Magical Girl Raising Project, Vol. 1 Read online

  Copyright

  Magical Girl Raising Project, Vol. 1

  Asari Endou

  Translation by Alexander Keller-Nelson

  Cover art by Marui-no

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  “MAHO SHOJYO IKUSEI KEIKAKU” by Asari Endou, Marui-no

  Copyright © 2012 Asari Endou, Marui-no

  All rights reserved.

  Original Japanese edition published by Takarajimasha, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with Takarajimasha, Inc. through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2017 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On Edition: June 2017

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Endou, Asari, author. | Marui-no, illustrator. | Keller-Nelson, Alexander, translator.

  Title: Magical girl raising project / Asari Endou ; illustration by Marui-no ; translation by Alexander Keller-Nelson.

  Other titles: Mahåo Shåojo Ikusei Keikaku. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2017–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017013234 | ISBN 9780316558570 (volume 1 : paperback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Computer games—Fiction. | Social media—Fiction. | Competition (Psychology)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E526 Mag 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013234

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-55857-0 (paperback)

  978-0-316-56012-2 (ebook)

  E3-20170519-JV-PC

  What Is Magical Girl

  Raising Project?

  Simple and fun for beginners, yet deep enough to keep experts addicted!

  Beautiful card art from world-renowned artists!

  Highly animated characters like you’d find in an action game!

  Five hundred character types and two thousand items! The combinations are infinite!

  Completely free to play! No purchase required—ever!

  Welcome to a world of dreams and magic!

  This is Magical Girl Raising Project, an RPG where you can become the ultimate magical girl! The Magical Kingdom has appointed you as Earth’s guardian—a cute, fashionable, and powerful heroine, who must use her powers to fight against the forces of darkness! But don’t forget the magical pals, costumes, magic items, and catchphrases you also have at your disposal. Defeat enemies to gain magical candies and become the magical girl of your dreams! The world is always in dire need of more of you, so be brave and take the first step! Your dreams will surely come true.

  PROLOGUE

  That night, Ako Hatoda was in a bind.

  Having gone straight to her part-time job after school, it wasn’t until she’d arrived at her front door, after walking home along the road with the lone bus stop, that she realized she’d lost her key. The small bit of metal would take forever to find under the best of circumstances, not to mention it was night out. It was fall, meaning the sun set earlier. Her only aids would be the weak light of the streetlamps and the moon.

  Of course, she could just wait until her aunt and uncle came home to unlock the door. But that wouldn’t change the fact that she’d lost the key… They’d have to change the locks in case someone picked it up and decided to use it. The last thing she wanted to be was an inconvenience.

  Three months ago, her father had been arrested for stabbing her mother to death, and Ako’s uncle, her mother’s younger brother, took her in. She knew how much of a burden she was… She got to attend the same school, received an allowance, and wanted for nothing, but she was a constant nuisance.

  She’d once visited her father in jail, but he’d turned her away, saying “Don’t ever come back.” At school, no one talked to Ako. For some reason, everyone knew about the argument between her parents that had turned deadly, and they whispered rumors about her incessantly. But no one talked to her. Ako was just a plague, a source of endless trouble for others.

  So she decided to kill herself. Her mother had once complained tiredly, “You’re as stubborn as your father,” but the decision she’d reached seemed wholly reasonable to Ako. Better this than to remain a nuisance. She had slowly begun preparations for her suicide. She’d disposed of all her personal effects, had written her will, and had been steadily stealing her uncle’s sleeping pills here and there so they wouldn’t be missed, hiding them in her desk drawer. She only needed a little more to do the deed.

  But now she’d gone and lost the key. The whole point of killing herself was to keep from causing trouble, yet here she was causing even more. Disgusted with herself for being stupid enough to lose her key at such a critical juncture, she sank down on the doorstep, hugging her knees. In her mind, the missing key became a symbol of everything bad in her life. It was all she could think about, and tears started pouring from her eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  The voice was out of place. Maybe not so much around a middle schooler like Ako, but not one you were likely to hear in a residential neighborhood at night, and especially not one this adorable.

  “If something’s wrong, please tell me. Like… being locked out of the house because you lost your key?”

  Ako looked up to see a girl so beautiful her heart raced just looking at her. Her white skin was almost translucent against the darkness of the night, her features all flawlessly arranged on her perfect face. Her smile was slightly awkward, and the contrast with her striking appearance made it that much lovelier.

  Her outfit, however, was quite strange. At first glance, it seemed like a school uniform, but the style was way too garish. In fact, it was more like cosplay. She had a scarf fringed with frills and a skirt adorned with white flowers. Her armbands were emblazoned with some kind of school insignia, but it wasn’t local. The same crest decorated her knee-high socks—no, they were actually white boots. The moonlight illuminated her platinum-blond hair, which was done up with a ribbon and flowers of purest white.

