Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

49 – A Cliché That Invariably Appears in Magical Girl Stories

The moment we crossed the gate, a magical girl greeted us.

After a brief greeting, we immediately spoke with the magical girl and assessed the situation.

Sora took charge of this part.

“You’re saying there are only three monsters left?”

“Yes, we weren’t just standing around doing nothing, you know. We either killed or captured the rest.”

“You’ve done well.”

“It’s just, too many magical girls have become magically combat-incapable, and there are still hostages left in the building, so we haven’t made any further progress.”

So, only three monsters left.

That was certainly fortunate.

“What do the remaining monsters look like?”

“Two are just normal monsters, but the last one is a bit…unique. It’s been difficult to get close enough to even figure it out.”

Two out of the three were ordinary monsters.

But one was a unique monster.

“Difficult to get close to, you say?”

“If it raises its hands, a grey fog spreads over a certain range, and the magical girls inside that fog all end up cursed. The monster can also fly around in the sky.”

A fiend, they say, who casts curses.

That he flies through the sky is just a bonus.

This was, undeniably, a troublesome opponent.

The sky is, by nature, the domain of magical girls. But the fiend now brazenly trespassed, violating that domain.

Meaning, the magical girls’ advantage was partially diminished.

Meanwhile, Nakji and Huindung, perhaps because it was their first time witnessing a flying fiend, clutched at their heads, displaying unabashed astonishment.

“Good heavens! Now they’re flying, too!”

“A flying Fiend-ian!!!”

Sora, on the other hand, focused on a different detail.

“Curses?”

“That seems to be the case. The silver lining, if there is one, is the long interval between casting each curse.”

“What kind of curses are we talking about?”

“There are many kinds. Furthermore, the curses that take hold are entirely random. Oh, and additionally, the timing of when the curses manifest also seems to be unpredictable.”

The fiend’s curses were said to be diverse and multifaceted.

Recurring leg cramps, a persistent sensation of foreign objects in one’s shoes and clothes, the constant feeling of needing to sneeze without actually being able to.

“The magical girls who endure here all carry a few curses. Even I, for example, am constantly aware of the precise location of my eyeballs, and there’s a perpetually shifting itch on my back.”

As if to prove she was truly cursed, the magical girl twitched incessantly as she spoke.

“Still, those don’t sound so bad, do they?”

“Of course, there are far worse.”

The lingering ache of kidney stones, the agonizing sensation of hangnails ripping long and deep from fingers and toes. Horrific curses, indeed.

“Some magical girls constantly experience the pain of their Magical Day, and others, even virgins, feel the throes of childbirth.”

“Oh my…”

Sora covered her mouth, a look of pity on her face.

Personally, though, she didn’t think the curses were all that vicious. Compared to the suffering she had endured in the other world, it was all rather trivial.

Frankly, they were being overdramatic.

“Ah, that’s right. There’s also the ‘Petrification’ curse.”

Correction.

The fiend’s curses were, in truth, truly wicked.

This fiend was more troublesome than she initially thought. If anything, the magical girls who had persevered this far seemed remarkable.

How could they possibly endure such curses?

“This curse you’re talkin’ about, it’s truly hopeless, isn’t it? What are we even supposed to do?”

“It’s alright. The Weirdindian’s curse? A Magical Atropine shot is all it takes to clear it right up.”

“They say the curse falls when the fog rolls in, so a Magical Gas Mask would be sufficient, *it is*. The problem is, it seems no one thought to bring one, *it seems*.”

Well, curse was just a word. It was just a chemical weapon attack.

A rather serious chemical weapon attack, at that.

Right on cue, Sora was making the same point.

“We don’t seem to have any Magical Gas Masks. Do we happen to have any more Magical Atropine shots?”

“Those were all used up a while ago. Some were past their Magical expiration date too, so they weren’t even effective.”

“Ugh. This is not good.”

“Well, they say a strong mental shock can break the curse, but that’s hardly an easy feat. We should probably consider it impossible, actually.”

