I avoided her gaze.
If our eyes met, I wouldn’t know what kind of expression to make.
I’d likely react like a child, snapping in anger without knowing why and pretending to stay mad even after the anger subsided, unsure how to end things properly.
Endings.
Yes, now that I think about it, everything went awry because I got angry.
Should I have simply sacrificed myself? Just as those others had tried to do—
Thud.
A loud noise interrupted my spiraling thoughts, snapping me out of them.
I instinctively raised my head.
Could it be the monsters returning? Considering the combatants stationed here, it wouldn’t be surprising if more monsters appeared.
Thud.
“Hold on.”
At the second noise, Hayoon raised a hand slightly and spoke.
We stopped walking and turned our attention toward the sound.
It wasn’t hard to locate—it came from somewhere ahead of us in the distance.
The inside of the research facility wasn’t an open space.
Like a department store with various shops partitioned off by walls, this facility had rooms organized in a grid layout with wide hallways running parallel on either side.
Unlike a department store, however, there were few doors, perhaps to allow researchers to move freely.
At the end of the hallway ahead of us was an area that looked like a hangar.
The magical girls shifted into confident combat stances, and I gripped my hammer tightly.
An alarm blared.
Yellow warning lights on either side of a large sliding door flashed as it began to open slowly, from the bottom up.
“Do you know what’s in there?” I asked James’s drone.
“Well, if it’s what I think it is, then yes. This facility also researched weapons powered by circuits. Of course, they were abandoned because there weren’t humans capable of operating them. That’s likely where they stored incomplete prototypes.”
“…Isn’t that dangerous? Considering I’m here…”
“Hard to say.”
James’s drone bobbed up and down as if shrugging its shoulders.
“What’s beyond that door might not be what I remember. But if it is, I doubt it will pose much of a threat to you. After all, you magical girls seem to have regained your ‘hope.’”
Still as uncooperative as ever, that hamster.
Or perhaps it was a calculated remark meant to manipulate my emotions.
If so, I wished he’d save it for later.
As the hangar-like door slowly opened halfway, it was as if something massive was preparing to emerge.
Crash.
A large hand reached out from inside, gripping the door.
With an impatient motion, it yanked the door upward.
The white fingers tore through the metal like paper.
“Ha ha ha!”
A raucous laugh echoed from beyond the door, distorted as if through a megaphone.
“James! My friend!”
“Who’s calling me a friend?” James muttered, as if recognizing the voice.
I frowned.
The voice felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Likely someone I’d rarely heard before.
“And my former subordinate.”
Ah.
Could it be that guy?
“…Mohican?”
“Yes,” James replied.
But the figure beyond the door wasn’t just a man.
It was a giant.
Hulking and massive from head to toe.
At least it didn’t seem to be a modified human body.
That was a relief.
The design resembled the armor worn by monsters but was much larger—large enough to fit an adult male seated inside.
In other words, it was an actual robot.
“A robot without a monster core. It seems they still haven’t learned their lesson,” James’s voice came from the drone.
“There’s always a reason companies use monster cores. Without them—”
“What did you say?!”
Presumably, the Mohican inside shouted angrily.
“If it’s without a monster core, it’s nothing. The magical girls just need to hit it with full force and dismantle it,” James said.
Hearing this, Iris stepped forward.
She fired a beam of light at the robot.
But—
Ting.
“Ha ha ha ha!”
Predictably, it didn’t work.
“Maybe it was just too big for me to blast away?”
“…Well, I expected as much.”
Iris sighed deeply and cocked her weapon, a fuse falling to the floor and rolling away.
“In that case, we just need to start with a much stronger attack, right?” Rose said, the sound of something being swung forcefully echoing from behind.
Bang!
For a moment, the noise was so loud it felt like the building might collapse.
“Don’t worry, I’ve done the calculations,” Delphinium said, perhaps noticing that I looked a bit uneasy.
“Delphinium, being considerate? That’s rare,” Rose teased, to which Delphinium said nothing, focusing on preparing her next spell.
“Of course, it’s come to this,” Mohican-Robot muttered.
Its crossed arms had managed to block Delphinium’s magic, though the armor in those areas was noticeably dented.
Beyond the armor, Mohican seemed completely unscathed.
“Ha ha, you really don’t get it. James, seems there are things even you don’t know, huh?”
“Noir Corporation is a vast entity. Naturally, there are many projects I’m unaware of,” James replied through his drone, his tone unruffled.
“Projects you don’t know about, huh? Sure. But look at that robot, packed with resonance circuits. If I’m not mistaken, they’re based on my designs. So, tell me honestly, is production going well?”
“The craftsmanship involved in such items is hard to maintain without the original artisan. It’s amusing, really. Those who believed they could profit off ‘low-efficiency circuits’ now resort to exploiting high-efficiency circuits powered by magical girls’ despair.”
“You bastard…”
Mohican’s mutter carried a note of frustration, seemingly provoked by James’s words.
“Even without you all, the plan will be complete.”
“Perhaps, if there were no one here to interfere. But as you can see, interference seems to be our specialty,”
James replied smoothly, his drone turning to face me.
“Besides, I doubt you’ll win with the current power dynamics,” he added, his gaze suggesting he knew something I didn’t.
Could there be more to this than just my inability to use my circuit properly?
“No need for long explanations,”
Rose said with a smirk, clenching her fist.
“You figure things out by fighting, don’t you?”
The circuit in her left wrist was glowing fiercely.
“James,” Hayoon called, prompting the drone to swivel toward her.
“Is this person important?”
“Oh, absolutely,” James said, his tone almost gleeful.
“He was an executive like me. Though there were more executives in the company than just us, if he took my position, he likely climbed to a high-ranking one.”
“I see,” Hayoon nodded.
“If you’re someone important…” she said, stepping forward.
Her blade shimmered brilliantly.
“I have a few questions to ask you. I don’t know how much you’ll answer, but allow me to be impolite.”
Her tone sounded polite, but her eyes were far from kind.
They burned intensely, as if reflecting my own anger.
Her words felt less like an invitation for dialogue and more like a declaration of vengeance.
My heart raced.
With Hayoon by my side, I felt certain we could win.
No matter what danger arose, the strength of everyone here seemed capable of overcoming it.
Even as my despair-driven circuit turned, I found myself clinging to hope.
Hayoon’s circuit seemed to glow faintly.
The circuits I had seen countless times in magical girls before now spun with unprecedented intensity.