Chapter 22: The Ever-Positive Angel Is in Charge of the Magical Girl's Mental Care

The Angel's Descent into the Underground (Amazing!)

Following the drones through the sky, I arrived in the heart of the city before I knew it.

Normally, when you think of a city center, you imagine a place bustling with people—but this was the exact opposite.

The deeper I went into the city, the more the number of drones outnumbered the people.

More homes were either boarded up or had curtains tightly drawn, and many were simply abandoned.

If the outskirts of the city had felt bleak, then the city center was downright desolate and eerie.

It felt like I was looking at a bleached and lifeless city, devoid of any trace of vitality.

"How did it get like this..."

How can people live in a place like this?

I swallowed the words that had risen to the tip of my tongue and glanced around.

Had people fled, or was there simply no one left to maintain the buildings? Either way, the abandoned structures were in terrible condition—even putting it nicely.

Some houses still bore visible signs of battles with monsters.

Others were partially collapsed or in ruins.

"…"

The situation seemed far worse than I had imagined.

'I thought it would be okay because it's supposed to be the safest city…'

Okay my foot. Of the cities I’ve seen so far, this was the worst.

Granted, I've only visited two cities since coming to this world, but still—of all possibilities, it had to be these two:

One where monsters show up daily and the streets are constantly covered in blood.

And this one, a real-life dystopian city where Big Brother exists.

‘…Put like that, it’s a toss-up.’

I paused for a moment, making a sour face, and one of the drones circling ahead turned back toward me.

[Do not stop.]

I nodded at the emotionless warning and resumed flying.

After flying a little farther, we finally came upon something—a large, block-like structure about the height of a one-story building.

…A block? No, it was a building.

Looking closer, it was a strange structure with no windows, no doors—nothing.

Could that even be called a building?

Sure, I’d seen houses with their windows remodeled shut earlier, but at least those showed signs of alteration.

This thing had no such signs.

It was as if windows had never even been included in the blueprints from the beginning.

Actually, forget the windows—there wasn’t even a door.

It looked like a lump of clay neatly shaped by a child—more like an object than a building.

It gave off such an uncanny vibe, like it existed in a different reality altogether.

"Is this… really the place?"

I asked aloud, hoping that it might answer, but the drone just flew on without saying anything.

‘Right. I’m going there anyway. I’ll figure it out once I’m inside.’

And so, I arrived in front of the object-like structure.

The drone stopped in front of it and hovered in place, not moving for some time.

Thinking something might happen, I cautiously stepped closer.

Aside from the faint buzzing of the drone’s wings, there was nothing. No sound. No movement.

‘What is this…?’

Did the drone navigation system glitch out? Is it stuck because this structure is blocking the path?

…Nah, no way. That’d be ridiculous, even for this place.

As I was thinking that, part of the structure’s wall rumbled and began sliding downward.

It was just like the secret entrances you see in cartoons or spy movies.

"…"

The idea of going in there made me uneasy, to say the least, but there was no alternative.

The halo above my head was clearly pointing inside, showing me the magical girl I was searching for was within.

Following the drone inside, the entrance immediately shut behind me with a heavy clang, sealing off the exit as the room’s lights flickered on.

Aside from the large steel door, the room was completely closed off by gray concrete walls.

The drone’s buzzing echoed loudly in the confined space.

As before, the drone hovered in place, just in front of another wall.

After a moment, a hiss of escaping air echoed around me as the steel wall slid open from both sides—revealing, of all things, an elevator.

[Please board the elevator.]

It was a wall-less, open-platform elevator. I stepped onto it and began descending.

Soon, what opened up before my eyes was a vast space so massive that it was hard to believe it was underground.

"Wow…"

I knew this wasn’t the time to be gawking, but as someone who used to be a guy, this was just too cool to ignore.

An enormous underground facility filled with machines and countless hovering drones, buzzing around like a swarm of bees.

It felt like a scene straight out of a sci-fi dream, the kind you’d imagine if a true machine civilization had come to life.

[Organic lifeform transfer complete. Returning to previous assignment.]

[Organic lifeform, please wait here for further guidance.]

"W-Wait! You’re just going to leave me here all alone…?"

The drone, having issued its message, simply turned around and flew back the way it came, leaving me all alone in this unfamiliar space.

It was a bit disconcerting, but it was fine.

At the very least, I’d made it close to where the magical girl was supposed to be.

Rather than thinking I’d been abandoned here, it was better to think of it as being guided this far.

Mhm. That’s right.

I nodded and decided to follow the instruction: wait for further guidance.

