“I hope it’s stir fry tonight,” Ami said. “But, like, mostly just meat. No mushrooms—just meat, onions, and peppers. And then spicier peppers. Haven’t you noticed? We’re making more money than ever, but Grace is still filling our meals with vegetables. It feels like half of what we eat is potatoes and carrots. We should go on strike. I’m not gonna work until we start eating like lions instead of rabbits. Protein’s what builds muscle.”

  “You know what Grace would tell you?” Adah said. “If you cook your own meals, you’re welcome to eat whatever you want.”

  Ami flew alongside Adah in silence for a bit before saying, “Sure, but none of us would be able to keep my cooking down.”

  Judging by Ami’s other household skills—and the disaster state of her bedroom—that was probably true.

  “Is this really what you’re worried about, though?” Adah asked. “We’re almost at the interception point, we should focus up.”

  “But these missions are so boring!” Ami groaned. “All week it’s been the same thing: show up, nuke the stupid Cruelty, fly back and do homework. Nobody told me getting stronger would mean the missions got easy! Why can’t we take on a B-Rank already?”

  After their meeting with Secretary Thibault, Grace and Adah had wasted no time putting the region’s new plan into action. For the past week, the Spotlight Sunbright girls had been taking on every C-Rank mission they could. Any job they didn’t take, DreamRise did. They had started out going as a group of four, but soon discovered that their new level of power made having so much backup redundant. They could just as easily take out C-Ranks in pairs.

  Since then, they’d been experimenting with different pairings: Adah and Rika one day, Rika and Emi the next, and—today—Adah and Ami. Sometimes splitting into pairs was necessary if multiple C-Rank missions popped up at once. The rest of the time, the two girls who weren’t on duty would maximize their time by working with Seb on blog or social media content, or practicing with one of the coaches Michel had hired.

  The ex-actor couldn’t convince any of his connections to give the girls a starring role, but they were willing to teach Adah and her teammates a thing or two. The twins had taken a particular liking to dancing and Rika to acting, but Grace forced all of them to practice their skills across the whole range of show business. They’d never reach the artistic level of an agency dedicated to developing idols, but they finally had the time and money to shore up their weaknesses. There was no reason to limit their own potential. They needed to be ready to seize every opportunity that presented itself, whether in combat or entertainment.

  All of this was possible thanks to the generosity of a certain Roland Thibault, whose office doled out the first month of Adah’s requested funds with remarkable alacrity. Of course, their agency was making good money from constantly completing C-Rank missions, but Adah intended for that cash to stay in their pockets and the coffers of the business. Why pay the bill for all this coaching when someone else was willing to?

  It was a good deal for Thibault. Adah was keeping her end of the bargain; she was over-performing even! Sunbright was taking on more missions than DreamRise thanks to the flexibility of splitting into pairs. He should be glad to have bought such dedicated workhorses for so cheap. All it had taken to solve his troubles was a little money and a little information.

  Information had been Adah’s final demand during their negotiation. Once Grace and Elise had left the room, she pressed Secretary Thibault about the humanoid Cruelties and the portals. She could keep her promise to Ketzia about keeping the portals a secret—the Secretary would have already known about them.

  The appearance of these humanoids must have been something the regional governments tracked. Even if Thibault couldn’t share the info from other regions, he certainly had access to Region 4’s. Therefore, this had been Adah’s simplest request. All she wanted was a record of the location of every portal that had spawned in the region, as well as the location of any that appeared from now on.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d use this info for yet, but maybe a pattern would reveal itself. If the Cruelties were deliberately spawning the humanoids away from civilization, perhaps Adah could deduce something about their intentions with enough data. If nothing else, this was a way of keeping an eye on things, of occupying her mind until the day she could do something about the portals.

  In the meantime, she would focus on the task at hand. Every day was an opportunity to get stronger, including the days she spent cleaning up C-Rank missions. Still, she understood Ami’s complaint. These missions were getting easy.

  “B-Ranks are an entirely different story,” she said to Ami as they closed in on today’s mission. “Their bodies are tough, and variants with some kind of armor or regeneration are more common. They’re no joke offensively either. Most of the C-Ranks we fight are pretty simple—you can figure out their attacks easily. B-Ranks are more like the double Cruelties we fought with DreamRise. Their attacks are more complex, and they’ve got different options like we have different spells.”

  They’d need to keep boosting their FP—both for additional firepower and for the essence reserves to unleash their full power repeatedly—before they could consider a B-Rank. These monsters scaled dramatically in strength. Now that she knew more about their origins, Adah figured it had to relate to the amount of essence that went into their creation. In a sense, the Cruelties probably had “thresholds” of their own just like magic users had FP thresholds. Once a variant surpassed a certain level of essence, that was probably what granted it an ability like regeneration.

  The possible similarities between her magic and the monsters’ strength made them easier to understand, but Adah could only take so much solace in that. She’d rather not have anything in common with the Cruelties. Especially after what they had seen with Ketzia.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Isn’t that what your scythe’s for?” Ami asked. “You’re building up all that magic so we can kill a B-Rank. Don’t you have enough already?”

  In truth, Adah wasn’t sure. Although she had been collecting essence at every opportunity, there was still much she didn’t understand about her weapon. The heartbeat aside, there wasn’t much evidence that the scythe actually was growing in power. As a weapon, it wasn’t comparable to those of her teammates, all of which dealt damage directly to Cruelties. The scythe’s blade was only effective in consuming the cores of these monsters, not destroying their bodies. The power building up inside of it needed to be unleashed in some way.

