Naw, See? I Totally Won! – Part 02

“So, Orito, what were you painting?” Anderson switched the topic.

Orito got up from his seat. “Ah, it’s not finished yet.”

We moved over to where we could see the canvas.

It showed a lightly dressed girl reaching up to put something on a shelf. Her face wasn’t drawn. It was just the body from the neck down to her hips, the soft curves particular to a woman.

“That’s you, right?” Tomonori whispered to Mihara.

“This is very gross,” Mihara muttered.

“I see. By leaving out the face, he’s emphasizing the chest and armpits, really leaning into fetishism.”

And now Anderson was giving a commentary.

“Wow!”

“Hold on! Why are you guys giving it high praise? It’s just gross. Gross, gross, gross!” Mihara insisted.

“I’m with Mihara on this one,” I said. “Also, Orito, why are you even trying to join this class’s exhibit?”

“More paintings is better, right?”

Maybe, but you don’t belong to this class in the first place.

“Teach said it didn’t matter who painted,” Anderson recalled.

So, the school policy of if a student’s motivated, let them do it was alive and well even here.

“So, Aikawa, how’s the sign coming along?”

“Hm? Well…”

“C-Come on, now.” Tomonori said quickly, flapping her hands. “Forget about Aikawa’s work.”

“Hey, Aikawa.”

The voice that came from behind was too deep for a high schooler. I turned to see my homeroom teacher, a.k.a Mr. Nondescript, frowning hard. I already knew what he wanted to say.

“You haven’t made any progress. And you lot. Quit chatting and get back to work.”

He was right. Ever since the new term started, I hadn’t made a single bit of progress.

There were a few reasons for that. But the biggest one was…

“Ayumu!”

See? Again. It was always the same. A brown-haired girl would come to me, cowlick twitching happily, chainsaw in hand.

“A Megalo showed up!”

And just like that she’d drag me off.

Haruna had come to this world from the magical world of Villiers to hunt monsters called Megalo.

Megalo were the natural enemies of the Magiclad Girls. They came from the Underworld, where the souls of the dead gathered, with the sole purpose of killing them. I’d strongly suggested they fought them in Villiers, but no, for some reason they kept fighting day and night right here, in my world.

Sorry for the info dump, but basically: Megalo hunted Magiclad Girls. Magiclad Girls wiped out Megalo. That was their relationship.

Eu, the necromancer from the Underworld who was living at my place, had returned after running away. But that also meant the Megalo hunts started up again.

Haruna pulled me out of the classroom by the hand. Honestly, I hated hunting Megalo. It was a pain. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Haruna to go alone.

Originally, she could transform into that ridiculous Magiclad Girl outfit and use magic to take them down. But since Eu had drained her mana, she couldn’t transform anymore. And Megalo weren’t the kind of things even a zombie like me could beat easily. A powerless idiot had no chance of winning.

Nevertheless, knowing she’d get killed, knowing she stood no chance, she still went charging at Megalo.

Which meant in the end, it was always me—a zombie—who had to finish them off.

We stepped out of the school building, and I looked up at the autumn sky. It was painted orange, the sun already ready to sink beyond the horizon.

If it was already gone, I’d have skipped along happily. But even this sliver of sunlight made my legs weak and shaky.

I felt like I’d collapse forward any second, but Haruna kept yanking me along with surprising strength, and somehow I managed to keep moving.

Her cowlick wagged like a dog’s tail as she pulled me all the way toward the station. So there I was, running along the busy highway with a chainsaw-wielding girl.

Right before the station, Haruna suddenly stopped. “It should be around here!”

Her cowlick stuck out at a right angle, like some kind of dowsing rod. A very handy tool.

“I’ve always wondered, how do you even track Megalo? It always looks like you’re just winging it.”

“I can’t sense magical energy, but I can feel it when a Megalo’s looking for a Magiclad Girl.”

“You mean… you’re reverse-tracking them?”

“That’s right! I’m less efficient than someone who can actually detect mana, but it’s better to take down high-ranked Megalo who are actually spoiling for a fight than to waste time chasing weaklings.”

I see. Made sense. If a Megalo was willing to go out of its way to hunt a Magiclad Girl, it’d have to be relatively strong. Which explained why I always got dragged into fighting absurdly powerful Double-A class Megalo. Ugh, what a pain in the ass.

“So what you’re saying is, regular Magiclad Girls go hunt down weak Megalo themselves?”

“Exactly. Normal students usually pick off C or B class Megalo. But…”

“But?”

“I’m a genius!”

Of course. Her stupid pride really was a problem.

“There it is! Let’s take it down, Ayumu!”

She pointed her chainsaw toward a beef-bowl joint. A banner in front flapped in the wind: Discount on Gyudon. She was indicating past that.

Huh? Inside the shop?

I crouched a little, peering through the glass door. And yeah, there it was.

Today’s Megalo was a raccoon. A huge raccoon in a school uniform. It was about a head taller than Haruna, with these surprisingly cute eyes, staring out at us through the door.

When it spotted us, its expression turned eager for battle, and it rushed for the exit.

Maybe we’d interrupted its meal? Any waiter would assume a human-sized raccoon in a school uniform walking into a restaurant was some kind of a prank or a TV stunt.

But instead of bursting out, the raccoon fumbled at the door, looking around. It didn’t seem to realize it was a touch-activated automatic door. It tilted its head up, stepped back, looking confused.

“It ain’t opening,” it whined helplessly, scratching at the glass with its little claws. How adorable.

“That thing,” Haruna said, glaring at the raccoon as if it were filth, “is planning to eat me.”

It didn’t look like it wanted to eat her at all, did it?

“Based on its character.”

What the hell did that even mean?

The raccoon got the clerk to open the door for it and somehow managed to leave the shop. It must’ve gotten in the same way too. Kind of cute, actually.

“Anyway, we need to get somewhere less crowded,” I said. “Can’t be causing a ruckus in front of the station.”

There were way too many people here. They probably thought the raccoon was part of some event, but once a fight broke out, there would be panic on the streets.

“What? As soon as we find it, we kill it! Search and Destron!”

Why mention the villains from Transformers or the evil organization from Kamen Rider V3? Did she mean Search and Destroy?^[1]

“Look, if I stay under sunlight too long, I’ll collapse. We need some shade or I can’t fight.”

“You’re such a wuss. Fine!”

Thank you so much. Haruna, high on energy, grabbed my hand and dragged me at a run away from the station.

“Ha!” She turned to look at me with a grin. “Looks like there’s another one!” Her voice was full of excitement.

Give me a break. Today was going to be rough.

“Wait, huh? Are you okay?” I asked.

Whenever she felt a Megalo’s immense mana, Haruna would lose all strength and drop on her butt. In fact, that had been the case until yesterday.

But the current Haruna was wearing the same wide grin and lively cowlick she always showed whenever she was up to mischief.

---

1. Destron is the Japanese name for the Decepticons in the Transformers franchise. It also refers to the fictional terrorist organization from the Kamen Rider V3 series.