Like a Comet Into Your Heart (2)
Like a Comet Into Your Heart (2)
“K-Kh... I suppose it’s no good....”
Jason staggered to his feet. His words carried the weight of an expectation fulfilled.
“Bo said... this belt is something only humans... specifically, only those with a special possibility can use... so a monster like me cannot....”
He recited it like a soliloquy, unprompted. That suited Han Jae-jung just fine.
“Oh? A belt that only humans with a special possibility can use.”
He had learned a small fragment about the Belt’s nature, something he’d been wanting to know for some time.
The Belt isn’t something anyone can use, and monsters can’t use it.
It wasn’t crucial intel, but for Han Jae-jung, who valued every scrap of information, it was more than welcome.
“They said a monster would be rejected if they tried... that it was dangerous... but I did not submit.”
Jason straightened and swept his arm theatrically. Like a captain commanding a ship. Was that a transformation pose? Han Jae-jung’s brow furrowed. It struck him less as cool and more as obnoxiously showy.
“To challenge the impossible... that is the true spirit a heroic soul must possess...!”
He twisted the dial on the belt mounted on his belly and shouted.
“P-Pursuit!”
Once again, an electric shock coursed through his body.
“Uaaaargh.”
His muscles seized, locking his body rigid, and Jason crumpled limply to the ground.
“What an idiot....”
He was one of the monsters who’d chased the old him, but Han Jae-jung felt no fear at all—if anything, the man seemed utterly unthreatening.
Virgo was, at least against magical girls, practically invincible. Could this guy beat anyone?
It was hard not to feel that way when his durability was such that one clean hit would obviously blow him to pieces.
“Anyway, that other belt looks useful, so I’ll be taking it.”
Han Jae-jung approached the twitching Jason, bent slightly, and reached for the belt on his belly.
“Y-You must not!”
Jason’s eyes snapped open, and he placed his hand on his original belt, moving it as if pulling an oar. Han Jae-jung’s hand, which had been aimed at the belt, veered sharply elsewhere.
Pyxis’s ability to make you lose your direction. Han Jae-jung turned his head and glared at Jason, who had somehow ended up behind him.
“This belt was borrowed from Bo! I must return it! Even a comrade cannot... take it from me!”
Jason scrambled upright, detached the belt from his belly, and with his other hand worked his original belt just as he had been doing. The compass marks inside the circle spun madly.
“I shall take my leave for today. Farewell!”
Jason took one step forward.
“Adios!”
His figure, walking straight ahead, vanished. Like a ship swept under by a fierce current.
The ability to make you lose your way.
Even if his body was fragile, it seemed like that power alone could properly guarantee his survival.
As Han Jae-jung exhaled and reassessed the noisy encounter, a sound came from the Belt.
[A Quest appears.]
“Right, quests are fine. But if you introduce one that isn’t in good condition, I will pulverize you with Seven-Star Step Kick right now.”
A threat he’d been delivering, on and off, since that day. He doubted it would work on a machine, but making vows like that, even just saying the words, was probably good for his mental health.
That was the moment he was about to check the next Quest’s contents.
[Proceed to the designated location and... the monster....]
The Belt’s voice crackled with static. It was an anomaly he’d never experienced before, so Han Jae-jung, even in his Watcher state, was genuinely alarmed.
In a dark, damp back alley—a bleak space without a trace of green—fresh grass began to grow.
“...What the?”
Waves of green grass that brought to mind pastoral Alpine scenery. In an instant, the hard concrete floor transformed into a soft meadow.
[Quest content has been altered.]
The acrid, muggy smell became the crisp scent of nature. The sliver of sunlight that had squeezed in grew stronger.
Nature welled up behind civilization.
The space had become a place where lambs might frolic.
The space had been reconstructed. He hadn’t been moved somewhere else—the space where he stood had changed.
“This is...”
A phenomenon he’d seen in the original work.
A Goldilocks Zone.
A kind of barrier.
Overlaying an ordinary city with one’s own power to reconstruct the space anew.
Ordinary citizens cannot enter, and any physical destruction caused by battle here does not affect the real city.
A space isolated from reality.
A common setup in urban fantasy stories—the kind you see in magical-girl series.
A city’s hidden face, unknown to anyone. A battlefield that exists there.
It conveniently conceals magical girls’ identities and erases post-battle damage.
But this space was not created for heroes. It isn’t a space made for their convenience—it’s made for the convenience of monsters.
A space created by monsters.
A special power granted only to certain monsters.
[Escape from this space.]
Han Jae-jung scanned his surroundings. A peaceful, pastoral world of dairy farming. He remembered it.
“Boötes....”
“Personally, I don’t really like that name.”
He turned his head toward where he sensed a presence. Someone approached, parting the grass with a long staff, wearing a large hood that covered their entire face.
The hood concealed not only the face but the body’s lines as well, making it impossible to guess their gender.
The voice, too, was husky enough to pass for either a boy’s or a girl’s.
“It sounds too stiff. Call me Bo.”
“I don’t recall us being on nickname terms.”
“Then we can start now.”
As expected, the Boötes monster.
