Chapter 40: The Witch’s Silence (3)

Aeweon’s Magical Girl.

Within the Bureau, Aeweon’s name circulated like an urban legend.

‘If you meet her gaze, you die…’

‘Even if she speaks to you, you must not reply.’

‘Magical girls marked by Aeweon vanish without a trace the next day…’

Sora, too, was aware of the rumors about Aeweon.

They had been passed down from the seniors of seniors, from generations of magical girls before her.

Whenever Sora felt fed up with her magical girl duties, she would pester her seniors to tell her stories about Aeweon.

Stories about Aeweon had spread by word of mouth, gradually embellished until they became elaborate tales.

She was rumored to be a magical girl who went insane after endlessly repeating loops to protect someone,
or a vengeful spirit of a magical girl whose head had been cleanly severed by an unknown entity.

The senior who loved occult tales added further weight to the theory:

That Aeweon was the manifestation of a calamity caused by an evil spirit sealed within a shrine,
or that she was the reincarnation of the greatest among the mythological Three Great Demons, the Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox.

Whatever the case, one thing was clear: they were all bad rumors.

No magical girl tried to defend Aeweon or speak up for her.

On the contrary, most found even mentioning her name unpleasant.

Sora had personal curiosity, but it ended there.

She had no intention of digging deeper.

With the heavy workload of a magical girl, she had no room to investigate creepy rumors further.

In fact, all her “work” consisted of hiding in a corner and quietly sucking on lemonade to avoid her supervisor’s watchful eyes.

In any case, Sora had no reason to care about Aeweon.

Yes, that’s what she had believed.

She thought that she and Aeweon lived in completely different worlds.

The story of a lazy, incompetent magical girl and a witch wrapped in ominous rumors were supposed to remain separate.

Until she encountered Aeweon herself.

It was a nightmare.

Magical girls who smiled as they strangled themselves to death,

researchers who watched them with glee while biting their own tongues to shreds,

agents who grinned grotesquely, baring torn gums as they began devouring one another—

All on the very day Aeweon visited.

The Kobe Branch had become a hell on earth.

Sora remembered it vividly to this day.

She remembered what the magical girls muttered as they smiled grotesquely while strangling themselves,
and who the agents, smiling horrifyingly as they ate each other alive, cried out for in their final moments.

It was because of that day that Sora developed a severe fear of people.

The nightmare was no small matter.

Even so, she could be considered lucky.

When the magical girls, including her senior, returned from their deployment,
Sora alone had survived.

She had been huddled in a corner, silently sobbing.

It was a memory she would never, ever forget.

Of course, Aeweon was never punished.

The only change was the downsized Kobe Branch.

Everything eventually returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.

The magical girls who harbored resentment against Aeweon quietly disappeared one after another.

Whether the Bureau dealt with them or Aeweon herself killed them, no one knew for sure.

What was certain was that they were no longer among the living.

Aeweon was an unavoidable disaster.

She was like a natural disaster.

Sora simply blamed herself for her past carelessness and did everything she could to avoid Aeweon from then on.

That was the best she could do.

“Wa-wait, please…! I, I… no… please don’t send me, please…!”

Sora frantically shouted at the communicator embedded in her wrist, but no response came back.

Only the beep indicating a terminated transmission echoed.

The Bureau’s decision was firm and merciless.

They were clearly planning to cut her off coldly, even though she was practically the mascot of the Kobe Branch.

And they were going to use Aeweon — that nightmare — to do it.

Honestly, Sora thought, she deserved it.

Even by her own standards.

She only went out into the field when supervisors brandished the blade of a purge at her.

Otherwise, she ignored orders and hid away in corners.

She understood the Bureau’s decision.

But still, she didn’t want to die.

Even more so, she didn’t want to see Aeweon.

Falling into panic, Sora slumped to the ground.

“Kkyeeek—!!!”

From the darkness behind her, a monstrous face emerged.

Its twin-jawed mouth snapped as it crawled toward her with terrifying force.

But Sora no longer feared grotesque evolved entities.

What truly terrified her was the fact that Aeweon was coming.

Tear-streaked and hopeless, Sora began scanning her surroundings.

