Rest
"Farewell, Mr. Shepherd Boy."
Today, once again, I brought down a monster without a single casualty. Under normal circumstances, that Abyss bastard would have butchered everyone at the scene from the moment he appeared and given Comet a merciless beatdown — the villain of what you'd call a guaranteed-defeat event. But thanks to the tactical nuke known as the Time Stop Monster, the whole thing ended with zero fatalities.
"Cloak!!"
I'd wrapped up everything I needed to do and was on my way out, but the instant Comet called my name, I stopped in my tracks.
"Is something the matter?"
"What do you mean, is something the matter?! Did you really think a magical girl like me would just let a monster like you walk away?!"
"Yes."
"Yes? Yeees? You're getting awfully cheeky just because you're a little strong!"
"A little?"
I seized the flow of time and arrived right in front of Comet's nose.
"Hieeek! S-So does being very strong mean you get to act this rude?!"
"My, my. You're quite the cutie, you know?"
I'd been thinking this for a while now, but no matter how I looked at her, she didn't come across as South Korea's one and only hero, locked in blood-spattered battle with monsters. She just seemed like a cute girl in a costume.
"C-Cute?! Are you making fun of me right now?!"
"It was a compliment... but if it upset you, I do apologize."
"No, it's not that I'm upset..."
"Then I'm truly glad that a monster like me doesn't upset you."
"!! No! I am upset!"
Comet was jerked this way and that by my words until she caught on, once again, that I was teasing her — at which point she started chirping like a baby chick.
"S-Someday I'll definitely grow strong enough to bring you down!"
"By all means. If anything stands in the way of that, I'll cut it down for you — I do hope that someday, you'll be able to reach me."
"Hey!!"
At that parting shot, laced with just a hint of provocation, Comet came charging at me, power gap be damned.
But.
"Well then — time for me to be off?"
I had no intention of being caught that easily, so I stopped time and slipped away, cool as you please.
Time slipped by, and before I knew it, it was Christmas.
Sluuurp... ahhh...
On this bitterly cold day, I was outside savoring a warm cup of coffee.
Sluuurp... ahhh...
This world might have magical girls, but deep down it was still modern South Korea — so of course it had Christmas too. Christmas cakes on sale, events of every description, even a giant Christmas tree standing proud in the middle of the street. There was only one difference...
"Kwahahahaha! I am Satan Claus!"
"And I am the Trismas Tree!"
...the fact that monsters prowling the streets looked like they'd equipped limited-edition Christmas skins. Naturally, I was here because I'd seen their appearance coming.
Any second now...
"Like a comet streaking into your heart! Magical Comet has arrived!"
Yep, right on schedule.
These two should be easy to handle.
Perhaps because it was Christmas, even the author hadn't stocked this round with anything too strong. Just enough to leave Comet covered in dust.
"Comet Light!"
"Gwaaaargh!"
"Take this, you magical girl!"
Satan Claus was blasted clean off his feet by Comet's Comet Light — and at the sight, the Christmas tree... no, the Trismas Tree... seemed to fly into a rage, aiming the star atop its head as it lunged at her.
"Raining Light!"
But from Comet's wand, blue light poured out like machine-gun fire.
"G-Gweh..."
And the tree was reduced to firewood on the spot.
What was that, five minutes of fighting?
It ended without so much as a proper exchange of blows. Comet was fine — nothing worse than a light sheen of sweat and a smudge of dust.
Her opponent had been far too weak, sure, but she had grown, if only a little. Leaving the citizens to their chorus of praise and admiration, Comet vanished in a hurry.
She made plans with her friends, didn't she.
She was rushing off because she'd promised to meet up with the other singles — friends spending this day alone, just like her. No more monsters would be showing up today, so I hoped she had fun.
Well then...
Since I was out anyway, maybe I'd grab some fried chicken to take home. As a possessed interloper, I didn't exactly have anyone to share a meal with.
God, that's depressing as hell.
Not that I had time to go making friends — a Time Stop monster had duties to attend to. Just one friend in the same boat as me, that's all I'd need for it to be perfect.
Yeah, as if.
Time to just go buy some chicken.
Pat. Pat.
"Oh — it's snowing."
Come to think of it, it had snowed in the original story too, right after Satan Claus went down. Well, it is pretty.
Wrapped in that little thought, I headed for the chicken place.
"Why, why me of all people?! There are fucking monsters out there that deserve to die! Why take it out on a human like me?!"
And that's when I walked in on a knife attack in progress.
