The Real Trouble Wasn't a Guest
"Nnnnnngh…."
I opened my eyes to find I had become a little child.
A height that belonged to someone who had only just started middle school. Soft skin, and a pleasant fragrance faintly tickling my nose — sensations that were all completely unfamiliar to me.
Wondering if I simply hadn't escaped the dream yet, I pinched my cheek, but all I felt was that peculiar softness unique to a young child.
I rolled the blanket up around my body like a cocoon. If I didn't do something, anything, I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
And at that exact moment—
"Owie! Owwieee!!"
"?"
I slowly unwound the blanket from my body and thought.
Hallucinations…. It has to be hallucinations….
The fact that I'd turned into a little kid, the fact that I was hearing voices — I decided to chalk it all up to the mental illness I'd always suffered from getting worse.
It made even less sense for a full-grown adult to become a child overnight, which made the rational explanation all the more compelling. It was just my sickness getting stronger, I told myself. A fantasy spun by an incomplete mind, not reality.
Plop.
Something dropped out of my blanket-wrapped cocoon and tumbled toward the floor.
A white-furred rodent. A little beast that looked like something halfway between a rat and a ferret.
"Owie!"
A walking hallucination conjured up by mental illness, whatever else.
If I just took my meds and slept, everything would be fine.
Ignoring the rodent as it rubbed its head with its stubby little arms, I fumbled around near my pillow in search of my pills.
Long, oblong pills, stuffed to the brim inside a plastic bottle.
Gulp.
I shook a few into my palm, popped them into my mouth, and swallowed.
They were the kind you were absolutely supposed to take with water, but the fridge was simply too far away.
The distance to the refrigerator: five steps.
And yet those five steps felt impossibly, unbearably far, so I swallowed them dry.
Feeling the pills scrape their way down my parched throat, I laid my head back on the pillow.
When I wake up, everything will be back to normal.
I fell asleep believing that.
Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
"Wake uuup! It's already afternoooon!"
"…What."
Nothing had gone back to anything.
A shrunken body, an albino rodent that spoke human language, and a headache like my skull was about to split open — it was all exactly the same as before I'd taken the pills.
"So this is reality, then."
I couldn't believe it. As I stared blankly at the ceiling, the albino rodent clambed onto my face and opened its mouth.
"From this moment on, you are a magical girl, Masteeer! Go outside and go wham-bam on all the bad monsterth, 'kay!"
"Haah…."
"Welcome, this is Your Name?"
"Welcome! To Your Nam—?"
"Welcome, to my precious Your Name!"
No. Just no.
[Aren't you leaving?]
Goo Seoha, who had read the text I floated in the air, wagged her index finger and clicked her tongue.
"Tsk, tsk. Do you know who I am? I'm Goo Seoha, the most influential mage in all of Korea."
Ah. Yes. Well. I suppose you are.
She was Korea's strongest, so it wasn't exactly a lie.
But, um, see, the thing is.
I scrunched up my face and floated a new line of text.
[What does that have to do with you not leaving?]
"Can't I just run the naming shop for one day? Honestly, it looks way more fun than being an Association mage."
A smoothly executed change of subject, classic Goo Seoha.
I already knew full well what kind of person she was.
So I decided to just play along.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Ugh, fine.)
[We barely get any customers anyway. Two a day, tops?]
Chomp!
"⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Ow.)
Goo Seoha darted over and squashed my cheek flat.
"That's ridiculous! With a face like yours, how could anyone not come?! Explain that to me!"
I had wondered, on occasion, why people didn't come. It was strange even to me.
But it was the truth, so what was I supposed to do about it?
I was the wronged party here, you know.
I want to rake in hundreds a day and do the hamburger flex too, but I can't.
They say self-employment has a high earning ceiling. That was a complete and utter lie.
[⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
Quiet pleeeeeease!
I know better than anyone that I'm not at any ceiling, okay?
What is the point of ripping my wounds wide open and pouring antiseptic straight into them, huh?!
It hurts! It hurts like crazy!
"I come here to see your face, Yuna. You're telling me nobody comes to see yours?"
