Magical Girl? I Was Tricked into Becoming One! Chapter 29

"This was the codename used when Void Beasts possessed lord-level strength. Based on the quality of their Demonic Aether, they were divided into seven ranks: Soldier-class, General-class, King-class, Ghost Grade, Dragon-class, God-class, and World-Destroying-class."

A Soldier-class Void Beast could be easily defeated by a magical girl who was reasonably skilled in combat, while a General-class Void Beast required a magical girl with extensive battle experience to handle.

A King-class Void Beast required at least three experienced magical girls to form a party before they could even attempt the dungeon.

The Void King Serpent Ando Meiko encountered last time had been a King-class Void Beast. Although it had not reached its complete form, Xiphias alone had dealt with it easily.

One could only imagine how terrifying Xiphias's combat power was as a magical girl.

A Dragon-class required more than ten, perhaps even twenty magical girls working together just to have a chance of winning. Completely defeating one would require an exhausting, hard-fought battle.

God-class, also known as Domain-class—Void Beasts of this level had already mastered the ability to use Demonic Aether to seal off space and create a combat domain.

Without magical girls of a corresponding level to oppose them, no matter how many people attacked together, they would only be wiped out.

After all, Void Beasts of this level could no longer be measured by numbers.

As for World-Destroying-class, those were beings worthy of legend. If one of those things really appeared, perhaps only those strongest old monsters could deal with it.

The more Kajieliena explained, the stronger the unease in Ando Meiko's heart became.

Ghost Grade... Huh? Isn't that a fourth-level powerhouse? I-I really shouldn't go, right? How could this possibly be something I can handle?

"Still... I want to take a look..." She did not want to cause trouble, but when she saw Rin disappear into the alley, she had a bad feeling.

"If that's what you want, I won't stop you. Let me come with you."

"You won't suddenly attack me, will you?"

Kajieliena shook her head. "You are my subject of observation and research. I will not harm you."

Those simple words were hardly reassuring, but they showed Kajieliena's determination. Though she was a witch, judging by her usual words and actions, she was still someone trustworthy.

With Kajieliena's personal promise, Ando Meiko no longer had to worry about being stabbed in the back.

At Kajieliena's side, Ando Meiko could not communicate directly with Ruby, but she could still transform into a magical girl through her necklace.

With a flash of red light that vanished in an instant, she completed her transformation, opened the door to the Void World, and entered alongside Kajieliena.

"Come to think of it, why do I feel like something is affecting me whenever I stand next to you?"

"You mean the Isolation Field. As a precaution, any target approaching me is covered by my Isolation Field, cutting off all conceptual forms of communication."

An Isolation Field... As expected of the Space-Based Weapon System. It even had safeguards like that, and it looked like a passive skill.

"Can you turn it off when I get close to you in the future?"

"Of course."

That nasty woman! How dare she get so close to Master? I'm going to make a little doll of her and curse her!

When Ruby's familiar voice reached her mind, Ando Meiko knew that although Kajieliena had made no obvious movement, she had already lifted the Isolation Field.

All right, Ruby. Stop complaining. We can't beat her anyway.

Huh? Master? Master! Waaaah, we can finally talk again?

She did not waste time bantering with Ruby and went straight to what she wanted to know.

We've entered the Void World and are preparing to find the Ghost Grade Void Beast. Can you sense where it is?

East. With such intense Demonic Aether, Master should be able to sense it even without me, right?

After receiving Ruby's confirmation, she immediately set off, ready to leave the alley and head in that direction, only for Kajieliena to grab her and pull her back.

"Aren't we going up?"

"Up? I can't fly!"

Ando Meiko looked overhead. The alley was hemmed in by two skyscrapers at least forty stories high. If they had to climb the stairs, even as magical girls, they would probably waste quite a bit of time.

Yet Kajieliena did not answer Ando Meiko's question.

She took out her magic wand, then swept a tarot card bearing only a capital S across it.

In the blink of an eye, she had completed her transformation.

"Huh?"

The next moment, transformed Kajieliena slung Ando Meiko over her shoulder and said calmly, "Clench your teeth."

