Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

23 – Magical Daily Life, and…

The life I experienced as a magical girl wasn’t all that different from the life I’d lived as a soldier.

Meaning the components were similar.

A day that starts with a *pyororong* trumpet sound.

Work hours spent carrying out assigned tasks.

Meals conducted at the appropriate time.

And.

“Oh my, never expected to meet such an important person here.”

Even a son of a b*tch who picks fights over every little thing.

I came to eat, but ended up meeting a mint-colored magical girl in the magical dining hall. A magical girl with a head shaped like a mint-colored glans, that is.

Even the heavens are indifferent.

I wonder if she’ll show me her glans while I eat.

Suddenly, I felt like shit. Afraid that seeing any more would ruin my appetite, I issued an order to leave.

“That’s enough, just go away, dickhead. You’re disgusting.”

“Hey, why do you keep talking to me like that…?”

“What.”

“…Never mind, goddamn it.”

The shitty girl let out a resigned sigh for a moment, then clung to me again.

“By the way, our brave warrior there is helping herself to two whole fish. Big ones, too. Impressive, really.”

That b*tch is giving me shit about what I’m eating.

If she wanted it, she should have gotten it herself.

Still, I decided to hold back for now. If she’s saying that much, she must have really wanted the fish.

Might as well extend a little goodwill while I was at it. The so-called magical military life, right here.

“Here you go.”

“…Hey.”

And yet, all I got in return was a frigid voice.

“What now?”

“Why’d you put two heads on my tray?”

“You said you wanted fish.”

So I gave you fish, what’s the big deal?

“No! I meant I wanted the *good* part, you useless sack of…”

“Don’t you know? The head is the best part of the fish.”

Wouldn’t you know it, just like a magical girl, she was genuinely lacking in common sense.

Not only was she spouting nonsense, calling *me* useless, but she didn’t even know that fish heads are a delicacy.

Even a high school grad like me knows that.

“Seriously, are you crazy! Just take it back!”

Ah, I get it now.

She was making an excuse to give it to me on purpose.

Well then, the least I can do is accept it graciously.

“Alright.”

In the end, I took the two fish heads from the mint-colored magical girl’s tray.

So now my tray held two fish bodies and two fish heads.

“Oh, four fish.”

And naturally, the mint-colored magical girl’s tray was completely empty.

I gotta admit, I looked at her in a new light.

To give me her own share of fish, too.

“Thanks. Glad to see being a good person pays off.”

“No, you useless sack of garbage!!! If you took them, you’re supposed to give them back!!!”

I definitely needed to give her something in return. I wouldn’t feel right just letting it slide.

“Here, I’ll give you this instead.”

So I gave her peanut butter as a thank you. It was a bit of a waste, but enough for two fish heads.

“Get that away from me! I’m allergic to peanut butter!”

“Oh?”

To think she’d refuse even this.

I was slightly moved.

“Thanks. Enjoy your meal.”

“Hey!!!!!!”

Leaving the shout of the mint-haired magical girl behind me, I finished getting my food and sat down.

After that, there were sounds of some kind of bickering among the magical girls.

“B-but, just a moment! I haven’t gotten mine yet─!”

“Everyone here saw you put the fish on your tray, what are you trying to deny?”

“No! That jerk took it, so I didn’t get one!”

“That’s enough, just hurry up and go. Can’t you see people are waiting behind you?”

“Ah! Ah! Ah, goddamn it!”

It wasn’t my problem anyway.

They’d figure it out themselves, probably.

As soon as I sat down, Whity across from me spoke softly.

“Hey, did something happen just now?”

“Nah.”

Sora tilted her head, looking at my tray.

“Why does Senpai have four fish? Wasn’t it two per person for Magical Standard Serving?”

“You remember that mint-haired dickhead we saw last time? He gave them to me, see?”

“Huh? That guy?”

Sora’s confusion deepened.

It wasn’t a reaction I couldn’t understand. Honestly, I didn’t really believe it at first either.

But you can only truly understand a person through conversation.

That mint-haired dickhead had a nasty look, but he did take care of me in his own way, didn’t he? Thinking about it again, he’s a really grateful person.

Just then, I saw the mint-haired magical girl carrying her tray. Seeing that her side dishes were all empty, it looked like she was intentionally trying to control her diet.

She’s more disciplined than she looks.

Might as well give her some encouragement while I’m at it.

“Hey, I’ll eat well. Good luck with your diet.”

“Ah, that son of a b*tch is really pushing it to the very end!!!”

Having cheered them on with all my might, the mint-colored Magical Girl returns a deeply enthusiastic bow of gratitude.

They say that when a person does good, their heart swells with a feeling close to euphoria; this was a case in point.

“See?”

“…Let’s just eat.”

“Alright.”

It was a truly bountiful meal.

*

In the military, you clean. Always, and everywhere.

After duty hours, you clean the living quarters; during duty hours, whenever there’s a break, you clean the flowerbeds or the area around the base.

Magical Girls were no exception.

As if someone from the Ministry of National Defense was whispering in their ear, they were making the Magical Girls clean.

I even asked if they couldn’t just use magic, or some magical tool, to clean things up a little, but both ideas were shot down.

For two reasons.

Magic didn’t have that kind of convenient spell.

And Magical Girls were cheaper than magical tools.

Magical Girl Squad, military – there’s hardly a difference. People are overwhelmingly cheaper than equipment.

Anyway, so there we were, the three of us huddled together, cleaning the flowerbeds. Up to this point, it was exactly like my memories of the military.

Except for one small difference from my memories.

