Teacher, I'm Actually a Villainous Magical Girl

The bespectacled woman spoke nonsense as she approached the Thorn Monster.

"Wait, this presence... How is that possible?"

The Thorn Monster raised its hand, intending to attack the human, but it felt an enormous sense of discord—

"No, could you be..."

Through her stiff, thick black-rimmed glasses, the woman stared at the Thorn Monster with hollow black eyes and did not answer its question.

She merely said calmly—

"—Transform."

The next instant, endless black mist surged from behind her, swallowing her whole like a greedy demon.

Then, the female passerby vanished, replaced by a slender, elegant figure emerging from the black mist.

She seemed to be a tall, slim woman, but strange, hazy black fog coiled around her entire body, preventing the Thorn Monster from seeing her clearly.

The Thorn Monster froze. The scene before it completely overturned everything it knew.

But before it could react, the woman shrouded in black mist vanished from before its eyes.

By the time the Thorn Monster came to its senses, an immense, terrifying force had seized its throat—a force at least dozens of times greater than Magical Girl Silver Feather's.

It felt its feet leave the ground.

The Thorn Monster was lifted into the air by its neck like a chick.

"Cough, cough! You... who exactly are you...?"

Crushed by that horrifying power, it could not move at all.

The Thorn Monster looked at the mysterious being in terror, its voice trembling uncontrollably.

She was a Magical Girl.

And one whose power surpassed Silver Feather's by an unknown margin.

But this presence... Why was it even more evil than a Monster like itself?

"As you can see, I'm a Magical Girl," the woman radiating ominous black mist said coldly.

"—Just a villainous one."

Chapter 2: Witch

"What kind of joke is this? A Magical Girl... is some older plain-looking woman?"

The Thorn Monster wore an incredulous expression.

—No, that was impossible if it thought about it.

Magical Girls were warriors only pure, flawless young girls could become. They were the embodiment of beauty and individuality.

Only beautiful, pure girls would be chosen by fairies. Even it, a Monster, knew that much.

Yet that utterly unremarkable older woman with glasses, whom it had barely even noticed, was actually such a powerful Magical Girl?

There could only be one answer:

This Magical Girl had used magic to disguise herself as she had been before.

But... why?

Who had nothing better to do than turn herself into a plain-looking woman?

But it had accidentally stepped on this terrifying Magical Girl's landmine—

"Hm?"

The woman's voice from within the black mist gained a hint of chilliness, making the Thorn Monster instantly sense danger.

"Who the fuck are you calling an older woman? I'm only twenty-seven!"

"N-No... I wasn't!"

Its survival instincts made the Thorn Monster deny it immediately.

"Good..."

The coldness in her voice faded slightly, though she continued gripping the Monster by the throat—

"I don't intend to kill you for now. Cherish the life you picked up."

With that, she released her hand. The Thorn Monster fell to the ground and began to tremble.

Though Magical Girl Silver Feather and the mysterious Magical Girl before it were both opponents it could not defeat, it had never felt such terror when facing Silver Feather.

The gap was far too great.

It had no room to resist whatsoever.

"Who exactly are you? You're clearly a Magical Girl, so why would you spare me?"

Monsters and Magical Girls should have been irreconcilable mortal enemies.

Magical Girls were the embodiment of love and justice, while Monsters were the manifestation of human desire and ugliness.

"You don't need to know who I am. As for... why I'm sparing you?"

She pinched her chin, her posture elegant and proud.

"It's very simple. I want you to defeat Magical Girl Silver Feather and make her give up being a Magical Girl."

But what she said did not sound like something a Magical Girl would say at all. Instead, she sounded like one of the villainous executives from its organization.

A bold guess surfaced in the Thorn Monster's mind.

Legend had it that a group of Magical Girls had abandoned love and justice, been seduced by darkness, turned their backs on the light, and chosen the power of dark magic.

From then on, those Magical Girls were no longer blessed by the light and became fallen Dark Magic Users.

Could the Magical Girl before it be a user of dark magic?

"I was already planning to do that. As long as I keep absorbing humanity's negative emotions, I'll completely master the power of a Mature Form Monster!"

Monsters grew through three stages.

Sprout Form, Mature Form, Perfect Form.

Beyond those were the executives of the Black Death Cult—Apostles.

Sprout Forms were ordinary grunts. Only a very small number of Monsters could become Mature Forms and gain the power to contend with Magical Girls.

The Thorn Monster was currently in its Mature Form.

"Mature Form? Is that all?"

