PE Teacher: Geum Taeyang-11

"This is bad, taemp! A monster showed up, taemp!"

Han Somi let out a long, exhausted sigh at Tambourine's frantic fussing. Even a monster, she thought, might at least have the decency to consider her schedule before it attacked — but no monster was that considerate.

It was currently break time at school. Next period was PE.

She might have skipped any other class if she had to, but PE was the one she refused to miss. Of every class the school offered, PE mattered most. And if you skipped PE, you had to sit through makeup lessons.

"Where?"

"Downtown, taemp! We have to go right now, taemp!"

Of course, no matter how important school was, it couldn't come before putting down a monster. Somi glanced at the clock out of the corner of her eye and slipped out of class. Break was almost over.

Sneaking off campus was old hat by now. She swapped her indoor slippers for outdoor shoes and quietly left the grounds.

The monster had appeared on a commercial street downtown. The shopping district, usually loud and bustling, was unnaturally quiet. On any other day she would have heard the vegetable vendor and the butcher calling out to customers.

"Ugh... business is dead. At this rate I won't even make rent this month..."

"I think my wife's cheating on me. She barely even answers my calls anymore..."

"If only I'd gotten proper hair-loss treatment back then..."

Instead of the lively voices of a thriving market, despair-stained muttering rose from every direction. The whole scene felt deeply wrong. The monster had clearly pulled something.

Somi ran, scanning her surroundings as she went.

"Tambourine! Where do you feel the monster's energy?"

"It's everywhere, taemp! I can't pin it down, taemp! The energy's pretty thick, taemp! We'd better be careful, taemp!"

"Minus Energy this strong... this might be the most powerful monster we've faced yet..."

Somi swallowed as she looked down at her Muse Watch. Tension locked every muscle in her body. If she didn't purify this Minus Energy fast, the people of the shopping district would sink into a pit of despair they might never climb out of.

She narrowed her eyes and searched for the monster at the source of it all.

"Kikikik! Despair even more! The wicked power of you humans is overflowing! A perfect feast for I, Dark Melon!"

The monster flooding the shopping district with Minus Energy was an enormous melon. Arms, legs, eyes, a nose, and a mouth had been stuck onto it — a villain of rather half-hearted design.

He wore a black cape that would have suited Count Dracula, and he was having a wonderful time looking down on the street from a rooftop. Tambourine, flying through the air as she searched the area, spotted him at once.

"Found him, taemp! On that rooftop, taemp!"

"The roof?! Perfect! Time to transform!"

Somi reached for her Muse Watch. The moment she touched it, several button icons appeared on the screen. She tapped the one that said Transform.

"Oho. A transformation, is it?"

Han Somi transformed using the Muse Watch. The instant she touched it, a fierce white light erupted from her entire body.

I would have loved a look at her naked, but this was a kids' anime — no fanservice shot for me. I let out a sigh of genuine disappointment.

"I even turned class into self-study so I could come out here, and I don't even get a show."

I had followed Han Somi the moment she slipped off campus. Her sneaking out of school without permission meant a monster had appeared, and I wanted to see her fight one with my own eyes.

The brilliant white light wrapping her from head to toe resolved into a fluttering costume — a white-based magical girl outfit drowning in frills. A badge with a huge musical note sat on her chest beside a pink ribbon, and the skirt was short enough to flash her thighs. Short as it was, though, it was the infamous steel-skirt variety that never showed what was underneath.

She made a V with the fingers of her left hand, tipped it sideways against her left eye, and planted her right hand on her hip. Somi finished her transformation in a pose so painfully cute it would have been unforgivable on anyone who wasn't the heroine of a magical girl anime.

"Wait right there, monster!"

Somi bent her knees and planted both palms on the ground. Then, with a tremendous battle cry, she kicked off the earth and shot into the sky. Calling that a jump was generous. That was a takeoff.

BOOM!

In a blink she had leapt all the way to the roof of a ten-story building.

The jumping power was outrageous. Even a real-world Dungeon Hunter would have trouble pulling off a leap like that. How would Somi's stats in magical girl form stack up against a Hunter from my world? It was a kids' anime, so the power scaling wobbled all over the place — getting a hard number would be difficult.

I watched her through the Watching Eye.

"You Shadow World monsters who scatter impure energy across the world — I, Carol White, will never forgive you!"

"Kikikik! A magical girl! I knew you'd show! You wicked little thing who tormented my comrades! I, Dark Melon, will avenge them!"

"Your monsters attacked us first! All we want is peace!"

"Humans and monsters can never coexist! Humans exist to be a foothold for invading the Magic Realm — that is more than enough!"

"Talking to a monster really is a waste of time."

Han Somi dropped into a fighting stance. For a magical girl, it looked an awful lot like a combat sports fighter's.

According to the original, Dark Melon was an opponent Somi struggled with early on. For something with such a half-baked design, it still managed to put her in a real pinch — and this was the fight where she met her fellow magical girl, Yang Gain. Yang Gain, for the record, was also a student at Jinglebell Middle School.

Good thing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I came out to watch today. I figured that melon bastard was about due to show up.

"I won't forgive a monster that preys on innocent people! Take this! White Sonata!"

White light began to gather in Somi's left fist, a force so intense it shimmered like heat haze. From the look of it, it wasn't far off from my Holy Gauntlet.

White Sonata, one of Somi's techniques, had an elegant name and a brutally stupid method: beat the target to a pulp with your fists.

