It's Mostly Because of Money
It's mostly because of money.
The despair of watching a nightmare you prayed was only a dream solidify into reality—there was a misery in it that words simply could not hold.
"I mean, I'm pretty. I'm pretty, sure. But why did it have to be me?"
Unfortunately, I still hadn't accepted reality. Crude language kept spilling out of my mouth without permission.
Even when I swore, my voice came out adorable. Every little gesture carried the soft, fluffy quality of a young girl's hands.
Things that should never have come from me were starting to come out. And honestly—everything written on the status window was wrong from the start.
"Magical girl, my ass."
My class was Magical Girl Nejeri, apparently. And I could only get it by transforming, or whatever the hell.
I didn't even want to swear. I genuinely didn't want to say ugly things in this pretty little voice—but the situation kept dragging it out of me.
Awakening itself was fine. I was genuinely grateful that I could finally earn a living on my own.
But how the hell was I supposed to accept being a magical girl?
"…Fine. Whatever."
Calm down. Stop thinking about magical girls any further.
It already happened, so there was nothing to do about it. I would just treat this as me swallowing the truly vile words that kept climbing all the way up my throat.
"What am I supposed to do about this?"
Right now, the first thing I needed was a way to get my identity back.
As things stood, every means of proving I was a citizen of this country had simply vanished.
I'd never heard a single scrap of nonsense about someone's face changing just because they awakened.
I'd dug through material after material. Awakening and appearance were completely separate dimensions of the problem.
If they weren't, articles like these would never have been written.
…So being ugly has become a crime now.
Those people had probably climbed the Tower just to make money too. Young people working hard for a living.
And for the crime of being unattractive, they got cursed out by the public and written up in articles.
It was probably inferiority complex over awakening. Hunters who got rich off the single fact of having awakened rubbed people the wrong way—and that was how articles like those got written.
"Terrifying."
Even so, those articles made one thing certain: there was not a single hunter anywhere whose face had been remodeled by awakening.
If awakening could rewrite your face, those articles would never have existed in the first place.
On the other hand, that same certainty drove a stake straight through the fact that my identity was gone.
"What do I do?"
…Should I go file a birth registration?
That was ridiculous, right? My face looked a little young, sure, but how was a full-grown adult supposed to file a birth registration?
Wait—would I even look like an adult? Whether I could get a resident registration card issued at all was already in doubt.
If I went, they'd probably just tell me to come back with parents I didn't have.
My height was shorter than a middle schooler's to begin with, and my face looked far too young. A baby face that barely scraped past the high-school cutoff. No one looking at me would reasonably clock me as an adult.
Getting an identity on my own like this seemed impossible.
Ah.
Aaaah.
I couldn't do this.
I'd tried to accept it. I'd tried to come to terms with it. I absolutely could not.
My head felt like it was going to split open. What even was this situation? I'd never once heard of someone's face getting prettier from awakening.
I'd never heard of anyone's gender changing either. Ugly people just became rich, ugly awakeners.
"…What kind of move is this?"
Awakening itself was a phenomenon science couldn't explain. But after enough collective experience, certain rules tended to settle into place.
"Is turning into a woman a normal thing that happens?"
No. At least within the bounds of my common sense, that kind of thing did not exist. Magical girl as a class included.
"…"
My lazy body, still lying down, turned toward the gallery where the followers who longed for awakening gathered.
"I should brag."
It had been a truly disappointing awakening. A shameful awakening I couldn't tell anyone about. An embarrassing class I couldn't speak of.
Even so, the simple fact that I had awakened—I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to brag to the people I used to write garbage posts with every day.
With the fixed nickname I'd gotten my hands on ages ago, there was nothing in the world I feared.
…I had to humblebrag at least a little, right? I'd gotten the awakening I'd wanted so badly. Venting a little emotion was allowed. And this was the Awakening Gallery—no one would believe the post anyway.
"…Ugh."
Letting out an indecent little sound in that lovely voice, I finally started tapping at my phone, writing it all down like a diary.
To announce to the entire world that I had awakened.
"No, it's real though."
No one believed me.
Okay, fine—the speech pattern looked unhinged, I was a throwaway anonymous account with no fixed nickname, and if I saw a post like that I'd also call bullshit. There was genuinely not a single believable element in it.
But it was real. Reality with not a single lie mixed in.
Ugh. I couldn't even prove it. Showing my face right now would be weird enough. Ah.
Driven by pure injustice, my small finger went right back to the write-post button.
