READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 175
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“The intelligent lifeforms of this planet and their caretakers—”
While I was chatting with the Observer, the monitor suddenly went dark. Startled by the pitch-black screen, I turned my head and confirmed that the main unit had also powered down.
Inside the already dim laboratory, shrouded in darkness, I felt puzzled and slowly got to my feet.
“What the heck… the lights won’t even turn on?”
A power outage, perhaps?
But that seemed odd. The Evilus Corporation’s building was equipped with emergency generators. Even during that recent heatwave incident that nearly froze the entire planet, everything was functioning just fine.
So how could the entire building suddenly be completely dark? That was impossible.
‘What on earth is going on—.’
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I stepped outside the laboratory and immediately realized that the corridor was also engulfed in darkness. In this pitch-black void, I could hear footsteps sloshing from a distance.
Slosh, slosh, squish, squelch, squee-sh!
The footsteps quickened and soon were right up close, revealing something in the darkness that zoomed past before I could register what it was.
“Whoa—!?”
Startled, I fell backward, my eyes wide as I tried to wrap my head around what had just zipped into the darkness. A pitch-black body, slimy skin, and a horrific appearance that made me cringe just by looking at it…
“…Why’s that thing—.”
The World Enemy.
It was the remnants of the now-retired Fairy Queen, littering the world.
* * *
As the Evil Magical Girl unleashed her magic, engulfing the entire city, the citizens of City E stopped in their tracks, staring at their suddenly blackened town.
“What’s going on, a blackout?”
“Where did this come from…?”
“Ahh—! I was just trying to help the citizens!”
Amid the grumbling about the sudden blackout, shadowy monsters began to emerge one by one from the dark streets, filling them with dread.
They began pouring out from the shadows created by buildings, from the dark sewers, and from the hearts of office workers who had been working overtime for a month now.
No one recognized the identity of the suddenly appeared monsters. They had never shown up anywhere but City H, or perhaps it had been months since they vanished entirely.
However, it didn’t matter if they figured out what the monsters were or not—everyone who laid eyes on the World Enemy screamed in terror.
“Ugh, AAAAAAH-!”
“Help me, help me, help me, help me…”
“Mom? Why are you here… oh, you came to pick me up?”
The World Enemy possessed the ability to shatter the minds of everyone who saw it. Just laying eyes on it inflicted great psychological damage, which was a kind of superpower that no one could avoid except for the Magical Girls.
If this were a TRPG, seeing it would surely warrant a SAN check roll for how horrifying it looked. The World Enemy truly was a grotesque bioweapon, but its danger didn’t end there.
The World Enemy was a synthetic creature engineered to face off against Magical Girls. Excluding its appearance, which invoked madness, it could easily rip apart a person or two.
—Kigigigigig-.
The monster let out a bizarre, grotesque sound and flailed its limbs. Its spaghetti-like arms swatted at the terrified citizens on the street, sending them flying as they crashed into buildings.
Having just taken a single hit, the monster disregarded the stretched citizens and kept flailing its arms around. Unlike a hunter that calms down after a successful hunt to secure its prey, it seemed more like it was just out to hurt people.
Of course, such antics wouldn’t last long.
“Geez… getting hit like that has brought me back to my senses.”
The Hero, who had been frozen in fear, was finally back in the game.
“What are the Heroes doing right now-?”
The Executives of Evil, who had also regained their focus due to emergency procedures, looked determined.
“Who do you think this land belongs to?”
And then—many superhumans, who usually received assistance from the Evil Organization, started to confront the World Enemy.
Heroes, Executives of Evil, and superhumans amassed together to deal with the monsters, and they all recalled the phrase ‘overwhelmed in numbers’ upon seeing the endless swarm of World Enemies.
“This is…?”
“Where are they all coming from—?”
“We have to take down whoever’s summoning them—.”
But, surrounded by monsters, there was no way for them to set out to find the cause of this chaos. All they could do was fight against fear and pain.
It was time to uproot the Evil Flower—.
* * *
“The World Enemy…?”
After being rejected by Eight, and as she was about to leave the building feeling lighter, Snowa was taken aback by the sudden blackout that engulfed the building alongside the emergence of the World Enemy.
