“Ku-hahat! Is that a Magical Girl, Ajujya!”
Self-proclaimed Squid Baron.
The name his fellow monsters called him was simply Squid.
For some reason, he was filled with confidence and kept shouting loudly.
Unaware that his gurgling voice, submerged in water, was bothering the entity above him that he could not perceive.
What was the reason for his overflowing confidence?
To explain that, one had to go back to the story before the monster was sent to Earth.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“…Cough!”
At the voice of another monster, Squid opened his eyes wide.
The recovery device of the spaceship, undetectable by humans, traversing through space.
To the monsters, it was like another heart that never stopped beating.
Awoken there, he felt the tension and stress manifesting as a thick liquid from his own body.
He saw the black ink pouring from his mouth, staining his clothes.
In the blurred memories, the only lingering thought was that ‘something happened.’
Could it be that going to Earth itself was a long dream?
“Now, fellow monster comrades, how many do you see?”
High-ranking official in charge of the recovery room, Medik Tenkl.
He waved his tangled tentacles as if to mimic a person and signaled to the Squid monster to count the number.
It was hard to accurately count the number of protruding tentacles, and the Squid monster rolled his eyes around.
“E-eighty?”
“Hmm, no defects in ocular function. Language function is also normal, quite rare!”
As soon as he heard Squid’s answer, the writhing tentacles dipped into the bottom of his face.
As if probing into a mouth below the chin of a human, they came out, smudged with black ink, and began to record something.
Squid grew concerned.
The recovery device assigned to the invasion spaceship was truly flawless.
Fragments of lost technology from ancient ancestors.
Didn’t it sound like there was a flaw in the device that could revive even dead beings?
“Rare, you say? Is there a problem?”
He felt uneasy.
The prosperous planet, Earth.
Having been deployed to that planet, which had not been occupied for a long time, to ultimately experience the glory of invading Earth by overcoming the Magical Girls.
The reason he could support it without hesitation was that as long as that recovery device existed, there could be no true death.
However, if there was something wrong with that recovery device, he could not go to Earth with the same senses as before.
He thought that way.
Medik Tenkl, hearing the potentially fatal question to the monsters, quickly waved his tentacle mass, resembling a hand on the other side smeared with ink.
“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with the recovery device itself.”
“Is that so?”
A strong denial that raised doubts.
Soon after that denial, he added an explanation for the reason he called it rare.
“However, the area you went to… that area is the problem.”
Medik Tenkl, with his arms crossed behind him, manipulated something in the recovery room.
Not long after that action, a transparent panel appeared before Squid.
It was a piece of evidence supporting the strong doubt.
On the flat map of Earth spread wide, some areas were colored green, blue, and colorless.
Additionally, there were orange and bright red areas.
Colorless, green, blue, orange, red.
The Squid, who knew that these colors indicated danger, could not help but feel apprehensive as he watched Medik Tenkl press on a small piece of land in succession.
“Now, can you see? This is the area you went to.”
“Black…?”
After magnifying it, the color was black, which could not even be seen beyond the transparent panel.
An alien color wedged between areas visible in orange, blue, and green.
A color so deep it seemed darker than his own ink, more profound than any shining star in the void of space.
“Yes, and the monsters who went to this area… approximately 97% of the time, report severe mental stress immediately after their first mission and leave the spaceship.”
“Ninety-seven…?!”
“Normally, this much information isn’t provided… but as a fellow monster from a similar planet, I’m giving you this advice. Your body is showing no other anomalies, correct?”
“Yes. The… what about the remaining 3%?”
The remaining 3%.
Immediately after that question, Medik Tenkl glanced at the door in the back.
[No Entry for anyone other than recovery room staff and administrators.]
Squid also knew about that door with the warning sign.
It was said to be a room where the sounds of mad laughter from fellow monsters or constant groans of anguish could be heard.
Among the monsters, it was jokingly referred to as a torture room.
In that truly brief moment.
Turning his gaze back to the front, Medik Tenkl said.
“They’re receiving concentrated treatment… that’s all I can say.”
Squid realized that it wasn’t a torture room but a concentration treatment room.
Did everyone beyond that door succumb to the sacrifice of one Magical Girl?
He trudged away from the recovery device and started walking down the long corridor of the spaceship.
His first mission had spectacularly failed, and he didn’t even understand what exactly had happened to him without proper confrontation.
“Hey, you there!”
As he walked, dropping ink in a state of despair, a strange voice called to Squid.
“Huh?”
“Weren’t you the one who just went to the ‘Black Zone’?!”
