Chapter 9 – Paradigm Shift

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…

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

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-