Un-fucking-believable.
So no monster had shown up on Christmas, and this guy was throwing a fit about it? Then again — when a monster appeared, Aste the mascot could sound the alarm, but when a human committed a crime, there was no way for her to announce it.
Might as well handle it while I'm here.
I had Time Stop at my disposal, after all. I pushed the door open without a shred of hesitation and stepped inside.
"C-Call the fucking police if you want! This woman dies!"
A scrawny man who was, at a glance, completely out of his mind had a navy-haired woman hostage and was threatening everyone in sight.
The woman's got nerve, though.
Oddly enough, the hostage was the calmest person in the room. And with the face of a cat-like beauty, she looked exactly like the cool, aloof heroine straight out of a fantasy.
Observation time over. I walked slowly toward the man with the knife.
"H-Hey! You fucking bastard! Stay back!"
The man leveled the knife at me. I seized the flow of time on the spot and closed the distance until I stood right in front of him.
"Y-You fucking bastard!"
In the blink of an eye I was before him, and panicking, he thrust the blade at me.
I grasped the flow of time once more and slipped out of its path.
"What the—?!"
He kept trying to stab me, and kept failing. Stop, release, stop, release — and in one of those frozen instants, I took hold of his arm.
With time stopped, I pried the knife from his grip; when time resumed, the man wore the expression of someone who had no idea what he'd just seen.
This time I threw myself at him, threading stop and release together, and brought him crashing down with a takedown.
THUD!
"Argh!! Wh-What the hell?!"
"Now, everyone! Call the police!"
And just like that, the whole thing resolved itself with ease. As it happened, this store had been smashed up by monsters not long ago, and its CCTV was still out of commission.
Nothing to worry about there. With the man pinned and subdued beneath me, the police arrived before long, hauled him off, and asked the former hostage and me to come along and give our statements. Once the brief questioning was over, the two of us stepped outside together.
This is why the magical girl world is great.
With monsters running rampant day after day, a surprising number of places had no working cameras. Perfect conditions for someone like me who had to keep their identity hidden.
I slipped my hands into my pockets with a satisfied smile — and the cat-like woman who'd been taken hostage struck up a conversation.
"Um... thank you for helping me back there."
"Hm? Oh, haha... it was, uh, really nothing."
"Even so. He had a knife. I know better than anyone how much humans fear blades."
"Aw, come on. It looked like you'd have handled it just fine without me."
"!!"
When you spend your time stopping the clock to subdue someone, you end up noticing a lot. For instance: the way she'd raised her fist with frost-cold eyes the moment the man swung his knife at me.
"You... saw that?"
"My dynamic vision's pretty sharp. And from what I could tell, you know how to handle yourself in a fight?"
"...Yes."
What a fascinating person.
Maybe that was simply how a magical girl world worked — she looked like an ordinary citizen, yet her character archetype was rock solid.
"If you don't mind, I'd like to repay you somehow."
"Repay me? Hmm..."
A reward, a reward... Oh, then how about—
"Shall we head back to that chicken place from earlier?"
"...Pardon?"
"From what I saw in there, you were about to order chicken. Unless I'm wrong?"
"Oh, right... yes, I was..."
"Then eat with me. I was going to end up eating alone anyway, since I don't have any friends. Ah — unless you're waiting on someone, in which case, never mind—"
"Ah, no. It's fine."
"Haha, you will?"
I'd been bored stiff on my own, so as luck would have it, I now got to tear into fried chicken with a gorgeous woman. When we returned to the chicken place, the owner — who'd shut his doors over the rampage — greeted us with eyes ready to pop out of his head, and the moment we said we'd only come for chicken, he hurriedly reopened and waved us in.
And so the two of us found ourselves sitting alone together in the chicken restaurant.
"Hmm... now that I think of it, might I ask your name?"
"Aste— Arin. It's Arin."
"I see. I'm... Han Siwoo."
"Siwoo... I'll call you Siwoo, then."
"Sure — and I'll call you Arin as well?"
Oof — my brain short-circuited for a second over that name. I'd never been all that fond of my original one, so I'd changed it by just a letter or two, and I still wasn't used to it.
"It's my treat — call it your reward. Order whatever you like."
"Oh, then I won't refuse?"
She picked up the menu and made her choice without a moment's hesitation. When I passed it back, Ms. Arin settled on her order just as quickly.
"Ma'am! We'll have the Golden Cheese Magic Chicken and the Starlight Honey Chicken!"
This woman really knows how to eat.