When it comes to urban planning, the more central the location, the more valuable the land, the more they tend to carve out a few tiny, postage-stamp-sized green spaces.
They plant lush vegetation, crown them with the beautiful name of “city parks,” to showcase the area’s environmental superiority.
Central City was no different…
Late at night, in an inconspicuous small park next to the subway station, Kamui stood under a streetlight with her hands in her pockets, occasionally pulling out her phone to check the time. It was almost nine o’clock.
Each time she looked, her face grew more impatient.
“That guy, does he have no concept of time?”
Complaining like this, Kamui squatted down next to the trash can by the streetlight.
Truthfully, she didn’t like herself as a Magic Girl.
She was short, her Mana Emission ability was zero, and her personality was unconsciously flighty. Reading Clara’s old comics, she could often see a bit of her own shadow in them.
However, the hero side job was necessary for her.
There wasn’t any special reason. It was just for the money.
With her monthly income as just a knock-off comic magazine editor, it wasn’t easy to gain a foothold in Central City. The rent for her apartment alone wasn’t cheap.
As an independent hero stopping crimes, she could receive considerable compensation from the Hero Association, improving her life. For Kamui, this was an essential source of income…
Crime-fighting income was tied to a hero’s rank.
Once she crossed into A Rank, she could enter the so-called upper-tier hero ranks. Not only would the income be higher, but she could also receive emergency tasks directly assigned by the Association.
Then she wouldn’t have to put up with her editor-in-chief’s attitude anymore, and she might even be able to support herself solely on her hero identity.
She messed up.
But as a task directly assigned for her assessment, she had messed it up. The client was “World Tree Technology,” a tech company considered among the best in the world.
Their laboratory had a cutting-edge Drive Unit stolen, and they mobilized many heroes to search for the tech thief…
If she hadn’t encountered him, it would have been one thing. But to let that petty thief slip through her fingers… While there was no official punishment, for Kamui, just failing the assessment and being demoted from probationary A back to B Rank was already a massive punishment.
You could say, two years of effort were wasted.
Kamui pulled out her phone again and sent a message to the person she was waiting for.
[If you don’t show up soon, I’m going home.]
The reply came quickly.
[I’ll be right there. I didn’t have any women’s winter clothes, so I went to buy a few items.]
In a sense, the other person—Blue Cavalier—was in a similar situation to her own. With one foot seemingly already over the threshold to the upper tier, one misstep and it felt like it was pushed far into the distance again.
Lower and mid-tier heroes didn’t have a very long shelf life.
It was a dangerous profession to begin with, and the promotion path seemed endless. After failing to become an upper-tier hero that time, Kamui found it hard to say if she would get another chance.
[I’m here.]
[I see you.]
Kamui looked up. The blue-haired, rabbit-eared girl came through the small path at the park entrance, weaving through the trees.
“Sorry, Miss Kamui, for making you wait so long.”
“That was quite a long wait.”
Kamui’s tone wasn’t polite. She looked over the completely unfamiliar Blue Cavalier and said,
“You were late by a full half hour, making me wait outside in the cold on a winter night… I guess only your fans could put up with something like this, right?”
The latter was wearing a very new blue-and-white long down jacket. It had a hood, but because of her rabbit ears, she couldn’t wear it at all.
Her fingertips and cheeks were red from the near-freezing temperature. She held her bare hands to her mouth, breathing on them and creating a frosty white mist.
In contrast, those fluffy ears looked much warmer.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Kamui got straight to the point.
Although she could guess Blue Cavalier’s reason for seeking her out, she didn’t plan to reveal her own information first. She wanted to hear what this clever hero had to say.
“Miss Kamui, have you been following our livestreams and programs recently?”
Of course, she couldn’t say she’d been watching every day.
Kamui, who had been squatting, stood up and answered somewhat perfunctorily,
“Yeah, I’ve looked into it a bit. Your grass skirt dance was a big hit.”
Blue Cavalier’s brow furrowed slightly but quickly relaxed as she asked,
“…Let’s put that aside for now. What are your thoughts on Magical Girl Clara?”
“That new Magic Girl who did the collaboration with you? No issues in terms of ability. Thanks to her efforts, you managed to thwart the ‘Fourth Calamity’s’ plot this time, right?”
“Mhm, she’s a Magic Girl who just started activity recently. Don’t you think the timing of her debut is a bit coincidental? Right after our mission failed… Let me change the question.”
The blue-haired girl adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and rephrased,
“I wanted to ask, what exactly did you encounter in the sewer back then?”
“I already wrote a report about the situation at the time and submitted it to the Association.”
“This is just my personal investigation. Whether to report it to the Association depends on our conclusions. So, I wanted to understand some necessary clues from you…”
It seems she really did discover something, huh?
Thinking this, Kamui answered truthfully,
“When I broke the door down and went in, I saw the target put on the Drive Unit we were looking for and complete the transformation… At the time, I didn’t get a clear look at the target’s face before the transformation.”
“The post-transformation appearance was a standard male humanoid figure, completely white, with no other distinguishing features.”
“A white humanoid… And then?” Blue Cavalier pressed.
“Then, his arm suddenly turned into a white syringe and stabbed towards my stomach. I was careless at the time and didn’t dodge.”
“That syringe sucked something out of me… After that, the other party transformed into my appearance. You know what happened after that.”
“A syringe… Another syringe.”
Blue Cavalier muttered, pinching her chin, then said,
“He knocked you out right after turning into you, then used your appearance to deceive me and escape the scene.”
That didn’t sound pleasant to Kamui’s ears. Leaning against the streetlight, she denied,
“No, he didn’t completely become me. I don’t have the ability to use Mana Emission, but after copying my power, the Mana Emission he used was very powerful.”
“Copy, then enhance?”
“It was more like refinement, adapting the stolen power to better suit his own abilities.”
“…As I thought. My conjecture was correct.”
Blue Cavalier raised a hand to rub the stray hairs on her forehead and said,
“Miss Kamui, I’ve already found the culprit from back then.”
“…Magical Girl Clara, right?”
Cards on the table. The other party had presented convincing clues, so Kamui no longer hid it.
“So you had already discovered it too?”
“I’ve seen her spellcasting medium. Whether it’s the ink mist that obstructs vision or Mana Emission, she can’t use them without that. I recognized it when I saw her holding that staff on TV. That squid staff is hers.”
“If we report this to the Association, we can get the previous disciplinary action revoked. If we can retrieve the Drive Unit, that would count as making up for the mistake. Officially promoting to A Rank might not be impossible.”
Blue Cavalier looked seriously at Kamui and asked,
“So, what do you plan to do next?”