The World Enemy that appeared right before her was something she hadn’t seen in a long while. A monster she had encountered daily since childhood until just a short while ago, but after recently forming an agreement with the World Enemy, this ‘ugly’ monster had stopped appearing.
But suddenly, the World Enemy was popping out? And not in City H, but City E?
“I don’t know what this is, but… transformation.”
Magical Girl transformation.
Snowa transformed into a Magical Girl without any specific dialogue. Already on the verge of retirement after turning twenty, she was a casual veteran Magical Girl who didn’t care for the eyes of others.
Especially now that there was no camera filming her or anyone watching, she had no qualms about transforming silently.
—Woooosh… w-what’s happening!?
“Quiet down… it’s hard to concentrate since it’s been so long.”
Shutting the mouth of her noisy spirit, Snowa instantly froze the World Enemies. Her magic. By controlling ice. Even though she hadn’t faced such monsters for months, the years of practice hadn’t disappeared.
Having dealt with the World Enemies, Snowa conjured light with her magic and handled the World Enemies wandering inside the building. She could already see some unfortunate people rolling on the floor.
“…Ah! Professor!”
Then, belatedly.
Snowa remembered that Eight was in this building.
The Professor was an ordinary person. Seeing the World Enemy could drive him crazy…! As that thought crossed her mind, Snowa dashed toward the direction of the laboratory—.
At some point, she felt a flash before her eyes.
“Kyaaaaah-!?”
“W-Wha—?”
For a moment, she heard Eight’s startled voice, and then felt something coursing through her like electricity, causing her to tumble to the ground.
“S-Snowa!?”
“P-Professor…?”
The current vanished right away, but Snowa looked up at Eight, her eyes filled with disbelief. The Magical Girl barrier surrounding her could withstand hundreds of billions of volts in a single instant—she had been utterly overwhelmed in a flash.
A weapon capable of taking down a Magical Girl in one hit? She had never heard of such a thing. If such a thing existed, there would be no reason for a Magical Girl to be confronting the World Enemy…
“Sorry. I didn’t know it was you, Snowa…”
“W-What was that just now…?”
“It was a self-defense tool… you’re not hurt, are you?”
With a worried expression, Eight inspected Snowa’s body as if he were searching for injuries. After all, he had just fired something that had such power at her without concern, so if he didn’t worry, that would be more surprising.
Reassuring him that she was fine, Snowa stood up lightly, realizing that Eight was safe, and immediately grabbed his wrist.
“Professor, we need to get out of here, we can’t stay like this—.”
“Get out? Why?”
“…It’s a long story, but monsters have appeared in this building. Their true identity is—.”
“The World Enemy.”
“That’s right, the World Enemy… wait, what?”
As Snowa was about to explain what the creatures were, she was taken aback to see Eight speaking as if he already knew. He knew what the World Enemy was? The Magical Girl Association, let alone City H, was strict about controlling that information.
He only knew that such a thing existed. Actually recognizing it as one would be impossible unless one was already aware of the World Enemy.
‘…What?’
Now that she thought about it—.
Professor. He didn’t seem too surprised seeing that I’m a Magical Girl either.
That was understandable. Her face was fairly well-known. But—.
‘The Evil Magical Girl and the person doing the same job…’
Ayle had said that she and Eight met at the same workplace. And Ayle was the Evil Magical Girl, and the chairperson of the World Enemy overseeing their operations.
Putting all this information together.
“C-Could it be… Professor, are you the one behind this incident…?”
“Huh? What do you mean by that? Why would I do something like this?”
“Ah, haha— of course, right…? My bad. Anyway, we have to get out of this building—.”
“No, we cannot leave.”
Eight looked at Snowa as if he found her inability to comprehend frustrating. Snowa faced him, puzzled by what he meant.
As he stroked his watch, Eight raised a finger and began to speak.
“The person responsible for this incident is inside this building.”
“…Excuse me? What do you—?”
“You mean to tell me all this is because someone pouted after getting a confession rejected? Even I can’t cover that up if it turns into a mess like this…”
If Eight was talking about a certain culprit and Snowa didn’t grasp who it was, she might have been labeled as a tad foolish.
But Snowa was far from foolish.
It dawned on her that this whole mess had erupted simply because of a rejected confession.
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