As of This Very Moment, You’re a Magiclad Girl. What an Honor, Huh? – Part 02

It didn’t matter if my muscles screamed. I couldn’t feel pain. My body was ridiculously tough and healed right away. Sure, sometimes a limb flew off from the recoil, but still.

While all that was running through my head, I managed to peel off the oversized school uniform from the so-called vicious female highschooler/bear and handed it to the girl.

She snatched the big black coat from me. “Don’t look!” she barked with a furious scowl.

I spun around and listened to her fidgeting with the clothes.

“So, what was that bear, anyway?”

“I told you already! That was the savage Demon Baroness Beary.”

That wasn’t what she called her earlier.

“Still, I can’t believe you took down a B-rank Megalo like Beary in one hit.”

“One hit? I mean, come on. Anyone’s dead after their neck twists like that. I only know one person who wouldn’t.”

Naturally, I meant myself. Not that I said it out loud.

She gave my shirt a little tug. It seemed like she was done changing.

When I turned around, there she was, a pretty girl dressed in the baggy school uniform that dragged along the ground, its sleeves folded over several times.

She glared up at me with those big eyes and a sulky mouth. Her cowlick bounced around like it was picking up alien signals.

“Get my Magigear.”

It was right next to her, but she still couldn’t touch it, apparently. I obliged and picked it up. No electric shocks for me.

“Seriously. Why the heck would I get rejected by that thing?”

No idea. I could only shrug and go, “Beats me.”

“All right, then. Take me to your place. I need to make a call.”

“A call? If that’s all, I’ve got a phone right here.”

I pulled my cellphone from my pocket. Even after I got slammed into a gravestone earlier, the thing still worked fine.

“What’s that magic thingamajig?”

She took a step back from the black cellphone, hugging herself. It looked like she didn’t know what a phone was. I held it out toward her, and she flinched away. It was kinda funny.

“It’s just a phone.”

“Really? If you’re lying, you’ll end up like Beary over there.”

She pointed at the collapsed animal. It shimmered, turning into a spray of white, glittering particles that scattered into the wind. Yeah, I’d rather not end up like that.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” I said offhandedly. I walked her through how to use the phone, and to my surprise, she just nodded along.

The second she understood, she snatched it from my hand with the speed of a competitive karuta^[1] champion and dialed a number.

Beep beep beep beep. Ring ring… ring ring… click.

“Ah, Big Teach? It’s me. Haruna from Refrain Year, Rising Class.”

The call had connected.

She’d said people from this world earlier, so I guessed whoever was on the other end was from somewhere else entirely.

Turns out phone signals crossed dimensions now. Wild. Also, Refrain Year, Rising Class? It didn’t really roll off the tongue.

“What? Oh, no, I still haven’t found it. Sorry. More importantly, Mystletainn is rejecting me.”

Apparently, that chainsaw had a fancy name—Mystletainn. Of course it did.

“Yes, it gave me this bzzt-bzzt kind of jolt. Huh? Oh, mana depletion? I see. Wait, no way! There’s no chance someone from this world has that much magical power!”

Oh? She sounded genuinely shocked. She started pacing, hand on her chin, deep in thought.

“I see. Yes, that must be it. Got it. I’ll do what I can from here first. I’ll figure out a way back later. Sorry for the trouble. Right. Talk soon.”

It sounded like her business was done. I held out my hand for the phone, and she slapped it back into my palm with zero delicacy.

“You stole my mana, didn’t you?”

She stared up at me with accusing eyes. Not sure why she was glaring at me.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Who even are you?! Big Teach said that to steal every last drop of mana from a genius, pretty Demon Baroness like me, you’d need absolutely ridiculous levels of magical power.”

So she was a Demon Baroness too? She must really love that title.

I didn’t know anything about this mana business, but I did know one person who did. Odds were, they were back at my place right now, watching a comedy show or something.

So what now? The only ones who knew I was a zombie were me, and the one who made me this way. But maybe I could trust this genius, pretty Demon Baroness Haruna.

“Out with it already! What are you?! Some kind of local mage? Y-You’re gonna stab me full of holes, aren’t you?!”

What kind of image did she have of mages?

