Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

50 – The Power of Magical Pure Love

“Stop! It is better if you would quit!”

“Calm down! No bite!”

“Ulp! Ulp! Ulpulpulp!”

The hostage’s self-harm only ceased after Whitedog and Sora shoved their fingers into her mouth.

“Ah?! aaah! Ah! aaah!”

“Uh… her jaw’s come undone, I believe…”

And then, a minor misstep occurred – a small *clack* as the hostage’s jaw dislocated.

Still, the unexpected situation didn’t last long.

Thanks to Whitedog’s adept medical intervention.

“Don’t worry! I’m a master at setting bones!”

Whitedog put her magical girl’s absurd strength to its fullest use, jamming the hostage’s jaw back into place.

– *Creek-crack!* –

The forced realignment of the joint elicited a scream. Against this backdrop, the hostage began to convulse.

“Eup! Eueueueueup!!!”

Probably trying to express her fervent gratitude. Of course, her mouth being obstructed, she was expressing her thankful heart in this manner, unable to speak.

It was a truly beautiful sight.

So much so that a pleased smile crept across my face.

Even afflicted by the curse of hatred, she still harbored feelings of gratitude.

How long did the hostage thrash about like that? She caressed her creaking jaw, glaring fiercely at me.

“You wanna die, you sonuvab*tch?”

*Ptooey.* The hostage spat on the floor, continuing,

“Even if you’re the only person alive in the world, there’s absolutely no way I’m dating you!”

The curse was certainly severe.

To hate someone to such an extreme.

“Oh? Even if I’m the *only* one alive, you really wouldn’t go out with me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re not even my type! There’s no way I’d date you! I prefer hairy guys!”

Well, judging from what she was saying, she seemed to think anything *other* than humans were okay.

The curse of hatred was powerful indeed.

But that’s fine.

Hatred like that is something I can overcome easily.

“If there’s nobody else in the world, then who exactly is going to stop me? Certainly not you?”

If only I had the power of pure, unadulterated love.

“Uh…….”

For a moment, the hostage trailed off.

A good sign.

A harbinger of the curse breaking.

But, perhaps it wasn’t an ordinary, potent curse.

“I, if that happens, I’ll just die!!!”

The curse clinging to the hostage wasn’t completely lifted yet. To hate people this much, the curse must have taken deep root.

A truly unfortunate thing.

“With this, you can absolutely not date me!”

“No problem?”

“Huh……? Ah, no, I said I’ll die! Just a corpse…….”

If that’s the case, there’s only one method.

The most effective way to counter a curse that fosters extreme hatred of people is……

To unleash a slightly stronger, pure love on this side.

“It’ll still be warm, right?”

“Eh……?”

This time, the hostage stopped speaking.

A good reaction.

Only one last step remains, surely.

I shifted my gaze, meticulously observing her reaction. Starting from her legs, slowly moving upwards.

And then, the moment my gaze met the hostage’s face, I nodded, beaming with a bright smile.

“Even cold, it’s…still possible, I guess.”

“…….”

Now, the hostage wasn’t even blinking, not even exhaling a single breath.

But, even this didn’t last long.

“Hic…….”

Starting with a faint murmur, a massive dam of emotion collapsed.

“Hic……, waaah…….”

Behold.

She weeps.

That teardrop there, the undeniable proof of Haeju’s power.

“Mommyyyyy….”

After all my painstaking effort, the curse plaguing the hostage had finally lifted.

A laugh escaped me before I even realized it.

As I thought, nothing can overcome the power of pure love.

Incredible, the strength of true affection.

Now I understood why the Lieutenant Commander had sent us here. Surely, it was to awaken us to the power of devoted love.

That magical girl was more thoughtful than she appeared.

Truly, a magical girl deserving of gratitude.

Meanwhile, the hostage, perhaps still reeling from the curse’s aftereffects, clung to Whitedog and wept softly.

“Mommyyyyy….”

“Did you just call me ‘Mom’? I haven’t died yet, I’m perfectly alive.”

“Mommyyyyy!!!!!”

No, scratch that, wept a lot.

In any case.

