A Second Encounter
Ugh. It was only after enduring a relentless carpet-bombing of cats for what felt like an eternity that I finally managed to escape the cafe.
"Auugh... That's so mean! How could you not look at me even once, Snowy? Unni gave you treats and even sang you a song!"
Harang trudged along with an expression as if the world had ended. It seemed that despite launching an all-out offensive, she had been utterly defeated by Snowy's ironclad defense.
"...It wasn't bad. I wouldn't mind dropping by every now and then."
On the other hand, Red looked quite relaxed now. Seeing her smile as she gently rubbed the back of her hand, she must have really liked the sensation of the cat licking her earlier.
"How about you, Mir? You looked completely overwhelmed earlier, buried under all those cats! Weren't they heavy?"
"It wasn't bad."
I had been flustered when the cat tower first piled on top of me, but surprisingly, that heavy, soft sensation hadn't been half bad.
How should I put it? It felt like taking a nap buried under a very thick, fluffy down comforter. It was actually quite cozy.
"Let's hang out together again next time, the three of us! I'm definitely going to win Snowy over then!"
Harang shouted with a surprisingly refreshed look, despite failing to achieve her goal. I had to hand it to her; her persistence was commendable.
Seeing Red nod silently in agreement, it seemed that brief moment of playing with the cats had left quite an impression on her as well.
"Shall we walk a bit? We need to get some of this fur off our clothes anyway."
The two magical girls walked down the street with peaceful, lazy expressions, as if savoring their memories of the cat cafe.
...Mir, a monster is appearing nearby. In about five minutes?
Just then, Popo, who had been lying dead still inside my clothes, spoke up cautiously. Good timing.
Got it.
I gave a nod so subtle that the others wouldn't notice.
BOOM!
Five minutes later, right on cue, a deafening roar that seemed to tear through the atmosphere echoed around us.
"—Ah!"
Harang instinctively spun around to run toward the source of the sound, but Yeoreum, who was right beside her, quickly grabbed her shoulder to stop her.
Harang looked at Yeoreum with a puzzled expression, but as she followed her gaze, she spotted me and her face fell in realization.
She must have forgotten I'm supposed to be a civilian.
With how careless she was, it was a miracle she had managed to keep her identity a secret until now.
"Mir, you heard that, right? We should probably evacuate. Don't worry, the monster is really far from here, so you'll be safe if you head in the opposite direction."
Like the veteran she was, Red spoke in a calm, reassuring voice. To think she was lying so smoothly when she knew perfectly well the monster was just beyond that alleyway.
I nodded meekly and pretended to run in the direction she pointed. Stealing a glance back, I saw the two of them feigning escape while quickly slipping into a deserted back alley.
"What are you going to do, Mir?"
"...Let's go."
There was no need to keep acting. I warped space and activated teleportation.
The moment they stepped into the alley, the atmosphere around the two girls shifted instantly.
"Mumu, get ready."
At Yeoreum's call, her bizarrely shaped mascot, Mumu, emerged from behind her back.
"Whoa, is this your mascot, Sunbae?! It's my first time seeing them. They look so mysterious..."
Startled by Harang's curious gaze, Mumu flinched and immediately hid behind Yeoreum's back again. Yeoreum let out a bitter laugh and shook her head.
"...Don't overwhelm them, Hubae. Unlike me, this little guy is incredibly shy."
With their brief conversation over, their bodies were enveloped in a blinding light of magical energy. Instantly transforming into Red and Snow, the two dashed out of the alley to assess the situation.
"Kishaaaah!"
The monster they faced was definitely one that existed in Red's memory. The only problem was that, for some reason, these creatures—which should have been the size of mountains—were now shrunk down to the size of adult human men.
What was most chilling was their appearance. The reptilian monsters constantly shifted their skin color to match their surroundings like chameleons.
It might have been better if they were massive, but their awkwardly human-sized bodies made one's skin crawl.
"Another variant..."
Red's fire magic and Snow's ice magic were both specialized in taking down giant monsters.
"Snow, don't use your magic recklessly! People will get hurt!"
