Land Turtles Can't Swim
Anyway, if you wandered around long enough, there were plenty of places no one ever looked.
Even a short walk from the mart into the gap between buildings was enough to put you in a quiet alley no human gaze was likely to reach. I checked the nearby windows, the way I'd come in, the path on the other side. Only after confirming that no one was heading this way did I put the short, one-word transformation chant on my lips.
"Sun."
The moment I bent my knees, jumped in place, and shot into the sky, the mascot—who'd been keeping its mouth clamped shut—finally crept out of my pocket. I couldn't just fly off with no idea where I was going, so I hovered in place and prodded the little guy.
"Get to work, Monster Nav."
"Um, I think it's toward the beach over there?"
The little bear was being weirdly vague today, even throwing strange little noises into his answers. That didn't sit right with me either, so I zeroed in on it and pressed him.
"What's with the 'I think'?"
"W-well, I've never been to this area, so it's a little…"
He scratched his head under interrogation and gave me an absurd answer. It wasn't like we'd gone overseas. This was a three-hour drive at most, and his functions were already glitching? I pulled one corner of my mouth back and looked at him like garbage.
"You useless little shit…"
"Ah—it's probably right!"
Even his one and only function had a defect. Just when I was seriously considering returning him, his already vague statement got buried under an even vaguer adjective. Still, I had no other options, so for now I headed the way he pointed.
Once I got close and looked down at the ground, I could roughly guess where the monster had shown up by watching which way people were evacuating. From that point on, I didn't really need the mascot's guidance anymore.
The beach Siyeon had so badly wanted to visit. It was because of a monster, but still—I'd gotten there first.
"Graaah, what the hell keeps getting in my way?!"
Looking down, I saw a creature that looked like a turtle with a dome-shaped shell. It was thrashing around on the sand amid planted beach umbrellas and the leftover traces of beachgoers who hadn't managed to clear out in time. As the monster rampaged along the shore, the umbrellas from the rental shop—and even the rental shop itself—had gotten crushed, and honestly, that felt pretty satisfying. Around this time of year those people supposedly occupied spots, forced you to buy umbrellas, even committed tax evasion—a total mess, from what I'd heard.
Anyway, a monster was a monster, so I had to take it out. I stuck my hand in my pocket and—only then did the emptiness hit me, the absence of something that should have been there.
"Ah. I didn't bring the mask."
That was right. I'd left the mask—my symbol of terror—at home. I'd told myself not to forget it, I thought with an inward sigh, then left the empty pocket behind, slowly descended, and sat down on the shell.
I'd heard somewhere that a turtle's shell was evolved bone, right?
"Wh-what the?!"
"Oh, he noticed right away."
Maybe that was why—the monster reacted almost the moment I climbed on. With a brief note of admiration, I hopped off the shell and stood in front of him. Well, if someone climbed onto your bones, of course you'd notice right away.
"So you're that magical girl they call Venus!"
"Huh?"
I tilted my head at the random remark. Ah, right. This was Sokcho. Most monsters knew the masked face better than the bare one, so mistaking me for Venus was only natural. Still, there was no real need to correct a monster's question, and wearing a mask around in this heat would be a pain anyway—so I decided that for the duration of my stay, I'd just go with it.
"Uh, yeah, yeah… let's go with that."
"Kahahaha! You look as weak as they said! Your pathetic magic will never pierce my defenses!"
So the monsters had their own little communication network, apparently. Though the news seemed to travel pretty slowly. To be fair, my dispatch to Sokcho was pretty recent, so this guy wouldn't have known—and it wasn't like word of which magical girl was supporting which region spread all that actively either. Anyway, this turtle monster was just spectacularly unlucky.
"Turtle, turtle, stick out your head~♪"
A song that somehow came out unsettling, sung to whatever beat I felt like. I twisted my magic wand into flamethrower mode, and a hissing, air-leaking sound started up.
"If you don't, I'll roast you and eat you~♩"
Not long after Sun started her creepy little song, the outcome had already been decided.
Carshefur, the monster who had come to Sokcho, despaired.
That snout of his boasted a bite force exceptional even among monsters. It did nothing to Sun.
"Ew—"
Without so much as a change of expression, she simply blasted flame into his mouth like she was brushing away a bug.
A shell whose hardness surpassed diamond—once called Earth's hardest gem—by several times over. That, too, meant nothing to Sun.
