A Long-Awaited Cherry Blossom Picnic! (With a Side of Chaos) (4)
The cherry blossom viewing turned out to be quite the success. We stood right in the heart of the season called spring. The warm, crystal-clear weather felt like the perfect backdrop in a painting, making the lovely flowers look even more enchanting.
“But how far does it go?”
“L-looking at the map… this is the end of the path. There doesn’t seem to be any more after this…”
Still, everything with a beginning has an end. Unfortunately, the cherry blossom trail had reached its conclusion. From here the path split, leading off toward other areas.
Though we called it a cherry blossom outing, all we had really done was walk the trail from start to finish. Once we hit a dead end, there was nowhere left to go.
Jia spoke up. “Should we head back? I saw stalls scattered along the way earlier.”
“That’s right. There were chicken skewers, spicy rice cakes, cotton candy—all kinds of things.”
“S-sounds delicious…”
It was nearly noon. We needed to eat, but the snacks tempted us far more than a proper meal. The mouthwatering aromas and visual assault on our senses had clearly clouded our better judgment. Street food’s pull was downright violent.
“Then how about we save the real meal for later and just grab some snacks? There’s a special kind of fun in eating street food at a place like this.”
“I’m in! I’ve always dreamed of admiring cherry blossoms while holding street food in one hand.”
“Y-yeah, it’s a real dream… Se-yul, you sure know your romance.”
“…What kind of dream is that, exactly?”
Luckily I wasn’t the only one under street food’s spell. Everyone seemed far more interested in snacking than in sitting down for a full meal. Of course, one of them had apparently watched way too much television.
“All right. I’ll go buy some…”
Jia pulled out her wallet and started toward the stalls, but the two little chicks suddenly blocked her path.
“No way! We’ll go!”
“…Y-yes. We’ll get it…”
She looked slightly flustered, as if her conscience was pricking her for sending the kids on an errand.
“It’s fine. As the oldest adult here, I should—”
“It’s really okay! We’ll go!”
The class president pushed her opinion so firmly that Jia finally yielded.
“Fine. But I’m paying, so buy whatever you want without holding back. You all know I have plenty of money, right? Don’t worry about the cost—just get everything that looks good.”
“U-understood! We’ll b-buy a ton!”
The class president and Mi-ju headed off toward the nearby stalls with bouncy, excited steps.
“Puuhaam. The kids were considerate enough to give us some space.”
“They really didn’t have to.”
Though they claimed they were just going to buy food, we knew their real motive was to be thoughtful. After all, both Jia and I were seasoned adults who had mastered the art of reading the room. They were telling us to enjoy some cozy family time without worrying about them. When you looked at it that way, their pure consideration felt both incredibly cute and deeply touching.
“Let’s sit for now. You must be tired, Oppa.”
“Yeah… my stamina’s hitting rock bottom…”
Now that we were alone, we walked a little farther and spotted an empty bench that someone had just vacated. We claimed it before anyone else could.
“Haa. I finally feel like I can breathe again.”
“I was getting a little tired myself. Maybe I really am getting old.”
“You’re only twenty-six. If you say stuff like that, Oppa will scold you.”
“Oppa got to be young again at twenty-five, so you have no right to lecture me like an old man.”
“…Tsk.”
We sat there for a while, trading silly jokes. The wind swept through with a soft whoosh, shaking the cherry branches and sending petals drifting down. Watching them flutter, I turned to Jia.
“…Do you remember the old days?”
“The cherry blossom viewing we went to with Mom?”
“Yeah. I thought you might not remember since you were so little, but you do.”
“Of course. No matter what, I remember all the important things.”
She must have been in lower elementary school back then. And she still remembered? Her expression didn’t look like she was lying.
“…It was really fun.”
“I don’t remember the details, but the feeling of being incredibly happy is still clear.”
“It couldn’t have been anything but fun. We gathered piles of petals to make fluffy pillows and dolls out of them.”
“Huh? Oppa, that’s the first I’m hearing about that!”
Jia grabbed my shoulder in surprise. She truly hadn’t known.
“Didn’t Mom ever tell you?”
“She never went into that much detail…”
“She must have kept quiet on purpose because she knew I’d tell you later.”
Jia smiled awkwardly and scratched her cheek.
“Hearing you talk about it makes me miss Mom.”
“Me too. Is she doing okay over there?”
“Yeah. She’s doing well beside Dad. There was one crisis, though…”
“A crisis?”
“A monster nearly attacked the columbarium. Fortunately it was suppressed right away, so there wasn’t much damage.”
That was a relief. If anything had happened, I would have dragged this pathetic body straight into the demon world and personally ended every single life there, one by one.