[Genuinely, no. A lot of people figure that no matter how pretty you are, being mute is an instant dealbreaker.]
"What kind of blasphemy is that?!"
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Boooo.)
Goo Seoha squished my face even flatter as she shouted.
Like I said before, Goo Seoha only avoids that way of thinking because she's Upper Realm.
But even knowing the well is deep, Lower Realm mages never think about climbing out of it.
The vast majority of Lower Realm mages were people who calculated their own profit, loss, and personal comfort before they thought or acted.
How are people's mindsets still stuck centuries in the past?
Yumin could probably give the whole world a pretty good match, honestly.
Even as a Lower Realm mage, I never thought that way — but apparently the same couldn't be said for everyone else.
The average mage falls a little shorter today, too.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼…."(Nnnnngh….)
Though lately I do wonder if I'm just a lunatic of an irregular.
Earth's one and only incantation-less mage! Talk about a person outside all the rules.
If I'm not the irregular, then someone even stranger than me ought to exist out there.
The furry crowd might actually qualify?
Not beastfolk who just have ears or a tail — I mean the ones steeped so thoroughly in the fur that they've become the beast itself.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Ooh.)
Suddenly, I felt like messing with Goo Seoha.
It was absolutely not because she kept kneading my cheek.
Absolutely not.
[Say, Seoha. Are you into furries?]
The expression on Goo Seoha's face froze solid the instant she read the text.
Squish!
Her expression froze, but her hand didn't stop.
With a note of faint contempt creeping into her voice, Goo Seoha spoke carefully.
"Eh. So that's your thing, Yuna."
[Then how would you say you feel about furries?]
While Goo Seoha wasn't looking, I reeled my smartphone in with telekinesis and opened the voice recorder app.
Beep.
"Since ancient times, we've been told never to associate with anything furry. And people who like furry things are… kinda hard to be around, right? Not kinda — I actually can't stand them…. This stays strictly between you and me?"
[Perfect.]
Ding!
"Hm?"
At the sound of the recording stopping, Goo Seoha's head turned. Her gaze went, of course, straight to my smartphone.
"Yuna. You—⎼⎼!"
Before she could finish her sentence, I hit play on the recording.
"Since ancient times, we've been told never to associate with anything furry — not kinda, I actually can't stand them…. This stays strictly between you and me?"
The beyond-the-pale remarks flowing out of my smartphone — Goo Seoha's true face, the mask of the public-friendly, endlessly respectable image she'd cultivated peeled clean away.
The kind of words Goo Seoha would never, ever say in front of a camera.
[Now then, Seoha? You said you can't stand furries, didn't you?]
"Th—! Hey! Unghhhgrrk!"
[What do you suppose would happen if I sent this to a broadcasting station??]
[I'm already so excited I can't sleep at night~]
[ヾ(≧▽≦*)o]
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!"(Heheheh!)
I allowed myself a satisfied smile. When else was I going to kill time tormenting Korea's strongest?
And as a bonus, I could feel my self-esteem — dead and buried until moments ago — refilling to the brim with every panicked reaction.
If not now, when exactly was I supposed to recharge it?
[⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
So the truly rotten one here is Goo Seoha, isn't it?
If I hadn't used Naming on Goo Seoha back then, I'd be down in the Association basement right now, being endlessly petted as her favorite plush toy.
I believe, without a shred of doubt, that Goo Seoha would absolutely do that.
This woman would do it. Without fail.
I was certain of it.
"Hand it over! I'm Goo Seoha, Korea's strongest mage!!"
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!"(Kee-yah-hoo!)
We were playing tag, circling round and round the naming shop.
Seeker: Goo Seoha. Runner: me.
A woman in her mid-twenties and one in her late twenties, playing tag in a cramped little naming shop….
This is so much fun!
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!"(Hahaha!)
[I mean, what exactly is the problem with me carrying my own phone??!]
"The image I've spent years building!! Do you have any idea how hard it was?! Aaaaaargh!!"
Goo Seoha dashed this way and that, doing her level best to catch me.
But thanks to a difference in our born-in physiology and stamina, she could never quite close the gap.
Goo Seoha slowed, panting hard, and I slipped up beside her and whispered.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼?"(Shall I hand it over?)