Thanks to that, my ill will toward the Battalion Commander deepened.

If she’d at least told us there was a curse, we’d have at least brought some Magical Atropine shots.

That son of a b*tch, she’s dead meat.

“Then we’ll try to rescue the hostages. That should make it easier for you to fight.”

“Please do. Honestly, if this situation continues, we’ll probably be pushed back. Magical HQ says they’re too busy to provide Magical support, too.”

“Understood.”

Having obtained that information, we attempted to infiltrate the abandoned building where the hostages were being held.

Naturally, I took the lead on this.

“Stick close. If your timing’s off, even by a little, we’ll be spotted right away.”

“But, senpai, are you sure you’ll be alright? The Magical Girls already tried and they all failed, didn’t they?”

“Doesn’t matter. Infiltrations are all pretty much the same.”

Of course, infiltrating a modern building was a first for me.

But it wasn’t impossible.

I’d gotten my fill of infiltrating strange buildings in the Otherworld. This time shouldn’t be too different.

“Let’s go straight up here. If you’re really worried, we can ask the Magical Girls to use magic to draw their attention away.”

And so, we were able to infiltrate the building without much difficulty.

“Where did you learn things like this? Manga?”

“The Otherworld, of course.”

“Just say you saw it in a manga. Your image can’t possibly fall any lower than it already has.”

“You little shit.”

Of course, it wasn’t without its difficulties. Though, it wasn’t so much the infiltration itself, but the matter of our objective.

The difficulty in pinpointing the hostage’s location.

“Must we continue searching like this, hmm? I feel a powerful urge to simply crumble everything, hmm?”

“I feel the same way.”

But, it couldn’t be helped.

A magical girl is one who slays the Anomalies, but at the same time, protects humanity.

And yet, a magical girl abandons civilians?

That simply cannot be.

Such a being cannot be called a magical girl.

In the end, we continued to seek the hostage’s whereabouts, moved, and sought again, repeating the cycle.

How much time had passed like that?

“Everyone, halt. They’re in that room.”

Finally, we could locate the hostage.

Together with the Anomalies.

“Two normal Anomaly-types, I see.”

“Sister, can you not see the other one?”

“Nothing.”

The fact that there wasn’t a tricky Anomaly present bothered me, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a bad thing.

The two Anomalies hadn’t noticed us.

A perfect time to strike first.

I suppose I should be the one to step forward here.

However, before I could even move, Octopus acted a step faster.

“This one, the maiden shall handle, hmm?”

If I’m being frank, I felt uneasy.

As if we were throwing away a golden opportunity.

“Worry not, and leave it to this one, hmm. This maiden is an SS-Class Arahan, hmm.”

She spoke strange words, only making me even more uneasy.

Why an SS-Class, of all things, instead of an S-Class or SSS-Class? This freaking Octopus b*tch, really.

But.

“Sleep in the lotus.”

The moment Nakji slammed the three-sectioned staff into the ground, my worries vanished in an instant.

– *Swishhh.*

A lotus flower bloomed from Nakji’s magic. From within its petals came a faint, crawling sound, as a chilling, pure white mist began to creep across the floor.

From the bottom up, reaching for the ceiling.

Slowly, and with ever-thickening density.

The freaks, finally sensing something amiss, whipped their heads around in alarm, but the mist had already filled the room to the brim.

Inevitably.

– *Thud.*

– *Thud.*

Two figures collapsed, devoid of life.

Right. The freaks had fallen, utterly defenseless against Nakji’s magic.

Nakji, seeing the neutralized foes, wore a smile of relief.

“This is far too easy for an Arahan.”

Nakji’s magic precisely targeting only the freaks, leaving the hostage untouched.

She certainly had reason to be so confident. Targeting a specific goal so precisely was beyond even my own abilities.

Not that I couldn’t do it, of course.

It just tended to end…messily.

Meanwhile, Sora and Hwidung both nodded their heads in approval at the result of Nakji’s handiwork.

