Chapter 47 : Change #6

November 2nd

An abandoned school in Gunma Prefecture, Japan.

The schoolyard, which should have been filled with silence in the middle of the night after being abandoned for years with no one passing by, was now filled with girls riding all sorts of vehicles making loud noises.

Vroom vroom!

Ratatatatat!

Grrrr

Neigh neigh

Whoosh

“Hey, only formidable ones gathered for this Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons)?”

A girl sitting in a racing kart she summoned swallowed hard.

The girl in the racing kart explained in detail to two girls who said they were participating for the first time this round about how to participate in the race, the route, and the rules to follow, and now she was introducing the participants.

“That one riding the elephant has been participating since the early days of Hyakki Yagyō, an original member, and the one riding the unicorn is a strong competitor who won the last tournament, and that one over there is known as a speed maniac in the Kyushu region and was even briefly mentioned in Walpurgis.”

“…There seem to be only losers, nfufu.”

“Hoeee… they look boring…”

“That’s because you don’t know well.”

The born 1-star girl riding on the kart shrugged her shoulders and said, feeling like she had now become a senior explaining this Hyakki Yagyō to the newcomers.

“You can’t judge magical girls’ rides by their appearance.”

Just herself she had underestimated the gloomy-looking girl riding a rainbow-colored unicorn in the last tournament and was so shocked when she instantly took the lead.

“Nfufu, then, isn’t flying the best?”

“Hoeee… boring…”

“If you go up more than 3 meters from the ground and drive more than 10 meters, you’re disqualified!”

She was really annoyed by the girl with a broad forehead who seemed like she wanted to hit her once, sneering, and the girl wearing a cat-ear helmet responding with a dejected voice.

‘Ah, these two are really annoying, should I hit that forehead once?’

But if it led to a conflict and this illegal tournament, banned due to traffic laws and noise issues, got caught by the security force or the council, she might become someone who could never take out her kart again in places where ordinary citizens go.

Shudder.

She didn’t want to become someone pitifully earning starlight by saying, ‘Pl… please eat ramen!’ in the Garden plaza with her abilities sealed after finally becoming a bloomed magical girl.

“Hmph, I’ve explained everything.”

Vroom

The girl put on her safety helmet with a visibly sulky expression and nonchalantly went to the start line.

“Nfufu, shall Nanami do it?”

Shake shake

Nanami, wearing the cat-ear helmet, expressed her refusal and spoke while making hesitant gestures.

“Hoet, well… I have my pride too. If I stand at the start line and race with such losers… it would be unfair to my bike…”

“Nfufu, Nanami is surprisingly picky about racing~”

Pat pat

Kohane patted Nanami’s cat-ear helmet and then walked leisurely to the start line, dragging her loose gown. The magical girls standing at the start line played pranks on Kohane, such as shining lights on her forehead or honking horns, and sneered.

“Hey, isn’t the newbie being too relaxed?”

“Tsk, it’s common sense to standby 15 minutes early for those with less than 3 rounds of experience…”

“My unicorn is howling because it wants to eat up the slowpokes, hehe.”

“Wow, but her forehead is really wide.”

“Why hasn’t she summoned her ride yet?”

All participants stood at the start line drawn on the schoolyard, and the organizers prepared to start today’s race toward the rusty iron gate of the old dilapidated school.

Vroom vroom!

Brrrr!

All participating magical girls raised their excitement, raising the heat of their summons and the tension in their whole bodies to race crazily around Gunma Prefecture tonight.

“Super cool Armor 8 standby.”

“Hm?”

“Armor… [Armor]?”

“…Salon?”

Silence.

The girls there didn’t exchange a single word, but they instinctively felt that today’s race was over.

And they finished calculating which route they should take to avoid being caught.

The girls exchanged glances and had a silent discussion about which direction each should go and how to avoid overlapping.

0.5 seconds.

The girls all ran away at once.

[Armor] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Armor Deployment

Whoosh!

A 5-meter long ivory-colored armor suddenly appeared and fired nets from its two arms, which were almost the same size as its body.

Dozens of girls gathered at the start line struggled, trapped in the nets.

“Aaaah!! It’s the council!! It’s the council’s lackey!!”

“Our rush must not be stopped!!”

“This is a violation of magical girls’ rights!!”

[Nfufu, what a great catch.]

“Hoeet, please don’t struggle.”

Click click

Nanami photographed and recorded the faces of the girls trapped in the net one by one, and immediately bundled them into albums and sent them to Tsugumi, the head of the security force, calling them persons of interest files.

[Shall we go to the central garden like this?]

“You guys! After I worked so hard to tell you about Hyakki Yagyō!!”

The girl in the racing kart who had been acting like a senior and guiding Kohane and Nanami from earlier cried out with a voice full of betrayal.

“Honestly, I wasn’t listening except for the list of participants…”

“How…?!”