Nod nod!
She couldn't understand the words, but she'd roughly caught my meaning from my intonation, and Goo Seoha nodded along eagerly.
I waved the smartphone right in front of her eyes.
Just within arm's reach. Goo Seoha's hand shot out to snatch my smartphone—
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!"(Jan-ken!)
The instant her fingers were about to close around it, I yanked my hand back, and she grabbed nothing but air.
Then I darted away, keeping the phone just barely, tantalizingly out of her reach.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼!"(He-he-hah!)
Not forgetting to add an insufferably smug laugh on top.
So, roughly five minutes had passed since our delightful game of tag began.
Dering!
"Welshoome! This is Your Nam! …Haah!"
[Oh-ho.]
The moment the shop door swung open, she greeted the customer before I could.
It was a terrible greeting, but you could practically see the enthusiasm radiating off her — a woman desperate to try her hand at the naming shop business.
Well, one more can't hurt, I suppose.
With that thought, I sat down at my desk as if nothing had happened.
A startlingly fast switch in posture, considering she'd been running around shrieking until ten seconds ago.
I settled into the computer chair and looked the customer over.
Dark circles stained the skin beneath her eyes deep black, whether from chronic stress or something worse, and her violet hair was swept up into a high ponytail.
A face drowning in exhaustion, a look that said styling her hair was the absolute limit of her self-care — and yet.
Quite the beauty!
She must have had a tremendous amount of magic, because that haggard face didn't look ugly in the slightest — if anything, it only made her more striking.
But hold on. I felt like I'd seen her somewhere before.
Where was it…?
Hmmmmmmm.
Nope. No idea.
The new customer looked back and forth between me and Goo Seoha, as if weighing something over very carefully in her mind.
Having finished her deliberations, the violet-haired customer looked at me and slowly opened her mouth.
"So you're Lee Yuna?"
An irritable voice, practically radiating how exhausted she was.
A tone that suggested she already knew exactly who I was. I could sense both loathing and grudging recognition in her voice.
The customer turned her gaze on Goo Seoha and stalked toward her.
"Did you dump your entire schedule just to come play tag?"
"S-Sejin…. How did you even find this place?"
"Answer the question. And your location was easy enough to figure out."
Goo Seoha hemmed and hawed, stalling on the answer.
Even I could tell she hadn't come here today with any serious intention of scouting me.
She'd probably just come to hang out, I ventured cautiously.
Either way.
The customer's identity, just as Goo Seoha had said, was Han Sejin — an S-Rank mage belonging to the same Association.
Since they were in the same Association, footage of the two of them working together surfaced often enough that she was a mage with real name recognition among the public.
She's way scarier in person than she ever looked on screen.
In the media she'd always been blunt, saying only what needed saying — but she'd never come across as scary before.
She was exactly the cold-beauty type, huh.
Kwaaak!
When Goo Seoha just cowered under Han Sejin's gaze and said nothing, Han Sejin seized her by the nape of the neck and twisted.
"Ughhhgrk!!"
Goo Seoha writhed in agony.
The veins on the back of Han Sejin's hand stood out. She really had put her whole strength into it.
"S-Sejin, I, I—⎼⎼ uuughhhk!!"
"Quiet."
Oh.
Holding Goo Seoha by the nape, Han Sejin walked straight toward the door of the naming shop.
Dering!
Just before stepping fully out, she glanced back at me and let out a sigh.
"Lee Yuna. I'm sorry about today. I'll come back some other time. Wait for me."
[Ah — yes. Please do….]
Silence settled over the naming shop Han Sejin and Goo Seoha left behind.
After all that racket, the sudden quiet made the dissonance almost unbearable.
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Han Sejin.)
I caught myself murmuring her name.
It looked like I'd need to revise my evaluation of her.
From scary Upper Realm unnie, to kind unnie who'd taken out the menace for me.
I mean, Goo Seoha is a menace, after all.
Upper Realm or not, to me she's just one nuisance who gets in the way of business.
And who decided that, exactly?
"⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼."(Me.)
[⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.]
"⎼⎼."(Shh.)