A Military-Vet Schoolgirl Enrolls in the Magical Girl Academy! (5)
“Did the entrance ceremony go well, oppa?”
“Don’t even get me started. I thought I was going to die from exhaustion…. Why does it have to be this brutal from day one?”
After the entrance ceremony ended, I dove straight into my bed the moment I got home. Who would have thought home could feel this dear and comforting? The soft lighting. The spotless wallpaper. Furniture that carried the warmth of familiarity in every corner. The cozy atmosphere they all created together. And the one family member who had been waiting for me to return.
I missed home today just as much as I had when I first came back to Earth.
“Yeah… this is the one. This fluffy blanket right here….”
“I had no idea you treasured this blanket so much, oppa.”
“Really? I’ve been attached to it for years…. Was I that good at hiding it?”
“You were. You always acted so mature in front of me…. Hey, oppa. Are you seriously falling asleep while I’m talking to you?”
“…Huh? Wha… what did you just say?”
“Ha. Never mind. You sleepy-headed idiot of an oppa.”
What’s with her? The schedule today was so exhausting that I dozed off for just a second, and she’s already scolding me for it. At least she didn’t pinch my cheek or smack my butt, so I guess I should be grateful.
“Anyway, how was it? The academy, I mean.”
“Huaaam. Didn’t I already tell you it was exhausting?”
“That’s why I’m asking for the details.”
My sister sat down on the chair in my room and settled into a listening posture. It was so earnest that I almost burst out laughing. To be that serious just to hear her older sibling’s academy stories… Hoo. I had to hold it in. If I laughed without thinking, she might accuse me of making fun of her and start nagging.
I slowly recalled the day’s events and began to speak.
“First, I made a friend.”
“Oh… as expected of you, oppa. Your social skills are amazing?”
My sister looked at me with proud eyes and even clapped, showering me with praise. Just how poorly did she usually think of me…? For a moment I wanted to say something, but I held back.
“I was heading to the auditorium for the entrance ceremony when she approached me first. Her name was definitely… hmm? What was it again?”
“Don’t tell me… oppa. You were lying, weren’t you?”
She stared at me with eyes full of disbelief. Her expression was one of complete contempt, as if she had expected this from the start.
“No, no! I really did make a friend. …I just forgot her name. It definitely started with Se….”
“Sure, let’s say you made a friend. What happened next?”
“Let’s say? …Anyway, after that came the entrance ceremony, but the principal’s voice was so sleep-inducing that I dozed off. I was sleeping soundly when a teacher woke me from behind. That’s when it all started. My age of suffering.”
“Suffering? You got scolded by a teacher?”
“I didn’t get scolded at the time. Instead… the teacher said something like, ‘Something fun is about to happen soon, so look forward to it.’”
At my words, my sister immediately clutched her forehead, as if she could guess what came next.
“Ah… don’t tell me they fired magic missiles from the ceiling?”
“How did you know? Is this some ancient academy tradition even outsiders know about?”
In worlds other than Earth, academies often had things like that. Some were truly bizarre, and I had banned a few of them because they were pointless.
“It’s not a tradition… I just have some connections with the academy’s principal.”
What? What kind of connection? Isn’t the principal of the Magical Girl Academy a pretty big deal? And my sister knows her? As expected of the ninth-ranked magical girl in the country.
“It’s not the suspicious kind of connection you’re imagining, oppa. We’ve only met a few times for work. Anyway, one day the principal told me they needed an event to give the new students some tension on entrance ceremony day.”
“And that event was shooting magic at the students?”
“…I didn’t think they would actually use my suggestion.”
“What? You were the mastermind?”
So the person who came up with that insane idea was my own little sister. But the principal who actually put it into practice might be even crazier, right? Or maybe they were about equal.
“As the former president of the Magical Girl Association from another world, you must have noticed, right?”
“Honestly, I didn’t catch on until right before the magic activated….”
“Come on. The moment you entered the auditorium you should have thought, ‘There are a ton of magic circles installed on the ceiling!’ and gotten suspicious!”
She was right. It was ridiculous that someone who used to be a pro hadn’t noticed. I guess my senses really had dulled. Back in the day, my mana detection range spanned several kilometers. But even if I told her, she probably wouldn’t believe me. I just smiled awkwardly and changed the subject.
