Breathe in, breathe out.

Think.

No, priorities first.

After motioning for Brian to stay, I went to the security door Selene had brought us to and tested the handle. It was unlocked, so I took a deep breath and then slowly opened it, gun raised.

The room’s interior was much like the previous one we were in, just with different furniture. I moved inside, making sure to check the corners first because it felt right… and I’d heard it shouted in a video game before. After sweeping through the lounge, attached camera room, and bathroom, I brought Brian in. Closing the door behind me, I let out a sigh.

“Why are we stopping?” Brian asked, looking up at me.

“I um…” I faltered. “I just… need a minute to plan the next step. You can… rest for a moment, okay?”

He gave me a nod and sat on the couch. I leaned against the wall near the door, closing my eyes. After a moment, I directed my thoughts to Selene.

“You said there were fourteen Anathema. As in, fourteen near the shelter entrance?”

[Correct. Because of the large open area, I am afraid that the moment you shoot you will be discovered even with the lesser silencing enchantment.]

“I don’t… I don’t know how we’re supposed to do this. Is it even possible?”

Everything so far had been a far shot of a plan, but at least had a chance of success. This, though? Congratulations, you’ve killed two Anathema, almost died to one of them, and now you get to face fourteen!

It felt like a sick joke.

[Hmm. I understand that you have not had time to properly acclimate to your new status, so let me remind you of a few things. You have System access now. You can summon resources with points. Even if you end up hurt after taking down Anathema, you can purchase things to heal yourself. You have a gun and an Augment that will allow you to kill, on the low end, three to four Anathema without having to reload. You also have an invisible scout and advisor. If you temporarily leave Brian here, you will only have to protect yourself in a conflict. So my question to you, as a Magical Girl, is this: What exactly is holding you back?]

My mouth opened to respond, but nothing came out. Slowly, I clicked my jaw shut and actually thought about it. What was making me give up so quickly?

Was it the thought of fighting more Anathema? After killing my last one so easily, it wasn’t nearly so daunting a thought. I mean, there was always still a chance of getting hurt, but pain… really wasn’t the issue. Pain didn’t scare me, it hadn’t for a long time. It did make me apprehensive though, immediately thinking about how to avoid it.

Is that it? I’ve grown so used to making plans to avoid risk at all cost, but that doesn’t have to be the case anymore, does it? In fact, I probably have to start taking chances, especially now that I’m a Magical Girl…

[If I may,] Selene continued, [I would suggest trying to look at this situation differently. This may be a little too soon… but many Magical Girls tend to look at their new lives as if they were playing a video game in order to cope with their new role. Considering your aptitudes, perhaps this would be a better perspective to approach things with?]

A video game? That’s ridiculous, this is reality where-

Oh.

I guess it made some sense. I did have a status menu now. Stats, Abilities, Augments, even special items with rarity values… my life really was more like a game now than reality. Sure, I wouldn’t respawn if I died, but… when had I ever treated my life in a game as expendable? Didn’t Selene tell me that they used Magical Girls’ Sunset: Rebellion as a way to test potential Guardians? Wouldn’t that mean the tactics I’d used in it had some merit in reality?

And hadn’t Lily told me I got ridiculously far in that game in only two weeks?

“Okay… I can try, but I don’t think I have enough experience with games to be honest…”

Selene’s head tilted at me with something akin to confusion.

[In the two weeks of playing Magical Girls’ Sunset: Rebellion, you managed to make progress equal to the top 6% of players. You never died. In that time, you progressed to the fifth dungeon without spending any real world currency. Even after defeating a dungeon boss, you regularly went back and fought them completely alone as if you were training on them.]

I shifted uncomfortably.

“I… I wanted to get better as quickly as possible, and they were some of the toughest and most reactive enemies, so I figured training on them would be the best way to improve my skills. Most other enemies in the game only had a few attack patterns and were too easy to predict.”