The hostage, having fully shaken off the curse, sniffled and gazed at me with a renewed clarity.

“Hic! Sob! You! What’s your magical girl name!”

“Me?”

“Yes! You!”

As repayment for lifting the curse, the hostage seemed to want to express her gratitude.

But, this gratitude wasn’t meant for me.

The magical girl who had arranged for us to come this far was the one who deserved the thanks.

And so, I spoke the name of that magical girl.

“Magical Girl Pale Crow.”

“Really? You actually remembered! Prepare yourself! This isn’t the end, not by a long shot!!!”

“Of course not. Please do.”

Give her much appreciation.

Because she is a magical girl truly deserving of it.

The hostage, after muttering the magical girl name I’d given, began to leave the building, guided by the octopus.

“Just follow this girl, you should be fine. This place might feel a little foreign, but it’ll be alright.”

“Anything is fine, so long as I’m not with that b*stard.”

“Uhm… Understood, milady.”

The moment the hostage was gone, Sora shot daggers at me with her eyes.

“Senior.”

“What?”

A pair of Sora’s sharp, amber eyes reflected my own image.

“What were you thinking, asking me to date you out of the blue like that?”

“To break the curse with the power of pure love.”

I answered calmly.

Sora’s gaze grew even colder.

“What kind of son-of-a-b*tch ‘pure love’ makes you want to force someone suicidal into a relationship?”

“Impolite, it is pure love.”

What even *is* pure love, in the first place?

The most supreme, untainted love that can’t be stopped by anything in the world.

That’s why pure love overcomes everything, except harems.

Pure love for long-lived species, overcoming lifespan differences.

Incestuous pure love, overcoming societal disapproval.

Beastly, interspecies pure love, overcoming species differences.

Kidnapping, confinement, hypnosis, and rape pure love, overcoming consent.

This is all…recorded on N□topia.

“This is… pure love, transcending life and death *through time*.”

“……”

Sora’s amber eyes darkened, sinking.

Watching her, Whitey walked up to Sora and patted her shoulder.

“Sora, cheer up. If you just stop thinking of him as human, like me, your heart will be super comfortable.”

Sora was silent, even after Whitey’s words. Her eyes were still terribly dark.

Then, she started to smile, a look of resignation washing over her face.

“Yes, everything you say is correct, Senior.”

Thank goodness.

Sora, too, has finally understood the power of pure love.

“Isn’t it so?”

“Isn’t what, you blithering idiot of a senior!”

Sora, momentarily exploding with temper, now gazed at me with troubled eyes.

“And out of everyone, why did you have to blurt out Magical Battalion Commander’s magical girl name?”

“I was just informing them who to thank? Why?”

Sora exhaled a heavy sigh.

“That’s clearly a Magical Complaint waiting to happen.”

“Oh, is that so?”

I hadn’t known.

You’d need to have actually *received* a complaint to know.

Truthfully, whether during my military service or now, during my magical girl life, I’ve never once experienced receiving a complaint.

I am, after all, a Class A, and more than competent.

“Unavoidable, I suppose.”

Not that it’s my concern, either.

It’s not like it’s coming my way.

Good luck to you, Battalion Commander you piece of shit.

Presently, Sora sighed deeply, her troubled eyes fixed on me.

“Please, just refrain from saying things like that in the future.”

Was it because I said the Battalion Commander’s name?

“Understood. I’ll just name someone else next time, then.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Correction.

I couldn’t care less what happens to the Battalion Commander.

Sora was pointing out something else entirely.

“Please, just…don’t go around saying you’ll date anyone so freely.”

Like a heroine in a misunderstood romance novel now relieved, Sora let out another enormous sigh.

“Why?”

“Please, just don’t. You startled me something awful.”

Though she didn’t exactly elaborate on a proper reason, mind you.

Honestly, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Were all Lesbians like this?

Well, if I considered them lunatics, it wasn’t entirely out of the question.

Anyway.

The hostage was safely rescued, just as initially planned. Now, all that was left was getting out of here.

Just then, Whitedog pointed this out.

“Technically, we did save the decoy, so let’s scram from this place, quick!”

“Unnie, the hostage isn’t a decoy.”

