Magical Girl Candy Star
Round 3: Mul versus Yul.
The two of them, as guardians of the same tribe, had been practically glued to each other since the day they first arrived at the lecture hall. People sent chats asking if they were dating, whether romance was allowed at the academy, but neither of them ever gave a real answer.
And so the match began.
The betting was nearly split down the middle at 51 to 49, tilting slightly toward Yul the white tiger — but the result told a different story.
Kragagak..!
"Argh, seriously!"
"Hahahaha!! Come on, Yul, put your back into it!"
"God, just die!"
Yul raked her claws across Mul's entire body again and again, but that rock-solid turtle shell only left shallow gashes behind.
"Hnngh!"
"Ha, damn it...!"
In contrast, Mul waited for his opening and landed one crushing, weighty blow. Yul, who had been backpedaling and holding out as best she could, went flying and slammed face-first into the ground.
Unable to rise again, Yul lay there muttering through gritted teeth, uuugh...
"Mul is so annoyiiiing, every single time..."
Round 3 — Winner: Mul
Mul shuffled over to where Yul lay sprawled, then helped her up without a word.
"You okay?"
"Dunno. Just let me die."
Watching the two of them bicker their way back off the field, I couldn't help the fond smile tugging at my lips.
Cute.
[.....]
—That leaves just the two of you.
At my words, the pair rose as if they'd been waiting for exactly this. Leo and Devil had been looking forward to their matches plenty, but no one had been anticipating this one more than these two.
"...No way."
Candy Star.
"This feels familiar..."
And Yena.
The two faced each other, each gripping their signature weapon — a giant lollipop staff and a dagger.
For the record, Candy Star's true identity was Chotachoka Chuka Chip — Choco — who had been on the same team as Yena during the Mock Siege Battle. Normally Yena wouldn't have a clue, but surely the current Yena could figure it out?
While the odds were being set, the battlefield for their match was chosen as well.
The venue: a ruined city.
Buildings had collapsed into rubble, overturned cars blared their alarms in a chaotic chorus, and the street trees lay withered where they fell. Not a sight you'd often see in Deoen, a world built on medieval fantasy.
A modern city is sometimes called a forest of buildings. The more cover a battlefield offered, the more obviously it favored an assassin.
".....No."
Candy Star let out a long, despairing sigh.
It wasn't that the terrain was unfavorable. Favorable didn't even begin to cover it — her victory was all but guaranteed. And that was exactly why the irritation came bubbling up.
It can't be. It won't be. There's no way she'd actually show up...
Poof.
[Candy Star! It's been ages!]
Ah, goddammit.
Long before she became Candy Star.
Back when she went by the name ChocoChoco, she was simply enjoying DeoEn. In the game's earliest days, information was practically nonexistent, and everything was new. This was an era when not even a basic class advancement — beyond Warrior, Mage, and Thief — had been properly documented, let alone hidden classes.
Then one day, while wandering the world, ChocoChoco happened upon a fairy.
A round ball of strange, mint-colored fur, to be exact.
[Danger!]
"...What is?"
Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a fairy?
The fur ball introduced itself as a mascot.
[I am Mascot Myungmyung! Our world is in terrible danger right now! Won't you help me save it? I'll reward you more than generously!]
A fur ball barging in out of nowhere, demanding she go save the world. ChocoChoco thought, what kind of nonsense is this, but decided to go along and see anyway.
There was no special reason.
I want to try everything at least once.
She had already quit boxing, and she wanted to roam this brand-new world to her heart's content. Besides — this thing. Didn't it feel kind of important?
Class Change / Hidden — Peril of the Magic Kingdom
🎯 Objective: Become a ??? and save the dimension connected to the Magic Kingdom.
🎁 Reward: ??? class change.
A quest popped up as if it had been waiting for just this moment.
That ??? did look a little suspicious.
It's a game. What could possibly go wrong?
At that point, ChocoChoco — no, Choi Hana — had no idea. She couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams that a mere game would carry a class penalty so severe it warped her speech patterns and even her mind.
"Alright. I'll save it."
[Wonderful! From this moment on, you are a Magical Girl!]
"Huh? What kind of bullsh—"
Before the word could even leave her mouth, the world spun in a dizzy blur. When she opened her eyes, she was standing in a modern city. And —
BOOOOM!
"KYAAAAAH!!"
There, tearing that city apart, was some kind of bizarre monster.
The kind of monster she used to see all the time in the cartoons her older cousin used to put on for her when she was little.
She'd thought those were so much fun back then...
ChocoChoco — no, the girl who was now Candy Star — trembled violently as she looked down at her own body.
"...Goddammit?!"
Everything was pink.
A pink magical girl outfit, a star-shaped jewel set in the bodice, pristine white stockings and gloves to match. And what made it worse — the enormous hammer in her hand.
No, wait. That was a giant lollipop...
"What the hell is this!"
[You are now the Magical Girl, Candy Star! Go defeat that monster!]
