*
"So that's it. You'll be taking lessons here 5 days a week in the morning and return to your work in the afternoon. We'll work closely with the authorities to adjust your life.
I'm sure as the enthusiast that you are, you should know about this policy just from those things you've watched. Don't tell anyone about this, don't tell anyone that you are a magical girl. Or we will dispatch a subjugation team. Go back to the teleport area and take this key with you, you don't need me to guide you back right? I don't want to walk a kid home... " (Kanou)
"... Un. It's fine. There're no creepy old guys around right? "
" You could just untransform... "(Kanou)
" And if I couldn't? Or if the attacker didn't mind either way... "
"... Good luck. Well, there shouldn't be such unsavoury types down here considering the thorough surveillance and security. Just go back already, the more you waste time here, the more likely these imaginary assaulters will come out heheh." (Kanou)
" Right!... See you tomorrow Kanou-san."
" Good night. " (Kanou)
Walking through the streets, it felt like everything was back to normal again. The soft golden glow of the light panels stuck to the ceiling felt like the dewy golden brilliance of a setting sun. If I don't look at the sky, I could pretend that everything had gone back to the usual. When my parents weren't gone. When my prized collection of figurines, merchandise and side collections were all intact. When life had been completely fun and okay. Studying wasn't particularly hard, this side of the country had recently recovered from an economic depression, so they raised salaries to hire more full time workers and hasten recovery. Life was going well.
Before I had noticed it, my vision was getting blurry. From what my sense could tell me, I was only a couple minutes away from the teleport action hall, my vision had been crudely obstructed by tears. Damn it, I thought too much about the past again. Nothing could change the past, it's worthless to think of such things. But as a human, I can't help but pay more attention to my heart over that cold logic... Ah... It's making feel bad, depressive, like a heavy bar of steel laying on my heart. An oppressive pressure that wraps over the spirit and leaves scars.
Without noticing, there was a girl with bright crimson hair akin to the top layer of a rainbow, standing right in front of me. Her eyelids curved sharply into a fierce expression that revealed a chivalrous will, but a cute smile and fitting nose adorned her face. An odd looking hair ornament more similar to a royal crown cut in half and edges sharpened decorated the right side of her hair. Sharp bangs hung from her fringe to reveal her right eye, while the rest of her fringe was swept to the left side, half covering her left eye.
A collar with intricate gold embellishments over a silver surface accompanied her neck while revealing her collar bones. Small grey pauldrons covered her shoulders as a skin fitting black suit covered the rest of her body from under the collar bones to the toes. Solid plates covered her torso like armour with different small red marks on each plate. A belt with what seemed to be the bottom half of a Cape attached to it swayed around her hips while her metallic boots glimmered under the blazing panels lighting the area. Under the belt and accompanying the stocking like bottom half of her suit was a small pair of navy jeans with teal markings around the sides. They seem to glow under her belt-cape as small protective casings rattled around her arms.
".... Are you lost?..." (?)
"Ah... No. I was just thinking too much. I'll be on my way now, sorry for bothering you!"
She had brought her face closer to make sure I heard her voice through the obstructive tears, seeing her cute face closing the distance instantly sent a flaring blush to my cheeks. Her long eyelashes that accompanied the ends of her pointy eyelids emphasised the size of her eyes near the front, displaying a desirable innocence seen in a curious child. Wiping the tears in a rush, I ran off in a hurry towards the teleportation hallway.
Hahah, I look pretty pathetic, to cry on the first day I became an official magical girl. I wonder if everyone went through that weird dimension. For some reason, I dare not ask. Perhaps it was to evade the unseen, staying in my place would certainly do that. If I was worrying over nothing, then I'll just have a laugh with my new friends later. Not that I've made any yet. It's been a few hours, it should be night already. Going into a lot between 2 partitioning doors, I brought out the magical key that Kanou-san gave me. Twisting it into mid-air, a rift opens like the cracking of glass before an invisible pressure ambushes my front.
Resisting the pressure, I pushed through with a little willpower before making it over to the other side. Unlike last time, it was near the farm area where I had worked at. Before gaining awareness of it, my body had become exhausted and the transformation undid itself as naturally as breathing did. Remembering such vague feelings, I was able to activate the transformation back on and releasing it at will a few times by recreating that very vague feeling. It seemed that keeping it on spends more energy, taxing the body more if used for prolonged amounts of time.
At this point, my body had already memorised the route back home. Even if it was a bit crudely built, it was now my home and had been for two weeks. It was a simpler task to drag a ragged body back home then that whole episode of chaos. Was whatever that sent me to that other dimension with the magical girl forces? For now, I can't even be sure if they are allies. Surely they are, since we come from the same faction. The world is in too much ruins for any more conflicts. I wonder how the other continents are doing.