The hand without the wooden staff was dragging along an object about the size of a person.
“...Jason.”
The one who had fled just moments ago.
“Did you kill him?”
Boötes chuckled.
“No, he’s sulking. He thought he’d made a cool exit, but I dragged him back.”
“I am not!”
They dropped the dragged Jason carelessly in front of Han Jae-jung.
“I am not sulking!”
“Hahaha, this friend is really quite a handful. You’ve met a couple of times, so you know, right?”
Han Jae-jung nodded. Jason, sprawled face-down, looked more intact than he’d expected.
“This friend secretly made off with a belt and inconvenienced you, so I brought him here to apologize.”
“What I did was justified!”
“Jason, do you live alone in the world? You have to live together with others. Your actions can be hard for other people to accept. You’d just met, too—suddenly calling him a comrade and acting familiar—it’s only natural he’d be bewildered.”
They scolded him calmly, like an older sibling gently chiding a younger one.
“And on top of that, running away right after because you were embarrassed? That is a tremendous breach of etiquette. If you really want to make comrades, you need consideration and courtesy.”
“...I see.”
Jason rose and bowed his head.
“I apologize. Consumed by elation, I failed to consider my comrade’s feelings.”
“Well done, Jason.”
Boötes patted Jason’s back a couple of times in encouragement, then grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back.
“You can go now.”
Jason’s body, pushed backward, grew hazy and then vanished from the grass-filled world.
“What a mess. Why drag him here if you were going to send him right back out?”
“To make him aware of what he did wrong. Even among friends, you need to know how to properly express thanks and apologies.”
“I’ve never been friends with him.”
“Then I’ll correct that: someone I’d like to be friends with.”
The voice inside the hood was as cheerful as a child’s, but it carried a composure that was anything but childish.
“Fine. So was making that fool apologize your goal? If it’s settled, I’d appreciate it if you got the hell out of my sight.”
“No, I have a separate goal. More precisely, a goal for meeting you today.”
“Could you not have discussed it somewhere other than this place?”
“Nope.”
Boötes smiled.
“That’s the first goal. Keeping you here.”
Han Jae-jung froze.
“...What?”
“I was asked. By a certain pitiful little lamb.”
Little lamb—the expression Boötes used when referring to monsters.
“Little lambs are always bound to wander, so someone has to guide them.”
Boötes swung the wooden staff.
“And I have my own goal, one I wasn’t asked to fulfill.”
A fence rose around the green field.
“Are you a little lamb I should guide, or a wolf I should drive out?”
He finally felt like he was genuinely facing Boötes, the monster who sheltered other monsters.
If only he could live here inside this fence with other monsters for the rest of his life.
Han Jae-jung clicked his tongue.
“I want to find that out.”
“There’s something I wanted to confirm with you, too. Works out well.”
He said that, but inside he was anxious. If Boötes had stepped in to stop him, some monster must have started active operations right now.
“You’re going to have to tell me everything you know about the Belt.”
“Ah, that’s what you were curious about?”
Boötes answered lightly and swung the wooden staff again. A mat appeared in front of them.
“That’s a relief. I was worried you might pick a fight for no reason. Violence should only be used when needed.”
On the mat sat a wooden cup filled with fresh-looking milk. Boötes took off their shoes and naturally sat down.
“There. Time for a pleasant chat.”
Honestly, resolving a fighting task would probably be easier.
He was out of time.
Han Jae-jung suppressed his agitation and sat on the mat.
The eyes hidden inside the hood were serene.
‘Goddamn it all....’
Escaping a Goldilocks Zone is simple: resolve the task the monster presents.
Defeating the monster who owns the Goldilocks Zone is another method... but it’s not recommended.
‘You’d be fighting in the enemy’s stronghold. Foolish.’
You’d have to fight a monster who’s already hard to beat in normal conditions from a worse position.
And the Boötes monster is quite a powerhouse.
A destroyer who de-civilized most of the cities in the United States and Russia, capable of reverting civilization to a primitive state.
And he hadn’t even obtained Ursa Major yet.
A direct clash right now had to be avoided.
If he followed his instincts, he’d charge and wring their neck this very instant.
But he had to hold back.
Know fear.
Fear is hope.
Charging in without considering the future and the present situation isn’t courage—it’s recklessness.
“Who are you helping right now?”
“Testudo. It’s their first day of activity, so I decided to watch their back.”
Thankfully, not an especially strong monster.
Different from Libra.
Most monsters don’t carefully prepare for every contingency like he did.
Outside, there’s the magical girl Blue Sirius.
Someone like her should be able to handle most ordinary monsters.
Besides, Red Vega is on a temporary break.
Even among magical girls, people as unhinged as her are rare, so she’ll be held back appropriately.
He clenched his fist and studied them. Was it right to stake his life here, or was it right to gather intel and bide his time? The latter was obvious.
More than anything, it was true that he wanted the information.
The task Boötes had presented right now was ‘a chat.’
If they’d presented it, he had to follow along.
“So, where should I start?”
The needlessly kind monster’s voice grated on him.
**
Red Vega was carrying out the rest order she’d been given—grudgingly.