Only darkness stretched in all directions.

The monster was hiding in the darkness, ambushing whenever Sora tried to stop moving.

Its countless arms extended from each grotesque joint, trying to seize her.

It was the same as before.

The pattern hadn’t changed.

The monster tried to grab her with its twin jaws and pin her with its long arms.

‘It’s no use…’

Sora instinctively threw herself backward.

With movements akin to acrobatics, she dodged the creature’s strikes and melted into the darkness.

Even then, she never forgot to attempt communication with headquarters.

“Headquarter, please, please don’t abandon me… I’ll do better… I won’t pick missions anymore… I’ll eat less too… please, please…!”

She hurled herself away from the monster again and again,
falling into a crouch every time she made distance, waiting desperately for a response.

She repeated this cycle dozens of times.

Without showing a hint of fatigue.

The monster’s claws nearly gripped her delicate neck each time, but always missed by a hair’s breadth.

Sora maintained that razor-thin gap through pure instinct,
dodging every attack without fighting back.

She never counterattacked — only ran.

That was why incompetent Sora hadn’t been purged yet.

Despite hardly manifesting any abilities, despite being weaker than other artificial girls,
Sora somehow survived — leeching off the Kobe Branch.

Thanks to her instincts.

Her survival instinct ruled over her five senses.

She ran, devoting her entire being to survival.

Even when her body was crushed, even when she faced death itself,
she didn’t give up — she kept running.

Her abnormal obsession with survival was her driving force.

In an emergency, it replaced rational thought entirely.

In terms of running away, Sora surpassed any magical girl.

Her very body seemed made purely for escape.

The reason other magical girls hated her wasn’t just because of her laziness.

It was because of her trash-tier attitude toward duty,
and because, even when thrown into hellish situations,
she stubbornly survived — causing financial damage to the branch.

Of course, oblivious Sora had no idea.

Nor did she realize that all of it stemmed from her trauma with Aeweon.

[…Child, are you still alive?]

The long-awaited transmission resumed.

But the voice that came through wasn’t her supervisor’s, nor was it Deputy Director Hojoon’s.

Sora’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Her mouth hung open, but no words came out.

She mustn’t speak.

At that moment.

Something brilliant and shining began reflecting in Sora’s pupils.

Chills raced down her spine.

Without a word, Sora threw herself flat on the ground.

Even if it meant dying at the monster’s hands, she would not raise her head.

She curled into herself and trembled uncontrollably.

It was the right choice.

Bathed in radiant light, Aeweon’s magical girl stood beside her with a satisfied smile.

“Child, it’s been a long time.”

Sora felt her blood freeze.

Aeweon remembering her should have been impossible.

They had never even met face-to-face that day.

How could she possibly remember?

Sora had hidden perfectly.

Her survival in that living hell had been thanks to remaining completely undetected.

“…Y-yes, that’s correct.”

Even so, Sora answered.

Keeping Aeweon waiting was the wrong choice.

She had to cater to her mood, answer promptly, whatever it took.

‘Ten years ago, a hundred years ago — it doesn’t matter.

The one who caused unprecedented calamities was Aeweon’s magical girl.

I’m sure of it.
She’s Mononoke Tengoku.

Be careful if you ever meet her.’

Her senior’s words resurfaced ironically at this moment.

But Sora wasn’t curious about Aeweon’s true identity.

Survival was her only concern.

“Ten seconds.”

“…Huh?”

“Count to ten. Get as far away from me as you can. If you can.”

Sora’s body tensed violently, and she immediately bolted.

She ran with all her might to put distance between herself and Aeweon.

More desperately than ever before.

And then.

Exactly ten seconds later, the sound of the monster’s shrieking vanished.

***

[…You struggled with something like this?]

“I have no excuse, Aeweon.”

“…Yes.”

Aeweon, stretching awkwardly as if to shake off stiffness, began leaving the collapsing dimensional zone.

She had projected an enormous amount of Ether energy at one point,
creating a rift between dimensions.

Sora, who cautiously tiptoed after her from a distance, couldn’t help but be shocked.

The dimensional rift that Aeweon created—

Was identical to that of the unknown entities.