“Wait a second, we need to separate out the Magical Cigarette butts.”

“That’s right, Senior. Please put the Magical cigarette butts here.”

Separating the cigarette butts to collect them separately.

“The company commander didn’t say anything about that.”

“There’s a reason. Just give them to Sora.”

“And what’s a ‘Magical cigarette,’ anyway?”

The name itself was strange to begin with. A cigarette is just a cigarette, what’s with this “Magical cigarette” nonsense?

“Magical Cigarettes have a different effect. They’re not even that bad for your health, and when you smoke them, they taste sour and sweet.”

“What Unnie said is right. Plus, Magical cigarettes, when you smoke them, they heal your wounded heart and make you feel like you’re dreaming.”

“That’s weed, you crazy b*tches.”

I thought they were Magical Girls, but they were actually weed-smoking Magical Girls.

They’re seriously insane.

“Ah, Magical Reefer’s separate. Costs a bit more than Magical Cigarettes. Guess it’s because the effect’s stronger, see?”

“…Is that so.”

“Senior, haven’t you even watched Pretty Cure? Something similar shows up there too.”

“Like I’d watch something like that.”

*Though I have looked at doujinshi.*

It was getting to the point where I wondered if I was the crazy one. In a batshit world, a normal guy’s gotta seem insane, right?

Still, setting that aside, what I was doing now was weird.

“No, but why collect only the butts?”

You could just toss ’em all together, but no, he’s meticulously separating and collecting just the butts.

Thanks to that, sorting the trash was taking longer than picking it up.

“To buy Magical Cigarettes at the list price at the Magical PX, you gotta bring in 20 of these.”

“Aha.”

I was starting to get the picture.

No wonder there were fewer butts lying around than I’d seen back in the military; everyone had their reasons.

Those who want to smoke will smoke, no matter what restrictions you put in place. It’s not for nothing people say quitting smoking is a lifelong struggle.

If you can’t force people to quit, the least you can do is keep the surroundings clean. I figured that must have been the intention behind making such rules.

And from that, I could infer one thing.

“You two both smoke, huh.”

The sisters were smokers, both of them.

“No, just me. Sora was a way more serious heavy smoker than I was, but she quit now.”

“Ah, Sora did?”

Scratch that.

Apparently, now, just Hwindi was a smoker.

“Yeah, she used to be a Nine-Tailed Fox. She’d hold nine Magical Cigarettes and smoke ’em all at once.”

“O-Onni! That was a long time ago! Stop talking about that in front of Senior!”

I wondered why their explanations were so excessively detailed. The people who smoke know more than the people who aren’t interested in the effects of the cigarette.

Still, it was surprising. I wouldn’t have thought Hwindi was smart enough to smoke.

Is she just smoking because she’s dumb?

Or did she get dumb because she smoked?

I dunno. Well, ain’t my problem.

Soraya, huh. With that slightly sharp, even shrewish image, it was… plausible. Though lighting nine at once was a bit of a surprise.

Just then, Soraya, who had been scolding ‘Whitey’, suddenly became cautious and quietly spoke to me.

“Sunbae, do you dislike girls who smoke?”

I wondered why she was being so careful.

It was all just a matter of personal preference, wasn’t it?

“Not ‘dislike’, exactly, but I’m a *little* put off by it, maybe?”

“Oh, really? Ahem, well, I’ll keep holding back, then.”

With those few words, Soraya gave me a flirty, eye-smile.

What a fox.

She said she was a lesbian, so why was she trying to impress me?

Meanwhile, Whitey gave me a questioning look.

“You’ve… never smoked a cigarette before?”

“Nope. Never once.”

It wasn’t as if I’d ever been in an environment where smoking was common.

Before being dragged to this other world, I invested all my money in stocks; I couldn’t spare the cash for cigarettes. There was no reason to smoke.

On the other hand, in that other world, life was so fucked up that I *wanted* to try it, but it was impossible.

With guys trying to take my head off day and night, smoking would have given my position away. Because of the cigarette lighter, or the distinctive smell.

That was actually an advantage for *me*. It was easy to pinpoint the location of someone smoking, even in the dark.

“Oh? Then take one.”

Whitey suddenly offered me a cigarette.

I recoiled, refusing.

“Hey, I said I don’t smoke.”

“It’s a spare, so take it. If you’re ever feeling penis-bad, give it a try. It’ll really make you happy. I’ve got others anyway.”

“Ha.”

In the end, I reluctantly accepted it.

Even though I don’t smoke, I’d heard that spares are very important to smokers. And she was giving me a spare, how could I just refuse?

Maybe it was her way of trying to be friendly.

In that case, I had no choice but to accept it for now.

I’d just secretly throw it away later, I guess.

“Anyway, let’s finish this up quickly! There’s still a lot left to clean!”

Sora was right, the area allocated to us was certainly far from finished.

There was no rule saying we had to finish on time, but finishing early couldn’t hurt. As long as we didn’t make it obvious, that meant more time to rest.

But finishing the cleaning was not to be.

[Master! You’re wanted back! Right now!]

[Aibo, we have to go too. This is all the Magical Girls gathering.]

It was because our mascots, Huingdungyi and Sora, suddenly called us back.

[Master, hurry! General Maho Shojo wants you!]

[Aibo, quickly. Magical Girl White Phoenix said it’s urgent.]

Apparently, the one who summoned us was none other than a general.

White Phoenix, probably the White Magical Girl.

I wondered what business suddenly summoned us. It was getting close to evening; what task could she be assigning?

But.

“We’re going to capture a Magical Felon now.”

The White Magical Girl’s words were even stranger.