The Second Monster Capture Operation began with only the people having changed.
It was perhaps a coincidence or inevitability, but the location where the monster appeared was familiar even to Sun’s mascot.
Not too long ago—though it had actually been quite a while—it was the very apartment where Magical Girl Sun had failed to capture a monster.
Cautiously, Magical Girl Mun and her two mascots flew around the stairs, avoiding the gaze of passersby, making their way to the rooftop structure.
On the wall of that structure was the hole that Sun had made.
Of course, the maintenance team had repaired the wall, and the debris scattered across the floor had been neatly cleaned up.
Moreover, they had put up “Do Not Enter” tape to keep people from passing through until the cement had dried completely.
That location was filled with shiny gray cement, seemingly just applied, sealing the hole.
“It’s been ages since I dropped it, and now I’m told to look for it…”
Beyond that, a magical girl and two mascots were staring at something.
Muttering, mumbling…
If it were to be expressed in writing, that would be the feeling of the monster’s complaints.
Soliloquies, not awaiting an answer from anyone.
A reverse teleport device that had been dropped way back in December.
They had sent him back to look for it again in January of the new year…
Naturally, it was no surprise that not only was the device gone, but even the wreckage of the broken structure was nonexistent.
Despite being ignorant of Earth’s circumstances, repairing a building damaged by something was the natural behavior of sentient creatures; it was only obvious that someone would have retrieved the teleport device if it had somehow still been there.
The monster, sifting through the empty ground, felt a sense of despair or emptiness from that meaningless action.
“Is it inside…?”
A glimmer of hope that seemed ridiculous even to himself.
Grasping that faint thread, the monster turned the doorknob.
The rooftop door, which wasn’t even locked, opened far too easily…
With a creak, the two beings separated by a wall found themselves facing each other without having any time to prepare themselves.
“Oh.”
“Eh.”
The alarming exclamations overlapped so suddenly.
The magical girl had not expected the monster to enter the building.
The monster had not expected a magical girl to be lying in wait inside the building.
In an instant, the apartment rooftop froze over, colder than the biting winter winds.
“Graaaah!”
Startled and swinging violently without thinking, the magical girl’s attack was directed straight at the monster, and in an instant, ice flowers bloomed in a sharp, fan-like formation.
“Wh-What the…”
The monster appeared unexpectedly and was reflexively harmed by the magical girl’s ability.
The exit was frozen solid, along with the monster.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the monster was dead; it was shivering, trapped within the ice.
‘For now, is… capturing it the plan?’
Once her startled heart calmed down, she had time to think about what she wanted to ask once she caught it…
What had Teddy and Bami said?
Ah, right. That was it…
‘Recently, they say if you see Mary’s face, you just disappear…’
“Um…”
Having recalled what to ask, she carefully spoke the first words to start the conversation.
Thinking back, it might have been her first time talking directly with a monster.
Or maybe not? She couldn’t clearly remember every single day from her kindergarten days when she had just become a magical girl.
“Th-Th-That…”
The monster was frozen in ice.
It couldn’t seem to move, simply staring this way with its eyes flickering and mumbling something incoherently.
“What?”
“If I’m going to die… then just hurry up and kill me.”
Not hearing it well, she leaned in closer, the monster demanding to be killed quickly.
She had just wanted to ask something, but it seemed the cold was too much for him to bear.
What should she do? She had a few more things she wanted to ask…
In times like this, what would Sun… or Mary do?
‘Let’s ask Teddy.’
Leaving the monster unattended, she moved down the stairs a little and pulled Teddy from her pocket.
She’d gone to a place where the monster couldn’t see her, just in case it was uncomfortable.
Mascots don’t often reveal themselves in front of monsters.
“What would Sun do in this situation?”
“If it were Sun, um…”
A short, troubled groan followed Teddy’s thoughts.
Filled with anticipation, she stared at Teddy’s face, along with Bami.
Teddy had observed Magical Girl Sun’s actions the most closely, so surely there was something clear in his mind about how she would act.
Finally, Teddy spoke after a wait.
