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Chapter 147
Chapter 4 — Sleep, until your life is over • Episode 4–Rest — Sorcerer ②
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
What is a Magical Girl anyway? Many Magical Girls were told by fairies that the world was in danger, that Magical Girls were needed to fight against it, and that they had Magical Girl qualities, and they chose to become Magical Girls for their own reasons, whether because they were attracted by their special nature or because they wanted to be paid for their battles.
So who are the fairies, the beings that give magical powers to ordinary girls, ordinary girls everywhere? What is the Magical World that is their home? Most Magical Girls do not give any thought to their true identity, and assume that they are good beings working to protect this world, that they are convenient mystical beings who recruit Magical Girls and support them in their battles, and so on. Some of them have doubts about their true identity, but the fairies never give them a clear answer. They are left in the dust and forgotten as they continue their activities as Magical Girls.
「The origin is human beings in the first place. They call themselves fairies, but they are primordial life forms created artificially. If you call them an artificial creatures or a homunculi, you can get some kind of idea of what they are.」
In the past, when the term “Magical Girls” didn’t even exist yet, a number of plans to combat the eventual destruction had been formulated for nearly several centuries. One of their plans was to give special powers to non-special people and turn them into soldiers to protect the world.
「The occult of the end of the world is a good thing for those of us who live on the surface. There was a time when the “doomsday theory” was popular, but in the end, it was only a transient boom. It was the people behind the scenes who were preparing for the real destruction.」
「So that’s what you call a sorcerer?」
Approaches to annihilation varied widely depending on the type of art being handled and the faction of the sorcerers, and not all sorcerers were involved in the planning of the Magical Girl System. In fact, the plan to bring amateurs with no knowledge or skill in the arts up to the same level as top-class sorcerers was considered absurd, and most sorcerers didn’t give it a second thought.
Therefore, the plan was quietly carried out, hidden from the public not only in the public eye but also in the private world, forgotten with the passage of time. Among the sorcerers who rewrite reason by unraveling the laws of the world and weaving formulas, there are four demigods who are the most outstanding. Slowly but surely, the plan was nearing completion by the hands of the sorcerers who, with their individual approaches, had transcended the framework of humanity and stepped into the realm of the divine.
And that achievement is the source of the Magical Girls’ power, known as the Treasury. It’s a culmination of techniques that could be called an art form, in which books filled with knowledge of various magic arts and tools inscribed with magical formulas are arranged to create a three-dimensional magic circle that can handle complex powers in a simple manner.
「If all they wanted to do was to make girls from around the area into Magical Girls and have them fight, there would have been no need to create a separate existence of fairies. The demigods should have given them the keys to the Treasury themselves. But they didn’t think it was a good idea.」
The simple lack of hands was one of the reasons the fairies were created. As the day of destruction approached, the distortion of the world grew larger by the day, and it was difficult for an ordinary sorcerer to contain the expansion, requiring the power of the demigods.
If that were the only reason, however, they could have left the task to other sorcerers without having to create fairies. It would be much easier than creating new intelligent life forms that can act independently, and in large numbers.
「Hachiya-san, the fairies didn’t tell you about sorcery or even about being a sorcerer or anything like that, did they?」
「Yes. The power of the curse was also found by accident, in a place that has nothing to do with the Magical World or fairies.」
「In other words, that’s why they went to the trouble of creating fairies. I don’t know if it’s true for all demigods, but they didn’t want the Magical Girls to know about sorcerers.」
Even the second-ranked Witch in the pecking order hasn’t been told the truth about Magical Girls. Press was originally confident that her guess would be correct, but this fact made her even more certain.
Why “magic” in the first place? That’s what Press wondered when she first became a Magical Girl. It is impressive to be able to wield power regardless of one’s ability as a sorcerer, but the lineage of the technique is clearly magic itself. Anyone with a little knowledge of the art of magic would immediately understand that magic and sorcery are essentially the same thing. Therefore, with a slight rewriting of the formula, Press was able to use magic without chanting.
Press, who learned the meaning of this in the process of investigating the Magical World using a special『disguise』technique and crossing some dangerous bridges, felt a strong dislike for the old-fashioned, sorcerer-like way of thinking. The name “magic” itself has no meaning. Anything was fine as long as it didn’t contain the word “technique.” In other words, they call it magic merely to distinguish that it is not a kind of art, and that the Magical Girls who deal with it are not sorcerers.
「They discriminate against non-sorcerers. If you are not a sorcerer, you are not human. Not all sorcerers, but there is certainly a tendency to look down on non-sorcerers as if they were cavemen or beasts. I didn’t think the demigods were like that, though.」
The correct knowledge and superior skill are required to handle the art, and in the case of magic, these abilities are collectively known as magical arithmetic ability.