“You know that your parents liked pink, right?”
“Mom and Dad liked pink?”
Had I never told her? Even when we were busy just trying to survive, I couldn’t believe I had never mentioned it.
“Yeah. Especially Dad. The reason was…”
As I recalled that day’s cherry blossoms and prepared to happily share stories about our parents with Jia, the clear sky suddenly darkened. A strange wind began to blow from nowhere. The strong gusts mercilessly scattered the petals, and a tingling sensation raced across my skin and through my whole body. My dulled senses had made me notice it too late.
Not only me—Jia clearly understood what the phenomenon meant too.
It was only natural. After all, we were magical girls.
We spoke at the exact same time.
An event we had never once experienced on Earth. But something we had gone through countless times in the other world. It was the precursor to a monster outbreak.
Meanwhile.
Se-yul and Mi-ju strolled between the stalls, buying every food that looked the most delicious.
“Spicy rice cakes, fish cake, chicken skewers. Anything else?”
“H-how about takoyaki?”
“Takoyaki sounds perfect!”
Se-yul eagerly accepted Mi-ju’s suggestion and bought some takoyaki. By the time they came to their senses, both girls were carrying four black plastic bags. All of them filled with street food.
“I didn’t think we’d buy this much.”
“Y-yeah…. Everything here just looked so good…”
Had there ever been a time recently when she felt this relaxed? Se-yul thought back but couldn’t recall any. Strangely, whenever she was with Jihye she became honest. The psychological pressure and burdens simply vanished, letting her exist comfortably.
Because of that, Se-yul had been discovering new sides of herself lately. She would shout loudly whenever Jihye teased her, or openly show her irritation instead of hiding it. Behaviors she had always considered rude were now coming naturally around Jihye.
Today was no different. Ever since she was little, her parents had drilled into her that street food was unsanitary and nutritionally poor. Yet while walking the cherry blossom path today, she had belatedly realized she had secretly wanted to eat these foods since childhood.
“That might be why I got a little too excited… maybe.”
“No! I’m sure they’ll like it! …P-probably?”
Se-yul glanced at the bag holding the chicken skewers. From what she remembered, Jihye had especially enjoyed the chicken drumstick that appeared in school lunches.
“Jihye definitely has a kid’s palate, so she’ll like this stuff, right?”
“Y-yes. After analyzing Jihye’s eating patterns, she likes sweet and salty foods. She doesn’t seem to care much for desserts, though. It’s more like she prefers stronger, more stimulating flavors. The kind boys usually like… fried chicken, pizza, sweet-and-sour pork, stir-fried spicy pork, pork cutlets. She seems to like soup and rice too!”
“Uh… yeah. Thanks for the intel, Mi-ju.”
Mi-ju was usually quiet and composed, but she had a tendency to go into overdrive whenever the topic was Jihye, so Se-yul had to keep her in check.
Just as she was calming Mi-ju down, a sudden sharp sensation hit them.
“…This is.”
“O-ouch!”
It was far too electric to call a mere chill, and too eerie and goosebump-inducing to dismiss as static. Neither Se-yul nor Mi-ju had ever felt it in person, but they knew what people called it.
Illegal mana signal…
The peaceful mood from moments ago turned icy. It felt as eerie as if night had fallen in broad daylight.
The illegal mana signal they had learned about in academy classes. It was the phenomenon in which the mana inside one’s body reacted violently, startled by the sudden influx of foreign mana right before a monster appeared.
“Then this is the Gate we’ve only heard about in lectures, isn’t it, S-Se-yul?”
The Gate they had only studied in class was now becoming reality. It was hard to believe.
“W-what do we do?”
“First let’s get back to Jihye. Since Sister Jia is with her, she’ll definitely handle it… or at least…”
Se-yul’s judgment was correct. Although it wasn’t officially released association data, a magical girl ranked around ninth had more than enough power to resolve a situation like this with ease.
But situations never flow only in optimistic directions.
“Huh…? Already?”
The time between the precursor symptoms and a monster’s actual appearance was usually over five minutes. In this case, however, less than a minute had passed before monsters began ripping through the sky.
They were forms the girls had never seen before. Not the sanitized images from academy educational videos, but real, ferocious creatures brimming with pure malice. Brutal lycanthropes, goblins, orcs… even centaurs. All kinds of monsters flooded into view.
“Kyaaaaah!”
“Help! I never dreamed a Gate would appear!”
The peaceful cherry blossom path had vanished, replaced by pure pandemonium. The street filled with panicked screams and desperate cries. The monsters had arrived.