Advent (1)
"Hmm, maybe next time I should ask Uncle to send me on an expedition to Incheon…"
"But looking at his face, he really did seem fine with it? He even said I could call him Uncle if I wanted! Ah, of course, my only family is my sister, so I wasn't planning on it…"
"Pegasus, what did you just say?"
"I saw that bit about the Association President with my own two eyes. You really think deleting the chat history is going to hide it?"
It was an unusually quiet night. Baek Ju-a thought as much while bantering with Pegasus. From morning to evening, nothing had happened that would have required her deployment—and that was precisely the reason. When a magical girl was called out, it meant fire, traffic accidents, or humans transforming into monsters: situations where lives were on the line. So having nothing to respond to was, by any reasonable measure, a good thing.
She understood that with her head. Her heart refused to accept it. The goal she dreamed of was to become a brilliantly shining hero for everyone—just like her sister. And only a few days earlier, a post had gone up on the community boards comparing her to her sister, which only made her yearn all the more fiercely to become a hero like her. So she let out a tiny complaint, confined entirely to her own thoughts.
Can't something just happen somewhere…
And the very instant that thought crossed her mind, the phone in her hand erupted into a frantic vibration and a shrill alert.
"Wh—what?! Deploy immediately? Right now?"
She had wished for something to happen, but Ju-a had never actually expected it to. She fumbled for a second, then her expression hardened into deadly seriousness.
"Multiple monster appearances across all of Seoul… exact numbers unknown… and even Starlight has been detected…?!"
There was only one thing those words could mean. Radiant White transformed on the spot, kicked off the balcony railing, and shot into the sky—hoping desperately that no one had been hurt.
The opening scene of I Picked Up a Magical Girl was a battle between the Zodiacs—who were raiding Seoul—along with their underlings, and the magical girls. The fighting didn't reduce the city to ash, but several high-rises collapsed and a fair number of people died. A full-blown catastrophe, in other words.
My plan? When the Zodiacs attacked, I'd slip into the chaos, make a dramatic entrance, stamp my existence firmly onto the world's awareness, and then stop Seoul from getting completely wrecked. I had no intention of preventing the Zodiacs' raid itself. If I did, I wouldn't even be able to guess how the story would go after that. Besides, it wasn't as if I particularly wanted to play the hero who saves the world. If that had been the goal, I would have hunted down every last Zodiac the moment I transmigrated and wiped them out.
But that would have been boring, wouldn't it? No emotional payoff at all. What I wanted was fun, and the story I knew was fun to me. So I intended to let the plot run its course. I just planned to quietly snip out the parts that left a sour aftertaste, and the parts that were nothing but bitter. That much was fine, right? Even as a devoted reader, those were the bits that made me think yeah, no—so revising them should be okay. I nodded to myself in self-satisfied understanding and looked down from the sky.
Seoul's panorama… wasn't actually visible. Scattered clouds kept blocking the view. Even so, I could already see things exploding and light flaring up from below. The explosions would be the monsters running wild; the glittering bits would be the magical girls.
Hmm. So things were already a little off from the start. I'd planned to appear right when the Zodiacs did, as if I were naturally on their side. Posing as one of them was going to be harder like this. Well, whatever. I hadn't been planning to play house with the Zodiacs anyway. I could just swagger around pretending to belong to some independent organization. I'd already lied to Su-hyeok about it—might as well impersonate Rabbit while I was at it. That guy's face would be a sight to see. Not that he had a face.
"Well then… shall we begin."
I muttered the words like a vow and wrapped something like a crimson cocoon around my body. I knew it was inefficient, but for the atmosphere, it couldn't be helped. Picture it: in the middle of a pitched battle, a red cocoon slowly descending from the heavens—and then cracking open to reveal me. Who could possibly look away?
Even I thought it was a perfect plan. Grinning, I sealed myself inside the cocoon and began a leisurely descent. As for how I was flying when I couldn't see a thing—I had no idea either. Magical girls flew around just fine without wings, didn't they? Watching them soar wingless made me wonder if wings were even necessary. Still, I could definitely feel something draining out of me a little faster than usual.
Ohhh. So this was the sensation of Starlight leaking away.
…No, seriously. Flying without the wings didn't seem like a problem at all. Maybe it was because of who the original had been, but even wasting Starlight like this, I didn't feel as if my reserves were dwindling in the slightest. If anything, it felt familiar. So then why did the wings even exist?
