Chapter 174 – Awareness (9)

[A werewolf appears in District 3! Warning, please use the vision phone for rescue requests, voice requests may be ignored depending on the situation!]
“This…”

District 3 is a residential district located not too far from District 4 where you are now.
Werewolves are magical girls who imitate humans and are tricked into approaching, monsters who often use cunning tactics to target the Defense Forces.
They use tricks well, are strong in hand-to-hand combat, and show a strategic combat method that draws the surroundings into a siege or war of attrition while dealing with one, mainly in group action.

Rapid is close to such a werewolf’s natural enemy.
With the ability to recognize space to the extent of being exceptional, it is possible to distinguish werewolves and human forms without seeing them, and it is not easily surrounded because it uses a combat method that maintains a certain distance and processes each one with long-distance magic.
Not far away, the opponent you can handle best, raid in the residential area.
Rapid is in a situation where he can go directly.

I immediately checked Rapid’s location and she was already gone from the cake party.
The changed location is Area 3, and the location is constantly changing, as if using space movement magic recklessly.
Seeing as they’ve already entered battle, I think I’ll have to give up meeting them today.
Pausing for a moment and sighing, I looked around and noticed something strange.

When an alarm sounds, people in the immediate area are legally required to evacuate temporarily.
Because of that, all the customers in shopping mall 4 were moving quickly towards the shelter.
However, only the guests are evacuating.

All shop owners quickly lower their shop shutters and move to places other than shelters.
Contrary to the faces of the evacuating guests, who showed a little fear, those who were in focus were walking around tired and relaxed, like office workers who took a break from work.
Its appearance evokes a strange sense of incongruity.

He doesn’t look nervous at all.
Unlike other people, it is an attitude that they are confident that they will never die.
Not evacuating, just pretending to evacuate… Abnormal

Why is it going in a different direction from Shelter?
Working under the person called him… ?
What the hell is in that direction?

As I watched the people in the shopping district blend in and disappear one by one, I thought about following them for a while before giving up.
The fact that the man at the fry shop said that I was a newcomer as soon as he saw me means that the members of the restaurant know each other well.
It is certain that the first person seeing it will immediately notice the moment they blend in.

I wonder where he’s going, why he’s acting apart from everyone else… It is dangerous to mix in hastily.
I turned my gaze away from the people in the mall and moved on.

It’s a pity to run into Rapid, but I think I’ll have to give up.
In addition to that, I am reluctant to come here again and again.
Not only this time, but in the future, it would be better not to run into each other by chance in the shopping mall in District 4.

I don’t know who he is, but he says he’s for Rapid and he’s doing something… He’s definitely a pretty dangerous person.
District 4’s mall is already occupied by him.
I think we have different goals, but both he and I are aiming for rapid.

My goal is to have sex with Rapid.
If he works for Rapid, he’ll most likely be against me.
I want to have sex with and be close to Rapid, not against him.
If he seeks to harm Rapid, I am against him.

Circumstantial, it is likely that he has something to do with people’s focus being out of focus and the unknown that happened to me.
I don’t know what kind of person it is, but it’s dangerous for either of them to come to this place, which is his territory.
I don’t want to be involved with someone who can have an unknown influence on everyone in society.
Give up the chance meeting and amend the plan to make an appointment somewhere other than District 4.

I continued to walk among the moving people, gathering my thoughts.
If I hadn’t noticed that something was strange, I might not have cared about it since I could just live my life as it is, but I’ve already noticed the abnormalities around me.
When one question is about to be answered, many new questions come to mind.
It’s annoying, like when you fix one error in your code, multiple errors pop up.

All of the questions raised so far have some connection to Rapid.
He’s doing something in District 4 for the Rapids.
The people of District 4 Mall know that the people around them are strange.

Strangers show strange behavior when watching the video of the magical girl, Rapid.
In the hypnosis app, there was a video of Rapid hypnotized and having sex.
There is a function to track the rapids.
… Everything that happens around me is connected to Rapid.

