Mana
No matter how much she glared, from outside the barrier she could only vaguely see what was going on inside the school, as usual. Occasionally, she caught some flash or explosion, but she couldn’t even observe it properly, never mind interfere. All she could do was stand idly by from the outside and grind her teeth.
Inside the barrier, she couldn’t see any particular activity at the main school area of Umemizaki Junior High, while at the old school building, a number of magical girls seemed to be running around and fighting. Mana had heard that the students were an array of elites, but she doubted they’d all be unharmed when they were tossed into the middle of a battlefield.
The analysis of the barrier was slow going. They had sent out all the casters they could from Inspection headquarters and summoned everyone who was on standby, but the reports didn’t come back with anything specific. They added nothing of value.
The casters were surrounding the barrier just in case, but it was the most they could do just to keep ordinary people from getting close.
Mana couldn’t get in contact with Snow White. All communication had been cut off.
Mana gritted her teeth. The initial response had been almost as fast as it could get. But it still hadn’t been enough. The roof of the old school building was blasted off, and Mana instinctively covered her face. The roof fell, stirring up dust and dirt, making the blurry view even hazier.
“Hey, listen.”
Not only that, but she also had an annoying magical girl at her side. An outsider with fundamentally no good reason to be here, Uluru was on site because she claimed to be one of Snow White’s allies. Mana ignored Uluru, walking the outer perimeter of the barrier. They were really lacking in a surveillance system.
“Listen, listen.”
“Be quiet.”
“Listen—Uluru came up with a good idea.”
“I’m telling you to be quiet.”
“You should just get them to help.”
Mana came to a stop and turned around. Uluru was nodding, her face annoyingly smug.
“The students were dispatched from lots of different places, right? So then if you tell those places what’s going on, they’ll send in some more people. Uluru knows some acquaintances of Snow White who would help, and Uluru has connections in the Puk Faction, too. So if you don’t have enough people right now, you should just get more from elsewhere!”
Many people in the Inspection Department wouldn’t like having outsiders poke their noses in an investigation. There were a lot of stakeholders at play this time, and Mana had been told by her direct supervisor that if such busybodies showed up, she should turn them away.
Mana agreed with that, partly out of pride that they—the Inspection Department—were the real specialists. But right now, she didn’t feel like rejecting Uluru’s proposal as stupid. In fact, there was no telling when the barrier might come down, even with all of Inspection concentrated on dispelling it.
“…Let me ask you one thing,” Mana said to Uluru.
“What?”
“Did you come up with the plan of asking for help from other places?”
“Of course Uluru came up with it.”
Mana was now more convinced than ever that Uluru had devised this plan, and that was how she knew that Uluru’s magic was working—in other words, Uluru was lying.
It was Snow White.
“There should be a list of people we should contact,” said Mana. “Tell me!”
“Wow, so bossy! Fine, here!”
There was a long list of names. Mana scanned it. There were famous casters that even Mana knew the names of. If Inspection could summon them all, then maybe undoing the barrier was not an unrealistic fantasy.
Upsetting your boss is part of an inspector’s job, she told herself. She’d heard this tidbit from Hana Gekokujou.
Mana clicked her tongue and nodded.