Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

18 – Magical Initiation Ceremony (4)

Kim Shiyul is a strange person.

At least, that’s what Sora thought.

Just the information surrounding Kim Shiyul was enough.

A deserter who wasn’t caught during the monster invasion.

A concept kind of guy who claims to have traveled to another world.

A lunatic who thinks he’s a Moon Warrior.

He’s not your average strange person.

Of course, Sora didn’t judge Kim Shiyul based on things like that. She was the type to only believe what she saw with her own eyes, regardless of what others spouted.

However, the short amount of time she’d spent with him was enough to conclude that Kim Shiyul was indeed strange.

He’d do daring things against the monsters.

He’d wipe the corpse of a monster on someone else’s clothes.

He almost died, yet he’d brush it off nonchalantly.

And now, this.

“T-t-t-that crazy person.”

He even went as far as to provoke the Weirdo.

Even though the Weirdo clearly wasn’t one for conversation, he kept approaching, trying to rile him up at every turn.

This wasn’t just reckless bravado. It could only be described as utter madness.

Was he truly out of his mind?

Or had his sense of fear simply broken down?

Either way, Kim Si-yul was a truly bizarre person. At least, that’s what Sora thought.

But there was something even stranger.

“No, really, what *is* that?”

He was deflecting the Weirdo’s assault, something an ordinary person, not a magical girl, could never handle, with an almost nonchalant ease.

With only the barest minimum of movement needed.

Two steps, maybe three.

A parry once, perhaps twice.

That was all he did each time he was attacked.

Of course, when several Weirdos targeted him at once, his actions became a bit more varied.

Leaping over a Weirdo’s body, for instance.

Or making one Weirdo take the hit meant for him.

But even with the diversification of his tactics, he never moved more than strictly necessary.

An extreme economy of motion, relentlessly minimizing expenditure.

Frankly, if this strange behavior had been a one-time thing, or even a couple of times, Sora wouldn’t have thought it was all that strange.

The first time is a mistake.

The second, a coincidence.

The third, luck.

She would have dismissed it with that explanation.

But.

“How many times is this now?”

Could you really chalk up such repeated actions to mere chance or luck?

Sora, at least, didn’t think so.

“I don’t know…”

With a complicated feeling, Sora shook her head and tapped Rei on the shoulder.

“Unni.”

“Huh? Sora, what is it? Why the ‘why’?”

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you, what Sunbae’s doing? How is that even possible?”

“Well…”

Leah nodded a couple of times, then shrugged, meeting Sora’s gaze.

“Anyway, isn’t it making things, like, way easier for us?”

“That’s…”

True enough. Sora quietly nodded her head.

Aside from the rare, exceptional magical girl, most work in teams. Typically as members of a Magical Living Quarter.

There are multiple reasons, but the most fundamental one is this: to compensate for the gaps, large and small, that exist within each of them.

However, the problem is…

‘Two of our usual team are currently unavailable, aren’t they?’

They’re short on staff.

One is away on assignment.

The other on vacation.

‘We’re supposed to have one more, normally.’

Even that one retired not long ago. Which is why Kim Si-yul ended up here.

But Kim Si-yul is just a regular person.

They can’t treat her as a viable asset.

Especially not in the current situation, where the monstrous entities just keep endlessly pouring in, more than five magical girls could handle.

Even if she and Leah are a good match, covering each other’s weaknesses, there are only two of them at the end of the day. Against entities swarming in like this, it’s not enough.

Sooner or later, their gaps are bound to overlap.

‘No, but seriously, there are way too many of them.’

Sora had no idea why there were so many monstrous entities.

Judging by the magic spells being fired at the entities from the sky and ground far in the distance, the other magical girls clearly haven’t been wiped out.

Besides, the entities’ levels are too low for that many magical girls to get annihilated anyway.

‘Could it be that the front lines have actually been breached? Or is someone deliberately sending them all this way?’

Even as she pondered over these questions, they were all things she couldn’t readily answer.

However, there was one question she could answer with certainty.

If this situation continues, will they be able to safely rejoin the other magical girls?

‘Doubtful.’

Frankly, the outlook is grim.

A future all but set in stone. The arrangement here had solidified to a degree almost impossible to overturn.

But.

‘Thinking about it that way, I suppose it’s fortunate, now.’

Kim Shi-yul, that variable, had disrupted the whole game.

It made no sense that they’d be so riled up when communication was clearly impossible, but the monster, the aberrant ones, fixated on Kim Shi-yul with a strange, almost obsessive, single-mindedness.

Of course, because Kim Shi-yul kept evading them, they hadn’t landed a single hit.

As a result, the rest of them were immensely more comfortable.

Because Kim Shi-yul was drawing their attention, she and her sister could focus solely on attacking.

In reality, it was less of a battle and more of a one-sided hunt. Or, to be even more precise, just a game of target practice.

The targets: monster.

The ammunition: magic.

Even as Sora and Rei blatantly conjured spells right before their eyes, the monster didn’t spare them a glance.

They merely kept lunging, repeatedly lunging, towards Kim Shi-yul.

Therefore, Kim Shi-yul’s presence was helpful. At the very least, undeniably so, to the two of them here.

‘Looking purely at the outcome, I’m genuinely grateful, but…’

Even so, she still couldn’t entirely shake the feeling that Kim Shi-yul was an odd sort.

In that moment, Kim Shi-yul picking a fight with yet another monster entered Sora’s vision.

“Hey, you play mobile games?”

To a monster with a flowerpot in place of a head.

“You a scrub?”

A sudden, icy chill raced down Sora’s spine. Truthfully, she’d relaxed a little, but now she had to grip tight to the reins of tension.

‘What are you doing, seriously!’

Despite its ridiculous appearance, that monster was exceedingly dangerous.