“Even though Taishi is a bit of a weirdo, she’s unmatched in enclosed spaces.”

“I may not get along with her, but I agree this time. Thanks to her, this became easy.”

However, I couldn’t bring myself to simply celebrate.

The sight of the freaks being dealt with by gas in a closed space was far too reminiscent of a certain nation’s ‘methods’ in the past.

Especially since only the freaks were ‘selected’ for ‘processing.’

“This is a gas chamber, you crazy Nakji!”

“What nonsense is that? This is a method to efficiently ‘dispose’ of evildoers.”

Well, Nakji paid no mind.

Next, Nakji quickly approached the hostage, who wore a confused expression.

“SS-Rank Magical Girl Black Kitty has arrived! Quick, escape from here with m─!”

“I’m not going.”

“Huh?”

The octopus sighs, a question escaping him like vapor.

The hostage whips her head around.

“I’m not leaving!”

A hostage staunchly refusing rescue.

Nothing unusual, really. It’s the kind of cliché that pops up at least once in every magical girl show.

But, seemingly unaccustomed to such tropes, the octopus looks at us, a bewildered expression on his face.

“Ah, what are we supposed to do?”

“It’s alright, Taishi. I’ll handle this.”

Pushing the octopus gently aside, Sora steps forward.

“Is there perhaps a reason you’re refusing? It’s terribly dangerous here, because of the kaijin.”

“Bullshit. People are more dangerous than the kaijin. On the contrary, the kaijin are good to me.”

“That’s because you’re a hostage.”

“Who cares! Just leave me alone!”

Even Sora’s placid words only elicit a sharp response from the hostage. Discomfort floods Sora’s face.

“This is proving difficult…”

If that’s the case, then it seems I, a master of clichés, must step up.

“Sora, you’ve done well. I’ll take it from here.”

“Senpai, are you sure?”

Sora casts a worried glance my way.

“Of course. After all, I understand a woman’s heart far better than you do.”

“Huh? How would you know?”

Before she could finish the sentence, Sora’s eyes narrowed into slits.

Her amber eyes glint, a dangerous light in their depths, and she glares at me. Her expression made it clear, I’d never hear the end of it if I said something stupid.

“How do you know so ~ much about women’s hearts? Huh? Have you been meeting so many women?”

“I can tell when they hate me just by looking.”

“Ah… well…, I’m sorry…”

Well, that didn’t last very long, though.

It’s certainly true that I’ve met a lot of women. Naturally, in the other world. Each time, I could personally feel how much they despised me.

Suddenly, I feel like absolute shit.

At that moment, the white dog, who had been quiet until now, quickly approaches and speaks to me.

“Hey, ain’t that thing cursed or somethin’?”

“Ooh, could be.”

A plausible story, that.

No, safe to say it’s a certainty.

To be so stubbornly contrary, even to those offering kindness, it must surely be a curse at fault.

Likely, a curse that fosters hatred of humanity.

Therefore, what remains to be done is simple.

Inflict a mental shock, and break the curse.

However, to haphazardly deliver a mental shock wouldn’t do. It could instead bring harm.

So, to dispel the curse with something of an opposite nature to hatred would be the most righteous path.

Yes.

The opposite of hatred is pure love.

That is, to undo it with unadulterated affection.

With a direction established, there was no longer need for hesitation. I immediately approached the hostage.

“Hey.”

“And who the hell are you? Seein’ ya wearin’ that Magical getup, don’t tell me you’re a Magical Girl, too?”

“Well, provisionally?”

“Hah, some kinda pathetic weirdo like you becomes a Magical Girl. Get lost while you still can, ya goddamn freak.”

The hostage spat out words barbed with thorns.

However, I paid it no mind and smiled.

A refreshing smile, befitting of pure love.

“Wanna go out with me?”

– *Crack!*

The hostage bit their tongue.

– *Crack!!!*

A second time.

This time, a little harder.