Ch.64Chapter 11. Group Life (5)

The night was bearable enough.

Of course, I couldn’t help thinking about how warm it must be inside that tent.

Even with a heater nearby, it was impossible to completely block the midnight chill with just a single layer of plastic wrapped around the inside of this dilapidated building with holes everywhere.

During the day, temperatures rose to the point where it felt almost too warm, but at night, though not freezing to death, it got quite cold. Spring and autumn in this country are seasons of temperature fluctuation, after all.

“I have a good idea. Want to hear it?”

Iris suggested something while Hayun and Jieun were washing up.

It wasn’t particularly revolutionary, but it was worth trying.

After dinner, Jieun disappeared into the tent with what seemed like a sour expression. The remaining magical girls briefly discussed something before getting to work.

First, they searched the forest near the abandoned house for suitable branches. They didn’t need to be very long, just definitely larger than the heater Iris had made.

It took about an hour to gather branches that could serve as firewood. When they first went out, their bodies trembled a bit from the cold, but as they moved around, they warmed up and felt better.

The materials they needed were closer than expected.

This wasn’t the only house with a fireplace. In fact, most of the abandoned houses around here were similar. Consequently, several ruins had backyards stacked with fuel for fireplaces.

The thick logs cut into pieces weren’t particularly useful, but some places had piles of slightly thicker broken branches.

The girls selected a few that looked especially sturdy and long.

They moved the heater from the center of the house a bit closer to the tent, then set up those thick branches around the heater. The house floor was concrete or cement that wouldn’t easily break, so they found a few bricks to stabilize the base.

That’s how they erected a slightly larger canopy connected to Jieun’s tent.

Since it was made of transparent plastic, it didn’t look particularly pretty from the outside. Inside, one had to stoop considerably to move around.

But at least it could retain the heat from the heater more effectively.

The five girls stood outside the canopy, looking proudly at their temporary shelter.

“…Can we really call this ‘temporary’?”

Until Delphinium muttered those words with a slightly worried voice, they had been feeling somewhat accomplished.

“…We’ll have to take it all down when summer comes anyway.”

Rose said it somewhat jokingly, but her words didn’t improve anyone’s mood.

Would they have to stay here until summer?

Actually, exactly how long would they need to stay here?

All the girls except Hayun were probably thinking the same thing.

In a sense—no, in every sense—all the girls gathered here were a group of runaway teenagers.

“…”

But no one was tactless enough to say that out loud and make everyone more conscious of it.

Hayun was the first to go inside.

She seemed to accept this reality calmly, as there was no hesitation in her actions.

Whatever conversation might have happened while they were washing up, the slight hesitation that had been perceptible in Hayun earlier was no longer evident.

The remaining four girls exchanged glances.

“Haah.”

Iris was the first to move.

She let out a deep sigh before entering the “temporary” canopy.

Next was Rose, who had been scratching her head.

Then Delphinium and Dalia followed.

Their efforts weren’t in vain; the inside of the canopy was quite warm.

Warm enough to survive the night with just a covering of dry leaves stuffed into plastic.

…I wonder how others are reacting.

Lying on the hard floor, Iris looked up at the ceiling through the transparent plastic and wondered.

The radio only provided extremely limited information. Just that the magical girls had disappeared and that people from all walks of life were working to find them.

There was no mention of how citizens were reacting or what would happen after the magical girls were found.

Were they controlling the information?

It was scary.

How her parents would react when she returned. Skipping school, abandoning her important duties as a magical girl, and even disappearing with her circuit.

Rose, Delphinium, and Dalia—the three girls a year older than Iris and Hayun—also had anxious expressions. Those three were even preparing for college entrance exams this year, yet they were here.

Hayun was here because of that girl named Jeong Jieun, but…

…I can’t imagine what Jeong Jieun herself is thinking.

Because Iris had enjoyed everything that girl had never been able to have.

If you take away even the little that remains from someone who has nothing…

Iris trembled slightly.

Iris had—recognized Jeong Jieun in battle.

Even without knowing who she was, Iris had recognized her every time they met.

And had persistently tormented her.

Repeatedly targeting her with magic bullets, sending her away…

She had never thought about what happened afterward.

Just… because they were bad people.

Because they were the ones who, backed by corporations, bullied the weak. Because they were the ones preventing Earth from entering the galactic political scene. Even though those corporations themselves came from beyond the galaxy—

Then are all those who work for these corporations and earn money villains too?

Is it all evil to use the money earned from these corporations to fill the gaps for orphanage children?

She had never thought about it.

Just because that combatant who refused to fall in one hit was irritating.

That combatant who fought multiple times, got knocked down, felt pain, but never gave up and kept charging—she didn’t like her.

That combatant who somehow tried to win, no, who charged in as if trying to land just one hit even in a hopeless battle—she found her annoying—

—so she tried to break her.