Magical Girl Sun was always the center of attention among monsters.
Please, for this sortie, let it not be his turn.
The world… no, let it be anything in the universe to be sacrificed, as long as he didn’t have to go to the Black Zone!
Even a monster that didn’t believe in gods would pray wholeheartedly to the god of luck.
For them, returning to their room just one day after going to the Black Zone was…
Truly akin to a heroic feat!
“That guy, he was amazing, huh!”
“R-really?”
“Yes, indeed! I heard that insane girl captures monsters alive to toy with them and then kills them while inflicting maximum pain!”
“If you came back after being killed by such a lady, it means you’re pretty amazing yourself!”
“From now on, that crazy masked lady’s territory is yours, right?!”
Magic? Masked lady?
Squid couldn’t fully understand the words of the fellow monsters who were talking to him.
A revered sacrificial lamb.
The weakened Squid found himself swayed by the cheers and adulation from those around him.
The shower of countless praises that he had never experienced before.
The excitement and attention were a sweet poison he had never tasted.
He boldly thought.
“Maybe, I might actually be strong?”
Even that presumptuous thought crossed his mind.
And as the story returned to the present….
The moment Squid let out a resounding roar.
Seeing the Squid filled with confidence, Sun tilted her head at the unfounded confidence.
“What’s with that idiot?”
Inwardly harboring puzzled contempt, Sun thought.
Did she kill him with a nerve paralysis last time, making him lose all his memories?
Or was he a different monster that merely looked similar?
Even among monsters, there were indeed different species, so that could be possible.
In any case, there was no need to engage directly.
The Squid monster, intoxicated with confidence and momentum.
He wholly forgot that last time, he had been ambushed from the air and was gazing skyward.
“Let’s move around back and freeze him.”
“Okay, understood.”
Unbeknownst to him, a red nightmare akin to his own future was quietly flying toward him from behind.
“Shh.”
Raising a finger to her lips while slowly descending from the sky, she signaled to Shiyeon to be quiet with the sound of “shh.”
The index finger by her mouth and a single “shh” sound.
A universal signal even kindergarteners could understand.
The best strategy is surprise and assassination.
No matter whether the opponent is stronger or weaker than oneself, this is the best means to handle it conveniently.
As she slowed in midair, feeling the distance to the monster growing larger, she spoke to Shiyeon.
“Stay quiet, and when I signal like this with my face, that’s when you can use your magic, understood?”
“Okay…!”
Shiyeon nodded, understanding the signal of tilting her chin.
One of the efficient methods of torture is to take away the body’s freedom.
There are many situations where one can manage alone… but…
Having Shiyeon help freeze some areas where the monster can’t move surely provides comfort, making it steady even if the monster struggles.
Looking at Shiyeon, she tilted her chin toward the monster’s direction two times.
Carefully, Shiyeon’s magic cane directed toward the monster began to unleash the spell.
“Mun Shower-!”
“Urgh-?!”
As the chilling grip of death that heralds the start of torture enveloped Squid, with a mechanical click, the door to the recovery room opened.
The one who visited that place was none other than the eight-armed beast often seen in the conference room.
“Medik Tenkl, are you here?”
“Hmm? Oh, Asura! What brings you here? Are you injured?”
Turning his head at the familiar voice, Medik Tenkl saw an unexpected monster.
He welcomed the visit of someone he could comfortably talk to and spread his tentacles wide.
“…Has Squid not arrived yet?”
“Yes, is there a problem?”
Medik Tenkl was surprised to hear the name of a lowly monster come from his lips.
Did he step onto a path of success on his own? Thinking of the rise of fellow monsters, he quickly dismisses that thought.
“He took it upon himself to go to the Black Zone for the second time….”
“Oh dear.”
A short exclamation of surprise.
It was a well-known fact among high-ranking officials.
For the monsters that headed to the Black Zone, the first visit might be bearable.
Even if it was a cruel probability of 3%, there was hope.
But the second time.
A monster that had once been to that place going again to the Black Zone where Sun resides?
There was no such thing as exceptions or mercy.
Asura’s few words, devoid of jokes, added doubt and cast a solemn atmosphere.
Sufficient time had already passed since Squid was sent.
“It has already been 5 minutes since transmission.”
Asura reported gravely the passage of the 5-minute time.
Medik Tenkl understood the implications of Asura’s words.
“I will check if there is an available spot in the concentration treatment room….”
“Yes, please do.”
Magical Girl Sun.
The name used to call her in the spaceship’s recovery room is….
In the truest sense, a Magical Girl that will kill upon the second meeting.