There wasn’t much else to do, so I passed the time by looking around.

But honestly, there wasn’t much to see.

Wherever I looked—machines, machines, and more machines.

If it had been cyberpunk-level aesthetics, maybe it’d have been at least visually cool, but this was more like a massive underground factory. Just concrete and steel.

…Do the people above even know this space exists under their feet?

Do they know that not just the sky, but even the earth below has changed so drastically?

‘It really makes me realize again how amazing Seo-ah is…’

The fact that she earned the title of the strongest magical girl, despite the existence of someone who commands an army of drones and controls a vast, industrial-scale facility like this… it made me wonder just how powerful Yoo Seo-ah really was when she went all out.

As I was lost in that thought, a new drone zipped up to me in high speed.

[Organic lifeform confirmed. Subject matched. Proceeding to transfer organic lifeform to Sector B-02.]

[Organic lifeform, please move according to the guidance of the drone.]

Once again, I followed the drone as instructed.

The moment we crossed into a new zone—indicated by the support beams changing from “A” to “B”—the atmosphere shifted dramatically.

If the last area had felt like a mechanical empire, this one felt more like a research facility.

Everywhere I looked were transparent cube-like structures, and inside them…

"Monsters…?"

Not just one or two.

At least dozens of monsters were trapped inside those clear enclosures.

Some of them—still alive—were restrained, bound at the limbs, and being… ‘analyzed.’

That’s the nice way of putting it. What they were really doing was dissecting them alive.

The scene was so gruesome that I froze in place, unable to fully take it in.

One monster was literally being disassembled while still conscious, its body wide open.

No matter how much you tried to soften it with words like “study” or “research,” it was just plain brutal.

As I stood there in shock, the drone turned toward me.

[Please proceed, organic lifeform.]

That flat, emotionless mechanical voice sent a chill down my spine.

Still, I forced myself forward.

If it really got dangerous, I could always escape. I had that option.

Just wait for the right moment. If things go south, I fly.

With that resolve in mind, I swallowed hard and followed the drone deeper in, until we reached another section—this one filled with monsters that had wings.

There were monsters shaped like bats, birds, chickens, even butterflies.

Those were the mild ones with animal form. Some of the others were beyond description.

Monsters with pale white wings grotesquely plastered onto round blobs of flesh. Others floated with nothing but giant eyeballs, lacking even wings. And then… there was one that looked like a pale girl with angelic wings, like a twisted imitation of an angel.

All of them were limp, wings pierced with dozens of stakes and bound by heavy chains.

I could tell instinctively.

These weren’t test subjects, they were finished. Their “analysis” was over. They were now being managed.

As I stared blankly at them, a transparent cube, just like the ones the monsters were kept in, descended in front of me.

[Please enter, organic lifeform.]

[This facility has 65 methods prepared to neutralize you.]

[If you comply peacefully, we promise to treat you humanely.]

“…And if I refuse?”

[You will be captured according to procedure. For the safety of the citizens, your abilities and body will be analyzed and dismantled. Any remains will be preserved for future purposes.]

Even knowing I couldn’t die, the emotionless mechanical voice and its terrifying content still made my skin crawl.

— That girl, the last time I saw her, she looked in really bad shape.

Now I understood why Seo-ah had said that.

After a brief pause, I spoke up, cautiously trying a different route.

“I’d like to make a deal.”

[Request not recognized.]

“I want to meet Han Soyu.”

[Request not recognized.]

“Can you at least tell her someone who knows Yoo Seo-ah is here?”

[Request not recognized.]

“…Is that so.”

Originally, I’d planned to cooperate obediently.

I figured if I waited patiently, Han Soyu would eventually show up to check the data, or I would have a chance to talk to her briefly.

But now I understood.

This entire facility wasn’t managed by Han Soyu, it was completely run by AI.

Han Soyu had locked herself away, entrusting everything to an artificial intelligence she either built or inherited.

Capturing and experimenting on monsters like this? Probably justified in her mind as the only way to stop the monsters without doing so herself.

The sky blanketed with drones? Same logic.

Magical girls can instinctively sense where monsters are, but machines can’t. So the AI compensated by covering the entire city in surveillance and defense.

Probably that was their optimal solution based on calculations.

Unlike magical girls, machines have limitations.

Instead, there is only one magical girl, but machines can exist in overwhelming numbers.

“…Well, no choice then.”

[Hostile intent detected. Initiating containment procedures.]

Looks like I’ll have to smash through that door and go give her a big ol’ hug.

Next Chapter