“Hello, that’ll be 998 credit points.”

The cashier gave him a sweet smile. With practiced hands, she packed up the box, the one printed with a girl on the front. Across from her stood a middle-aged man in dress pants and a white shirt, a briefcase in hand.

His face twitched with pain at the price. He pulled out his phone, scanned the machine in the cashier’s hand, and a moment later, his phone vibrated with a payment notice for 998 credit points.

One look at his expression, and the cashier understood.

“You’re buying this as a gift, right?”

A gentle smile appeared on the man’s face.

“Yeah. For my daughter. She really likes this stuff, and today’s her birthday.”

The cashier looked exactly as if she’d expected that, then said with a smile, “Your daughter is really lucky.”

“Ding-dong. We look forward to seeing you again.”

The middle-aged man stepped out onto the street and looked up at the sky.

“Lucky, huh...”

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t really a qualified father. He rarely went home, and most of the time, he couldn’t stay by his daughter’s side.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d spent her birthday with her.

He lowered his head and looked at the plastic bag in his hand. Inside was the gift his daughter had asked for.

She’d even called him specially for it, acting spoiled and begging him to buy it.

Inside the box was a little figure, probably made of plastic. No matter how he thought about it, he just couldn’t understand how a chunk of plastic could cost 998 credit points.

But when he imagined his daughter’s smile, he suddenly didn’t care anymore. He only wanted to get home as fast as possible and surprise her when she came back from school.

One gift wasn’t enough. He was also planning to buy a cake, and all sorts of other things.

The man stood by the roadside and raised a hand. A taxi noticed him and clearly began to slow down, preparing to pull over.

Then, all of a sudden, a shrill air-raid siren rang out across the sky.

The taxi hit the gas and sped off in a cloud of dust. The pedestrians on the street also grew visibly panicked. Still, everyone remained fairly orderly, and thankfully there was no shoving or trampling.

That was all thanks to the drills they’d done before.

“All citizens, please proceed immediately to the nearest shelter and await further instructions.”

A female Japanese voice came from the loudspeakers by the street.

The same message was quickly repeated in two other languages, over and over.

Clutching the box, the middle-aged man moved with the crowd toward the nearest shelter. People who had been inside buildings all poured out onto the streets. In an instant, the sidewalks that had seemed a little empty became crowded.

Without realizing it, the man quickened his pace. Following the signs, he headed toward the shelter.

Almost there. The shelter was just ahead. As long as he got inside, he’d be fine. Just like the drills. He kept telling himself that.

He wondered if Shizuku had already made it into a shelter by now.

More than himself, the middle-aged man worried about his daughter.

Then a violent explosion suddenly erupted nearby. The massive blast startled everyone. People instinctively ducked, trying to avoid flying debris.

At that moment, a wolf-like creature wreathed in ominous black miasma smashed through a wall and slammed heavily onto the ground. It landed extremely close to the middle-aged man, so he got a clear look at it.

The giant wolf was the size of a small car. Its whole body radiated a sinister aura, and it carried an overpowering stench of rot. It immediately scrambled back up and took a highly guarded stance, staring into the pitch-black hole in the wall.

“Ahhh!”

A sharp scream tore through the air, and the crowd fell into chaos.

A monster had appeared right beside them. People could no longer suppress their fear. They ran madly toward the shelter. The little order that remained vanished at once, replaced by crying, shouting, and curses everywhere.

Fear surged into the man’s heart, and he ran with the crowd. At some point, he’d lost his briefcase. Now he only held the box tightly in his arms, trying to keep the panicked crowd from crushing it.

Behind him came a girl’s sharp shout, the roar of a beast, and the sound of buildings cracking apart. Every sound filled him with terror. He didn’t dare look back. His palms were soaked with sweat. He had never imagined danger could come this close to him.

His heart pounded wildly. Right now, he only wanted to reach somewhere safe, wait for the incident to end, and go home.

Monster rampages.

The first monster rampage recorded in human history had happened twenty years ago. It was a colossal beast as large as a skyscraper. It had appeared out of nowhere in the city center, causing unimaginable destruction and massive casualties. In the end, the military had to be deployed, and only managed to kill it at the cost of half the city being destroyed.

After that, all kinds of monster rampages began appearing one after another. None were as huge as the first one, but they kept coming.

And the middle-aged man’s wife had also died in one of those rampages.

At the same time, this world had gained a new kind of fantastical power.

They were called Magical Girls.

The middle-aged man didn’t know much about them. He only knew that every region had at least one Magical Girl stationed there, and that they were all managed under the military.

Sweat covered his head. For someone whose body had been stuck in a long-term sub-healthy state, continuous running was honestly too much. Hugging the box, he pushed himself forward as fast as he could toward the shelter. He wanted to get as far from the battlefield as possible.

Then, a girl fell in the middle of the crowd.

Falling at a time like this was deadly. If she didn’t get back up quickly, the panicked crowd might trample her to death.

