Ayane and I stayed near the reception, waiting for the person responsible for the attack on our team to appear, and after a few minutes, she did a tall girl with large breasts, black eyes, and brown hair wearing old-fashioned glasses.
She introduced herself in a reserved manner and said she would lead the team, then handed us a map of the city and mentioned that certain places have a higher frequency of monster appearances.
Speaking of which, she told us to be more attentive to those areas in case we happened to be passing by, then she guided us outside without saying much and told us to climb the building.
What seems to be the general mode of transportation for all magical girls, I was able to follow her up there easily, but Ayane couldn't do it perfectly.
It took almost 10 minutes for Ayane to climb using what I had taught her, and during that time, Lenore didn't say anything, just silently observed without helping, but without complaining.
And after Ayane climbed, we continued the path to a more distant point on the outskirts of the city. Getting there took 4 hours because Ayane kept falling off the buildings.
I wanted to help, but Lenore put her hand on my shoulder, stopping me and not saying anything, leaving it like that. She's too reserved for my taste and seems almost as mechanical as I am, but for a different reason.
And after all that work, Ayane learned on her own to jump from building to building more safely without falling, and now we're stealthily on top of a building, waiting for something.
"Okay, you two, I'm going to tell you a few things about how I train newbies," she says seriously while keeping her attention on an abandoned building.
"First, I always aim for self-improvement, which means trying, failing, and trying again until you understand with small helps or tips."
"As in the case of Ayane, whom I saw seemed to know how to climb the buildings, but lacked experience, so I quietly let her learn to do it correctly, and you see, she succeeded."
"It may have taken us a while to get here, but with that, Ayane learned a fundamental thing building-to-building movement is the most commonly used method by magical girls."
"Using a car, motorcycle, or any vehicle would never give us as much freedom of movement as jumping between buildings, where we can cut through easily and avoid traffic."
"That's why it's essential to be able to do this with speed and precision. Setsuna seems to do it relatively well, but her steps are heavy."
Lenore shifts her focus to me.
"They're not as good for moving in fragile locations. Magical girls can make extremely light movements and thus walk even on glass without breaking it."
"You need to learn this if you want to last a while, because stealth is not optional in our line of work. Monsters can quickly detect a magical girl through various things, and sometimes stealth is essential. Understand?"
"Yes!" Ayane says excitedly, nodding her head, while I just agree. It's good advice, and she's right that I need stealth to find the best location to use my sniper.
I already have my mask on, so cameras and civilians can't see me, and I'm glad that neither of them questioned it, although Ayane looked at it curiously.
So I guess all I'm missing is being stealthy in my steps, as she said. I should probably practice that later.
"Lenore, what are we doing here?" I ask her.
"Hunting a specific monster. It's registered in our database and is a real nuisance. First, I'll explain to you two how we classify monsters."
"There are 5 types of monsters and 4 classes for them. With this system, we can always try to choose monsters that won't be a disadvantage for the magical girl going on that mission."
"Their types specify the general abilities they can have and their general mode of operation, and their classes are the threat they represent."
"Type 1 are monsters specialized in mental techniques. They're not as strong or destructive, but they mess with the minds of their targets using mainly hypnosis, mind control, illusion, etc. They're the most common to encounter."
'So that monster that made me have that nightmare was Type 1.' This is really useful to know. Ayane didn't mention this in the diary, even though it's so important.
"Type 2 are monsters with greater physical abilities, usually being super strong and fast. They're not very intelligent and are relatively common as well."
"Be careful that a monster's appearance may not define its type. This is important because there have been magical girls who were defeated by misjudging the monster's type just by looking at its appearance."
"Type 3 are mimicking monsters. They disguise themselves as humans, objects, or animals. They generally don't have power or fall into Type 5 monsters, which I'll mention soon."
"This type usually has high physical abilities and reflexes, but they're relatively easy to kill as long as you don't fall for their tricks."
"However, they're difficult to detect and can easily hide from a magical girl's detection, especially the stronger ones."
"Type 4 are the monsters that use magic. They tend to have extremely high intelligence and use random types of magic. They can be problematic threats and usually require 3 magical girls to deal with them without risk."
"Type 5 are special monsters that can have characteristics of multiple types, being true monsters compared to the others. They are very powerful and it is not recommended to face them alone."
"In addition to being the worst in terms of 'personality,' being intelligent and loving to torture, rape, and kill magical girls on a whim, there have been many casualties in recent years caused by Type 5 monsters."
"Now let's move on to the classes. Are you both memorizing everything correctly?"
"Yes, we are," Ayane and I say at the same time, and Lenore nods in approval.
"The classes are what we use to identify the strength, degree of destruction, and intelligence of the monster. The higher each of these things is, the higher the monster's class."
"Human Class are the weakest monsters, usually being superior to humans in some respects, but can only endanger the lives of a limited number of people."
"They're not very strong, but they tend to be intelligent, so they're not something to be underestimated."
"Colossal Class are monsters that have already become real threats, being strong enough to cause destruction ranging from houses to entire city blocks. They are usually strong and smart enough to give even some veterans a hard time."
"Cataclysm Class are monsters that can literally cause natural disasters or the destruction of entire cities, either by having an intelligence high enough to manipulate the masses, the media, and the government, or by possessing devastatingly destructive power."
"Cataclysm Class monsters are usually Type 5 or the strongest Type 4."
"And finally, we have the Demon Class. We don't really know what the Demon Class is, because we've never seen a monster that could receive that classification."
"We only added it because of Septarion and some of his statements that he made without expecting us to take seriously. But thanks to that, we can assume that in theory, Demon Class monsters could literally end the world."
"They could break the laws of physics or logic, affect abstract concepts like time and space, and literally do things that no magical girl could fight against in any way."
"They would be intelligent monsters with a high mastery of magic, and like all monsters, the logic would be that the stronger they are, the fewer their numbers, so Demon Class monsters would be extremely rare and exist alone or in very limited numbers."
'This... is disturbing to hear.' Ayane also seems uneasy and bothered by this Demon Class. The others can be understood and fought, but this class is literally something terrible.
'If Septarion was the reason this class was added... could it be that... he was actually referring to real demons?' I don't know the difference between demons and monsters, but they are clearly different beings.
Magical girls have never fought a demon in their lives. Most of them probably don't even know demons exist, since if Ayane knew, she would have probably put it in the diary.
"Lenore... the Demon Class... would it be given to real demons?"
"Demons? What do you mean by that, Setsuna?" Lenore asks, confused by what I mentioned.
"You know... if Septarion, who is an Angel, exists... what's to prevent demons from existing?"
This leaves Ayane even more nervous.
"Don't worry about that, Setsuna. Demons are not something we'll be fighting. Septarion never mentioned anything about demons or anything like that, and we've never seen or heard of demons throughout history."
"So don't worry, the Demon Class is more like a legend about a monster of a level never seen before. Basically, it doesn't exist."
"Most monsters are Human Class or Colossal Class. This doesn't take away their dangerousness, but it means we'll never face the risk of something that can break the laws of Physics and Logic with its magic."
'...'
"I understand, thank you for answering the question," I respond mechanically, thinking about it. I'm sure Septarion was referring to real demons, and they probably heard him say something and added a class without being sure.
But it's useful to know these classes and types. It helps a lot more than I expected, and Lenore explains in a way that makes the threat of each one clear. They've really developed a great system for evaluating enemies.