My Dream Has a Certain Flavor?
It had been about an hour since we left the Comic Book Cafe.
“Hiyahaaaa! That was so fun!”
Kim Min-ah stuffed the last of the takeout drinks down with her straw and let out a loud, bright cheer that made a few strangers walking by in the distance turn their heads.
And honestly, part of me wished she hadn’t.
“Gee, thanks for coming with me! I’ve been dreaming about seeing tokusatsu together with my friend!”
“Well… that much gratitude?”
She’d been dragged along in a panic, and now she was even more bewildered because I’d shown up with all these weird snacks. Yet, in a way, I felt strangely at peace—like I’d actually managed to steal a real day off.
Lying on that beanbag chair was strangely more comfortable than any couch. I wondered if I should just buy one for myself.
If only Harin were lying on top of it right now, maybe her razor-sharp personality wouldn’t feel quite so… heavy.
But then that would mean I’d be the one who couldn’t use her at all.
I should probably get two.
“Then… should we head to the cafe now?!”
Kim Min-ah’s eyes sparkled like stars.
All the takeout drinks were already gone and tossed in the trash.
“How on earth does one person eat that much?”
*Swish…*
I instinctively lowered my gaze toward her stomach, then jolted upright in horror.
I really hoped she hadn’t noticed.
“Uwoho?”
With a mischievous grin and a playful glint in her eye, Kim Min-ah closed the distance in a single stride.
“What’s up, Siwoo? Staring at a girl’s belly like that? You know that’s rude, right?”
“N-no, I’m sorry. It was an accident…”
“No way! It’s just a belly! There’s nothing to apologize for!”
She was vivid, energetic, and radiating pure positivity with every movement and expression. She never lost her smile.
She reminded me of the protagonist in the TV show I’d watched earlier—the one who kept fighting for people even when the world was full of loneliness.
“So! Cafe?!”
“…Yeah. Let’s go. I’ll pay for the cafe. You already covered the Comic Book Cafe…”
“Yay! You don’t have to, though! I’ll drink it all up, Siwoo!”
We walked a short distance until the familiar green logo of the cafe came into view.
Inside, we ordered a few drinks and light snacks at the kiosk, then took our seats.
“The weather’s perfect…”
“Yeah… If only the Demon King’s Army wasn’t out there, this would be the happiest life.”
Warm sunlight poured through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows, yet somewhere beyond those glass panes lay a world where no one could ever feel at ease for even a second.
“Are you okay? With… all of this?”
I slid my eyes around to check that no one else was nearby, then asked carefully.
It felt wrong to dig deeper, but for Harin’s sake, I had to.
I needed every scrap of information.
And the best way was to hear it straight from the people who lived it every day.
Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to suspect anything suspicious—just the recent trends…
“I mean, I’m fine! If I said I was struggling, that’d be a lie. Someone has to do it. If it were me, I’d have to.”
“I know, but… you’re fighting for your life. Lately, the agents have been… acting weird. It feels even more dangerous.”
“That’s true. But I have a duty to protect people’s dreams! That’s what the hero I dream of looks like!”
“…”
Trying so hard to live up to the hero you believe in…
If I were just an ordinary person, I’d simply cheer from the sidelines. But…
What would Harin think of the girl in front of me, the one who dreamed of being a hero?
My homeroom teacher had once told me I should ask the questions I had, but when I thought she’d hurt my friend, she’d shouted in pure anger that it didn’t matter.
“The… purple executive. The one who showed up at school last time.”
“Yeah. She’s famous now. She’s a Demon King Army agent who appears first, massacres everyone, and vanishes. Creepy, right?”
Kim Min-ah raised both arms like limp noodles, gave a slight bow, and put on an eerie ghost-like face.
“And she’s so fast! There’s even a rumor she showed up in the opposite country, America, and disappeared! We only heard the sound of destruction—no survivors! Isn’t it terrifying?”
“Really? …No way.”
Harin had gone to America while I was gone.
How far could she teleport?
The thought made me uneasy.
“Well, it’s just rumors. Magical girls don’t talk to each other much unless it’s an Association-wide notice. So even if I tried, I wouldn’t know anything!”
“According to the homeroom teacher, she was given a kill order…”
“Yeah. The Association issued it.”
Kim Min-ah nodded.
“I still can’t believe it. No matter how much of a cliché it is for enemies to turn good, I thought that kind of thing only happens in fiction.”
“That’s true.”
“But… if she really repented, and there’s another face behind her that we don’t know about, maybe it would be good to talk to her sometime.”