Just as I was starting to seriously question the purpose of wings, I heard a stir of voices around me, and someone who was probably a magical girl shouted, "What the hell is that cocoon?!"
Hmm. Had I come down to a suitable altitude? I opened the tiniest of gaps and peered through. Yes—time to tear my way out. Lines… not forgotten. Good. Here we go.
I uncurled my body, ripped through the cocoon, and flung my wings wide, shattering the shell into a thousand pieces as I revealed myself to the entire world. For a single instant, everything around me went quiet. I could feel it clearly: every living thing overwhelmed by my presence, reduced to staring. It lasted only a heartbeat, but that was more than enough for the thrilling certainty that my existence had been branded into the world.
About time for the entrance line.
I had arrived.
"That is… that Starlight—it's a special-grade monster?! Of all the times…!"
The first to snap back to their senses and move were two magical girls. The one with sky-blue hair shouted at the top of her lungs, ushering people to safety, while the pink-haired one used the brief opening to drive fists and kicks into the monsters. What was a magical girl doing brawling like some street fighter? She wasn't a monkey.
The monsters only seemed to come to their senses once they were under attack, and the pink-haired girl kept intercepting them as they lunged toward the civilians.
"Where do you think you're going? Your enemy is me!"
But there were far too many for pink-hair to handle alone. I didn't recognize her, so she probably wasn't a major character—and an extra magical girl struggling against that many monsters looked like she was in over her head. Well. I wasn't exactly on the magical girls' side, but going down to a pile-on wasn't cool. Maybe I'd help just a little.
I designated the monsters as enemies, accelerated time, and was about to fashion a blood spear to skewer them one by one when I glanced at the spear in my hand and realized something. Time Acceleration and Blood Manipulation could be used at the same time. Why had I never tried using both together? Because I'd never met an opponent who warranted it, so of course I wouldn't have known. Still—now I knew. That was enough.
Which raised a new question. Inside accelerated time, could Blood Manipulation still be used at its normal speed? Curiosity got the better of me. I shaped a blood javelin and hurled it at a monster's head. It was noticeably slower than usual—but compared to the nearly frozen monsters, it was still vastly faster. No reason to refuse free convenience, then. It meant I wouldn't even have to get my hands dirty.
I created a blood javelin for every monster and drove them all, one after another, into their skulls. With no more enemies left to brand, time resumed its normal flow. In that same instant, a sound like a chain of explosions ripped through the air from every direction.
"Kyaa?!"
…I'd thought they were fairly slow, but apparently they'd still been flying at ridiculous speed. I hoped pink-hair hadn't gotten caught in it. Fortunately, it seemed she hadn't. Pink swept the dust aside and revealed herself intact—along with the monsters whose heads had been blown clean off by the spears.
"You're the one who should be watching where you're looking. Your enemy is right here."
The magical girl stared at me, clearly unsure whether I'd just helped her or simply cleared away something that annoyed me. Then she seemed to make up her mind. Pink Starlight coiled around her fists as she launched herself at me.
"Ohhh? Coming closer, are we? If you run now, I'm willing to let you go."
"How am I supposed to know what you'll do if I turn my back?!"
"Hohoh… is that so…"
Even an extra was still a magical girl. Facing an enemy she couldn't possibly beat and still refusing to lose her fighting spirit—that will of hers was truly…
Hahh. Yes. This is it. This was why I loved magical girls. That unshakable resolve. That sense of duty. Hearts that would not break.
But…
You're far too weak to ever make that wish come true.
Sometimes you have to know when to run.
"Gh—!"
"How dare a human set foot in a dragon's domain."
I drifted lightly upward to avoid her, then dove hard and drove my heel into the pink-haired girl's back, slamming her into the ground. Oh—so the wings weren't completely useless after all. They helped with directional control in midair. That aside, what was I supposed to do with her now?
Even pinned like this, she kept thrashing and pouring out Starlight, trying to resist—but with my foot planted between her shoulder blades, she couldn't hurt me, much less free herself. If I pressed any harder, something would break. Hmm. Maybe I should just knock her out and hand her over to sky-blue-hair over there.
More importantly—why wasn't sky-blue-hair attacking? Her partner was getting crushed.
"Your comrade is being trampled, and you intend to simply watch?"
I put a little more weight into it. Even a magical girl felt pain; she finally screamed. A coward, then? Cowards have no right to power. Looks like you need a beating too.
I was just about to move when—
"Get that filthy foot off her this instant——!!!"
…Ah. At last. The main dish had arrived.