Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

6 – Magical Psychological Counseling (1)

“You told me to speak comfortably.”

The magical girls and their mascots, every single one of them, stared at me in speechless bewilderment.

Especially the green-haired magical girl, the one who’d been trying to bite me, she took it the hardest. Her fists were clenched tight, barely managing to keep her embarrassment from boiling over into outright rage.

She hadn’t expected me to come out like this, that’s for sure.

“So, to put it nicely, *why*?”

But that wasn’t enough.

“Ah, tell me if it bothers you.”

So, a little more poking wouldn’t hurt.

“Auntie.”

The effect was remarkable.

Before I could even finish the word, the entire room seemed to grow heavy.

“You!!!”

It was because of the viscous emotions starting to leak out of the green-haired magical girl.

Hatred, resentment, and a fairly vivid desire to kill.

It was, quite literally, overwhelming. Just facing it felt like my body and soul were being ripped to shreds.

She certainly deserved those two stars. Her speech might be crude, but the aura she was giving off now was undeniably that of a powerful being.

But it wasn’t exactly terrifying.

The beings I’d had to face and fight in that other world were mostly powerhouses beyond any standard.

Occasionally, I’d run into a relatively weak opponent, but those weaklings always outnumbered me, wielding power equivalent to a strong one.

Thanks to dealing with those b*stards for ten years, I couldn’t even feel fear over the usual things if I wanted to. This was no different.

Top□ and No□pia stock plummeting?

Oh… that’s a little scary.

No, that’s actually terrifying. It can’t be happening, please.

How much money did I sink into this.

Anyway.

“Are you out of your mind, you little shit!!!”

The magical girl’s reaction was quite intense. It wouldn’t be strange if an accident or two happened here.

However.

“Maybe.”

I just smiled leisurely.

“I didn’t learn any better. Try to understand.”

Returning the sneer from just moments before.

Of course, I wasn’t just throwing caution to the wind. This was the moment I’d been waiting for, the time for a decisive move. In truth, it was the only chance I had.

A chance to be deemed unsuitable as a magical girl.

Aiming for exemption.

At the very least, public service.

That’s why I spoke with such vehemence.

Even with the conscription office’s standards, it’s hard to be declared unfit through a physical examination.

No, scratch that.

Even that’s not an accurate description.

It’s just plain impossible.

Even with a hole in your lung, struggling to breathe, you’re fit for active duty.

Even with a mind and body ravaged by torture, you’re fit for active duty.

Even in a state practically indistinguishable from disability, you’re fit for active duty.

With a scope of active duty so utterly fucked, how the hell are you supposed to get a disqualification?

It wouldn’t be much different just because magical girls were involved. The Magical Girl Association was nothing more than a spiritual successor to the conscription office anyway.

Besides, unlike during my time in the other world, my body is perfectly fine. All my limbs are intact, and there isn’t a single lingering deep wound.

The perfect body. To be dragged into active duty.

In the end, in this condition, the only way I could realistically be deemed unfit was one thing.

To prove it directly to the magical girls here through this psychological evaluation.

That I, as a person, was so mentally unsound that becoming a magical girl was out of the question.

And.

The first to be convinced, of course, was the green magical girl.

The reason for choosing her was simple. She was the easiest to handle among the magical girls present. And she had been acting like a total b*tch to me.

As if on cue, the easily provoked green magical girl glared at me as if she wanted to kill me.

“A deserter dares to say what? That I’m perhaps insane? Are you trying to mess with me right now?”

“No joke here.”

“Oh, you little shit, seriously!!!”

The green magical girl slammed her fist on the desk.

Her raw emotion raced through the cracks spreading across its surface.

“If a guy like you was in my unit, I would’ve killed you a long time ago! You understand, you son of a b*tch? Huh?!”

“Of course, I know well.”

Honestly, I was a little surprised.

“I was planning on dealing with you first too, you know.”

To think people so fundamentally incompatible could have the same idea.

Guess everyone’s thinking is pretty much the same, after all.

Except, there was something I hadn’t quite considered.

“Hah.”

That a magical girl would point her wand at me.

“Just die here, already.”

A cluster of green light began to coalesce at the tip of the wand pointed at me.

Could it be I underestimated how impulsive this magical girl would be? Only then did the mascot beside her frantically try to stop her.

[Stop! You can’t point a magic wand at ordinary people!]

Honestly, that was a little touching.

In most magical girl stories, the mascot and the magical girl tend to be alike. Tastes, hobbies, personality, way of thinking, preferences, and so on.

In other words, the magical girl’s will is essentially the mascot’s will.

But here, the mascot was going against the magical girl’s will, giving her a stern talking-to.

[Especially not with monster-killing magic!]

I hadn’t received this kind of favor except for once in another world, and suddenly, a feeling of something welling up inside me surged.

It was a green pufferfish-shaped mascot, but still, its thinking was perfectly rational.

[If I get another pay cut, I’ll have to eat bad food!]

“You just shut up and eat whatever I give you!”