[Indeed, and your repetitive training regimen will prove to be of great value. Your ability to analyze enemy attack patterns is a highly valued skill. Due to the nature of Anathema, they tend to have stuck behavioral patterns much like that of a video game enemy. The lower level Anathema especially struggle to deviate from what types of attacks they use. If you know their moveset…]

My eyes widened. Knowing how an enemy could react was how I made it so far in Rebellion. Any time I met an enemy for the first time, I would engage it and then dodge at the edge of their range while I watched what kind of attacks they could perform. Once I had them memorized, it was fairly easy to fight around them. If Anathema really behaved like that too…

Alright. If I was playing this as a game, what would my next step be?

I had an escort quest, basically, with enemies guarding the target point. I couldn’t take them on directly, not with their vastly superior numbers. Worse, the longer I waited to deal with them, the higher the chance of more arriving. Without being able to take a slow and steady approach, I had to make full use of the tools at my disposal.

Which meant using the System and the Gate. My System would be a passive help, albeit a rather small one considering I was only gaining a small fraction of the stat bonuses outside of my transformed state. I honestly hadn’t felt all that different so far, but I was also only level one. That left the Gate, my magical shopping center. The problem was that I only had ten points to spend…

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But that wasn’t quite true, was it? If there were fourteen enemies, I would have plenty of points to spend after taking care of them. With access to the first-aid Vault, I also had instant first-aid if things went wrong. So long as I wasn’t instantly incapacitated or took too serious a wound, I was fairly confident I would be capable of recovering from most things using the Zenith technology.

So healing wasn’t an issue. That just left the battle plan. If this were a game, I would… need more information. Enemy types, terrain, possible escape routes. Those would be the main factors in whatever plan I made. Which meant…

I slowly turned to Brian, taking in a deep breath to steady myself. He was sitting on the couch, playing with his figurine. He had a mostly relaxed expression on his face as he played, making quiet sound effects as he made the toy go through different poses. The corners of my mouth twitched in a small smile.

“Brian?” I asked, and he turned to me. “I… I need to go out and, um, scout the rest of the way to the shelter. It… it might take a while, but you’ll be safe here. I promise I won’t be gone long, but you’ll need to lock the door behind me, okay?”

I braced myself for him to panic, to have to explain why it was necessary. So far he’d been remarkably compliant, but it could only last for so long before even he realized I was just faking my way through things and-

“Okay,” he replied with a simple nod.

I blinked.

“You… you’re not scared?” I asked, and he gave me an energetic shake of his head.

“Nope! You’re really cool and beat two of them already! And you have a gun! You’re like a real life Magical Girl, so I’m not worried!”

Something in my chest clenched tightly at that. I ignored the thick swirl of emotions and forced myself to give him a smile. Instead of trying to say anything else, I just motioned him over, and when he was near I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway with Selene. Closing the door behind me, I waited a second before I jiggled the handle to make sure it was locked.

The handle refused to move, and I gave a small sigh of relief. I hadn’t expected Brian’s young age and lack of comprehension of the situation to be so useful, but I suppose it made sense. I had killed two Anathema, so he probably didn’t really understand just how much danger we were both in. Still, I had to make sure to be quick. Even though he should be safe behind the locked and reinforced door this early in the Usurpation, I wasn’t about to take chances.

[I assume this means you have a plan?] Selene interrupted my thoughts, and I blinked.

“Right, sorry,” I whispered with a wince. “I’m still getting used to talking to you in my head. I forget you don’t just read my thoughts.”

[Entirely understandable, and no apology necessary. Though, I would inquire as to our next course of action.]

“I tried looking at this like you suggested,” I whispered, shifting uncomfortably. “So… I think scouting out their location first would be the best bet. I need to see what kinds of Anathema there are and the terrain before I can plan further. Does that sound…?”

[That sounds like a reasonable choice,] Selene said, her tails swishing together into one clump. [Shall I lead the way?]

I nodded, and then we were off. This time, we moved much faster without having to take time for Brian. It also made moving through the mall that much eerier. The dim red light made the dark reflections around me constantly shift, and I felt myself unconsciously clenching my gun tighter.

Still, we managed to make it to a hallway that opened directly to the floor’s central area relatively quickly. There was a big planter holding a tree right near the opening, and I shuffled up to it in a crouch, looking around the area through the tree’s leaves.

