The Taste of a Magical Girl...?
…………… Will Bates's cerebral cortex is a masterpiece that's undergone eleven rounds of genetic enhancement. It operates on a level beyond ordinary people, even most geniuses.
Its synaptic transmission speed rivals the geniuses of the Tower of Reason — V. Neumann or N. Tesla — and its direct memory capacity reaches millions of times the theoretical limit.
Within his computations, millions of variables were fed into the function as parameters. Korea's military deployments. The Threat Management Agency's organizational structure. Korea's list of S-rank Awakeners. The Tower of Reason's potential involvement. The Communist-Heavenly Demon Army's movements. The Otherworld Truck Alliance's recent activity patterns. And all forty-two branching scenarios leading to his company's ultimate goal.
Like a program compiling, each variable was sequentially assigned, rejected, and reassigned.
There was no room for emotion in these calculations. Will Bates's brain had no allocation for anger, anxiety, or excitement. Only inputs and outputs, costs and revenues, probabilities and expected values served as the raw materials.
Three seconds passed, and Bates, having completed the massive computation, reached his conclusion.
Techno-feudalism, chaebol dual oligarchy, church-union theocracy, interdimensional exploitation regime. Humanity's current OS was far too unstable. In the long term, it couldn't even guarantee the species' survival.
Thus, forcibly replacing the OS was essential for advancing human civilization, and any bugs obstructing the ultimate goal had to be purged.
"We'll have to bear the risk."
In the silent office, Will Bates delivered his final verdict.
"I'll visit Korea. Accelerate the protocol activation schedule for Puppet Vaccine-MK26."
"Understood, Mr. Bates."
The secretary, blended into the shadows, bowed quietly.
The hologram shut down completely, dimming the office lights along with it. Only the bluish glow of Washington's nightscape shone through the window.
……………
Kreeeeng.
I sprawled on the bed, glaring at the thing in front of me.
It had been weeks since I turned Han Min-seo's smartphone into a lump of charcoal. In that time, the vending area's <VIP Exclusive Complimentary Items> basket had been replenished precisely every day. Three Run Balls, Magic Mountain, Turtle Chips, and all sorts of other snacks.
Since they were freebies, no need to pay back later — perfect. So I grabbed some every day.
But who the heck was this VIP? Not the president, probably. Some fictional person? Then the basket might be like a Chuseok ancestral rite table.
Anyway. The snacks weren't the issue right now.
The object lay in the middle of the bed. A sphere smaller than my fist, its surface cracked like a net, with faint wisps of murky black smoke seeping from the fissures.
Magical Girl Magical☆Sakura's soul gem. The same one I'd licked back in the special materials vault.
That flavor was still fresh in my mind. Strawberry jam way past its expiration date, mixed with sewage water called "despair." Even the thoughts in my mental world had grimaced — the worst taste of my gourmet life.
And I'd borrowed it indefinitely, interest-free, unsecured, unguaranteed. The night before last.
Kreeeeng.
A groan escaped my lips. Did I really have to eat this?
[You have to eat it.]
The thought in the doctor's coat stood by the blackboard in my mental world, declaring it.
This guy usually had a "I know everything!" smug face, but today he looked pretty pale. Well, if I ate that, he'd taste the sewage too — makes sense.
[Drain the pooled despair from inside the soul gem first, then use the remaining gem as raw material to make 'that.']
That. The gift for Han Min-seo.
[In the case of the red Homo sapiens — Yeom Hana — you had her original gear and neutronium. Strong base materials made it smooth.]
The doctor-coated thought sketched a diagram on the blackboard. Original gear + neutronium = Neutronium Suit. A neat equation.
You're not calling it the Jema-in Suit either, huh.
[But for Han Min-seo...]
The equation on the blackboard changed. Smartphone wreckage = 0.034g gold + 0.015g palladium + trace rare earths.
[This alone can't produce meaningful output. You might make a shell, but without an energy source inside, it'd just be decoration.]
What if I infused it with my power?