In the end, you’ll have to get a little closer to Rapid to find out what happened.
To get information directly from Rapid, to sell Rapid’s hair to find information at Majinsa, to have sex… What you have to do is the same.
But one of them, there is something I can do even if I don’t have to get close to Rapid or meet him.

“Hmm…”

The people in the shopping district have already gone to a place other than a shelter, so I can’t see them anywhere.
No one is sane enough to notice that I’m doing something weird.
After thinking about it for a while, I slowly leaked out from among the people and got out just before entering the shelter.

District 3, where the raid took place, is not far from here.
It was something I always did before I got the hypnosis app.
It’s been a while since I moved to the Negative’s raid to collect Rapid’s hair.

Designed as blocks for quick repairs in case of destruction, the city has small roads between buildings.
You can avoid most surveillance cameras by simply running down a narrow alley, avoiding the main street.
I opened the Majinsa member-only app, which I use to avoid surveillance cameras for the first time in a while, and moved while paying attention to the surveillance cameras in operation around me.

As Area 3 neared, a number of surveillance cameras were deactivated and immobilized.
Where there is an attack, surveillance cameras and road control mechanisms are usually stopped due to the magic of magical girls and negatives.
From this point on, there is no need to hide between buildings.

I turned on the hypnosis app while walking through the empty streets.
Increases the chance of collecting traces by checking the exact location of Rapid.
Thinking so, I turned on the tracking function of the hypnosis app and stopped there to stare at the screen.

“Uh… ?”

There is not one coordinate display in Area 3.
One for Rapid, one for Ash.
Ash is nearby.

Within the map with the tracking function turned on, Ash moved quickly as if dragging a cursor with his finger.
In reality, it means moving from building to building at terrifying speeds.
Ash’s coordinates move as if he were hacking through the app, drawing lines on the map at maddening speed.

[Aww!]

As soon as the howl of the werewolf starts in the distance, it cuts off and disappears.
From the boiling scream of the werewolf, the image of Ash inserting a sword with condensed heat into the werewolf’s neck is played in my head.
After a while, the coordinates of Rapid and Ash suddenly disappeared from the map.

It seems to have dealt with all the monsters and returned with Rapid.
Ash is always like this.
After killing all the monsters at high speed, they immediately return.

Ash appeared out of nowhere, wiped out all the monsters, and then disappeared.
It’s always there, nothing unusual.
And yet… For some reason it bothers me

Negative executives didn’t even appear… The monster Rapide is best against has appeared, but why is Ash… ?
For a task that could be left to Rapid, it was only to the extent that some werewolves appeared… ?
I’ve been chasing Rapid until now, naturally getting to know the other magical girls around me, so I feel this is not Ash’s behavior.

But… It is not strange at all for Ash, a magical girl, to hunt monsters.
Since he’s close with Rapid, he might come to help.
When I checked the location with the hypnosis application, the two of them were moving somewhere together.
Looking at this, he must have come to help because he had a promise to deal with it quickly…

After calming down the momentary question, I moved to the place where Ash and Rapid were.
As the raid gets closer, traces of magic from Ash and Rapid come into view.
The ground split in two, the melted asphalt, the exterior walls of the building shining like glass… It is a familiar sight.

I turned on the magic detection app on my vision phone and checked the magic around me.
Change direction and move around to find a place with strong magical power.
As you walk around avoiding the corpse of a monster that has a strong magical response, after a while, a magical reaction occurs in a place where there is nothing.

If you look for a place like this for a while, you can easily find traces of magical girls.
Unfortunately, what I found this time was not hair, but a torn hem.
Looking at the fabric, it seems that this is part of Rapid’s combat uniform.

Unlike hair, the speed of volatilization of magical power is fast, and it is difficult to be certain that it belongs to a magical girl, so it is not easy to sell.
But there’s no need to feel sorry for that.
Judging by the cut off the hem, this means that Rapid temporarily allowed the werewolf to close-quarters combat, avoiding the claw attack.
It is very likely that at that moment part of her hair was cut off.

