MTLNOVEL chapter 86
85 – Magical PX (1)
No sooner did I push open the door to the barracks than I was immediately dragged back out.
“Oh! Finally, another SCV has arrived!”
“Truly, this is a relief! Hurry now, let’s go!”
“Hey, what is it this time?”
“Just come quickly, it’s important!”
And so, without knowing what was happening or how things were turning, I was dragged along until, arriving at this moment…
“Sir, might I inquire if your mother is not with us?”
“Excuse me?”
I was in the midst of receiving polite service.
“Watch your tongue. It is not that she is gone, but perhaps your inferior mother has ascended to paradise.”
“What?!?”
Said with a kindly smile by Mr. Octopus.
One might question this.
How could this be considered polite service in any way?
However, that is not the case. There absolutely could not be more polite service than this.
I could say that with conviction.
“No tabs, you goddamn b*tch.”
“But I come here all the time, you know?”
Because this goddamn b*tch was trying to get credit.
I was reminded, once again, of the definition of a magical girl: a mentally disturbed person.
“Caught trying to sneak out with that low-grade brain of yours, and now your mouth runs long, does it?”
“No, I just… spaced on the magical calculation.”
What’s more, if Mr. Octopus hadn’t pointed it out and stopped her, she would have walked right out.
“Put it back and get lost, you b*tch.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll try again next time.”
By now, you might have roughly realized where I had suddenly ended up.
Yes.
I was in the PX.
Moreover, I was a PX administrator.
Naturally, it wasn’t by my own will. But that doesn’t mean I had nothing to do with it.
Hearing tell, the magical girls I’d gotten mixed up with, all of them had been Magical PX staff. Apparently, we had to fill the void they’d left behind, even if just for a few days.
“Sora, do we really have to do this?”
“Magical Squad Leader is practically begging us to help out, even if it’s just for a few days. Well, what can we do? When a magical girl tells you to jump, you ask how high.”
And so, we ended up managing the Magical PX alongside other magical girls.
Though, only now am I realizing…
“Was the PX always this big?”
It’s several times larger than the PX I remember.
It’s not just overflowing with various magical girl-branded items, but they even sell groceries, like a proper supermarket.
In truth, it’s more like a mega-mart than a PX.
Although, to be fair, there’s a lot of women’s products.
On top of that, the second floor is marked as restricted to authorized personnel only. Even just this much is vastly different from the PX I knew.
“That’s because it’s the *Magical* PX, you know?”
Sora, of course, just brushes it off as if it were obvious. And I find myself nodding along, understanding, even.
This is a real problem.
I think I’m starting to go crazy too.
Maybe it’s weird to be surprised by the PX now, but it’s a perfectly natural reaction for me. I always just went to cafes; this is my first time at a PX.
Anyway, regardless.
Being a Magical PX staff member, the work wasn’t all that different, but because of the “Magical” prefix, it wasn’t exactly the same as usual either.
One of those differences being that we absolutely had to check IDs before selling alcohol and cigarettes. Obviously, only officers could buy alcohol, though.
“Sora, if they look old enough, we don’t really need an ID, right?”
“Absolutely not. Magical FM stipulates that they need a Magical ID.”
To be more precise, if they don’t have an ID, there’s no way to buy alcohol or cigarettes, no matter what they do.
Just like right now.
“I want to buy some Magical Beer! Just one bottle, I swear!”
“Without a Magical ID, you can’t buy any bottles, sir.”
A magical girl, without an ID, was arguing with Nakji. Naturally, Nakji was adamantly refusing, no matter what the other girl said.
“I accidentally left my Magical ID at home today! Just let it slide this once!”
“Magical FM has no exceptions, ma’am.”
Just from listening, you could tell that the other girl was a real pain in the neck, a completely inflexible person.
“Do you really think it’s right for a Magical Private to be talking to a Magical Sergeant like this?!”
“If it’s not allowed, it simply isn’t allowed.”
Even her rank was fairly high, Magical Sergeant.
Precisely the kind of rank ripe for pulling a power trip.
Right on cue, the Sergeant Magical Girl twisted her lips and began harassing Nakji.
“Seriously, I’m losing it. Don’t you know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are, I do.”
“Huh? Really?”
The Sergeant Magical Girl’s eyes bulged.
As if daring her to speak.
“Then tell me, who am I!”
“A Magical Girl of inferior status, that’s who you are.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say, you crazy b*tch!”
Naturally, it was ineffective.
From the start, Nakji was a true lunatic who didn’t give a damn about rank, so there was no reasoning with her.
The Magical Girls around them slowly widened the distance. Everyone clearly wanted nothing to do with getting involved.
Well, regardless, the standoff between the Sergeant Magical Girl and Nakji continued.
“In the first place, a Magical Sergeant can’t possibly be a minor! What exactly is the problem!”
“A Magical Minor who has attained the rank of Magical Sergeant, you say? Truly impressive, you are.”
Unsurprisingly, Taishi held the upper hand.
Both in terms of justification, and delivery.
“Look me straight in the eye! You can tell just by looking that I’ve got Magical experience! Right?”
“A Magical Minor with eyes like these… certainly, it seems like she’s lived a Magical lifetime of hardships, she has.”
“Hey! I already have two kids! I was just magically dispatched here for a short time!”
“A Magical Minor with two children, you are telling me?”
“aaargh! Seriously!!!!”
Finally, the Sergeant Magical Girl removed her hat with a voice like she was coughing up blood.
“I’m… Magically Balding…!”