[She'd probably lose her sanity, her body would collapse, and she'd get absorbed into you. The principle is —]
I know, I know. No need to explain that.
I could imagine what happened if I injected my power. Han Min-seo would burst like that smartphone and become part of me. I couldn't lose my lukewarm Pyongyang cold noodles-flavored snack supplier.
I get it. I know. But...
Kreeeeng.
I bowed my head before the magical girl's soul gem.
[Can't we skip eating it?]
One little thought clasped its hands with a teary face. The others peeked out behind it.
[Can't we make it with Magic Mountain instead? Magic Mountain tastes good!]
[What if we melt Three Run Balls into it?]
[Potato chips! Potato chip energy!]
[Mix in cola instead of sewage water!]
Yeah. Snack flavor would be way better. A magical girl powered by carbonation — sounds delicious.
The glasses-wearing thought, having heard me and the little ones, pinched its forehead.
[Raw materials from snacks? Did that fairy tale about the gingerbread house on TV inspire you?]
Oops, busted.
[Snack molecular bond energy can't surpass the phase transition threshold. She'd shatter like sugar after one step post-transformation.]
Then she'd be a magical girl from an adult manga, not a regular one. My snack supplier might get captured by bad guys and hit with "repay in kind what you killed!" Ugh.
No choice, then.
I picked up the soul gem. Held my breath.
Nom.
The things I could call digestive organs in my body kicked into gear at once. The gem's outer shell melted, releasing the trapped emotions to flow inside me.
And then — the flavor hit.
"――――."
Not the kind you could describe in words. Rotten strawberry jam was just the overture.
As the jam's sourness coated my tongue, despair surged up from below. Calling it sewage water was too kind. This was sewage's sewage, the sludge at the bottom of the city's final drain, the squeezed-out dregs.
So horrific my tongue hurt.
The person who left these emotions in the gem was a magical girl named Magical☆Sakura. I didn't know her face or life.
But this taste told me plenty. What she went through wasn't just "misfortune."
Kreeeeng.
I rolled around on the bed. Sheets tangled, pillow hit the floor.
[Uwaaaaaah!]
[It tastes bad! Bad! BAD!]
[Why'd you eat this?!]
The little thoughts rolled on the mental world's floor, pounded walls, wailed. The doctor-coated one clutched its mouth, face-down. The glasses one had passed out, specs askew. The fierce-eyed one punched the wall. The little ones huddled, sniffling.
The absolute worst flavor. Sucked into an endless vortex of sinking despair. Drowning in sewage, rotting, becoming part of the sewer myself.
But — what's this?
My rolling body stopped dead.
Amid the overwhelming flood of despair and filth that numbed my taste buds, for a split-second, a faint sensation flicked my tongue.
Pop.
Like starlight bursting in the dark. Not once.
Pop pop. Fizzy sweet carbonated candy popping up from rotten mud.
Most emotions in this gem were definitely despair. But amid it, a handful refused to vanish, holding out to the very end.
Ah. The taste of hope.
Even that horrific despair couldn't melt this.
What kind of life did the gem's original owner live? Unimaginably terrifying, horrific things, over and over.
Yet she clung to such intense hope until the end.
[With despair this thick, the fact that hope remains means its owner was protecting something until her final moment.]
The doctor-coated thought nodded, face twisted in agony.
[Despair's over 99%. Yet less than 1% hope was holding the gem together. Without it, the gem would've self-collapsed and eroded everything around it long ago.]
I see.
The hope's aftertaste — fizzy candy — lingered in my mouth. The sewage despair was gone, but this faint sweetness stuck around a long time.
Magical girl whose face and name I don't know — thank you. I'll remember you.
Now, let's make it. A magical girl brooch for my favorite snack supplier.
The doctor-coated and glasses thoughts nodded. The little ones wiped tears, clenching fists.
Good. Leave the work to the thoughts.
I sprang up, kicking off the tangled sheets. Done with my task, and bored now. Maybe go mess with Shin Chang-seok.