I Enhanced the Heart That Protects!
"So... where do I even start with this."
Chae Jeong-ha mulled it over for a moment before she began.
"I grew up in an orphanage."
...So Chae Jeong-ha was from an orphanage too. Just like me.
"At least at mine, the director and the teachers never abused us or anything like that. If anything, they were pretty good to us."
Must have been nice. Mine wasn't even worth mentioning.
"But by the time I was old enough to leave, the building was falling apart. It needed renovating, badly."
"Well, yeah, it's rough on the kids when they're living in an old building like thaaat."
"So we did the renovation, and we got scammed. The interior company took the payment, did a completely slapdash job, filed for bankruptcy, and vanished."
Wow. There really are pieces of garbage like that out there? Preying on a place where struggling kids live?
"A textbook construction scam. Shall I collect relevant data on your behalf, Miss Chae Jeong-ha?"
Yeonji settled onto Chae Jeong-ha's shoulder with a perfectly blank face, and Chae Jeong-ha shook her head.
"There's no need. We caught them, luckily, and by the time the lawsuit wrapped up we actually got the money back."
That really was a relief.
But Chae Jeong-ha's expression was still clouded over.
"The problem was, getting it back took four years. It was only pretty recently that the money finally came through."
"Then what did you do in the meantime...?"
"The renovation still had to be redone, and the donations were all gone. But we couldn't just leave the building half-finished. So we had no choice but to use the last resort."
"Don't tell me—loan sharks."
"Yep. And that's how the interest snowballed."
She said the director had borrowed emergency money using the orphanage building as collateral.
True to form for loan sharks, the debt ballooned overnight under the crushing interest rates.
A few months after Chae Jeong-ha struck out on her own from the orphanage, one of the younger kids reached out to her.
Scary men had come around and were making trouble.
Debt collection—illegal debt collection, at that.
"The kids were on the verge of tears, saying how scared they were. Asking me if I was going to abandon them too."
As the money dried up and the collectors made everything ugly, most of the teachers quit one by one, and the orphanage fell on hard times.
"How could I walk away?"
Of course she couldn't.
I might resent the orphanage I grew up in, but for Chae Jeong-ha, that place must have been the closest thing to home.
"So I went back as a staff member. I figured I had to be the one to protect those kids."
She cared for the children unpaid during the day and worked part-time jobs at night, but even her wages plus donations from seniors who'd left the orphanage before her were barely enough to scratch the interest.
Then one day, while she was shielding the kids from the collectors, the loan sharks crossed a line.
They tried to use the thugs and hired muscle at their beck and call to strip the orphanage of its belongings.
"I thought it was over. There was no way I could hold them all off alone."
"Is that when you awakened?"
"No... not then. Back then, even while protecting the kids, I was just trembling like a leaf."
As she said it, Chae Jeong-ha flushed slightly and looked away.
"That day... it was actually Hyun-ji unnie who helped me."
"Hmm? Me?"
Im Hyun-ji asked in a languid drawl.
"Yeah. You happened to be passing by, saw a bunch of sketchy guys swarming toward somewhere, and got curious enough to follow."
According to her, Hyun-ji then sent a sledgehammer flying with one of her arrows as a warning.
You're not exactly a law-abiding citizen if you bring a sledgehammer to a place full of kids, y'knooow, she'd apparently said.
And when Hyun-ji subdued the hired muscle and handed them over to the police, that was the moment Chae Jeong-ha began to truly admire magical girls.
Until then, they'd been about as distant as the idol she'd loved as a child. But now, a genuine longing began to bloom—the wish to become someone like that.
"At the same time, I started thinking that this was how I needed to protect my siblings too. Not cowering in the back, shaking."
Crying helplessly changed nothing, she said.
Someone had to stand up to them the way that magical girl did, and protect the director and her brothers and sisters.
Even if she had no power of her own, there were people who needed protecting.
Then, a few weeks later, the collectors came a second time, declaring that if the debt couldn't be repaid, they'd have no choice but to demolish the orphanage and sell off the land itself.
And this time, Chae Jeong-ha stood alone at the entrance, blocking their way, and shouted at the thugs.
The thugs laughed in her face, of course, and one of them swung his sledgehammer down on the door panel beside her.
It was meant as a threat—but instead of flinching, she caught the sledgehammer.
"And that's when it hit me. Look at me instead of these kids. As long as I'm standing, you have to fight me."
Even if her grip tore open, Chae Jeong-ha refused to let go, glaring at the thug with bloodshot eyes as she spoke.
And ironically, at the very moment those words left her mouth, Chae Jeong-ha's wish and her mana responded.
In her hand, where the sledgehammer had been, she now gripped a mace—her magical weapon, the emblem of a magical girl.
The thugs felt the danger radiating off it and, as one, hurled themselves at Chae Jeong-ha and the orphanage.
"I thought I was going to die. I had to hold the entrance against dozens of them charging in all at once."
Facing so many was overwhelming even for her.
Then her eye caught a thug smashing his sledgehammer against the wall—apparently trying to punch through and open a new way in.
So, driven by nothing more than the instinct to protect, Chae Jeong-ha swung her mace into the man's arm without thinking.
In that instant, a blue crest in the shape of a shield seared itself onto his arm—and the sledgehammer hurtling toward the wall stopped dead.
The thug's head wrenched around as if yanked by an invisible hand, and his gaze locked onto Chae Jeong-ha.
"So once the stigma was branded on, the thugs stopped going for the orphanage and charged at you instead."
"Of course. I used it on pure instinct."
That was how she ended up covered in wounds—but she held out until the police arrived. Every last thug was arrested, naturally.