* * *

[Protection] Magical Girl’s Unique Skill

Thousand Spears Ten Thousand Swords

Rustle

When she retrieved the hundreds of lavender Japanese swords she had deployed in the abandoned factory, the subtle pressure flowing from within the space disappeared simultaneously. Sumire, who elegantly shook off the sleeves of her lavender kimono, revealing her legs, and wore the Japanese sword condensed into one at her waist, sighed deeply.

“Did you not see the rules set by Walpurgis? Or do you not know how to read well?”

“You think we’re stupid idiots who don’t even know how to read properly!”

Sumire almost blurted out, ‘That’s right’ in response, but she managed, just barely managed to hold it back.

‘After staying up for 3 nights, I feel my self-control weakening.’

In the wide open space of the abandoned factory where the battle had ended, filled with a subtle smell of gunpowder and flying sparks, 20 magical girls were lying fallen or unconscious, and only the leader magical girl of the magical girl thief gang was still resisting.

“Can you really come up with the idea of using magical girls’ powers to rob art museums and distribute to poor people in your right mind?”

“Ha! Council chairwoman! You may not know because you’re from a well-off family, but in our country, there are people everywhere who can barely eat a piece of bread a day! I’ll steal for them!”

“No, but even so, coming up with the idea of robbing an art museum… there are many other volunteer activities, right?”

“Ha! Council chairwoman! Are you trying to make me conform to the logic of capitalists who want to subjugate me to the social system! I’ll steal as much of that world’s pretense as I want!”

“Isn’t it more of an act of subjugation to the social system to distribute stolen goods to normal people?”

“Ha! Council chairwoman! The money games of rich people who get hundreds of millions of yen for putting one dot! I’d rather steal that and use it to help the poor!”

“Why does your idea keep leading to theft?!”

Throb

Sumire pressed her forehead, which was starting to tighten from stress, with her slender fingers.

Let’s be patient.

No matter how foolish, they’re magical girls.

They’re people I need to protect.

It’s the trust and duty that person gave me.

Feeling that she might put personal feelings into it if she dealt with that girl herself, Sumire spoke through the radio.

“…Rena.”

[Yes, boss.]

Thud!

“Ack! The violence of capitalism!”

A rubber non-lethal bullet flew from far away, and with a strange scream, the last thief gang magical girl fell silent.

“…Kaede.”

“Yes, miss.”

From behind Sumire’s shadow, a girl in a small body wearing a men’s suit with long hair loosely tied quietly appeared and tied up the unconscious thief gang magical girls with ropes.

“Haah.”

Magical girls trying to commit thoughtless acts based on flimsy logic led by heroic psychology like this were increasing explosively.

These incidents occurred where the desire to become special beings based on unconscious resentment toward society intertwined with the enormous potential of magical girls.

[Korean hero magical girls Kang Eunseol and Park Saebyeok.]

[Appearance of super-large magical girls comparable to Beginning?]

[Stopping terrorists that Europe couldn’t stop!]

In particular, witnessing the shining of two magical girl heroes who rose simultaneously with the recent worldwide terrorist magical girl incident became a decisive trigger.

“We want to become shining magical girls like that too!”

However, it was difficult to see such dramatic scenes in Japan, which had been forming a stable magical girl society since [Beginning]’s declaration. So girls began to choose stages outside Walpurgis’ control to show off their shine.

‘Without any regard for the terribleness of the terrorists or the confused atmosphere of the victims, just clinging to heroic psychology…’

It happened because most were girls still lacking responsibility, but from Sumire’s position who had to manage and supervise them, it was just depressing.

There was even a time when all sorts of entertainment magical girls held impromptu performances using SNS to show off living, moving paintings and music that became reality and spewed out, gathering hundreds of thousands of people in the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas, causing police, the security forces, and Salon to mobilize simultaneously, mistaking it for a riot.

In areas near Tokyo, summoning-type magical girls held dangerous speeding competitions and illegal racing broadcasts that directly violated road traffic laws.

They also held competitions to competitively show off their charms by secretly collaborating with various companies and statistics sites to hold popularity polls based on the appearance or abilities of magical girls sponsored by companies.

Magical girls who solved all kinds of violent incidents on their own while touring regions like the Green Vigilante of Tokyo, the Martial Artist of Sapporo, and the Bear Hunter of Kyushu were even getting new aliases.

‘It can be seen as just a bit heated competitive spirit for now, but…’

Sumire felt that the flowers in the greenhouse were gradually unable to control their growth power.

The desire to shine more than other magical girls, not just being satisfied with showing off to others…

“As magical girls grow, the things we need to solve are increasing too…”

[Are you tired?]

“Other countries are in serious situations, but magical girls are burning such childish competitive spirit…”

[After all, wanting to compete, fight and win seems to be human instinct, boss.]

Flinch

Kaede’s hands, which were tying up the fallen thief gang, trembled a bit at Rena’s radio transmission, but Sumire, whose eyes were closed for a moment due to fatigue, didn’t notice.

“How should I report this situation to the king…”

As soon as the magical girl of [Beginning] was mentioned, Kaede thought of a certain person.

“Kaede?”

“…Yes, miss, I’ve completed everything.”

Sumire tilted her head, looking at Kaede like that.