Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

16 – Magical Initiation Ceremony (2)

In front of the base, where the Kaijin supposedly appeared.

Several magical girls were gathered, their faces a mix of annoyance and tension.

Including that racist from earlier, who was still giving me grief.

“Look who’s here, Blackie.”

“Yeah, Whitey.”

She wasn’t around in the dorm earlier, so she must have heard the deployment orders and come out right away.

Stupid *and* diligent.

A quintessential reject, really.

The fact that an A-lister like me had to associate with such a reject irked me slightly.

At that moment, Whitey’s gaze landed on my arm.

“Darky, why’s blood coming from your arm?”

“Ah, this?”

Indeed, as she said, blood was slowly seeping from one of my arms.

The situation unfolded thusly.

Because I kept refusing to get up, Sora, unable to bear it any longer, bit my arm with all her might.

Wasn’t a fox considered part of the canine family?

Sure charged in snout-first like some dog b*stard.

But I couldn’t be bothered explaining it all to some dimwit. She wouldn’t understand anyway.

So, in the end, I simply answered.

“I got bit.”

I didn’t forget to glare at the culprit.

Look at that little shit avoiding eye contact.

What a truly venomous b*tch.

That didn’t mean Blondie understood my words entirely. She just tilted her head as if she didn’t get it.

“Darky, you got bit?”

“Yeah, bitten real damn hard.”

“At Samjeon?”

“No, by a fiery fox.”

“Ah, FireFox.”

“Okay, that’s enough, everyone focus! Magical Company Commander’s here!”

Did a conscience that hadn’t existed suddenly appear? Sora abruptly cut off the conversation, face flushing for no reason.

Just then, as coincidence would have it, a magical girl with two diamonds drawn on her armband opened her mouth.

“Is everyone assembled?”

That magical girl must be the Company Commander.

The commotion subsided, and in the tense silence that followed, the Company Commander magical girl quietly murmured, looking at the magical girls.

“Prepare.”

No sooner were the words spoken than the magical girls raised their magic wands in one hand and chanted the same word.

The word a magical girl had to utter first, before engaging in fierce battle.

“Transform.”

Naturally, the two beside me also spat out the same word.

“Transformation.”

“Transformation!”

It was the moment I witnessed the transformation of a magical girl with my own eyes, something I’d only known through media.

The feeling that washed over me at seeing it for the first time was not one of elation—

“You fucking morons.”

—but of utter shit.

Because so many magical girls had transformed at once, the light generated by the transformation’s aftermath was too intense. To the point where, for a fleeting moment, the sense of sight itself was rendered meaningless.

“My eyes freaking hurt.”

It really, truly hurt.

Go do it somewhere else, isn’t this just plain inconsiderate?

I wish they’d think about other people before doing this.

What are they going to do if they get a complaint later?

Of course, I’ll be the one filing it though.

Soon, as the light subsided, what came into view were magical girls, each dressed in their own attire.

The two I shared a dormitory with were no different.

In the case of ‘Whitey’, a typical cowgirl outfit.

In the case of that fox-like b*tch, a shrine maiden outfit based on shades of blue.

Naturally, both were tremendously revealing. To the point where it was embarrassing even to look, making me subtly avert my gaze.

Thanks to that, I also felt a sense of self-loathing.

I didn’t know at first, but now I know that magical girls are all mentally ill.

Even so, my lower half twitches.

“Ha, goddamn it.”

My heart is troubled.

I know it has nothing to do with my will, but even so, to react to these kinds of girls…

If I get turned on by these lunatics, doesn’t that mean I’m also a lunatic?

It’s truly a regrettable thing.

A disqualification from humanity, in its purest form.

At that moment, Sora, who had completed her transformation, approached me with a slender smile.

“Senior, what do you think of your sister’s transformation?”

What do I think? Well…

“Damn it.”

“Oh, how did you know our Captain’s Magical Girl name is Golden Retriever?”

It was meant as an insult, but she was surprisingly accurate.

That her Magical Girl name would be Golden Retriever, of all things. Come to think of it, even her mascot was a golden pup.

Basically, a son of a b*tch.

So that’s why she was talking like a dog, that son of a b*tch.

Of course, I had no intention of saying that outright.

“You’re just acting like a real dog.”

“Senior, you mean that in a good way, right?”

Sora pressed me sharply, but I didn’t answer.

Not that I even had the chance, anyway.

The Company Commander Magical Girl, who had just issued orders to the others, was now slowly extending her fingers.

Towards the shadowy Kaiju visible in the distance.

“Everyone, forward.”

At those five words, the Magical Girls immediately sprang into action. Some flew into the sky with practiced precision, while the rest formed ranks and moved forward on the ground.

Of course, I just stood there, blankly.

“Darky, aren’t you going?”

“Senior, let’s go, quickly!”

The sisters were on either side of me, urging me on, but I remained rooted to the spot.

I mean, what did they want me to do?

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, and I didn’t even have any powers.

“Hey, you, that man there.”

At that moment, the Company Commander Magical Girl singled me out.

“Yes, you.”

Her expression was quite displeased. She probably wasn’t happy that I wasn’t following orders.

“What in the world are you doing? Magical insubordination can be punished by death, if necessary, you know?”

It was a fairly brutal thing to say, but I didn’t bother answering. Instead, I held out my empty hands.

She furrowed her brow and asked me,

“Where’s your magic wand?”

“I don’t have one.”

“So, what about a mascot?”

“Don’t have one of those either.”

“Ha.”

The Company Commander Magical Girl gripped her head with one hand and let out a vast sigh.

Presently, she fixed me with a glare full of scorn and loathing, her lips twitching.

“Don’t you ever go around calling yourself a Magical Girl.”

“Like I’d go around blabbing about that, you crazy hag.”

