Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

57 – Magical Lull

My memory felt… a little hazy.

Had I lost consciousness for a moment there? What had happened in between? I couldn’t quite recall.

Only that with each sharp gunshot, something stopped moving. That much, at least, came back.

But, that was all.

The rest was entirely lost to me.

Just a scattering of uncertainties.

Ah, but there was something I could be certain of.

– Click.

A revolver pressed against my head.

– Click.

And the hammer, just now, being drawn back.

“Haa… haa…”

Whitedog was breathing heavily.

Though I couldn’t remember it, I must have resisted her pretty fiercely. There was no other way a magical girl could be panting like that, even with the Magical Cuffs to consider.

But, that was all impossible now.

My body wouldn’t move at all, so how could I?

That meant I must be injured pretty badly.

Though, to be honest, it was hard to be sure. More like a guess, really. I couldn’t feel anything in my body, so I didn’t even know if I was truly hurt.

Just… a little cold.

That was the only sensation that flickered faintly.

In that moment, Whitedog spoke.

“Hey, Ant.”

For someone in such a dominant position, her complexion was awful. The Magical Cuffs must be starting to take effect.

But, it seemed she still had some strength left.

Enough to pull the trigger at least once.

And that one time would be the end of me.

Whitedog, knowing this too, smirked and sneered.

“You didn’t manage to accomplish anything, so, how’s it *feel*?”

How does it feel…

If I said there wasn’t a single regret, that would be a lie.

I boldly set out to walk a difficult path, but in the end, I reached life’s end before I even reached the end of the road.

A person I couldn’t even call a close friend. What kind of suffering is this for someone like that?

I’m truly a fool beyond compare.

Could there be another idiot like me in this world?

Why the hell am I doing things I never used to do?

Even knowing it was my choice, there’s no help for it. I, too, am just a human being, so feeling regret is only natural.

But.

The difficult path I chose, abandoning the easy one, turned out to be surprisingly alright.

Even though regret should still linger, my heart is, strangely enough, so light.

It’s as if I’ve become one step closer to the hero in a novel.

Therefore.

“Not bad…”

I smiled.

“I cannot underrstand it. Why, desso?”

“Why, you ask…”

My face contorted in pain, and my lungs let out a continuous sound of air escaping…

“…Because… Hero.”

I laughed, emptily, yet relievedly.

After that.

– Bang!

A dry gunshot rang out.

*

Question.

Dizziness.

Confusion.

These were the emotions Rei was feeling.

‘Memory is srrrange…’

Memories wouldn’t come to her.

She knew she had finally become a being who ruled the world, the Magical Accountant she had hoped for.

But, that single fact alone.

Nothing else came to mind.

‘Why…?’

The earnest voices of Sora and Taishi seemed to linger faintly in my ears…

But from the moment I heard someone’s coarse voice, my memory completely severed.

I don’t know the content.

Only, instinctively, it was a speech I wanted to ignore.

After that, the sensation of moving my body remained, however faintly, but nothing at all came to mind from that process.

Like someone else had moved my body instead.

As if playing with a puppet doll.

And now, my body felt heavy and stuffy. As if I’d accidentally put on those Magical Cuffs again, like that one time.

‘Feeling like a real penis.’

It was stifling.

Everything was a mystery. The more I thought, the more it felt like I was falling into a labyrinth. Meanwhile, my mood wasn’t improving in the slightest.

Not that there was anything to see in front of me. It was as if I’d been left alone in a gray fog.

Unease grew even stronger in a corner of my mind.

At that moment, a sudden, familiar sensation came from my right hand.

A revolver gripped in my entire palm.

My index finger hooked on the trigger.

‘If.’

If I pull this, would my heart feel a little more at ease than it does now? Could I feel relieved?

Thinking so, I was about to pull the trigger.

“Why…you think…?”

Until I heard the vaguely audible voice.

It was a strange voice. Suffering so much that he couldn’t even speak properly, yet laughter was mixed in, as if he were so excited about something.

At the same time, it was a somewhat familiar voice.

An inexplicable sense of déjà vu arose.

In that instant.

“…Because, you’re a hero.”

The déjà vu intensifies.

A small piece of knowledge, buried deep within Rey’s mind, cautiously peeked its head out.

Hero.

A fictional figure from fairy tales.

An entity no one dared to speak of.

“No.”

There was one.

Rey knew.

Knew of the one who dared to usurp that title.

In that instant, Rey’s vision shifted without warning.

It felt like the grey fog that had been hanging before her eyes was receding. A desperate cry of ‘not yet’ and a feverish moan seemed to echo within her mind, intermingling.

The latter sounded vaguely familiar, but the former was a voice she had never heard before.

But that wasn’t important.

What truly mattered was something else entirely.

It was the three things burned onto Rey’s retinas.

“Eh…?!”

Kim Si-yul, smiling in a way that made the word ‘battered’ seem like an understatement, broken beyond all recognition.

A single Magical Handcuff, somehow already fastened around her wrist.

And.

Rey herself, stepping on him, a revolver pointed at his head.

“What, what is this…”

She couldn’t comprehend.

What on earth had happened, for Kim Si-yul to be so injured? Had a monstrous being done this to him, or was it the work of someone unknown?

And why were Magical Handcuffs on her wrist? Where had her own magic wand gone?

Most of all.

Why was she holding a gun to Kim Si-yul’s head?

It was beyond understanding.

Question piled upon question.

