episode_0064

The night was tolerable, at best.

Of course, it was inevitable to wonder how warm it would be inside the tent. Even with a nearby stove, it was impossible to completely block out the cold of the night with the flimsy plastic sheeting covering the inside of the dilapidated house riddled with holes.

During the day, the temperature rose to a level where one might think, “It’s a bit warm,” but at night, it dropped significantly. That’s because in this country, spring and autumn are seasons of drastic temperature changes.

“I have an idea, want to hear it?”

While Hayoon and Jieun were washing up, Iris proposed an idea.

It wasn’t a groundbreaking idea, but it was worth a try.

After dinner, with Jieun looking like her mood had soured and retreated into the tent, the remaining magical girls exchanged a few words before springing into action.

First, they found some sturdy branches in the forest near the house. They didn’t need to go far, as the branches had to be significantly larger than the stove Iris had made.

It took about an hour to gather enough branches that could potentially be used as firewood. At first, they were a bit shaky, but as they moved, their bodies warmed up a bit.

The materials they needed were closer than they thought.

The house with a hearth wasn’t the only one here. In fact, most of the dilapidated houses here were similar. So, there were several places in the ruins where piles of firewood were stacked in the backyard.

They picked out a few sturdy and long branches from there.

Then, they moved the stove a bit closer to the center of the house and placed the thick branches around it. The house floor didn’t easily break, so they found a few bricks to stabilize the base.

After that, they hung a larger tarp connected to Jieun’s tent.

It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing sight from the outside due to the transparent vinyl. To move around inside, they had to bend their waists.

But at least they could trap the heat from the stove more effectively.

The five girls looked proudly at their makeshift tarp from outside.

“…Can we really call it ‘temporary’?”

Until Delphinium muttered a slightly worried voice, they were all feeling a sense of accomplishment.

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

Although Rose joked, it didn’t improve the mood of the children.

Do they have to stay here until summer?

No, exactly how long do they have to stay here?

Except for Hayoon, the other children were probably all thinking the same.

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

Still, there was no one oblivious enough to speak the truth openly and make them realize it once again.

The first to enter was Hayoon.

Seemingly accepting this fact calmly, there was no hesitation in Hayoon’s actions.

The remaining four looked at each other.

“Sigh.”

The first to move was Iris.

After letting out a sigh, Iris entered the ‘temporary’ tarp.

Next was Rose, who was scratching her head.

Then, Delphinium and Dahlia followed suit.

Still, their efforts were not in vain, as the inside of the tent was very warm.

Even with a covering of dry leaves inside the plastic, it was enough to withstand the night.

…How are other people reacting?

Lying on the hard floor, Iris looked up at the ceiling through the transparent plastic, lost in thought.

The radio only broadcasted very limited information. The story was about magical girls disappearing and various people from all walks of life making efforts to find them.

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

Are they controlling the information?

It was scary.

How would her parents react when she goes back? School was a mess, the important work of being a magical girl was pushed aside, and even the circuit was shut down.

Rose, Delphinium, Dahlia. The three girls, a year older than Iris and Hayoon, also had anxious expressions. Even though they were high school seniors this year, they were here.

Maybe it was because of Jung Ji-eun.

Jung Ji-eun herself—

…I can’t imagine it.

Iris had been enjoying everything the child didn’t have until now.

If even the remaining things were taken away from a child who had nothing…

Iris shuddered.

Iris recognized Jung Ji-eun in battle.

She didn’t know who it was, but she recognized them every time they met.

And they persistently harassed her.

They aimed at her several times, sent her away, and didn’t think about what would happen next.

They were just… bad people.

Carrying out the evil deeds of tormenting the weak, preventing the Earth from entering the intergalactic situation. Even though those companies came from beyond the galaxy—

Then are all those who work for those companies and earn money villains?

Is it all evil to fill the gaps of the children in the nursery who worked at those companies?

She had never thought about it.

Just because the fighter who didn’t want to fall at once was annoying.

She wanted to break them.

“….”

Did it hurt? It must have, of course.

Iris had never experienced her own punishment, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that it wouldn’t have any impact.

No, she calculated that there would be an impact, so she used it when she attacked.

Returning with a big injury, staggering from a place she didn’t know.

Why didn’t she think about what would happen next?

Because magical girls could go back and get treatment right away. Because there was a designated resting space. Because they could receive help anywhere—

The fighters wouldn’t have been like that.

