Mr. Magical Girl

Chapter: 172. Thus, the Gears Begin to Move

“Librarian?”

“That was from our enemy’s territory, right?”

“Yes, we were digging underground until just now.”

“Then what sprawls out here is a world, I guess.”

“I also find that puzzling.
Despite digging toward the ground,
we popped up from below.
What we emerged into wasn’t a
normal street.
A street paved with cars and lined with buildings.
A street where people—
I can’t even tell if they’re people—
are walking about.
What about the alley where a street like this can be seen?

“What about locations detected?”

“Well, since it’s such a deep place, most communications are down, so I’m not sure. But…”

“But what?”
I’m already frustrated with the situation, so hurry up and say it.
I just dealt with something like this not too long ago, so I’m even more annoyed.

“This isn’t an illusion, mental manipulation, dimensional shift, or anything like that. This place
definitely exists in our reality,
provided my measuring device is functioning correctly.”
So it definitely exists, huh?
Now that I think about it, I feel like I’ve seen something like this in a book…
Something about reptilian humans or whatnot…
Inside the Earth…
What was it…
“The hollow Earth theory, maybe?”

Receiving that statement, my dear friend finally answered the question I couldn’t recall.
“Yeah, that. You’re not claiming there’s actually a hollow Earth, are you?”
No matter how I think about it, that sounds unscientific.
Even if our world has gone crazy,
there’s no way lizards would pop out from inside an empty Earth…

“Hmm. It seems similar, though.”
A word from the librarian, contradicting my expectations.
Unexpected words came out, and I reflexively asked back,
‘No way something like that could be unfolding right in front of me, you crazy scientist.’
With a glare of contempt.

“Please don’t look at me like that. I do know
that the idea doesn’t make sense. This place
isn’t all that vast either. It’s maybe
as wide as Seoul. It must have maximized the spatial expansion.”
Hahaha. So it’s only as wide as Seoul, huh?
That’s a real letdown.

“Just how many times wider would it have to be for something like that to be possible?
What? You were amazed that the base expanded several hundred times, and now this is expanded thousands of times? Huh?”
C’mon, make some sense here.
Did your readings break down?

Believing that this place being imaginary seems more plausible,
I pressed the librarian, but she just looked at me blankly.
“Huh? Did you not catch that?”

“What did I miss?
Is there something weird? I don’t feel anything strange.
Since I can’t tell, I was just waiting for your rambling explanation.”

“Hmmm. If Miss Lee Haram can’t feel it, maybe it’s a sensation organisms don’t register.
Maybe I’m the only one who can feel it—quite an interesting topic.”
The librarian seemed to trigger her thirst for knowledge, muttering to herself while ignoring me.

“Hey, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the midst of some exploration. This is enemy territory, so share information already.”
Before she turns it all into dust.

“Oh right. I got so engrossed it slipped my mind. I need to fix that bad habit.
Um. Is this something I said yesterday…?”
Ah…

“Yeah, you’re getting smacked today.”
With the heavy weight of the gauntlet felt in my fingertips, about to swing it toward the librarian,
“Please check that wall over there.”
With a serious face, the librarian opened her mouth, her icy gaze on the gauntlet as if asking, ‘Why did you pull that out?’

Ah, look at this guy.
There’s no way this is my fault.
Phew. Okay, I’ll let it slide.
I should put up with it since I’m older and have more experience, having seen tougher times.
But even as I thought that, I found myself getting angry again.
If I ended up mulling over the librarian’s mischief or my own double standards any longer,
I felt like I’d be the one to turn back, so I stopped my feelings and
reached my hand forward as per the librarian’s instructions.

A concrete wall of a building,
something you commonly see anywhere in the city.
Maybe it’s because it’s a shadowy alley, but as I reached for the somewhat damp and cracked concrete wall,
Was it because of that?
As soon as my hand made contact, the wall crumbled down.
Crack!
The rocks fell into pieces, and dust danced around.

All that with no intent to break it. Just touching it was enough.
“Uh… This isn’t my fault, right?”
It must have fallen by coincidence…
I know it shouldn’t be, but I kept repeating it in my mind.

“Who said anything? It’s only natural for it to happen, so don’t worry about it.
The composition of the materials making up this place is quite light.”
Fortunately, the librarian didn’t blame me for the incident before us and answered that way.

What a relief.
I didn’t mess anything up, at least.
But speaking of that,
“Is the material being light a roundabout way of saying it’s weak?”
“Literally. When expanding the original space,
it requires additional measures so that the internal materials don’t also expand.
Since that adjustment wasn’t made here,
it was possible to expand the space beyond limits,
and as a side effect, all materials’ compositions altered…
Or reversed, perhaps. The intent behind creating this world… what was that…
you nerdy engineering types.

From there, we continued walking through the city,
heading toward the place the librarian said had power.
We came across people along the way, but they didn’t react to us at all.
It was as if we didn’t exist and didn’t exert any influence.
Yet, our presence still felt palpable as we were walking through the crowd.

As we strolled through the throng, it formed a curious circle around us.
As if they knew they’d die just by being near us.
I had asked the librarian about that.
“Are they humans?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like those machines up there.”

