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Published at 10th of January 2023 12:06:19 PM


Chapter 56

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Chapter 2 — Expand, my world! • Episode 2-5 • Preparation ⑥

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

It wasn’t so difficult for Knuckle to find out the name of the Magical Girl and her original area of activity from some information. Unless they are very secretive, even Magical Girls who are working solo have some interaction with someone or witness testimonies. In today’s world, where the Internet allows people to easily keep in touch with each other even when they are far apart, the breadth of one’s face is more directly related to one’s information power than ever before.

Knuckle herself simply likes to interact with various Magical Girls, and her goal was not to expand her information network, but she found herself becoming well known in the community to the extent that she was relied upon by her friends.

As for the Magical Girls who had attacked Sakira Town this time, she had extracted characteristic information and called on her acquaintances, and had figured out that they were Magical Girl Marine, Magical Girl Shadow, and Magical Girl Dryad before Tyrant Sylph could get their names.

However, that was as far as she could tell at a stretch. Some Magical Girls are talkative, some not so much. Not all children are literate enough to answer anything just because they are asked a question online. She spent some time on the Internet and was able to find out some of their past activities and general personality, but she was unable to determine their most recent movements, their intentions for this attack, the composition of their forces, or the involvement of their faction.

After cutting off her Internet research early, Knuckle decided to head for Amamo Town, Marine’s area of operation, first. There are several reasons for this, but the most significant are that Shadow was not a Magical Girl rooted in a particular region, but a wandering Magical Girl with a residence in the Magical Bureau, and that Marine is a Magical Girl of extremely high status among the Naturalists.

It has been tentatively determined that the goal of the Marine is to turn the hunting grounds into Naturalist territory, but if so, the central figure in this case is likely to be a Magical Girl with enough power to sway the faction.

And after considering the results of the actual interviews in Amamo Town and the stories from friends who belong to the Naturalist Faction, Knuckle concluded that the Naturalist Faction was not involved in this one incident.

Naturally, not all members of a faction share the same ideology. On the contrary, many of the lower-ranking members are unaware that they are members of a faction, either because of inertia or because they have been coerced into joining by their seniors. Many of Knuckle’s friends are such Magical Girls.

Most of the information that these members unknowingly drop is of little importance, but there are things that can be seen by accumulating and assembling the little information that is available.

If it was a factional move, Marine could have used the power and prestige within the faction to secure a little more strength to move. That is a sure way to take territory.

Certainly, if they move on a large scale as a faction, they will always be noticed by other factions. It’s not likely that they won’t be sidetracked. There is no reason for the other factions to stand idly by as certain factions try to increase their power in a precarious but balanced situation.

However, three is still too few. Even if they are trying to deceive the other factions, there must be about twice that many to ensure that they can take over the territory as the Natural Faction.

Perhaps it is a faction’s internal pretext to work with a small number of people so as not to be noticed by other factions. In reality, Marine’s goal should be to achieve great achievements with a very small number of people and to further boost her own position within the faction. It’s a matter of course that the more people there are, the more the row prizes are dispersed, and it is probably because they did not want that to happen that they took on the challenge with a small group of elite members.

One of the stories Knuckle overheard was that the old Marine was not so much a Magical Girl concerned with factional status, but that she suddenly became obsessed with attaining high status a short time ago. Knuckle doesn’t know why, but the information is enough to support her speculation.

Knuckle, who had once terminated her investigation of Marine, moved on to investigate Shadow, but this did not go as smoothly as with Marine.

Shadow was a well-known Magical Girl in the area, not so much that everyone knew her, but enough that her name came up surprisingly easily if you made a conscious effort to look her up. However, it was her notoriety that was known.

As a matter of fact, Knuckle had heard of Shadow as well. She had heard several friends complain about the territorial vandalism.

Magical Girl Shadow. In the real world, she is a rootless Magical Girl, known to stay in a town for a month or two and then leave, tearing up the territory as if she doesn’t care about the unspoken agreement. Cunningly avoiding direct combat, she is on the run and only settles in towns where there are only Magical Girls who are clearly weaker than she is, making her especially hated by Phase 1 Magical Girls.

Some Magical Girls call her a “G” Magical Girl because of her fast escape, the fact that she lives there when she notices it, and her black costume.

A search on social networking sites and message boards dedicated to Magical Girls will find complaints and complaints about Shadow, which will get in the way of finding otherwise useful information.

Knuckle actually went to some of the areas where Shadow had settled, and found that none of the Magical Girls had any personal involvement, and almost all of them reacted as if they remembered a jerk.

So little was known about Shadow, except that she was not very personable and rootless, which made Knuckle wonder about one thing.

That is, why did Marine bring Shadow in when a small group of people were going to carry out the operation? Being the same Naturalist, it remains uncomfortable, though not so much that it is impossible. It is possible that Marine did not draw her in, but that Shadow sold herself to her. Or perhaps Shadow instigated Marine and Dryad.

