A Military-Vet Schoolgirl Enrolls in the Magical Girl Academy! (1)
I yawned. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I sat up. What time was it now? I stared at the clock on the blackboard until my blurry vision cleared. 1:15. Lunchtime had long since passed. That probably explained why the classroom was completely deserted.
“Is no one here…?”
What period was it supposed to be? I calmly checked the timetable. Actually, there was no real need to look. The first-year academy schedule was simple enough to memorize in one go.
For academy freshmen, there were only two subjects: practical training and theory. Let’s see. The current class was… practical training. Of course. If it had been theory, I wouldn’t be the only one left sitting here like an idiot. It had to be practical training time.
“Yaaawn. I figured at least one of them would wake me up. Those brats. Who knew kids these days could be so heartless?”
Back when I went to school, if we had to change classrooms, we used to wake each other up before moving. The secret buddy or the class president especially took care of that sort of thing.
“…Now that I actually have to go, it’s such a hassle. Since I’m already this late, maybe I should just skip.”
Unlike Korea’s proud middle and high schools that ran on rote memorization, I remembered the academy wasn’t too strict about attendance. Even if you missed a class, they’d probably just shrug it off like in college—Guess that kid isn’t coming today.
I’d already skipped several times before, and the teacher never seemed particularly interested in marking my attendance. Besides, I wasn’t exactly desperate to be here. Whether my evaluation at the academy was good or bad didn’t matter much.
The reason I—a person who had already lived a full life—was attending an academy full of kids was due to someone’s very strong recommendation.
“No matter how I think about it, I’m not at an age where I should be attending the academy.”
But what could I do? No matter how many times I said I didn’t want to go, they wouldn’t listen. Even when I laid out incredibly logical arguments with everything I had, I couldn’t overcome that person’s single sentence. To render dozens or hundreds of logical points completely useless with one phrase—that person was truly something else.
In the end, because I lost the argument to her, here I was attending the academy at the Korean age of thirty-four. For reference, the average admission age was 15.3 years old.
I even made a last-ditch effort. If reason didn’t work, then emotion. With the mindset of grasping at straws, I threw logic aside and tried fighting with feelings just like she had. I resisted until the end, saying our mental ages didn’t match at all and I couldn’t possibly fit in, but she simply said, Look in the mirror, oppa. With your current appearance, you’re more than qualified for the academy, so you have to go! completely ignoring—no, outright dismissing—my complaints. So I had no choice but to attend.
Even now, a month later.
Sigh. How on earth did it come to this?
I lightly lifted the hem of my skirt and let it fall. It fluttered down with a soft rustle.
“Just looking at this skirt makes me dizzy again. I think I’ll just go back to sleep.”
Even after nine years, I still couldn’t get used to it. Back then I could at least understand it was an emergency, but now… It went beyond dizziness and straight into a headache. The only way to suppress a headache was to sleep.
I climbed onto the storage cabinet at the back of the classroom and prepared for a proper deep sleep. Normally I would never do something like this, but with this body… Just in case, I carefully covered my lower half with a blanket. Yet even that blanket—with its pink color and cute characters—only made me feel more disoriented.
It’ll get better once I sleep. Who knows? Maybe all of this is just a dream?
I adjusted the neck pillow that I always carried with me—now practically part of my body—and was just about to sink back into the sweet embrace of sleep when a voice called from across the room.
“Kim Jihye! Why aren’t you in the practical training classroom? Don’t tell me you’re still sleeping… You really do look comfortable.”
The classroom door opened and an uninvited guest appeared. She was our class president, right? Her name was definitely… Damn, I couldn’t remember. I’d just call her Class President.
I greeted her with a voice still hoarse from sleep.
“Hey. Hi, Class Pres.”
“‘Hey. Hi, Class Pres?’ What kind of greeting is that? Jihye, hurry up and come to the training room. We have class. I told you today you absolutely had to come.”
Seeing how the class president had come all the way back from the training grounds just for me, I wanted to get up. But oops. My body refused to leave the floor.
I stayed lying down and only tilted my head to look at her.
“Class Pres. I’m sleepy… Can’t I sleep a little more?”
“Sleep more? You need to attend class!”
Aigo, so loud. I get that you’re angry, but could you lower your voice a little? I’m almost asleep here…
I mumbled.
“Is it really necessary to attend class…”
“If you’re a student, you have to attend class! Isn’t that why you enrolled in the academy?”
Not me. But arguing point by point was too much effort. Yaaawn.
“What’s so great about attending class?”
“You build up your skills and get good grades.”
“What’s so great about good grades?”
“If you get good grades, you can graduate and land a good job.”
As expected of the class president. Having someone like her in charge kept the class on the right track. A proud friend with a diligent, conscientious mindset that was rare among kids these days. I was genuinely proud to have a friend like her.
But Class Pres, you picked the wrong target for persuasion.
“I’m not interested in any of that.”
“What?”
If she truly wanted to persuade me, she shouldn’t have come at me with such textbook arguments. After unilaterally stating my position to the dumbfounded class president, I pulled my sleep mask down over my eyes.
