/
Chapter 48
Chapter 2 — Expand, my world! • Episode 2-4 • Raid ②
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
A mass of black mist that looked like a Steller’s sea eagle about twice its size flapped its wings into the clear sky. Three girls followed in its wake as it swooped down over the ground.
「Arrow Sword!」
「Press The Hand!」
Two of the four swords shot out with dizzying speed like arrows pierced through the torso of the Eagle-shaped Diest, and the intense pressure followed up by the forceful pressure made the Diest lose its position. However, it didn’t fall. The Eagle-shaped Diest wobbled and continued to gain altitude, finally reaching a point where it was almost completely unaffected by the pressure.
「We won’t let you get away with this!」
The leader of the three girls, Magical Girl Blade, screamed out strongly, even as she realized that their magic was out of reach.
The Diest runs away from the Magical Girl when it realizes the world of deception and finds a tear that leads to reality. Even if magic cannot reach them, there is no way they can just wiggle their fingers and walk away. What are these Magical Girls fighting for? It was to protect their loved ones, the city they live in, and the world.
Despite her superficial dependability, however, Blade was inwardly chattering her teeth in frustration. They’re not in a good spot, and why when Tyrant Sylph was not there.
The Diest, which originally imitates the form of a flying creature, is so troublesome that it is a natural enemy for Magical Girls who do not have the magic of flight as a countermeasure. As well as being able to keep control of the airspace at all times in battle, there is no way to catch up for a Magical Girl who can only crawl on the ground and bounce slightly if it escapes. That is why it is necessary to extinguish its presence as quickly as possible when it comes face to face with a Diest with the ability to fly.
The situation was reaching a halfway deadlock, but Blade’s fighting spirit was still strong. If it was her mentor, no matter how hopeless the situation, she will not give up until the moment her life ends. As a beacon of righteousness, her mentor who has shown Blade the way forward as a forerunner of Magical Girls, she will not stand still. This trust, this longing, makes Blade’s fighting spirit burn.
「Blade! I’ll throw you!」
「Well, I guess I’m the tailwind.」
And that is not the only thing that supports Blade today.
There are others with whom she has a heart to heart and to whom she can entrust her back. They, too, had not given up in the slightest.
「Power Of The Elephant, Two!!」
Without slowing down, Elephant, holding up Blade, runs up the side of the building and leaps onto the rooftop. The rooftop collapsed as she leapt with all her might as she landed, but it didn’t matter, Elephant threw Blade as hard as she could toward the Diest.
「Press The Hand!」
Press, lagging behind Elephant and running up to the roof of another building, fires a spell at the thrown blades. Blade, projected at high speed and pushed up by the intense pressure, reach a distance just in time for the magic to reach the Diest and shout.
「Arrow Sword!」
The two swords that had pierced the Diest somehow disappeared, and four newly shot out swords pierced the left and right wings, two on each side.
Their opponent was a Baron-class Diest, and cannot be extinguished by a few hits from the Blade’s Arrow Sword. So first she aimed at the wings to destroy its ability to fly. The first magic was aimed at the same thing. The reason she hit the torso was because Blade’s aiming ability wasn’t that great.
The sword pierced the wing as intended, successfully blocking the Diest’s flight, and Blade couldn’t believe her eyes as she tried to switch her attention to landing. The wings of the Diest, which had begun to slow down in flapping and gradually lose altitude, were detached as if they were collapsing, and then, seemingly, began to regenerate.
「Don’t tell me it had cut itself over!?」
A behavior seen in lizards and arthropods in which they detach their own tails and legs. It is called “self-section.”
Although self-deception is sometimes used as a decoy in the natural world, Diest used it to restore its own ability to fly.
Diest’s regeneration takes place as if scattered black mists were gathering together. Blade’s sword was stuck in the wing because the black haze was dense and formed as a wing. When they are separated, scattered, and reassembled, the impure sword was naturally eliminated.
The Diest, which had temporarily lost a great deal of altitude due to the loss of its wings, returns to the sky as soon as it regenerates. Blade, which do not have the ability to fly and just fall down, can no longer reach them. Elephant and Press also tried to catch up with the Diest in the small amount of time it had lost altitude, but ultimately did not make it.
