The Return of the Water-Soaked Rival and a Late-Night Meat Craving
One day had passed since Aquamarine returned.
She had said she would prepare in the press room, release press releases, and so on, and apparently she had done exactly that.
Curious to see if there was any fresh news, I checked the sites, and every platform was flooded with reports that Aquamarine had accepted my “challenge”.
Some were venting their frustration over her scheming to defame the previous Guild Master, while others were bluntly stating that Eve wasn’t nearly as pretty as Mother… What kind of person is this? Does she have no eyes?
That said, Aquamarine insisted she was innocent and that the video circulating online was only part of the story, claiming she would prove it with a fair duel.
I wondered if becoming a magical girl was making her dizzy from all the attention.
Anyway, the match had been officially set.
Now all that remained was six days.
“Kabe, what do you feel like eating for lunch?”
“Ramyun!”
“Mmm.”
Ramyun.
It wasn’t exactly healthy for the body, but Kabe was such a kind kid who ate everything without picking and choosing vegetables, so it shouldn’t be a problem for a Sunday lunch.
「Yes, unni.」
“Let’s eat ramyun. Lunch. I’ll boil it, so call everyone over.”
「Ramyun? Great!」
Who doesn’t like ramyun?
Stretching my arms and opening the pantry, I found exactly three packs. That wouldn’t cut it.
Honestly, I really knew how to boil ramyun. It was the one dish whose cooking skills had grown the most wildly while I lived alone.
I called in the muscle car, Chilho, and we headed to the supermarket.
We needed two boxes of thirty packs each, but I couldn’t carry them alone.
*
Chilho’s eyes were burning.
“Just eat it. It’s fine with kimchi.”
“R-really? Unni. It’s fine with kimchi.”
We filled four giant buckets with water and used the burner to cook ramyun for twenty people.
“Mom.”
“Mmm?”
“The soup tastes bland.”
That explained why the ramyun was so watery.
It had gone past plain and watery and reached the level of those internet memes about Han River ramyun.
“Noona, your cooking is really bad…”
“Hold your tongue and eat. Salty food isn’t good for the body.”
Chilho just smirked at my scolding.
That guy, seriously.
“That’s right. Salty food isn’t good for the body, but as Main we don’t care.”
At that moment, a cleaver flew right past Chilho’s head.
Eventually a few strands of Chilho’s hair floated down.
“S-Sohee-ya?”
“Next time I’ll really throw it.”
Sohee glared at Chilho with a terrifying look, the kind that could crush a monster.
But she had already thrown it, hadn’t she?!
“D-didn’t I already throw it, noona Sohee?”
“You really will throw it?”
“N-no!”
Chilho turned deathly pale and started slurping the ramyun without a word.
“Sohee-ya, is it tasty?”
“It really is delicious. It’s exactly the light, nostalgic flavor I used to love, which makes it even more heart-warming.”
Sohee had already shed most of her hao-che style.
What if she cleaned up completely one day and wished for something? What if it was just a date? That would be fine, though. A date is a date.
“Ugh.”
At that moment.
The door to the inner room slid open with a beep-beep-beep, and an old familiar beast shuffled out.
“Keru!”
Kabe, who still had a mouthful of ramyun, shot to her feet and launched herself at Keru.
“Kek, khek! K-Keru! Let go! I can’t breathe… khek!”
Thanks to Kabe clinging to Keru’s neck, he started choking and coughing.
“Kabe-ya, you’ll kill Keru. He may be useless, but he can’t die.”
“M-Mother. That’s even worse.”
Even though I said it, I was just as glad to see Keru.
Keru, the black-furred leopard.
He was a bit dense and knew nothing, but he was still my mascot.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Aren’t we eating?”
“We’re all done.”
We can buy a hamburger later.
“Yeah, why did it take so long?”
The inner room wasn’t the main one. It was a small room I had decorated to look like a home office.
The desk from the basement had been moved here.
I sat on the chair while Keru lounged on the opposite sofa.
“Because I won the last match, it took a long time. We had to re-examine everything from the start to make sure there was no match-fixing, and the auditor came down from the Heavenly Realm to investigate. It was no ordinary matter, so it took longer than expected.”
That made sense.
I had never seen it myself, and while I couldn’t quite picture it, an auditor and a re-investigation into match-fixing… wait, hold on.
“In the first match the match-fixing was—”
“What did you say?”
“No, nothing.”
Was Keru even there back then?
He probably wasn’t.
That time Eve told me to lose… or rather, when she told me to lose because I had to demonstrate the ad.
If my memory was correct, Keru hadn’t been there.
So there was no need to explain.
“Anyway, even with an investigation, it shouldn’t come out that way. I won the match fairly, and I even defeated Aquamarine, the guild leader.”
“That’s right. You have nothing to be scolded for. You won with your own strength.”
“So here I am. And…”
Keru glanced around the room.
Seeing that it was just the two of us, he spoke seriously.
“I heard you’re challenging Aquamarine to a duel. Do you have confidence in winning?”
“How did you even know that?”
Ah, of course.
“The betting pool is huge. Even though I showed my strength in the last fight, there are still a ton of gods betting on Aquamarine’s side…”
Ah, this guy talks too much.
“Get to the point.”
“I cashed out my savings and bet everything on you, Mother. Win for me.”
