Chapter 37: Living Under The Same Roof (6) Part-1

I feel terrible.

The shame of having shown my embarrassing side.

And the fact that I met Hayoon again.

When everything was fine, I never thought Hayoon would be uncomfortable.

I’ve had ill feelings towards other magical girls before.

Even though it was my choice to do those things, it’s still difficult to have no emotional reaction when getting hit.

I’m an emotional person, and no matter how much I tried to change, it didn’t work.

Logically, I’d be in the wrong, but in the end, all I could focus on was my own perspective.

Because of that, I’m afraid of having negative feelings towards Hayoon.

Logically, a person’s happiness isn’t determined by money.

But emotions are definitely influenced by money.

At least people with money don’t feel the pressure that comes from not having it.

Even though I saw how much Hayoon was emotionally struggling and how difficult the job of being a magical girl is, I still envied her.

It should be me who feels wronged.

If I start to act out, the magical girls will come and subdue me.

And I’ll be taken away somewhere.

Since things have become so messed up, I probably can’t be used as an experimental subject openly.

But I don’t want to be trapped somewhere because of something I didn’t do.

I don’t want to face a trial.

Such things shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

………Hayoon wouldn’t have gone through such things.

I don’t want Hayoon to think of me as a villain.

But to avoid that, I would have to explain everything about myself.

In the end, I’d have to explain my emotions too.

I don’t want to.

I just want Hayoon to remain as the best person in my memories.

If we can’t recover the relationship, then it’s better this way. Even though I know it can never continue, I still think that way.

When I came to my senses, the environment around me had changed.

‘It’s done! It’s done!’

James shouted from my shoulder.

‘Shame is also a good material! Next time we adjust the circuits, we’ll have to check that properly. How about wearing a slightly more embarrassing outfit? The emotion of shame weakens once you get used to it, so we can’t use it too often, but if it helps in battle, there’s no need to refuse.’

James was speaking in an annoyingly pleasant voice next to me, saying things I didn’t want to hear.

I stared at him intently, but James, oblivious, spoke again.

‘Is it possible?'”

……

I wonder what rat meat tastes like.

Since nutria meat turned out to be surprisingly edible, hamster meat should also be surprisingly edible.

Seeing me turn my head toward my shoulder, James immediately shut his mouth.

‘So, where is it?’

My mood had already hit rock bottom, so I just wanted to get the job done quickly before drilling through the floor.

‘This place… Ah.’

James laughed.

Only then did I finally take a proper look around.

Even though it was midnight, the lights inside the building were brightly lit.

Well, that’s to be expected.

It’s a Noir Corporation building, after all.

It’s a place with receivers that can constantly monitor magical girls, so it makes sense that someone would need to be on-site 24/7 to manage it.

By now, the device should be pointing to this place.

The surroundings were in chaos.

It seems that the ‘black hole’ isn’t a real black hole.

At least, no one’s dead yet.

They say radiation comes out of black holes, but I’m not sure if radiation from a black hole of this size could actually kill someone.

At least, judging by the lack of any major comments after the last incident, this place should be fine too.

The black hole’s abilities seem limited to sucking things in and spitting them out, but that was enough to make a mess of the area.

It looked like there had been some papers stacked up, as sheets of paper were flying everywhere.

The desks and chairs near where I popped out were all jumbled and knocked over.

Around me, everything near the center seemed to have been pushed outward in a circular pattern.

There weren’t any people rolling around, but—

Looks like there was a night shift…

From far away, there was someone standing up, mouth agape, staring this way.

Holding a mug in their hand, they looked as though they had been struck by a lightning bolt.

Wait, maybe they were struck by lightning?

‘Isn’t there any backup here?’

‘There is. But at least on this floor, none. To come to the right floor even before I could tell you… you seem to have some talent.’

It’s because you screamed out so suddenly, I got all flustered.

Honestly, to be completely honest, I just wanted to run away.”

I had only hoped to find somewhere in this building, so maybe that’s why I ended up exactly in the middle.

‘The servers are five floors up from here.’

No sooner had those words left their mouth than the alarm on the wall started blaring.

At first glance, it looked like a fire alarm, but the light was red.

[Emergency! Emergency! Intruder alert! Repeating! Intruder alert! Multiple magical girls! Location? Where do we go? The roof? 25th floor.]

It seems the magical girls were on both sides, causing some confusion.

‘By the way, most of the forces are concentrated on the 1st and top floors.’

If magical girls are infiltrating, it must be one of two things.

‘They can fly, so they might infiltrate from the middle, right?’

‘This building has thorough defenses in many ways. It’s impossible to break through the glass with just your body. Without using some really violent method, it would be hard to break through that thick glass. Plus, doing that could cause a disaster for civilians passing below.’

Is that why they intentionally built it in the city, thinking of everything?

I have a feeling James had a hand in the construction of this building, but I decided not to dwell on it.

‘Where do we need to go?’

I asked, then immediately started running as I saw the barriers starting to come down.

‘You just need to go up about eight more floors. The interior of this building… is quite uniquely structured.’

At those words, I threw myself under the barrier.

Thud.

Even though there was someone inside, the barrier remained closed.

‘No need to worry. We’ve got perfect ventilation systems in place, just in case we need to hold out for a long time.’

Did they build a fortress in the middle of the city or something?

As I ran down the hallway, I kept that thought to myself.

The higher I went, the more anxious I became.

At first, I thought about creating another black hole or even punching through the ceiling, but then I realized if I created a black hole, I might end up outside again and run into Hayoon, which I really didn’t want.

Moreover, according to James, this building is perfectly designed with seismic reinforcement.

That means they’ve used an enormous amount of rebar inside.

It’s not something that could collapse from a single spell.

As a result, I ended up having to go up through the stairs.

Bang!