Like Family (2)
Like Family (2)
Lately I’d only seen magical girls on the receiving end, and I’d fallen for a misconception. The misconception that magical girls were absolutely powerless against monsters.
The magical girls who could grow without limit—one of their defining traits was that the more powerful the foes they fought, the stronger they became.
’...This is insane.’
Barely over three months since S-rank monsters began operating in earnest, their strength had already grown enough to subdue serious threats.
“Well... looks like we were a little late, huh?”
Jo Ah-yoon smiled bitterly.
“Hey! Hey, you! Don’t you move...!”
“Let our big brothers go...! You witches...!”
White Dabih, who hadn’t yet stepped into the Sign of Divinity, was having a rough time subduing her opponent alone, true.
But Blue Sirius’s ice, which had locked down the oldest, was immaculate and aloof with no sign of cracking, and Red Vega’s flames were steadily menacing the second brother’s throat.
“Oh... no, Watcher, it’s your fault for pointlessly dragging things out.”
Jo Ah-yoon hastily corrected the “Oppa” she’d almost let slip and bumped my shoulder with hers. Our heights were similar after transforming, so she didn’t even need to stand on tiptoe.
“Ah, hot!”
My shoulder carried lightning as usual, and when she touched it, Jo Ah-yoon jumped back with a start.
I couldn’t easily laugh at the playful sight. The late arrival was, as she’d said, entirely my fault.
Ah-yoon and I both had high-speed movement. If we wanted, we could arrive at a conflict zone in under a second.
But this time we couldn’t. It wasn’t because I was trying to save starlight with some eco-friendly energy-conserving commute.
Right after I transformed, an anomaly occurred—my movement briefly seized up. A side effect I’d never once experienced before.
The transformation sound had diminished considerably, but that was hardly a good sign.
That wasn’t control. It was a signal of encroachment.
I gradually felt my body being dominated by something. It wasn’t sinking into darkness—it was more like being bewitched. A blinding flash that robbed me of sight. An ominous electrical signal.
The ominous thing burrowing into my mind was cold as iron and sharp as lightning. Swift and electric, like a neural impulse, that cold lightning seized control of my psyche and my flesh.
Emotions severed, linguistic function lost, muscles relaxing, physiological processes and life-sustaining functions all grinding to a halt. And yet, I moved.
Right after transforming, I felt my heart stop. It was exactly like becoming a machine.
I barely managed to shake off that ominous movement, but I had no idea when it might recur. Which meant I had to live in fear of symptoms appearing, like someone with a rare disease.
‘Doesn’t look like I’ve got anything else today. Maybe I should just head back to where I evacuated earlier...’
While I was thinking that, the Belt spoke.
[Quest notification.]
A voice proving that the road ahead would not be peaceful.
“What’s your purpose here...?”
The Belt, lightly brushing off Blue Sirius’s interrogation, continued playing a voice only I could hear.
[Eliminate all approaching monsters. Upon completion, you will receive a Star Fragment as compensation. The penalty for refusal is death.]
And there isn’t much time left either. Nothing to be done.
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
I whispered low enough that only Jo Ah-yoon could hear.
“Monsters are about to swarm us. Get ready.”
“...What?”
Not long after I’d spoken, a crack formed in the ice holding September.
Crack. Cra-ack. Cra-a-ack. The uneasy sound of ice breaking shattered even the heavy silence and standoff, setting everyone present into motion.
“I believed in you, big brother!”
The third brother, caught by the skeletons, rose to his feet.
“As did I.”
The second brother whipped up a wide-area gust of wind, forcing Red Vega back a step.
The wind even shook Blue Sirius’s balance, causing the magic she’d been weaving to encase September in ice once more to go slightly astray.
Through the fissures in the ice she’d failed to fully cover, heat like molten lava and blinding light seeped out.
Kra-KOOM! The heat ray shattered the ice and soared high into the sky.
“Little brothers!”
September, having fired his cannon not as an attack but to be heard, shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Weigh anchor!”
“Aye!”
“Understood!”
The brothers fired their starlight toward the red cannonball rising into the heavens.
All their starlight converged, and a massive explosion erupted. Intense and dazzling, like a chemical reaction, it lit the sky. It erased the moon and cast new beams of light down through the night.
The moment the scattered rays touched the ground, a roar surged forth.
-Uwaaaaaah!!!
-Aaaaaaah!!!
-RaaAAAAAHHH!!!
An ear-splitting din shook the streets. Savage and valiant voices. Brash, violent, forceful voices that called to mind a mob of thugs.
Where the light touched, beings clad in scaled hides emerged. Creatures you’d commonly call fish-men in a fantasy novel. Naturally, here they were monsters.
Then sand began to well up from the ground beneath them. The sound of waves pushing against sand reached us, a sticky salt-tinged wind dampened our cheeks, and a fishy water-smell coiled in our noses. The cityscape began to transform.
“A Goldilocks Zone, huh...”
A barrier unique to monsters. This was their stage, their most comfortable space. The three brothers’ domain was a beach and sandy shore. A space for pirates, not a gang.
“It’s time for plunder and slaughter!”
September fired his cannon skyward and roared. Boom! The powder burst brilliantly like fireworks, and multicolored embers drifted down, heavy and slow.
