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“Snow White’s?”
“Yeah, I want to save her. Do you know where she’s gone?”
Hearing some footsteps coming from the entrance to the classroom, Lulu turned around. Three Lightnings stood with their toes on about the exact line of the entrance, swords pointed at her.
“I’m a Lazuline candidate!” Lulu cried. “If you want to help our master, go to the courtyard!”
They ran off. She let out a breath in relief, then turned back to Miss Ril. “Can you run? Actually, can you even walk?”
“Running at magical-girl speed…would be difficult.”
“Looks like we should get you some treatment…or, um, repairs? Hold on a sec.”
If she used her magic stones, she should be able to help a little bit. With that thought, she tried to take one from her stones bag, but perhaps due to her ongoing tension, her fingertips were stiff. She dropped the goldstone she had been carrying; it clunked on the floor and rolled away. The floor and walls had been completely destroyed in the classroom, and if it fell into some hole, then that would mean the end of it, but fortunately, it stopped when it rolled up at Miss Ril’s feet.
Miss Ril creaked as she picked it up, and Lulu started to say thank you, then swallowed. Miss Ril’s whole body shone a brownish red with lamé in it, and under the narrow beam of light coming in from a hole in the ceiling, she shone dully.
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Halna Midi Meren
The courtyard system was falling apart. And because of that, the balance of the battle was also about to fall apart. Princess Lightning had originally been one of the best fighters of the students. Without magic support, up against superior numbers of Lightnings, the students couldn’t keep blocking them forever.
Normally, they would be overwhelmed by numbers and it would be over. But Halna wasn’t going to let it be over. From the storage hut, she could command things.
For starters, even if it looked like a storage shed, it was a sturdy magic fortress. So long as Halna stayed inside, there was no danger to her person. And secondly, even Halna herself couldn’t open the entrance to the ruins. Only a few people in the highest positions of the three factions would know the pass spell. The thieves wouldn’t know that. They shouldn’t be able to touch the ruins.
She lowered the defensive line. It was dangerous to invite the thieves in, but it would make it easier to protect. Halna would support them from the storage shed, and the students would fight inside the courtyard. She would send the Snow White–type homunculus, which was strong even without enhancement, to the front—with Cranberry as the subvanguard, Diko and Pshuke doing hit-and-run, Mephis and Tetty as support—and have Kumi-Kumi and Lillian make a provisional base. It would just be provisional—it just had to be a spot that the enemy would spend a little time capturing. While the enemy was spending their time on that, Halna would attack from the storage shed, and then she’d have them in a pincer attack.
Halna held her hand over the “root” at her side. Even with a cover over it, she still felt its heat.
She would no longer use the system. She would suck up energy directly from this to cast her spells. That meant that the students would no longer be automatically enhanced, but it would increase the force of Halna’s attacks. As for the rest, it would just be about how long they could hold out.
She didn’t see any more masked magical girls. It seemed that the Lightning group had pushed them back, but she couldn’t see from here what was going on outside. During the incident when the homunculi had gone out of control, she had been able to get a perfect grasp on the situation from the observation platform, but having been attacked so suddenly now, it was difficult to get a good position.
She had prepared some bases so that she could fuse them at any time, but unlike the specially made Snow White, the other bases needed someone to be put inside them, or they wouldn’t be very strong. And she had already gathered all the magical girls she had fused—in other words, she couldn’t increase her forces any further. Holing up in your fort in a situation where you couldn’t expect support was not good.
Rather than counting on reinforcements that wouldn’t come, it was better to look to the Osk Faction, on the outside. But there was no way that the thieves had not worked out some plot, and most likely they had set up a barrier or something. Being on the inside, she couldn’t even know how much time it would take to break that.
And there was clearly more than one force of robbers, which posed a massive problem. It would be nice if the two forces would conveniently clash with each other, but nothing about this had been convenient to Halna thus far, and she couldn’t expect that to happen in the future, either.
The Cranberry homunculus went out of sight. She couldn’t see Diko or Pshuke, either. The Snow White base was still moving around.
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Drill Dory
Dory had escaped with Calkoro, then escaped with Miss Ril, and the last to remain was Arlie, of all people. Dory didn’t think much of Arlie and showed it plainly in her attitude, too. But the other students must have been pretty dense, as they’d become so eager to try to make the two of them get along. That exasperated Dory; as far as she was concerned, they were wasting their time.
But now that she and Arlie were alone together, Arlie was the only person Dory could count on. Relying on a clumsy, stupid older model who could take a few hits was like something out of a bad comedy routine—although for Dory, it was closer to a bloodcurdling horror.
But she still had to fight. She wasn’t going to die here.
Dory backed up, shielding herself with Arlie to block the Lightnings’ attacks. She then opened up a hole in the wall of the school building, still using Arlie as a shield as she entered the passage. The Lightnings weren’t stupid; they wouldn’t come surging through the hole. They would wait things out briefly before hurrying off to open a new hole into the classroom next door.
Arlie wailed: You’re just going to keep running away?
Dory wailed back: What else are we supposed to do?
Arlie foolishly mentioned that they’d been ordered to go to the courtyard. Dory snorted, countering that they would’ve been dead a long time ago if they always obeyed such orders.
Arlie pointed out that the other students might be heading that way.
Dory told her that the enemy would also be heading to the courtyard since they’d heard that announcement, too.
Dory would have liked to compliment herself for being so noble, dealing with Arlie while also drilling holes, but nobody was going to praise her. Instead, that idiot Arlie was criticizing her and insisting that she would go to the courtyard alone.
Dory mulled things over. She would be in danger without Arlie as her meat shield. Arlie was the only one who could withstand the Lightnings’ attacks. Those daggers and longswords would probably kill Dory, but Arlie’s sturdy armor could keep her safe.
Nonetheless, going to the courtyard would be charging right into the lions’ den, and Dory would wind up dead.
Dory made a decision: She would trick Arlie.
She drilled a hole into the floor and made a tunnel. When she looked up, she saw a flash of lightning. Dory scowled and yelled at Arlie to come with her; they should go underground to the courtyard.
Arlie tumbled into the hole, kicking up dirt when she landed. Dory used her drill to stab the Lightnings that pursued them. As blood and lightning rained down, Dory frantically escaped into the tunnel.
She dug even deeper. Down, to the side, she dug onward. Arlie fought back against the Lightnings on their tail, and her damaged armor oozed back into its original shape like some slimy creature. Dory kept digging, occasionally turning around to attack the Lightnings.
A narrow passage was the best option since Dory and Arlie were outnumbered. That was easy enough to figure out. Even though Dory had told Arlie that they were going to the courtyard, she had absolutely no intention of doing that. She just pretended like they were headed there while she went in a completely different direction. Digging a meandering tunnel would easily mess with stupid Arlie’s sense of direction.
Dory and Arlie were able to escape the immediate crisis—they avoided death. Dory was relieved, but she and Arlie were still under attack. Dory repelled an enemy strike, using Arlie as a shield. But when she realized that she was relieved for both herself and Arlie, she shrieked—Dory should have been happy solely for herself.