"W-Wait, you aren't planning to— Eek! Aaaahhh!! No! Put me down!"

While Ando Meiko was still stunned, Kajieliena leaped from where she stood, using the explosive power of her body to launch them both more than a hundred meters into the air.

Too fierce, too intense, too violent... Ando Meiko felt like seaweed swaying in the current, as though she might fall at any moment, even though the entire process lasted less than a few seconds.

After reaching the rooftop, Ando Meiko was put down. The feeling of solid ground beneath her feet made her appreciate the beauty of the world—and the beauty of being alive.

"Don't solve everything with brute force! Your theme is Space-Based Weapons!"

Kajieliena shrugged. "The characteristics of Space-Based Weapons are somewhat similar to a sniper rifle: ultra-long-range, locked-on, aerial guided strikes. I do not have many close-combat options, so if someone gets close, I can only run."

"Hey, hey! Is it really okay to just reveal your weakness like that? I haven't joined any organization, but we're technically enemies!"

"It's fine. You couldn't beat me anyway."

It was true. That was absolutely true! But could she not say it so directly? That hurt way too much. She was about to cry.

Damn it! That woman dared to insult Master! Master, let me go! I'm going to teach her a lesson.

Teach her a lesson? Didn't Ruby see that Kajieliena could carry her and jump over a hundred meters? If Ruby went over there, Kajieliena would probably beat her black and blue. Then Ando Meiko might get to see plenty of colors on Ruby's face.

"Over there." This building was very tall, so the view was exceptionally broad. At Kajieliena's reminder, Ando Meiko looked toward the source of the dense magical power.

Th-That's a Ghost Grade Void Beast?

It was a gigantic spider over twenty meters tall, as massive as a small hill. Yet every movement displayed both incredible agility and immense power.

Each of its legs was as sharp as a blade. If one of those legs pierced someone, it would surely be a fatal blow for any living creature.

It seemed to be fighting something. Magical girls?!

Five magical girls surrounded it, unleashing all kinds of skills against it, but its resilient hide endured every attack.

"So that's how it is. It's them."

"You know them?"

"The magical girl organization Divine Shield. Those people are all members. I have fought one of them before."

Kajieliena pointed at the girl in yellow and said to Ando Meiko, "The Constellation Magical Girl Three Purities. Her theme is Three Purities Dao Arts, but her inheritance comes from the Chinese branch, so she does not belong to our side."

A Divine Staff and a Divine Shield—those two hostile organizations had even made their names opposites. In terms of weapons, was that not the classic spear and shield?

"Do you think they can win?"

Kajieliena shook her head. "Three Purities is fairly capable, but against a Ghost Grade Void Beast, she is the only one who can put up a fight. The others are somewhat of a burden. In a few more exchanges, the outcome will... Hm?"

"What is it?" The sudden note of surprise made Ando Meiko curiously follow Kajieliena's gaze. "Huh? What's that?"

The open space at the center of the shopping mall was covered in sickeningly white spider silk, and where those webs converged were three enormous cocoons.

"There is something inside the cocoons."

"N-No way?" Kajieliena had said her combat style consisted only of guided attacks after ultra-long-range targeting, so it was not strange for her to have eyesight—or a means of enhancing it—like that.

But seeing something inside spider cocoons meant there were eggs in them? Void Beasts laid eggs?

"It looks like they will hatch soon. If we leave them alone, quite a few Void Beasts capable of growing into Ghost Grade may be born."

"We... we have to destroy them, don't we?"

Kajieliena shook her head and said calmly, "Not my concern."

In just a few words, she made her stance clear—she would not act.

As they spoke, the spider suddenly leaped. When its enormous body slammed into the ground, it unleashed a violent shockwave that spread outward.

Even Ando Meiko, some distance away, could feel the tremors traveling through the ground, let alone the magical girls surrounding the spider.

Three Purities retreated, while the other magical girls escaped the combat zone in time. However, they could not withstand the Demonic Aether shockwave created by the spider and were sent flying backward.

The unluckiest one was blasted straight into a wall and lost consciousness.

The gap in strength became obvious in an instant.

Compared to the aura of this Void Spider, the Void King Serpent she had faced before was like an immature little brat.

