Monster Appears, Zero Deaths
Monster Appears, Zero Deaths
Blue Sirius had a chronic illness.
The mental illness she had developed from work could be called chronic too, but there was a sickness far older than that.
That sickness was a heart condition.
Born with a weak heart, she had made a habit of going to the hospital after every intense battle like this one.
Her magical girl activities had improved her condition, perhaps thanks to starlight, but the anxiety of what-if never left her side.
There had always been someone who shared that anxiety.
Paradoxically, the person who stayed with her through that anxiety always drove it away.
Every time she went to the hospital, he encouraged her and held her hand. That had been enough.
As days came and went, over and over,
at some point she had come to love even her illness and her anxiety.
She loved every moment with him so deeply that she embraced even the pain that gnawed at her as love.
Knowing that nothing was unchanging, she had still assumed it would last forever.
She had never known that an always would have an end. She hadn’t known because she hadn’t wished to know.
Now, years after that time of love had ended.
“Wow, you got wrecked... shit. Senior, yesterday that monster was giving you major death glares. What’d you do?”
“What would I have done. The monster simply rejects me. We aren’t going to become friends anyway, so I don’t mind.”
“Kind of looked like running into your ex on the street, right? Honestly, telling you not to talk was pretty funny.”
“...Deneb. Could you please cut back a little on jokes like that?”
The person was gone now, and her junior had taken his place. She was an adult now too.
She was fine going alone, but Pink Deneb never left her by herself.
“Is it okay to call you Deneb out on the street like this, Senior?”
“*Sigh*... Ah-yoon. Don’t joke like that.”
Jo Ah-yoon.
The moment her real name was spoken, Pink Deneb erased her smile and grabbed Blue Sirius’s hand with a worried expression.
“Why, you still can’t forget? You really need to start meeting other people....”
“Ah-yoon, I keep telling everyone.”
Blue Sirius answered more earnestly than ever.
“Back then, that was my first love and my last love. I won’t be able to forget it, and I won’t ever forget it.”
“...Senior. I told you, that wasn’t your fault. Nobody was at fault.”
“Ah-yoon. Could you say that in front of Jae-jung?”
At the mention of that name, silence fell. Even for Deneb, that name held memories she couldn’t erase, and her forced cheerfulness washed away.
“Could you say that to him... after all the pain he went through because he dated me?”
Blue Sirius shook her head weakly, as though recalling something horrifying.
Years had passed since they parted, but Blue Sirius suffered every day as if the breakup had happened yesterday.
“No, let’s stop this story here.”
Just before entering the hospital, Blue Sirius squeezed the hand that had been holding hers for comfort and spoke. She was the one who ended the conversation, but she couldn’t shake the topic from her tongue.
“...I wonder if he’s doing well now.”
“Senior, with the money you sent him, he could easily set up a little shop or something and live quietly. Think positive.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. He probably is. I hope so....”
Pink Deneb pushed the trembling Blue Sirius into the examination room, then decided to kill time in the waiting area.
While she was there, the person beside her looked so unwell that she found herself speaking to him without thinking.
His face seemed handsome, but he was in rough shape. His hair was unpleasantly long, and he hadn’t shaved in a while, judging by the stubble. A faintly familiar impression was blurred away by the shabbiness.
She couldn’t possibly think it was the same person. Perhaps she didn’t want to, because she wished for his happiness.
So when Pink Deneb addressed him, she chose the word “mister.” In terms of syllable count, it wasn’t much different from what she used to call him.
The examination results showed no particular abnormalities in Blue Sirius, and Pink Deneb went out to meet her, relieved.
Now, the two of them were together. And they heard someone’s voice.
-Mr. Han Jae-jung.
It was a name that made their eyes snap open.
Was it just a simple case of sharing a name?
No, it wasn’t.
The haggard-looking man who stepped forward at that summons still bore unmistakable traces of the past.
**
“Jae-jung... ah...?”
The moment I had to screw my eyes shut and waste my parents’ insurance money, I ran into the person I least wanted to meet and heard the voice I least wanted to hear.
