NOVEL NEXT Chapter 131
A boy accidentally found a certain novel in a used bookstore during his middle school days.
The tears of the girl illustrated on the cover of the novel looked so mournful that the boy picked up the bundle of novels sold at the used bookstore and bought it.
Finally reading the novel.
From the moment the boy turned the first page, he couldn’t hide his bewilderment.
“What kind of story is this?”
An impending doom of destruction came without any warning.
A world already ruined by human greed from the very start.
Fujimoto’s Magical Girl research facility.
The rebellion of the magical girls who were abused and sacrificed.
The relationship between ruined magical girls and ordinary people, strained to the breaking point.
<Magical Girl HAZARD>
The three goddesses managing the game led humanity deeper into ruin by exploiting the imbalance of information and irrational curses. In this endlessly devastated and unreasonable world, hope and growth could not be found.
Countries being slaughtered unilaterally by monsters.
Magical girls using ordinary people who doubted and distrusted them.
No matter how they struggled, the human domain was slowly shrinking.
Trials that could only be overcome at the cost of the magical girls’ lives.
A pitiful and precarious world that was bound to collapse.
A cold story that seemed to mock the magical girls who could no longer shine with starlight, saying, “Yeah, that’s the limit of humanity.”
Tragedy for the sake of tragedy.
From the very beginning, everything was fated to head towards destruction.
A cynical view that believes dreams and hopes are only for foolish children.
The heart contained in this story was too hollow.
The protagonist Yuki’s efforts were always met with ridicule.
The girl, who should have been a beacon of hope and love warming people’s hearts, was throughout the story a subject of ridicule and mockery—a gloomy and disgusting emotional trash can of the author, a show of misfortune for readers to behold.
– “No matter how hard you try, nothing changes.”
– “Are you still saying that?”
– “Face reality.”
Due to the sudden arrival of fate, people in destruction took plunder and murder for granted.
– “Anyway, there’s no one left to farm, so the survivors should just share what’s left.”
– “You need to obey to escape from the monsters… Some casualties are to be expected.”
– “The soldiers, the police, no one can protect us.”
– “Please, save us!”
– “If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have…”
When the first trial, the Dark Lion, descended upon Japan, the land with the most magical girls was ordered by the Apostle of War to kill each other in battle.
The land where the most magical girls lived transformed into the place of the craziest fights.
When the second trial, the Venomous Sea Serpent, came to the waters off Europe, humanity first realized that their weapons didn’t affect the monsters.
The sea, contaminated by the serpent’s poison that churned it for a long time, turned Europe into a cold land of death.
When the third trial, the Iron Boar, attacked Russia and China, the plundering magical girls flaunted their powers, using starlight to dominate people.
Nations crumbled, and the remaining people either hid while guarding shabby villages or accepted a new order by submitting to the magical girls.
When the fourth trial, the Flesh-Eating Horses, and the fifth trial, the Plague-carrying Birds, passed by.
All that remained were a handful of magical girls.
A world of humans that had turned to mere dust.
To protect it, the magical girls faced the Destruction Dragon.
A true trial.
The will of the stars flying in the sky, stealing everyone’s souls.
Unable to defeat the final dragon, the world spread out before Yuki, who survived with the ability of Resurrection, was nothing but darkness.
Dark,
cold,
chilling.
All ordinary humans were dead, and the apostles dwelled in a world of silence and darkness.
Despair.
“……”
A staircase leading down to the empty Throne of Nihility where the Destruction Dragon had passed. As Yuki climbed the steps reaching up to the distant sky, she pondered.
Thud
Thud
Her foolish mind couldn’t grasp any of this.
“Where did it all go wrong?”
Just half a year.
The invasion of monsters began in the summer of 2012, and destruction arrived with the cold winter.
“Fujimoto? Magical Girls? People?”
This world was fundamentally wrong.
She fled from the tyranny of War that descended on Shinjuku.
Cried upon confirming her father had died in a burning house.
