Hallucinations and Whispers of the Dead
The first time I saw her like this, the blonde twintailed Han Yeeun stood before me.
She looked pitiful, barely holding herself up as she gripped a spear longer than she was tall with both hands.
She apologized for making everyone worry she might trigger the villains’ trap, her voice carrying zero tension whatsoever.
Or maybe she was locked in her own tense battle with herself?
“Ugh…”
The moment Han Yeeun dry-heaved, every pair of eyes in the room snapped toward me.
“This bastard… she only just turned twenty…”
“It’s the start of the year. Morning sickness? No way it’s you.”
The villains’ murmurs filled the warehouse to bursting.
All the murderous rage and bloodlust that should have been aimed at Han Yeeun pivoted straight at me instead.
A few of them wore expressions like they were watching the juiciest trashy drama from the front row.
“N-no! We’ve only met a few times!”
“What?! Pregnant after just a few meetings? Damn, this guy’s stamina must be insane. How good is he…?”
“No wonder the magical girl kept showing up at a civilian’s house. How much gaslighting did you do to that iron-willed woman? Don’t tell me you’re the villain here?”
“If you’ve got even a halfway decent face, you should’ve kept it in your pants!!”
This is driving me insane. For real.
I thrashed back and forth in protest, but it only made me look like some clumsy kid who’d tripped over his own feet.
“It’s not like that! She’s only acting this way because she drank too much yesterday!”
I shouted while flailing like a fish on a hook, still tied to the overturned chair.
But to their ears it sounded like the pathetic excuse of a pervert who’d gotten a magical girl drunk and knocked her up.
In their eyes I was nothing more than a shameless civilian who’d impregnated a girl who had just turned twenty.
These criminals had the nerve to look at me like that?
“You’re finished. We’re villains, so maybe we shouldn’t be the ones saying this, but for the sake of society’s justice—and on behalf of all men—we’ll start by castrating you.”
The man drew a dagger and aimed it not at my throat but squarely between my legs.
“Who… dares… touch… my Oppa…”
A low, fury-laden voice reverberated through the entire warehouse.
Han Yeeun slowly raised her head while still bracing the spear with both hands.
Bright yellow sparks crackled and danced inside her golden eyes.
Because of who exactly am I suffering this misunderstanding right now?!
“Pregnant?! I haven’t even held hands with Oppa yet, you idiots!!!”
RUMBLE!!!
With a roar that was closer to a beast’s bellow than a shout, blue lightning exploded from her spear.
The warehouse lights burst from the overload, plunging the space into an eerie bluish glow.
“Ugh! Hey! Get it over here!”
The villain who had been targeting my manhood screamed and toppled backward.
At the same time I heard the others behind me grunting as they prepared something.
What is it? What are they doing? I can’t see!
WHOOSH!!!
“Pwah! Blech!! It’s cold!!”
A massive wave of water suddenly crashed over me.
With both hands tied, I couldn’t even wipe my eyes. All I could do was twist my head and shake off what I could.
“Well then, Magical Keraunos! Why don’t you show us that famous lightning you’re so proud of? In this situation where your precious lover is getting a nice wet shower, can you still rampage however you want like before? Go ahead—leak even a little spark, and this guy gets fried to a crisp!”
“You bastards…!”
“Oops, careful or she might actually shoot lightning. We all know her lightning is an area attack. Electricity runs through that spear of hers too. Think this ordinary civilian can survive it?”
The villain yanked my hair back and pressed the knife ostentatiously against my throat.
“A magical girl who killed civilians. Is that the rumor you want spreading?”
Clang.
“Yeeun-ssi!!”
“Ah… aah… ah…!”
Han Yeeun suddenly crumpled to the floor, staring into empty space with unfocused eyes.
“I… I… I killed… people…”
Damn it.
I never expected my small words of comfort last night to heal her completely.
Even so, the memories that had been strangling her were simply too enormous.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… Because of me… If only I had been the one who got hit…”
“Why is that bitch acting like this?”
Thud!
Han Yeeun, clutching her face and staggering, tumbled straight off the container.
“Yeeun-ssi!!!”
“I don’t want this… I don’t want it… I want to die… I should have been the one who died… A magical girl who killed civilians… What right does a magical girl who’s supposed to protect civilians have to kill people and still…”
“Ahaha! I don’t know what the hell she’s on about!”