Fortunately, the latter now gave me a reason to avoid the former, so for once I was nearly happy to hear it.
‘Probably a quest telling me to run away anyway.’
I had no reason to refuse. I was even glad. I was a little annoyed that it was already trying to work me again just because my body had recovered a bit, but I decided to let it slide this time.
I finished paying and pretended not to hear as I turned around.
“Ja- Jae-jung. Wait a second.”
That was when Blue Sirius grabbed my wrist. A fairly rude gesture, but the longing hit me before the bewilderment. That longing was more bewildering than the grip on my hand.
[Location data has been transmitted to your brain.]
I shook my hand free to throw off that grip. A flailing attempt to drive out a longing that wasn’t mine. After pulling free, the wrist under the sweatpants where she had touched me burned hot.
And then the contents of the quest reached my ears.
[Transform and hold the designated location.]
“Seol... hwa....”
I was startled even as the name left my mouth. I had spoken her real name too naturally.
“I knew it... Jae-jung, it’s Jae-jung, right?”
“Oh. You’re Yoon Seol-hwa, right? I’ve seen you on TV a lot. Are you here at the hospital for something? Oh, and Deneb. No—you came with the person in the hat? Wow, meeting people like this here, you really do see all sorts of things in life.”
Exactly what I said. All sorts of things. Damn it all.
I checked around to see if attention was gathering.
Fortunately, I was being treated like someone who just happened to run into an acquaintance, and no one was particularly interested. I was glad I had used her real name.
After all, the only weirdos who memorize magical girls’ real names are usually the ones gushing on social media.
“Jae-jung... ah? Why are you acting like this. Why are you pretending not to know me. It’s me. Yoon Seol-hwa. You said it yourself earlier. Why are you being so cold....”
“Huh? Do you know me?”
I pretended not to know. I desperately hoped you’d pretend not to know me too.
“Jae-jung... why are you doing this....”
“I’m sorry... maybe you’ve mistaken me for someone else?”
Blue Sirius grabbed my hand. Her hand was trembling, and it pained me.
“I’m sorry for everything. But please don’t pretend you don’t know me. Please... Jae-jung....”
But what could I do? I am not Han Jae-jung.
I’m not the person she misses. And I have no right to miss her either.
What surfaced was Han Jae-jung’s memory again. I saw her trembling, unable to withstand the curses and ugly looks that even an adult would struggle to bear.
Not wanting to see that is my genuine feeling, and Han Jae-jung’s feeling too.
“I’m sorry. No matter how I think about it, I don’t really know. I must be mistaken after all.”
“Ah....”
I carefully removed her hand. For an instant, she seemed to stop breathing. Everything froze solid. It was a magical moment.
Long enough to feel her disappointment and fear piercingly, yet short enough for just one breath.
“...I hope you find the right person.”
Those were all the words I could offer.
Behind her, Deneb sighed deeply. I wanted to do the same, but I didn’t dare, afraid it would deepen Blue Sirius’s wounds even further.
BOOM—!
In that moment, the hospital wall shattered.
People’s screams echoed, and through the puffs of rising smoke, a monster with a bronze body appeared. Copper-toned springs rotated powerfully on its chest and shoulders, and hot steam billowed from pillars built into its back.
Its density of starlight was no joke. The starlight blazing beyond the steam was intensely bright.
An A-rank monster made by Libra.
I used that as an excuse to seem like I was running away, and I slipped out of there.
“...! Senior!”
“Wa- wait. Wait just a second. Jae-jung, it’s dangerous here, don’t move around carelessly... ngh!”
The monster tore out seats and hurled them wildly. That rampage slammed into the spot where we had been, and because of that, Blue Sirius couldn’t follow me either.
[Transmitting again.]
“Yeah, got it.”
Libra was starting operations. Contradiction’s words hadn’t been wrong at all.
“Where did you say that was?”
Not to defeat, but to move to a location and hold it—I had a rough idea of what I’d need to do.
**
[It’s not just Catholic Hospital right now! A high school was attacked too!]
[A-rank monster detected at a nearby bank! Same entity as the ones at the hospital and high school!]