"I said I was going to roast and eat you, didn't I?"
"KRAAAAAAH!"
When unbearable heat from the outside cooked his insides, the monster had no choice but to stick his head and limbs out. Even spinning at high speed to throw her off, Sun held an overwhelming advantage in pure physical struggle. The mere fact that those small hands had a grip on his body left him able to do nothing but flail.
Tail swipes. Spinning his massive bulk. Biting. Every struggle rendered meaningless, the monster gave up on everything and resigned himself. He simply went limp, waiting for the moment she would kill him.
The only thing he was still aware of was that he was being slowly dragged somewhere. Splish. Moisture seeped into the cracks of his split skin. At that bone-chilling, damp sensation, Carshefur's mind snapped awake.
"What."
His home planet was a dry world without a single drop of water. Swimming? He had no idea how. Among his species, the most disgraceful death was drowning. Digging down into the planet's underground until you hit water and dying there was the very symbol of stupidity.
Sun had no way of knowing that, but her actions were one step away from delivering Carshefur the ultimate humiliation.
"I heard land turtles can't swim…"
Land turtle? He didn't really know what that meant, but his instincts were screaming at him to beg her for mercy. Water. He was being dragged into the water. He still didn't know what a land turtle was, but he thought those words might be a rope offering him a scrap of mercy.
"Th-that's right! Same with me! My whole life, swimming and I have never—"
"Oh, is that so? Well, that's…"
But what he'd thought was a rope turned out to be the final step to the cliff's edge. In the end, Carshefur's words never finished—Sun's cut over them.
"That's the best news I've heard all day."
The moment those words ended, Carshefur was flying through the air. Spinning and spinning at a speed he'd never experienced before. Sensing that the sky he'd always only looked up at was now at the same height, Carshefur—through his spinning, dizzy vision—looked at the brightly smiling magical girl and thought:
Is she a demon…
His enormous, heavy body plunged rapidly into the sea. In that same moment, Carshefur's breath began to choke off with it.
"Whoa. He really can't swim."
Watching that massive body vanish into the distant depths, I recalled a certain photo I'd seen online once. It was a screenshot from some overseas chat app—someone proudly saying they'd found a turtle on land and put it back in the ocean. And the reply telling them it was a land turtle. It hadn't looked like shallow enough water for a land turtle to swim in either. Tragic, really.
Anyway, that was that, and a monster was a monster. Maybe because the body was so big, the bubbles frothing up from the sea were huge too.
When is this thing going to die?
Maybe its lungs were oversized to match its bulk—the bubbles showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Even just standing still on the sand, the weather had me sweating buckets. If this was how it was going to be, I should've just roasted him, I thought, and called the little bear.
"Hey, is it done yet?"
"One moment. It still seems like—"
The little bear was about to say it wasn't done yet. Then—
"Ah."
Apparently the monster signal he'd been sensing had cut off. He let out a short little sound.
"It's dead."
"Okay. Pulling out."
Monster signal lost, confirmed by the little bear. Taking that as my starting signal, I kicked off the sand and took to the sky.
From above, every place on the ground looked unfamiliar. Near where the monster had appeared, in a suitable spot with no people in sight, I released the transformation. The villa was pretty far, but the mascots could at least manage some basic location guidance between themselves. The little bear wriggled around in my pocket, searching for the signal from Siyeon's mascot. I could have just used a map app, but honestly, I'd forgotten the location.
"I'm back—"
Guided like that, I returned to the villa. The civil servant uncle was nowhere to be found—just Siyeon, all by herself. Inside the villa, the AC had been cranked way up in advance. The moment I walked in, it was past cool—honestly, it was a little cold. And waiting inside was…
"Mari! Uncle bought us chicken gangjeong!"
"Oh."
Even at a glance, it was glossy, reddish-sweet chicken gangjeong. Like the uncles had said in the car, Sokcho had mulhoe, squid sundae, and all sorts of other food—but maybe they'd figured chicken was still the best for kids? Impressed by that excellent choice, I sat down at the table to claim my share of the carefully packed chicken gangjeong. Siyeon had thoughtfully already set out a fork for me too.
I immediately brought a piece of that glossy, syrup-coated chicken to my mouth and chewed. The batter sat right between hard and crispy, proving that it still tasted good even after cooling. And from inside, the soft meat peeked out.
"This is so good!"
"Mhm!"
That fried chicken tastes good is common sense. But eating it for free made it even better.