***
In the end, negotiations with Alcide went by smoothly after extracting her from her hideout. But...
"Hey... Why is there a dead staff on the ground. This is the office, security should have been the highest here..."
"Looks like no one noticed until it was too late. Must have been a concealment skill...?" (Paridia)
She didn't sound too sure of herself. But when you get down to it, skills were so absurd that we can't be sure it was a simple assassin who concealed themself to kill a single person here. It was likely to be a motivated assassination, someone had a grudge against this person. Unknown staff B on the ground. She was called Renalia, apparently she had been here for quite a while. What didn't add up was the accounts of the others that worked here for a long time.
"She had a cheerful air to her, bringing refreshing joy to everyone around. I find it hard to believe anyone could kill her..." (Mark)
"She was certainly very eccentric... Nevermind that, having weird traits isn't a valid reason to kill someone." (Noepia)
"Utterly frustrating, detestable and annoying. I find it hard to work whenever I was around her, but I simply change to work on other projects without her around... It was far easier to stay away from her than get rid of her." (Helery)
And more convoluted descriptions of her character. Hearing another person talk about Renalia was like adding another character trait to her in my mind each time. There was almost no coherent accounts except the lack of adjectives people used to describe her with. The people working there were still limited by their vocabulary, it was as if some higher force was taking note of what adjectives had been used before deciding what the next person says to me about Renalia.
I was beginning to get irritated myself, when Paridia told me to stay calm. Kyou herself wasn't particularly doing well, he gave his own thoughts on how Renalia was like before going somewhere to cool her head. I suppose she may be blaming herself, since security was light when we went to attack the enemy branch. Right after, a familiar light grey haired beauty walked in. She was the known vice commander and offensive healer of the Rising Knight Order, Palmicia. She was like a Ray of hope, leaving a glow wherever she walked and fluttering sparkles all over the air.
But Paridia and I have already reached the same conclusion as her. What she spoke about confused most of the staff, but we could only stare on in silence. We were the most suspicious personnel here.
" Disregarding the new personnel, the enemy may be disguised as one of us. The easiest way out of this is if I kill every single one of you right now." (Palmicia)
She gives off a menacing smirk, eyeing every single one of us like a predator intimidating it's prey. Her aura rose up like fiery embers as if examining everyone's reaction to find an anomaly. Perhaps taking a read on all of us here gave her some sense of comfort, because the perpetrator was most likely gone already. It went on until I spoke up.
"... Does that mean you have another way out of this mess?"
She turned her head towards me. Her eyes shift into a ridiculing manner.
"I can't tell you that now, can I? Anyway, someone go collect the body. Resume activities, we'll hold off on the funeral for a weak. Make sure to preserve the body until then." (Palmicia)
Emanating off charisma, she barked orders immediately following her assessment of the situation. Letting everyone go back to work with a confident tone was one of the most straightforward ways to maintain morale. Feign confidence and control over the situation, it would make one's subordinates have an artificial sense of safety. After all, when one sees a dead body, the next thought is 'will I be next?'. Attention immediately brought to one's own safety and creeping anxiety over when the next attack might happen.
" Weren't you hiding your plan? Your actions tell the most about it. " (Paridia)
Her bright pink hair was lit up by the afternoon sun shining violently behind her. Paridia was in this line of work for a year, even if she wasn't specialised in this exact role, she knew a bit of general knowledge about assassinations. How to deal with it and how to execute it herself. She saw through Palmicia before she had even finished talking.
"... The easiest way out... Assumes that the enemy is one of us. Killing everyone here would go entirely against the point of saving any future victims from assassination. No matter how hard it is, it's better to approach it slowly so I can save as many subordinates as possible... "(Palmicia)
Everyone had gotten back to their seats and resumed what they were doing before. It was only me and Paridia left to question Palmicia on what she intended to do. So we whispered in other to not let the others hear us.
" So you plan to observe for now, until the second victim comes..."
"... I've observed all of your expressions. Though there is a chance that the enemy could hide their expressions and body language, they cannot hide the blood on their hands. My passive... Allows me to read their blood flow and predict their activities from that. It also allows me to read what activities they have done from the flow of their magical particles. It seemed no one here killed Renal... "(Palmicia)
Again, the excuse of skills provided a probably explanation. But now the elephant in the room has to be addressed. We can't alway attribute the unexplainable to skills. Yes, skills can pull off the impossible, even the super specific scenarios that lead to these circumstances. But if we suspect everything to be caused by skills, we'll never go anywhere. It was something so obvious, yet it was a dangerous pit fall if ignored. Such were the circumstances when a person gets killed in a case related to magical girls. We cannot accurately judge what is and isn't possible. The fine boundary between imagination and reality blurs extensively beyond anyone's belief.
