Overwhelming Victory

(Sun Yao)

"Roar—!"

Facing that enraged tiger's roar, I brushed off my skirt and stood up, provoking it in an uncharacteristically breezy tone.

"Alright, alright~ Mr. Big Cat with Horns, how many times have you roared in the past few minutes? It only makes you look incompetent. I heard Monsters have advanced intelligence too, so why can't I see even a trace of it in you? Did you grow a human shape for nothing?"

Even I found this way of talking irritating.

My entire body remained wrapped in a Magic Membrane, so the water from the fire hydrant had not soaked my clothes. My long hair and skirt were still light and soft, without a single drop of water left on me. I still felt perfectly dry.

"Ceruno, judging by that arrogant tone, have you figured out how to deal with your opponent?"

I had no time to answer Heat Haze's question. The Tiger Monster was clearly planning to press its advantage. The tiger claws it was so proud of were larger than my head. If I took another two hits head-on, this coating would probably be shattered completely.

In the first place, I had only failed to dodge that last attack because I wanted it to hit me. I had no intention of letting it smack me again.

"Ha!"

It rushed in front of me and raised its arm. I was the first to wrap it in a layer of Magic Membrane.

Then, as though it had stepped onto slick ice, it slipped and fell, smashing its head against the plaza tiles and bowing to me with a loud thud.

"Did... friction disappear?"

Heat Haze was astonished by what she saw.

"Mm! I think... I've figured out how to use this magic properly!"

Lightning suddenly flashed in the Tiger Monster's mouth as it tried to blast through the Magic Membrane covering it.

However, I had already known it would do that.

The surging lightning passed through the Magic Membrane without resistance and blasted a charred crater into the plaza, while the membrane itself suffered no damage at all.

The Tiger Monster was still bewildered when the membrane around it expanded into a bubble prison. This time, however, it had no means of escaping.

Heat Haze had seen it too and seemed to have formed some guesses.

"You let that lightning pass through your membrane, so it wasn't damaged?"

"That's roughly the result, but not quite."

"What do you mean?"

"My magic doesn't create bubbles... it marks out a space whose rules are customized by me."

"A space?"

"The inside of the bubble."

"And what does setting rules mean?"

"The bubble's rules depend on my thoughts. Because I believed it was a transparent bubble, light could enter it. Likewise, because I believed that 'you can breathe and move even while wrapped in a membrane,' the bubble didn't block air or friction. After your reminder, I realized friction shouldn't exist either. That's why the Monster ended up like this."

The Tiger Monster was still struggling helplessly inside the bubble, looking rather ridiculous.

"...So what do you plan to do now?"

I still had no means of attacking directly, but I could try another method by making use of this ability to control what entered and exited.

The weapon I chose was... water.

Ever since earlier, the ruptured fire hydrant had been creating artificial rain.

The water that touched the bubble entered it and never came back out, forming countless floating droplets in the weightless bubble.

"You're going to choke... no, drown that Monster?"

"Mm. Even after figuring out the nature of my magic, I still can't attack it. This is the only method I can think of right now."

Inside the bubble, the Tiger Monster covered its mouth and nose, fearfully batting away the growing number of water droplets. It had realized what awaited it.

Having its lungs filled with inhaled water had to be a painful way to die, didn't it?

Heat Haze offered a suggestion.

"Ceruno, if you draw out the air now, it will either suffocate in a vacuum or have its organs and bodily fluids sucked out."

"I can't do that. Leaving aside where the force to expel the air would come from, my magic isn't that easy to control."

"Not easy to control?"

"It's a little idealistic to explain, but my magic creates a space that 'I believe in,' not a space that 'I wish for.' They sound similar, but they're two different concepts. Do you understand?"

"...Magic is 'a reality that belongs only to oneself.' It was never easy to make others fully understand one's magic, let alone magic as complicated as yours sounds. Leave the detailed analysis to the Association later."

Was my explanation too vague?

Heat Haze seemed to have given up trying to understand.

Simply put, my magic preset "rules of entry and exit" in my mind, then applied those rules within the bubble. If I set air to only leave and never enter, I might suffocate the Monster, but I might suffocate as well. Since those were rules I believed in, they applied equally to everything inside the bubble.

Those rules could not be changed easily. Once I believed the Tiger Monster's lightning mouth cannon was also light and should be able to pass through the bubble, it would become difficult to use the bubble to block it. It might even cause all light to be shut out as well, making it impossible to see what was happening inside.

I could not set overly detailed rules based purely on subjective judgment. Especially for essential elements like air and light, I could not casually block them off. After all, I was relying on the Bubble Membrane for defense too.

"Argh, glug, urgh—cough cough—"

By then, floating droplets occupied around forty percent of the bubble.

The Tiger Monster could hardly avoid inhaling those deadly droplets. At last, it could no longer hold on and coughed blood from its mouth and nose. Yet the violent breaths caused by coughing only flooded more liquid into its lungs. Its hands flailed wildly through the supportless bubble, while the long steel needles that had regrown from its back kept firing outward, but they were too weak to break the bubble.

I had not given those growing steel needles the green light. Fortunately, it no longer had much strength left. Otherwise, it might really have escaped.

The process lasted several minutes.

In the end, the Tiger Monster, painfully curled into a ball, stopped moving. All I did was stand beside it and watch it drown.

Thump—thump—thump—

My heartbeat pounded against my eardrums.

"Did I win?"

"The Monster has lost all life signs, so you won, Ceruno."

"Phew..."

My first battle had ended in victory.

And it had been an overwhelming victory that left my opponent utterly unable to fight back. Maybe I really had talent for being a magical girl?

Still, such a cruel way of fighting truly did not fit my image of magical girls.

When I dispelled the bubble, the Tiger Monster's massive corpse crashed onto the plaza, its face twisted in extraordinary pain...

I had actually defeated such a terrifying, grotesque monster.

But it had still taken quite a while. If it had been Miluno...

No, even other magical girls with offensive magic could surely have ended the battle faster, right?

For instance, Heat Haze's Fire Phosphor Magic.

They said fur made one vulnerable to fire. That Tiger Monster would probably have been blasted to ashes in a single exchange. Why would she need to painstakingly devise strategies like I did, even deliberately taking a blow to break the fire hydrant?

Although I had won, the issue of my magic lacking offensive power had not improved. Future battles still did not look promising.

"So, can I go home now?"

The alarm had been lifted. There was nothing left for me to do.

Afterward, the Association would handle the corpse and repair the buildings.

Letting magical girls fight without restraint was one of the principles behind the Association's founding.

But Heat Haze stopped me through my earpiece.

"Wait, Ceruno! If possible, I hope you can come to the medical facility. As your mentor for new recruits, I think we should meet and discuss the applications of your magic."

An invitation from Heat Haze to meet.

Yin Lu had told me to decide for myself when to reveal my identity, but hiding it from Heat Haze made me feel guilty.

Maybe I should take this opportunity...

"Of course. Actually... there's something I want to tell you too."

I agreed.