Whether from severe stress or not, the area around the crown of her head was noticeably thinning.
There wasn’t a complete absence of hair, but it was clear that a barren wasteland would soon be in its place.
To experience hair loss even in the body of a Magical Girl.
She seemed to be suffering a great deal of inner turmoil.
“Magical balding can’t coexist with magical underage status…! So please…!”
“To be magically underage, yet afflicted by magical balding…, truly, it is a sorrowful thing, it is.”
Not that any of that reasoning was getting through to Taishi, mind you.
“Hey, you little—! You crazy b*tch, seriously!”
“Aka, Murasaki it is, it is.”
In the end, the sergeant-rank magical girl departed the Magical PX with heavy steps. Empty-handed, of course.
There were always one or two like that among them, those types of trouble-makers.
Well, it couldn’t be helped.
As a certain wise man once said, when five magical girls gather, inevitably all five will be half-baked.
Perhaps it was because of this. Trouble came to me as well.
“Um…, is it alright to just pay……?”
A magical girl of high rank was asking me to ring her up without showing any identification.
Except, there was a slight problem.
“P-please… Si-yul…”
“…Why is Lieutenant General coming out from here?”
“That’s what I want to ask…”
Her rank was a little too high.
Indeed. It was the White Magical Girl.
Carrying a case of soju in each hand.
Her face was a picture of anxiousness as she quickly began to explain.
“I’m not usually like this, but I happened to forget my Magical ID today…”
Judging by how her hands were trembling, she seemed considerably flustered. Or maybe just a severe alcoholic.
Well, my answer was always the same.
“I can’t.”
“Oh… I see. Sorry…”
The White Magical Girl drooped her shoulders and turned away with a crestfallen expression.
“You clearly look like a ‘girl’, how can I sell you alcohol?”
“R-really?! You, you think I look like a girl?!”
And then, she looked at me with a radiant face.
A disquieting feeling settled over me.
Instinct told me I’d said something I shouldn’t have.
“Say that again! What do I look like?!”
“A… a girl, you look like a girl.”
For reasons I couldn’t quite grasp, this felt more dangerous than being attacked in another world.
“Really?”
“Y-yes…”
Now, I was starting to feel a little afraid.
Just a sudden, fleeting sensation.
“I *am* a ‘girl’, right?”
“O-of course…”
My heart was pounding. Terribly irregularly.
But, it would be alright. Keeping my direct superior happy meant an easier magical girl life for me.
Forcing myself to calm down, I opened my mouth.
“In any case, no matter what, I will *not* sell alcohol to a ‘girl’. Understood?”
“O-oh, right! I understand, Si-yul! I’ll go get my Magical ID! Wait here a minute!”
The White Magical Girl was about to leave Magical PX with a bright smile.
“That’ll be all paid for, Magical Girl White Phoenix.”
Sora was quick to complete the transaction before she could actually do that.
“…”
The White Magical Girl stared at Sora. A mix of emotions, difficult to articulate, swirling in her desolate, orange eyes.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was a dangerous feeling emanating from those eyes, something sinister.
Even though she wasn’t looking at me, I felt a moment of fear.
Regardless, Sora offered her customer service smile, bidding farewell to the White Magical Girl.
“No need for a magical bag, right? Goodbye.”
“…Yeah.”
The White Magical Girl, expressionless, left Magical PX carrying the soju.
“See you again, Lieutenant General.”
“Yep!”
At least she seemed a little more spirited after my words, which was a relief.
Meanwhile, Sora, the moment the white magical girl vanished from view, raised her voice at me.
“What in the world were you doing to Magical Girl White Phoenix! Do you even realize how close we were to disaster?!”
Sora unleashed a torrent of anger.
Personally, it felt like her focus of anger was off.
Was it because I kept grabbing at the white magical girl?
Okay, that wasn’t exactly a normal thing to do.
But, that aside, I honestly felt like I had a legitimate grievance too.
“But she said FM, right? Isn’t that something you’re supposed to follow?”
“You’re supposed to exercise some Magical Flexibility in situations like this!”
My feeling wronged didn’t exactly calm Sora down, though.
It was pretty clear we weren’t going to see eye-to-eye here.
Seemed like her cycle of…eccentricity had returned.
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”
In the end, only after I reluctantly conceded did Sora ease up.
“Please be careful, seriously.”
“…Alright.”
Well, anyway.
Other than that, the work of a Magical PX storeman wasn’t too different from a PX storeman I knew.
That, of course, included sorting and classifying goods, which was what Sora and I were doing now.
Just then, Sora let out a shriek, stopping my hand as I sorted drinks.
“Senpai, be careful. It’s called a Magical Zero Drink, but it’s not actually zero, so you have to be careful.”
“Really?”
Frankly, it was bizarre.
The drink I was holding had “Zero” plastered all over the label. How could it possibly not be a zero drink?
“The substance in that drink practically spikes your blood sugar like sugar. So you always have to be careful when sorting them.”
“How am I supposed to figure that out?”
I vaguely remembered hearing about something like that even before this world, and it was the same in this world I returned to. From my perspective, it all felt the same anyway.
Perhaps sensing my confusion, Sora gave me a brief explanation and smiled.
“If you’re really not sure, just separate any drinks with ingredients that end in ‘tol’.”
“Skatole?”
“I said it was a drink, you crazy senior.”
Of course, the laughter didn’t last long.
Anyway, we were managing the Magical PX duties we’d suddenly been saddled with, more or less okay.
Or so I thought.
“Help! Help! Help!”
Until I heard Whitedog’s desperate cry.