At the end of Blade’s falling vision is the sight of Diest, which is getting farther and farther away and smaller and smaller. It will not be directly visible either.
The most physically capable Elephant is running after the Diest, but she was slowly being pulled away. Press followed, and Blade, who landed a little later, followed suit, but she knew she would not make it if she ran normally.
Something, Blade thinks as she moves her feet frantically to see if there is any way to break the ice. Sakira Town has never let a Diest through to the real world before. They cannot let this town, which has been protected by their own mentors and seniors, be ruined.
「It should be almost dead by now…! If it’s the case!」
Already, neither the Diest nor Elephant are visible in Blade’s vision. That’s how far apart they are. Then Blade thought that instead of continuing to chase after them, she should get ahead of them in the real world.
Blade had done a good deal of damage before the Diest began to flee, and furthermore, it was greatly depleted by its own cuts. Then, even if it were to escape to the real world, if they ambushed it and attacked it, they could annihilate it before it could cause damage to the town.
Since they do not know when the Diest will reach the real world, they do not have time to hesitate. Blade took out her magiphone and attempted to transfer to the real world.
「…Ehh?」
She stiffened when she saw the notification of the Diest defeat.
The notification was indeed that the Diest that Blade and her team had been fighting had been defeated.
With a beat of relief, Blade ponders what happened as she runs to check the scene for the first time.
Did Elephant catch up, or did Tyrant Sylph entered the fray, or did a completely unrelated Magical Girl barge in?
If she was able to use further enhancement magic, it is possible that Elephant had caught up with it, but Blade could not believe that such a convenient thing would happen.
According to the schedule that Blade had heard from Elephant, the meeting with the Thread Witch should have already begun, and it is not impossible that Tyrant Sylph rushed in after it was over.
The possibility that a strange Magical Girl intervened is unanswerable, even if you think about it. It is only natural, since there is nothing to judge.
As she continued to run without an answer, she saw three figures ahead of her.
Once she got close enough to discern who the figures were, she knew immediately that they were Elephant and Press. And the last one, too, Blade immediately understood who it was and was astonished, even though it was the first time she had seen her in person.
「Rabbitfoot-san!?」
「Ahn? Who are you?」
Rabbitfoot, the Rabbit Witch who was talking to Elephant and Press, looks quizzically at Blade.
Blade is a relatively diligent magical girl who, of course, never misses a training session to improve her skills, but she also has a firm antenna for the information she needs to keep up as a Magical Girl. Naturally, she know as much as she can find out about Witches, the pinnacle of Magical Girls. So when she saw the person, she immediately identified her as Rabbitfoot, the Rabbit Witch.
However, the fact that Blade knows Rabbitfoot is not a reason for the other party to know Blade. In a way, it’s like Blade is now approached by a celebrity she knows one way or the other and asked who she is.
Nevertheless, Rabbitfoot knew Blade as a matter of fact, since she had come to visit after preliminary study of the Magical Girls in Sakira Town who might be related to Tyrant Sylph. She was acting to maintain the appearance that it was just a coincidence that she was here, but that was something that Blade had no way of knowing.
「My name is Blade. I am a Magical Girl in this town. I know this is sudden and impolite, but was it Rabbitfoot-san who defeated the Bird-shaped Diest?」
Naturally she was also curious as to why Rabbitfoot was in this town, but still, Blade asked the question, prioritizing the mission she must fulfill as a Magical Girl.
They believe that there is no doubt in their minds that it was the Diest they were fighting against when they saw the notice of defeat, but they don’t want there to be any eventuality.
「Yes, that’s me. It was very weak for a Baron-class, and it was probably you guys that weakened the Diest. Do you all have a problem with that?」
「No, thank you very much. I am embarrassed to say that we completely missed it. Without Rabbitfoot-san, the town could have been damaged.」
「Hmph, I know exactly what you mean. If you’d said anything about sidestepping, I’d have blown you away.」
Rabbitfoot’s mood had obviously improved.
Blade honestly felt that there was no way she could have said anything about sidestepping in this situation, but she understood from the way Rabbitfoot spoke that she had met such a Magical Girl before.