She sprang at Dark Melon the way a cheetah lunges at prey. The instant her feet left the ground, her fist was already driving toward its mark — a single strike honed as sharp as an ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assassin's.

Dark Melon, however, flipped backward through the air and let the attack slide past. His body spun in empty space and dropped toward the street.

"Kikikik! Coming at Lord Dark Melon with a punch that slow? You're a hundred years too early!"

Dark Melon fell ten stories. His body bounced off the pavement like a super ball. Instead of facing Somi directly, he ran.

"Wait! You're running away, you coward?!"

"Kikikik! There are still so many people here who haven't tasted despair!"

Something like a purple mist burst from Dark Melon's body. That was Minus Energy — the stuff that dragged people's negative emotions to the surface. I took off after him.

"Get back here!"

Somi jumped down from the building too. She stuck a spectacular superhero landing and tore after Dark Melon.

The people of the shopping district, however, stepped into her path. They stared at her with vacant, zombie-dull eyes, and they did not seem to appreciate her brilliant halo one bit.

"Urgh! It's too bright! I just wanna mess with her so bad!"

"That freebie I gave you last time... give it back!"

"Your hair's so thick! I'm gonna pull it all out!"

Somi froze at the sight of the shopkeepers blocking her way. Dark Melon was already bouncing off into the distance.

"Everyone, snap out of it! It's me, Somi!"

"It's no use, taemp! The Minus Energy's already got them, taemp! You have to catch the monster, taemp!"

"Nngh! I'm sorry!"

On Tambourine's advice, Somi neutralized the zombie-like crowd with judo throws. The shopkeepers slammed into the hard concrete and did not get back up.

They're not going to die from that, right?

For all her apologies, there was nothing hesitant about the way she moved. In seconds she had put down more than a dozen people, and then she was after Dark Melon again.

He had already left the shopping street and was ricocheting through downtown, laying down a thick fog of purple Minus Energy wherever he went.

"Ugh... I don't wanna go back to the office..."

"If I go home my wife's just going to nag me anyway. I just want to stay like this and rest."

"The glass ceiling... a stacked deck... girls don't need a prince..."

Tires screamed. Horns blared without pause.

The roads were a disaster. Drivers had been swallowed by the Minus Energy. Cars had stopped dead and tangled together until the street was completely paralyzed. Dark Melon's huge body bounded in among the vehicles that had nowhere to go.

CRUNCH!

"Aaaagh!"

Dark Melon flattened one car, and the man inside burst out of it in a panic. Dark Melon bounced from roof to roof, wrecking everything he landed on.

"I'll turn every last one of you into pedestrians! There's even a car that still has the seat covers on! Nothing more fun than smashing a ride like that!"

"Aaaagh! My car! I just picked it up yesterday!"

"Kikikik! You can haul it to the scrapyard tomorrow!"

"W-wait! If it's just a dented hood, I can still get it under warranty..."

Dark Melon's rampage was utterly vicious. Somi, who had barely managed to catch up, took a running start and launched a technique in the same motion.

"White Sonata!"

Her attack flew like a loosed arrow, fast and sharp, locked on Dark Melon — but he was faster. Somi's fist missed him entirely and instead obliterated the engine bay of the car he had just wrecked.

KRKOOM!

"Aaaagh! My car! You fucking bitch! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Ah! I'm so sorry, mister! It's for justice, so—!"

Somi kept throwing punches as she chased him, but Dark Melon sneered and slipped every one of them. He moved by flexing and bouncing his body in wildly irregular rhythms, and Somi's straight-line attacks never touched him.

They hit cars and streetlights instead, and tore up the road. It was a miracle nobody had died.

"Argh! My car!"

"Somebody stop that crazy girl!"

When none of her attacks landed, Somi bit her lip, growing frantic. She shot a look at Tambourine.

"Tambourine! Don't you have a stronger attack? This one isn't even hitting him!"

"B-but with your power as it is now..."

"Hurry! At this rate he's going to wreck our whole city!"

"You're the one wrecking the city right now, taemp."

"Kikikik! Doing such splendid work in my place — I'm impressed. Ever consider joining us in the Shadow World?"

"Shut up! Hurting this many people — I will never forgive you!"

Somi jabbed a finger at Dark Melon and exploded, but there wasn't much else she could do.

Truth be told, I didn't think the original ever got this destructive. In the original, Somi learned how to control her magical girl power from Tambourine. Here, though, I'd been too busy railing the hell out of Tambourine, so Somi had never gotten the time to properly learn control. That was probably why things had gotten so out of hand.

Dark Melon stamped both hands and both feet, taunting her — and in that instant, a pale violet lasso snared him from behind. Caught completely off guard, Dark Melon shouted in alarm.

"Now! Carol White! Hit him!"

Another girl's voice rang out from somewhere nearby.

"Nnh?! I don't know what's going on, but... I'm going in!"

Somi launched herself the way a volleyball player rises for a spike, fist cocked high. A menacing white light thrummed in her knuckles, a destructive force that could have pulverized concrete on contact.

"W-wait, nooooo!"

Somi's attack smashed dead-on into Dark Melon's face. With a sound like a leather drum being struck as hard as a body could strike it, Dark Melon shot backward like a cannonball.

His body didn't stop until it had half-destroyed a dozen vehicles sitting in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the road. Instead of cheers, despair spilled out from every direction.