If one were to describe the difference between a sorcerer and a Magical Girl succinctly, one could say that a sorcerer is a computer with high computing power and a Magical Girl is an ordinary person who uses a computer.
In contrast to sorcerers, who understand the logic of the world, construct their own formulas, and control them to cause various phenomena, Magical Girls can wield their power by simply controlling the tools they are given. A person who has advanced computational ability himself/herself and a person who handles tools with advanced computational ability. Which of the two was superior depended on one’s point of view, but for many sorcerers, the perception was that ordinary people who could not even formulate their own formulas in their own minds were inferior.
Some non-sorcerers have magical arithmetic abilities but are non-sorcerers because they have never known the existence of magic in their lives, and they look down on them for some reason, such as that they aren’t of noble lineage or that they weren’t chosen by fate.
Ultimately, for whatever reason, they sincerely believed that they, who are currently sorcerers, are superior to the non-sorcerers who were not.
「And they keep it secret because they don’t think it’s necessary to tell non-sorcerers the truth about magic and sorcery. It’s like a monopoly on technology, so to speak, and they are desperately protecting their vested interests.」
「The supremacy of the sorcerers, is it? But then, why do they give power to those they discriminate against? As you said before, Atsuo-san, Magical Girls aren’t chosen as sorcerers, right? If you are saying that the sorcerers are supreme, isn’t it rather the sorcerer who is chosen to be a Magical Girl?」
「Of course, that’s to use them as disposable pawns.」
The power of Magical Girls is tremendous. A powerless girl who has never been involved in a fight, let alone an exchange of life, is capable of defeating a powerful monster. But they’re not invincible. They have a very large force, and although there is now a significant margin of safety, there are still Magical Girls who lose their lives. Some are blinded by flashy magic and glittering rewards and are unable to make sound judgments, but Magical Girls risk their lives in battle. If they lose, they die. And that is true even if they are not Magical Girls.
「A sorcerer is a sorcerer for their own benefit. They said that they had a plan to protect the world, but in the end it was because they would be in danger if the world was destroyed, not because they were doing it for the sake of everyone or out of kindness. Do you think such people would risk their own lives to fight for the world?」
「…Are you saying that Magical Girls are substitutes, that they are being made to fight in place of the sorcerers?」
「Great answer! That’s what I call the truth about Magical Girls. The people who really have the power are using it to create useful tools and send young women and children to war for their own selfishness. The Magical World is a box garden created by the demigods’ hands to feed it.」
Most sorcerers, however, do not even know what is going on behind the scenes. As mentioned earlier, this Magical Girl System was a substitute that wasn’t even considered by many sorcerers, and most of them were unaware that such a plan was steadily underway under the radar. And cognitive inhibition is equally effective on ordinary people and Magical Girls as well as on sorcerers.
There are different organizations and factions based on different systems of magic and sorcery, and there are also stragglers who don’t belong to any one group. Some of them will demand that the Magical Girl System be given to them once they learn about it. At any rate, since it’s not compulsory to fight against Diests, they can also obtain the power of Magical Girls and use it only for their own personal needs.
The reason why the Demigods didn’t inform anyone but a very few sorcerers about the Magical Girl System were probably to avoid such troublesome situations.
「I see, no wonder they are not to be trusted if that is the case. One thing I was wondering, aside from the Magical Girl’s power, each of the other sorcerers also have their own different ways of dealing with destruction, don’t they? Then why don’t they use them? Are their sparing their lives, saying that it isn’t their place to be while Magical Girls are fighting?」
「No, they simply don’t realize that the Diests are a sign of doom. I’m pretty sure my parents do, too. It seems that the effect of cognitive inhibition is deceiving there too. It seems that some of the demigods are very racist. They don’t want to put themselves and other sorcerers in danger because of some non-sorcerers.」
「What an outrageous… But still, you are very knowledgeable. From what you say, it sounds like you don’t know the truth about Magical Girls, even if you are a sorcerer.」
「I told you my disguise was special. I was sneaking around, covering things up. Well, there were times when it was pretty dangerous because I was using most of my strength to hide the most important thing.」
「Is it the most hidden thing? Is it your friend’s?」
「Yeah, well, let’s cut to the chase, shall we?」
She had taken a long detour to explain that the Magical World and fairies are pitch black, but to begin with, today’s main topic is not the truth about Magical Girls.
Can they save her or not? When Press was recruited and became a Magical Girl, there was a sense of surprise and eeriness that she, as a sorcerer, hadn’t been fully aware of its existence until now, more than that, she was clinging to the slightest hope that an unknown force might provide a clue to help her, to break through the current blockage. It was an event fresh in Press’ memory that she didn’t expect her to have become a Magical Girl before she did, and once again she broke out in a cold sweat at the horror of cognitive inhibition.