“I’m a zombie.”

“Wuh?”

“Just a walking corpse. A dead man.”

“An undead! An immortal Demon Ba—”

“I’m not a Demon Baron. Let’s get that straight.”

I cut her off halfway. Not everything had to be a Demon Baron.

“I… see. Got it. So if you’re already dead, even if you got stabbed by a sword…”

Why was she so eager to stab me? Wait. Hold on. Did she know I was stabbed?

There’d been a string of bizarre murders in this town recently. I got caught up in it and ended up dead. That’s how I became a zombie in the first place. But how could she know I was stabbed with a sword?

Could she be the one who killed me? No, she was way too weird.

But what did she know? And how much?

“Hey, are you involved in those murders?” I asked.

“You’re taking responsibility for this, got it?!”

Ignored. Fine, I’d ask again later.

“Responsibility for what?”

“My mission is to find Artifacts in this rotten world, and as a Magiclad Girl, defeat any Megalo that show up here.”

“Ah, so you’re a magical girl. Figured as much.”

“Huh?! I’m a Magiclad Girl! Don’t lump me in with that clichéd garbage.”

“I don’t really see the difference. So, Megalo’s that bear thing, right?”

“Yeah. That terrifying fellow from earlier.”

“Why’re you even fighting something like that?”

Even for a zombie, it was a tough opponent. For a bratty little girl like her, it was basically suicide.

“Megalo are pests trying to destroy my world. If we don’t wipe out every last one of them, there’s no future for us Magiclad Girls. That makes me a warrior. Pretty amazing, huh?”

“I see, like your natural enemy. But if they want to wreck your world, why are they showing up here?”

“Let me ask, then. Would you want a war breaking out in your own house?”

That still didn’t mean you get to use someone else’s backyard. Though I guess if she was dealing with monsters that posed danger to humans, I couldn’t really complain.

“Anyway, since I can’t fight anymore, you’re doing it.”

“Huh?”

“As of this very moment, you’re a Magiclad Girl. What an honor, huh?”

She pointed a slim finger right at me. That sounded pretty final.

“Hold on. That Ma—Magiclad Girl thing? I’m not even a girl, I’m a guy. Pretty sure I’m not qualified.”

“Don’t care! I said do it.”

Wow, okay. No room for negotiation. I’d love to know what kind of parents raised this kind of kid.

“Come on, think this through. Isn’t this kind of important? You can’t just—”

“In the meantime, I’ll be staying at your place. Totally, super, ultra unwillingly, okay?” She turned away with an annoyed pout.

Spare me. If someone this noisy showed up at my place, what would happen to my solitary, monotonous life? Just imagining it made me shudder.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Ayumu. Ayumu Aikawa. And seriously, let’s just think this over a bit—”

“Ayumu. Right. Ayumu, it is.”

Not even pretending to listen. I suddenly understood whoever coined the phrase talking to a brick wall. I could tell her to stay away, but words she didn’t want to hear would go in one ear and out the other.

Was this whole thing… somehow my fault?

Well, whatever. If it was my fault, I guess letting her stay over was the least I could do. The trick to life is knowing when to fold. Let’s just leave it at that.

“Fine. I’ll do this Magiclad Girl thing.”

She’d clearly been waiting for that. Her cowlick flicked as she nodded smugly.

“In that case, we start training to be a Magiclad Girl right now!”

She thrust her fist to the sky, then skipped ahead. I am so doomed.

“One condition,” I said.

“What? If it’s something weird, I’ll kick you.”

“Call me big brother.”

And yep, she kicked me. A flying high-kick straight out of Mirko Cro Cop’s playbook.^[2]

And so, just like that, I somehow got roped into being a Magiclad Girl. Even though I was a guy.

Also, I’m a zombie.

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1. Karuta cards are traditional Japanese playing cards used for various games, most famously for the competitive poetry game Hyakunin Isshu, involving fast reflexes and memorization of famous tanka poems.

2. Mirko Filipović, better known by his ring name Mirko Cro Cop, is a Croatian former professional mixed martial artist, kickboxer and amateur boxer. He is mostly known for his time in Pride Fighting Championships, a Japanese mixed martial arts promotion company.