“Of course, we’d have to catch her first.”
“True. Haaah…”
Right as Kim Min-ah let out a long sigh, a loud vibration bell rang.
“Ah, I’ll get the drinks!”
Kim Min-ah shot up like lightning and dashed to the counter.
At almost the same moment—
*Whoosh!*
A sharp warning alarm blared from every table at once, different from the vibration bell.
“Again at the cafe!?”
Ever since last time, the Demon King’s Army had always shown up when we were at the cafe.
It was probably the universe’s way of telling me I shouldn’t come here anymore.
“Siwoo!”
Kim Min-ah had just grabbed the drinks and set them down at another table before sprinting over and grabbing my hand.
A chill raced up my spine, but I managed to keep my face from twitching.
“Let’s go!”
“Yeah!”
She definitely wasn’t running away, right?
Wrong.
Without slowing down, Kim Min-ah took a shortcut toward the shelter, scanning everything around her without even catching her breath.
I was so out of breath I could only lean weakly against the wall.
Just how much stamina did she have?
Was I the problem? Should I start exercising?
“Huff… haa…”
“Siwoo! You need to exercise more! Or I could teach you!”
“I’ll pass…”
Kim Min-ah grinned at my answer, then planted herself between two alley walls and held her palms out toward me.
She crossed her wrists in an X shape.
“Purifier Blue!”
She gathered mana at her palms, then shouted—
“Transform!”
Blue light swirled around her body, and before I knew it, the magical girl in a flowing blue dress and jacket stood before me, scarf billowing dramatically as she twirled a staff and slung it over her shoulder.
A girl who dreamed of being the kind of hero you’d see on TV.
“This body has appeared! I’ll be back in a bit!”
With a V-sign in one hand, she spun halfway around, crouched low, and sprinted out of the alley.
The sudden gust nearly knocked me over.
From beyond the alley entrance, the sounds of Kim Min-ah’s fight with the Demon King’s Army trickled in.
***
“Ugh… so this is how it ends? …!?”
Inside a quiet, ordinary apartment in some neighborhood.
Blood and flesh splattered everywhere, the air thick with a metallic, rotten stench.
Amid this inhuman scene, a young girl was frantically searching through her phone.
Her fingers moved clumsily, as if she’d never used one before.
But gradually, she managed to unlock it.
“Intrusion detected!”
*CRASH!*
The front door exploded inward. Two paired magical girls rushed inside.
They froze for a moment at the horrific sight, swallowed their shock, then straightened their spines to assess and clean up.
“One survivor. A teenage girl…”
“Hey, kid. You okay? Can you stand?”
One magical girl recorded the scene with a cold voice for the Association report, while the other approached the girl with a gentle smile.
Cold and kind, two completely different sides—but they trusted each other completely.
Months of routine operations had made them perfect at this.
But—
“Ah~ This is annoying! What’s going on? A disturbance this early?!”
“What?”
The moment kindness cracked, raw fear crawled up the girl’s spine.
“Silver! Call headquarters! It’s probably…!”
*Thud. Splatter.*
*Thump.*
The partner who had turned to look was gone.
Only a headless corpse lay on the floor, blood pooling around its neck.
“Sil-Silver!”
The green-haired magical girl whirled and backed away without hesitation.
She would calm down and attack again once she was outside.
But—
“Thank you.”
One simple sentence stopped her.
The front door that had been smashed open had somehow regenerated.
“Please enjoy.”
The girl turned her trembling head toward the sound.
*Crunch.*
“Ugh… as expected! Magical girls are the world’s greatest delicacy! …Ugh… delicious!”
The girl beamed with a happy smile, mouth full as she savored the treat.
Then she looked back at the phone still in her hand and replayed the video.
The image was blurry and zoomed out, but she could still recognize the face and what she was doing.
“How dare you interrupt my meal? I haven’t seen her around lately… so this is what you’ve been up to?”
The girl smirked and brought the phone to her mouth.
Then—
*Crunch. Squish.*
“Ugh… ptooey! Eek, what is this?! It’s disgusting! Ptooey! I wasted my mouth! Ptooootooootooootooootoo!!!”
She spat out the crushed machine parts, metal, and glass, then finally took a light step toward the exit.
“Perfect! It looks like I’ll have to personally handle this after all, Voracious.”
She stepped onto the railing, balanced lightly, and spun in the air, launching herself upward.
“I’ve never eaten an executive… I wonder what the taste will be like! I can’t wait!”
Voracious grinned.
(End of Chapter 27)