“…”

Did it hurt? Of course it must have.

Iris had never been hit by her own magic bullets, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think they caused no damage.

No, she had calculated that they would cause damage, which is why she used them to attack.

Returning limping from somewhere unknown, with a major injury somewhere on her body.

Why hadn’t she thought about what happened afterward?

Because magical girls could go back immediately for treatment if injured. Because they had designated places to rest. Because they could receive support from anywhere—

With just a little thought, she would have realized that combatants didn’t have those luxuries.

She knew that thinking about such things in the middle of the night wouldn’t help her fall asleep, but she couldn’t easily stop her thoughts.

In the end, it was quite some time before Iris could finally fall asleep.

*

When I woke up in the morning, the inside of the tent was strangely warm.

Although the tent was fairly good at retaining heat, usually when I got out of the sleeping bag, I’d be greeted by chilly air.

I was even more puzzled when I touched the tent entrance.

Even with a heater outside, how could it be this warm?

Only after unzipping and crawling out did I realize that the girls had created another canopy inside the house.

They must have made it to somehow endure the night’s cold. It was still a bit chilly after all.

The heater was still working well, powered by my energy.

Since there were no blankets or sleeping bags, they seemed to have used plastic to make blankets, stuffed with leaves.

“…”

Seeing this full-on wilderness setup, I was momentarily speechless.

Are they serious?

Are they really saying they’ll stay here?

Why? Do they really want to help me that much? Are they saying they’ll cut ties with the Federation that had employed them and continue to stay here? Without even going to school?

No one was sleeping.

The doorway visible through the plastic was bright. Were they all outside doing something?

I went outside, slightly stooping.

“Jieun!”

As soon as I left the house, I heard Hayun’s voice.

The girls were standing in a field.

Since my name had been called, it felt awkward to just stand there, so I slowly walked over to where they were.

There was a vegetable garden there.

Not just sprouting seedlings, but crops clearly growing toward the sky.

As the girls had said, they looked like they could be harvested “soon.” Probably by next week.

“…”

Hayun looked at me with a bright expression, but I could only stare at it, speechless.

On the girls’ wrists were circuits that received my energy. Not using their own energy, but operating by resonating with mine.

With the same energy as mine, these girls had sprouted seeds.

“Jieun?”

At Hayun’s words, I raised my head.

I didn’t know what expression to make.

Smiling would be strange. Until very recently, I had been constantly dissatisfied. I hadn’t felt like smiling at all.

But getting angry would be… too petty.

Well, it’s natural that I’m a petty person. Since learning about magical girls in this world, I’ve never not been jealous of them.

In the end, my next action was just as petty.

I turned around and headed back to the house.

I wish there was something else I could do, but—

Beep beep beep—

Before I could reach the house, a pager went off.

The magical girls’ pager.

Of course, since I was still holding onto the other pagers, only mine rang.

“…”

I briefly took out the pager from my pocket to look at it.

It displayed a message saying a kaijin had appeared and requesting assistance if the call was received.

Judging by the message alone, it seemed quite urgent. Well, they had always relied on magical girls’ help until now.

The police had introduced equipment to catch kaijin, but they still couldn’t perfectly respond to all kaijin. Just recently, there were kaijin that could melt wires.

I looked back.

The magical girls’ faces were pale.

They looked like they wanted to rush off immediately but weren’t sure if I would allow it or not.

Even Hayun avoided my eyes.

As if she couldn’t bring herself to suggest going. Her expression, which had been lively just moments ago, turned pale, and her shoulders slumped.

“…”

What should I say?

Should I tell them they’re no longer magical girls? Or should I tell them to follow my instructions while they’re with me?

I might not know about the former, but I had already said something similar to the latter. Thanks to that, I was able to do nothing yesterday.

I looked up at the sky.

It was clear. Sometimes spring has days with fine dust, but strangely, the sky was clear.

Well, it had been that way since the Galactic Federation came to this country. The Federation was supporting various initiatives to improve the environmental conditions of this world.

And they also brought kaijin, though the cause is still unknown.

More precisely, they themselves are people who have the potential to become kaijin.

Just as ordinary people have the potential to become criminals.

“…Let’s go.”

In the end, I muttered those words and headed toward the house.

I heard the footsteps of five girls following behind me.

*

Jihye still didn’t properly know what had happened that day.

“She wasn’t harmed in any particular way,” was what the medical staff at the hospital where Jihye had been admitted said.

When asked if others were okay, the doctors put on somewhat serious expressions but verbally said “everyone is fine.”

The teacher was fine. Most of the children too.

But a few of the younger children were the problem.

It’s unknown what kind of gas was sprayed in the orphanage that day. They say it’s not significantly harmful to the human body, but lethal doses are always relative. If the amount is enough to make an adult faint or fall asleep, it would naturally have several times the effect on children who are much smaller than adults.

