Magical Girl? I Got Scammed into It! Chapter 44

She could only marvel at why the world had such a perfectly designed self-defense weapon.

"Iris?" Ando Meiko frowned as she looked up at the sky, but quickly shook her head. "No, that's not right. Iris has an owl beside her, but this..."

The bird beast in midair had sharp, hook-shaped talons like blades. Its body was sturdy and powerful, and the black feathers covering its wings were thick and tough, as though even fierce winds could not ruffle them.

Black flames, seemingly solid, smoldered and rose around it. Those flames made the bird beast look like some ancient, fearsome creature.

Ando Meiko was no stranger to those black flame-like things. They were Demonic Aether overflowing from the body of a Void Beast.

"So this time it's a condor?"

Though it was called a condor, this monstrosity simulated from Demonic Aether had already surpassed the largest bird on modern-day Earth—the ostrich—in size.

Its wings kept folding and contracting as they beat out the airflow needed to support its flight. If fully spread, they were probably five meters long.

Yet reflected in the sharp eyes of this Void Condor was not Ando Meiko's figure, but the silver-haired girl standing calmly behind her.

"Meizi, I was wondering why you suddenly disappeared. So you entered the Void World."

Kajieliena, already transformed, glanced up at the Void Condor flying overhead before turning her gaze back to Ando Meiko.

"A General-class flying Void Beast. It might be troublesome to deal with, but its destructive power isn't that great. It shouldn't affect the city much. It shouldn't be enough to make you come in here just to eliminate it, should it?"

If you hadn't dragged me in here, did you think I was so bored I'd come in to grind monsters on my own?

Ando Meiko shot her a vicious glare. "Aren't you going to help?"

"Forget it. It's just a little bird. We don't need to bother with it. We can just leave like this." With a wave of her magic wand, a colorful passage silently opened behind Ando Meiko.

"That's wonderful." For once, Ando Meiko found Kajieliena unexpectedly adorable.

Just as she was about to leave, a soaring, melodious cry suddenly rang out from behind her.

The sound of something slicing through the air echoed through the not-so-narrow street.

[Master, three o'clock. Turn around and counterattack immediately.]

[Got it!]

Ando Meiko was not foolish enough to casually expose her back to an enemy. Though she looked delighted by Kajieliena opening the exit for her—

—in truth, while she really was happy, she had also deliberately left a small opening for the Void Condor flying overhead.

Unexpectedly, although this General-Tier Void Beast looked imposing, it was not particularly intelligent. Ando Meiko had barely turned around without even taking a step before the stupid bird took the bait.

She spun back around and swung her frying pan. The Void Condor, diving at high speed to seize its prey, could not stop in time and crashed headlong into it.

One force charged forward, while the other shoved back. The two opposing forces combined into an immense impact that struck the Void Condor directly in the head.

She sent it flying into the air. Before it could spread its wings and regain balance, Ando Meiko had already switched the frying pan to her left hand during the swing.

As her left hand caught the object in midair, her magic wand completed its second transformation and became a plain-looking longbow.

She drew the bowstring. Even without the step of nocking an arrow, magic power flowing into the bow automatically condensed into a red arrow between Ando Meiko's hands.

"Mm, I can tell you've become very proficient at switching weapons." Kajieliena, who stood to the side with no intention of helping, did not skimp on praise, even though her expression did not change in the slightest.

After mastering Holy Armament transformation techniques and charging techniques, Ando Meiko had discovered that even outside the heavily charged Holy Armament state, her switching speed for Aether and her charging speed for magical arrows had become much faster than before.

She did not have the sort of wondrous feeling described in novels, where the protagonist evolved or leveled up and felt some mysterious power filling their body.

But these small changes allowed her to truly feel that she was slowly taking steps forward.

Progress was progress. Naturally, one had to move forward one step at a time. Taking too big a step could make you pull a muscle... Well, Ando Meiko did not seem particularly worried about that now.

The magical arrow did not possess the overwhelming power of the giant bow, but it was more than enough to deal with the Void Condor before her.

The arrow streaked through the air in a beautiful red trail and pierced one of the Void Condor's wings.