「However, why are you here? I remember that Rabbitfoot-san’s jurisdiction was in a more northerly province.」
「I’ve told that to the two of them. Well, I’ll tell you one more time specially because you have a lot to see, but I was just on vacation.」
「I see, you’re in a vacation.」
Judging from her apparent age, Rabbitfoot is probably in the upper grades of elementary school. Now that it is summer vacation, there is nothing strange about coming here for a family vacation. Blade had no particular doubts about Rabbitfoot’s explanation.
「Sorry to have bothered you while you were on vacation.」
「Hah! It’s no big deal! Ahh, now that you mention, I thought you said this was the New Witch’s jurisdiction. If you’re dealing with a bunch of unruly Diests, why isn’t Tyrant Sylph out here?」
Rabbitfoot broached the subject of Tyrant Sylph as she remembered.
It was a forceful way to take the story completely out of context, but being the same Witch, no one realized that Rabbitfoot’s goal was Tyrant Sylph from the beginning.
「She’s not here today because Wigs Crosseau-san called her, it was at 3:00 P.M., wasn’t it?」
「Ah, yeah. That’s true.」
「…I see. That’s good to know. I was actually looking for Crosseau too. Did she say where they were meeting?」
「I guess we didn’t ask for the location. Sorry, Rabbitfoot-chan.」
「Don’t call me with “chan!” I’m your superior! Respect me like you do her!」
「It’s been going on like this for a while now, and we’re not getting anywhere～」
Press sneaks up on Elephant and tells Blade, leaving Elephant to be brushed off as she tries to pet Rabbitfoot’s head and yells at her in a kinky voice.
Elephants have a habit of catnip children smaller than herself, but she seemed to be very incompatible with the prideful Rabbitfoot.
「Tch, you’re not being polite! Like, you’ve been sneaking around since a minute ago! I know you’re there, so get your ass out here! What do you want?」
Rabbitfoot, who scratched her head and spat in frustration, pointed to a turn behind Blade and shouted angrily in a high-pitched voice.
All of the Magical Girls active in Sakira Town, with the exception of Tyrant Sylph, have already gathered here. Blade had no idea who’s the Magical Girl were that she was sneaking around. Blade looks to where Rabbitfoot points, wondering if someone from Junkoi is coming.
Then, Blade’s voice changed color when she saw a Magical Girl slowly appear from the shadows.
「It’s been a while, Blade-chan.」
「Senpai!?」
She has a long perm of pale young grass color like a forest fairy, droopy amber eyes that create a gentle atmosphere, and a long white one-piece dress layered like a tulle skirt with several ivy embroideries woven into it.
It was a Magical Girl who was once active in this Sakira Town, raising Blade and left.
「Nice to meet you, Rabbitfoot-san. My name is Magical Girl Dryad. I look forward to getting to know you better in the future.」
The Magical Girl, who identified herself as Dryad, pulled her left leg back diagonally on the inside, bent her right leg lightly, and lifted the hem of her skirt lightly in a bow.
Even Rabbitfoot, who had no detailed knowledge of the etiquette of women in Western culture, understood from her elegant gestures that this was an attitude of treating herself as a superior.
「I had not visited my old home in a long time, and I thought I would join the people who fought the Diest who had appeared, but it seems I was too late.」
「Are you this girl’s kouhai?」
「Yes. Senpai is a Magical Girl who used to work in this town.」
Rabbitfoot asked to corroborate the Dryad’s statement, to which Blade nodded without pause.
Although they had met in the Magical World and corresponded through the magiphone, this was the first time Dryad had visited the town in person since she left. She doesn’t know why she was hiding, but for Blade, Dryad is a trusted senior. Her pride as a junior was not going to allow her to let Rabbitfoot remain suspicious of her.
「Hmm. Did you say Dryad or something? You seem to do pretty well there, but these guys are no good at all. If you’re a Senpai, you might want to re-train yourself. Well, not that it’s any of my business. I’ve got to go, I’m in a hurry.」
Being not polite and being acquainted with the Magical Girls of this town, they were not among the ones she had prepped for, but Rabbitfoot decided that there seemed to be no need to be wary of the Magical Girl named Dryad and left in transition, saying only what she wanted to say.
The remaining four were miffed or shocked at being told not to at all, were not keeping up with the shifting situation, or were smiling and laughing, and it took a few seconds for Blade to speak up in this delicate atmosphere.