A Tip Over Canned Coffee
"You gonna let go?"
She was strong. With a grip like that, there was no way I could fight back — not in this untransformed body. But I wasn't about to let her see that.
"Let go."
"Just hear me out."
"I said let go."
Seona was smiling, just a little. Too bad. I wasn't in a smiling mood.
"I said let go of me."
"You don't have any ranged attacks, do you?"
"What?"
That was, in fact, the single biggest problem I was wrestling with right now. Up close, I had a finishing blow. But that assumed I could get close in the first place — and I could take a beating just trying. And besides.
"Even if you do get close, you've barely got any real combat experience. Anyone worth their salt would read you like a book."
"That's none of your business."
At some point, Seona had already let go of my hand. And yet I couldn't bring myself to walk away. She'd pinpointed my weaknesses with surgical precision, and before I knew it I was hanging on her every word, like she'd put a spell on me.
"I'll give you a tip. Let's grab a can of coffee from the vending machine. That's not so bad, right? I'll buy it right in front of you."
"No. I'll get my own."
I still didn't trust her completely, but if she was going that far to put me at ease, it was probably fine.
"Unni."
"Yeah."
"Do you know my name?"
"Yeah. Seo Jina, right?"
"That's right. Did you hear it from Dusick?"
"Yeah."
Frabelle — that is, Jina — was the eager, eager-to-please type. We weren't even friends, not really. All we'd ever done was bump into each other once and share some ice cream. And yet here she was, glued to my side, chattering away.
"You and Dusick are from the same orphanage, right?"
"Yeah."
"What was Dusick like when she was little?"
Uh. I wouldn't know.
"Just... ordinary, I guess."
Even with that halfhearted dodge, Jina stuck to me like a burr and showed no sign of peeling off. What was Dusick's favorite food? Did I know her hobbies? Did she have a favorite character merch? The questions kept coming, and I was starting to sweat.
"The grown-ups need to talk. Go play with the other kids."
Seona grabbed Jina by the scruff of the neck and dragged her off. That grip strength really was no joke.
I took the coins Seona handed me and punched the canned-coffee button on the vending machine.
"It's hot."
It felt a little early in the season for hot canned coffee, but the can that rolled out was piping warm. It could have been sitting in there waiting. I turned it over every which way, checking whether the tab had been peeled open like one of those tampered juice cans from the news. It hadn't. Just to be safe, I even checked for needle punctures. Nothing there either.
Frilly watched me inspect the can with a look of utter disbelief.
"Hey, I just bought that. Why are you going that far?"
This is all your fault. You're the one who made me like this.
"You don't even know what you did?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. Forget it."
I flicked Dusick on the forehead as she shoved her face into mine, shooed her off, and dropped onto the bench.
"I don't know what got into you, but..."
I cracked the tab and took a sip. The taste was... well, it tasted like coffee. Thankfully.
"So. What about my ranged attacks?"
Getting myself a ranged option actually was important. According to Keru, from here on out I'd be fighting at least twice a month, and I needed to keep my win rate above fifty percent. Of course, right after he said that, his side had gotten thoroughly wrecked, and I'd stomped him into the floor asking why I was the one who had to raise the win rate. But what could I do? If that was the rule, that was the rule.
"I heard it from Eve, so I already know — you don't have a unique spell, right? So have you thought about how you're going to use all that magic?"
Seona brushed a strand of windblown hair from her face and looked at me.
I'd thought about it, sure. Even Keru had said he'd never seen a type like me. I was overflowing with magic and had no decent way to actually fire it off...
"You're strong in close combat, sure. But what good is that if you can't close the distance?"
"I already know. You don't have to keep saying it. Why do you keep hammering it in?"
They say even a compliment wears thin the third time you hear it. That I had no ranged attacks, that I needed to find a way around it — both were so blindingly obvious that hearing them repeated just pissed me off.
"Ask Keru for a gun."
...A gun?
"Okay, that just yanked me right out of the fantasy. A gun?"
"A gun is a gun. What, you thought a magic world wouldn't have guns?"
"Yeah, actually."
Seona sat down beside me and let out a sigh.
"There are guns. Not the kind you load with live rounds and actually shoot, though... They fire bullets made of magic. Magic rounds. Magic guns. Those exist."
"You sure? Then why don't you people use them?"
I narrowed my eyes a little. I'd have to actually believe her first.
Seona looked at me for a long moment, then tipped her can and drank.
"Because just unfolding a magic circle with that same magic is more efficient, so we don't bother. The kids who aren't good at deploying magic circles yet use them for self-defense. Tell Keru to grab you one. They've got them in the Underworld too."
If something like that existed, it would definitely help me. The part that snagged was why she was teaching me any of this in the first place.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Beats me."
"What's your angle?"
"I mean, I am a bit of a psycho, I'll give you that."
"At least you know."
Seona slurped down the last of her coffee and flicked the empty can into the air. The can arced high overhead. She pointed at it, her hand shaped like a gun.
"Пронзительно."
⟨ Piercing Shot ⟩
A tiny magic circle bloomed at her fingertip. A thin beam of light lanced out and punched a hole clean through the center of the can.
"I've got my own attachment to this world, you know. I'd like you people to try a little harder."
A late-autumn, almost-winter wind stirred Seona's hair. Is that so. Did this girl have her own reasons too...?
"Don't strike a pose. Acting like you've got some tragic backstory all of a sudden. Give me a break."