"Turn me back!"
Candy Star had a full-blown fit, but the little fur ball just sleepily rolled its black-bean eyes and shook its head.
[No can do. Without the power of Magical Girl Candy Star, no one can stand against Drakonic MK.2, the war machine of the Phantom Alliance.]
"Dra... what?"
[Anyway! Candy Star!]
Grab. The fur ball's tiny paw clamped onto Candy Star's hand.
[I know it's hard, it being your first time! But if you don't help, this world is doomed!]
"...Can't we just let it be doomed?"
[No!]
"Then let this crappy world die right n—"
FLAAAASH!!!
A pink aura burst from Candy Star's body.
The building-sized lizard rampaging through the city slowly turned its head. More precisely, the goggle-wearing mad scientist riding on the lizard's back did.
"Ah."
—Hahahaha! To think the Magical Kingdom sends yet another magical girl even after one has died. Does the Magic Kingdom have magical girls to spare?
[Ridiculous! Magical Girl Candy Star does not fall so easily!]
Why are you two fighting each other?
No — honestly, she hoped they'd just fight it out between themselves. Without her.
—The answer's obvious. Hey, Candy Star!
"...Yes?"
KUUUNG!
—Go on then, show me how that pretentious magical magic of yours handles my masterpiece! KWAHAHAHAHA! Attack, Drakonic MK.2!
GWAAAAAAA!!
Staring up at the cackling scientist, Candy Star thought:
Uososo...
That gives me chills.
How on earth had my childhood self watched stuff like this?
"This game is fucked."
After that, Candy Star defeated the Phantom Alliance and saved the world.
Or to be precise, she wanted to throw the whole thing in the trash because it was so goddamn annoying, but mid-quest abandonment wasn't allowed, so she gritted her teeth and muscled through it.
Sure, if she'd truly hated it she could have just rolled a new character...
But that would feel like losing, somehow.
It was a crappy world, but the thought of losing to those lunatics made her clench her jaw and smash every last one of them to pieces.
Just as the fur ball had said, it was strong.
Apart from the retarded appearance and the speech patterns, anyway.
At any rate, after she saved the world, the fur ball said it would stay behind in that world — but she bolted immediately.
She could feel her sanity slipping if she stayed there a moment longer.
Having obtained her hidden class, Candy Star revealed herself to the world of DeoEn and was a brief hot topic. A hidden class was genuinely shocking news in DeoEn's early days, but neither her powers nor her customization caused any real problems.
Plenty of players were stronger than her, and when it came to character customization, a few people out there were weirder than the entire Phantom Alliance combined.
There were even people who roleplayed magical girls as a concept, so Candy Star naturally blended right in among them.
The problem was the transformation.
I want to die...
Every single time she transformed, or introduced herself to a stranger, "Magical Girl! Transform!" came shouting out of her mouth entirely against her will.
She seriously wanted to sew her lips shut, but it was a mandatory activation phrase — unless she abandoned the class, there was no stopping it.
So she abandoned the class.
[I've waited so long, Candy Star! You haven't forgotten about me, have you?]
She'd dumped Candy Star, played as Chotachoka Chuka Chip instead, become a ranker, then turned pro.
And now she'd come back.
Why?
Because the doomed older cousin who used to put magical girl cartoons on for her when she was five had sponsored Lily under her ID?
Because she somehow won the Condensation Stone lottery and got an invitation ticket?
No.
She came because she wanted to win. Plain and simple.
And to win, she had to take the classes.
Even if it means becoming a magical girl again.
"...Ugh."
[This place looks just like our world! Honestly, it's way nicer than the Magic Kingdom!]
"Why are you here."
[Because you came back, Candy Star! I can't travel to that other world anymore, you see.]
Mascot Myungmyung had returned to the Magic Kingdom the moment the world was saved. The creature had failed to find a talented magical girl in the "modern world," so it had come to DeoEn with permission — and having achieved its goal, Myungmyung could no longer return to DeoEn.
...Well, that was the official lore, anyway.
Either way, she'd assumed she'd never have business with it again.
Short of losing her mind and going back there, there was no way that fur ball could cross over.
[It's a battle, right? It's been so long — I'll do my best to support you!]
Then what the hell is this?
Even granting that the battlefield was modern-themed — how does a mascot that supposedly returned to the Magic Kingdom suddenly show up here, claiming some connection to this place?
...A pointless question.
This fur ball is simply a lunatic who bulldozes random people into becoming magical girls.
Asking would only get her a stream of useless nonsense.
[Well then, Candy Star! Let's transform!]
"...Already did."
[That's not a transformation!]
...Right. This was her everyday outfit, not her battle form.
She wanted to ask why the everyday outfit had to look like this, but the casual form's combat power was roughly three times lower than the battle form's — so against a truly powerful opponent, the battle form was mandatory.
And Yena was a very strong opponent.
"...Magical Girl! Transform!"
My life.