NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39 – The Line That Must Be Protected (9)
Being weak is a crime. In the end, when everyone is pushed to the extreme, no one will protect me. Naturally, if you want peace, you must prepare for war.
It’s common sense that no one can touch me.
“Ugh!”
“What, what happened?!”
A fierce shockwave erupted, sending everything flying and rolling on the ground. The two experiment subject girls clinging to me were in the same predicament. This wasn’t an attack I was trying to make; it was just my power bursting out naturally.
“You, you finally armed yourself…”
While others struggled to get up from the ground, Ren looked at me in shock. Just as Ren said, I had summoned my magical girl armor that had been engraved in my lower abdomen, which I had never used before.
I didn’t have any grand thoughts; I simply needed a way to break out of this situation.
“Interesting. A weapon made from part of my magic.”
“…The armor of a magical girl also reflects her tendencies.”
“Then it seems to reflect mine quite well.”
I flicked the handle in my hand lightly. Just a tiny movement, but the whip wriggled violently, leaving a long scar on the concrete floor and ceiling with a deafening sound.
This steel thorned whip, moving freely like my tentacles, was a long whip densely covered with sharp thorns protruding in reverse.
“Armor… kkkkk.”
I casually swung the whip and split the head of a researcher who had just gotten back up in two halves.
“But! You also can’t lay a hand on those girls!”
“I merely took it out for a moment.”
At Ren’s shout, I frowned. The experiment subject girls, staggering to get back up, charged at me once again. I didn’t take this out to use it on them.
My shadow thrashed and instantly destroyed a nearby pillar, pulling out the rebar inside.
“..!”
The two by the pillar were ensnared by the rebar that shot out, wrapping around their necks and bodies.
One of them threw a punch at my face, which I caught and tossed aside.
“Wait…”
This brief moment lasted just 3 seconds. Three seconds is enough. I swung my whip horizontally with great force.
The whip, filled with magic power, destroyed everything in its path, creating a cloud of dust, severed body parts, and a fountain of blood.
“Where do you think you’re running?”
Moments later, I moved my shadow to catch the fleeing bald researcher by the nape of his neck. Hiding behind his subordinates, he seemed to be the boss of this whole operation.
“Kuhuh… It’s already too late. The experiment succeeded, and I’ve already transmitted the data to headquarters. Stronger experiment subjects will hunt you magical girls down.”
“…Really? That’ll take at least several decades then.”
Good thing I didn’t kill him immediately. His frowning expression at my taunt was amusing to see.
“Look, even if thousands of those things swarm at me, they can’t win.”
“You brat…”
I chuckled. The experiment subject girl I had tossed aside suddenly jumped up and rushed at me, hitting my head with all her might and kicking my abdomen and legs, but it wasn’t my bones that broke and bled out.
“You won’t succeed. You lack the ability.”
I casually spat out something that would surely annoy him, having roughly deduced his personality.
He was just a simple bald guy; even if he tried to maintain a calm facade, he couldn’t hide how his face and empty scalp turned bright red.
“Don’t get too cocky. Everything isn’t over yet.”
But the angry guy soon broke into a mischievous laugh. My expression tightened slightly.
“Wha, what?!”
As Ren shouted, I cut off the guy’s two legs, throwing him to the ground, where he screamed.
“My magic is rampaging. With an S-Class magical girl’s power, this area might completely evaporate.”
Magic has attributes and resistances. Forcibly combining them naturally leads to backlash. This was a scene I often saw in the Demon Realm.
“You’ve got an eye for things! But it’s already over! You won’t be able to stop it!”
While he squirmed on the ground, he suddenly erupted in laughter. Sure, it was a big deal.
But I found it laughable how he acted like unleashing Aria’s magic was some sort of absolute unstoppable ultimate weapon.
“What…”
“You foolish bald man. Of course, a magic rampage would be a horrible disaster for someone who can’t handle magic, but not for me.”
I am the Demon King. The pinnacle and embodiment of demonic power. Magic is subject to my control, especially when it possesses the thick, dark tendencies of demonic energy.
“Ughhh!”
