About Becoming a Magical Girl

Efnir rejected Ayse's request for action.

An "Agent" who would not be attacked by Erosion Entities? For some reason, Efnir had a bad feeling about this. Two giant Erosion Entities that had appeared out of nowhere within five days, headquarters half-destroyed, and the stolen Beacon that had somehow appeared on Yukina... It felt as though something had been overlooked. If all of this was connected, then what clue linked everything together?

And why... Yukina? Efnir refused to believe this was all a coincidence.

"Miss Efnir... Have... new Erosion Entities appeared again?"

In her arms, Yukina looked at Efnir anxiously.

"Are you going to fight again?"

"I'm not sure yet."

Efnir held Yukina tightly.

"I'll get you out of here now. Hold on tight."

Efnir leaped straight down. Yukina cried out in fright, and the intense sensation of weightlessness forced her eyes shut. Then, the feeling abruptly stopped. Efnir's soft touch came from behind her. Using a "Stairway" formed from Order Force, Efnir carried Yukina toward the outside of the venue.

At the same time, Efnir issued her orders loudly.

"Ayse! Canary! Keep the line open. Keep an eye on the Whale, and observe the target's next move! I'll be there soon!"

Before Efnir had even finished speaking, an urgent shout suddenly came through her earpiece.

"Efnir! I'm afraid it's too late!"

"The target is rapidly approaching Ayse!"

Shinomiyami Nami spoke quickly.

"It's too fast!..."

"Senior! Ayse has been attacked!!"

"Damn it... So it really came with bad intentions. Codename Canary! Prepare to engage!"

"The target's energy reading has changed... A powerful energy reaction detected. It's an energy attack!! Ayse! Canary! Evade immediately!"

"Bzzzt—"

The connection in her earpiece was instantly cut off by a piercing burst of static. Efnir turned to look back. At the edge of her vision, a silver-white flare shot into the sky like blazing fire.

What followed was a massive roar that swept over her like a tidal wave.

"Ayse! Canary!!"

Efnir called out loudly, but there was only silence in her earpiece. After roughly two breaths, a bout of coughing suddenly came through.

"This is Ayse... Cough... This is... Can you hear me...?"

"Ayse?"

"Senior Efnir..."

Ayse's breathing was unsteady, like withered leaves fluttering on the verge of falling.

"Are you two all right!? What's the situation?"

"I'm fine, just lightly injured. Canary is okay too, but... the target vanished from our sight. We can't find her..."

"Vanished?"

"Yes, she disappeared in the explosion... We can't detect any trace of her over here..."

Efnir frowned slightly. Before she could press further, a streak of silver-white light appeared in her vision.

Like a silver ribbon, it flew straight and rapidly from the site of the explosion toward Efnir. In just a single breath, it had already crossed nearly a third of the sports venue.

Efnir narrowed her eyes.

"Ayse... Don't bother looking. The target is already coming this way."

"Toward you, Senior...?"

"This is Shinomiyami Nami! Efnir! Can you hear me?"

Shinomiyami Nami's anxious voice came through the earpiece, interrupting Efnir's call with Ayse.

"This is Efnir. I can hear you."

"Efnir! The target has been detected approaching you at extremely high speed! Headquarters has issued a support order. Please intercept the target."

Efnir watched the rapidly approaching target without speaking.

"Senior Efnir, we'll help you!"

Canary and Ayse made the request at the same time through the earpiece.

"No. Stay there and follow my command. Since the target chose not to engage with you, her objective was probably here from the start. So... Ayse, Canary, I have other tasks for you."

"Senior Efnir..."

Efnir lowered her gaze toward Yukina. Yukina clung tightly to her, staring uneasily at the black Floating Island in the distance with bated breath.

"The personnel sent by command will be under Ayse's command! Your task is to intercept the Whale."

"Understood!"

"Canary, you're faster, so I'm assigning the other task to you. Head to the location I marked immediately. There's a girl there. You're responsible for protecting her and escorting her safely out of the danger zone."

"Yes!"

"Time is critical! Move out!"

Efnir cut off the call and swiftly scanned the buildings below the venue before jumping down.

She arrived at the open edge of the venue.

The venue's main structure was reinforced concrete, further connected with heavy steel frames. It was extremely sturdy.

Efnir set Yukina down.

"Yukina, I have a task for you too."

"Miss Efnir..."

Yukina was not stupid. She had more or less guessed what Efnir was about to do. Looking at the girl before her, who was a head shorter than herself, worry filled her eyes.

But even so, there was nothing she could do.

Efnir pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. She took out a button-sized metal object, brushed it lightly over Yukina's collar, and attached it there.

Her gaze fell upon Yukina's neck. It was milky white, with a small vivid-red bloodstain in the middle.

Efnir looked away.

"This is a tracker. Do not take it off until I permit it."