Heard about the Magical Girl of Death among the refugees.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
Crossing over Korea, China, and Russia, she entered the Domain of Death.
An edict was proclaimed that those who were not magical girls could not be revived.
The bombardment aimed at plundering the refugees who had made it to Russia.
Amidst it all, Yuki belatedly realized her duty as the Magical Girl of Flame.
[Magical Girls exist to protect everyone with all their might!]
But this world did not listen to the voice of just one girl.
They only fought together when a great monster invaded their territory and, when the battle was over, had no qualms about plundering and killing each other.
Yet Yuki struggled.
Gathering people, persuading magical girls, and trying to save lives that scattered like sand.
As if to mock Yuki’s struggle, humanity was devastatingly slaughtered by the last trial.
Destruction.
“This world is fundamentally wrong.”
The story had been wrong from the start.
Thud
Finally, at the last step of the staircase.
Yuki had ascended into the sky.
“……”
Upon reaching the Throne of Nihility, Yuki picked up a shiny fragment that sparkled on the ground.
The power of the world.
A piece of the immense will held by the strongest ancient humanity, created from the fusion of primordial chaos. Inside it, echoes of the three goddesses who uttered curses whenever the trial’s time came rang softly.
– “We… can return… finally… the end of humanity.”
– “In chaos… we shall all become one.”
– “O fragments left by the foolish first daughter… Live a meaningless eternity at the tip of the stars.”
As soon as Yuki picked it up, she understood.
This was the fragment of a huge goddess once worshiped by humans.
Only a tiny part, but this piece could momentarily make her a goddess.
“If this is it…!”
But no matter how many times she tried, it was impossible.
The remnants left by the evil gods, having vanished somewhere, were far too weak.
Reviving the ordinary people who had died so aimlessly or destroying the monsters that had filled the places where humans once lived—
It was impossible.
“……”
A half-god.
Able to slightly distort the rules of the world, yet only able to gaze at a world devoid of everything.
“This is… a lie.”
Yuki sat powerless on the Throne of Nihility, gazing at the already ruined, empty Earth.
And she closed her eyes.
This story was destined for this ending from the start.
Endlessly consuming, endlessly dying, endlessly diverging.
A story written to mock the struggles of people living their lives.
The tale of gods that scoff without revealing fate to the ignorant.
“This is… wrong.”
A few lines of bad reviews left, saying it’s a piece of misfortune porn created to follow trends, mixing magical girls and tragedy.
When the protagonist girl in the story completely despaired and closed her eyes.
The boy who had been cheering her on while reading the story also closed his eyes.
“……”
No.
The boy opened the book again.
[We will definitely be happy!]
[Magical Girls exist to protect everyone!]
[I want to protect people!]
– “Starlight grows strong with people’s dreams.”
‘I wished someone had told me…!’
– “Humans are truly foolish and weak.”
The boy endlessly imagined in his mind the dialogues from the people laughing at the girl’s fierce fight and the gods, rechecking them from the beginning.
“This story is fundamentally wrong.”
Every time the girl moved forward, cheering her on, he rebutted the structure of the story twisted with all its might towards a ruinous ending and contemplated the causes of all tragedies.
What if there had been more magical girls who could defeat the Trial Monsters?
What if there had been room for peaceful coexistence between people and magical girls?
What if the Magical Girl of War could’ve been informed of the right way for magical girls to grow before she appeared?
What if dreams could have been introduced to the magical girls earlier than the prologue?
If.
If…
Even if one was a fool unable to accept the story’s conclusion, even imagining the solutions to the already set storyline until the cows came home wouldn’t change a thing.
“What if it proceeded like this?”
The boy read the story again and again, dreaming of the “what if” in [Magical Girl HAZARD].
A habit that began with resistance against the empty ending became a timid rebellion against the adult who wrote a story denying hope.
And through that timid rebellion, the boy couldn’t help but love this world.
The boy’s habit, which started along with the girl’s despair in the story, later became the warm hands extended to that girl in the distant future.