Melee, Part One: Saiba

(Babaluno)

To move quietly, Miss Achernar transformed her lower body into a scaled snake tail. She lowered herself and slithered ahead, scouting the way for us.

Besides, Miluno's intelligence was indeed evolving...

It was just evolving in a somewhat problematic direction.

"Lu--"

By now, she had learned how to undo buttons and take off my clothes, and she kept putting it into practice. I had to keep stopping her from succeeding...

Uh, in fact, she had already succeeded.

She used acceleration magic to undo my buttons, while I had no choice but to fasten them back up as I walked. This was when I should have taught her not to do that, but I couldn't speak too loudly during a stealth mission...

Miss Achernar stopped her footless steps.

"Shh, that's the production line for the Magical Girl Soldiers."

As we officially infiltrated Aldebaran's Witch's Tower, the first thing we saw was a production workshop enclosed beneath a transparent glass dome.

But...

"This place doesn't look like it's operating?" I said.

The assembly line was shut down. There were no Magical Girl Soldiers being manufactured on the cold mechanical arms or conveyor belts, and I truly couldn't understand how those machines created living beings...

Still, only seeing it in person made me understand that the two worlds were fundamentally different.

The soldiers produced on the assembly line emerged as fully grown adults, even their patterns of thought mechanically programmed. Though they had flesh and blood, they were no different from machines—loyal and pitiful, knowing only how to fight and obey.

Worse still, they considered all of it perfectly natural. Thinking of the Monster Soldiers at City School, who charged to their deaths without fear... They were clearly nothing but cannon fodder, clearly watched their comrades fall before their eyes, yet still