Iris had never thought fighting was a good thing.
But to say she didn’t enjoy it at all would be a lie.
She was a magical girl who believed she fought for justice, but to claim she didn’t feel exhilarated while fighting would be dishonest.
After all, she was a magical girl.
The combatants were no match for her.
Even when the lieutenants came up with all kinds of new ideas, the magical girls would overcome them effortlessly.
For that reason, one particular combatant who persistently challenged her every time became a thorn in her side.
The easiest way to identify that combatant… there were physical characteristics, of course, but it was also about their attitude.
Always maintaining a slightly cocky demeanor, this combatant from the organization of evil constantly schemed strange ways to somehow defeat Iris.
To be honest, that annoyance was also a slight source of enjoyment.
Among all the people who only ever fled, this was the only one who actively sought combat. It was irritating but strangely welcoming.
Victory against other combatants meant the fight was over.
A few blasts would drive the frontline combatants away, and that would be it.
There was no reason to pursue them further.
But the battles with that combatant—Jeong Jieun—were slightly different.
Iris viewed victory as her opponent giving up.
This arrogance came from confidence in her undefeated streak, where she assumed her opponent would give up and walk away.
Perhaps that’s why, when Iris lost a battle to Jeong Jieun and failed to protect the researcher, the shock was so immense.
…And when she later learned about the combatant’s situation, she began to wonder—had she started seeing their fights as some sort of game?
While her opponent fought with all their might, breaking their bones in the process, Iris merely felt a peculiar sense of rivalry.
That realization gave her chills.
This was the reason Iris remained in this place.
However, while she had a reason, she lacked a clear goal.
What would lead her to achieve that uncertain goal?
Seeing Jeong Jieun experience happiness?
Living a life filled with hope?
For something supposedly aimed at breaking all of that, her goal was far too vague.
Besides, that didn’t even seem to align with Jeong Jieun’s objectives.
Although she claimed her objective was revenge, she hadn’t thought about what would come after.
For now, she just wanted to survive without giving up, even in these circumstances.
That, more than anything, seemed to be Hayoon’s goal.
It was all so strange.
Iris realized that Jeong Jieun’s motives ran on emotions far removed from hope.
And those emotions were anything but bright or hopeful.
Yet, the sight of Jeong Jieun struggling forward without giving up felt as though it represented hope itself.
“This is… remarkable.”
When I muttered that, Cherry puffed out her chest proudly with a satisfied expression.
Before I realized it, I was patting Cherry’s head.
Then, I noticed Hayoon staring intently at my hand and quickly pulled it away.
What’s with her lately?
Is it that?
Does my behavior come off as racist?
I mean, if I called someone older than me “cute” just because they’re a little short—and if their height was related to their race—yeah, that might seem kind of racist.
Considering Hayoon’s righteous personality, it’s no surprise she might think that way.
Should I be more careful?
The more I try to be mindful, the more endless it feels.
Just a little while ago, I was convinced everything was over and kept pushing it all away, but seeing Hayoon risk her life to save me…
I can’t bring myself to sulk anymore.
At the same time, I also don’t want to seem like a bad person.
Lately, it’s been hard to fall asleep at night.
Hayoon is lying right next to me, and just being conscious of that makes me recall all the things I said and did to her after coming here.
It makes me want to kick the sleeping bag in frustration.
Of course, since Hayoon is sharing it with me, I can’t actually do that.
Anyway, back to the point.
Cherry didn’t come all this way completely unprepared.
Whether she knew this would happen or planned for it to happen, she had embedded a projector-like function into her translation device—the ribbon around her neck.
It didn’t seem like a projector I was familiar with—no lenses, no minimum focus distance—but the end result was similar.
And what that projector showed me was a map of Seoul.
It didn’t have any navigation features, just the map itself.
But the map was filled with various pieces of information.
Come to think of it, I’d never even been to the chairman’s house.
How did we manage to get there from the sky?
My phone had been turned off the entire time, of course.
Connecting to the internet might have revealed our location.
I could have turned the phone on while keeping the internet and GPS disabled, but what high school girl keeps an offline map of Seoul saved on her phone?
Besides, the appearance of the chairman’s house was more important than the map.
And not just the chairman’s house.
The events that led us here were the same.
I had wished for “a place where no one could find me,” and that’s what happened.
But if we had simply left it to chance, we could’ve ended up in a random spot on Earth.
