10 Magical Girl Meets Bears

Author: Kumanano
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7313mj/10/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

I come to the mountains to defeat a bear that has become a magical beast.
The season is winter.
Snow is piled on the mountains.
But I’m not cold.
The magical girl outfit doesn’t only defend; it protects you from heat and cold too.
My legs and arms and face are showing, but it’s strange that I’m not cold.
Incidentally, you can protect yourself from heat and cold by covering your body with mana as well.
Lately I’ve been wrapping myself in mana when I go to school.
I’m not cold, so it helps.

And when I arrive at the mountains, Dad calls, and I can pick up.
By then the phone charge has gone up to 50%.
I put the phone away in the Extra-dimensional Box.

“So, where’s the bear?”
“That way.”

I follow the Cat God flying through the sky.
Then there it is: the bear I was looking for, tainted by miasma and turned vicious.
If this bear came to where people are, there would definitely be damage.
I use magic and fight the vicious bear.
The bear’s eyes are red, its fangs bared, and it comes at me.
The bear slashes the magic I loose with its claws.

“Strong.”

When the bear swings its arm, something like a black blade comes at me.
Miasma loaded with mana.
I block it with a mana barrier.
Once I block the attack, I loose wind magic at the piled snow to block the bear’s vision. At the same time I loose magic bullets from left and right.
Magic bullets come at the bear from both sides, its vision stolen.
The bear with its vision blocked can’t dodge the magic bullets, and the magic bullets go through its body.
The bear that took the magic bullets falls to the ground.
It took a little work, but I was able to defeat it.
As I look at the defeated bear, there’s a small sound of plants being pushed aside. I look that way, and two cubs appear and come close to the bear’s corpse.

“Looks like she was a mother.”

The Cat God says it while looking at the cubs.

“A mother…”

I can’t take my eyes off the cubs.
That sight looks like me when I was little.
When Mom died, I clung to her and cried.
I cried for days.

“What happens to those bears?”
“Happens—we aren’t going to do anything, so I don’t know.”

In other words, we go home like this.
After that, no one knows what happens to the cubs.
Whether the two of them survive, or whether, having lost their mother, they lose the will to live and might die.
When Mom died, I had Dad.
But those bears don’t.
And it’s winter now. There’s no food.

“Hey, you can form a contract with animals, right?”

I’ve seen other magical girls form contracts with animals.

“Don’t tell me you mean to form a contract with those bears?”
“…I’ll raise those kids.”

If I abandon them here, I’ll regret it.
Half of it is atonement.

“I don’t mind, but are you sure? If you form a contract, they’ll live on your mana. The instant you cut the contract, they’ll die.”

I look at the cubs clinging to the mother bear.
I killed these kids’ mother.

“I’ll protect these kids.”

I go closer to the cubs.

“Grr.”

When I come close, the two bears growl.

“I’m sorry. Your mother is dead.”
“Kuuun.”

Maybe my words got through; the two cubs cry sadly.

“Won’t you come with me? If you stay like this, you might die. So form a contract with me.”

The cubs leave their mother and come over to me.
Then they lick my hands.

“Looks like they’ve accepted you.”
“How do we form a contract?”
“I’ll deploy a magic circle, so pour mana into the cubs inside that magic circle.”

When the Cat God says that, a magic circle is deployed with me and the cubs at the center.
I hug the cubs and pour in mana.
The cubs don’t struggle; they let me hold them quietly.
Then the light of the magic circle fades.

“Contract complete.”
“Kuuun.”

The bears cry in my arms.

“Their colors changed?”

When I look at the cubs in my arms, the bears that had been brownish have changed into a black bear and a white bear.

“They became your contracted beasts.”

My contracted beasts.
I hug the two cubs again.

“Well then, I’ll bury your mother. Is that all right?”
“Kuuun.”

I leave the cubs and open a hole in the ground with magic.
Then I slowly float the mother bear’s body and put it in the hole.
The cubs look into the hole, sad.

“I’m going to bury her.”
“Kuuun.”

I cover it with earth and fill the hole.
Then I put a somewhat large stone on top of the filled hole.
I drop to my knees and put my hands together.

“I’ll protect these children. So please rest easy.”
“Kuuun.”

The cubs sit beside me, as if saying goodbye.
Then after a while, they press against me.

“Is it all right now?”
“Kuuun.”

After that, I heard an explanation from the Cat God about the bears I’d contracted.
Basically they get their meals from my mana, so they don’t need to eat.
I’d heard that from other magical girls, so I knew. If they needed meals, the cost of feeding bears would have been rough.
But he explains that if they do eat, it can also stand in for mana.
And that once you form a contract, you can summon them freely.

“Where are they before I summon them?”
“Inside you.”
“Inside me? Then if I die—”
“If you die, the summoned beasts die too. I said at the start. They’re one with you.”

In other words, these bears became part of me.
If I die, these kids die too.
Just that even if these kids die, I don’t, apparently.

And when I got home, I named the black bear Kumayuru, and the white bear Kumakyuu.