Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

98 – Magical Ikusa Battle (2)

“Ah, that’s dangerous!”

Les’s warning came abruptly.

I didn’t ask what was dangerous.

Because I knew it already.

“Ah.”

The sensation in my fingers gripping the shield’s edge vanished abruptly.

All that remained was a throbbing pain, a slick feeling, and the hollowness of something that should have been there, now gone.

Right. My fingers had been severed.

The four fingers that were touching the shield’s edge.

Curious, I turned my head, and my severed fingers and the shield came into view, tumbling to the ground.

The shield’s edge, it seemed, had sprouted minuscule blades that rotated like a saw, devouring my fingers whole.

“Sorry! I forgot to mention it!”

Rez called out an apology from afar, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

Well, it couldn’t be helped, given the urgency of the situation.

The important thing was that I knew now.

Still, I had concentrated mana into my fingers, thinking it would help me hold on tighter, but they were sliced off so easily.

The output was far stronger than I’d imagined. I needed to be even more careful to avoid contact with the edge.

And, truthfully, I didn’t have the luxury to dwell on it.

The moment the moon’s eclipse ended, Screwdriver, who had been crouched low, charged straight at me.

“Let’s see if you can pull that crap up close too.”

A chilling grin, accompanied by the rest of the shields.

He must have realized the pipe wasn’t in good shape and decided to force close-quarters combat.

As if to prove it, Screwdriver tucked his standard-issue magic wand into his waistband.

He was sharp, undeniably. He’d assessed my condition in the midst of all that.

If that’s the case, I needed to respond appropriately, too.

A fierce jab, thrust straight out.

Knocking it aside with my elbow, followed by a strike to the base of his neck.

“Ugh!”

Two feinting jabs, followed by a high-angled spinning kick.

He ducked to avoid it, and as he rose, I slammed a knee into his jaw.

“Take this!”

A shield slammed down vertically from above.

Four steps back, then I kicked out at my opponent.

“Die!”

A knee to the groin, rising suddenly from behind the shield.

Kicking out the joint, tumbling him, two strikes to the gut with the leg.

“Ah, you son of a b*tch!”

The shield flying from the side, aimed for the thigh.

A half-step back, knocking it aside with the knee.

“Little rat, you’ve been at this since the beginning!”

Feinting towards the stomach, a foot extended like an iron pipe.

Deflecting it sideways, plunging in, a hard strike to the jaw.

-Thwack!

That instant, Guidu’s grip seized my arm. Her unsettling smile glowed with menace.

“Finally, I got yo─!”

“If you want to grab something, go grab your mother’s hand.”

Brandishing the hand that was now spurting blood where fingers used to be, I splattered the gore across Guidu’s eyes.

“Or not, I guess.”

Blinded by the sudden intrusion, Guidu instinctively clutched at her eyes.

“You motherless b*stard, that’s so cheap!”

“Thanks. I never heard praise like that from my teammates even when I carried at the top.”

Guidu, now vulnerable, thanks to my generosity.

Now was my chance to lay the groundwork.

I created distance, tracing the curve of the moon.

“Azure Moon.”

A blue crescent branded Guidu’s flesh. From the right side to the left nape of the neck, sharp and clear.

– Thack.

Just then, a shield flew from the blind spot, striking my wrist with its edge.

Fortunately, my reflexes were quick enough to pull my hand back the moment of impact, preventing a break, but at the cost of the iron pipe slipping from my grasp.

Landing behind Guidu, who had just wiped the blood from her eyes.

– Ting, tiddling.

The iron pipe made a rather noisy landing, right in Guidu’s elongated shadow.

“You know what?”

Guidu’s eerie voice cut through the air.

Something felt off. I stared at him, a silent, sidelong glare. Head, grinning like a loon, kept going.

“Magical deficiencies, you can fix ’em, sure. But if the part’s just…gone? Healing takes a real long time.”

Head probably thought he had the upper hand, right then.

And hey, physically speaking, he kinda did.

“Differs from person to person, but some folks, the magical juice just doesn’t take. Can last months, you know?”

The loss condition of this fight? Weapon breakage.

Conveniently, my weapon was lying within Head’s shadow.

Even if I bolted, he’d reach that pipe faster. And if things got hairy, he could just smash it with his shield, no need to come close.

“Even a magic girl like you’s gotta suffer. Can’t imagine how it’d go for a regular Joe, eh?”

That’s why he was acting all cocky, I guessed.

“In that case…”

In a flash, Head snatched up my severed fingers, waggling them back and forth.

“Now, if these little piggies were *missing*, how long you reckon it’d take for you to heal up, huh?”

Head sneered, then opened his mouth wide, bringing the dismembered digit to his lips.

Like he’d actually wolf it down, given half a chance.

“Hey, you might not want to eat that.”

“Scared?”

“Not even a stray dog would touch that. What are you, nuts?”

“Too late, dumbass.”

And Head swallowed my finger. Just like that.

The other magic girls around us openly showed their disgust.

“Ugh, that’s so gross.”

“Ugh, that crazy b*tch.”

“From now on, that psycho’s Magic Girl Mint Stray-dog. Seriously, what the hell.”

Head, though, couldn’t have cared less. He kept swallowing fingers, one by one.

Three times he did that.

“Ha. Too nasty, can’t eat any more.”

The last one was tossed carelessly behind him. By some stroke of luck, it landed neatly in the shadow right next to the pipe. Not bad.

Head belched softly, then smirked again.

“For quite a while you’ll have to live uncomfortably without fingers, so how’s the sensation?”

Frankly, I was dumbfounded.

“Gwiddu, I explicitly warned you not to eat it.”