She knew that thinking about this in the middle of the night wouldn’t help her sleep, but she couldn’t easily stop thinking about it.

In the end, Iris was able to fall asleep long after that.

*

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

Although the tent was well insulated, the air outside was usually chilly when you came out of the sleeping bag.

When she touched the tent entrance after getting up from her spot, it felt even warmer.

After unzipping and crawling out, she realized that the kids had made another tent inside the house.

It must have been made to withstand the cold of the night. It was probably still a little chilly.

The stove was still running well, receiving energy from within.

There were no blankets or sleeping bags, so it seemed like they used blankets made of vinyl. Inside, the blanket was filled with fallen leaves.

“……”

After seeing the authentic appearance of the wilderness, I was momentarily speechless.

Is this for real?

Are they really saying they will stay here?

Why? Do they really want to help me that much? Are they really willing to cut ties with the Federation they’ve been working for and continue to stay here? Without even going to school?

There was no one sleeping.

Outside the vinyl, the door was bright. Were they all out working?

I bent slightly at the waist and went outside the vinyl.

“Jieun!”

And as soon as I left the house, Hayoon’s voice was heard.

The children were standing in the field.

Calling out their name and seeing them just standing there made me feel a bit awkward, so I walked slowly towards where the children were.

There was a vegetable garden.

It wasn’t just sprouts growing, but clearly crops growing towards the sky.

As the children said, it looked like something that could be eaten ‘soon’. Maybe we could harvest it by next week.

“……”

Hayoon looked at me with a concerned expression, but I could only stand there, at a loss for words.

The circuit on the children’s wrists was powered by my energy, resonating with it to operate. They weren’t using their own energy, just resonating with mine.

With the same energy as mine, these children sprouted the plants.

“Jieun?”

At Hayoon’s words, I looked up.

I didn’t know what expression to make.

It would be strange to smile. Just a while ago, I was filled with complaints. I didn’t even have a moment where I wanted to smile.

But getting angry… that would be too pathetic.

Well, it’s natural that I’m a pathetic person. Since I found out about magical girls in this world, I’ve never not been jealous of those beings.

In the end, my choice and subsequent actions were just pathetic.

I turned around and headed back home.

It would have been nice if there was something else I could do—

Beep beep beep—

Before I could even get home, the communicator rang.

The magical girls’ communicator.

Of course, since I had taken charge of the other communicators, only mine was ringing.

“……”

I took out the communicator from my pocket and looked at it.

There was a message saying that a monster had appeared and to come quickly.

Just from the message, it seemed quite urgent. Well, I’ve been relying on magical girls for help all this time.

The police have introduced equipment to catch monsters to some extent, but they haven’t been able to respond perfectly to all monsters yet. There were even monsters that melted wires just the other day.

I looked back.

The faces of the magical girls were pale.

They seemed like they wanted to run over right away, but they had a look as if they weren’t sure if I would allow it.

Hayoon even avoided my gaze.

As if she couldn’t say to go. Just a little while ago, her lively expression turned pale, and her shoulders slumped as if she lost strength.

“……”

What should I say?

Should I say that you are no longer magical girls? Or should I say that you should follow my orders while you are with me?

I had already said something similar to the latter. Thanks to that, I couldn’t do anything yesterday.

I looked up at the sky.

It was clear. Sometimes in spring, there are days when fine dust is in the air, but strangely, the sky was clear.

Well, ever since the Galactic Federation came down to this world, the environment has been improving. The Galactic Federation is supporting various things to improve the environmental conditions of this world.

And, for some reason, they also brought along the existence of monsters.

More precisely, they brought people who have the potential to become monsters.

Like how ordinary people have the potential to become criminals.

“Let’s go.”

In the end, I muttered those words and headed home.

I could hear the footsteps of five people following behind me.

*

Even now, Ji-hye still didn’t fully understand what had happened that day.

“It wasn’t anything serious,” the medical staff at the hospital where Ji-hye was hospitalized had said.

When others asked if everything was okay, the doctors would put on a slightly serious expression before simply saying, “Everything’s fine.”

The teacher was fine. Most of the kids were too.

But there were a few young ones who were a problem.

No one knew what kind of gas had been released at the childcare center. They said it wasn’t something that would cause major harm to the body, but the lethal dose is always relative. If an adult faints or falls asleep from a certain amount, then it would have a much greater effect on children much smaller than the adults.