  The words “magical girl” popped into Ako’s head. Stunned, she somehow managed to convey that she had, in fact, lost her key. The girl nodded and said, “I’ll be right back,” then vanished with a gust of wind, a fruity scent tickling Ako’s nose.

  She had met a real magical girl.

  Five minutes later, the girl returned, breathing heavily.

  “Is this your key?”

  It was indeed hers.

  “Don’t go losing it again, now.”

  The girl smiled, and Ako, captivated, stood to than
k her. Somehow, even though they looked nothing alike, her expression reminded Ako of her mother, back when she still loved her father. It was a cheerful smile that made others happy to see it.

  She bowed and thanked the girl, but when she looked up, no one was there. Her benefactor just had to have been a magical girl. Ako’s spirits soared, and her heart felt warm. She didn’t feel like dying anymore, now that she knew magical girls were real. She’d been saved. Ako wondered if she could become one, too—if she did, would people need her? The prospect was exciting. Did someone out there need Ako?

  CHAPTER 1

  BLACK & WHITE

  After the government merged several municipalities four years ago, the harbor metropolis of N City became the largest city in the area. It encompassed the futuristic business sector, where uniquely designed buildings jutted up around city hall; mountainous villages, abandoned and left to rot; a great hospital, equipped with the latest medical technology; and a massive factory that had gone bankrupt and had to be demolished. Altogether, this formed a uniquely twisted city forced into being by the government.

  And six months ago, reports of “magical girls” started flooding in from this N City.

  As a car raced down the highway at blistering speeds well above the speed limit, the driver heard a knock on the window. He turned to look, thinking it was a rock, and discovered a smiling witch riding a broomstick. “You should slow down,” she warned.

  As a truck bore down on a child chasing a ball into the street, a girl clad in armor appeared between them and stopped the truck with her bare hands, then disappeared without a word.

  As a guy hit on some young women and refused to take no for an answer, a girl with doglike ears ran up on all fours and dragged him away.

  The only thing witnesses could agree on was that the girls were “too beautiful to be human.” Yet their appearances, their clothes, and the situations in which they appeared were all scattered and unrelated. No one could tell the story the same way twice.

  At first, people laughed it off as overactive imaginations, tall tales, and general BS. But the sightings continued pouring in, and a video of “Two Angels In Flight Holding Hands” was even uploaded to a video-sharing website, causing the rumors to spread like wildfire.

  “It’s real!” “No, it’s gotta be a fake.” In the workplace, in schools, on the Net—people everywhere were talking. Sometimes self-professed recipients of their help stepped forward and shared their stories, fanning the debate over the believability of the videos and the existence of these girls.

  One witness swore that upon asking one, “Who are you?” the girl had answered, “I am a magical girl.” It was at this point the “mystery girls” became “magical girls.” Fan sites and research blogs cropped up one after another online, and aggregate sites updated daily with news about the sightings. One of the latest was particularly thrilling: A gunslinger girl like something straight out of a Western had raided the apartment of a triad gangster in the red-light district, beat up the bodyguards, and stolen all the money and guns inside.

  “Hey, doesn’t this sound like it actually happened?”

  Three middle school girls sat waiting at a bus stop, one showing the other two the screen of her smartphone. On it was an aggregate site with the latest magical-girl reports.

  “You really like that crap, don’t you? No way it’s real.”

  “What? It seems totally real, don’t you think?”

  “This article’s too believable. It’s like whoever wrote it was actually there.”

  “Yocchan, you always shut me down. Fine, so what if it does sound like they were there?”

  “I shut you down because what you’re saying is stupid, Sumi. If whoever posted it was actually involved, one of the gangsters or the mystery girl herself would have to have written an article, and they aren’t gonna do that. Plus, aren’t you too old for this?”

  “Wouldn’t it be cool if they did exist, though?”

  The third girl, watching her friends’ discussion, could no longer keep quiet.

  “Yocchan, Sumi, you’re both wrong. If magical girls were real, they wouldn’t do stuff like that. They care about justice and helping people in need.”

  “Thanks for the flowery opinion.”

  “Yuki, your world is all, like, rainbows and unicorns, huh? It’s almost delusional.”

  Behind the bus stop where the middle school girls argued over the rumors was a seven-story office building, the Seventh Sankou building. Atop its roof, a lone girl was considering the same article. She wore a Japanese kimono, but one showing enough skin to be a swimsuit. On her feet were extra-tall geta wooden slippers, a shuriken pin in her hair—all in all, more of a costume than an outfit. Only a magical girl would go out in public with such a getup in N City.