No matter how hard one wing flapped, it could not support its body, which stood over three meters tall. After struggling twice, it spiraled toward the ground around its intact wing.

Her surprise attack had worked so well that Ando Meiko naturally had to kick it while it was down... No, press her advantage.

She drew the bow again and condensed a second arrow. Just as she was about to release the string, another black shadow suddenly burst into the battlefield from the side.

The second shadow swept past the falling Void Condor. It was so fast that even the attacking Void Condor was inferior to it.

After touching the Void Condor, it looped once through the air before diving toward the street.

The poor Void Condor had not even fully reached the ground before its body was sliced into more than a dozen neatly cut pieces in midair. They then turned into black Aether and were completely absorbed by Ando Meiko's magic wand.

The instant Kajieliena saw the second black shadow, a trace of coldness and gravity appeared in her usually tranquil eyes.

She had never worn that expression even on the day she confronted Xiphias, when Marugang's blade had been only inches away from her.

A small owl slowly floated in midair, while a figure cheerfully hopped out from the shadows nearby.

The moment Ando Meiko saw the girl with round-framed glasses slowly entering her field of vision, the proud smile she had worn after so easily defeating a General-class Void Beast vanished at once.

"Iris..."

The thing she feared most had finally happened.

Kajieliena looked calmly at Iris, who stood not far in front of her. "After following us for so long, you finally decided to show yourself?"

Not much surprise appeared on her cool face. From the moment she and Ando Meiko had stepped out of the school, she had already sensed Iris's magic power.

Kajieliena gave Iris a faint glance, and the hand gripping her magic wand tightened involuntarily.

Before she planned to leave God's Staff, the Witch Organization, she had been Iris's assistant. Therefore, she understood Iris's strength very well.

It was not that she admitted she was inferior to Iris. Their compatibility was simply far too poor.

The Orbital Weapon's targeted attacks were extremely powerful, and she was confident that as long as she hit, she could take out Iris's familiar in one shot.

But the problem was, how was she supposed to target a familiar that moved absurdly fast?

Iris glanced at Ando Meiko, then looked back at Kajieliena beside her. A dangerous curve rose at the corner of her lips. "Eh? So you really did take her side. After working together for so long, you just threw away everything between us. You really are a heartless woman."

"What relationship could there possibly be between us?" Kajieliena shrugged. "Since you showed yourself in person, I suppose a fight between us is unavoidable?"

"No." Iris shook her head. "What if I said I was just passing by? Would you believe me?"

"No."

"Fine, I knew it." Rejected without hesitation by Kajieliena, she sighed and waved her hand with a disappointed look. "I'm only here to give you a reminder. You don't really think I came out alone, do you?"

"You mean... that woman... came too?"

At that, Iris revealed a somewhat teasing smile. "Although my mission is to bring you back, whether you go or not has nothing to do with me."

"I know." Kajieliena nodded.

After discovering that Xiphias also lived in this city, there was no way Iris could sit still.

She knew that she and Iris were the same kind of people. They only obsessed over things that interested them. Kajieliena had chosen to leave the organization because she was interested in Ando Meiko, while Iris was interested in Xiphias, which was why she had not cared about Kajieliena's actions.

Iris leaped off the ground. After spinning three hundred and sixty degrees in midair, she landed steadily atop her owl familiar.

"Then, see you again if fate allows." A colorful passage suddenly opened behind her, and she disappeared into it atop the owl.

"This is troublesome."

"What is? Could it be that 'woman' you mentioned?"

There were not many things that could make a block of wood like Kajieliena say the word "troublesome." Ando Meiko became curious about just who this woman was.

"You don't need to worry about it. In any case, I'll handle it properly."

"Fine. If you don't want to talk about it, forget it."

They found a secluded place and left the Void World. Although the little interruption did not affect Ando Meiko and Kajieliena's shopping plans, they talked much less afterward.

"I'll take you home."

"Forget it. There's somewhere else I need to go first."

After they had both paid for their purchases, Kajieliena suggested taking Ando Meiko home. Ando Meiko refused outright, because before going home, she still needed to pick Nanako up from the base.

She charged all the way to the base, only to get stuck at the elevator doors. If the staff here had not also been magical girls Ando Meiko knew, she would probably have had to call Yōichi.