In the end, no further information was found, and Knuckle closed the investigation, reserving her conclusion for the time being.

The last person to be investigated was a friend of her own, not a Magical Girl who would normally be involved in something like this. Knuckle set out to thoroughly investigate, even if it took all of her time until Elephant and other’s training was finished, and as a result she came up with one piece of information.

.

Standing in front of a room in a hospital in the Magical World, Knuckle held a small basket decorated with silk flowers in her left hand and tapped three small times on its door with her right.

After a short pause, a timid-looking voice returned to urge her to enter the room.

「Excuse me.」

As Knuckle quietly opens the door and enters the room, she saw a silver-haired girl lying on the bed with her eyes closed, a purple-haired girl of about the same age as Knuckle sitting on a chair beside her and staring at Knuckle, and a white stuffed rabbit floating in midair.

「Who are you? Are you a friend of Vampire-chan?」

「My name is Knuckle. I’m a friend of Dryad.」

「!! Dryad-san! Do you know where Dryad-san is now!?」

「Reflect! Calm down-pyon!」

A stuffed rabbit rebukes and calms the girl, who rushed to Knuckle and grabbed her. All the while, Knuckle was not resisting, but was looking at the silver-haired girl as if she were looking at something painful.

「Ah, I–I’m sorry. My name is Reflect. Uhm, did Knuckle-san come to visit me at the request of Dryad-san?」

「…I’m sorry, I came here because of your posts on social media.」

It’s not something she does very often, but when Knuckle investigates a particular person, she first looks up their name and area of activity, then turns to other Magical Girls who are active in that area. If they are active in the same town, they are likely to have more than a little contact with each other, and the information that other Magical Girls casually transmit may contain clues to important information.

As for Dryad, since they were friends from the beginning and there was no need to find out their names and areas, Knuckle began by looking for magical girls who were active in Hōzuki Town, but she noticed something strange happening early on.

Magical Girl Reflect, who just now introduced herself in front of Knuckle. She was looking for the whereabouts of Dryad on her social networking site. Although there were no specifics, she wrote daily that her own friend was in a difficult situation and that she wanted Dryad to stick by her. There were also a number of messages to Dryad in the posts, which seemed to indicate how important this was.

It was easy to find out that there were three Magical Girls currently active in Hōzuki Town, and that the last one, in addition to the Dryad and Reflect, was Vampire. Then one day that Vampire’s posts on social media stopped. The rest was conjecture and cajoling.

It is not uncommon for a Magical Girl to be hospitalized for wounds or serious damage. From her request for her to stay by her side, Knuckle could guess that the girl, Vampire, was in the hospital. Since there is only one hospital in the Magical World, finding Vampire was easy.

She didn’t say anything extra at the hospital reception desk, just told them she was there to visit Vampire and she showed her the room. So until she saw the silver-haired girl with her eyes closed like this now, Knuckle had no idea the severity of her injuries.

「Is… that so?」

「Hasn’t that girl been awake for a long while now?」

「…Yes. A little over a month ago, she was seriously injured from a Diest. It was really close at one point. If Vampire-chan had been with another Magical Girl, she would not be here now, holding on to life.」

「Vampire was magnificent–pyon. Both Dryad and Reflect were fighting elsewhere, and she couldn’t let herself run away, so she stood up to them even though she didn’t have the strength left to fight anymore.」

「She fought for her life, just like Dryad-san always said. For such a little girl, she did her best… Dryad-san also praised Vampire-chan at first. But little by little, her condition changed, and after the day her condition suddenly changed, she stopped showing up at the hospital and in the Deception World. Vampire-chan has managed to calm down now, but at that time she was wandering between life and death and was really in danger.」

Vampire fought for her life as her master had taught her. And yet, Dryad have thrown out her little apprentices and are coming to attack Sakira Town.

Knuckle told herself that there must be a reason, but unconsciously she clenched her fists tightly.

Knuckle intuitively understood that the Dryad’s involvement in the turf raid must have something to do with this incident. At first glance, there appears to be no relationship, but given the timing, it is impossible that there is none.

Knuckle, however, was not at all pleased to have found the clue she was supposed to be looking for.

「Can I ask you a question? I’d like to talk to you about Vampire and Dryad.」

It is very hard for Knuckle to put into words what Dryad was doing now.

Although I sense anger in Reflect’s mouth toward Dryad for neglecting her hard-working apprentice and not showing up, she can see that there is a solid trust at the root of her anger. That is why she is angry.

Valued friends don’t wake up and trusted associates don’t show up. She didn’t want to do anything that would further beat down Reflect’s situation, which was supposed to be painful.

Even if there was a compelling reason, there was no way she could say it.




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