The best I could gather from rumours and everyday conversations with my coworkers at the farmland, were that every continent or large region of land had formed a singular large faction out of necessity. There was roughly only a billion humans left after that disaster. Saving 1/8th of humanity can be attributed to the actions of the magical girls. Kudos to them I guess, it's easy to blame them for people that couldn't be save. They tried their best and it still sucks, but we can't ask for better. All that is left is to rebuild our homeland. Even if we are under a new flag.
Reaching home, the sky had gotten incredibly dim to the point it was starting to get hard to see my own hands. The path of soil of path had been cleared as much as possible by the people assigned to the road building sector. They did an incredibly rough job that could barely be counted as a 'job' in the first place. Having low manpower issues do result in bad quality and rushed work I suppose. Anyway, the roads had been softened and evened out by the traffic of people over the past few weeks, so it seemed to get more stable each day, albeit so slight that it was imperceptible to detect changes in a day or two. I will have to thank everyone in my heart for making the journey easier though, if it had been a week or two before, I would have fallen in the dark.
In the distance was a familiar structure, it had wooden logs half jutting out horizontally with layers of planks between to create an illusion of imminent collapse. In actual case, the planks had been weld together to the logs and a support structure was embedded in the unseen inner workings with robotic efficiency through magic. Most normal equipment and technology has been utterly destroyed, preserved tools and similar of such conveniences are incredibly limited.
People would say the new government of our faction that oversees a large Eastern portion of Asia, Dominion Shrine, are hogging the remains of our modern technology. Though I don't think I can blame them, even at such a high social position, they also need the function of these everyday tools. What do people think they do with them while hogging? Obviously they use them, if even the highest administration needed to hand build their own furniture, the situation must have been that bad.
Well, there were perhaps other uses such as weapon development or producing the map of the new world. The continents themselves had shifted drastically, the resultant tectonic stress built up in the crust had probably been released as large crevices and destruction in human civilisation.
Humu, I got too much into it. To be honest it still didn't sink in. It had only been 3 weeks since the disaster, who could handle and accept their world of privilege and free choice to be violated, stomped on, turned upside-down, and finally inverted into such a dismal scenario. Feeling the wood of the door with my palms, I felt for the door knob before proceeding to enter the residential building. Yes, I could finally put this shoddy shack of a home into words. It was an apartment, but in one floor. Maybe it was the time spent here, in any case I felt home sick. It was illogical sure, but I missed my home. There was no doubt only rubble was left in its place, yet I had an unrelenting yearning for it.
There were other things to worry about, such as my survival though. Even a kid like me doesn't have free time. Everyone but actual kids with less than ideal physical strength are pitching in into rebuilding society. Even middle schoolers are transporting materials for building, even if they work inefficiently and in groups. Meanwhile, I destroy my back at a young age tiling the soil and preparing more arable land for agriculture. Some other group was working on the irrigation, but this way we were able to work more efficiently. And I was to change locations once I was done.
Such tasks were everywhere, and so it fell to a local governing group to manage requests and distribution of manpower. There was enough requests to change distributions and handle compromises everyday, but it seemed to be never ending in reality. Even at the efficiency they were going at. It was quite a wonder to see many famous places like tourist sites and nature such as Mount Fuji get reduced to rubble.
... Well I lived in a different prefecture, and even if the continents rearranged it would not be possible to actually see Mount Fuji. The shady guys near the site probably found a random boulder and pretended that it had flew across a prefecture and landed there. Moving to new job locations usually required me to change lodging areas. I always returned back here anyway, where I first woke up and almost died from heat stroke and dehydration.
Such mundane days weren't so bad, the monster attacks were actually quite uncommon. Encountering them even once was an anomaly. The magical girls were doing an awesome job, or maybe even the monsters had man power issues trying to assault a whole species. We humans breed quite fast after all. Since their appearance locations were quite random, I think it was the latter. Well, I won't know until a magical girl tells me though. They should have the most Intelligence gathered with their capabilities. That said, the structure under the new administration was not quite clear for anyone, even the local government have next to zero information. Just that an occasional messenger would collect a report from them every week.
In any case, I had gathered an abnormal amount of information that I have no use of. Just some tidbits here and there from my coworkers. Oh, and can you believe it? The place that was attacked right before I turned into a magical girl, the survivors had been recovered and casualties had increased by 1. He was a good guy. Placing a mug of prized coffee at my work desks in the morning to chase away the fatigue. He had thought I would be someone much older, nevertheless I enjoyed that coffee. It was near impossible to get nowadays that trade with other countries had been cut off. There was no method of transporting new coffee beans after all. You would need a magical girl for that job, since they can travel as fast as plains, maybe faster. But the hell kind of a job is transporting coffee beans for magical girls?