"Nanako, I'm here to pick you up."

The moment she entered the lounge, she noticed that aside from the few magical girls who worked upstairs at the maid café, everyone else—including Aika and Furate—was inside.

The chattering magical girls had gathered together and surrounded the cute little Evil God in the middle. They had even ignored the sound of Ando Meiko opening the door.

"That's amazing, Nanako! Can you do that again? You know, that thing."

"Sure!"

Under Ando Meiko's dumbfounded gaze, Nanako's hair spread wildly beneath her like vines, then transformed into pink tentacles that stood upright from the ground.

The horrifying sight made Ando Meiko recall how she had once been toyed with by those tentacles, and she instinctively took a step back.

"You're amazing, Nanako! I've never seen a familiar as powerful as you."

"Ehehe, is Nanako really that amazing?" Praised like that, the smile on her face grew even brighter.

Back at home, because Ando Meiko did not want Fuko to discover Nanako's identity, she had never allowed Nanako to reveal her true form.

Now, in a place full of magical girls, seeing Nanako smile so genuinely made joining this place seem worthwhile.

"Ah, Sister Ruby, Nanako's over here." Seeing Ando Meiko, Nanako gave her a sweet smile and waved.

The tentacles writhing madly along the ground wrapped around Ando Meiko's calves like morning glory vines and climbed all the way to her slender waist.

"Eek!" With a strange cry, she was yanked over by the tentacles that occupied more than half the shadows in her heart. They bypassed the magical girls in front of her and sent her straight into Nanako's arms.

Of course, this so-called embrace was entirely one-sided, since the tentacles had wrapped around her so tightly that she could not move at all.

She struggled briefly, but found herself completely unable to move. So she simply gave up and let Nanako nuzzle against her affectionately.

"So soft. It feels so nice."

Nanako might have been comfortable, but the little girl's head pressed against Ando Meiko's chest, making her whole body tingle.

"Put me down first."

"Okay." Nanako agreed, then controlled her tentacles to gently lower Ando Meiko onto the ground.

"Did you have fun?"

"I did! The big sisters here are all really, really nice people. Nanako likes it here a lot."

Ando Meiko smiled and rubbed Nanako's little head. Then she turned to the smiling magical girls. "Because I have school, this child has been staying home and can't go out. It's rare to see her this happy. Thank you for playing with Nanako."

"Oh, Ruby, what are you saying? We're Azure Magical Girls, but we still don't have familiars. We're really jealous of you."

"Familiars... Come to think of it, I'm curious too. Why don't you have familiars yet?"

She had originally thought that Azure Magical Girls came with familiars, but now it seemed that obtaining one was probably not as simple as she had imagined.

"How should I put it? It's not really a secret among magical girls." A girl hugging Nanako as though she could not bear to let go spoke first.

She was a magical girl codenamed Yukine, and one of the four Azure Magical Girls present who did not have a familiar. As such, she indeed had the right to speak on the matter.

"Familiars aren't actually granted by the Great Will. If you want to sign a Demon-Binding Contract with a familiar, you need to enter a place called the Familiar Realm and find a familiar that connects with your heart."

"The Familiar Realm?"

Hearing another unfamiliar term, Ando Meiko frowned slightly. "What kind of place is that?"

"Apparently, it's a parallel world that does not intersect with ours. Like the Void World, it is a wondrous world entirely formed from Aether and inhabited by all kinds of magical creatures. If we want familiars, we have to go there."

"A place inhabited by magical creatures..." As she spoke, Ando Meiko could not help glancing at Nanako, though she immediately looked away.

Come to think of it, did Nyarlathotep count as a type of magical creature? If that was true, then could this so-called Familiar Realm possibly be Nanako's home?

[I knew Master would think that, but it's not an unreasonable idea. In truth, I don't think anyone knows whether the Nyarlathotep race even exists.]

[That's true.]

If Nanako really was the Evil God known as the "God Without a Face," then surely she could do more than just turn her hair into tentacles?

But after that brief consideration, Ando Meiko suddenly became very interested in the Familiar Realm.

After all, every familiar she had seen—whether Xiphias's familiar Marugang or Iris's owl familiar—possessed top-tier combat power.