Chapter 60 : Group Life (1) Part-1

I decided to be a little more shameless.

To be honest, there was no other way.

Of course, I believe in the morality of magical girls.

Especially, I believe in Hayoon’s morality.

These girls weren’t the type to kill others just to save themselves, no matter how desperate the situation got.

Sure, there were times when they broke a combatant’s limbs or blasted magic, but those were things that happened in the heat of battle.

After all, the opposing fighters were also trying to achieve something, and the magical girls were merely trying to protect what they valued.

I knew they weren’t the type to threaten me or do anything like that.

More importantly, this wasn’t even an extreme situation that would call for such actions.

It’s not like the world had ended or anything.

We were just five people staying in a somewhat spacious ruin together.

We weren’t trapped, and there were other options.

If we left, we could reach a paved road, and following that road would surely lead to a village or a city.

The problem was money, and no matter how safe this country was, walking on the road at night wasn’t exactly ideal.

Still, it wasn’t as though escaping this place was impossible.

The girls here were staying because they chose to.

There was no reason to engage in some post-apocalyptic survival struggle over the remaining food.

That said, I was the one who took the circuits from the girls.

And I didn’t want to lose the upper hand here.

The worst-case scenario would be if someone tried to persuade me.

“I have no intention of sharing my tent with anyone else.”

I said it firmly.

“Food or… whatever else. You guys came here because you wanted to. Whether you suffer or not isn’t my problem.”

Dahlia and Delphinium glanced nervously at the ruins.

While you wouldn’t get completely soaked even if it rained as long as you stayed away from the windows, it wasn’t exactly a clean place.

The nights were still cold.

The wind seeping in through the broken windows would surely be chilly.

Although there was still time before night fell, there wasn’t enough time to properly prepare for the night in such conditions.

These weren’t kids who had received survival training.

They were just children, as far as I knew.

At least, I believed they hadn’t undergone such training.

But it wasn’t cold enough to freeze to death, so I decided to take a hardline stance.

“Alright.”

The only one who nodded without changing her expression was Hayoon.

It was strange.

Surely Hayoon had grown up in a wealthy household, yet she seemed oddly relieved in this situation.

Why was she making that kind of expression?

Where did that pride come from?

It was strange that she wasn’t flustered at all, even in a situation like this.

“How far can we go?”

“How far…?”

I had confiscated their phones and communicators.

I planned to return them, but not yet.

James was still tinkering with them.

I hesitated for a moment.

Would they get lost in the mountains?

…They followed me here on their own, so I suppose it wasn’t my concern.

Whatever they did, the results of their actions were their responsibility.

Even though they were minors, they still had some capacity for judgment.

I knew it was cowardly of me to say that, considering I was an adult in my previous life, but in this world, I was around their age.

If the universe wanted me to take more responsibility, it should have made me be born a few years earlier than them in this world.

Still, I didn’t want the kids to actually go missing or die.

For now, the magical girls might prove useful to me.

Whether it was the government or the federation, if they came to capture me, I could rely on Hayoon to handle it somehow.

That was all.

Really, that was all I was thinking.

I wasn’t worried.

Not at all.

“Only go as far as you can still see the house. If you get lost, I won’t come looking for you.”

Besides, I barely knew the geography around here.

All I knew was that there was a road leading somewhere.

“Got it.”

Hayoon didn’t panic.

Unlike when I first arrived here.

Unlike when I had to sleep next to the oxygen tank.

Since coming to this ruin, I hadn’t wanted to do anything.

So, I holed up in the tent, only handling the bare necessities of life.

I hadn’t even considered looking around other houses for anything.

Hayoon didn’t seem to care whether I was glaring at her or not.

“Alright, let’s get moving.”

“Moving? Where to?”

Rose asked at Hayoon’s words.

“We have to sleep tonight. Are you planning to sleep just like this?”

At Hayoon’s words, Rose and Iris looked at each other.

Dahlia and Delphinium, standing behind them, made faces of disgust.

Usually, such expressions would be the normal reaction.

But why was Hayoon—

“Alright, I’ll go out for a bit. I won’t go far, like you said, so don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

Hayoon said that while looking at me, and I turned my gaze away as I replied.

I had no idea what kind of expression Hayoon was making as she looked at me.

But soon, I heard the sound of her turning away.

Following Hayoon’s firm footsteps were hesitant but unavoidable ones.

Did they really plan to stay here?

For how long?

More importantly, I had no idea why they had come here, even giving up their circuits.

It was too much trouble to think about.

Too many things had happened today.

I just wanted to… rest.

Do nothing.

With that thought, I crawled back into the tent.

Ignoring the clinking sound of James tinkering with something, I fell asleep without even getting into the sleeping bag.

How many hours had passed?

When I opened my eyes, James was gone.

Rubbing my eyes with my hands, I suddenly heard a sound from outside the tent.

Rustling noises.

Hard objects clinking.

Something flapping.

As I stepped out of the tent,

“You’re awake?”

Hayoon greeted me with a smile for some reason.

It was already getting a bit dark outside, but not too much time seemed to have passed.

It was still a season of short days.

Hayoon was spreading out a sheet of transparent plastic on the ground.

It looked fairly clean and big enough for the kids to lie on.

“It must have been used for farming. I borrowed it for a bit.”

In reality, she must have scavenged it from one of the crumbling ruins.

Once the plastic was laid out, it created a space large enough for someone to lie down without getting dirty.

Judging by its size, the farmland might have been quite expansive—or maybe not, since the house itself wasn’t very large.

There was even some leftover plastic sheeting to cover parts of the walls.

The kids worked in pairs to stick the plastic onto the walls.

It wasn’t neatly done like wallpapering, just enough to keep the walls from dirtying anyone who brushed against them.

Even so, it made the place look much more sanitary.

I sat down outside the tent.

James was munching on an acorn in front of the tent.

So hamsters eat acorns too.

Was this also something Hayoon had found?

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

James commented between bites of the acorn.

“That saying about energy and hope doesn’t seem entirely false. To arrive at such a conclusion even in these circumstances.”

True enough.

It was certainly a more constructive approach than recklessly charging into enemy lines out of despair.

Still, I didn’t like it.

And that dislike stemmed from a useless sense of pride.

I was the one who came here first and made it livable.

I even planned to cultivate the field to become self-sufficient.

Yet somehow, these kids solved things far faster than I imagined.

Sure, there weren’t any blankets yet.

Even if some were left in the other houses, they probably weren’t in usable condition.

And there was still no food.

Fine, go ahead and try as hard as you can.

Eventually, you’ll just start whining about wanting to go back.

Even a task as simple as putting plastic on the walls would take time to do properly.

And by the time I woke up, the sun was already setting.

I slowly scanned the kids sitting in a circle.

Hayoon didn’t sit right next to me.

But she was nearby, facing me.

Out of the five girls, Hayoon was the only one who seemed unbothered.

It didn’t even seem like she was faking it.

Hayoon looked genuinely relieved about the situation, as if she were glad to be able to understand it.

I had no idea how to respond to that expression.

I didn’t want to feel happy.

But I couldn’t outright reject it either.

Over the long time I’d spent with Hayoon, I had learned to read her expressions to some extent and had often acted in ways that cheered her up.

Whether it was instinct or a conditioned response,

I kept glancing in her direction and had to force myself to look elsewhere.

The other kids, of course, didn’t look happy.

They were kids I had fought with, nothing more.

Unlike Hayoon, there were no deeper feelings or bonds to add layers to the relationship.