longer.”

[W-what did you say…?]

At that moment—

Sora’s entire body convulsed as she foamed at the mouth.

It wasn’t just the refusal of retreat that shattered her.

It was the mention of “Wish”.

As soon as she heard that word, Sora froze on the spot.

And then—

[I-I misheard, right… P-please… tell me… I’m wrong…]

She begged desperately.

Because to all magical girls, the “Wish” was the very embodiment of fear.

“…I understand.”

Even Ianna feared the Wish.