I Underestimated It
I underestimated it. I had assumed it was nothing more than a simple promotional game designed to advertise the magical girls. I should have trusted what my friend Mijeong said. The fact that the balance between characters felt so perfect meant the developers had approached this with real seriousness. This game—Magical Girl Super Battle—was actually superior to the well-crafted fighting games I used to play back in the day.
“Ugh…”
“Jihye, you lost again. That puts your win rate against Miju at six percent!”
However, no matter how excellent a game is, that doesn’t automatically make it fun. How could I possibly enjoy myself when I kept losing? Across more than ten matches, I hadn’t landed a single proper hit. I was simply being toyed with, completely and mercilessly, by my friend Mijeong.
“How are you this good…?”
“W-well… I watched a ton of YouTube videos… Hehe.”
Even while cautiously watching my reaction as the loser, Mijeong looked happier than anyone. Of course she was. She got to beat me in brand-new ways with different characters every single round.
Fighting games might be the genre where you “learn by getting hit,” but this felt excessive. Since I had played a bit in the past, I understood the fundamentals—high, mid, and low attacks, grabs, guarding, and ultimate moves that become available once your health drops below a certain point. But those were merely the basics.
To actually win, you had to read your opponent’s mind, predict attack animations, and memorize counters to their techniques. I was slowly starting to get a feel for it as the matches continued, yet every time I spotted an opening, Mijeong would strike first. I kept handing her victory after victory.
“S-still… for your first time, this is pretty decent… Maybe you actually have talent, Jihye?”
“Even after I got pummeled the whole time?”
“It’s my first time seeing Jihye’s mentality completely shatter. Miju… you’re incredible.”
“…No matter how I look at it, this character sucks. I chose it because it was a magic type, but charging mana is brutal, and every single mana-based skill has garbage hit confirmation.”
“Jihye… that’s your cousin Ji-a unnie’s character.”
“Ji-a is Ji-a. The game character is the game character. Does that girl actually fight like this in real life? If so, I might need to give her a piece of my mind. No matter how I think about it, the range is way too short. Using attacks like these against long-reach beasts would definitely cause problems for everyone around her…”
I kept muttering to myself. At some point my complaints about the game character had spilled over to the real person it was modeled after. After using Blossom—the character based on Ji-a—for more than ten rounds, the only conclusion I could reach was that she was terrible. If her skills landed cleanly, the damage was powerful enough to flip the entire match. But that was only if they landed. For someone like me who still didn’t understand the opponent’s moves, any clumsy attempt at a combo resulted in an immediate counter and the defeat screen.
So much for perfect balance.
“B-Blossom is a character who plays by guarding well and only using skills at the decisive moment… She might be a little difficult for beginners. But once you master her, you can definitely win with Blossom too. So… f-fight on?”
Ah… So what Miju was trying to say was that I had been playing the game completely wrong this entire time.
“It really was just… me being bad.”
“Today’s your first day, isn’t it? It’s normal to be bad. I’m not that good either.”
“…But you’re still better than me, Class Rep.”
For someone who claimed this was her first time at an arcade, the class rep was surprisingly skilled. She had managed two wins and eight losses against Mijeong. That was on an entirely different level from my pathetic one win and fifteen losses.
The class rep gave an awkward laugh. “That’s probably because I watched a few YouTube videos too…?”
There’s a saying that the sister-in-law who holds you back is more annoying than the mother-in-law who scolds you. I wasn’t particularly angry at Mijeong despite the overwhelming defeats, but for some reason the class rep’s attitude irritated me.
“Watching a few videos doesn’t make you good at the game. That’s it. Fight me.”
“Huh?”
“Now that it’s come to this, we need to settle who’s better.”
This was a battle of pride that put my entire gaming life on the line. I used to love games so much. And when it came to fighting games, no one in the neighborhood could touch me. There was no way I would lose to the class rep, who was stepping into an arcade for the first time in her life!
“W-wow, you’re really motivated.”
“Then I-I’ll be the referee…!”
“Perfect. Let’s go one more time.”
The character select screen appeared. Once again, I picked Blossom. Now that I had heard Miju’s strategy, I was sure I could play properly this time.