At that, Seona scrunched her face into an eheh☆ and threw me a wink.
"Busted?"
"Hey. You can dress it up however you want — you're still a complete lunatic who tried to rape me. Attachment, my ass. Spare me the crap. I'm leaving. Thanks for the coffee."
"I haven't forgotten, you know! I said I'd beat you up next time we met!"
"Yeah, you do that! Make sure you remember!"
Next time I saw her, I was going to beat the living hell out of her.
"A gun?"
"Yeah."
"A gun... I've never seen one."
Tonight's dinner was sundubu-jjigae, the hotel's soft tofu stew. It wasn't bad. The problem was it tasted too fancy for sundubu-jjigae, which somehow made it harder to enjoy.
"Wait. Is that what I think it is."
A little bowl sat next to Dusick's earthenware stew pot. At a glance I could see reddish broth, a scrap of onion, a squid tentacle. Don't tell me.
"Oh, this? Leftover from the fried rice the day before yesterday..."
"You were serious? You actually eat it like that? Wait — more importantly, that hasn't gone bad?!"
Dusick had once told me her system: fried rice for the first meal, the jajang that came with it for the second, and the leftover jjamppong broth for a third. I'd told her I'd buy her food more often so she wouldn't have to do that. I'd figured she couldn't possibly be that committed. Apparently she was.
"Unni, the thing is... the hotel food is just too fancy. It doesn't really suit my taste..."
"Aigoo... Dusick..."
An empty bowl happened to catch my eye.
"Give me some too. This stuff is so fancy I need to rinse my mouth out."
"Right? Hehe."
Grinning like an idiot, Dusick ladled a generous heap of jjamppong broth and toppings from her bowl and set it in front of me. One spoonful, and that cheap, MSG-forward flavor bloomed across my tongue.
Ah, this was the stuff... wait. That wasn't what I'd come here to talk about.
"Anyway. About the gun. Frilly said they exist for kids who still aren't good at deploying magic circles."
"Not good at deploying magic circles... that's you exactly, Unni."
More like I couldn't do it at all, not that I was bad at it. Why did not having a unique spell mean I couldn't use magic at all? That part still made no sense. I really didn't get it.
"Anyway, that's why I asked. I figured maybe you'd seen one of those guns."
"No, I've never seen one. Most magical girls get a unique weapon and a unique spell the moment they awaken, and they just... know how to use them. It comes to them on its own."
So I didn't get that because I was an evil magical girl? Was that it?
"I'll have to talk to Keru about it."
I popped the last spoonful in my mouth and scraped both the sundubu-jjigae and the jjamppong broth down to the last drop. Ah. I was full.
My appetite had definitely shrunk. A lot, compared to before. Back then, one bowl of rice wasn't even close — I needed two, sometimes a bowl and a half, plus every last side dish, before I felt full. Now a single bowl left me stuffed. And even after eating that little, I could go until the next meal without getting hungry. Just how fuel-efficient was this body?
"I'll clear the dishes. Want some water?"
"Sure."
I'd barely set down my spoon and swallowed the last of the rice before a glass of water appeared in front of me. The dishes vanished with practiced efficiency. A tissue, too, so I could wipe my mouth. And one in front of Kabe.
"Kabe, did you eat well?"
"Mm."
"You're supposed to say, 'Thank you for the meal.'"
"Fank you fow da meal."
"Say ahh."
"Aahh!"
When were those teeth even going to come in? Her gums were still that milky white, so the permanent ones had to be on the way. Maybe I should take her to a dentist.
"No word from Eve, right?"
"No. What about you, Unni?"
"Hmm. Nothing here either."
She'd said she'd contact us once Kabe's identity registration went through. Then again, that had only been last night. No way it was done already. I knew it wasn't the kind of thing that happened overnight, but Kabe was involved, so I couldn't help feeling antsy.
"You're going to take her to the dentist?"
"I think I should. Her pronunciation is pretty slurred, and it has to be uncomfortable for her."
"Mm."
"That's right. Aww. Look at our little girl. So pretty."
"Hehe."
I was stroking Kabe's hair when Keru came creeping out of the corner. So that's where he'd been. Napping in the corner.
"Hey, Keru."
"What."
"You heard me and Dusick talking, right?"
"About the magic gun."
"Why can't you just say you heard us? Or that those things exist, or they don't?"
"Hrm. A magic gun."
"Yes, a magic gun. What? Is there a problem?"
Keru stared up at me for a moment, then sat down and scratched his head with a hind paw. What. Why isn't he saying anything.
"I'll be heading to the Underworld for about two days."
"Why, all of a sudden?"
"This is for the boss of Mogumogu-dan, you know. I can hardly hand you some random magic gun. You've got to have a good one."
I had no idea what had gotten into him. The number of times Keru had actually been helpful, I could count on one hand. And now he wanted to get me something good?
I narrowed my eyes and stared him down.
"Something good?"
To my surprise, Keru didn't look away. He met my gaze head-on.
"Even if I told you, nobody here would know what I was talking about. Anyway, I'll be off. If I finish early I'll be back sooner. Two days at the latest."
"Fine. Got it. Go ahead. Should I be looking forward to this?"
"Mm. You can look forward to it."
"Alright."
With that, Keru vanished.
That was weird. Something about it felt off. I had this uneasy prickle I couldn't shake.
Just my imagination, maybe.