But.

“Ah.”

Rey quickly realized.

It wasn’t the bizarre figure from before, nor some unknown assailant, who had reduced Kim Shi-yul to this state.

Ray.

It was herself.

She was the culprit who had wounded Kim Shi-yul.

‘M-Me…?’

A question blossomed in a corner of her mind.

A question that wasn’t quite a question. It was denial, a desperate plea for her assumptions to be wrong.

But, the more she wished it, the firmer the conclusion became.

Speculation gradually filled the gaps in her memory.

The Magical Cuffs were an item Kim Shi-yul carried. The fact they were on Ray’s wrists meant Kim Shi-yul had tried to subdue her when she was unconscious.

However, the issue was that the Magical Cuffs weren’t perfectly calibrated. Only half so, to be precise.

The magic nullification worked properly, but the full incapacitation effect hadn’t activated instantly. That was the crux of the problem.

So, it had come to this.

Even just looking at Kim Shi-yul’s injuries, it wasn’t difficult to figure out who was responsible. Even Ray, lacking in intelligence as she was, could understand at least this much.

Gunshot wounds.

There was only Ray.

The only one who could inflict such wounds.

Of course. Unable to wield magic with the Magical Cuffs in place, Ray’s magic wand had been reduced to a simple firearm.

Stronger than a commercially available gun, but a frustratingly mediocre weapon incapable of killing a bizarre figure.

However, a lethal weapon more than sufficient to kill an ordinary person.

‘Because of me…’

As a result, Kim Shi-yul had become like this.

Negative emotions reared their heads in Ray’s mind. Regret, guilt, self-loathing, and more.

But the emotion Ray outwardly displayed was something else entirely.

Confusion.

It might seem odd, but for Ray, it was an almost natural reaction.

Because, unbeknownst to Ray, her finger was now pulling the trigger.

– *Click.*

The trigger of the gun pressed against Kim Shi-yul’s head.

‘W-Wait! N-No!’

Afterward.

– *Bang!*

Discharge.

“No!!!”

Ray frantically raised his hand, to erase the deadly line aimed at Kim Siyul.

Thankfully, just before the bullet left the barrel, Ray barely managed to tilt the gun upward a fraction.

As a result, the bullet grazed Kim Siyul, missing him by a hair’s breadth. It wasn’t a complete miss, but it only left a shallow wound.

“Hah… so you’ve finally come to your senses.”

Just then, Kim Siyul, seemingly noticing Ray’s change, grinned and let out a sigh of relief.

However, Ray himself couldn’t relax.

Kim Siyul’s condition was grave.

To the point where dying right now wouldn’t be a surprise.

That was why he had to get Kim Siyul to Magical Capital Hospital as quickly as possible.

At Magical Capital Hospital, as long as you were still breathing, they could somehow save you.

*’Magical mental illness is an impossible cure, though.’*

At least Kim Siyul’s current injuries should be easily healed.

“Hey! Just endure a little! I’ll carry you—!”

With that thought, Ray tried to stand up.

“Huh?”

And immediately collapsed.

Only then did the effects of the Magical Shackles kick in properly, his body felt impossibly heavy.

*‘No, no…!’*

It was cruel.

Tears welled up.

Why did it have to be now?

If they had activated even a little earlier, Kim Siyul wouldn’t have been hurt so badly.

Or if they had activated later, he could have gotten Kim Siyul to Magical Capital Hospital.

It was sickening.

The Magical Shackles, functioning properly only at the worst possible moment, and simultaneously Ray himself, the inept, useless Ray, were utterly sickening.

Powerlessness.

Before the three-letter word, Rei wept uncontrollably.

That instant.

“Hey, stop your blubbering already…”

Kim Siyul spoke to Rei.

“Like you weren’t ugly enough already, now you’re even uglier…”

“You! No talking! You’ll die! Seriously!”

Rei urgently tried to stop Kim Siyul. Considering his already short lifespan, what was so great about shortening it further with pointless ramblings?

“You can’t die! Please!”

However, Kim Siyul paid no mind.

“Why would I die…”

Coughing, he spat out blood several times, yet continued to grin foolishly.

“I… don’t die against psychos…”

That’s how I survived in this other world.

He added, saying such things.

“You…”

Rei’s heart swelled slightly at his pathetic yet somehow noble appearance.

“Hey, wait. You’re calling me a psycho…?”

“Isn’t it obvious, you little shit?”

Well, she was slightly taken aback in a different way, too.

Of course, Rei wasn’t in a position to argue. Considering what she had just done, she was definitely just as much a psycho as Kim Siyul.

Anyway.

Rei couldn’t understand.

Kim Siyul had always been difficult to comprehend, but this time it was even more so.

‘…Why?’

Why had he gone so far as to get injured, trying to save Rei?

Did Rei hold that much special value to him that he’d risk such danger?

He must be in pain, but what was so good that he continued to smile?

Rei couldn’t understand any of it.

But before she could voice her questions, Rei’s eyes grew heavy and her consciousness blurred rapidly. It was the effect of the Magical Handcuffs.

In the end, Rei lost consciousness.

“I’m sorry… I… I’m sorry….”

Weeping endlessly until her very last breath.

But Kim Si-yul, hearing Rei’s apology, didn’t show any particular reaction.

Merely.

“Hey, you blockhead,”

Clicking her tongue and scolding Rei.

“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ at times like these….”

Only to break into a relieved laugh.