"Mm..."

"I'll send someone to protect you. Until then, don't go far from here."

Yukina nodded. Looking at Efnir, she chose her words carefully.

"Miss Efnir... Are you going to fight again?"

"Yes."

"I see..."

Yukina lowered her gaze in understanding, then suddenly stepped forward and gently hugged Efnir.

"Please come back safely..."

"I will."

With that, Efnir stepped back, gave Yukina one last deep look, and left.

Silver light flashed, and a spear condensed in her hand.

Efnir's gaze was sharp as she confronted the girl less than twenty meters away.

The girl wore ordinary clothes and had chestnut-colored hair. At a glance, she was no different from any ordinary person.

"Oh, it's you."

The other girl spoke unhurriedly and gave Efnir a sly smile.

"We meet again, kind little girl."

Efnir said nothing.

She merely stared fixedly at the girl, coldness in her eyes—she knew the person before her. Six days ago, the day before headquarters was attacked, Efnir had received a deployment order and gone to assist a small town on the outskirts that was under attack by A-rank Corruption in the Beyond the Boundary region.

Efnir had gone with Fifina.

The town was small and sparsely populated. It had survived in the Beyond the Boundary region under the protection of a Boundary Stele and Xijing City. It was one of Xijing City's important food-producing areas, supplying the city with large quantities of crops. Because of its limited area and population, the organization had only assigned one Agent to guard it.

By the time Efnir and Fifina arrived, the town had already been torn apart, and that Agent had died in battle.

Back then, Efnir encountered a pair of sisters driven into a desperate situation. She saved them at the last possible moment, but her waist was pierced through by an attack in the process. Afterward, Efnir brought them back to Xijing City, where the Special Disaster Division settled them.

Efnir remembered those sisters. Their relationship had made her envious.

But Efnir had never expected to meet them again like this. The "target" before her was the elder sister of that pair.

Efnir suddenly understood—why had that sparsely populated town, despite having a certain scale, been completely swallowed by an A-rank Erosion Disaster in such a short time? Combined with the disasters she had encountered over the past five days, a chilling suspicion immediately surfaced in her mind—the disaster in that town had likely begun far earlier than the time headquarters received its warning.

That town must have encountered the exact same situation as headquarters being attacked five days ago and today's Erosion Disaster: an unannounced Corruption attack, an enemy descending without warning, and a massive catastrophe that caught everyone off guard.

In other words, beginning with that town six days ago, all three large-scale Corruption attacks shared a spine-chilling similarity. If the pair of sisters Efnir had encountered in that town were the ones behind it all, then everything from the attack on that town six days ago to what happened today had surely been planned by them.

Everything fit together.

The town was attacked. She saved the sisters at the last possible moment, only to suddenly be attacked from a hidden corner. Efnir had fallen into an Erosion Entity's ambush. Even then, Efnir had sensed something subtly wrong—how could mindless Erosion Entities employ tactics like an "ambush"? Or had her injury merely been a coincidence?

Then, the next day, Efnir had been recuperating from her injury and failed to reach headquarters immediately when it was attacked. With her absent, Qinglan and the others were defeated, Fengling Shiyin was severely wounded, several Beacons were recovered and placed under headquarters' management, and headquarters lost a great deal of data in the disaster. The warning system was also damaged, creating an opening for whoever later infiltrated the facility and stole the Beacons.

Everything had been meticulously linked. It had clearly all been planned.

Even the fact that the girl before her had been saved by Efnir and then used that opportunity to enter Xijing City was part of it. That town had been nothing more than a tool from the start. So had Efnir.

At that thought, Efnir took a deep breath. The anger in her heart instead made her calmer.

She raised her spear and pointed it straight at the girl, demanding an answer.

"Who exactly are you? You didn't come here just to say hello to me, did you?"

"No, don't misunderstand. I only came to correct an error in the plan. I never intended to greet you. You know, that sanctimonious act of yours disgusts me so much I'm practically getting goosebumps."

The girl smiled viciously.

"Still, I can graciously tell you..."

The girl raised her hand, curling her fingers slightly.

Her vision darkened almost instantly. Specks of light gathered in the girl's hand, forming a dazzling sphere of light the size of a fist.

The girl laughed loudly.

"I am an Apostle, and I'm the one who will kill you!"

With that, she swung her hand fiercely. The sphere transformed into terrifying wind pressure and slammed down toward Efnir.

Suppression

The blinding sphere descended like a miniature sun, carrying extraordinary wind pressure.

"Efnir! Please be careful! That is the target's energy attack. Please evade it. At the target..."

Bzzzt—

Her earpiece cut out, just as it had when Ayse was attacked.

Then the white light crashed down. Efnir leaped backward at the same instant, narrowly avoiding it.

The next sphere followed immediately after.