Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

13 – Interlude – Each of Their Stories

Mom, Dad.

Have you been well?

It’s me, Siyul.

That son who never bothered to contact you is suddenly writing a letter? You’re probably wondering what this is all about. Honestly, I feel a little shameless myself.

No, from the start, I don’t even know if writing this letter is the right thing to do. I don’t even know if you’re alive or gone.

I was just on my way to the unit when they suddenly told me to write a letter to my parents, so here I am. Figured I’d at least send my regards.

Yes, I’m in a car right now. A police car.

It’s damn hard to write in here.

Especially with these handcuffs on, it’s even more of a pain.

The only good thing is, the cake is good. I really didn’t think that b*stard would actually buy it for me.

A sudden letter, and now I’m in a police car wearing handcuffs, you must be wondering. And what’s with the cake?

Of course, I understand. Frankly, even *I* think this doesn’t make any sense.

No, nothing of this makes any sense.

Right after graduating high school, I went to the army, and as soon as I was discharged, I get dragged into another world.

I suffer like a dog, come back from that other world, and suddenly I’m a deserter.

And now, I’m supposed to be a magical girl.

You believe that? You probably don’t.

Honestly, neither do I. Why is my life like this?

Anyway.

Still, after ten years in that other world, I managed to snag one of those fancy “sa-jja” professions my parents always wanted.

A judge? Not even close.

A prosecutor? Not exactly wrong, but a bit different.

A doctor? I treated people’s bodies directly, but no.

So, what is it then?

A job that involves wielding a sword and clinging to life with near-impossible tenacity.

Yep, a hero.

Not that I suddenly became a hero thanks to some special perk from the other world like in those typical novels, and it’s definitely not like I went around mowing down enemies with that power.

The truth is, I wasn’t even a hero from the start.

I won’t say more about that story. I’ll save it as a topic for when we meet in person later. Besides, I’m running out of paper.

Anyway, currently, I’ve become a magical girl.

Not that my gender changed or I’m wearing a magical girl outfit, but apparently, I’m a magical girl now. If she were still alive, she would know about this even better than I do.

The following is what I’m writing as I was told.

The period I’ll be active as a magical girl lasts until I become a Magical Sergeant. After that, unless I become a Magical Staff Sergeant, it’s a discharge.

Apparently, I’m still listed as a deserter, so I have to serve the rest of my time like this.

Well, “Magical Sergeant” is just a regular sergeant.

Yeah, I ended up going back to the military. What the fuck.

You might say, what kind of military is a magical girl unit? But it looks like a military to me. They said I have to be stuck here for two years.

To draw a comparison, it’s similar to the old Air Force. Some magical girls fight in the sky, so the word Air Force isn’t exactly wrong.

At least there are a lot of long vacations, but honestly, if I can’t go home, it’s still the military. Not that I even have a home anymore.

Anyway.

I’m discharged when I become a Magical Sergeant. The only saving grace is that even if I don’t become a Magical Sergeant, they’ll still discharge me after two years no matter what.

If I want to get discharged faster, I can get promoted by performing exceptional service, like the other magical girls.

This isn’t about some grand achievement, like hunting down defectors or rogue agents anymore.

It’s simple, really. Just like those magic girls, you kill enough aberrant creatures, and that’s that. I just heard about it myself.

Of course, I don’t plan on rushing into anything.

What can someone like me, who can’t do a damn thing, even do?

So, I’ll just hang in there and get out.

Probably won’t be easy though. A whole two years as it is. Even if I get a lot of leave, that just means I have to be around those magic girls that much more.

Which could lead to even more friction, big and small. Magic girls and I are just too different to begin with.

But don’t worry too much.

Who am I, after all?

Not a total screw-up, but a certified “A-lister,” aren’t I?

For someone like me, just surviving is easy. Truthfully, I’m still pissed as hell about this, but what can you do? I’ll just drift along and get discharged when the time comes.

Besides, even if I said I’d cause some trouble, would I *really* do that?

