The Calm Before the Storm

There were still seven days until Knight's concert.

The city had never been as lively as it was now.

The Commercial Street was draped in silver light strips, gigantic concert posters covered every advertising wall, sales of fan merchandise reached a new high every day, and the entire city seemed to have turned into a silver ocean.

Even taxi drivers had changed their conversation topics from "Has business been good lately?" to "Did you manage to get a concert ticket?"

There were even tourists coming in from other provinces.

After all, Magical Girl fans generally did not support only one person.

Knight, who was brimming with heroic spirit and had the bearing of a knight, actually had an especially broad fanbase.

And there were just as many female fans.

Upon hearing that Knight was finally going to hold a concert, countless people had traveled from all over the country to Our City.

If people from other provinces were like this, then the people from Our City needed no explanation—especially the younger crowd, whose enthusiasm could almost be described as fanatical.

Their very own city's Magical Girl was holding a concert!

At school, practically everyone was discussing the concert. So many teachers could no longer maintain order in class and simply gave up.

There was nothing they could do. In this world, students' mental health really was important.

Otherwise, they would become vessels for Fallen Beasts.

The students were caught up in the excitement, and there was truly no way to pour cold water on them.

As for those two Fallen Beast attacks half a month ago?

No one mentioned them anymore.

"Did you hear? Those rats from the Liberation Faction have been scared into hiding by the five Magical Girls in our city!"

"Of course! After patrolling all day, we couldn't even find a trace of them. They ran off without a peep!"

Everyone enjoyed this peace as a matter of course, treating the unusual quiet as the result of their deterrence.

The citizens' enthusiasm grew higher by the day, while in the meeting room of the Magical Girl Association's Local City Branch, the atmosphere grew heavier by the day.

"It's the seventh day."

The Branch Director slammed a cup of strong tea onto the table. His eye bags were larger than the teacup.

"Counting from the day the Masked Heroine team arrived, it's been a full seven days. The Fallen Beast incidents throughout the city suddenly dropped to zero."

In the past, going several months without incident after resolving a Fallen Beast incident would have been perfectly normal.

But things were different now.

After all, judging from the results of their interrogations, combined with the frequent Fallen Beast attacks some time ago, the Liberation Faction was clearly determined to cause trouble.

The fact that they had not shown even the slightest sign of themselves now could only be interpreted as the Liberation Faction preserving and stockpiling its strength, preparing to go all in on the day of the concert and pull off something major in one fell swoop.

Therefore, the atmosphere throughout the Association had become almost unbearably oppressive.

At that moment, the electronic screen in the meeting room displayed a map of the concert venue.

The largest stadium in Our City.

"Eighty thousand... That's the number of people the venue can hold."

"And the concert will definitely be broadcast live... Setting aside the other provinces, at least eighty percent of the people in Our City should watch the entire concert."

"If anything happens..."

The temperature in the meeting room plummeted.

The Branch Director rubbed his temples hard.

"So nothing can happen. If something does, the consequences will be more than we can bear."

"We must comprehensively strengthen security and ensure that, should anything happen, we can respond as quickly as possible!"

"We've had a plan for that all along."

Old Wei picked up the remote control in front of him.

The projection changed.

"First, surveillance."

He pointed at the densely packed blue points of light on the map. Each blue point had a fan-shaped area spreading outward, covering the entire stadium.

"With the stadium as the center, we've added a hundred high-definition cameras within a three-kilometer radius. Together with the city's existing surveillance, they've all been integrated into the Association's command system. Drone formations will patrol the sky, while patrol robots will cover the low altitude. Inside the venue—"

He enunciated every word:

"No blind spots. Complete coverage. If a fly gets in, the command room will be able to see how many times it flaps its wings."

"All footage is connected to Headquarters' image-recognition system. If anyone makes any unusual movement in any corner, the system will issue an alert within three seconds."

"Second, the three Magical Girls will be deployed in separate zones."

On the screen, chibi avatars of the three members of the Masked Heroine team appeared in three directions around the stadium.

"As for Knight—"

Old Wei looked toward the silver figure by the window and paused.

"Knight will be onstage."

"As long as she's onstage, she'll be the greatest reassurance of all. Unless something especially serious happens, the concert must proceed as scheduled—and it must be a success."

"Knight... No matter what you sense, you're not to move unless we issue an order."

It was no wonder they were treating this matter so seriously.

Aside from the time Fallen Beasts had first appeared several decades ago, Our City had practically no experience handling events of this scale.

They could only pile on the numbers.

In any case, upgrading security was not a bad thing.

Listening to Old Wei, Knight clenched her fists tightly.

She of course knew how important her position was, but to make her watch her comrades fight while she...

After the meeting ended, everyone went their separate ways.

Old Wei and the Masked Heroine walked side by side down the corridor.

"Two thousand four hundred cameras." The Masked Heroine suddenly chuckled. "What an impressive operation."

"There was no other way. The more people there are, the less room there is for failure." Old Wei sighed. "What, do you think there's a problem?"

"There's nothing wrong with the security itself." The Masked Heroine gazed out the window, where workers were installing brand-new cameras on the roadside utility poles. "I was just thinking..."

"This vast net is meant to catch the Liberation Faction."

"But with the net woven this tightly..."

She drew back her gaze, her expression half-smiling and half-mocking.

"I'm afraid rats won't be the only things it catches."

Old Wei froze for a moment, then realized who she meant and smiled as well.

"That would be perfect. If we could really net that 'Love,' the Branch Director would be grinning in his dreams."

The two of them walked away, chatting and laughing.

Neither of them took those words seriously.