Even if searching like that didn’t seem to have any particular meaning,
Ji-hye felt like she had to do something.
She didn’t know exactly what the emotion was that brought this thought to mind.
Was it the anxiety of a friend, who had shared the same room for almost her whole life, suddenly disappearing?
No, it felt a little different from that.
It wasn’t just simple anxiety.
Of course, that didn’t mean there was no feeling of ‘anxiety’ at all.
For Ji-hye, Jieun was her closest friend, almost like a sister.
They knew a lot about each other’s personal lives.
They even knew what each other had been struggling with.
They didn’t know much about each other’s friends, but that was probably true for anyone with siblings.
So, Ji-hye unconsciously thought of herself as the person who knew Jieun best.
And that was a form of arrogance.
When listening to Jieun’s stories, the name that came up the most was Hayoon.
It wasn’t just because they were close; Jieun didn’t actually have many friends.
At the orphanage, the only person she was truly close to was Ji-hye, the one who shared a room with her.
She didn’t talk much with the teachers, and she didn’t really chat with the other kids either.
She seemed to always be in her own world.
Seeing that, the young Ji-hye got a little stubborn.
Even though they shared the same room, Jieun never spoke to her,
So Ji-hye kept talking to her, and it took quite a while until the wall between them was broken down.
But in the end, she managed to do it.
Jieun wasn’t a very talkative person, but perhaps because of that, they could talk about various worries.
Jieun never shared her worries with others, and because of that,
Ji-hye could confess her personal and serious concerns to her, even though they might sound trivial to others.
Looking back, Jieun was someone who thought in a unique way, was quiet unless spoken to, and perhaps secretly had many worries.
She was just an ordinary child.
But Ji-hye hadn’t listened to those worries.
At some point, she had started treating Jieun as just a comfortable friend she had grown close to.
Ji-hye thought she knew Jieun best, and assumed that Jieun was just coming home late because she had a boyfriend or something.
She should have asked more.
Jieun probably wouldn’t have answered easily, but if she kept asking, she would have eventually told her.
Wouldn’t she?
That’s why Ji-hye went out again today.
She didn’t return to the orphanage after school but decided to look for Jieun.
She knew she wouldn’t find anything, but it felt like she had to do it.
It was the only way she could ease her guilty feelings a little.
She had already been to the bookstore that Jieun visited often a few times, but had found nothing.
It was a long shot, but in the end, Ji-hye picked some other places they had visited together before.
Places that stood out in her memory.
It was a bit strange to choose such places, even to her.
Even though they were places that held memories,
Jieun might not have thought much of them.
But she stubbornly went to those places, as if making excuses to herself.
“I tried. I didn’t do nothing.”
It was a hollow excuse.
*
A few years ago, Ji-hye and Jieun had impulsively gone out together.
She didn’t really remember why they went to Chungmuro station, but perhaps it was because it was often mentioned when talking about Korean movies.
Since it wasn’t far by bus, they headed there without thinking much about it.
Though there were some touristy areas nearby,
Ji-hye didn’t get the sense that it was a place related to movies.
They browsed in front of a store selling old cameras, then decided to move to a different place.
However, they accidentally discovered a gallery inside the station.
Ji-hye couldn’t remember whether it was organized by the city or district, but it seemed to be a movie-themed gallery.
Inside, there was a space where DVDs were available for free rental and could be watched on a TV there.
They watched a comedy film, which wasn’t particularly funny, but the situation itself felt absurd and funny, so they quietly laughed.
“……”
It was the only time they had been there.
Naturally, Jieun wasn’t there.
What had she expected by coming to a place they had only visited once?
Did she think Jieun would be there, lost in memories, just because they had been there together?
Maybe Ji-hye would have thought that, but not Jieun.
With a deep sigh, she headed back up.
Since her neighborhood didn’t have a subway station, the bus was the fastest way.
It wasn’t yet rush hour, so the streets were fairly empty.
Looking up at the blue sky,
Ji-hye thought how nice it would be if Jieun, now a magical girl, just fell from the sky.
It was as absurd as thinking about meeting her at the subway station earlier.
While walking towards the bus stop, she heard someone scream.
“Ah!?”
Someone had collapsed.
