I walked through the dark alleyways with slow but steady steps. The sound of my whistling echoed on the walls. If anything with good hearing was nearby, it was most certainly aware of my presence by now.
"We got two fools approaching from 9 o'clock, Blue-sama~"
As if on cue, a voice delivered the information I wanted to hear. I looked at a broken piece of mirror lying on the ground beside me. Reflected on its surface was a girl who looked exactly like me but who wasn't exactly my reflection. My face was almost always stuck in an expression of boredom or apathy. Showing good emotions through my face was a hard endeavor, and bad emotions were mostly limited to subtle changes in my eyes and corners of my mouth.
The girl reflected in the mirror was different, though. Although her face was the same as mine she was always grinning like an idiot.
Mostly because she was.
"Thanks, Mary"
As I spoke my gratitude, a huge green webbed hand lunged toward me from the shadows, brown claws protruding from the fingers that tried to catch my head—Of course, I evaded with ease by stepping back before it could touch me. My assailant revealed itself as it hissed at me, sticking out his long and pointy tongue.
"Looks like an ordinary Frogmen, should be easy"
The space around me cracked and broke like glass, instantly exchanging my human body for the magical one made for my witch persona—Blue Alice. My deep black hair turned into strands of gold and a golden star appeared in the middle of my pupils. The simple black dress I wore turned into a long blue dress with a white apron and frills.
The black ribbon in the shape of bunny ears on top of my head twitched as the air behind me shifted suddenly, the second Frogmen launching at me with his mouth wide open—But it was of no concern to me.
I turned around to look at the Frogmen in the eyes as a mirror in the shape of a knife manifested in my hand with a flash. I could see its wary expression when he noticed the knife, but I didn't attack him—I disappeared like a ghost in the wind.
All Witches have unique and often weird powers, and they obtain more as they grow their magical prowess by killing Devils and eating their tainted souls—But their first magical ability will always be the core of their capabilities.
[Mirror Movement] is the name of my core ability. It allows me to almost instantly move inside any mirror I have seen before, and exit just as fast.
I moved inside one of the mirror shards scattered all around the place—Right behind the Frogmen that tried to eat me. I drew a line with my knife over the back of the devil, and a sound like whistling echoed in the alleyway as a large cut appeared on the devil's back, splattering the walls and floor with dark-ish blood. That was the effect of my second magical ability [Reflected Effect].
It was a strong ability that allowed me to interact with the real world safely from inside the mirror regardless of distance, but it had drawbacks. Firstly, while all effects were instantaneous, the magical output was determined by the size of the mirror, if a mirror was smaller than me then I couldn't possibly exert all my power from it, the smaller it was, the weaker my attacks would be—Of course, it also worked the other way around, but giant mirrors are hard to find by and much harder to move around without being questioned, and would be too eye-catching. Secondly, the mirrors could barely withstand my magic and cracks would appear after using [Reflected Effect] once, if I tried to use it twice from the same mirror it would just break and ricochet back to me.
"They noticed, Blue-sama"
Mary spoke as she appeared behind me, touching my shoulder. The next instant the tongue of the Frogmen I injured crashed against the mirror shard, breaking the concrete floor beneath, but by that point, I had already moved to another mirror.
Any magical ability other than [Mirror Movement] always generates a magic signal, which most devils and witches can easily detect. The moment I attacked, my position would be revealed, but it was not a big problem here, since there were so many mirrors.
I moved to a mirror that was very close to the feet of the frogmen and slashed at his head. He managed to evade just quick enough to avoid getting his head severed, but I still managed to cut off its tongue. Because of the sudden movements he had to make to evade, the frogmen was out of balance, so I decided to use that to my advantage.
Before any of the two frogmen could attack me again I moved to another mirror that pointed at the back of the injured one and made a pushing motion in his direction. Immediately the frogmen was sent flying forward toward a wall, which had a particularly large mirror shard resting on it. I moved into the mirror and slashed again, separating its head from its body in one swift motion before the corpse crashed against the wall right beside the mirror.
There was still another one though, so I couldn't relax. A simple frogmen was no threat to me, but I couldn't let them escape, or I would be made fun of by Red and there is nothing I hate more.
"You give those vermins too much credit if you think they can assess danger and flee without being on the verge of death first, Blue-sama"
Mary spoke as the remaining frogmen leaped towards the mirror, proving her point. Frogmen weren't exactly stupid, but they lacked judgment and team play, despite being numerous. Without a frogmen princess or queen to command them, they were easily predictable.
I didn't slash at the devil and instead let it keep his course. If the mirror I was currently on was shattered I would be forced out, letting me open for an attack, but of course, I had countermeasures.
The moment his fist made contact with the surface of the mirror, his whole arm was pulled in without damaging the mirror, and instead came out of another mirror in the opposite direction. That was my third and last magical ability, [Mirror Gate] which simply allowed me to connect two mirrors to use as portals.
I moved to another mirror and walked out of it before kicking a stone at the mirror from which the green arm was sticking out. As the mirror shattered the arm was cut off cleanly, and the frogmen howled in pain. My mirror knife disappeared in a flash as I dashed towards the Frogmen with bloodshot eyes.
I dodged a punch aimed at my head and delivered a left jab to the chest, breaking its ribcage before punching through the devil with a right jab, splattering blood on the wall behind the now-dead frog, and drenching most of my arm.
"...Wait what?"
All devils are resilient, even those at the bottom of the ladder like the frogmen. For a weak witch like me, who is not even a CQC specialist, to be able to punch through their bodies like that is definitely strange.
"Are they runts?"
"Nope, it seems they're just newborns"
Mary cleared my confusion as she appeared inside a mirror beside me. It was the same with the red frogmen we encountered yesterday.
"First a newborn berserker frogmen and now a pair of normal newborns?"
"You should consider yourself lucky, berserker frogmen are mid-ranking devils but when they're young they're just slightly stronger than an adult frogmen, if it had grown for another week you would have died again~"
My bunny ribbon twitched in annoyance when I heard her snarky remark. I would have given her a good spanking but I was busy with the corpses, extracting the souls takes a little while.
"Lucky my ass, one newborn I can blame on coincidence, but two means there is a princess and her newborn clan somewhere close to my territory...I don't know if I can deal with that"
Frogmen biology is strange. When a queen's brood grows too large for her to control, they will come out of hell to lay their eggs somewhere hidden in our world, among those eggs there is always a Frogmen princess who will eventually grow into a queen if left unchecked, and in occasion some mutants like the berserker. While they are young they're weak, so dealing with them in small numbers is easy, but a queen lays hundreds of eggs.
"You could ask Green or Yellow-sama for help~"
"They're both freaks with a loose screw, I pass"
"Like you are any better!"
My ribbon twitched again and I swear I could feel a vein about to poop. I sighed and directed my attention back to the corpses, pushing my magic into them. After a moment the flesh lost most of its color and two spheres made of black mist emerged from them, and without missing a beat I ate both of them. They were small and dissolved in the mouth, so gulping them down was easy.
"Congratulations, with those we are at 98 devil souls, just 102 more and we will learn a new magical ability~"
"Shut it you shitty brat, no chocolate for you!"
"Gah!?"
She made a weird noise and a grim face, but I didn't care.