Sleep came drifting in softly. My consciousness gradually grew hazy… Yes. This was it. This comfort.
Oh, right. Before I fell asleep, I should tell her one more thing.
“Class Pres.”
“What.”
“Tell the teacher I went to the infirmary.”
“Hey, Kim Jihye!”
The class president shouted the name in pure frustration.
Kim Jihye. I wanted to snap back that I wasn’t Kim Jihye, but unfortunately, I was indeed Kim Jihye now. To be exact, I had become Kim Jihye.
A name I still wasn’t used to. But it was a name I had to get used to if I wanted to keep living. A sigh escaped me at this tragic reality.
“Sigh. How did I end up like this?”
“That’s what I want to say!”
Letting the class president’s shout go in one ear and out the other, I thought to myself.
A healthy Korean man. Army sergeant who completed his full military service. A third-year reservist and university senior—that had been me, Kim Jihoon. After falling into another world, reaching the peak as a magical girl there, and returning to my original world, I had somehow become Kim Jihye, a first-year student at the Magical Girl Academy.
It made no sense. It was completely unbelievable. If this were a novel plot, it would be a total failure. Really. If someone actually wrote a story like this, I’d want to compliment the author. How did you come up with such garbage?
No matter what curses the class president hurled at me, nothing could stop me from falling asleep. Little by little… my consciousness faded.
It had happened a month earlier.
Magical Girl Academy. I never imagined I’d see such a bizarre and confusing name on Earth.
At first I thought my sister was lying to trick me. After seeing actual photos and videos, I barely managed to accept it, but… I still didn’t fully understand.
An academy. A Magical Girl Academy?
Yeah. If something like that existed on Earth, it must just be another thing with a weird name, I had thought casually. But after visiting in person, I realized it was literally an institution for training real magical girls.
The place overflowed with them. Magical girls here, magical girls there. Magical girls pouring out nonstop! Was it really okay for magical girls to be this common? It was practically a magical girl flea market.
How had Earth ended up with so many magical girls? As far as I remembered, the term didn’t even exist before.
Yaaawn. Whatever, I don’t care. Does it even matter? Everything just felt too bothersome. I wanted to go home and sleep.
Having once stood at the very peak of magical girls, watching these fledglings hop around didn’t stir the slightest emotion in me. Of course, there was nothing as fun and rewarding as raising fledglings, but I had already done that nonstop in the other world. Now that I’d returned to my original world—Earth—I wanted to live comfortably. Like a retired old man.
Maybe farm in the countryside and tend a vegetable garden. Or travel to all the places I’d been too busy to visit before. Or if even that felt like too much work, just sit at home drinking tea comfortably.
And if I ran out of money, finding a normal job wouldn’t be bad. Even with talk of retirement age, I was still young. With some effort, I could get hired quickly.
Before returning to Earth, I had planned out all sorts of retirement dreams in my head.
But I never imagined my little sister would ruin those magnificent retirement plans.
“I don’t care what you did in that other world instead of Earth. After several years away, you finally came home looking like an adorable little girl, so you should have come prepared to live like one!”
“No. I’m your oppa. Can’t I just normally return to university, graduate, and get a normal job?”
“…Looking like that? Oppa, have you finally lost it?”
My younger sister was truly something else. She easily accepted that her oppa who had been living in another world came back after years as a little kid, but when I suggested returning to school in this form, she asked if I was crazy.
Hahaha.
“No. Like I said before, I can use transformation magic.”
“Even if you go back to school and graduate, you’ll just end up with a mediocre salary doing company work. Do you actually like that kind of gray, lifeless future?”
“Well… isn’t that how most people live…”
Anything was fine. A gray future, no prospects—everything was good. As long as I wasn’t a magical girl. I was sick of them now. I had clearly told her before that I never wanted to do anything related to magical girls again, but my sister refused to give up.
“No way! The number of digits in your bank account would be completely different. I told you magical girls appeared on Earth too, right? Do you know how much top-tier magical girls make per month?”
“Don’t tell me… a lot?”
“They earn more than celebrities and even rival old soccer players. They make more than double the starting salary of most major corporations in a single month!”
Those sparkling eyes. Until I left, she had never worn an expression that had surrendered to capitalism. The world really… was terrifying. Where had my once-pure little sister gone?
“Still, those are the top ranks. It’s not healthy to dream by looking at the salaries of people at the absolute peak of any profession.”
“No. As the ninth-ranked magical girl in the country, I guarantee it. Oppa, you could become the best of the best! You already lived as a top-class magical girl over there anyway. It should be easy to do it again, right?”
No, I’m telling you I don’t want to be a magical girl again.
…Wait, what did she say earlier? Didn’t she mention her domestic ranking?
“Hold on. You’re the ninth-ranked magical girl in the country?”
“Yep. It turns out I have talent for it~!”
I was genuinely surprised by the unexpected news. I knew my sister had become a magical girl, but I had no idea she was at that level.
Wow. As expected of my sister. The genes don’t lie. I felt a little proud.