No, its level of thinking was just perfect for a pufferfish brain.

Yeah. It’s my fault for expecting anything.

Like magical girl, like mascot, I guess.

Both acting without thinking, you morons.

…Wait a minute.

Did it say “another” a moment ago?

That means this son of a b*tch has done this before.

Even if the Ministry of National Defense and the Military Manpower Administration have disappeared, the truth remains. The truth that the officers are the first to be taken care of.

Meanwhile, the green magical girl gritted her teeth and gripped her wand even tighter than before.

“I would’ve endured it if I could, but I just can’t take it anymore.”

The green-clad magical girl voiced her raw, unfiltered fury. The sheer intensity of her murderous intent towards me was palpable.

Me? I was mostly just fascinated.

I hadn’t expected to see magic, the kind you only find in other worlds, again so soon in this one. Honestly, it was almost welcome.

“It’s all your fault.”

I’d only been lost in thought for a moment, but already the green mana gathered at the end of her magic wand had formed into a rather large, thorn-like shape, now unmoving.

“Die, you b*stard.”

With that mana coalesced and stabilized, it would be fired off before long. Judging by its size, both the power and the speed would be considerable.

“Needle Point.”

Just as I expected, the moment the magical girl finished speaking, a green thorn silently tore through the air.

[No!]

The mascot cried out in desperation, but alas, its shout couldn’t catch up with the searing flash.

[St─!]

And then, instead of the desperate scream as the mascot braced for the inevitable tragedy to come…

[Huh……?]

…it let out a deflated question.

“Ha……?”

The magical girl’s hollow gasp was just icing on the cake.

The reason for those two incongruous utterances, so out of place in such a tense situation, was simple.

“Woah.”

Because I dodged it.

“How scary.”

Of course, the magical girl’s magic wasn’t some trifle, easily avoided as I made it seem.

Quite the opposite, in fact. It was a very potent and fast spell. Before I could even fully register it, a large hole had been punched through the wall where the magic had struck.

However, was it difficult to dodge? Not really.

Frankly, not dodging it would have been absurd.

This was magic designed to kill monsters, after all.

The monsters in your typical magical girl stories are simple creatures. Beings that only blindly destroy driven by instinct.

And so, the magic used to kill them is equally simple.

Linear magic that boasts maximum power with a minimal amount of mana.

An efficient and effective form of magic.

For slaying monsters.

Granted, not all monsters lack intelligence, but they aren’t exactly commonplace either, so generally, magic of this sort would be more than sufficient.

Magic that, quite literally, visualizes the emotion of murderous intent.

But.

“Powerful, sure.”

It’s not the right kind of magic to aim at a person.

To kill a person, you have to imbue the magic with an emotion that’s even more viscous, more cloying, than simple bloodlust.

“Lacking.”

Malevolence.

A malevolence so profound that daring to even imagine it is forbidden, that soars past the bare minimum of morality humanity must adhere to, a loathsome malice so excessive that it’s almost too much to unleash on a single person.

The magic of that other world, all of it, was that kind of magic.

To inflict pain, with more savagery.

To deceive, with more craftiness.

To kill, with more ruthlessness.

So, this magic here? It’s avoidable.

Having spent so much time in that other world, how could I possibly fail to evade such a straightforward attack?

Now, even with a body that contains not even a trace of the Hero’s power – of mana – I’m still more than capable.

If I were to be picky, I’d say I’m even better off than I was back then.

“H-how? You dodged it?”

The one who cast the spell seemed unable to believe their own eyes, blinking in disbelief as they sputtered out those empty words. They must have been quite confident in their magic.

“You couldn’t even hit that?”

But thinking about it again, it’s actually ridiculous.

Even if it’s monster-killing magic, getting hit would mean certain death.

“Tell me honestly. You never hit all your targets, did you?”

And this b*stard is trying to use it on a person.

“Looks like you’re the moron here, after all.”

Since things have come to this, I decided to poke at them a little more.

“Hey, Twit, wanna become a master mage?”

Wasn’t there a saying something like this?

I couldn’t be the only one feeling like shit.

“Wanna learn magic from me? I’m a magic master, you know.”

Thanks to that, a green aura began to gather once more at the tip of the magic girl’s wand.

“Ah, goddamn it.”

In the same form as before.

But the number was greater.

This time, it was an expression of her will to kill me no matter what.

“I’ve lived a long life, but I’ve never seen a b*stard like you.”

“Me neither. I’ve never seen an ajumma who looks like you. Seriously, you’re fugly.”

“Oh, I’m really gonna kill you!!!”

Well, she actually said it right out loud.

But, making a mockery of the magic girl’s words, nothing happened. Neither the fully charged magic being launched, nor me dodging it.

No, more accurately, it *couldn’t* happen.

──!

In an instant, the room flashed white, and before I knew it, the green magic had vanished in an instant.

“Hah.”

An empty space where magic had disappeared.

“Enough.”

A dry voice sliced through the void.