I’m a model A-lister, after all.

Anyway, I’ll come visit you when I’m discharged.

Maybe even before, if it’s possible.

So, I hope you’ll still be around then. I really have a lot to say.

Frankly, someone whose mom and dad are pushing up daisies is… well, it’s a bit much.

Might give me an edge in a trash-talking contest, but still.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say. There’s no more room to write, and it looks like they’ve arrived.

I’ll cut this short now.

Goodbye.

Let’s meet again, if we can.

— Kim Shi-yul, A-lister magic girl, not a screw-up.

P.S.: Remember when I told you to take out all your rent money and buy shares of [redacted] and you beat the crap out of me?

Seriously, why did you do that?

I was showing you the path to success.

You need to learn a thing or two about stocks from me.

*

“Hah.”

The nurse sighed deeply.

“Life’s a b*tch.”

It was a truly chaotic day.

Called in on my day off, just to be notified to perform a magical girl assessment. And to top it off, the subject wasn’t even a woman, but a man.

It was all incomprehensible, but what could I do? Following orders was the life of a nurse.

However.

There was something even more baffling right before my eyes.

I’d seen it once before, but the more I looked at it now, the less sense it made.

What I was staring at were the results from the magical girl aptitude test.

“What the hell is this?”

It wasn’t like the result itself was completely bizarre.

Mana situated in the place where a heart should be.

But that was it – no other form.

A typical mana observation result for a male.

Conversely, for females, it’s a little different. Unlike males, the mana centered around the heart spreads throughout the body.

Like a kind of blood vessel. Except what flows through it isn’t blood, but mana.

That’s why men can’t wield mana.

It’s only logical. It’s like having a car with a full tank of gas, but the roads are all blocked – there’s no way the car can move forward.

In the end, having mana is pointless.

Because there’s no pathway for the mana to flow.

On the other hand, women, unlike men, can freely manipulate mana.

‘Assuming they’re magical girls, that is.’

In simple terms, they can strengthen their bodies with mana, or even go a step further and imbue the tips of their limbs – their personal magical wands – with mana to manifest magic.

Aside from magical girls, there’s only one other type of being that can distribute and utilize mana in that way.

A freak.

Unlike magical girls, freaks can use magic even without a magical wand. However, they can’t use magic as potent as a magical girl’s.

Anyway.

‘Well, that’s not the point.’

The results for the man I tested today, Kim Si-yul, were identical to those of a typical male.

Except for two very strange things.

First, the amount of mana itself was immense.

Of a caliber hardly befitting a commoner.

If this was something he was born with…

‘Such a waste.’

Truly regrettable. A genuine sentiment, devoid of falsehood.

Had Kim Si-yul been a woman instead of a man, he would have inevitably risen to prominence, sooner or later.

To the point where he could stand shoulder to shoulder with the strongest magical girl who participated in today’s consultation, within a short timeframe.

It’s obvious.

The foundational resource of magic is mana.

While individual differences may exist depending on how efficiently one handles mana, there’s absolutely no downside to possessing a large amount.

Ultimately, it means one can use the same magic more powerfully, and more frequently.

However.

Though it is absolutely impossible…

If, by some remote chance, the amount of mana was acquired later…

‘Is that even possible?’

Frankly, it’s hard to believe.

There are various methods to increase the amount of mana, whether temporarily or permanently.

Intense emotions, enlightenment, elixirs, equipment, and so on. This applies equally regardless of gender.

Nonetheless, the fastest and most effective method, compared to the methods mentioned above, is different.

‘Dying and coming back to life, if I remember correctly.’

An experience of flirting with life and death.

In some ways, it might seem vague, but it has been proven through numerous real-world examples.

However.

For an ordinary person who isn’t even a magical girl to have this much mana, experiencing death and resurrection three or four times wouldn’t be nearly enough.

‘At the very least…’

Double digits.

No, triple digits.

In truth, even that was difficult to be certain of.