“Hehe. If not, I couldn’t live in this fancy house. Oppa, you should bow and thank me!”
“Yeah… thank you. Thanks to you, I’ve been living luxuriously for a while.”
“Right… so you should repay the favor, shouldn’t you?”
“Huh?”
After saying that, my sister suddenly disappeared into her room.
…Since when had she been using the master bedroom as her own? She definitely used to have her own room.
After a lot of rummaging sounds, she came back carrying a tablet.
Curious, I asked, “What’s that?”
“The Magical Girl Academy admission application.”
“What?”
An academy application? Did I hear that right? She wanted me to attend the academy? The Magical Girl Academy? Me??? Was she insane?
I answered immediately. “No.”
“You still have to go. If you want to work as a magical girl in South Korea—or anywhere in the world, for that matter.”
“So you’re telling me to attend an academy full of chicks? I already reached the peak as a magical girl.”
“But you’re a weakling right now.”
“…Ah.”
The sudden factual strike left me speechless. Were kids these days always this brutal? That hurt.
“Still, I have a career as a magical girl. I have my pride!”
“That career is from another world. What have you built up in this one?”
No, if you put it like that, I lose my words, my lovely sister.
“Wait, hold on. I got swept up in the moment. Let’s be clear. I never said I’d become a magical girl, okay? I don’t want to live as one again even if I die. I just want to live normally.”
“But oppa… look in the mirror. You’re not the old oppa anymore. This cute… no, this short little girl—who is she? Your appearance is completely different. Your iris and fingerprints would have changed too. Your gender itself has changed, so how do you expect to live normally like before?”
“No… well… like I said earlier, transformation…”
“But you can’t do it right now. You already admitted you’re a weakling. Plus, after being missing for nine years, if you suddenly pop up with a ‘ta-da!’, who’s going to believe you?”
She had a point. Everything she was scolding me about were worries I had already considered before returning to Earth. I thought I had prepared countermeasures for every situation, but unexpected variables had twisted everything, leaving me like this.
“Oppa, do you even know what your current identity is? You’re a dimensional refugee. You’re not a South Korean citizen anymore. You’re not the person named Kim Jihoon—you’re Kim Jihye. Everything you used to do as naturally as breathing is now impossible because of that single status as a refugee.”
I was aware. I was no longer Kim Jihoon. I had become the person named Kim Jihye. So how was I supposed to live from now on with that identity?
“That’s why you need to be a magical girl. According to dimensional refugee law, if you work as a magical girl and contribute a certain amount of merit to the nation, you can obtain citizenship.”
“…No matter what, I really don’t want to be a magical girl again. Haaaaam.”
I appreciated her concern, but I still didn’t want to live as a magical girl. Yet my sister acted like my opinion didn’t matter at all, shoving her finger in front of my eyes and pressuring me. Damn it. Because becoming a magical girl had changed my body, I was now smaller than my sister, making it hard to rebel.
“I wasn’t going to say this, but… Oppa. Do you know how many nights I prayed that you weren’t dead? I’m not even religious.”
…Hey! That was a low blow.
“And you need to repay me for all the worry you caused me until now.”
Her tone made it clear that if I didn’t obey, she’d kick me out of the house immediately. I’d never been scolded like this except by Mom. Blood really was thick.
Sigh. No choice then. In the end, I gave up.
“…Damn. From the beginning, I never had any choice at all.”
“Now you get it? Heehee.”
This sly little devil. That was how I fell into her trap and enrolled in the Magical Girl Academy.
My sister and I made one promise: I only had to graduate. After that, she wouldn’t interfere.
Graduating from the academy. That meant… it didn’t matter if my grades were dead last, right? As long as I graduated, it was fine. Once I realized there was no need to work hard at all, I made my decision.
I would treat the academy not as a place of learning, but as a place for deep sleep!
Honestly, what could I possibly learn here? The magic theories and applications the teachers taught were nothing compared to what I already knew. In the other world, I had even written the basic magical girl combat manual. This was like forcing a university professor to enroll in high school.
“So this is the main gate… I already want to go home. Yaaawn.”
My feet stepped onto the grounds of the Magical Girl Academy. I thought it would only be a short walk, but… what? Why was it so huge? There shouldn’t be land this big in narrow little Korea. I couldn’t help but be impressed.
Most of the buildings didn’t seem to exceed five floors. Aside from the dormitories, all the structures were low. Yet the overall scale was enormous. This was at least the size of a major university campus. No, it was even larger.
And there were numerous outdoor facilities that looked like playgrounds. They must be training grounds. Let’s see—one, two, three… There were this many? Each training ground was the size of an entire elementary school field. And there were more than five of them.
From the description alone, this place seemed like a comprehensive sports complex that could rival Taereung Athletes’ Village, but…
“Burn to ashes in flames!”
The people using the facilities weren’t sweaty men. They were girls. Girls who were unleashing ferocious magic that didn’t match their cute appearances at all. Seeing them, I finally felt the reality sink in.
I had really enrolled in the Magical Girl Academy.