Promise
Promise
It was cold. Autumn had set in, and my stamina had plummeted after those nights on the street, leaving me unable to endure the chill.
My clothes were thin.
I’d layered the hospital gown from my stay underneath, but it did little against the cold.
The hoodie wasn’t thick either, so the wind cut straight through.
The sweatpants were no different.
I’d genuinely nearly frozen to death sleeping rough in this exact outfit.
If a kind stranger—someone whose name and face I’ll never know—hadn’t thrown a blanket over me, I would’ve been dead.
At this rate, I was going to freeze to death before a monster could beat me to death or a failed quest could kill me.
Survival really does push every other worry aside.
I’d resolved to sort out my memories and identity just a couple of days ago, and here I was.
Still, none of it matters if you’re dead.
What’s the use of wandering the afterlife before you’ve even found a future? Life must always be treated as precious.
So for three full days, I poured every spare moment into finding a place to live. I avoided contact with the magical girls. After completing a quest, I always moved to Alkaid to remove any risk of Deneb tracking me.
After all that struggle, I finally managed to secure a room.
It’s a perfectly fine place, apart from the cockroaches. Good square footage for living alone, decent enough fixtures.
Most of all, it was sensible from a financial standpoint.
The rent was a quarter of anywhere else.
Of course, as with the principles of a capitalist society, cheap things are cheap for a reason.
I turned my gaze toward the knocking that had called me since morning. Unfortunately, it was coming from the window, not the front door.
The irregular sound was less a knock and more like waves slamming against the glass.
When I looked over, a slick mass of octopus-like limbs was spectacularly battering the window in the morning light.
“Ah, shit.”
Not a Han River view—a monster view.
If safety were guaranteed, this might actually be popular as a quirky housing product.
Yes. The place I rented is a high-risk monster outbreak zone.
The monster incidence rate in this neighborhood is so high that housing prices are remarkably low.
Maintenance was nonexistent, but who cares about that when you finally have a safe place to sleep? I can clean up a little filth. I signed the lease gladly.
The only real flaw was never knowing when a monster might wreck the building, but at least I can fight and win against those things. My life isn’t forfeit if the building gets wrecked. Compared to other people, I’m in a much better position.
To put it bluntly, that means everyone else living here is a crazy bastard who doesn’t value their life.
Beyond the glass, the eyeballs attached to the octopus’s suckers were vivid.
I’ve got to make it out of this crazy neighborhood.
[Transform?]
“...Not right now.”
Getting caught operating was a headache, so I planned to lure it somewhere quiet and handle it without anyone noticing. I bit back tears as I pulled on my newly purchased clothes and finished getting ready to leave.
Having a home wasn’t all sunshine.
I now had to earn money to sustain this life. The funds I’d used to get the place were truly my last. I’d blown the insurance payout, of all things.
Today was that important day—the day to earn money.
Government money, the most delicious kind.
Specifically, I was going to collect a subsidy.
In other words, it was the day I went to the suicide counseling support center.
Earning money through taxes—it’s actually quite similar to magical girls, I suppose.
Life...
**
After dealing with the damn octopus, I finally made it to the counseling center.
The ink was fairly revolting, but it vanished the instant I powered down, as if by magic.
I’d nearly been late, but the bike that my Megrez form provides solved that easily.
Transformation... maybe it’s pretty convenient?
The job market certainly doesn’t agree. But that’s not just because of the quests; this trauma-riddled body is also to blame.
No, maybe I should call it the mind, not the body.
‘Han Jae-jung’s body is me, and my mind is Han Jae-jung, and Han Jae-jung is me... ugh, it’s complicated.’
The butterfly was me, and I was the butterfly.
Trudging through a reality that felt like Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream, I shook my head.
“Han Jae-jung!”
“...?!”
A touch on my back made me flinch and swat the hand away.
“Ah... Vega.”
The recent hardships had left me far too jumpy.
I laughed awkwardly and lowered my shoulders.
“Oh, was I, was I too forward? I’ll be more careful next time....”
“That’s not it. I was just a little startled.”
The fact that monsters have plagued me for days on end, both in reality and in my dreams, was a big contributor.
Intense memories really do seem hard to shake.
I keep having dreams where those monsters chase me. Just this morning, for instance.
Even now, the nauseating sensation of that blood still feels like it’s clinging to my skin.
The helplessness and fear were inescapable, no matter how hard I tried.
“I had a bad dream today....”
“What? You didn’t stay up all night, did you? You can’t do that!”
Red Vega pumped her arms energetically, showing off her own vitality.
“A person must eat three square meals a day, exercise, and sleep well! There isn’t a single thing wrong with the old saying that physical health leads to mental health!”