What would have been a fairly open space with a high ceiling was littered with food carts, booths, and kiosks selling various types of merchandise. Banners and signs advertising a myriad of items crowded the place, making the winding paths all the more complicated. It reminded me more of a chaotic marketplace than anything else. Various pillars and planters only made the entire thing even more haphazard, and it was hard to see almost anything from where I was crouched.

That didn’t stop me from spotting a few forms slinking around, and my stomach clenched tightly. I saw one or two of the hounds I’d already faced on the prowl, but my eyes quickly went past them to a figure twitching in the darker shadows. It was vaguely humanoid but crouched over on all fours with a bent back. Covered in slick black skin that blended them with the darkness, it was hard to make anything else about them out, but I did see it had large hands with thick claws made of bone. The creature stood oddly still compared to the hounds, only giving an occasional shudder at seemingly random intervals.

“What are those?” I asked Selene in my head as I kept my gun at the ready.

[Some type of ghoul most likely. A striker type, making it slower than the hounds, but their claws are not to be underestimated. Higher level ghouls can tear and chew through metal like paper.]

“Any other types besides the hounds and ghouls? And where is the shelter’s entrance?”

[The shelter has a large stairway leading down to it in the direct middle of the room but isn’t visible from here. There are two other types of Anathema here. The first you can see if you look up.]

My eyes snapped to the ceiling, searching for new enemies. It took me a moment to make out a lump lying in a particularly deep spot of darkness. It was fairly far away from me, and I had to squint to even get an idea of what I was looking at. As I began to pick out a vaguely insectoid shape, I felt myself tensing up even more.

“Is that… a giant wasp?”

[Or something similar. A flying type that shoots stingers at people from a distance. Agile and hard to hit, but fairly weak otherwise.]

I shuddered. It wasn’t that I had a major fear of bees or anything, but the idea of one the size of a cat firing giant needles into me was more than a little nauseating.

“Okay… what about the last one?”

[Unseeable from here, but there was only one that I saw. Imagine a giant gorilla with chitinous armor. I would estimate it to be a bruiser. It should be slow and inflexible, but it will take quite a bit of damage to put it down and is quite strong.]

I nodded. So with the hounds, ghouls, wasps, and gorilla, there were skirmishers, strikers, fliers, and a bruiser. Selene putting classifications on all of them actually did help, especially if I considered them like video game enemies. The hounds and wasps would be my biggest concern with their speed. Everything else, I would theoretically be able to keep at a distance and shoot from relative safety.

But that still left me without any real plan to take them all down at once.

“Selene, can you get a count of how many of each type there are? And also what stores make up the perimeter? Maybe there is something we can use.”

[Of course. Give me a moment.]

She took off, and I made sure to keep careful watch while I waited. While I did, I tried to piece together a plan in my head. Ideally, I needed something to take out as many of the fast movers as possible. If there was some way to trap them or funnel them to take away their number advantage…

I mulled it over until Selene reappeared, skidding to a stop next to me.

[One gorilla, three wasps, four ghouls, six hounds. As for the stores, there are clothing, electronic, fast-food, liquor, book, antique, gardening, and appliance shops.]

I frowned as I let my gaze sweep over the area one more time. It was a good collection, but without a plan…

My eyes stopped on a fire extinguisher attached to one of the pillars. Next to it was a small photo booth with a step ladder leaning against it, and I felt my eyes widen as I looked between the two objects.

“Selene? How… How much can I really use from the stores? Will I get in trouble for taking things from them or anything like that?”

[Not as long as it is used to combat the Anathema. Even damaging a building is nothing to worry about and is hand-waved so long as it isn’t excessive. Governments have long since set up funds to take care of such things. Legally speaking, you have nothing to worry about. In fact, you actually have more legal protections now that you are a Magical Girl, but that explanation can wait for another time. Do you have a plan of some sort?]

I nodded, my mind racing with possibilities. I thought through the plan a few more times before I nodded. It was definitely gamey, but if Selene was right about what low level Anathema were capable of…

“I think I have a plan,” I shifted slightly. “But it might be a little… cheesy.”