There were still kids who hadn’t woken up.

The medical staff were unsure of what to do. It wasn’t a serious level of danger, but those kids were still “asleep.”

“…”

What happened that day?

What were the intruders trying to do?

Even though something like that happened at the childcare center, there was no news or articles about it.

The other kids at school only knew that Ji-hye was hospitalized because she wasn’t feeling well.

And knowing that situation, even without anyone telling her, Ji-hye could guess what was happening.

“Don’t say anything.”

That was probably for the best. Not saying anything. To anyone. Even the teacher didn’t say a word about what happened that day.

The childcare center went back to normal abnormally quickly.

There was no shortage of funds for the kids who were hospitalized. There were subsidies, and the money Ji-eun had earned was still there.

The broken parts were all fixed. Both the teachers and the kids were just trying to move on.

Only Ji-hye suspected that the incident was related to Ji-eun in some way.

After that, Ji-eun appeared again. She stood against monsters with magical girls.

And after that, the news suddenly stopped.

There were no articles. The stories of the missing magical girls suddenly disappeared.

But that didn’t mean that the rumors on the internet or the stories circulating among the kids had completely disappeared.

The magical girls had defected from the Federation. They were said to have joined hands with the black magical girl, becoming nothing more than criminals…

Naturally, most of the rumors heard in such situations were sensational and malicious.

Those kinds of stories were also heard around Ji-hye.

There seemed to be rumors circulating about Ji-hye’s visit to the hospital. Ji-hye couldn’t know for sure what those rumors were since no one directly told her.

But no matter what the rumors were, the conclusion was the same.

So, who was going to deal with the monsters now?

It’s uncertain if the police can handle it. If not, maybe the military can.

Of course, there might be far more sacrifices than if the magical girls were to step in and help. The monsters’ attacks were at a level where ordinary people could die in one hit.

The Federation remained silent, the government didn’t seem to have much interest from the start, and companies were promoting their own fighters.

Those who seemed eager to devour Ji-eun now seemed to have no connection at all, as if the story had never existed in the first place.

My heart felt suffocated.

Since being discharged from the hospital—no, even before that, since Ji-eun disappeared from my side.

Ji-hye’s heart felt suffocated.

Does the author know? That the room has become such a mess? That Eun’s beloved sound devices and CDs are broken?

That day, someone might have done something to Ji-hye’s body, do they know?

It was scary.

Only Eun could share such stories. Eun, who used to lie side by side in the same room every day, like family, even with a name so similar.

But Eun disappeared. Became impossible to meet.

So, since then, my heart—

Buzz.

The phone vibrated.

It wasn’t just Ji-hye’s. The phones in the classroom, even the teacher’s, were ringing.

The teacher took out the phone.

Ji-hye and the other kids too.

It was an emergency alert.

Warning not to go near where a monster appeared.

The teacher, as if it was nothing, put the phone down and continued the class—

But Ji-hye got up and left her seat.

She didn’t know what she was thinking.

During class.

“What’s wrong?”

The teacher opened his eyes wide and looked at Ji-hye.

A normal expression, not showing any malice.

That’s how the world was. Even though Eun disappeared, even though the magical girl disappeared, everyone acted as if nothing had happened from the beginning.

Even after receiving help. Even after being tormented.

“Oh, I… I need to use the restroom….”

A few kids laughed. Without malice, just a laughter that came out because the situation was a bit funny.

If Eun hadn’t disappeared, if she hadn’t experienced such things, and if the one who got up was not Ji-hye but another kid, Ji-hye might have laughed too.

“Okay, go ahead.”

The teacher also chuckled and said.

Ji-hye bowed and quickly left the classroom.

Now sweat was coming out of her forehead too.

Can I go?

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

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

Even if Eun doesn’t come, there is a possibility that she might come—

So, Ji-hye walked.

Until the end of the hallway, until the front of the restroom.

But Ji-hye didn’t go into the restroom.

Instead, she ran towards the stairs.

She ran down the stairs as fast as she could, ran out of the school, across the playground.

No one called out to Ji-hye. They didn’t know she had left in the first place.

Ji-hye ran. She didn’t have time to look back or hesitate. The security guard at the main gate seemed to be saying something, but she didn’t even pretend to listen.

Because Eun might disappear again.

Because this time too, before she could even say a word, she might disappear—

…

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