There was no guarantee that spot wouldn’t be in a city.
Was this because of “magic”?
Or because I was so convinced it would work that it simply did?
“Hmm.”
Cherry looked smug, and James made a sound of disapproval.
“Does the map even matter? You can teleport even without knowing the exact location, as long as it’s described to you.”
“Have you never guided a magical girl before?”
Cherry said, raising her chin slightly at James.
“No wonder you always lose in fights.”
“…I have won before,” James muttered.
“Just once,” Cherry shot back.
Considering the consequences of that single victory, it couldn’t be called a minor feat.
But I stayed silent, sensing that siding with anyone here would only drag the conversation out.
“You see, there’s a common misconception that imagination is stronger when you don’t know something. In reality, the more information you have, the more concrete your abilities become.”
James didn’t look convinced, so Cherry continued.
“Think about all the things Jieun has accomplished so far. Does she have rocket science in her head?”
“No.”
“Exactly. But she can still wield that hammer effortlessly. At the very least, such imagination requires knowing that rockets exist in the first place.”
…Is that how it works?
“The gap between what’s known and unknown—that’s what we call imagination. For imagination to be concrete, you need a solid foundation of knowledge. That’s because magic inevitably clashes with reality. As long as ‘reality’ exists, you can’t simply erase it. To bridge that gap, you need to know a lot.”
She sounded like a schoolteacher.
No, more like the caregivers at the orphanage.
I looked at the other magical girls.
They were nodding slightly, as if they found Cherry’s explanation convincing.
Almost as if they thought James and I had already been using that knowledge deliberately.
“No matter how much you learn, human brains have limits, right? Even professors who specialize in a field often think ‘this will happen’ rather than ‘I wonder what will happen’ when conducting scientific experiments. Magic hinges on the belief that ‘this will happen.’”
I see.
Technology has its limits.
As far as I know, even those advanced aliens haven’t uncovered the causes behind certain physical phenomena.
If anything, their reliance on magic seems to prevent them from delving deeper.
That’s why theoretical physics is said to be Earth’s forte.
Most aliens, however, seem to think, “Do we really need that?”
It’s like in the Harry Potter series, where wizards massively look down on Muggles.
“So, wouldn’t a map like this be useful? Makes it easier to think and plan.”
“What’s the point of planning when we can just use the black hole to travel instantly? We just need to pick targets to hit in a guerrilla style.”
Cherry was momentarily at a loss for words at James’s comment.
But I found myself agreeing with her.
If, by any chance, I couldn’t use the black hole anymore, a map would undoubtedly become incredibly valuable.
It would help find the shortest route to escape as quickly as possible.
Of course, the people here still didn’t know that my power was weakening.
Most of them didn’t even understand how the circuits worked.
I glanced at Hayoon.
When our eyes met, Hayoon smiled at me, and I quickly averted my gaze.
—Why does she smile at me like that, even after how coldly I treated her?
Biting my lip lightly, I turned my attention back to the map.
“So, where should we go next?”
“I heard on the radio,” James quickly interjected, as if determined not to lose to Cherry,
“that security around the company building has been reinforced. Police patrols have increased, and the chairman requested protection…”
James moved his hand across the ground in a motion similar to zooming in on a smartphone map.
The projector’s display zoomed in and even switched to a full 3D view.
It was like the navigation systems that sometimes showed 3D building models.
The location appeared to be Yeouido.
While I wasn’t confident about drawing the shapes of all the districts in Seoul, I at least knew what Yeouido looked like along the Han River.
“It seems they’ve bolstered the power supply to this building.”
“A department store?”
“Not anymore. It’s a research lab now.”
In the world I came from, that location housed a large department store.
I hadn’t thought about visiting it here, nor did I have any reason to go to Yeouido.
“A research lab in the middle of Seoul? They’re conducting research there?”
“Well, it’s a bit different from what’s done at the complexes. While both focus on circuits, the labs in the company promote competition among departments to produce better results.”
That made sense.
They weren’t manufacturing things for immediate sale anyway.
“For reference, the circuits used by combatants are produced at the complexes. The circuits you use, however, are manufactured at this lab. They’re too expensive and complicated for mass production, especially since there’s no one else who can use them properly.”
“So, the place you worked at is getting wiped out,” I said to James.
He remained silent for a while.
“That might be why they could only use the circuits as bombs. Maybe it’s because they literally can’t make them any other way.”