They didn’t seem to be human.
A few people around asked if they were okay, but the person was just screaming and rolling on the ground.
Only after a moment did some others realize that the situation was serious.
Ji-hye recognized it.
She had heard about it at school several times, though this was the first time seeing it in person.
She hesitated for a moment.
Though she had heard the story, seeing it in person made her wonder if the person had truly collapsed from pain.
The person didn’t look human, so she couldn’t tell what was wrong.
Their screams didn’t sound like a human’s either.
However, the foam coming from their mouth made the situation seem very serious.
She hesitated, unsure what to do.
The real problem was that she wasn’t doing anything.
*
“Use magic to help somehow.”
It was easier said than done.
Even if magic unfolded the way she believed or imagined, it was still a separate issue to make it happen.
Moreover, deeply ingrained biases and stereotypes seemed to affect her magic too.
Unlike other magical girls, she I still couldn’t fly easily in the sky.
However, there were a few tricks.
There was a common belief in this world that “magic is useful.”
After all, there were aliens who had been flying in the sky and exploring space long before Earthlings ever did, so magic was quite shocking to humans.
As a result, I Ji-hye could manage simple uses of magic that one might encounter in daily life.
For instance, shock absorption.
Bang!
The ground cracked loudly beneath my two legs.
The crack didn’t come from just the ground under my feet.
It came from the opponent’s arm as well.
It seems the opponent couldn’t react logically to my speed, as I jumped down from a tall building.
That was a real blessing.
If the opponent had reacted ‘logically’ and extended a hand to me instead of their arm, it would have been really bad for me in many ways.
Crack.
The opponent’s arm was surprisingly strong.
Or maybe it was because I had put magic around my legs.
Since I had absorbed the energy so that my legs wouldn’t break, the impact of the swung weapon was also reduced.
Still, I could see that the exoskeleton had cracked.
The opponent was a giant, crab-like creature.
It must have originally been something resembling seafood.
‘A suit-wearing King Crab’ type of alien exists on Earth too.
Usually, they only have their head shaped like that.
The creature’s arms were darkened, and its body had turned into something like rough, bumpy rock, with tattered clothes loosely hanging over it.
The large pincers and four pairs of thin legs, with a total of ten short sleeves on its clothing, looked honestly a little ridiculous.
Maybe to them, it’s normal.
Clang!
The giant pincers swung, knocking my hammer aside.
The opponent was strong, as expected from a monster.
No, wait.
Maybe it wasn’t just because the opponent was a monster.
It was likely because I had made my hammer lighter.
If that’s the case, knocking away a lightweight hammer would be an easy feat for the opponent.
I reconsidered as my posture faltered for a moment.
Rather than making the hammer lighter, it would be better if I just got stronger.
Yeah, just like when I was doing part-time work.
I widened my stance, grabbed the hammer firmly with my right hand just below the head, widening my grip.
Then, I swung upward with an uppercut-like motion.
The pincers that were coming down at me collided with my hammer, and I heard a loud thud.
Crack.
Again, a sound of something cracking, and some kind of fluid oozed out from the cracks.
I shifted my gaze.
The pincers were dangerously close to wrapping around Ji-hye’s waist.
That was really Ji-hye.
One of the kids I was wondering about after she ran away.
How much had she been worried?
Judging by her expression, she definitely didn’t look okay.
Maybe it was because of the current situation, but she looked a little pale too.
I felt a pang in my chest, thinking that it might be my fault.
If there’s anyone in this world I can think of as family, it’s Ji-hye.
I gritted my teeth and looked back at the monster.
“What the hell are you…!”
The monster shouted.
“Magical girl…!”
The words didn’t follow.
They said that monsters like this lose their rationality and go berserk.
It was likely that words wouldn’t solve this.
The police said they were waiting for a magical girl.
Grrk!
A groan escaped from Ji-hye’s lips.
The pincers gripping her waist were tightening.
Wham!
The moment I got distracted, something large and heavy hit my waist hard.
I was thrown sideways, bouncing off the ground several times like skipping stones.
That really hurt.
But still, I was in my transformed form.
Since I had been charging my magical power, it wasn’t as hard to breathe like it was in similar situations before.