The class rep, however, chose a red-haired character wielding a sword. A sword… so a martial arts type? In that case, I needed to avoid close combat and focus on a defensive, long-range poking style. If I did that, I could definitely win. The most important thing in games is an unbreakable spirit, after all.
I gripped the joystick tightly.
And so five more rounds passed. Zero wins. Five losses. That was the name of the bitter scar left on me.
“…Was my skill level always this bad? Was I always this pathetic?”
“J-Jihye…”
“Aaaah… Glory of the past. The old me is truly dead. All that remains here is a sleepyhead little girl whose gaming skills are complete garbage…”
“S-Seyul. Don’t you think using the obviously broken Red Star was a little… too much?”
“Ah… now that you mention it, Red Star is an overpowered character, huh?”
“Jihye’s condition looks even worse than before…”
“Maybe suggesting the arcade was a mistake.”
Despite Mijeong’s advice, I had been completely swept. This was ridiculous. The first round was a total domination. The second was the same. Only by the third and fourth rounds had I begun to grasp the feel of the game, and the final round had been so close I could almost taste victory. But at the very end, I pressed the wrong button. My skill misfired, and the class rep—who had been waiting for that exact opening—finished me off spectacularly. Even now, the thought made me want to cry. I should never have pressed that.
“Should we head out now? We’ve played quite a lot.”
“Y-yeah. It’s almost four o’clock already…!”
“…Is it?”
“Yeah. Jihye’s probably getting tired too, so how about we call it quits with the arcade here?”
When the class rep pointed it out, I realized my arm muscles felt slightly sore—probably from gripping the joystick too hard earlier. I hadn’t noticed while I was focused on the game, but the caffeine was wearing off and fatigue was creeping in. I could probably last another hour, but spending all that time in the arcade felt like too much of a waste. Leaving my lingering regrets behind, I stepped out of the arcade.
My mouth, still bitter about the results, kept spilling out complaints about the matches against the class rep.
“At first I thought the sword meant it was a close-range martial arts character, but it turned out to be a long-range magic type. Total overpowered character.”
“Hmm… The model for that character is the magical girl known as Red Star. In real life, she’s famous for exactly that combat style.”
“In actual battles too?”
“Yes. That’s why there are all kinds of theories—that the sword is just a prop, that her real weapon is a staff shaped like a sword, that she’s actually a sword-fighting martial artist who deliberately avoids using one, and so on.”
The world is full of all kinds of people. Among them are some real eccentrics who stand out dramatically. Magical girls embody human diversity better than anyone, and the more distinctive their personality, the more likely they are to be complete weirdos. After working as a magical girl for a while now and meeting plenty of oddballs, I don’t get surprised easily. Still, while I’m not surprised, I can never understand what goes on inside their heads. Using magic while holding a sword? Why?
“Maybe it’s just their preference.”
They might admire power-type mages or something. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone, I should respect it. Or… maybe not? She had just hurt me, after all.
“Is Red Star a famous magical girl?”
Sparkle— A bright glint appeared. When I glanced at Mijeong, sure enough.
“The magical girl known as Red Star is a first-generation Korean magical girl. She also played the biggest role during the Beast Catastrophe nine years ago! In recognition of her achievements, many magical girls followed her example. As a result, she became the very first president of the Korean Magical Girl Association. She suddenly retired shortly after the catastrophe was resolved, and no one knows where she is or what she’s doing these days.”
“…President of the Magical Girl Association?”
“Yes. Her reputation is known worldwide. That’s why the developers of Magical Girl Super Battle treated her differently from the other characters and made her a hidden character—”
Wait. Miju. What did you just say? Hidden character?
I slowly turned my head and stared at the class rep.
“Why are you avoiding my eyes, Class Rep? Did you do something wrong to me?”
“Ah… well. I wonder what it could be? Haha. Hahaha.”
“…You picked the hidden character and fought me? Answer me, Class Rep.”
“So, um… uh……?”
The class rep was sweating bullets. Finally she bowed at a perfect ninety degrees and confessed her crime.
“I’m sorry! I’ve wanted to try using it at least once!”