They were all dead serious.
My speech pattern was a little weird, sure, but I was asking in earnest.
No one believed a word I said. They all just assumed I was trolling.
I mean, I wasn't even using a fixed nickname, and I only posted occasionally, so it wasn't like I couldn't understand—but still.
"…It's real though."
Something about it felt so unfair. I felt like I might cry. Was being believed by no one really this sad?
Far from envy, they were bloodthirsty for mockery. None of the reactions I'd hoped for existed anywhere.
Why did I feel like crying…? This was familiar. I hadn't even expected a normal response.
Was it because I'd become a girl? Regulating my emotions felt a little awkward. Things that shouldn't have bothered me left me weirdly depressed.
"Ugh…"
Voice thick with tears, I kept muttering strange things.
Honestly, the awakening I'd wanted had never been Magical Girl.
If I had a choice, I'd wanted to be a swordsman swinging a blade. I'd wanted to be a mage in a cool robe with a staff.
But this. Even granting that awakening was take-what-you're-given, this was too much.
"I hate this…"
I whined in a voice soaked with tears. It might have been a spoiled complaint, but my pride as a man would not allow it.
I collapsed face-first onto the desk and broke into miserable sobs.
Awakening or not—I just wanted to run away.
I used to have a dream.
If I awakened, what kind of power would I get?
I'd wasted entire days on that kind of fantasy. That was how much romance I had attached to the idea of awakening.
And as if to mock that version of me, what awakening gave me was Magical Girl.
Not a swordsman, not a mage—not even an assassin. A magical girl.
"…"
Disappointment wrapped itself around me. I was past the point of being picky. I had to earn living expenses right now.
This sudden awakening was clearly a chance to wipe the slate of my current life clean.
But I did not want to be a magical girl.
I'd graduated from that kind of childish nonsense back in elementary school.
"…Still."
I was curious. What awakening actually was, what my abilities actually were—curiosity stirred.
You never know. It might only be called Magical Girl and turn out to be a surprisingly normal class. That possibility was still fully intact.
Maybe I should try using a skill once.
I'd been so buried under the Magical Girl thing that I hadn't even carefully read what my skills actually did.
"…Status window."
Unfamiliar blue letters appeared in front of me. Proof that I had awakened.
Until yesterday, shouting "status window" at the top of my lungs had returned nothing but silence.
"There are way too many skills."
A status window that had abandoned all readability. The letters were packed so tightly they felt like bricks.
On top of that, the text was uncomfortably spilling past the borders. Simply because there were too many skills.
I clicked my tongue at the unorganized window. Was nothing about this normal? Was it because someone like me was the one who'd awakened?
"What's this."
First, I checked the description of the skill that stood out the most. The one with special characters in the name.
Shout the word "transform" loudly to transform into a Magical Girl…
…Ah.
No. Absolutely not. The first skill I looked at with actual hope was a transformation? What exactly was this thing asking a grown adult man to do?
What about the next one? The next skill had to be at least somewhat decent, right?
You cannot use mana unless you are transformed.
"…"
I closed the status window right there. My expectations had been crushed. I no longer wanted to look at any more of these dizzying skills.
What even was this…?
It was definitely trying to torment me. Was awakening really this much of a luck-based roll?
I'd never heard of, never seen, a skill that was nothing but drawbacks.
What even was a skill that only imposed restrictions? If I didn't transform, I couldn't use mana?
For real?
To make money, I had to do this "transformation" thing?
…This is a dream. Yeah. This is a dream.
Common sense said someone like me would never awaken.
I opened my eyes and had become a cute girl. When I called the status window, a weird blue panel appeared—but it was just a nightmare. That was all.
Okay. Go back to sleep. Then go find a part-time job. Even if I can't find one right away, it's fine! I'll scrape by this month somehow. Yeah.
I still definitely had enough money for that, at least for now.
Balance: ₩150,000
"…I'm screwed."
The account I'd opened with shaky confidence displayed my entire pathetic net worth.
A frail number that looked like it might not even last a week, never mind the month.
"Ah…"
If I didn't climb the Tower right now, my livelihood—my life—
"…"
Money was a terrifying thing. It shoved the reality you'd been looking away from right up against your skin.
"Fuck."
If it weren't for money. If my living situation weren't this tight, I never would have done something like this.
"…I can just do it, right?"
If what it wanted so badly was my transformation—if transforming meant I could climb the Tower and make money—
Fine. I'll be one. Magical girl.