“Wouldn’t she have said something like, ‘If you tell me everything you know, I’ll kill you quickly…’?”
“Uh… Is that so?”
She tilted her head at the chilling words that came out so casually.
Oh, was that the kind of feeling it had?
Bami, listening next to her, nodded in agreement as if it made sense.
“Right, she would say that.”
“D-Do both of you think so…?”
In a dazed and somewhat flustered expression, she asked them again.
Somewhere, it felt so different from the usual image she had of Mary.
Though her words were harsh, she was kind; maybe that was how others saw her?
While she expected a response indicating otherwise, the two mascots gave a resolute answer.
“Yes.”
“Yep.”
As their answers overlapped, she began to head back up the stairs, a bit downcast.
“If you tell me everything you know, I’ll kill you quickly…”
Could a magical girl say something like that?
Still, it was to gather information she didn’t know…
It seemed she had to play the role of a bad magical girl in front of the monster.
“Phew, ahem.”
As the magical girl ascended the stairs, taking a deep breath and clearing her throat to prepare her voice, she saw the monster which had opened the door, frozen in place, staring at the stairs she had just descended in agony, unable to tell if it was burning or freezing.
Moments later, it managed to pivot its gaze to the magical girl who was walking back up the stairs.
I want to feel comfortable. I want to die.
Having their entire body enveloped in pain, one becomes capable of thinking that way; she hadn’t realized this before.
“If you tell me everything you know, I’ll let you die painlessly!”
“W-What…?”
In the fog of sensations of freezing or burning, the monster responded quickly, frightened that the proposal might vanish.
Even as it spoke of death so calmly, the expression she held while saying it felt eerily like a falsehood.
As if to say, “I’m not accustomed to this kind of thing…”
Even the honorifics she used in this situation felt both fearsome and disgusting.
How terribly alarming it was for a girl accustomed to defeating monsters to say something like that with such a face…
He realized what true madness and terror were as he froze in place.
“I heard that magical girls disappear as soon as they appear nowadays…”
“Y-Yeah…”
With a shaky voice, the monster answered, struggling to keep its words clear.
He mustn’t irritate whatever fragile mood it was in.
He would answer whatever questions were thrown at him.
That one thought consumed his mind.
“Why is that?”
“Th-That’s…”
With a trembling voice, he gathered all he could and spoke.
From the monster’s perspective, the battles occurring in the Black Zone were one they could ‘never win.’
Given the odds of fighting back, it was better to just show a face and escape, under the judgment of the higher-ups…
Along with that, the existence of the ‘reverse teleport device’ given to monsters arriving in the Black Zone, which had recently even been able to be manufactured.
Thanks to that device, when faced with a magical girl, the trend became one of immediately returning home.
Even the term “reaction speed test” was spat out without holding back.
“Th-That’s… everything…”
“I see, thank you for telling me!”
With that last word, as the ice enveloped the monster’s vision, all of his thoughts came to a halt.
In the pain-free ice, it saw the quickly approaching, elaborately decorated cane.
As ice shattered like glass and its vision disappeared, it saw its body breaking into pieces.
Yet even in such a terrible sight, there was no pain or thoughts left.
In that moment of liberation from pain, the monster’s last feelings were of relief and joy.
“What do I do…?”
Remaining at the broken scene was Magical Girl Mun, Shiyeon.
Even if it had been done out of surprise, the place had turned into a ruin, with ice flowers spread throughout the apartment rooftop, along with the door and its entrance.
After the monster was defeated, the two mascots that had emerged from the pockets asked the magical girl.
Compared to her who looked as if she had committed a grave sin, the two mascots appeared indifferent.
“What can we do about something that’s already destroyed?”
“Right, let’s leave it to the adults.”
“Y-Yeah, I guess that’s what we should do…?”
With no other choice, she scratched her cheek awkwardly and left the scene.
And that early morning, a post in the Magical Girl Gallery received countless likes and was featured as a conceptual post.
[Let me tell you about the time a magical girl was beaten up twice by the broken apartment managed by Mabungi. (187)]