In the Magical Girl Association’s break room, she was idly watching a movie on TV.
A classic old-school hero film about a boy whose psychic powers awaken, and he becomes a hero protecting the city.
In the current day, with countless heroes already existing in reality, demand had fallen, and it was now a relic of the past.
They still popped up in novels now and then, but... video media can’t really capture that real-life feel.
Male hero stories supposedly have a steady cult following, but they can’t shake their niche image.
As for why she was watching such a dated thing.
It was about motivation.
“Look at that... he doesn’t give in here, either.”
A hero who refuses to yield and gets back up, no matter how mighty the foe.
Even if it’s fiction, it was worthy of respect.
No—because it was fiction, because it reflected human desire more clearly than anything, she felt it was worthy of respect.
Because it showed the image of a hero that people wanted.
“Still, our older sisters are better.”
Red Vega switched the screen.
A video she’d watched so many times since childhood she was sick of it.
Sky Polaris’s battle against Hercules.
It was the second of their three total battles, the only one with surviving footage.
In that video was a magical girl who radiated a beautiful light somewhere between the blue of the sky and silver—truly, a celestial light.
Her valor as she charged the Hercules monster, fists wreathed in a light that anyone would aspire to.
Her fist, extending in a straight line, slammed into the monster’s chest.
Immediately, a shockwave of light, like a tsunami, swept the surroundings.
Colossal power you’d never imagine from such a small frame.
“Heh... that’s the one!”
A magnificent blow that couldn’t even be compared to the shoddy CG from a moment ago. Red Vega aspired to strikes like that.
The finishing move she used now.
Flame Roar. One Path.
That technique was an homage to Sky Polaris.
Her first—and all-encompassing—technique, made with the wish to become a hero like her.
[Guardian... how many times have you watched that video?]
“This video is meant to be watched regularly. I still can’t believe it only has 3 billion views.”
A video that deserved at least 8 billion.
She watched the video she’d seen until her eyes were worn out, repeating and repeating it again, satisfying today’s motivation.
“Ugh... doing nothing at all, it’s a disgrace to magical girls....”
[Guardian... let’s listen to what our senior said. How about going to school? Now that you mention it, your studies are still...]
“No. There isn’t even a single friend I’m close with. And besides, if I go to school—how anxious would everyone be? A magical girl who’s just leisurely attending classes.”
Of course, by now, everyone would be swamped with CSAT prep, but that had nothing to do with Red Vega.
In a profession where she gambled her life on something far bigger than the CSAT every single day, what did it matter if she didn’t take it?
Besides, she’d already submitted her withdrawal form. It was a shame about all the time she’d spent on academics, but she’d had no choice.
She had to hunt down monsters, even if only a little more, in the time she would’ve spent in class.
“Grrrr, I wanna deploy right now!!”
-S-rank monster has appeared in A12 Sector! Is there no magical girl who can deploy right now?!
In that moment, Unicorn’s urgent voice came through the speaker. Red Vega grinned and responded through her mascot.
“This is Red Vega! I’ll deploy immediately!”
[Guardian?!]
-R-Red Vega? Is there no one but you? Seriously? Um... hmm... hmmmm....
Unicorn’s flustered voice came through, but what followed was a troubled one.
“I’m fine! My injuries are all healed! I’ve sparred a few times with Dabih, so my combat sense is still sharp! I can deploy right now!”
Red Vega answered spiritedly.
-Urrrgh... I’m going to get chewed out by Blue Sirius at this rate... but still, combat strength is... guess there’s no choice. Red Vega, if it’s dangerous, retreat immediately! Understood?!
“Of course!”
Having answered vigorously, Red Vega immediately grabbed her mascot.
“The day has come for the Red Comet, Red Vega, to appear in everyone’s hearts once more!”
**
Sector A was quite close to the Magical Girl Association, so Red Vega’s deployment happened quickly.
“Red Vega has arrived! Everyone, you can rest easy now!”
Blue Sirius and Golden Aldebaran, who had arrived ahead of her to respond, looked quite bewildered.
“Vega?! Why are you here?!”
“That crazy Unicorn....”
They’d heard reinforcements were coming, but no one had told them it would be her.
“Go back right now! You’re going to fight an S-rank monster when you’ve barely returned—what are you...”
Blue Sirius vehemently rejected her presence, but an attack from ahead cut off the rest of her words.
What attacked her was a tortoise shell, rolling in like a boulder.
The Testudo.
Blue Sirius smoothly conjured a sheet of ice beneath her feet and evaded the attack as if gliding.
Once she had regained her composure, she shouted.
“You still need time to recover, body and mind! A-hee, it’s fine here. Honestly....”
But Red Vega, who had just arrived, was acting strange.
“...A-hee?”
She couldn’t focus and seemed to be blanking out. It wasn’t just her—Red Vega’s mascot also looked worried.
[Guardian?]
’...Huh?’
Her legs were trembling. She couldn’t put strength into her fists.
Something was off.
There was no way this should be happening. It was strange.
‘A monster...’
She shouldn’t be like this. Strange.
‘Did they always look that terrifying?’
It was unmistakably fear.