But this witch did not seem very satisfied—

"Fine, I'll make a small investment in you. I hope you can cause that Problem Child more trouble. Better yet, make her give up on that boring fantasy of saving the world."

The Thorn Monster was initially deeply confused, until it saw the witch extend a hand, palm facing upward.

A strange dark-green crystal floated above the hand wrapped in black mist.

As a Monster, the Thorn Monster was immediately drawn to it. It could not help moving closer, even losing its previous vigilance. Nothing remained in its inhuman eyes but that crystal.

Maple Plain City was not a peaceful city. Rumor had it that this was the base of some evil organization that continuously created Monsters and threatened the city's public safety.

Fortunately, because Magical Girls existed, the Monsters had never caused any casualties. The city had instead become an internet-famous tourist destination because of them.

Many visitors from other places came specifically to enjoy its Magical Girl entertainment culture, and the lucky ones could even witness Magical Girls saving the city with their own eyes.

None of that had anything to do with Haihara, an utterly ordinary high school teacher.

—Yeah, right.

At that moment, she stood before a sink, rinsing her face with clean water.

Her already somewhat pale face looked slightly sickly after being washed with cold water. Drops slid down from her forehead, hung from the tip of her nose, and fell one by one.

Haihara, twenty-seven years old, was a female high school Japanese teacher. She usually had very little presence, and almost no one knew her full name. She was the kind of gloomy passerby woman one could find anywhere in this city.

She was not particularly smart, her family circumstances were ordinary, and her appearance was hardly outstanding. From childhood to adulthood, she had always been an unnoticed passerby in some corner.

She had dated someone for less than a week in college before realizing that she actually liked women.

But during her junior year, when she pursued an upperclassman, she discovered that the woman had already been won over by a rich, handsome guy.

That was when Haihara fully realized that she was just an ordinary passerby.

When she was little, she had also fantasized about becoming some kind of Magical Girl, but Magical Girls probably were not this gloomy and ordinary.

She had no magic power and no superpowers.

As she thought that, her weary eyes turned toward the mirror.

The mirror was covered in mist, making the image somewhat blurry.

Yet it was obvious that the reflection in the mirror was not the face of an ordinary woman.

It was a pale, delicate woman's face. Even through the mist, its sculptural, elegant beauty and cold, graceful features were still visible.

Long, silver-gray curls cascaded loosely down, draping over her fair shoulders.

But the most captivating feature was her deep violet eyes behind the haze, as though adorned with countless stars—profound and mysterious.

The mirror did not reflect Haihara. Instead, it reflected the face of an unfamiliar woman.

Haihara had already grown used to it.

Unhurriedly, she put on her glasses, then casually wiped away the mist on the mirror. When she opened her eyes again, the woman from before had vanished, leaving only the face of a gloomy woman with glasses.

One thing was one thing. She did have something slightly unusual about her, though not much.

Once, she had the misfortune of being present when a Monster appeared.

Fortunately, the Monster was quickly defeated by a Magical Girl, and she was not hurt.

But that careless Magical Girl had left behind something that should not have been left behind.

—A Monster crystal.

Out of curiosity, or perhaps a complete lack of self-preservation, she had touched that crystal.

The moment she touched it, a vast number of memories flooded into her mind.

But those memories did not belong to Haihara, an ordinary passerby.

They belonged to a Magical Girl.

The mysterious woman she had just seen in the mirror.

She gained an enormous amount of magical knowledge. Based on what she had learned, the mysterious woman in those memories was probably several levels stronger than Maple Plain City's famed Magical Girl Silver Feather.

She began continuously collecting Monster crystals, acquiring more and more memories.

Naturally, she also obtained the different kind of power she had long desired.

But a chain reaction soon followed.

Just like when she had looked in the mirror earlier.

Phantoms belonging to that Magical Girl often appeared around her, as though reminding her of something.

As she obtained more crystals and received more memories, those hallucinations grew worse. Now, even when she looked in the mirror, she saw someone else.

Sometimes, Haihara even mistook herself for that Magical Girl.

So she gave up.

Faced with so many memories from another person, Haihara sensed an indescribable danger. She decided to stop there and never touch those abnormal things again.

Now, she only wanted to be a slacker Neon teacher, teach pretty Neon high school girls, save up enough money, and confess to Ms. Suzuki, the music teacher.

But in recent years, one Problem Child after another had shattered that fantasy.

They shared one common trait.

These high school girls were secretly Magical Girls saving the world.

They were constantly late, leaving early, or skipping class for all sorts of reasons, and Haihara had no way to refuse them.