I warned her, yet she didn’t even listen with half an ear.

What in the world was she thinking?

Well, what’s done is done.

“Unbelievable. What kind of magical gibberish have you been spewing since–“

“Exploding Moon (爆月).”

Then from now on, she’ll have to deal with the consequences.

──!!!!

Three explosions detonated simultaneously, creating one majestic roar.

Inside the stomach of Gwiddu, who had swallowed my fingers moments ago.

That’s right.

I cast Exploding Moon with the severed fingers.

With the fingers that Gwiddu just devoured, I mean.

Just as Whitedog channels magic into bullets to cast spells, I too cast spells with the magic dwelling within each of my fingers.

It wasn’t merely luck. From the moment they were severed, I was already thinking of how to utilize them to some extent.

If I hadn’t had any intention of utilizing them, I would have reattached them long ago. Now that my power is restored, operating magic to that degree is possible.

It’s just that I had planned to use them for a different purpose, but I certainly never expected Gwiddu to lay the groundwork so perfectly.

Thinking about it again, that b*tch is truly an idiot.

Why would she eat something she was told not to eat?

“Uwaaargh!!!”

Meanwhile, Gwiddu was half-crouching, vomiting gastric juices and clumps of clotted blood one after another. Viscous liquid flowed from her eyes and nose.

No matter how confident a magical girl is in her defense, directly targeting the inside seems unavoidable.

Watching Gwiddu, I took a step into the shadow cast before me.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to eat things that have been on the ground for more than three seconds?”

And I brought my other foot over, stomping firmly on the shadow.

“Ah, that’s right. You don’t have a mother, do you? My apologies.”

“Damn! Damn! Daaamn!!!”

Gwiddu pounded the ground with both hands for a moment, venting her frustration, then whipped her head back.

Her gaze settled on the iron pipe.

Lying within the long, stretching shadow.

A few seconds of stillness.

Then, Gwiddu, a bitter smile twisting his lips, began to inch backwards, towards the pipe.

As if eager to smash it and be done.

This called for stalling. There was a contingency, but using it immediately was difficult.

Frankly, she didn’t want to use it.

The burden it carried was considerable.

Even a little time would do; time to calculate. At the very least, divert his attention.

Then, a thought sparked.

If Sora was to be believed, Gwiddu had taken leave for a Vocaloid concert, hadn’t he?

If that was the case, it was best to prod this.

“Isn’t it pathetic, honestly? Acting like this just to go to some virtual data-fragment concert.”

“What’s it to you? What I do is none of your damn business!”

Gwiddu reacted explosively to her words, briefly overcome. He didn’t stop backing away, but this was good enough.

However, there was one thing she hadn’t foreseen.

“Young one, do you even know what a Magical Vocaloid is before speaking? It isn’t good to speak recklessly when ignorant.”

Nakji suddenly addressed her.

As if there were Vocaloid fans nearby, Nakji seemed to be testing the waters.

But, it was fine.

She knew what Vocaloid was.

“Of course I do. It’s like a subspecies of VTuber, isn’t it? There’s a reason they’re so alike.”

“Hey, what in the hell did you just say, young one?”

“Nakji, you didn’t even know that? How are you supposed to write with such a pathetic level of knowledge.”

Nakji only appeared impressive on the surface; in reality, he knew very little.

Well, what could she do?

This was a good chance to offer some harsh advice.

“Nakji, take this opportunity to study Vocaloid’s ‘foundations’ by thoroughly reading Namuwiki. Got it—”

“Hey.”

That moment, a heavy voice cut off her words.

“What did you just say?”

A sense of something, I turned my head, only to find Guidoo, his movement frozen, staring at me with murderous intent.

“Who are you to dare speak of ‘essence’?”

Thick malice dripped from Guidoo’s bloodshot eyes.

“Oh.”

The exclamation escaped me unbidden.

Not, of course, that I was surprised my words had struck home.

The reason was slightly different.

Guidoo’s eyes were changing.

Literally. Just a moment ago, they were ordinary eyes, but now, having completed their transformation, their shape was subtly altered.

Pupils morphing into shield-like forms.

Something I’d occasionally seen in opponents from the other world, those particularly troublesome ones. I never expected to witness it here, in this reality.

Guidoo, then, must also be standing on the precipice of power. Though I’d rather not admit it.

Meanwhile, Guidoo fixed his shield-shaped pupils on me, grinding his teeth.

“Are you completely insane? Do you even know the ‘essence’ of Magical Vocaloid?”

“Of course, I do.”

I returned his gaze with a smile, continuing my thought.

“Isn’t the ‘essence’ of Vocaloid, the Rabbit Hole—”

“Die!!!”

Guidoo stamped his foot heavily, and a massive shield, materialized from thin air, surged forward.

A vast surface, presented head-on, descending from above.

Intent on crushing me.

Though a spell cast without incantation, its size and speed were incomparable to before. Undoubtedly triggered by the altered eyes.

Guidoo wore a smile brimming with exultation.

“Got you!!!!!!”

The shield approached with a speed that rendered evasion impossible. Despite its form, it felt different somehow.

It was as though death itself was reaching out, its claws spread wide to seize me.

An unavoidable death.

But, it hardly mattered.

After all, what was it that I excelled at the most?

Right. It’s hide-and-seek with death.

So it is, once again. Only, there’s one thing I can’t quite stomach right now…

“Who said you could catch me?”

That I’m the one being caught.

How dare death, of all things, try to seize the moon? That much, I simply cannot allow.

Therefore.

“I’m the seeker.”

Hide well.

“Eun-wol (Hidden Moon).”

Don’t let your hair show.