The Clock Ran Out
Midway through my fight with the Firework Fiend, Magical Comet barged in and stole the monster's attention completely.
Now.
Thanks to her, I'd been waiting for nothing but an opening in the Firework Fiend's guard — and with his eyes off me, I closed the distance without effort and clamped my hand around his wrist.
The Firework Fiend visibly panicked.
"Gotcha," I said, my voice relaxed.
In response, he frantically fired fireworks from both hands. But the wilder this guy's barrage got, the weaker each shot became — so I simply endured it, refusing to let go of his wrist to the very end.
-BOOM! BOOM!
You're done.
I hadn't even bothered with a defensive stance; I just took the hits flatly, and not a single one of them hurt. He seemed to realize his mistake and began winding up a proper attack, so I stretched out my other hand, wrapped it around his throat, and steadily began to squeeze.
"Khhgaah—!"
Just as I was about to tear his head clean off with grip strength alone, Comet cut in.
"I will pass judgment upon the two of you for terrorizing these citizens!"
Magical Comet was charging up her Magical Blast.
"Magical—"
Before she could finish her incantation, I punched my hand straight through the Firework Fiend's chest.
-SQUELCH!
"Khaahk…!"
As expected of a monster specialized purely in long-range area attacks — he went through with no trouble at all. I pulled my hand back out, and this time severed both his arms.
-SHRIP!
"GUHAAAAK! W-what the f—!"
"Didn't I say it was your hour of fate?"
"H-h-help me…"
Not long ago this thing had been taunting me and working my nerves for all it was worth, and now the monster was groveling shamelessly, begging a magical girl for help.
"Uh, um…?"
Comet, flustered by the sheer absurdity of it, glanced back and forth between us, agonizing over what she was supposed to do here. But her deliberation didn't last long.
"NYEEOOOOOT! If it's come to this, then you're coming with me…!"
Because as his last desperate gambit, the Firework Fiend shoved his own firework-shaped head toward my mouth.
"This thing's packing a blast on par with a nuke, you f—king Cloak!! Three seconds, goooolden tiiiime!"
"!! Wait—!"
Magical Comet sprinted toward us, alarmed.
There's no time.
He'd said three seconds, but it was going to blow right now. He'd pulled this exact stunt in the original story, after all.
Why the hell did my power have to go on the fritz NOW?!
There was no time to spare, so I wrapped the monster's body up in my own body and cloak as best I could. And in that instant, his head began to swell, straining on the verge of detonation —
"…?"
— and then it simply stopped.
No, it wasn't just him who stopped.
"Oh! Holy shit, it worked!"
Time had frozen. Even while pinning the monster down, one of my hands had been clutching at the flow of time — and at that precise moment, the world froze, and his detonation was halted along with everything else.
Deal with this one first.
Until I understood why Time Stop had suddenly stopped working, it was better to handle whatever I could handle, and fast.
-SHRIP!
The Firework Fiend wasn't the type to explode from being touched or from a careless cut, so I sliced his firework head off in thin pieces, like filleting fish for sashimi.
All right, that's a relief.
I'd nearly dropped a nuclear bomb in the middle of downtown.
Of all the possible moments — right when I was about to bag the Firework Fiend, of all monsters…
In the original story, the Firework Fiend was a genuinely troublesome foe. He showed up around the midpoint of the tale, and even though Magical Comet had allies at that point, he was never an easy catch.
The magical girls finally worked out a strategy, ganged up on him, and drove the Firework Fiend to the very brink of death — at which point, just as he had moments ago, he made his last stand: an attempted self-detonation. Naturally, Comet refused to stand by and watch. She leapt in and took the blast herself.
As a result, Comet spent a long while as a vegetable, receiving treatment in a hospital — and when she finally woke, she could no longer see out of her right eye. As a magical girl, her body was hard to destroy, so it had barely ended there. Worse still, she hadn't managed to block the explosion properly, and her parents, caught in the blast's wake, were left disabled.
It was an episode that could only be described as an absolute piece of shit.
"Still…"
I turned my gaze toward Comet, whose face looked more desperate than anyone's I'd ever seen. One misstep, and she would have lost the sight in one eye, exactly like in the original.
"…Turns out trying to prevent it nearly caused the accident even faster."
Looked like I'd have to head home for the day and figure out what was going on with my Time Stop ability.