A monster of a different caliber than all the others they’d faced so far.

The reason for its high danger level was simple, but definite. From the flower blooming in the pot where its head should be, it was randomly unleashing barrages of magic.

Not the weak magic used by some of the monster, but magic potent enough to seriously injure anyone who wasn’t a magical girl specializing in defense.

Just like right now.

“Senior! Wa─!”

Sora barely managed to utter a few syllables, but in that brief time, the monster had manifested countless spells.

Countless strands of light pierce the air.

‘No!’

This was bad.

Even knowing this weirdo’s magic exists, it’s too fast to properly counter. Not to mention, there are a lot of them, and they’re potent.

Even a magical girl – unless she’s exceptionally strong – needs a team to take on a weirdo like this.

At least three of them.

Two of whom need to be able to block magic.

One needs to hold the line up front, and another has to escort the magical girl flanking around to his weak spot – the back of his head.

Textbook stuff, and practically the only way to fight this thing.

But could a normal person even handle it?

Impossible.

They’d get hit by the magic, guaranteed.

And they’d die.

“Playing like that, you’re never getting to Platinum.”

No, that *should* have been the case.

But, much to Sora’s worry-filled dismay, Kim Si-yul was dealing with the weirdo’s magic with an almost casual ease.

Dodging the ones he could, deflecting the unavoidable with his magic wand.

“Retry.”

The cycle just kept repeating.

‘Wait, what…?’

Sora was genuinely dumbfounded.

For a normal person to react to attacks that even magical girls struggle to perceive was simply absurd.

It had long since surpassed the realm of simply being ‘remarkably quick reflexes.’

It was a near-miraculous feat.

‘What kind of trick is he pulling, seriously?’

Even forcing herself to think of reasons, all she could come up with were a few utterly unbelievable possibilities.

Like, maybe he knew everything about this weirdo.

Or he could predict the future with eerie accuracy.

Or maybe…

He was just mind-numbingly used to this kind of situation.

‘Just how…’

How was it even possible? Sora couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

It got to the point where, for a fleeting moment, she wondered if Kim Shiyul had actually lived in another world.

‘Of course not.’

She immediately shook her head, vehemently denying the thought.

Still, from Sora’s perspective, Kim Shiyul was a person shrouded in utter strangeness.

‘What on earth does he even do, really?’

Having witnessed such an unbelievable reality, Sora stood frozen, rooted to the spot.

Ray, on the other hand, wasn’t standing idly by like Sora.

“Nice one! Darkie!”

While Kim Shiyul had kept the monster’s attention, Ray had swiftly circled around and kicked out the monster’s kneecap.

– Crrrunch!

With a sound like steel contorting, the monster’s body twisted halfway around on the spot.

Head to the earth.

Legs to the sky.

Ray then stomped on the monster’s head. A wand was pointed at the back of the monster’s head, now buried in the ground.

“Got you, Monstrosity.”

Ray took a moment to catch their breath, then looked at Kim Shiyul with an innocent smile.

“Darkie! You’re really amazing!”

“I told you, I’m not Darkie, I’m a Hero.”

Unable to say anything to that smiling face, Kim Shiyul smiled slightly as well.

For the first time, a warm current flowed between the two who had been snarling at each other until now.

“Hero my foot. Darkie, you really must have hit your head hard.”

“Hey, you wanna die?”

Well, that warm atmosphere didn’t last very long.

Anyway.

Thanks to them, Sora sighed inwardly.

‘Ah, they really get along with each other.’

In Sora’s eyes, they were a perfect match.

They could hold a decent conversation, and they complemented each other in battle like this.

Of course, the age gap between the two was considerable.

Kim Si-yul was thirty-three, compared to the twenty-six-year-old unnie.

‘Still.’

Judging by looks alone, you could say they were in the same age range. If you really pressed, Kim Si-yul actually seemed a bit younger than Rei.

‘It’s not like it’s a ten-year difference like with me, anyway.’

Of course, it was still true that Kim Si-yul was… unusual. Sora wouldn’t deny that. Kim Si-yul was just that much of an alien being compared to most people.

But.

Not a bad person.

And certainly not someone to dislike.

‘No, rather.’

If forced to choose between like and dislike, it’d be like.

There were still many ‘problems’ to sort out, but, well.

In all honesty, she hoped the two of them would develop a deeper connection. Bickering like they were now wasn’t bad, but something more… intimate.

For example, a special, romantic relationship.

“A hero? What kind of hero, you darkie. That sort of thing doesn’t exist. You’ve watched too much manga.”

“No, seriously, I *swear* I was the Moon Hero, okay?”

“Seriously, shut the hell up.”

“Seriously, I’m begging you, can I just punch you in the sternum once? I’ll go easy.”

Well, it seemed difficult for the moment.

‘Can’t be helped.’

It might be impossible right now, but someday the two of them *would* be in that kind of relationship. Even if it was difficult, Sora would make sure it happened.

That was Sora’s earnest wish.

And also, a step closer to her dream.

Meanwhile, separate from Sora’s musings, the surroundings were certainly more or less cleared up. No more grotesque creatures were approaching.

Just the one that Rei was standing on.

Which meant.

That if they caught this one, it was over.

“That’s the last one, unnie. Finish it.”

The words barely left her lips before Rei pulled the trigger, about to fire the Magical Superconductor.

“Die.”

But she couldn’t.

“Hey.”

A voice, scraping lightly at the edges of her nerves.

And.

“Move it.”

*Thwack*. A kick sent Rei’s wand skittering away.

“Everything else aside.”

Something was amiss, and Sora turned her head. Standing where the voice came from were magical girls.

Magical girls, as familiar as could be.

And.

“Hand that over to us.”

Magical girls she hadn’t wanted to meet.