Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

4 – Magical Aptitude Test (1)

The Bureau of Conscription is a goddamn pain in the ass.

This is an immutable truth, transcending nations, races, and eras.

Now, even though the organization itself, the Bureau of Conscription, has vanished, regrettably, this axiom remains valid.

All thanks to its spiritual successor, the Magical Girl Association.

They’ve named it the Magical Association, seemingly to feign some semblance of differentiation, but their actions are exactly the same.

So, yeah, goddamn pains in the ass. b*stards.

What else are you supposed to call them?

Motherfucking sons of b*tches? Sure, that works too.

Anyway.

I was in the physical examination hall, the place you inevitably have to pass through before becoming a Magical Girl, or, in contemporary parlance, the Magical Aptitude Test center.

Right. The old military physical examination place.

You’d think coming here for the second time, it would feel familiar, but this time around it felt surprisingly alien.

Unlike the drab scene from my memories, now the place was decked out with cutesy decorations and a plethora of state-of-the-art equipment.

As if Magical Girls were actually a real thing.

Well, it’s not exactly hitting home. Just feels like I’ve been dragged to a mental asylum. After all, I didn’t come here of my own volition.

And to make things worse, today was Sunday.

Everyone else gets to rest, but I’m stuck here, going through this bullshit.

“Alright, can you see this?”

The order of the physical exam was rather different from before. But the content itself was still the same.

Asking questions, supplemented with a few tests, and writing down the results based on the answers.

“Can’t see it.”

“You can see perfectly fine. 1.2 eyesight in both eyes.”

“I told you I can’t see it, you son of a b*tch.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what they all say.”

It was hardly a physical examination, though, seeing as my answers didn’t actually seem to matter.

More like a notification, really.

“It’s no use lying. The Magical Measurement Device has already confirmed all your physical information.”

Then why the hell did you even ask, you little b*tch?

I swallowed the words clawing their way up my throat and opened my mouth, trying to sound as calm as possible.

“Then this is just a waste of time.”

“We’re checking how cooperative the person being examined is. If you’re evaluated as uncooperative, you’ll receive corresponding disadvantages when you become a Magical Girl.”

I was starting to get the picture.

Come to think of it, they’d immediately ordered me to go through that strange, shimmering door when I first arrived. That must have been the Magical Measurement Device.

In other words, lying during the physical exam part was completely useless.

They didn’t do a separate personality test, so they were probably judging my attitude during this.

Impressive.

In the worst way possible.

Only the target’s gender had changed, but their tenacious nature, that relentless drive to drag in even one more person, remained the same.

They say the more awful someone is, the longer they live, and it seemed that applied to the defunct Military Manpower Administration and Ministry of National Defense as well. Even dead, they were practically still alive.

Still, I decided to try smiling.

“A-ha-ha.”

Of course, that absolutely didn’t mean I was just going to accept this. If I was being honest, I wanted to go out there right now and smash everything to pieces, Magical Girl and all. I really did.

But.

“Then we’ll move on to the next thing.”

“Yes, let’s.”

Now wasn’t the time to lose my temper.

“A-ha-ha-ha.”

Now was the time to smile and wait for an opportunity.

No matter how dire and wicked this situation was, there would always be a way out. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been in more hopeless situations than this in the other world.

In fact, my current circumstances were far better than they were back then.

Back then, I was the moon’s warrior, public enemy number one.

But now, I was a major shareholder of Top□ and No□pia.

A being almost akin to omnipotence. God might have the world, but even He probably didn’t own stocks in Top□ and No□pia.

That was how good my position was. It was just that the timing wasn’t ripe yet.

I wait, then, until that moment arrives.

Like bending one’s knees to gather momentum.

Like a cheetah, amused, watching the dogs run.

And then.

Since I’m laughing anyway, I decided to dwell on happy thoughts.

The fact that I survived in this other world, without dying, was thanks to happy thoughts, after all.

“Heh heh. Silksong is coming soon.”

“Stop laughing like that. It’s starting to worry me.”

Even now, I believed I could overcome it with happy thoughts. I truly believed that.

“Wow, The Bird That Drinks Poison is coming out tomorrow!”

“Oh dear, here we go again. Take your medicine.”

The nurse scolded.

Along with a bottle of pink liquid sloshing inside.

“What kind of medicine is this?”

“Magical contrast agent. You absolutely need it for the test, so don’t leave any behind.”

It was a type of medicine I’d never seen before, and I was slightly hesitant, but I swallowed it all down as instructed.

It was medicine I had to take for the test, surely they wouldn’t give me something untoward.

The taste was a little awful.

Well, medicine is like that, I suppose.

“Ah, the expiration date passed. I’ll get you a new one.”

“Hey, you freaking b*tch.”