Looking around a little more, as expected, a bundle of hair that had been cut off about the size of a hand came into view.
It’s not in good condition because it has a lot of dust and no hair roots, but I think you can get a good price for this amount.
I took out a ziplock bag from my bag, put Rapid’s hair in it, and sealed it.

“Huh?”

As I was about to get up, I found a solid line shining with a strange light and slowly brought the vision phone closer.
A magical response of an indescribable number to say that it was hair appeared.
This… It’s Ash’s hair.

It is much harder to find than Rapid, and is sold at a high price.
It is also a collectible that I have only seen once, and is sold at the highest price in Majinsa.
When I carefully pulled it out, the tip was gradually tapering, and the shape of the hair was not cut, and the hair roots were still alive.
This is a top-notch product.

It is an unexpected harvest.
Considering its rarity, wouldn’t it be possible to sell it for about 5 pieces of Rapid’s hair?
No, looking at the condition, I think the price of about 10 is worth trying.

After carefully shaking it off in the air to prevent the dust from settling, I packed Ash’s hair in a new zipper bag and put the collected items in the bag.
With this, you can earn Marginsa points and find out more information.
It had been a day of questions about Rapid and District 4, but it wasn’t without gains.

“Heh!”
“Wow?!”

As I was about to get out of this area and go back home, I was startled by a sound behind me and jumped up from the spot.
A tentacle dog approached behind me before I knew it.
Belatedly, the moment Ash killed the werewolf, the howl she had heard at the end came to mind.

Werewolves treat tentacles and demon dogs as pets, and can be called upon at any time.
It seems that the tentacle dog that heard the howl finally appeared after Ash and Rapid disappeared.
Frightened and widening my distance, I saw the tentacle dog standing calmly wagging its tentacled tail, and I felt something strange, so I stopped there.

“Heh! Heck!”
“Uh… ?”

This tentacle dog has no intention of attacking me.
Only then did I look down at my left hand, recalling a fact I had forgotten for a while.
Negatives don’t attack me as Esther planted tentacles and said.

Feeling strange, I approached the tentacle dog.
When I hold out my left hand, it comes to me like a normal dog and sticks out its tentacled tongue.
He’s definitely an infected high school monster, but he’s a scary guy who can’t be dealt with unless he’s an intermediate magical girl or higher… Too dog-like

After stroking the tentacle dog with my left hand, I widened my distance and waved at the tentacle dog, thinking that there would be no good for someone to see me like this.
When I conveyed the meaning to go away, the tentacle dog, mysteriously, immediately understood my words and opened the manhole cover with its tentacles.
The tentacle dog, which entered the manhole, waved its tentacle to say hello, then covered the manhole again and disappeared.

It’s a really strange feeling.
To think that the monster who tried to kill me just a while ago now looks like a dog…
It’s not even just a dog, it’s a well-trained dog that understands me well.

What the hell is the tentacle on the left hand that makes this possible?
I forgot about it for a while because my head was cluttered with abnormal phenomena related to Rapid… This too is questionable.
I want to ask Esther a few questions.
However, meeting with Esther has no choice but to put it off until later.

If you really want to meet Rapid, you can track him down with a hypnosis application, and now that you know his contact number, you can make a separate appointment.
Esther, on the other hand… I don’t know how else to meet you.
I can’t even get a vision phone, I can’t contact you, but I can’t find out the location, and I’m staying in another dimension in the first place.

“Esther…”

I don’t know how, but someday I’ll be able to meet you.
If Esther planted these things in me, it must be for a purpose, so we’ll have a chance to talk about it sometime later.
I muttered Esther’s name and turned to return home before the National Guard’s drones arrived.

“… Eh?”

Then, recognizing the sight that came into view, I froze as it was.
The silently torn space is quietly shrinking and disappearing.
Esther, who didn’t know when the hell she appeared in front of him, stood still with his arms crossed, maintaining a translucent state.

“Hi?”