  “Is this for real…?” she asked, pointing at the article on her magical phone. The heart-shaped screen shut off for a moment. Then, a light shone forth to form the holographic image of a sphere, hard and smooth like tile, floating in front of a lake background. Its right half was black, the left white, in an unsettling design. From its body sprouted one wing that fluttered like a butterfly’s, scattering glittering scales into the air with every beat. Its face was an emoji-like smile, frozen in place and never changing, from which came a high, childlike voice.

  This creature was Fav, a mascot character.

  “It could be a fake, pon. Or it could be real, pon.” The sphere did a flip and finished with a burst of sparkling scales. Blinded, the girl averted her eyes. “Calamity Mary could do something like this, pon. That silly girl loves to play the outlaw, so she tends to pull crazy stunts, pon.”

  Calamity Mary had laid claim to N City’s Jounan district. Magical girls would often call the area under their protection their “land” or “home,” but she more fittingly called it her “territory.” Her actions warranted unkind descriptors such as “vulgar,” “crude,” “savage,” and more. Even the mascot had belittled her with “outlaw.”

  “So it’s true…?”

  “Fav can’t possibly tell you that, pon. If Fav spilled the beans every time someone asked what another magical girl was up to, Fav would be a tattletale, pon. And fairies hate tattletales, pon.”

  “Then what about this…?” She swiped a finger across the screen to a new page. Sightings of the “girl in white” vastly outnumbered those of all the other magical girls combined. She even had her own special section of the site dedicated to her. “I think that’s too many sightings.”

  “Oh, Snow White’s page? She works the hardest of all, pon. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, pon. She works double, even triple what you see there for the good of the people, pon.” The clearly inorganic black-and-white sphere with its organic-looking wing did two more flips and landed on a flower. “Ripple, weren’t you looking at that site before, pon?”

  “Was I…?”

  “Is a rivalry brewing, pon?”

  “No… I’m just surprised she works so hard.”

  “Rivalries are good in Fav’s opinion, pon. It’s a wonderful thing to have everyone competing, pon.”

  “Hmm…”

  The girl, Ripple, looked away from her device, brought her dangling legs together, and dived from the edge of the roof she’d been sitting on, landing easily on the ground sixty feet below.

  “Why’d you suddenly jump down, pon?”

  “A pest is coming, so I just wanted to get out of the way…”

  “A pest, pon?”

  Ripple looked up from the valley between office buildings, and Fav followed her line of sight. A point in the sky grew steadily larger until it was recognizable as a person. Seeing who it was, Fav called out, “Top Speed!”

  Top Speed, a witch riding a broom, descended into the concrete forest and peered at the other girl’s face.

  “How ya been, Ripple?” Ripple clicked her tongue loudly in response, and Top Speed smiled wanly. “Prickly as ever.”

  “I should have hidden faster…”


  “We’re both magical girls—we should get along more!”

  “Shut up…”

  “Well, anyway.”

  Ripple tsked in frustration again, but Top Speed paid her no heed. She was a stubborn sort—one of the reasons Ripple disliked her. That very stubbornness probably prevented Top Speed from noticing, too.

  “Have you seen this article?” Top Speed held out her magical phone to show the news site she had been browsing. The gist of it was that the costumes of the rumored altruists in N City, aka “magical girls,” resembled the ones in the popular mobile game Magical Girl Raising Project.

  “A lot of people are connecting the dots. This could be bad, don’t ya think?”

  “It’s not a problem at all, pon.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “If a magical girl was leaking information, that would be against the rules and a big problem indeed, but Fav knows none of you are so naughty, pon. News stories about us from regular people are just free advertisement, pon. It’s wonderful, pon.”

  The little sphere had a tendency to talk like a salesman. When Ripple had first transformed, she’d pointed this out. Fav had unabashedly responded, “It’s more like HR than sales.”

  About two months ago, Kano Sazanami had gained her costume and powers.

  She’d heard the local legend that one in tens of thousands of Magical Girl Raising Project players had become real magical girls, but had never taken it seriously. From kindergarten through middle school, people had insulted her for no reason at all, and she’d always handled it by hurting them until they squealed and submitted. But when she started high school, various obstacles made it difficult to solve problems with violence.

  The fifth would-be stepfather her mother brought home had touched her butt, a disgrace she had replied to with her fist before she packed her bags and left home. She found an empty apartment to live in by herself, and as long as she stayed there, she couldn’t afford to get fired from her part-time job. As she fought through the mounting expenses, she also made sure to attend high school so she could have a future.