I’m only managing the exercise part.
I get by on one meal a day, and my sleep is a cycle of waking from nightmares and dozing off again.
But even Red Vega, who was saying all that, didn’t look like she was in great shape today.
“Come to think of it, you’re not transformed?”
“Ah. Yes. Ahaha! Is it really that awkward? I remembered you saying before, Han Jae-jung, that you dislike standing out....”
Ah, so it was consideration.
It felt wretched and embarrassing to be living a reality where a minor is considerate of me, but I was grateful to her for remembering even that small detail and acting on it.
Even without transforming, her beauty was undeniable.
The vivid red hair and twin tails, the red overskirt and the white skirt loaded with frills—those were all absent, of course.
But her signature clear, red eyes and the lustrous black hair she wore down were enough to give her an aura of pure elegance, even without the transformation.
The light makeup accentuated her natural features and gave her a fresh, clean impression.
Perhaps because of that, however, the dark circles shadowing her eyes couldn’t be hidden.
“No, you’re really pretty even untransformed. It’s just... Vega, you’re not really in a position to criticize me either, are you?”
I tapped near my eye playfully. We’d both apparently been up all night.
“Huh? Eep, ah... th-this is. I was out on sorties until this morning! I’m not usually like this!”
“Until this morning?”
Where the hell had child labor laws gone?
“Vega, you’re still a minor. And you’re saying you work through the night?”
“Ehehe... usually the older girls make me go in, you see. But monster appearances have increased lately... how can I, as a magical girl, ignore the citizens’ suffering! Of course I roll up my sleeves and step up!”
A strange note had crept into Red Vega’s voice, something that sounded like she was hoping for recognition.
Well, Libra had begun testing the magical girls in earnest now.
Did he intend to push them to the extreme, to the point where they couldn’t even sleep?
I silently resolved to start hunting monsters, even ones not flagged by quests, beginning today.
The kid needs to get some sleep, no matter what.
“You’re truly amazing. To work that hard at your age.”
“Hehe, right? Right! And I’m not even that much of a kid, honestly. I’ll be a legal adult in just a few months!”
Even when you become a legal adult in a few months, you’ll still be a kid.
Did you think I wouldn’t know your age?
If you haven’t lived a fifth of a life, you’re all kids. You’re all still walking through the springtime of life, aren’t you?
That statement honestly just made an even stronger case for her being a youngster.
“If you’re that busy, you really don’t have to come.”
“What?? That’s absolutely out of the question! If I don’t keep an eye on you like this, Han Jae-jung, who knows what strange thoughts you might have again?”
“...You have a point there. It would be a problem for me too if you weren’t here to guard my will to live, Vega.”
Holding back a sigh, I smiled and made a suggestion.
“Vega. The counseling doesn’t strictly have to happen inside the center, right?”
“Huh... I suppose it doesn’t!”
“Then why don’t we go outside and chat while getting some fresh air?”
Compared to the eye-straining fluorescent lights and the sunlight and breeze blocked by the windows, directly taking in nature would be much better.
“There are healing effects in that, you know. And Vega, you didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the cup ramyun I bought you last time... so I’ll use this chance to buy you some street food you like.”
“...Can I be honest?”
Red Vega grinned.
“I love, love, love that idea!!!”
**
“Um....”
“What is it?”
“Why did you pick the river, of all places? Could it be....”
The place we’d come to was the same river where Vega had once mistaken my intentions and thought I was about to jump.
But we weren’t on the bridge like last time. We were on a walking path designed for resting while looking at the river.
“Haha, no chance. I told you before. Death terrifies me. I won’t do something like that again.”
The river was blue. It began in blue and flowed onward in blue. My youth had passed, but a blueness still remained and flowed through the autumn—a truly blue autumn, a cheongchu.
Besides, the person beside me was still in her youth.
Though, strictly speaking, I was technically still of a springtime age too....
“Anyway, even if I fell in here, the ending would just be getting my clothes wet and then fished out by you, right, Vega?”
“Of course! I’m confident I can rescue you in under three seconds!”
“Well, that’s a relief. I hate dying, after all.”
I meant it.
Dying, or being pushed to the brink of it—I’ve had enough of both.
If you just looked at my current mindset, I’d already qualify to graduate from suicide counseling and receive a plaque.
“So, what’s that you brought?”
“Ah, this!”
Red Vega promptly unfolded the paper box she had brought. Inside, appetizing doughnuts were lined up. Oh, don’t tell me.
“It’s Poris Donuts!”
“Ah, that place. The shop that started from the doughnut truck protected by the magical girl Polaris.”
