Magical Girl? I Got Scammed Into It!

But now, she could only watch helplessly as Rin used that Blue Talisman again despite her body already being on the verge of collapse, unable to do anything.

Whether as Ando Koichi, Ando Meiko, or even the current magical girl Ruby, she would never allow something like this to happen before her eyes.

For the first time, the eyes of Ando Meiko, who had always avoided battle whenever possible, brimmed with intense fighting spirit.

At this most crucial moment, Ando Meiko, her fighting spirit surging, finally caught the faint feedback from her body. Her outstretched hand clenched at empty air as though trying to seize something. "Got you... I've got you!"

The gem on her chest burst with hexagonal light. Her top shortened, revealing a diamond-shaped opening stretching from below her navel to above her chest. The outermost layer of her skirt transformed into a long dress, her hair became low twin-tails, and her feather-shaped hair ornament unfolded into an X shape.

Freed from the ribbons, the gems floated on either side behind her like remote-controlled cannons.

"It's here! Master's power form!"

After returning from battle, Ruby had told her about the appearance of her evolved form, and Ando Meiko had given this powerful charged form, obtained by breaking through the charge limit, a name...

Holy Armament—Starlight Radiance

"Ruby, I'll leave the fine-tuning of the magic power to you."

"Don't worry, Master. Leave it to me!"

The magic power she released completely enveloped the wand in a red sphere. Within it, the wand was broken down into Aether that was easier to shape.

"Synchronization, begin!"

Piece after piece materialized from Aether according to Ando Meiko's mental image. After Ruby fine-tuned them, they began assembling on their own.

The chamber, barrel, stock, scope, bipod... As a magic bullet entered the magazine, it was loaded into the gun body, and the rotating bolt slid back before chambering the round.

As the light of Aether faded, a red-painted M93 anti-materiel sniper rifle appeared in Ando Meiko's hands.

She hooked the sniper rifle's bipod onto the balcony railing and peered through the scope at the image magnified eight times, placing the crosshairs over the Void Spider's head.

The reason Ando Meiko had chosen to spend time synchronizing her wand into a sniper rifle instead of using a bow was because she had her own considerations.

There was no doubt that magic arrows were powerful in both attack strength and penetration.

However, they required multiple charges to unleash their true power, and their movement speed was far too slow. Against an agile Void Beast like the Void Spider, unless it was stupid enough to stand still and take the hit, it would generally dodge as soon as it sensed such enormous magic power.

A sniper rifle did not come with so many complications. Its greatest advantage was that it required no charging, preventing the leaked magic power from alerting the Void Beast.

Through the scope, Ando Meiko restrained her magic power and silently watched the Void Beast being held back by the magical girls. The index finger resting on the trigger trembled slightly from tension.

With an ordinary sniper rifle, the sniper would need to make extensive shooting adjustments to the scope in order to achieve accuracy.

However, this sniper rifle was made of magic power, and the magic bullets it fired would not be affected by slight winds within their effective range.

Ando Meiko did not know whether the sniper rifle she had created would be more powerful than the real thing.

But if she did not know... why not just try it?

"This won't do... Why is this thing moving so fast?"

The Void Spider was simply too mobile. No matter how she aimed while holding the cumbersome sniper rifle, before she could place it in the crosshairs, it would slip away the next instant, leaving Ando Meiko with no chance to pull the trigger.

Concealment was extremely important for a sniper, especially for the first shot. If it failed to eliminate the target immediately, the sniper's position would be exposed and she would become the primary target.

"I can't get a shot. Is there any way to restrict its movements temporarily?" Ando Meiko whispered into her earpiece.

The moment she finished speaking, she saw through the scope that Rin and Furago both paused briefly.

The two magical girls had heard her request.

Even in the midst of danger, Furago managed to take out a card and swipe it across her wand. Though trapped in spiderwebs, she barely managed to raise a slender cannon barrel with her left hand.

Another red rocket, the kind she had used to cover Ando Meiko's retreat, shot out. This time, however, the rocket struck the back of the Void Spider that Rin had been holding back.

A concussion rocket. It was not as powerful as an ordinary rocket, but the high-frequency vibrations it released after exploding could destroy most structures.

The waves caused by the high-frequency vibrations made the spider screech in pain. Though it lasted only an instant, its body truly did freeze.

Seizing that fleeting opportunity, Rin, who had reached beneath the spider's abdomen, leaped up fiercely. Her all-out punch sent the Void Spider flying into the air.

Good opportunity!