After that, thanks to the Magical Girl Administration's support and police protection, the illegal collectors never came around again.
Becoming a magical girl also meant her income shot up, and the orphanage could steadily pay down its debt.
"That's how I ended up joining the agency where Hyun-ji unnie is the representative. I figured someday I'd be the one protecting her."
Chae Jeong-ha's voice grew quieter and quieter—then she suddenly exploded.
"I told you not to laugh! Even I think it's cringe as hell!"
Meanwhile, Im Hyun-ji, who'd been listening to the whole story, blinked slowly for a while before tilting her head.
"Sooorry, but... when exactly was thaat?"
"What do you mean you don't remember?!"
At the blushing Chae Jeong-ha's outburst, Hyun-ji averted her eyes and scratched her cheek.
"Well, I've chased off guys like that one two or three times too many to keep traaack."
"You absolute lush, I swear!"
Still, Hyun-ji wasn't wearing her usual sly grin—she smiled warmly as she spoke.
"I don't remember it, nooo... but thank you for sticking around all this time."
"......"
Caught off guard by those words, Chae Jeong-ha turned her head away.
"I didn't... stay just to hear you say that..."
"Well, either way, I got a nice long look at Jeong-ha's embarrassing backstory. Pfft. Did you like your big sis thaaat much?"
"Ughhhh!"
As Hyun-ji's mischievous cackling returned in full force, Chae Jeong-ha buried her face in the desk.
Either way, having heard her story, I felt like I finally understood Chae Jeong-ha's motivation.
She wanted to become strong so she could protect people.
Her craving for firepower had only been the flower blooming from that wish, visible on the surface—beneath the roots lay the heart of someone who wanted strength in order to shield others.
So the direction was decided.
"In that case, I think the right approach is to make you stronger the more stigmas you stamp out. So that the stigma becomes your foundation, Miss Jeong-ha."
I turned to look at Chae Jeong-ha, running my fingers over my enhancement hammer.
"The reason you wanted to be strong was because you wanted to protect better. So we build from that."
She wanted to protect, so she wanted to be strong. So why not make that very feeling the engine of her power?
"Even setting efficiency aside, I agree that this direction suits you best. I shall upgrade my assessment of Master's intelligence accordingly."
Yeonji drifted down onto my shoulder and added that with complete sincerity.
"That said, from the combat data I observed earlier, the Stigma of Protection persisted on a single target for an average of only about 1.2 seconds—extremely brief. The moment a new stigma was applied, the previous one simply vanished."
"Oh? Hold on. So you can only put one stigma on any given target?"
When Chae Jeong-ha faltered at Yeonji's analysis, Im Hyun-ji spoke up, easygoing as ever.
"Then we traaiin. Practice holding two or more Stigmas of Protection on one target~."
"It's not impossible. If you stay consciously aware of it, Miss Jeong-ha, I believe you could maintain two—or three, or even more."
It would be a grueling process, of course. Who knew what trial and error lay ahead.
But it was unquestionably a far better direction than simply boosting raw firepower.
Alright, let's do this. Someone who grew up in an orphanage like me deserves the extra care.
Deeply moved by her story, I pictured it in my head.
May she protect everyone, with the same heart she used to protect the children of that orphanage.
May she stand at the very front line, taking the wounds, so that all behind her stay safe.
And may her strength flow from that very heart.
Pouring that wish into my hammer, I brought it down on the mace with everything I had.
CLANG!
The mace flared blue, like a Stigma of Protection given form.
"Whoa, that's blinding! What is that thing!"
It was at least twice as bright as yesterday's firepower enhancement—bright enough that I could barely keep my eyes open.
Had the enhancement responded to the feelings she carried?
The light clung to the mace for a good thirty seconds before it finally began to fade. Etched into the head of the weapon was a shield crest, identical to the Stigma of Protection.
Before long, Yeonji extended her tiny hand toward the mace and concentrated—and promptly delivered her analysis.
"The previous attack boost of 2.5x has been removed. However, it has been confirmed that each time you apply a Stigma of Protection, your strength, mana, and durability rise by approximately 31 percent. It is true that raw attack power has taken a hit—but with just three stigmas active, you would achieve roughly a twofold increase in overall physical capability."
Then, as if offering congratulations, she fluttered in circles above Chae Jeong-ha's head as she continued.
"So this is not some garden-variety enhancement. This is an enhancement that draws out Miss Chae Jeong-ha's potential to its absolute limit. Master is the greatest. An object of awe, of worship, of deification."
...Even at a moment like this, you have to crack jokes in that deadpan AI voice, don't you, Yeonji.
"Whoa! So it's not just attack power—my whole body gets stronger? That's way better than I expected. Twice as strong with just three stigmas?"
Chae Jeong-ha snatched up the mace, slung it casually over her shoulder, and broke into a satisfied smile.
The more stigmas she marks on her enemies, the more they target her—and the more hostility she shoulders, the stronger she becomes.
Truly, an enhancement made for this woman.
Meanwhile, Im Hyun-ji watched Chae Jeong-ha bask in her satisfaction with a soft smile, then rested a hand on her shoulder.
"So then... how about a joint subjugation next time, huum?"
"A joint subjugation?"
"They're saying three Scene Stealer Class apparitions are going to surface before looong. This would be a pretty good experience for you, I'd thiiink. We were going to hand it off to another office since Seo-yoon got hurt, but... wanna do iit?"
Chae Jeong-ha's violet eyes lit up as she shouted.
"Obviously! I have to show everyone how strong I've become! I'll protect every single one of them myself!"