In other words, their spells had a wide area of effect. They couldn't use them in this chaotic mess of fleeing citizens.
As if the monsters knew this, they ambushed from the gaps between buildings and behind signs, snatching up the escaping people.
Whip! Their sticky tongues sliced through the air, dragging citizens toward them.
Fortunately, the beasts had a habit of slowly savoring their prey before bringing them to their mouths, allowing the magical girls to rescue them before they were seriously injured, but...
"There are too many of them...!"
No matter how battle-hardened a veteran was, she only had one body. Protecting the people while breaking through a siege of dozens of monsters was next to impossible.
The fact that their specialty magic was effectively sealed only made things worse.
In the end, Red had to resort to close-quarters combat, swinging her wand against creatures that would normally be nothing more than a warm-up.
"Ugh...!"
Snow's situation was no better. With almost no real combat experience, she had no way to cope with the erratic, surprise attacks of the chameleon monsters.
The moment she saved one person, screams erupted from another direction; the moment she froze one with her magic, two more appeared from her blind spots.
"Sunbae, over there again...!"
Snow pointed with a trembling hand. Three or four monsters hidden behind a sign were simultaneously lashing out their tongues to snatch up citizens.
Red rushed over and severed the tongues, but the effort pulled the two magical girls apart—
"Shaaaah!"
Right above Snow, the eyes of a monster hiding behind a streetlight gleamed. Deactivating its camouflage, it shot its long tongue straight toward the back of Snow's neck.
"Ah!"
Turning her head too late, Snow's eyes filled with the sight of the grotesque red tongue. She couldn't dodge.
"No...!"
Just as she was about to be hit—
CLANG!
At the very moment she should have felt a slimy, disgusting sensation, the monster's tongue bounced back with a sharp metallic ring, as if striking something solid.
"Huh...?"
Snow's jaw dropped. At the edge of her vision, atop a nearby building, she saw it—the silhouette of a girl looking down at them.
"..."
Her eyes, shrouded in shadow, were cold. With the same expressionless face as their previous encounter, the girl looked down at the carnage.
Starting with that, bizarre metallic clangs echoed one after another across the shopping district. The tongues of the monsters trying to snatch fleeing citizens bounced off solid, invisible walls erected in midair.
"What on earth is this...?"
Bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, Red quickly scanned her surroundings. Soon, she spotted the girl standing nonchalantly on the rooftop railing of a nearby building.
"..."
Standing with the setting sun at her back, the girl looked down at Red and Snow in turn, then turned away as if she had lost interest.
"Wait...!"
Snow cried out in a desperate bid to stop her, but the girl had already vanished.
"Ha."
Red stared blankly at the empty air where the girl had been.
"I don't know what's going on, but..."
Soon, she realized. The invisible barriers surrounding them weren't just shields protecting them from the monsters' attacks.
They meant she no longer had to hold back her power out of fear of harming innocent bystanders!
"It looks like we've been saved this time...!"
She wasn't foolish enough to waste the perfect opportunity the girl had handed them. She could worry about what this mysterious girl's strange favor meant later.
Right now, the only thing that mattered was turning those grotesque creatures to ash. Red unleashed her magical power.
The situation was resolved without further incident. The chameleon monsters that had filled the plaza were burned to nothingness by Red's firestorm, and thanks to the barriers, not a single citizen was injured.
As the tension drained away, a wave of exhaustion hit them. Red and Snow slumped onto a nearby bench, panting heavily.
"Haaah, I seriously thought I was going to die."
Snow muttered, brushing her sweat-dampened hair back.
"Why did that girl help us?"
"Who knows. But there's no denying she saved our skins."
"Hmm, Sunbae... I don't think she's entirely bad."
"Hah."
Red let out a dry chuckle at Snow's optimistic remark. Normally, she would have snapped at her not to blindly trust someone who could be an enemy, but this time, she couldn't bring herself to say it.
"I suppose so."
Red turned over the words the girl had left behind.
"Do you have any intention of quitting being a magical girl?" she had asked.
Just what could have been her reason for asking that? The two girls' thoughts ran deep, but the girl who held the answer was already long gone.