How will we get through this? The golden light of before dusk penetrates the glass wall of the office, glass was extremely expensive. This company was not anywhere in the red if it could afford such extravagant assets. Perhaps the motive was money. There could be many motives, but with everyone's accounts contradicting each other into a chaotic mess, we didn't have much to work with. One thing was for certain, the accounts have been tempered with. Either my mind has been messed with or the minds of all the staff have been altered to give different accounts. This was undoubtedly done by a skill.
If we assume there to be only one perpetrator, how did they skill Renalia? Her body had no injuries. Instant death magic comes to mind, but it could be something beneath her skin we couldn't directly observe. Poor girl, she was just a normal staff working in this company. She was likely a member of the Rising Knight Order, so she was probably aware of the risks, but something this abrupt and mysterious... It's as if her life had been wasted since we couldn't figure out the evildoer.
"It's not strangling... Her body was in a relaxed state. There were no red marks around her neck as well." (Paridia)
"It was likely done by magic, we don't know how the opponent has escaped but we can safely conclude magic was used in the killing method since it wasn't a normal death." (Palmicia)
We pondered and discussed a little more after that, but ultimately nothing was conclusive. So we had no choice but to continue watching this territory until the enemy showed up... Kyou was on patrol while I spent the rest of the days doing casual exercises and exploration of the nearby places.
We didn't have much time to sightsee since we fought the dragonoid right after coming here, there was also buying souvenirs and local food. It was a big surprise to see that simple noodle dishes were being sold by some restaurants, it was amazing that they could now process flour into noodles.
Paridia went with me on my walks, and she wonders off to do her own thing when I'm busy training. Perhaps it was my strange attitude, but it had gotten a bit strained between us. It was like she had something else in mind whenever she saw me, weakening her conversational skills everytime she sees my face. Her answers become short and less enthusiastic, of course it could just be that she was bored of only talking to me. But I can't tell if that was the case or not. It was like a minefield to navigate.
Ah.... I really messed up didn't I. This was what happens when one stays indecisive... Especially to matters pertaining to my own ideal. It was clear cut, there was no fog on the glass or any vagueness at all. I let Alcide live because of my ideals, because I was weak in the heart. This in turn would have endangered our lives if not for Alcide being an actual good person. She realised I had spared her life and in turned fulfilled her part of the silent mutual agreement. I spare your life, you spare mine, then we have nothing to do with each other from now on. That kind of thing.
I use my magical girl strength to jump onto the rooftop of a medium sized building. Around 6 to 8 floors high. I sat on the roof to stare at the setting sun, maybe the breeze up here could help clear my mind. It feels so cluttered at the moment. Not with inorgansied mess, I perfectly understand my shortcomings. After all I was self aware like that. I was always self aware of my problems, or at least I'd like to think so. But what do I do then? Just because I know there is a problem doesn't mean I know how to deal with it...
Why does it always end up like this. My idea of an ideal magical girl is way too vague. I just go along with whatever mood I had at the moment instead of follow a specific set of rules. A certain nocturnal animal man had rule to never kill. I don't have such a rule. All I do is deem who gets to be killed and who doesn't. Usually stronger opponent's like Gerald and Alcide end up telling me their stories in the middle of battle, and I begin to sympathise and pity them. My heart is weak. I can't change that. At least not in an instant.
Anyway, what if there were some individuals like that in the underlings as well? I indiscriminately kill the weaker magical girls with the excuse that they were going after my life. But what if they had a better excuse... What if they only wanted to protect their families and defeating me fulfills that purpose one way or the other? My previous image of the ideal magical girl was one that poofed in and could solve any problem in existence before poofing out. Would that mean I had to solve global warming, world hunger and political strife?
I fight as hard as I can, putting even my life on the line. But at the end of the day, what are these hands truly punching for? What is this petite body of mine truly struggling for? I could easily live a comfortable life, working up a high government position by using my magical girl powers as leverage. I could live in averageness and sloth. Maintain a sedentary lifestyle, never work hard ever again.
But I realised my dream was far more important than that. I had dreamed about this for such a long time since before The Great Disaster. Even if I was a guy then, I still wanted to throw it all away and become a magical girl. Because magical girls could solve any problem. The bullying problems I face at school, the isolation problem at home, the pain filled social problem when I see how other people see me. Perhaps it was a problem inherent with my self. I was very abnormal, that made bullying far more easy for others.
In any case, none of that should matter now. I've achieved my dream of becoming a magical girl, now I want to be the ideal magical girl that could solve any problem. So I blindly joined this fight without thinking too deeply. Even now I could still hear their screams, those of the countless victims I've slaughtered in the past. The ones from the war in the labyrinth I stayed at and then more.
I feel a familiar presence behind me. Perhaps I was wrong about the silent mutual agreement. There was no more enmity between us, so I wasn't particularly focused on her being there. She then began to speak.
"We need to talk. (Alcide)