  Adah fully intended to do so, but she wanted to wait until the reveal would make a big enough splash. Her fans had been speculating on the scythe’s effects since she first used it in public. After witnessing the combos her teammates were pulling off, like Rika and Emi’s bomb-batting, they all expected some shock and awe from Twilight Heartbreak. She needed to unveil its potential on a stage that would command attention, not on some random mission in front of a half dozen spectators.

  She was always hunting chances like that now—whether it was another Cruelty to feed Beleth’s Bloodletter or simply posting a photo online when she felt her transformation outfit looked extra cute. Everything was an opportunity to grow stronger, to gain more fans. That was the mindset she needed to achieve her goal.

  “I’ll be testing it soon enough,” she said to Ami, “but I don’t plan on burning through its power just to take on a B-Rank early. We should focus on preparing properly and getting strong enough that we can defeat one without any mishaps. Our first C-Rank almost didn’t work out for us. With a B-Rank, we might not get so lucky. Besides, wouldn’t you rather look cool while fighting one instead of scrambling for a narrow victory?”

  “I guess so,” Ami grumbled.

  “It’s going to pay off,” Adah said. “We’re going to master our combat on these C-Ranks, and we’ll figure out a way to shine on the entertainment side of things. We’ll be reaping the rewards of all that effort soon enough.”

  “Okay, okay, I hear you,” Ami said. She was being surprisingly accepting of the mini-lecture. Perhaps Adah was becoming more captain-like in her eyes. “You gotta let me have some fun with this one, though.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I’m feeling fast today,” Ami said. “This one’s near Padoux, right? Might draw a decent crowd, so let me show off a little.”

  While not in the region’s capital of Padoux proper, today’s mission would take them to an offshoot town just beyond the city limits. The job was bound to attract at least some kind of crowd. Not that this C-Rank was especially exciting, but the area was populated enough that somebody would want to be there in case something interesting happened. Maybe Ami flexing her speed could be that interesting thing.

  “How fast are you feeling?” Adah asked.

  “Fast enough to give ‘em breakfast in bed.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’ll hand deliver the payload,” Ami said.

  As if to prove her point, Ami bumped shoulders with Adah before flying ahead. Adah tried to catch up, but Ami continued to speed up so that she was always just out of reach. Of course, she had to taunt Adah every time she tried to get a revenge smack on the twin. It was impressive that Emi hadn’t gone insane growing up alongside this behavior. Adah suddenly felt profoundly grateful to be an only child.

  Adah never managed to catch Ami by the time they reached today’s interception point. A riverfront park came into view: a long stretch of paved walkway that ran along the top of a grassy slope that descended gently to the riverbank.

  Adah and Ami passed overhead a part of the walkway that was lined with stone sculptures, all of which were exaggerated depictions of local flora and fauna. A singular news crew—nothing more than a cameraman and field reporter—hung out beneath a clump of oversized stone mushrooms. Other bystanders were spread throughout the walkway, mostly leaning against a fence at the grassy slope’s edge and looking out over the river. A pair of young boys had managed to evade their parents’ sight and climbed atop a sculpture of a moose with antlers in the shape of a heart, presumably for a better view of the action.

  One group among the onlookers stood out to Adah: a trio of girls around her age who were standing around, looking directly up at her and Ami. The reason why became apparent as she flew closer. All three of the girls had mascots with them.

  “Magical girls?” Ami said.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Must have wanted to see some professionals in action.”

  Two of the girls had their arms crossed; they said something to each other that made one of them roll her eyes. The third girl pulled out her phone and started fiddling with it while walking aimlessly back and forth. All three of them looked bored out of their minds.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Adah said.

  It was rare for magical girls to watch other teams take on missions in person, especially a basic C-Rank job. Rather than watching someone else work, you’d rather take a job yourself. If you were taking a day off, you wouldn’t show up either. That’d be like going into the office during your vacation. Not to mention, the optics of a group of magic users lazing about while another team fought a Cruelty would be horrendous. No doubt today’s bystanders had expected that trio to be taking this job, only to watch the girls stand around instead.

  And to have their mascots out… frankly, it was just insulting. It was like they were saying they were ready to help out if needed.

  All the more reason to let Ami put on a show. They could send a message to these girls and the crowd at the same time. Then they could reinforce that message verbally afterward.

  With this mission’s Cruelty, the riverside park offered a perfect spectator experience. Adah and Ami were tasked with taking out a monster akin to a water strider—it would be quick and nimble while gliding on the river, but clumsy if it tried to move on land. The large slope between the river and the park walkway made for an effective barrier between the spectators and the Cruelty, and would turn today’s battle into something like a waterfront concert.

  Just as Adah was thinking that a quick-witted entrepreneur ought to show up with a food cart for this crowd, the water strider Cruelty rounded a bend in the river and came into view. The monster was about the size of an elephant, though it probably weighed less than just one of that elephant’s tusks. The strider stood on the river’s surface with six toothpick legs, each so thin they were barely visible. Its buggy head and body looked as though they were propped up by stilts.

  The Cruelty glided down the river, moving and rotating as smoothly as if it were skating on ice. Its movement left the water surface undisturbed, except for when it occasionally stabbed its front legs into the river like harpoons as it searched for fish to kill. The hooked claws on those front legs were the main threat of this Cruelty, and were enabled by the speed with which it could navigate the water.

  But today, Ami planned to be even faster.

  “Ready when you are, Captain,” she said.

  Already she had the shield of her [Aspis Meniscus] deployed. She held it out like a catcher’s mitt in anticipation of Adah’s own spell.

  “One bomb, coming up,” Adah said as she held out a hand in Ami’s direction.