“Yes, she is. Worked like a charm in the Otherworld.”

“You’re making me anxious, so please, just be quiet!”

“Whatever! Hurry up! Chop chop!”

We hastily moved our feet.

“Really now?”

And, immediately, we froze in our tracks.

“Leaving so soon?”

A voice, out of nowhere, was the cause.

Turning our heads to the source of the voice, there was a monster in one corner of the room that had been unremarkable before.

A peculiar monster.

A full-body blackness where the finer details were unclear.

However, a body with curves like that of a woman.

Bizarre facial features that mimicked a human.

Hair that writhed and hissed like snakes.

And.

“Why don’t you stay a little longer?”

A smile, and the clear utterance of human language.

“I wondered why the magical girls suddenly came swarming, and it turns out, the hostage I had captured was headed in their direction.”

Judging by the fact that it was floating in the air, this monster had to be the one the magical girls were struggling against just a moment ago.

“So, this is all your doing?”

The monster let out a menacing chuckle.

But Whitedog and Sora weren’t surprised that the monster was speaking.

Instead, they reacted with swiftness.

“Full Burst!”

“May fire rage!”

Each unleashing their magic.

With a blast that sounded as one, eight rays of arcane light, two exceedingly large, emblazoned the air.

A fierce torrent of azure flame surged, filling the spaces between the rays without a gap.

A composite magic, rushing to engulf all.

In this confined space, evasion was impossible, and resistance looked equally daunting.

However.

“Always in such a rush.”

The aberration remained nonchalant in its place.

Now holding the two incapacitated aberrations, one in each hand.

Then, it hurled them into the oncoming magic.

─!

The instant the magic struck the two aberrations, sight flared and flickered, momentarily obliterating the sense.

Following was the sound of fabric tearing apart.

A whoosh, as the remnants were consumed by the flames.

And then.

“Well, they’re certainly better than the wenches outside.”

The aberration’s voice, laced with amusement.

“But still, hardly effective—”

“It is.”

“Huh?”

Of course, it didn’t last long.

But it was worth moving the feet from the moment Sora and Hwitungi’s magic collided with the aberration.

Because now, I stood before it.

“A man… you’re saying…?”

The aberration stared at me, surprised.

It probably hadn’t anticipated my approach in that brief window.

“Really…?”

Well, it wasn’t my concern, not really. Having faced a grotesque, the course was already set.

I took a step forward.

Braced my knees.

Drew the moon.

“Sak─ (朔─)”

In that instant, my arm jerked to a halt.

Seized abruptly by the grotesque’s elongated arm.

Then, the grotesque smiled at me.

“Aha.”

That, certainly, I hadn’t anticipated.

The distance control itself was perfect, but who knew the grotesque’s arm would extend like that?

I’d wondered how it was holding the other fallen grotesques, but there was a reason for everything, it seemed.

But it’s fine. This isn’t the end.

I let the wand fall, snatched it up with my still-free hand.

Then, using the wand in a reverse grip, I drew the moon.

This time, from below, upwards.

Or, that’s what I tried to do.

“So, all I have to do is block the actual swing?”

“…What?”

Until I heard the words spilling from the grotesque’s mouth.

Understandable human language.

But the grotesque’s words, impossible to comprehend.

“AHAHAHAHA! It was for real?! I didn’t think it was!”

It even began muttering incomprehensible things, laughing madly.

Without thinking, I spoke to the grotesque.

“Hey, what do you mean by tha─!”

But before I could finish the sentence, my vision rotated half a turn, the grotesque’s form shrinking rapidly.

Only then did I realize.

The grotesque had thrown me.

What followed was a moment of weightlessness, and then, a pain that slammed through my entire body.

“Are you alright? Be careful! You’re so weak!”

“Sunbae! Why did you suddenly run out like that! You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

Hwitungyi and Sora’s worried voices rushed towards me, but I couldn’t answer.

Or rather, I *couldn’t* answer.

The moment hadn’t yet been granted.

“Well then, seems I’ll have to do as I’m told, just this once.”

The grotesque creature looked at us, raising both hands.

“Struggle.”

It meant the curse was activating.