There was nowhere to brace itself in midair. In other words, before the spider landed, this was her best chance.

"Thank you so much, Rin." Rather than moving her sniper rifle along with the spider, Ando Meiko aimed the crosshairs at the path the spider would follow as it fell under gravity.

"It's here!" The instant the spider appeared in her crosshairs, the finger poised on the trigger pulled decisively.

The bullet shot from the chamber like a runaway wild horse. Magic power roared and sprayed in all directions from the muzzle brake, but even so, the powerful recoil nearly dislocated Ando Meiko's arm.

The distance of less than three hundred meters was crossed in an instant by the magic armor-piercing bullet traveling at eight hundred meters per second. It did not even need a full second. In other words, the moment the Void Spider appeared in the crosshairs and she pulled the trigger, the bullet had already reached the end of its journey.

The bullet pierced through the Void Spider's hardened armor without any obstruction, boring a basketball-sized hole straight through its head that was visible to the naked eye.

The Void Spider was blasted off course by the bullet's impact, yet to everyone's astonishment, it climbed back to its feet after falling to the ground.

"No way!" Ando Meiko could hardly believe what she was seeing.

Its brain had been pierced clean through by an armor-piercing bullet, yet it could still stand back up. Was it really even a living creature... Then again, could something like a Void Beast truly be called a living creature?

"If even that doesn't work... Oh no!" She cried inwardly as she flipped over and leaped from the roof of the tenth floor. After landing, she rolled forward, sprang up, and ran toward the Void Spider.

[Master? What are you trying to do? Don't be reckless, Master!]

Ignoring Ruby's words in her mind, she did not slow down in the slightest.

It was not because she wanted to finish off the Void Spider, but because Rin, who had created that opportunity for her, had already fallen beneath the Void Spider.

"Faster, faster!" To increase her speed even a little, she unconsciously concentrated magic power in her legs.

The Void Spider had already recovered. Its sixteen eyes had completely changed from black to red. Driven utterly mad by Ando Meiko's attack, it raised one of its legs without hesitation when it saw the defenseless Rin and stabbed downward.

"Don't you dare hurt her!" Having reached Rin's side, Ando Meiko slid forward. Once she reached Rin, she grabbed her clothes and flung her aside.

"Ahhh!" Though the spider leg did not take Rin's life, it pierced through Ando Meiko's left arm.

Only by experiencing it firsthand could one understand what it felt like to have muscle and bone pierced through... Pain. The unbearable agony nearly overwhelmed Ando Meiko's consciousness.

All sixteen eyes stared fixedly at the girl who had nearly killed it. They reflected Ando Meiko's face, twisted in pain, as the Void Spider simultaneously opened its blood-filled maw toward her.

"No! Sister Meiko!" In her panic, Rin directly called Ando Meiko by her name.

Upon hearing Rin's cry, Ando Meiko regained a slight measure of clarity. Enduring indescribable agony, she slowly raised the sniper rifle.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

She roared as she pulled the trigger, and the magic bullet lying in wait within the chamber burst forth in an instant with spiraling force.

That shot punched straight through the spider's lower abdomen and tore through the hardened armor on its back.

Knocked back by the blast, the Void Spider released the leg embedded in Ando Meiko's arm. As she hit the ground, she gritted her teeth and forced herself back up, pinning the sniper rifle beneath her foot and pulling the bolt to chamber another round.

Raise it, then fire.

Kneeling beneath the spider at such close range, she did not even need to aim.

Raise the gun, fire, lower it, pull the bolt. She repeated the motion mechanically until, when she pulled the trigger once more, the dry click of the bolt declared that every bullet had been used up.

At that moment, the sniper rifle reverted to a wand, the Holy Armament dispersed, and her transformation faded. She and the enormous Void Spider collapsed to the ground at the same time, unconscious...

Seeing that the Void Spider could no longer rise, whether from fear or because their magic power had been exhausted, nearly every magical girl who had taken part in the battle fell backward onto the ground, gasping for breath.

Only Rin dragged her body, which ached everywhere due to her recklessness, and walked step by step toward Ando Meiko.

Looking at the body on the ground, already stained red with blood, Rin grew more worried with every step she took forward. "Please, don't let anything happen to you."

"Um... I know this might not be the right time to say it... but before you all lie there any longer, could someone please save me and get me down?" Furate shouted at the resting magical girls.

No one knew how long had passed before Ando Meiko woke peacefully. The soft sensation beneath her head and the unyielding hardness against her back formed a stark contrast, telling her that she probably had not returned yet.