Thwack!
“But seeing that lightning witch like this!”
Thwack!!
“Sure feels good!!”
“Stop!! Stop it right now!!!”
“Nah, no reason to stop. We’re just getting started!”
The villain let out a deranged laugh as he watched Han Yeeun curl up on the floor and take every blow without resistance.
Forgetting the pain of the zip-tie cutting into my wrists, I twisted my whole body—chair and all—and crawled forward.
Even if I couldn’t stop the violence, I could at least take some of the hits for her.
“Aah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I killed them. I deserve to be beaten. I… I…! Hic… ugh…!”
Hyperventilating, Han Yeeun clutched at her own throat. Her pupils had gone completely blank.
Instead of the villains’ curses, she was hearing auditory hallucinations no one else could perceive.
Instead of their fists, she was seeing resentful faces she had never actually encountered.
“Yeeun-ssi! Han Yeeun!! Listen to me! Snap out of it!!”
She simply crawled across the floor, repeating apologies over and over—not to the villains, but to victims who existed only in the empty air.
One villain chuckled, then grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up.
“Hey, your boyfriend’s calling you desperately. At least let him see your face at the end, yeah?”
He forcibly turned her face toward me.
I was right in front of her, yet her unfocused gaze—blurred by blood, tears, and dust—never landed on me.
“Yeeun-ssi! Look at me! Look into my eyes!”
“O… ppa? I’m sorry… Because of me… I’m going to get people killed again… I’m going to get Oppa killed… Four years ago I killed people and forced myself to keep going, but I…”
“No! Yeeun-ssi, you saved me yesterday! When I saw you yesterday, I realized the magical girl who killed my family must have felt that sad too. At least she wouldn’t have been able to sleep peacefully afterward. The resentment I’d been carrying in a corner of my heart toward magical girls—it disappeared because of you!”
I kept shouting even as my breath scraped at the back of my throat.
“If you give up here, what about all the people who will be in danger from now on?! The ones you don’t save, the ones you abandon—they’ll die even more!”
“But… the people who died because I said I would save them… their families…”
“The people you did save don’t think that way! They don’t want to see you collapse like this!”
“These bastards are really asking for it…!”
The villain grabbed my hair and drove his knee into my stomach, but I refused to stop talking.
“Save me. You know better than anyone that turning your back on the person right in front of you isn’t what a magical girl is supposed to do.”
“Oppa…”
“Heh, becoming a villain was worth it. Getting to watch this live and up close.”
“I wonder what the hell I was doing before I became a villain… I miss my first love…”
“You idiots are really enjoying the show, huh?! The freak show’s over. Finish it!”
Another waterfall of water crashed down on me.
The freezing chill soaked straight into my bones.
They dragged Han Yeeun away while she was still limp and unresponsive.
Had she come back to herself? Or was she still lost inside hallucinations and phantom voices?
Her wet hair covered her eyes, so I couldn’t tell.
Please, come back to me…!
Crackle. Crackle-crackle.
The sharp sound of lightning cut clearly through the air.
Thin sparks began dancing across Han Yeeun’s body.
“You crazy bitch! You don’t care if this hostage dies?!”
Instead of answering, Han Yeeun unleashed lightning from her entire body, electrocuting everything around her.
“GYAAAAAAAH!!!”
“KUAAGH!! It hurts, it hurts, please stoooooop!!!”
Like a scene from a snuff film, the men’s eyes rolled back, bodies convulsing as they collapsed one after another.
But Han Yeeun’s lightning showed no sign of stopping.
“That’s right. My lightning is an area attack. After that day, it became even harder to control.”
“I was always afraid. Afraid that the hand I reached out would put everyone around me in danger.”
“Afraid I would burn everything nearby to ash.”
“That’s why I never went near areas with civilians.”
“Astrape.”
At her quiet murmur, the spear that had fallen to the floor flew back into her grasp.
A spear of brilliant blue light, not the usual yellow lightning.
“Hey! We have a hostage! You don’t care what happens to this guy?!”
“Shut up.”
Han Yeeun’s eyes blazed as if they had become lightning itself.
“Until now my heart was shaking, so the lightning scattered everywhere. But not anymore. The place my lightning needs to reach… is perfectly clear now.”