“They’re living beings.
They seem to have some kind of artificial function.
Closer to bio-machines that mimic humans rather than actual humans.”
Thanks to that, I decided against approaching them, even as a joke.
I certainly didn’t have the hobby of watching humanoid beings bursting apart in front of me.

By the way,
“What is their purpose for existing?”
“What do you mean?”

What do you mean, what do I mean?
“Well, they live here, don’t they?
Unless they were acting out of predetermined functions,
at least they’re behaving in a way similar to humans.”
That much was true.
Just looking at this street brimming with crowds, countless pseudo-humans were going about their business.
People running shops.
Others buying food.
Vendors selling snacks.
Some performing songs.

Artistic performances.
A chaos of a crowd where efficiency and rules couldn’t be found,
save for the fact they didn’t recognize us as existing.
Even the conversations flowing in the breeze were like,
‘How are we going to submit our assignments?’
‘Our group is so messed up…’

What in the world was this?
Why do such things exist in the enemy core?
In a place that’s entirely fabricated from machinery,
why do these pseudo-humans exist?
“Well… I guess so.”
Even the librarian, who had provided answers to everything thus far,
couldn’t present an opinion on this and remained silent,
sitting dumbly in the natural space existing inside the unnatural place of the steel island.

So we kept moving forward.
Heading toward that distant building.
The location where power was felt.
The street performers seemed to have intended to leave from the onset,
waving their goodbyes to the people around them
as they organized their instruments.
Those setting up stalls disappeared somewhere, looks on their faces as if they urgently needed a bathroom.

That scene felt so natural.
It was as if we truly didn’t exist here and hadn’t affected anything at all.
Did they feel something?
“Nothing at all. That was really the situation. The songs were winding down, and the vendors were complaining of stomachaches.”
Upon hearing that, I briefly wondered how things would go if I approached a functioning store,
but soon dismissed the thought.

With everything seeming natural,
the only option remaining was,
“Let’s hurry and ask the face of the guy who made this.”
“What do you mean?”
Isn’t it obvious?
“The question about why this space exists.”
I stated that and increased my pace,
staying within the bounds of not affecting the surroundings.

The place we arrived at turned out to be some kind of university.
While there were several buildings,
the one we headed toward was brightly lit even in the night.
A classroom where someone’s voice resonated slowly and regularly.

“…This begins with Plutarch and poses questions raised by Hobbes, concerning two identities…”
An unnatural voice echoed in this natural space.
It was definitely a voice I’d heard before.
The very one from the steel forest before coming here.
Upon hearing that voice, we looked at each other and nodded.
The librarian carefully opened the classroom door, ensuring it wouldn’t break.

That existence would surely be beyond this door.
As the door opened, a single gaze focused on us.
A fragile-looking Western person with blond hair and blue eyes.
A professor standing in front of the blackboard,
who almost resembled what the librarian would look like when she ages and wrinkles develop on her face.
“…Students, it seems today’s lecture has come to an end.
A guest I’ve been waiting for has arrived.”
At that moment, the people in the classroom seemed to notice our presence and quietly shifted their gazes.

“This content will be rescheduled for a future supplementary class.
For this lecture, even students who are absent will be counted as present.”
When the professor’s words finished, the students quietly began packing their belongings.
One by one, each commenced to leave the room through the back door instead of the front door where we entered.

Click Clack.
With the door shut, only the three of us remained in the classroom.
A heavy silence lingered.
Me and the librarian standing before the door, glaring at the professor,
as she regarded us, seeming to plow through her teaching materials, as though she were indeed living this life.

However, that professor’s appearance was anything but natural.
Though I mentioned she resembled the librarian, it only applied to her face.
Below her neck was clearly covered by silver metal,
with disconnected wires trailing from her sleeves and pant legs,
sparking and crackling about.

Like an android or a robot.
I wanted something to say to her,
but I wasn’t the main character here.
I’m merely an observer.
I wasn’t the one to initiate conversation.

How long had passed like that?
“Rather than standing there, how about we sit?”
The first to break the silence was the enemy.

Aside from the stiff mechanical voice,
the words of the enemy even felt friendly.
To be honest, I felt like just sprinting up and swinging my hammer.
But since the librarian remained still,
I follow suit and just stood quietly.

“If you’re concerned about destruction, you don’t have to worry. I’ve made my surroundings automatically fortified.”
No, that wasn’t the concern.
I remained quiet solely because the librarian was quiet too.

Yet despite that consideration from the enemy,
the librarian didn’t budge.
After about 30 seconds of glaring at the enemy,
“I have a question.”
At long last, the librarian opened her mouth again.
“What question do you have?”
The enemy displayed a demeanor of calmly receiving the inquiry.

The librarian took a deep breath as if the forthcoming question was crucial.
Her face scrunched up, showing tension.
And the moment her eyes widened,
“I’ve a house in my realm, is it one you constructed?”
With a trembling voice, she uttered the question.
“Yes.”
The enemy replied as if it were completely normal.

Hearing that, the librarian bit her lips tightly,
and finally seemed to resolve herself to speak.
“Then for my next question. The house substituting my presence, was it something you programmed? Were all my actions your intent?”
She blurted out the shocking inquiry.