“After receiving that insane surprise gift, the entrance ceremony ended. Then the homeroom teacher led us to the training grounds.”
“They must have measured your mana and magic power. How much did you have, oppa? Your mana aside… your magic power must have been high, right?”
“…My residual mana showed as zero, so they couldn’t even measure my magic power.”
“Yeah, that sounds like you.”
“Hey. Why are you accepting that without a shred of doubt? Earlier when I said I made a friend you were super suspicious.”
“That’s because… with you, it seemed plausible.”
Before I left for Earth, things like this never happened. She used to be a good, angelically cute little sister who trusted and followed her only older brother. Just what happened during the nine years I was gone that made her view her oppa as so unreliable? Reality sure is bitter…. It’s the kind of night that makes you crave a drink.
“I could go for a drink.”
“Oppa, you’re a girl right now? Minors can’t drink.”
“How old am I? I may have ended up in this body, but my mind didn’t get any younger.”
“Tsk.”
My sister closed her mouth. It was a warning. Having lived with her for seventeen years, I knew exactly what it meant. I immediately backed down. No, I had no choice but to back down.
“Fine, I was just joking. Why are you so sensitive?”
“…Right? I just imagined you throwing a tantrum while drunk in that body and couldn’t stand it.”
…Yeah. Even thinking about it myself, it would be a ridiculous sight. Okay. No alcohol for the time being.
“But oppa. The schedule wasn’t that tough, was it? No matter how chronically fatigued you are, this much should be manageable.”
Oh right, I hadn’t mentioned the most important part yet.
“I dueled with a teacher.”
“…That’s actually surprising.”
This time her expression was genuinely shocked.
“The teacher was crazy enough to use ki strikes on a student…. I managed to block it because it was me, but the other new students would have been laid up for months if they got hit.”
I still couldn’t forget that sensation. The feeling of the fist flying toward me. An attack that brought back memories of my active days in the field. It was the kind of stimulation I hadn’t felt at all while just sleeping at home lately.
“A Magical Girl Academy teacher who uses ki strikes…. I think I know who that might be.”
“Who exactly are you? How do you have such a wide network?”
At this rate she was going to say she knew every teacher at the academy.
“That’s a secret. If you’re curious, graduate from the academy and come work where I am.”
“Tch… keeping secrets.”
Haaam. Was that enough to cover the entrance ceremony story?
“No wonder you’re more tired than usual. You worked hard.”
“I told you not to pat my head…. Huaaam. Jia, oppa can’t hold on any longer. I’m going to sleep now….”
I was pretty sure I had told her not to touch my head without permission. …Whatever. The blanket still had that same unchanging fluffiness even after all these years. And my sister, who had become a bit mischievous but was still the same at heart. Even if other things had changed little by little, my room remained exactly as it used to be. There was no way the fatigue piled up at the academy wouldn’t melt away.
“Then I’ll turn off the light. Sleep well, oppa.”
“Huuuaam. You too… sleep… well….”
Because of the huge scene I caused during the duel with the teacher on entrance ceremony day, I instantly became the most popular person in class.
“What the heck, how did you hold your own against the teacher?”
“Ki bullets…? I couldn’t even see them. Is there some secret trick to blocking them?”
“What was that shield you showed at the end? The magic circle was on a completely different scale from a normal shield.”
Even looking back on my hazy high school days, I had never enjoyed this level of popularity, so it was incredibly bewildering. The moment class ended, a crowd would always gather at my desk and bombard me with questions.
“Enough…. Please, just stop now……”
At first I answered them sincerely. I poured out kindness by the ladle—no, by the bucket—and explained everything in detail to each person. How such a thing was possible and what kind of training was needed to achieve it. However, my students were brand-new academy freshmen. No matter how simply or metaphorically I explained it, they weren’t ready to understand. It was like trying to teach a toddler who had just learned to walk the secrets of an Olympic runner’s medal-winning sprint.
About a week passed like that. I eventually got exhausted. I gave up on explaining.
“I’m tired. I just want to sleep…. So stop coming to ask me questions.”
“But Jihye. Weren’t you already sleeping during theory class this morning?”
“That’s not enough… I need to sleep eighteen hours a day……”
Just so we’re clear, I’m not joking. I can only function if I sleep more than eighteen hours. A month had passed since I started distancing myself from the kids using the excuse of being sleepy. The open displays of friendliness and interest from the beginning had disappeared, but I gained a different kind of attention.