What the hell.
“Hey, if there’s money involved you should have contacted me. Then I would have bet on you too. Ah, this guy is really—”
I stood up and started choking Keru’s neck.
“You worked so hard for nothing! You broadcasted me getting humiliated! You watched it happen and didn’t say a word! You bet alone?! On the match where your own boss was fighting?! Huh?! Are you in your right mind?!”
“S-sorry, Mother! L-let go! I’m really going to die!”
“You’re still not dead, you brat!”
“Kek, khek! Let go!”
After all the commotion, the real me and Keru, who still had a red face.
“So, is the report done?”
“Yes. And the good news is the balance has already climbed to 17%.”
What had I done?
Just win one match and the balance rose that much?
Just a short while ago it was below 5%, and now it’s already 17%.
Does that even make sense?
“The balance isn’t calculated only from the win-loss record… it also includes whether NPCs—humans—have more positive feelings toward one side or the other.”
Ten years ago, when the first magical girl, Eve, appeared, Mogumogu-dan had been overwhelming humans by over 90%.
But with Eve’s arrival and the streak of magical girls, Mogumogu-dan’s momentum collapsed rapidly.
The balance reversed, and Mogumogu-dan dropped to around 5%, while the magical girls gained the upper hand, and eventually everyone forgot about them.
People stopped remembering Mogumogu-dan or its supporters and simply accepted the magical girls as ordinary people. That was the state of things.
But the moment I, Mother, appeared, Mogumogu-dan began to be remembered again, and even though the first match was lost, its presence came roaring back into people’s memories.
Then with the second match victory, people firmly recognized Mogumogu-dan, and on top of that—
“People are taking a great interest in Mother, and for some reason they’ve begun to have a friendly image. We’re still analyzing why.”
Do we really need to analyze that?
Just looking at the community would have told me everything.
Tall, pretty, big breasts.
Every element for popularity is there.
Honestly, my looks are way better than Eve’s.
Counter to that—Eve’s squad.
“Anyway. Keru, come here.”
“A-are you going to hit me?!”
“No. Come here.”
I guess I hit him too hard. He thought I was going to hit him when I called, so he just flinched and didn’t come over. Eventually I grabbed his paw and dragged him.
“Anyway, you worked hard. Writing reports must have been tough.”
“Why… why, Mother? Did I make you mad after I ate lunch?”
“No.”
I stroked Keru’s head.
The short fur still felt nicely groomed; every time my hand touched it, softness greeted me.
“Ah. Bespredel set.”
“You figured it out?”
Keru had said he would look into it while he was on the report.
Where Bespredel came from and how it happened, those things.
Even though it was Bespredel Armor and a set, I knew nothing about its origins.
“I figured it out, but… definitely… Mother, were you really human once?”
“What? You want your head patted again?”
“No, no! That’s not what I meant! Listen to me!”
According to Keru, it went all the way back to the dawn of myths.
When the gods, tired of their boredom, created a casino and turned the world into a game board, there was only one goddess who strongly opposed it.
She declared that it wasn’t right for the gods to make meaningless games with their creations and that it was the duty of a god to love its creations, and she rebelled against the other gods.
She possessed immense power but was ultimately defeated and, as the guardian of the Underworld, she wove her final power into armor and spread it across the world, hoping someone would appear to carry on her wish and stop the wrong gods’ game—then she disappeared…
And Keru guessed that was exactly Bespredel Armor.
“Not completely certain, though.”
“It’s just a legend, but in an era when even the legendary Shinsallang has appeared, a rumor might not be entirely baseless.”
“That’s true.”
Honestly, it had nothing to do with me right now.
If it were that powerful an item, I wouldn’t be this weak at magic.
If it was overflowing with magic power, what was I supposed to do with it?
I couldn’t even release it.
“Anyway, it’s fine. There’s nothing confirmed. Did you check if I can’t use magic?”
“There was no such report. I got scolded a lot for saying it was unreasonable for someone who can handle magic power to not be able to use magic.”
Exactly.
It didn’t make sense.
Wait, why give a unique weapon but not the unique spell?
“Hey, it’s fine.”
Magic Control Technique, first form, Absorption Seal, right? And the seal appeared on my palm.
So there were probably forms two and three. Maybe.
What triggered the seal?
Um.
I had heard something about maternal love awakening, and self-awareness too.
Was there a hint here?
“Hey, I don’t know.”
It was annoying, but I was going to take Bespredel downstairs, pound it, and come back.
Then, releasing Keru’s paw and standing up from the chair, my phone rang from my pocket.
「Yeonwoo-ya.」
「N」
「Nga? What is that, so insensitive.」
「Y」
「;;;」
What?
「;;; Anyway, do you have time this evening?」
「N」
The phone I used to use had a different keyboard layout, making typing hard…
「Let’s eat dinner. I’ll buy it.」
「Should I bring Kabe?」
「You’re talking properly because I’ll buy dinner, seriously. Ugh, gross. Bring only Kabe. Is there anything you want to eat?」
Normally Kabe would shout “Meat! Meat!” in an instant, but this time it was different.
「Kabe has been eating way too few vegetables lately.」
「Really? Then salad?」
「Par-fried chicken」
「Crazy woman;」
Why par-fried chicken? Isn’t par a vegetable?