Chapter 58: Song of the Four Seasons (1)

“Libra, how is it over there?”

“Yeah, there’s one here too. It’s way bigger than the rift we saw last time.”

“…Then let’s pull out.”

Wearing a white dress with flowing long sleeves, Heosang took Libra’s hand and pulled her along.

They needed to get out quickly.

The two of them were in a Japanese-style shrine located in Taoyuan, Taiwan.

It was on a hill overlooking the city, a shrine surrounded on all sides by dense foliage.

‘…That’s already the sixth one this month. These rifts are showing up way too often.’

Behind her round sunglasses, Heosang’s alluring blue eyes held a trace of suspicion.

Dimensional rifts.

As the name implied, they were tiny cracks between dimensions.

Heosang thought of them as resembling cracked glass, just moments away from shattering.

These rifts were the usual hotspots for Misangche appearances.

Given the danger, the best option was always to avoid the area.

Even the most powerful magical girls couldn’t handle multiple Misangche at once.

Of course, she and Libra could handle them right now—but still, something felt off.

Dimensional rifts were like harbingers of Misangche appearances.

When one opened, the time it took for a Misangche to manifest into this world shortened drastically.

The tragedy at the Port of Beirut, where countless people died, had happened because they failed to detect a rift in time.

The Misangche manifested freely without resistance, and disaster followed.

But spotting these rifts wasn’t easy.

Detection of Misangche relied solely on Beta Ether sensors.

Dimensional rifts gave off no such detectable anomalies.

The only way was to trust a magical girl’s intuition and find them with your own eyes.

Dimensional rifts looked like cracks in the air.

Like shattered glass, they typically appeared in irregular, web-like patterns.

There was no way to seal these rifts except by leaving it to the Bureau’s advanced science.

The problem was, normal people without ether energy couldn’t see them at all.

This was already their sixth confirmed rift.

Just thinking about all the places they’d be dispatched to seal them made Heosang dizzy.

She touched her forehead.

Drip.

Raindrops began to fall faintly on the straw hat Heosang was wearing.

Her light golden hair began to get damp, strand by strand.

“Let’s hurry down.”

“Okay.”

The sky, clear just moments ago, had suddenly turned overcast.

As the sunlight disappeared completely—

Heosang, struck with a strange unease, looked back.

“…”

There was nothing but the shrine in the drizzle, rain falling over the dense underbrush.

Not even the sound of insects.

A bizarre silence.

“…Was it just my imagination?”

“Harsa, you’re getting soaked.”

“Don’t call me that…! I’ve told you a hundred times—during missions, always call me ‘Heosang.’”

“Harsa is a much cuter name.”

Wearing a summer tracksuit and short hotpants, Libra—her fiery red hair drenched in rain—grinned mischievously at Heosang.

‘…No.’

It wasn’t just her imagination.

Something was definitely watching them.

At some point, all signs of other people had disappeared.

Even though this was a fairly popular tourist spot in Taiwan, only the two of them were walking down the overgrown stone steps.

“…Harsa.”

“I know. Get ready. It’s right behind us.”

Crackkk—

The sound of a dimensional rift tearing open echoed behind them.

When had it started?

When had they fallen into the trap…?

They’d made a mistake.

The entire shrine had been a trap laid by the Misangche.

A special barrier only Misangche could create—a dimensional zone.

The moment they stepped in, they were already exposed to its influence.

「…Two.」

A chilling, hollow voice echoed through the rain.

“…Did you say that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Libra tilted her head, confused, as if she hadn’t heard anything.

Then—

Creak—

Something tore through the air and slowly touched down on the ground.

A black arm.

It looked like the arm of a great ape—long, bulky, and twisted. It dangled loosely.

Short, crooked legs and gigantic arms that looked three times longer than its body.

A humanoid figure easily over 3 meters tall, with an owl-like white face and pitch-black eyes.

A Misangche.

“Manifest.”

Heosang immediately cloaked herself in ether.

Libra, without a second thought, drew her scythe and stepped in front of Heosang.

“How long would it take you to erase its existence?”

“…That’s impossible. It doesn’t belong to this world.”

“Then we’ll have to fight.”

Heosang’s power only worked on entities native to this world.

She could distort reality to make attacks miss—but she couldn’t erase something that never belonged here in the first place.

Still—

It wasn’t like they couldn’t kill it.

“I’ll cover you.”

Heosang’s Lemegeton was a white lance, stained with blood.

It wasn’t held and swung, but launched at Mach speed with just a gesture.

Chiing—

The space around her began to warp slightly.

Countless white lances began to materialize.

She had duplicated the Lemegeton.

Wearing a faint smile, Heosang lowered her hand and launched the barrage of lances into the Misangche’s body.

Over the past few months, with Heosang’s help, Libra had learned alternate ways to use her scythe-shaped Lemegeton.

She had learned how to concentrate death.

Libra’s Lemegeton activated with a swing—claiming the souls of half the living beings within a set range, including herself.

It was so unstable she never used it without Heosang.

Heosang had once proposed a new method, for the day Libra stood alone:

Focus all ether energy into the blade.

After repeated training, Libra had become fairly proficient with this new method.

She hadn’t yet awakened her other Lemegeton, but she could now hunt medium-class Misangche alone.

Power didn’t matter.

As long as it made contact, it worked.

Any Misangche touched by Libra’s Lemegeton lost its soul and vanished.

That’s why—

Libra focused her training on one thing: speed.

Speed rivaling Byeolmuri’s.

She kicked off the ground.

BOOM!!!

The earth caved beneath her feet as she shot toward the owl-faced Misangche.

The lances reached it first, stabbing through its body in rapid succession.

Libra followed up with a powerful scythe strike straight into its body, a manic grin on her face.

Her smile was brimming with bloodlust.

The act of hunting Misangche brought her more joy than anything else.

There was no need to stain her hands with anything else.

Killing Misangche alongside Heosang was all she needed.

She felt blessed.

She thanked the gods—for allowing her to enjoy such a delightful game.

“…Idiot.”

Seeing Libra’s giddy expression, Heosang sighed.

Despite trying to reform her personality over time, she still acted like that.

She was going to have to scold her again.

The Misangche was shielding itself from the onslaught with its massive arms.

Heosang lazily yawned, directing the lances with a flick of her hand, while Libra grinned wildly as she swung her scythe like a maniac.

Even as its flesh was torn and bones shattered, the enormous Misangche didn’t react.

Libra struck it repeatedly with her scythe—but the Misangche still didn’t fall.

Only moments later did the two of them realize something was wrong.

SLAM!

When the Misangche didn’t go down, Libra retreated beside Heosang.

“…Harsa, something’s wrong.”

“Don’t worry. When we’re together, we’re the strongest. Remember?”

Heosang reassured the worried Libra.

But—

Something was undeniably wrong.

It was as if the Misangche had taken no damage at all….

‘Wait.’

The severed arms and torn flesh were slowly regenerating.

That much was expected—if the core wasn’t destroyed, most Misangche could regenerate.

But—

「One…….」

Again.

That eerie, chilling voice echoed through the air.

No—it wasn’t echoing through the air.

It was echoing inside Heosang’s head.

A black aura began to swirl around the Misangche.

Then, the space itself distorted.

‘…No way.’

Behind the Misangche—

Appeared countless lances, identical to Heosang’s.

“…It’s reflecting attacks! Stick close to me from now on!”

Phantasm quickly pulled Libra into her arms and gathered her ether.

To turn all incoming attacks into lies