[A- a kindergarten! Those crazy bastards attacked a kindergarten...!]
[Monster appearing at a nearby elementary school! Wh- wh-wh-what do we do...?]
[Monster appearing at a nearby nursing home! Requesting reinforcements!]
“How many of them are there?!”
Red Vega muttered, aghast.
Through the control of the central mascot Unicorn, magical girls can hear each other’s mascot voices.
This coordination allowed magical girls to deploy quickly.
Red Vega was no stranger to hearing support requests through her mascot.
But this case was unusual.
An incident where monsters were simultaneously detected on this scale was extremely rare.
And the detected targets were unlike usual: A-rank monsters.
Those monsters, most of which could output roughly the power of half a star up to one star, were manageable by a magical girl alone, but cooperative combat was desirable for safety.
Yet in the current situation, a relaxed simultaneous multi-target attack was impossible.
The distribution was too wide and even, forcing them to scatter one by one to different locations, and eventually every magical girl was deployed.
“Targeting only places like this....”
Red Vega gritted her teeth at the malicious choice of locations.
The place she had been dispatched to was her old high school.
On paper she was still enrolled, but in reality it was practically a de facto dropout.
She was too busy to attend classes. Every time a monster appeared, she was absent without leave.
In a corner of her mind, the possibility of dropping out and taking the qualification exam had already formed.
“Like a red comet into your heart!”
She shouted as she caught the roadside tree the monster had thrown at the students.
“Red Vega has arrived! Are you kids okay?”
She inquired after the safety of her former classmates and tossed the street tree aside.
The polite speech, familiar on her tongue, created a distance of formality even from her former friends.
“Ah, A-hee....”
“Get to the shelter!”
“Thank you!”
The one she saved expressed deep gratitude and fled into the distance. Red Vega felt reassured looking at that.
Fortunately, there were no visible casualties yet.
Whispering came from behind.
-Why did it have to be her...
-Oh, that’s her, the magical girl who goes to our school... isn’t she the one who just lost recently?
-Hey, she’ll hear you. Let’s just get out of here.
Amid the grateful voices and sighs of relief, blatant disappointment reached her ears.
‘I’m fine.’
Red Vega spurred herself on.
‘I deserve that kind of assessment! So don’t let it hurt you!’
Stoking her passion and starlight, she wreathed her hand in flame.
“Now! Come at me!”
[Currently, a nearby university is under monster attack!]
Another urgent dispatch request came in.
[Not an A-rank monster, but S-rank. It’s the Libra Monster, Libra!]
“...What?”
[Is there any personnel available to deploy?]
[Blue Sirius is engaged in combat.]
[Pink Deneb is engaged in combat!]
[White Dabih is c-c-currently fighting...?!]
After that, the mascots’ responses continued to report engagements.
‘Then... no one can go?’
A feeling as if her heart was sinking. It was clear this was the same for the other magical girls, not just Red Vega.
Because she was weak and couldn’t swiftly defeat this monster, someone else would be left to die.
That sort of guilt weighed heavily on them.
‘Because... I’m weak...?’
She didn’t shift the blame to anyone else. She just endlessly drew it into herself as her own sin.
Abruptly, the words of the monster that had inflicted her first defeat came to mind.
-Pathetic.
She still couldn’t forget the look in that monster’s eyes, looking down at her as if she were pitifully weak.
*Crrk*. Red Vega gritted her teeth and built up the flames around her fist.
She kicked off the ground and faced forward.
“No! I will urgently subdue this monster and then deploy to that location!”
As she steeled herself with that resolve, a voice reached her ears again.
[...A monster has additionally appeared at the university!]
[It’s the Big Dipper Monster!]
It was even more despairing news, but for some reason Red Vega felt relief.
The reason for it was based on the track record that monster had shown so far.
[The Big Dipper Monster is currently blocking Libra in front of the shelter!]
“What the.”
[Current damage status confirmed through reports and CCTV.]
“What the hell!”
*Crack*. Her flame-wreathed fist crumpled the monster’s bronze body as her voice rang out.
[Injured: 12. Fatalities: 0.]