"Sister Meiko, you're awake."

"I... ngh..." The first thing she saw was Rin's delicate, flawless face. She must have been resting on Rin's lap.

A lap pillow. It was a lap pillow! It certainly felt nice to enjoy something like this, but after using the Blue Talisman three times in a row, how much better could Rin's condition possibly be than hers?

Not wanting to burden Rin, she supported herself and slowly stood up.

The slightest movement tugged at the muscles in her arm, making her grit her teeth in pain.

She glanced at her wound. The pierced arm was wrapped in strips of cloth, but the little fabric had already been completely dyed red by the blood seeping from the wound.

When she turned her head and saw Rin's smooth, flat abdomen exposed because a piece of fabric was missing from her clothes, a trace of softness flashed through Ando Meiko's eyes.

"It's good that you're okay. It's good that you're okay..." Seeing Ando Meiko awaken safely, Rin finally relaxed. Then her eyes suddenly rolled back, and she collapsed unconscious.

Ando Meiko quickly caught Rin in her arms and sighed softly. "This girl... she really pushed herself too hard."

Furate walked over to the two girls. Seeing the ghastly bloody wound on Ando Meiko's arm, she said with some concern, "Ruby, that wound of yours really looks terrifying."

With a faint smile, Ando Meiko did not continue the subject.

"Furate, the surrounding area has already been secured. You can open the gate and come out whenever you're ready."

"Understood."

Yōichi's voice came through the earpiece. After receiving the response from the vice-captain Furate, one of the Azure Magical Girls who still had magic power remaining opened the door back to the Mortal World.

[It hurts so much...] While waiting for the gate to open, Ando Meiko complained to Ruby in her mind through the pain.

[Master has been quite lucky. Since Master is not purely flesh and blood, the pain your body feels has been reduced by at least seventy percent.]

[Seventy percent...]

Even with the pain reduced by so much, it had still hurt enough to make her pass out. If she had felt the full one hundred percent, perhaps the moment her arm was pierced would have been enough to give her a heart attack from the pain.

[Come to think of it, why can't the commander and the others send people into the Void World to fight alongside us?] Ando Meiko asked curiously in her mind.

After a slight pause, Ruby explained, [Human bodies cannot enter the Void World.]

[Why? Is this one of those settings where the dense magic power crushes anyone who enters into pieces?]

[Of course not. The Void World is actually like a mirror. It is a reflection of the real world and naturally rejects things from reality. They cannot even enter, let alone fight.]

[I see.]

After the injured were carried out by the magical girls who were still able to stand, Ando Meiko slowly rose to her feet. Only then did she pick up the petite Rin and become the last to walk out of the Void World.

"Good work, Ruby. We really owe this one to you." Yōichi, who had hurried over, saluted her.

Compared to the other unconscious wounded, Ando Meiko, covered in blood from head to toe after releasing her transformation, stood out far too much for anyone to ignore.

After Ando Meiko placed Rin on the stretcher that had already been prepared, Yōichi stepped forward to help support her, but she waved him off. "Help the others first."

"But..."

"I'm fine." Though she was covered in blood, Ando Meiko's injuries were not actually as severe as they appeared.

During the time she had been unconscious, Ruby had used magic power to treat her pierced arm, and it had already healed. What remained was mostly pain. Though she still could not move it, it was nowhere near enough to affect her ability to act.

They did not need to take the train on the way back. The more seriously injured magical girls were rushed to the base in special vehicles for treatment, while Ando Meiko calmly got into the commander's private car.

"We really owe this one to you, Ruby. It seems our understanding of the strength of Ghost Grade Void Beasts was still far too lacking."

Ando Meiko nodded seriously.

That battle had been truly brutal. When the Void Spider flew into a rage and deployed its domain, Furate and several other magical girls had nearly died right before her eyes.

If that domain had not merely been a crude imitation with no real substance, they likely would not have survived at all.

Thinking back on the battle, Ando Meiko realized that these magical girls had a huge problem.

Aside from herself, their lineup consisted of three Starry Magical Girls and five Azure Magical Girls who did not even have familiars.

In truth, when facing the Void Spider head-on, Rin had been the only one with any real combat power.

Although Starry Magical Girls could use the Star Tarot for rapid magical attacks, their methods of attack were far too limited. Unless the right people were selected specifically for the situation, they rarely possessed abilities suited for combat.

Although Rin was also a Starry Magical Girl, her inheritance came from elsewhere. She possessed many strange methods unlike those of the magical girls here, so naturally she could not be counted among them.