No one even thought about helping her.

At first, the middle-aged man didn’t want to get involved either.

But then he recognized her.

It was the cashier.

She was about the same age as his daughter. Maybe she was working part-time? If she died here, then somewhere, there’d probably be a father like him crying for her too.

Every time the girl struggled to get up, the crowd knocked her back down. In utter panic, she cried out to the people around her for help, but everyone was too busy running for their lives. No one paid her any attention.

After hesitating for a moment, the middle-aged man turned against the flow of the crowd, walked over to her, and pulled her up.

“I just hope that if my daughter falls down someday, someone will pull her up too.”

“Thank you! Thank you, mister!”

Once the girl was back on her feet, she also recognized who had saved her.

“Don’t get in the way!”

A man roared.

The middle-aged man felt himself get slammed into. The box in his arms flew out of his hands. Luckily, it didn’t fly into the crowd. Instead, it landed on the roof of a sedan parked by the roadside.

“Wait, my stuff!”

The middle-aged man immediately reached for it. That was his precious daughter’s gift.

He finally managed to climb onto the roof of the car through the crowd. By then, the screams around him had grown even more intense.

Holding the box, he was just about to climb down when he saw the cashier staring at him in sheer horror.

“What?”

The middle-aged man looked down.

At some point, his chest and the box in his arms had both been pierced through by claws. As the claws pulled free, blood instantly spread across his white shirt in a wide red bloom.

Only then did the pain reach him.

He felt like he no longer had the strength even to stand. With a bang, he collapsed onto the hood of the car.

His heart was full of fear.

He didn’t want to die.

But he could feel his consciousness fading fast.

“The gift...”

Looking at the box in front of him, now stained red with blood, the middle-aged man muttered weakly. He laid a powerless hand on top of it, then closed his eyes.

Who knew how much time passed.

It felt like he heard something by his ear.

“This guy’s compatibility is insanely high!”

“But he’s a man. That’s so weird.”

“He’s got a lot of research value...”

“We should still respect his own wishes.”

In a pure white space—

“Hello. Sanmasu Makoto, correct?” said a bold male voice.

“Yes. I’m Sanmasu Makoto!”

“You’re thirty-seven years old, and you work at Shiramai Communications, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Mhm. Now we have some unfortunate news for you. You’re about to die. With the methods currently available, there’s no way to save you.”

“What?!”

Sanmasu Makoto immediately checked his body, but saw nothing at all. Everywhere he looked, there was only endless white.

Only then did he realize just how abnormal this place was.

“I-I... where am I? I want to get out!”

Sanmasu Makoto panicked at once. The situation he was in was far beyond his understanding.

“Quiet!”

The voice from beyond thundered sharply. Used to obeying, Sanmasu Makoto immediately shut his mouth.

“I’ll say this again. You’re about to die. You don’t have much time left. Right now, you have two choices. Die quietly, or become a Magical Girl.”

Sanmasu Makoto’s mind instantly fell into chaos.

Become a Magical Girl?

No, that wasn’t the point.

He was about to die.

He had no chance right now to tell whether the voice was lying to him. And deep down, he half believed it. He remembered his final memory.

No. I can’t die yet. My daughter is still waiting for me. I want to see her get married with my own eyes. I want to hold my grandchild with my own hands.

“Hurry up. You’re running out of time!”

“I want to become a Magical Girl!”

...

The TV was playing footage of the monster rampage from a few days ago.

The anchor on the screen reported the news with a blank expression.

“The death toll stands at thirteen. The monster has already been eliminated by the military, so citizens may rest assured. In addition, we... have already begun follow-up disaster relief work. The damage caused by this incident...”

The girl pressed the remote in her hand.

She curled up on the sofa with her long legs drawn in, silently crying.

On the table sat a family photo of three.

The girl was Shizuku. Sanmasu Shizuku.

She looked like a lady knight from Japanese fantasy, with a tall figure and a face that carried a slightly heroic edge. Most striking of all was her smooth black hair.

But right now, she looked like a helpless little girl, her eyes full of fragility.

She opened the mobile terminal in her hand and looked at the video on it. She watched it again and again, over and over.

It had been recorded by some thrill-seeking bystander. The clip was short. It showed a man’s chest being pierced through by claws.

The title of the video was:

“One-Hit Kill! Why Are Magical Girls So Strong?!”

Comments drifted across the screen from time to time.

If it were any other day, Shizuku might have found it amusing.

Now, it only made her feel sick.

“Dad, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t been so selfish...”

Although the authorities had informed her that her father had been classified as missing, Shizuku was absolutely certain that he was dead. The only strange part was why they hadn’t found his body.

The black-haired girl staggered forward and opened the bloodstained box.

Inside, the figure had already broken into scattered pieces. Crying all the while, she carefully glued the figure back together.

After all, it was the last gift her father had left her.