"…Huh? Why did this change?"
The moment I got home, I went straight to the bathroom and tried peeling the clock off my face yet again. I'd assumed there might be some monster backstory I didn't know about — the kind where a bare skull is hiding underneath. Yet for whatever reason, what was reflected in the mirror this time wasn't a skull at all. It was just my own face.
A handsome, blond-haired man. No skeletal anything.
"…No idea."
Just in case, I transformed into my human form too, and it went off without a hitch.
"All right — let's run every experiment I can think of."
I couldn't afford another accident like today's, so I subjected my abilities to every test I could devise.
There's still some time before the CSAT…
Holding Time Stop continuously to see how long it would last.
Toggling Time Stop on and off, on and off.
Turning the clock hands on my face backward.
Activating Time Stop while in human form.
Transforming into human form with the clock on my face removed.
After running through all of it and more, here's what I learned:
First: while Time Stop is active, my face beneath the clock gradually turns into a skull. Once it's fully skeletal, Time Stop releases. The inside of my head functions as a kind of battery gauge.
Second: I can use Time Stop in human form too — but the duration is drastically shorter than in monster form.
Third: after Time Stop is released, my face gradually restores itself. Except when it's gone completely skeletal, I can still use my ability even if the regeneration isn't finished.
Roughly that.
A shame there's a limit… but honestly, as long as I'm a little careful, this is plenty.
They say Time Stop auto-releases if held too long, but judging from the clock on my face, I could keep the world frozen for about a month without any problems. The reason my ability had released this time was that I'd been hunting monsters with time frozen for over a month straight.
Just the monsters I'd personally taken down number past two hundred…
Frankly, the killing itself didn't take much time. It was the travel that ate everything up. I killed every monster whose location was mentioned in the novel, killed ones I spotted along the road, killed ones I stumbled upon by chance. Where I passed an accident scene, I'd pull a few people out of the wreckage. In place of firefighters, I'd put out fires. I'd relieve bank robbers of their guns on the way. And then, just as I was wrapping up and had come looking for the Firework Fiend — of all moments — Time Stop finally cut out.
I did release the ability here and there to eat and rest, but I'd clearly been overusing it. I'd have to pace myself from now on.
Still, thanks to me, all the potential threats were gone. As long as I didn't cause an accident like today's, a little extra use should be fine.
"Everyone else lived one day. I spent over a month."
Yes, I'd run every experiment under the sun — but since I'd done it all with time stopped, less than a single day had actually passed.
From Comet's perspective, she'd be lying in bed right about now, winding down after her battle with the Firework Fiend.
"…Guess I should rest now."
Honestly, I thought I'd spent the time harder than anyone alive.
"…Tonight's snack is pig's feet."
Nothing was going to happen for a while, so I deserved a break too.
"Huuuugh… I'm seriously exhausted, aaah…"
[Hang in there, nya! But nothing bad happened, nya!]
"That's not really comforting, you know…"
[Then quit saying that too, nya! How many times has it been now, nya?!]
Ari had changed into her pajamas and lay sprawled across her bed. Asté, her patience worn thin by the girl's umpteenth complaint, finally snapped.
[That clock-head is abnormally strong, nya! You're plenty strong too, Ari, nya!]
"…But Cloak this time — if he hadn't been there, our whole city would be gone."
[Why are YOU the one doing something about monsters nearly killing each other, nya?!]
"I'm a magical girl, that's why…"
[Ugh… you're so kind it's honestly a problem, nya.]
Asté, who'd been about to lecture her, looked at Ari — so visibly drained, no matter how she looked at her — and ended up gently stroking her with a paw, an apologetic look on her face.
"More and more monsters keep getting stronger, and I'm the only magical girl there is…"
[Ari…]
"…Maybe I should ask Japan for help."
Magical Comet was Korea's first and only magical girl, but other countries had several of them. In Japan above all — the homeland of magical girls — there were five in total.
"…No. This is exactly when I have to try harder."
[Ari…!]
Having sounded so weak only moments before, Ari smacked her own cheeks — tak, tak — and steeled herself all over again. And watching her do it, her mascot Asté thought:
[Looks like I'll have to push myself and ask that annoying mutt for help after all, nya…!]
It was probably time, she figured, for South Korea to get a second magical girl.