The Pathetic Giant Magical Girl
A relaxed afternoon after the girl had left.
As I stepped out of the smartphone store, a new phone rested in my hand.
Tens of millions in bounty money, the desire to screw over a magical girl, even the forfeited reward itself—I’d told myself none of it mattered. But watching four hundred and forty thousand won vanish in a single transaction shook my convictions harder than I expected.
Wouldn’t it be fine to just say I spotted her nearby? She was probably already at school anyway.
The thought flashed through my mind and I immediately shook my head.
I wonder if she actually attended class properly without skipping.
She hadn’t ditched halfway and wandered off somewhere else, right?
She was a villain, after all. I still wasn’t convinced she could adapt to normal school life and handle it properly.
Before I knew it, I realized I had walked out of the store holding a jar of peanut jam.
“At this rate I’m going to end up playing both babysitter and innkeeper.”
Judging by how often Han Yeeun seemed to drop by, the two of them were bound to run into each other eventually. Would the “she’s my cousin” excuse still hold up then?
Flash.
A pink burst of light flared from deep inside the alley, and something pink came tumbling out.
Lately a lot of things had been rolling to a stop in front of me.
“Ow ow ow ow ow ow…”
A young girl with a childish voice.
Pink lace trimmed with frills, a flashy pink staff, and an abundance of pink decorations. She was a pink-ponytailed magical girl of a completely different type from the hot-blooded Han Yeeun or the ice-cold villain girl I’d seen yesterday.
The only thing that stood out was that she was almost one hundred and eighty centimeters tall.
About the same as me?
“Ah! Citizen! This area is dangerous—kyaa!?”
Kyaa?
The delicate squeak coming from that massive frame left me stunned for a second. Then the giant rat that had chased her out of the alley appeared, and I froze.
The magical girl swung her staff in a panic, but the shaft tangled between her own legs. She tripped over herself and came crashing straight into me.
Crunch.
An ominous sound.
Beside the magical girl now cradled in my arms lay my phone, screen shattered, spinning pathetically on the ground.
“Ah.”
“I’m sorry! I’m heavy, aren’t I? I’m so sorry!”
Up close she was even larger—taller than me, and I was already over one hundred and eighty. Probably closer to one hundred and eighty-five.
That wasn’t important. My phone—!
I’d only bought it two hours ago!
But the giant rat didn’t give me any time to mourn.
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be fighting that thing?”
Sniffling, the magical girl picked up her staff, then immediately ducked behind me when the rat let out a thunderous roar.
Yesterday Han Yeeun had fought while bleeding everywhere. Weren’t all magical girls supposed to be good at this?
“W-well… I just debuted as ‘Magical Paradise’… This is my first real battle… Kyaaa! That thing is way too gross-looking!”
Unbelievable.
The girl who had introduced herself as Magical Paradise clutched the hem of my shirt and trembled violently.
“Uh… hello?”
“Kiiiiii!”
Damn it!
Thanks to her, I’d become the giant rat’s new target.
I wrapped an arm around Magical Paradise, barely dodging the creature’s charge, then grabbed a thick metal pipe lying nearby. I swung it hard into the rat’s skull after it slammed into the wall and lost its balance.
Thwack!
I did work out, after all.
Thwaaaack!
I honestly didn’t expect it to do much against a monster that size, but if I could just buy enough time to run—
“Is it… dead?”
The giant rat convulsed like a dying insect, twitching helplessly on the ground.
“For real?”
It must have been the absolute bottom-tier trash among bottom-tier monsters.
Well, if they were sending a brand-new debutant, it couldn’t have been that strong…
Still, for an ordinary civilian like me to take it down—what did that say about this magical girl?
“U-uhhhhh??”
Magical Paradise finally unfurled from her crouched position, eyes wide as saucers.
“Citizen… you defeated it?”
“Looks like it. Anyway, about my phone—”
“Whoa! Are you a hidden master? Or maybe a combat instructor for magical girls? Or, uh, um, or…!”
The trembling girl from moments ago had vanished. Now she circled me with sparkling eyes, firing off questions nonstop.
Clueless cheerfulness. Terrifying my-pace attitude. And now innocent, nuisance-level sunshine.
“Look, could you calm down for a second—”
“Mister—no, oppa! Teach me too! I always get scolded by my instructors. What was that move just now? Did you channel energy into the strike?”
I let out a long sigh as irritation and exhaustion crashed over me, then picked up the peanut jam and the ruined phone.
“Quietly. It wasn’t anything special. I just hit it. Please be more careful next time.”
As expected, magical girls were the absolute worst.
How was I supposed to file an insurance claim with tears in my eyes when barely an hour had passed?
I’d have to appeal as an orphan using parents I didn’t have and hope for the best.
Telling myself it was a blessing I hadn’t bought a more expensive model, I trudged back to the phone store, then glanced behind me at the presence following.
“Why are you following me?”
Magical Paradise maintained an awkward distance—neither too close nor too far—trotting after me like a lost puppy.
“I want to repay you for saving me earlier! I’ll compensate you for the phone too!”