“Ah… right, you’re right.”

Well, that didn’t last long, though.

For a fleeting moment, the Company Commander Magical Girl was speechless, dazed. But then, she snapped back to it and growled at me once more.

“Still, you gotta do what you gotta do. Why aren’t you? Did someone drag you here against your will or something? No, right?”

She was asking the most ridiculous question.

This wacko’s just as nuts as the rest.

“Uh, yeah, I was dragged.”

“In that case, you should naturally obey orders—what…?”

“I said I was dragged.”

Like I’d come here of my own volition, you loon.

I shot her a glare overflowing with that sentiment, and the Company Commander Magical Girl openly displayed her bewilderment.

“Ah, no… you’re saying you weren’t some lunatic who volunteered because they wanted to be a Magical Girl? You were actually dragged here?”

This world has truly gone mad.

To think there are lunatics out there who actually *want* to be these nutjobs, volunteering for the Magical Girl gig against their will.

It’s become too harsh a world for an ordinary, sane person like me to live in.

The end is nigh. Truly, the end is nigh.

“Yep.”

I nodded.

She hurriedly made a phone call to someone.

Probably reporting to her superior.

“Yes, it’s me. No, it’s just that…”

Judging by her reaction, the Company Commander Magical Girl didn’t know a thing. Who I was, what I did today.

Well, whatever.

Anyway, I waved to Whitungi and Sora.

“See? Have fun suffering.”

Not like I’ll ever have to step foot on the front lines.

*

“Seriously, fuck.”

Wrong.

I was inevitably being roped into monster extermination.

“Senior, please stop cursing so much.”

“How can I not fucking curse?”

The circumstances were as follows.

The company commander magical girl, after a few phone calls, momentarily left her post. Soon after, she returned and handed me something.

“They’re sending me out to catch monsters with this bullshit, how can I not be pissed?”

A seemingly ordinary magic wand.

“W-Well, Senior. Even with the basic model wand, you can use plenty of basic magic. It’s pretty sturdy, even if it isn’t a personal wand.”

“What good is that to me, I can’t even use magic.”

“Ah… that’s, true.”

I was genuinely flabbergasted.

Giving a magic wand to a cripple who can’t even cast a single spell and pushing them into the line of fire – does that even make sense?

Well, it’s a place full of lunatics, so it’s not like it’s completely beyond reason.

Anyways, that’s how things had been up to now.

After that, nothing much happened. As if they knew this was going to happen to me, Whitungi and Sora, who had left earlier, were waiting for me.

And now, we’re all moving to join the magical girl. That’s the situation.

“Blacky, didn’t you do any of your mouth-fighting like before?”

“Of course I raised hell.”

Naturally, I didn’t accept it at first. I argued tooth and nail, and when words failed, I even grabbed the company commander magical girl by the collar.

“But you came? Why?”

But nothing changed.

─ “Well…, the battalion commander ordered it…”

I received only a pathetic excuse.

“All because of that b*stard, the battalion commander.”

Indeed, the truth holds true, then as now. The truth that one must eliminate the higher-ups first.

That b*stard of a battalion commander deserves a place on my grievance kill-list.

Twice a day I’ll add his name, with utmost sincerity.

In that moment, Sora suddenly spoke.

“But aside from that, something about this whole situation feels subtly off.”

“What else could it be?”

Was there something even stranger than forcing a perfectly normal person into a death trap?

“The location where the Kaijin appeared.”

“What about it?”

“No, you don’t know?”

“Nope.”

Of course I wouldn’t know.

I wasn’t in this world during the Kaijin emergence.

“Ah, right. You’re going with the ‘just got back from another world’ act.”

“It’s not an act, you little shit.”

“Whatever.”

Brushing off my words, Sora continued to speak.

“Normally, Kaijin appear in civilian populated areas.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that’s why the units are mostly stationed in the cities, and when we need to deploy far away, we use Gates to get there as quickly as possible.”

An unexpected tidbit of information from Sora’s lips.

The existence of Gates.

A concept that usually only appeared in novels and other media, yet here she was mentioning it like it was perfectly normal, making me feel slightly bizarre.

Almost as if I were a stranger in a strange land.

“But.”

Before I could get lost in my thoughts, Sora quickly expressed her doubts, adding her next thought.

“Why did the Kaijin have to appear right in front of the unit?”

Now that I’m hearing it, it does sound a bit strange.

Magical Girls are, by nature, beings meant to fight Kaijin.

Simply put, experts in Kaijin slaughter.

And yet, before the very eyes of a unit comprised of magical girls, a grotesque being brazenly manifested.

“We’ve never had this happen before?”

“I heard there was only one instance during the initial Monster invasion, but back then it wasn’t a group like this, just a single one.”

“Really?”

Not just a few, but a whole horde had arrived.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure since I only heard about it. It was even before magical girls appeared. Supposedly, everyone but one died back then.”

A natural consequence since they weren’t magical girls to begin with, Sora added.

“Don’t worry about it too much. It just feels a little strange.”

Sora ended the conversation as if telling her not to mind, but just dismissing it gnawed at her.

It was odd.

Why come here of all places?

Just to die pointlessly?

Or did they have another objective?

Even if the monsters were creatures driven by instinct, they shouldn’t suddenly deviate from their usual behavior like this.

For some unknown reason, something felt deeply unsettling.

“Senpai! Watch out!”

“Whitie! Dodge!”

In that instant, the sharp voices of Sora and Whitie snapped me from my reverie.

“What’s with you two, all of a sud─”

What filled my vision were fangs, far sharper and more menacing than the voices I’d just heard.

“Ah?”

That’s right.

The monster was baring its jaws.

Ready to relentlessly bite and tear at my skull.

“Ah.”

To sever my lifeline.