I gracefully dodged Aria’s punches as she lost her senses and ran at me, then placed my hand on her belly, which was now covered in bruises from the countless hits she’d taken.
“This… this can’t be. How… how is this possible!? It’s impossible!”
“You dumb bug. Your ignorance doesn’t encompass all that exists in this world.”
Laughing at him, I trapped the struggling Aria and completely absorbed the dark magic that seeped into her body. Moments later, when I withdrew my hand, blackened with shadows, Aria collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
The source of this magic was the power embedded in the experiment subject girl’s body. It was a rather cold and heavy force, but it was barely equivalent to dipping my hand in boiling hydrochloric acid.
“…What are you?! You, you monstrous girl can’t be just an ordinary magical girl. Are you even human?!”
“Interesting. You’re about to die soon anyway.”
I shifted the shadows and beheaded the now gasping bald guy. Now, I was the only one sane here. Aside from the pained groans of the incapacitated experiment subject girls, the surrounding air fell silent in an instant.
“There are other magical girls outside, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s head back.”
“Wait a moment. Why are you here? Is it okay to leave like this?”
“…?”
Just as I sighed in fatigue and prepared to leave, I suddenly remembered the reason I came here after hearing Ren’s words.
“Damn…”
Information about Mamute. But before I could hear it, I just indiscriminately killed everything.
A sharp pain ran through my head, and I instinctively cupped my face in my hands. How could I make such a fatal mistake?
“It’s almost dawn. For the sake of normalcy, we should head back now… ughhh!”
“You should have said that earlier!”
In the end, I kicked Ren, who was whining on the floor, with delight.
*
‘No.’
I shouted with all my might. But no voice came out. Soon, the beautiful girl with black hair wielded a silver-glinting steel thorned whip with a grin.
In an instant, human bodies were smashed and torn, limbs, entrails, heads, and fountains of blood flew everywhere.
I definitely saw the red eyes of Takilas glimmer with ecstasy. Just like always, she was unable to stop Takilas’ massacre this time as well.
At that moment, Aria lost consciousness.
‘Kill me.’
However, Aria’s consciousness wasn’t completely gone.
She could sense what her rampaging body was doing and what was going to happen next. Thus, without hesitation, she shouted once again, asking to be killed before an even greater tragedy unfolded.
“You don’t know everything about this world.”
But the moment she heard that, a rush of clarity flooded her senses, and Aria momentarily regained consciousness.
In that fleeting moment, when Takilas placed a hand on her abdomen and absorbed all the vibrant magic, their eyes met.
‘It’s different.’
She instinctively realized then. The force behind the red eyes looking down at her was entirely unlike anything she had felt before.
Those eyes, once a mischievous gaze that could turn unpredictable, had transformed into eyes of a ruler, heavy and imposing.
“Haaa…!”
“Eun-seo!”
Even as her memory faded and everything else slipped away, that pair of red eyes remained fixed on her, staring intensely. As the pressure continued to mount, Aria took a deep breath, opened her eyes wide, and sat up.
“It’s okay now! This is a hospital!”
“Yes! You’re safe now!”
The mascot Lulu fluttered into her chest. With wide-open eyes, Aria gazed at Director Oh Yoon-seo, finally able to see her surroundings.
This wasn’t a dim underground facility but a hospital room bathed in bright sunlight streaming through the window.
Only then did she realize she still hadn’t released her transformation.
“What happened?”
“…The other magical girls who came with you reported it. We were able to rescue you.”
“What about Takilas?”
The name slipped out of Aria’s mouth on its own. However, Director Oh Yoon-seo shook her head, bowing her head.
“There were 69 gruesome corpses on-site and 4 experimental victims, and you were the only one left. Most of the evidence had already been destroyed.”
“That can’t be… at least the ones outside were only knocked out!”
Aria shouted, unable to believe it. But she already knew. The Code Red magical girls who followed her wouldn’t have left a single one alive.
“When we arrived, there was no trace of Takilas. They had killed an innocent YouTuber for no reason and then vanished without a trace.”
Oh Yoon-seo muttered in a dark tone.