I already drank the whole thing, and now you tell me? You son of a dog.

“Yes, yes, here, please drink this again.”

In the end, I unintentionally ended up drinking another bottle of contrast agent. Overdosing made my stomach feel slightly bloated.

“Did you finish it all?”

“Yes, what should I do now?”

The nurse pointed to a machine.

“Then please step onto the platform of that machine over there. Match the position of your feet to the footprints.”

Judging by its appearance alone, it was a radiation imaging device.

In other words, very similar to an X-ray machine.

The only difference I could discern was that the operating panel and results screen weren’t in a separate room, but just slightly set apart.

Otherwise, it was exactly like an X-ray machine. The setup, the fact that I couldn’t see the results immediately.

“What is this thing? What are you trying to do?”

“Huh? You really don’t know? These days, even the Magical Welfare Centers have one.”

“I ended up here before I ever had a chance to go to a place like that.”

Dragged here, more precisely.

But I didn’t bother adding that.

Because, strictly speaking, it wasn’t entirely untrue.

“Oh, really? What kind of work did you do before, that you never had to visit a center?”

Most of what I said consisted of questions or “I don’t know,” but this I could answer easily.

“A hero.”

“You said you don’t know what this is, right? I’ll explain as quickly as possible.”

Not that meant she was actually listening to my answer.

“No, I *am* a hero.”

“This is a Magical Aptitude Tester.”

“Jesus.”

“Before someone becomes a true magical girl, this device tests how much magical power they possess, and in what form it exists.”

The nurse didn’t even react to what I said, just kept rattling off her lines.

As if she hadn’t heard a thing.

Or as if she simply didn’t want to hear it.

And was even that indifference not enough, perhaps?

“Since magical power is difficult to accurately measure by conventional means, we have you drink contrast fluid and take images, like this.”

Now the nurse even fixed me with a steady gaze. A troubled look, as if she were dealing with someone mentally unstable.

My own mood began to darken, genuinely. *Jesus.*

“Now you understand?”

Having finished her explanation, the nurse demanded an answer.

“Hold on, but I’m genuinely a hero, I─”

“Do you understand?”

Of course, the answer I was expected to give was predetermined.

Any other statements were not permitted.

“…Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

Anyway, I roughly grasped what this was.

The explanation was a bit long-winded, but if I were to summarize it succinctly, I could describe this machine like this:

A device to confirm the magical power possessed by a magical girl.

However.

Do I really need to do this?

It’s only meant for magical girls, isn’t it?

In the first place, I’m not a girl, just a man.

“But, do I really need to do this?”

“Regardless of whether you’re male or female, everyone has magical power, so measuring it is the rule. That’s why it’s included as a mandatory test in the regular health checkup. Only once, though.”

“Oh.”

Certainly, a lot has changed.

I thought magical power only existed in that other world I was dragged into, but after ten years, it’s now a concept that’s even accepted in this reality.

So, I suppose that’s why machines like this exist. After all, magical girls and magical power are inseparable.

However, I don’t know if the magical power of the other world and the magical power of this world are the same.

They probably are, but it feels a bit ambiguous to say for sure.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to check on this occasion.

“Magical power… you mean that weird lump-like thing, gathered here in the heart, right?”

“Ah?! Yes, that’s right!”

I had a hunch that it was something like that.

People think the same things, anyway.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there are people in that other world. I’m just saying that the way of thinking itself isn’t that different.

Anyway.

Did the nurse not expect words like that to come out of my mouth? She stared at me with eyes full of surprise.

“How did you know about magical power?”

No matter how much this reality has developed, it still has a long way to go compared to the other world. To make such a fuss just for knowing one thing about magical power.

Ah, this is common sense in the other world, though.

“I thought you were clearly an imbecile.”

“Hey, you little…”

The nurse wasn’t making a fuss because of the common sense of this other world called Magic. She was surprised by the very fact that I *knew* common sense.

“Well, of course I’d know, I *was* a hero, after all!”

“Yes, yes, we’ll begin the recording now. Please hold still.”

I was genuinely curious. You could harass civil servants with petitions, but just how did one torment a nurse, I wondered.

“Hah, alright.”

After sighing a couple of times, I stood there obediently. Whether I felt good or bad, I couldn’t just skip over what needed to be done right now.

“Yes, stay just like that, please.”

I stood there blankly for a moment.

*Ping!* A sound rang out.

Presumably, that meant the results were in.

“Is it done?”

“Yes.”

The nurse, her gaze fixed on the screen, nodded slightly and continued.

“The results came back… well… uh…”

Her words gradually faded away. By the end, her voice had completely died down.

“Uh…”

The nurse didn’t say anything more. She simply stared at the result screen.

A flustered expression on her face.