“You know it?! It’s a pretty old story now! Yes, that’s right! That’s exactly the place!”
She gazed at the doughnut box with pride.
“Right! See the autograph printed on the box? Kyaa... incredible!”
“There shouldn’t be one of these around here... wait. Did you fly all the way there and back?”
“I might as well put my abilities to good use!”
“Fair point. I’m jealous of that.”
I have a flying bike, but I can’t help being envious of flying with just your body and no tools.
I picked out a chocolate doughnut, popped it in my mouth, and looked out at the river.
“There’s coffee, too! Look! The crisp image of EBE1FF, the signature color of Sky Polaris, printed right on the cup!”
“Ah, yes, thanks....”
So the magical-girl-fan setting is still going strong.
No, this is reality now, so calling it a ‘setting’ is rude.
The webtoon Magical Girl Golden Age was still vivid in my memory.
The idea that all these memories are fake and I was actually Han Jae-jung all along is still hard to accept. Of course, the possibility that this guess is wrong still remains.
“By the way, Red Vega, do you remember your own signature color?”
“Huh? Uh... it was E-something....”
“What’s this? Why don’t you know your own color?”
“I guess it’s because I don’t exactly fangirl over myself...?”
“That’s... also a fair point.”
And at the same time, it means she’s less focused on herself. I lifted the coffee cup she handed me and took a sip.
“Vega. Please listen while you eat. This is the counseling session.”
“Mmph?! Yes, okay!”
The coffee flowed hot down my throat, which eased my insides a little.
“I told you before that I’ve come to know the fear of death, right? In truth, I think every person who attempts suicide carries that fear. Even someone resolved to end their own life would probably be afraid of death. So then, why do people try to die?”
That fear hasn’t left me ever since the day I recalled those memories.
Or maybe it’s been there since the day my neck was strung up.
“I think it’s when the fear of living transcends the fear of dying. A person loses their life when seeing tomorrow is more terrifying than dying right now. Ah, sorry. That got heavy. You’ll get indigestion. Have some coffee.”
“Ah, mine isn’t coffee, it’s cocoa. But thanks!”
Slurp.
Vega, who’d been so focused on my story that she’d shoved a mouthful of doughnuts in and forgotten to chew, looked happy as she drank her cocoa.
“So what I want to say is... you said it before, didn’t you, Vega? That you aren’t afraid of death? I thought that statement was brave, but at the same time, I also heard it like this.”
Vega’s gaze was earnest as she drank her cocoa.
And she seemed to have forgotten what was in her mouth again because she was so focused on me.
Soon after, she seemed to have burned her tongue on the cocoa and set the cup down with a start. Then she stuck out her tongue and fanned it with her hand.
What on earth is she doing. Honestly.
“How’s that?”
“Be careful drinking hot things... what I mean is.”
I handed her a napkin and continued.
“The most precious thing to Vega isn’t your own life, but the lives of total strangers. Losing that is what you’re most afraid of. So you can say you’d throw your life away so easily. You can take a life that others are too afraid to discard carelessly and spend it so extravagantly, just like that... that thought occurred to me. Sorry. I’m a bit selfish.”
Red Vega’s hand, which had been wiping cocoa and doughnut crumbs with the napkin, stopped.
“You’re the one in counseling, you know. You shouldn’t devalue even your own life.”
“Ah, I-I’m sor—“
“No. Please apologize for this. Please live your life always fearing death. Life is so precious.”
I accepted her apology.
“And please promise me. Just like I resolved never to try to throw my life away here again. Red Vega, you do it too.”
A magical girl’s life is lighter than you could imagine.
That’s why the world was destroyed.
Neither they nor anyone else treated those lives as valuable.
And so when their lives were wasted, no one was left to protect the world’s order.
“To fear monsters and death, and if you’re ever in danger of losing your life someday, to promise to run away.”
When Contradiction and Red Vega destroyed each other.
The only ones left in the world were a monster who had sought answers from magical girls, and the people who would become his victims.
When the monsters could no longer find answers, they were enraged and massacred people.
A hero’s life is not meant for sacrifice. It must not be treated lightly.
For my own survival, and for theirs.
Libra had now begun his operations in earnest.
He wasn’t the only one. The other members of Dilemma would soon reveal themselves from the shadows as well.
From now on, their lives would be in genuine danger.
“That’s how I’ll survive. I was encouraged to live by you, Vega. If the Vega who cheered me on disappears, what am I supposed to do.”
Because I had an experience so close to death, I could understand the value of life better than anyone.
Death must be feared. Because you know that fear, you can handle life with greater care.
For something gained from living on the street, it was a very valuable lesson.