Venus Retires

Ordinarily the meetup would have dragged on another two hours, but with Venus's retirement hanging over everything, it wrapped up a little early.

The next day, every TV channel and corner of the internet was blaring the news of her retirement.

I'd heard it from her side the day before, and still it hadn't quite landed. For now I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠just liked this cool room, and the fact that it was still summer break. Magical girl retirement felt like a problem from another planet — the kind of empty wishful thinking you had as an elementary school kid, convinced that by the time you were old enough for the army the country would already be unified and you'd never have to go.

"Heh."

Remembering that era, a hollow laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. It was too ridiculous. All those little kids who thought that way grew up into the soldiers of that very generation. People really do all think the same things.

Anyway, a retired person was a retired person. She wouldn't have thrown the word around carelessly, and she had almost certainly already lined up a magical girl to take her place. Someone who would inherit the name Venus and fill that seat.

For her sake, I pressed my hands together for a moment and wished her successor a little luck.

Welcome to hell, still-pure little girl.

Once I unclasped my hands, I started fiddling with my smartphone. The place that would be most sensitive to her retirement was the Magical Girl Gallery. When I opened the page, the board was wall-to-wall retirement posts — regular threads and recommended posts alike, almost nothing else.

Among ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the threads that looked even vaguely related to magical girls, I clicked a recommended post that reeked of raw feeling.

The beginning and ending made so little sense that I tilted my head and scrolled down to the comments.

So it was a parody of some original post. Not knowing the source meant I couldn't laugh at it, so I moved straight on to the next thread.

Among the recent recommended posts, the one with the most comments had a strangely warm title — and an orange badge next to the username. In other words, it had been written by one of the people who ran the gallery.

It laid out an entire generation of the magical girl named Venus in chronological order, every achievement she had stacked up. Where she had finished off which monster, at what hour and minute. More than ten years of monsters she had stopped were listed out in a long, unbroken scroll, and at the very end of that catalog of feats…

A few rare lines from the gallery that were intense and sincere enough that the retiring party herself might have teared up reading them. I felt a small regret that she might never see the post before her memories changed… but there was nothing an elementary school kid with no contact number for her could do about that.

More than anything, scrolling through the list of her achievements left me genuinely impressed. Sure, some of the monster names repeated.

How many hundreds of them is this…?

Even so, the sheer volume of records accumulated over that time was still sitting here, solid and undeniable, inside this gallery. From now on, the achievements she had built would become a blank white page for another magical girl who inherited the name Venus to fill in. Whether that girl would ever be worthy of the name and the record was still an open question.

Anyway… she's incredible.

I felt a pure, uncomplicated admiration for Venus, then scrolled down into the comments. The comment section of a gallery that usually overflowed with insults, attacks, and tearing people down had turned into a flock of gentle lambs.

Encouragement, comfort, and support, one after another. The warmth was so thick I almost wondered if I'd opened the wrong community. For once I let the gallery actually soothe something in me, then hit the back button.

The moment I went to tap the next recommended post—

Huh?

A call window sitting square in the middle of my phone screen. This smartphone almost never rang. No verifications, nowhere to enter the number, so of course there was nothing worth selling. On top of that, even most voice-phishing scams didn't bother calling with "Caller ID Restricted." The whole thing reeked — restricted numbers always did.

Process of elimination left only one possibility. Someone who knew magical girls existed and could dial each of us directly.

Without much suspicion, I dragged the green button and answered.

"Hello?"

The formal greetings went back and forth, and I answered with a carefully blank "Ah," as if I had no idea who she was.

"Ah, yes."

The voice on the other end of the line belonged to one of those high-up government people — the kind of elevated civil servant you hear about. The money bag for the magical girls, and for all practical purposes the person in charge of us.

Her actual title was something like Minister of the Ministry of National Security… National Safety whatever-it-was. You couldn't exactly put "Minister of Magical Girl Management" on the door plaque, so they had cooked up a title that talked around it.

Complicated, but put simply: she was the shared helper and superior for all the magical girls. When she called first, it was never good news — but not picking up would just make things worse in its own way.

"Nothing complicated. You've heard about Venus retiring?"

"Yes, well… of course."

Venus's retirement, tossed out of the minister's mouth as if it were small talk. I had no idea why she was telling me, but I gave her the affirmative answer anyway.

And then the snakelike tongue started getting longer.

"Venus isn't retiring immediately, either. While she and the new Venus… the two of them do the handoff, ah — handoff means, you know—"

"I know what it means."

"Oh, you do? Clever girl… you have no idea how much this auntie relies on you."

This was not the minister who usually spoke in short, clear sentences. She was flattering me, trying to cloud my judgment. I'd heard civil service was hell, and she had the air of someone who had survived the reverse battlefield.

I could not get swept into her conversational current. Yes, ah, right… keep that up and before you knew it the structure would tilt until I was the one taking the loss. She clearly wanted something. Reading the clues so far, she was probably planning to plug the temporary hole left by the retirement with me.

She already knew I was not like other kids my age.

"Ah. So? The point?"

"Two weeks. Temporary dispatch to the Sokcho region. Daily rate at 1.5 times while you're there."

"Who do you take me for? Three times."

The absurd compensation on the other end of the line made me jump straight to three times. This ridiculous job did not come with severance. So Venus walking off the board didn't actually cost them much.

On top of that, the regular salary paid to Venus ought to come back to me while I filled the hole. At this stage, double was the fair share I was owed.

I didn't really have a clean justification for triple, but if I opened at double she would only try to shave it down from there. The fact that she had even called me — not some easier magical girl — meant the others were already maxed out just holding their own regions.

"That won't work. 1.75 times."

Even though I was clearly the one with the leverage, the minister kept inching up from her original 1.5. Of course, I had no intention of dropping all the way to double in one jump. Negotiation was supposed to be shameless.

"2.7 times."

"1.8 times."

A tight little war of nerves. The gap between the numbers kept narrowing — a sign that a mutually tolerable compromise was starting to come into view.

"2.4 times."

"1.9 times."

As expected, it looked like we would meet somewhere around double — so I decided to get greedy and go hard. I dragged summer homework into it, made dying noises, and flopped over.

"2.3 times. Anything less and I'm hanging up. Aigoo! Summer homework is so haaard!"

"Tsk."

A short click of the minister's tongue. The summer homework line was a complete lie, of course. Siyeon might not know, but I had already finished all of it. I might look like a little kid, but underestimating a field operative was a bad idea. Even as a brat, I fully intended to collect the full price of my labor.

"Fine! 2.3 times!"

Nice!

A better negotiation than I'd expected. I clenched a fist with the hand that wasn't holding the phone.

"You're sending people, right? And you've already got lodging ready?"

I switched to a sly tone as I spoke ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into the phone. People to take us to Sokcho, and a place to stay once we got there. We were being shoved in as emergency patchwork — the least they could do was prepare that much.

"Yes! Honestly, where did this little…"

Something like a muttered complaint drifted faintly from the other end before the call cut off. The minister clearly had not enjoyed this negotiation at all.

I, on the other hand, was extremely satisfied.

More to the point — Sokcho. Sokcho, huh…

I poked my head out over the edge of the bunk bed. Down in the living room, Siyeon was doing summer homework at the low table.

"Siyeon!"

"Hm?"

I called her with full energy, and she lifted her head toward me. Looking at that baffled face, I delivered the kind of news that could make a whole flower field bloom.

"We're going to the beach tomorrow?!"

"Really?!"

Exactly as expected — a full bloom of smiling flowers opened across Siyeon's face.