Help?

Of course Ando Meiko wanted to help, but how much stronger was she than those magical girls who had been sent flying? Going up there now would be no different from throwing her life away.

After the other magical girls lost their fighting power, Three Purities became the primary target and immediately endured the Void Spider's storm-like assault.

Facing the spider legs stabbing toward her, she swung the longsword in her hand to barely block them, but she soon could no longer withstand the relentless barrage.

After deflecting one spider-leg strike, she took three yellow talismans from her robe and threw them toward the incoming Void Spider attack. The talismans pierced by the spider legs instantly expanded into a violent torrent of magical power and exploded.

The explosion blocked the Void Spider's assault. Seizing that brief window, Three Purities retreated out of the spider's attack range, reached her unconscious companion, and pulled her from the wall.

However, she seemed to have misjudged the Void Spider's toughness... As she rescued her companion, a spider leg passed through the smoke raised by the explosion and pierced Three Purities's lower abdomen.

Seeing this, Ando Meiko began to panic. She could not just stand by and watch them die.

I have to... I have to do something. If I keep watching like this, they'll all die...

"What can I do... A way... The eggs, right, the eggs!"

What kind of attack could cross more than a kilometer and strike the spider cocoons at the center of the mall?

Silver Impact's range was far too short. But charging it... What if she changed Silver Impact into another form of charged attack? She needed an attack that combined explosive force, attack power, penetration, and range...

A bow... Right, a bow! Why hadn't she thought of that? What a straight line could not reach, an arc could make up for!

That was Ando Meiko's answer.

It turned out that reading more books really did have plenty of benefits in actual combat.

She poured magical power into her wand. In accordance with her imagination, it changed into the form she wanted: a massive bow taller than she was.

Strange. Shouldn't I only be able to transform Ruby into things I've touched before? Why can she become a bow when I've never touched any bow or arrow?

It was better that it worked than not. Right now, Ando Meiko's goal was not to figure out this strange phenomenon, but to save those living people.

Compress the magical power as much as possible and turn Silver Impact's power into an arrow! Ruby, I'll leave the firing angle to you.

Leave it to me, Master. Just focus on shooting.

Her hands alone could not draw the massive bow, so Ando Meiko planted her left foot to steady herself, braced her right foot against the bow, and gripped the heavy bowstring with both hands, drawing it to its fullest extent.

The way Silver Impact charged changed according to her imagination. Magical power materialized into a red arrow on the bow, and the moment that magical arrow formed, it continued to expand, becoming thicker and more solid.

The gem on her chest flickered with an unnatural red light in a short span of time.

"The charge has reached its limit... but it isn't enough... it's still nowhere near enough..."

Magical power would dissipate and be consumed during flight. To strike something so far away, the magical power gathered in the arrow had to surpass the limit she could reach.

Master! No, you can't keep forcing it! Magical power beyond what your body can bear will tear you apart and cause irreversible damage!

I can't just watch those five people die in front of me... while I do nothing...

Kajieliena watched Ando Meiko's movements, then slowly shook her head and pressed her magic wand against Ando Meiko's shoulder. "Let me help you."

"I can feel it... Kajieliena's magical power is inside my body..."

As an enormous amount of magical power flowed into her, a strange sensation abruptly eased Ando Meiko's burden. The degree to which the magical power condensed effortlessly broke through the limits of what her body could withstand.

The red light stopped flickering. A radiance that burst forth like the sun instantly enveloped Ando Meiko's entire body, so dazzling that even Kajieliena could not help narrowing her eyes.

The gem on her chest changed from a quadrilateral into a hexagon. Her top shortened somewhat, exposing a diamond-shaped opening at her navel. The outermost layer of her three-tiered skirt became a large train trailing behind her, while the gem on her back broke free from the ribbon and floated at both sides of her body.

Her ordinary twin ponytails became steadier, lower twin ponytails, while the feather-shaped hair ornaments that had originally held her hair in place unfolded into more powerful-looking X shapes.

Master... evolved at a time like this?

"Kajieliena, I have a favor to ask... If I manage to draw the Void Beast away, please help me save those people..."

"I..."