“She acts so high and mighty. Her skills are decent so I tried to get close, but she basically told me to get lost?”
“Crazy bitch. So petty. In the end she only cares about herself. She’s probably scared we’ll overtake her if she carelessly teaches us her techniques or magic, so she won’t share.”
“Exactly. Doesn’t it piss you off how she pretends to be so relaxed? And who knows what she did, but it looks like she bought off the homeroom teacher too. You know, during theory class? She can sleep openly and the teacher doesn’t say a word. But if we sleep, we get yelled at like crazy.”
One month after enrolling, I had somehow become the subject of my classmates’ gossip and badmouthing. Is this for real?
“That’s why I keep telling you to stop sleeping all the time and actually talk to the other kids.”
Who was nagging me now…? Oh, it was the first friend I made at the academy. Her name was probably… Shin Seyeol. Right.
Unlike me, who went to the extreme of my own pace by sleeping through every class without listening, Shin Seyeol got along well with pretty much everyone in class. Her network was so wide that she even hung out frequently with students from other classes. She was so kind and considerate that the teacher appointed her as our class president.
And she was the only person in our class who looked after me.
“The class president still takes care of me… so it should be fine, right?”
“It’s not fine, Jihye. What if I get sick and can’t come to the academy?”
“Then that would be unfortunate.”
“…Unbelievable.”
Isn’t that just how life is? Hoooo. Even stretching is tiring. The yawns keep coming too. The longer this goes on, the worse my condition gets.
The class president watches me stretching with sharp eyes. Then, as if she had been wanting to ask for a while, she hesitates briefly before speaking.
“Now that I think about it, Jihye… it’s getting bigger?”
“Huuu… what? Oh…… you mean my sleep gear?”
“I’ve never seen that one before. What is it…?”
What the class president pointed at with her finger was the thin band wrapped around my chin. As expected, she’s quick to notice. I had received it yesterday and brought it to the academy today right away.
“It’s called a mouth-opening prevention band.”
“Eh…?”
“You know how sometimes you fall asleep and your mouth opens without you realizing and you drool? This band prevents that. It holds your mouth closed so it can’t open. I just started using it today so I can’t give a super detailed review… but it’s not bad. The Velcro tape that secures the band isn’t the best quality, but the band itself is decent.”
“Uh… uh…… I see. Haha.”
Judging by her reaction, my sales pitch to the class president had failed. Should I have pushed harder? No. I should use it for another month and give a strong recommendation if it works well. Since it’s still new, there shouldn’t be any issues yet.
“Oh right. I had something to tell you. You absolutely, absolutely, absolutely cannot skip this afternoon’s practical class!”
“Why…?”
“The homeroom teacher is doing a combat ability evaluation. So Jihye, you have to participate too.”
“Have to…? Really?”
“Yes. The teacher emphasized it multiple times. She said I must bring you today no matter what.”
The class president’s serious face as she repeatedly stressed how important it was. Seriously, just from those words you’d think I skip practical classes every single day.
“Fine. I’ll make sure to go voluntarily today… haam. If I can manage to get there, that is.”
“Jihye… that last part really bothers me, you know? You have to come, got it?”
“I know, I know. Don’t worry. I’ll definitely go.”
So could you please stop looking at me with those suspicious eyes, class president? I did once say I would go and then secretly ran off to the infirmary, but this time I really will go.
“Okay. So make sure you do.”
With those final words, the class president left the classroom. Was it already lunchtime? I guess so. Time to eat.
“But eating is such a hassle. Maybe I’ll just keep sleeping in the classroom.”
“…Why is everyone so desperate to control me? I’m an adult, you know. I’m thirty-four, for crying out loud.”
But no matter how much I shouted it in this girl’s body, no one would take me seriously. My appearance was already a lost cause, and my behavior wasn’t exactly trustworthy either. All I did was sleep, and I was too lazy and bothered to do anything.
“How am I supposed to fix this chronic fatigue?”
Even as I said that, I buried myself in the nap pillow cushion sitting on my desk. It really lived up to its reputation. The soft, fluffy texture was perfect. Its ergonomic design made sleep come so easily. Ah, whatever. I’m sleepy, so I’m going to sleep. Not long after closing my eyes, I immediately lost consciousness.