This did not feel like a good development.
“Then why didn’t you say something sooner instead of quietly tailing me?”
“Because you told me to be quiet…”
“…Haaaaaaa……”
The towering magical girl fidgeted with her hands, watching my reaction timidly.
“This phone cost four hundred and forty thousand won. You said you’re a rookie on your first dispatch—can you actually cover compensation?”
“For amounts under a certain limit, the organization supports about fifty percent!”
Under a certain limit. And above that? They wouldn’t seriously make her pay five billion won if a building collapsed, right?
“If it’s two hundred and twenty thousand, I can probably manage installments with my allowance…”
This was insane.
It felt too cruel to make a magical girl who hadn’t even received her first paycheck cover my phone bill.
“I’ll only take the two hundred and twenty thousand in support. I’ll pay the rest myself as thanks for you saving me. Just the receipt is enough, right?”
I wasn’t entirely sure I had actually saved her, but pressing the issue any further would only give me a headache.
Were all magical girls and villains this way?
And I never imagined she wouldn’t release her transformation even after the fight was over.
Magical Paradise walked into the store still transformed, instantly drawing every eye in the place. The embarrassment was entirely mine.
Desperate to escape, I didn’t even attempt the orphan appeal. I paid the full four hundred and forty thousand won on the spot and bolted outside.
“Why did you follow me inside without releasing your transformation?”
“Ah? Ahaha, right…”
“Here’s the receipt. Do you need anything else?”
“Ah, um, I’m not really sure…”
Of course you aren’t.
It’s your first day on the job as a rookie magical girl. How would you know?
I’m the one who should apologize.
“So, about your contact information…”
Dozens of nightmare scenarios flashed through my mind.
The management bureau wouldn’t dig through the girls’ contacts, right? They wouldn’t call me for official business later, right? Nothing bad would come of this, right?
When I gave my number to Han Yeeun I’d only felt mild annoyance in the future. With Magical Paradise, I felt nothing but pure dread.
Still, I needed that two hundred and twenty thousand won. No way around it.
“Ehehe…”
Magical Paradise looked at her phone where she had saved my number, smiled shyly, and covered her mouth with the device.
Seen like this, she was undeniably cute.
“Well, I’ll be going now.”
When I turned around, I finally noticed the pink glitter powder clinging to my clothes.
It must have gotten on me during the collision.
Would this even wash out?
And then—
“Why are you still following me?”
“I still want to repay you properly! I’m actually an amazing cook!”
So she was planning to raid the ingredients in my house.
But judging from that expression and everything she’d done in the past hour, she clearly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Then again, when the villain girl came back I’d need something to feed her. Maybe this was actually convenient.
Since things had come this far, I might as well buy extra groceries.
“Release your transformation before you follow me. We’re going shopping.”
“Y-yes!”
I’d hoped her height might shrink once she transformed back, but she remained in the late one-hundred-and-eighties.
Normal black long hair and a chest larger than my head. Less flashy than the pink version, but that overwhelming height still drew stares no matter what.
‘As much as possible within fifty thousand won.’
That was the condition I set for Magical Paradise.
“Hehe…”
“Do you enjoy grocery shopping?”
“No, it just feels like a date… I have four older brothers, so I grew up completely pampered. I couldn’t even make a boyfriend, let alone regular male friends.”
Magical Paradise casually dropped something strange again.
Four older brothers with significant age gaps.
Because of that she couldn’t make a boyfriend or even normal male friends.
And now I was going grocery shopping with a girl like that and letting her cook in my house?
I considered sending her back at least thirty times on the way.
‘It probably won’t get found out.’
“Give it here. I’ll carry it.”
“No! I’m strong! And since I’m the one cooking, I should be the one carrying—”
“Give it.”
With a blank expression I took the bags from her. Magical Paradise stuck right beside me, wearing that same foolish smile.
The faint scent of peaches drifting from her tickled my nose. For some reason the strange feeling it gave me made me quietly widen the distance between us.
“Is this better?”
She took one side of the plastic bag handle from my hand so we were holding it together.
“They look like a nice young couple.”
“Look how reliable the wife is. The guy must treat her really well to handle a girl that big.”
Let’s turn off that neighborhood gossip broadcast, ladies.
“U-uhhehe…”
Completely unaware of my inner panic about the weird image we were projecting, Magical Paradise lowered her head in embarrassment and fidgeted with her fingers.
“It’s right nearby, so keep up.”
“Yes, oppa!”
We maintained the same subtle distance as the shared plastic bag handle while we walked.
The other girl probably hadn’t returned yet.
But life never went the way I wanted. The worst possible timing always found the cracks in my daily routine and forced its way in.
“Huh?”
In front of my apartment door sat a black-haired girl in a hoodie, back leaning against the entrance, arms wrapped around her knees.
I almost called out to her before remembering I didn’t know her real name.
“Song Chae-eun!”
When I shouted the fake name loudly, the girl who turned to look at me had an expression that instantly froze over. Her eyes filled with pure venom.
The moment I saw those blood-red pupils, I knew with absolute certainty.
Today, I was screwed.