A level that could only be barely achieved by living with death as a companion every day, or rather, almost every moment.

‘Just what…’

What in the world has she been doing? It was difficult to even imagine as a mere nurse.

However, there was something even stranger than that.

‘Color aside, what’s with the shape?’

The color and form of magical power vary slightly from person to person, and they exert greater or lesser influence, especially on women.

There are two immediate outward changes caused by magical power.

The color of body hair, and the shape of the body.

As the diffused magical power extends throughout the body, including the head, the body hair exhibits discoloration. Naturally, the same color as the magical power.

The body is fixed into the form best suited for utilizing magical power on an individual basis. Not quite as much as during transformation, but overall physical abilities are enhanced.

Meanwhile, magical power also exerts influence when transforming into a magical girl.

The color and type of magic.

For a simple example, the strongest magical girl’s magical power is white in color and takes the form of the sun.

Therefore, her unique magic is the White Sun.

Nowadays, she barely uses magic at all, instead just smashing monsters to death with her bare fists, but still, if she’s simply beating monsters to death, isn’t that still a proper magic skill?

‘Did they say using magic triggers a disaster warning…?’

But.

To see magical power with such a bizarre color and shape was a first, even in my rather lengthy nursing career.

It was close to a white circle, but it was quite difficult to simply call it a pure white circle.

Because of two peculiarities.

First, the entire outer edge of the circle was distorted and pressed down, as if it were tightly ‘bound’ by string-like objects.

And.

The border wasn’t smooth, possessing an indescribably irregular shape.

One part was sharp, as if torn, while another section was comparatively smooth. There were also strange, intermittent specks of what appeared to be black inside.

Even more, about a third of the whole thing felt slightly dusky. The boundary was clear, as if it were being ‘obscured’ by a shadow or something.

While a definitive conclusion couldn’t be drawn, to the eyes of a nurse with many years of experience, all of this somehow looked like trauma in the process of healing.

Trauma that had been ‘gnawed’ away at, with new flesh sprouting.

‘Something…’

Could she have been wounded?

That feeling flickered for a moment.

‘Eh, no way.’

Honestly, it felt absurd.

Magic was not something you could damage.

It was an energy separate from the flesh.

Even if a part of your body vanished, or conversely, you devoured another’s, the magic itself remained unchanged.

Even if it were possible, not a single being in this world had actually consumed magic. Not human, nor monster.

You could attach the word “absolute” to it. Magic was a relatively recent concept, but there had been enough time to analyze and understand it.

“Haa…”

The nurse sighed, pausing to consider.

The instruction she’d received upon arriving at work had been this: the subject was a hardened deserter, absent without leave for twelve years, so any and all specific details were to be recorded as ‘none.’

Regardless of what the subject babbled about.

Regardless of the outcome.

But.

‘Is that right, though?’

No matter how she looked at it, he was far from normal.

A staggeringly vast amount of magic.

An utterly bizarre form of magic.

To simply pass this over felt, somehow, unsettling.

‘It’d be better if…’

It seemed much better to manage him separately. The thought had even crossed her mind. That’s how alien a presence Kim Si-yul was.

At the crossroads of choice, the nurse wavered for a moment.

Record ‘none’ for the specific details and move on.

Or report the details to her superiors, just in case.

The decision came quickly.

‘Well, it’s not my problem.’

Reporting it would only lead to her being summoned by the higher-ups and forced to explain things all over again.

She was already exhausted from being pulled in on her off-day, she didn’t need to go looking for more work.

On the other hand, if she didn’t report it, she could leave immediately.

Which meant a few more minutes of sleep.

‘I have to work another night shift again later…’

Besides, even if a problem arose later and she was held responsible, she already had plenty of excuses.

She was merely following the orders from above, what could a single nurse possibly do?

“If you don’t like it, fire me, you sons of b*tches.”

The nurse hammered at the keyboard, devoid of expression.

【Special Notes: None.】

Nothing mattered more than her clocking out.