There are still children who haven’t woken up.

The medical staff seemed to be pondering what to do. Although they said it wasn’t a serious level of danger, those children were still “sleeping.”

“…”

What happened that day?

What were the intruders trying to do?

Despite such an incident occurring at the orphanage, there was no news or articles about it at all.

Children at the same school only knew that Jihye had been hospitalized because she wasn’t feeling well.

And after learning about the situation, Jihye could understand what was happening without anyone explicitly telling her.

‘Don’t talk about it.’

That’s probably it.

It’s better not to talk about it. To anyone. Even the teacher didn’t say anything about what happened that day.

The orphanage returned to normal in an unnaturally quick way.

There was no shortage of hospital fees for the hospitalized children. There were subsidies, and there was still… money that Jieun had earned.

All the damaged areas were repaired. The teachers and children were all trying to just move past it.

Only Jihye vaguely suspected that the incident was related to Jieun.

After that, Jieun appeared once more. She even faced a kaijin alongside the magical girls.

And then suddenly, all news of her stopped.

There were no articles. Even the stories about the missing magical girls that had continued for a while suddenly all stopped.

But that doesn’t mean the stories circulating on the internet and among children completely disappeared.

The magical girls betrayed the Federation. They joined hands with that black magical girl, they seem to be trying to become criminals…

Naturally, most of the rumors heard in this situation were sensational and malicious.

Jihye heard such stories around her too.

There seemed to be rumors about Jihye’s hospital visit as well. Of course, no one said it directly to Jihye, so she couldn’t know exactly what those rumors were.

Whatever all those rumors were, the conclusion was one:

Then who will handle the kaijin now?

Maybe the police can handle them. If the police can’t, maybe the military can.

Of course, there might be far more casualties than when magical girls stepped in to take the hits. Kaijin attacks could kill ordinary people in one hit.

The Federation remained silent, the government didn’t seem particularly interested from the beginning, and companies were promoting their own combatants.

People who had once seemed united in their desire to devour Jieun were now acting as if they had no connection to each other, as if the story had never existed in the first place.

It was suffocating.

Since being discharged from the hospital—no, even before that, since Jieun disappeared from her side.

Jihye felt a tightness in her chest.

Does Jieun know? That the room became such a mess? That the audio equipment and CDs she cherished were broken?

Does she know that someone might have done something to Jihye’s body that day?

It was scary.

The only person she could talk about such things with was Jieun. The one who slept next to her in the same room every night, who was like family, who even had a similar name.

And that Jieun had disappeared. Became unreachable.

So, since then, her chest—

Zing.

Her phone vibrated.

Not just hers. All the phones in the classroom, even the teacher’s, rang.

The teacher checked her phone.

So did Jihye. And the other children.

It was an emergency alert.

A message warning not to go near an area where a kaijin had appeared.

The teacher put her phone down as if it was nothing and continued the lesson—

Screech.

But Jihye stood up abruptly.

She wasn’t sure what she was thinking.

It’s during class.

“What’s wrong?”

The teacher looked at Jihye with wide eyes.

Just a normal expression, without any malice.

The world was like that. Even though Jieun had disappeared, even though the magical girls had disappeared, everyone acted as if nothing was wrong, as if it had always been that way.

After receiving so much help. After tormenting them so much.

“Ah, I…”

Jihye opened her mouth.

Sweat broke out on her back under her uniform.

And without realizing it, she lied.

“I need to use the bathroom…”

A few children laughed. Again, without malice, just because the situation was a bit funny.

If Jieun hadn’t disappeared, if she hadn’t gone through that experience, and if it wasn’t Jihye herself but another child who had stood up, Jihye might have laughed too.

“Alright, go ahead.”

The teacher also smiled slightly as she spoke.

Jihye bowed quickly and hurried out of the classroom.

Now sweat was breaking out on her forehead too.

Should I go?

Is it okay to go there, where the kaijin is? Last time, I was caught by a kaijin and only caused trouble.

But she couldn’t just sit still. If she didn’t go there, she wouldn’t be able to meet Jieun.

Even if Jieun doesn’t come, there’s definitely a possibility that she might—

So, Jihye walked.

To the end of the corridor, to the front of the bathroom.

But Jihye didn’t enter the bathroom.

Instead, she ran toward the stairs.

She came down the stairs as quickly as possible and ran out of the school. She dashed across the playground.

No one called after Jihye. They didn’t even know she had left.

Jihye ran. There was no time to look back or hesitate. The security guard at the main gate seemed to be saying something, but she pretended not to hear.

Because it felt like Jieun might disappear again.

Because it felt like she might disappear again this time too, before Jihye could even speak to her—

…

No, because the people around would definitely make it that way.