“So, one person leaves, and the entire company’s tech crumbles? Noir Corporation is in trouble,” Cherry said mockingly.
“Your side also seemed to struggle without you. There may be others like you in other countries, but based on the news coverage, your presence was hardly insignificant.”
This time, Cherry had no retort.
“I’m going back,” she muttered.
“When? When the Federation stops experimenting on girls? Or when the fragile alliance with Noir Corporation finally breaks?”
Cherry’s ears drooped, her defeated appearance tugging at my heart.
“Anyway,” I said, stepping between them,
“So, what’s the plan? Do we attack or not?”
“For now, we play along. They’re probably baiting us on purpose, hoping I’ll fall for it.”
“Get fooled a few more times until they gather enough forces to capture us?”
“That’s the plan we made initially, isn’t it?”
James looked up at me with a face that seemed to say, Don’t you even remember your own plan?
I grinned at him, which only seemed to aggravate him further, especially since Cherry was already irritating him on the side.
In truth, I was burning up inside.
Even with the police reinforcement and additional troops sent to capture us, could I truly face them and hold my ground?
Or would I end up holding everyone back, failing even to escape properly?
Even as these thoughts lingered, my circuits weren’t running as strongly as before.
Hayoon… she was a much brighter hope to me than I had realized.
Damn it.
We observed the situation for another day.
The radio continued reporting about the heightened security at the location and even mentioned the chairman coming and going.
There was no way to confirm whether this information was true.
It could’ve been misinformation, or perhaps the chairman had briefly visited and quickly left.
In the end, that place became our target.
The setup was too blatant, and James insisted we play along one more time.
The other kids and Cherry agreed.
The research lab where James had worked…
According to him, it was likely shut down after the assassination attempt on him, with all crucial information already removed.
“The researchers were at the complex, weren’t they?”
“At the time, both the complex and the Yeouido lab were under the former chairman’s control. We didn’t plan on showing our technology to that researcher anyway.”
That made sense.
They hadn’t even expected my success, so some disorder in their arrangements wasn’t surprising.
…After all, the whole thing was practically a charade between the Federation and the company.
Still, during the former chairman’s time, there had been some semblance of opposition between the two—subtle enough to avoid crossing any lines.
The current chairman, however, was disrupting that balance.
According to James, it was because they were “blinded by short-term gains.”
Not that James’s idea of “long-term gains” wasn’t just as far-fetched.
The assault was scheduled for tomorrow.
If the lab was swarming with monsters, things could get dangerous.
Even when I was filled with despair, taking down those armored monsters hadn’t been easy. If I were to quickly falter, the other kids might be in peril.
Hayoon could be in danger.
“Jieun.”
While I was out again, reflecting on the situation and staring at the sky, Hayoon approached and spoke to me.
The circuits that had been running faintly stilled completely the moment she addressed me.
I turned around silently.
There stood Hayoon.
Despite the dark, gloomy surroundings and her worn-out, fraying clothes, she was still beautiful.
“Are you worried?”
There was a way to restart the despair circuits.
I could treat Hayoon harshly, push her away almost completely.
But I hesitated.
What if even after breaking things off, I couldn’t properly activate the circuits?
What if I gave up entirely instead of sinking into despair?
Even at the end of despair, I didn’t want to choose surrender.
Among all the responses swirling in my mind, the one I managed to speak aloud was brief.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Hayoon drew closer and said, “You’ve done well so far.”
Those words calmed me—not with despair but with reassurance.
It was ironic. Before we got here, I used to say those words to comfort Hayoon when she felt uneasy.
When had the roles reversed?
Hayoon reached out slowly and held my hand.
“I’ll help you.”
The circuits remained quiet.
“So let’s work together.”
I hesitated for a long time, unable to answer.
I needed to say something hurtful now.
If I didn’t, Hayoon might be in danger tomorrow.
What if she couldn’t escape on her own?
What if she got caught?
The Federation had intended to experiment on me; who knew what horrible things they might do to Hayoon?
But in the end…
“Okay.”
That was the only response I could give her.
My thoughts were too tangled.
My heart was too calm.
Perhaps I just liked the hope I hadn’t felt in so long.
As if I were addicted, I couldn’t break free.
+Whether this was salvation or hope, I had no idea.
“Someday, we’ll go back together.”
At least, when I replied to Hayoon’s final words, the circuit on my left wrist trembled slightly.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.