It was a celebratory salvo for the time to come, and a signal flare for the hardships ahead.
“We are the Argo Gang! Just a gathering of people who want to hit things and break things!”
“We don’t need money, women, or power. What we want is violence.”
“Free violence! Plunder! Arson! Destruction! Insults! That’s enough! Even if we die here! We’ll make blood pour from your eyes!!!!”
“Shut up.”
Undeterred by the second brother’s rebuke, the youngest hefted his spear and charged at White Dabih.
“You’re not the only one with underlings!”
“Ehh, no fair!”
Dozens of fish-man monsters followed at his back, and in his wake, an enormous wave surged in from the shore.
“And my power grows far stronger when there’s water!”
His ability seemed to be water manipulation. The wave, a colossal tsunami, swelled greedily as though about to swallow every enemy here whole.
“My name is November! Third of the Argo brothers, and—“
“Fuck! You talk way too goddamn much!”
White Dabih shouted in irritation.
“There are way more impressive people here than you little shits, you know?!”
No sooner had she finished than Blue Sirius stomped her foot.
“That’s enough.”
Her hard heel dug into the soft sand. From the sunken sole, the chill of absolute zero flowed. The cold raced toward the sea, leaving a trail of blue ice across the beach. Even the salt-laden seawater couldn’t resist her cold, and soon the monstrous tsunami itself was frozen solid.
The colossal wave was reduced to a colossal block of ice.
Clang! Undaunted, November swung his spear. White Dabih blocked it with her horn. Then she put it to her lips and blew fiercely.
Bwooo-! The horn blared, and from beneath the sand, monsters—skeletons, zombies—burst forth.
“You monster bastards... I’ll kill every last one of you!”
“That’s the spirit... give it a try!”
More monsters poured in than before.
Soon the melee began. Monster against monster, fire against wind, ice against wave, all crashing endlessly, chased by the shriek of cold steel slicing air and the ceaseless thunder of cannon fire pounding our eardrums.
Amid it all, the flutter of butterfly wings was heard. And cutting through all of it,
the sound of fierce lightning was heard too.
I reduced scaled hides to mere ash as I advanced on September. Everywhere I passed, the sand was dyed black like soot.
Thud! I brought my axe down, and he blocked it with his cannon.
“Haha, mister, that’s pretty good! Real nice strength. I like it.”
His reactions were clearly better than before. His power, his skill, the brightness of his starlight—everything had improved. Was this his true strength?
“You! Join my crew!”
But it wasn’t at a level I’d call impressive. I kicked his gut, sent him flying, then charged after him and brought lightning down on his neck.
Cra-CRACK! He took the lightning head-on. September showed no sign of pain, simply dusted himself off, and stood back up.
“Hmm... so that’s a no? A shame.”
He was stupidly tough. His roughly cobbled-together timber showed not a single mark. Come to think of it, his brothers were the same. They’d been under attack this whole time and still didn’t have a scratch.
“Freedom’s a joy, can’t you appreciate it? Ahh, clearly not. Poor bastard.”
I ignored him and brought the axe down. Cra-CRACK! Again, again. KRA-KOOM! KRA-KRA-KOOM! I hammered the axe onto his crown like driving a nail. But September showed no sign of injury whatsoever.
“Ha, is that really all it takes to... whoa!”
A chunk of ice came flying this way. I leaped back and dodged it.
“Tch.”
Blue Sirius was clicking her tongue, murderous.
“Hey, don’t attack over here. Can’t you see I’m helping you right now?”
“I can see you getting recruited just fine.”
“Do you seriously think I’d fall for that?”
“Do you seriously think I’d believe what you say?”
“...Fair point.”
Believing a monster’s words would be idiotic.
“I learned from the one in front of you. Monsters are cowards.”
Blue Sirius created a Binary Star Clone. Together with her double, she aimed her frost swords and cast her magic in one direction. Phantom Frost Sword, Seol-hwa: One Path. Both magics flowed along a single path and tore everything in their trajectory to shreds.
Both attacks were aimed at September. I swung my axe in time with her assault. No grand technique. Just mechanically firing savage lightning as I always did.
“I’ll be a coward too. Just this once, I’ll use your strength. Complaints?”
“None.”
The combined starlight of magical girl and monster met as one, mixing, freezing, searing, tearing, and mincing September’s body. Even in the blinding flash, it was visible.
“Blue Sirius, did you see it?”
“Your lightning was so dazzling I could barely look. Can’t you adjust the brightness? What an incredibly outdated technique.”
Her tone was viciously sharp. The roughness was on a completely different level from how she spoke when she saw me as Han Jae-jung, and I laughed bitterly. Even that kind of speech had a human charm to it—I liked it.
“Don’t ask for the impossible. Blue Sirius, he isn’t tough—he’s regenerating at ultra-high speed.”
“Regenerating? Ugh, seriously... why does it always have to be annoying abilities...”
“It looks like all the brothers share the same power. But if there’s one weakness...”
I leaped high into the air. I gathered starlight into my axe, and when it was fully charged, I swung. The lightning split into three branches and struck all three brothers simultaneously.
“Whoa!”
“Oh, oh!”
White Dabih and Red Vega gasped in admiration. Wounds appeared on them. They healed again, but the healing speed was slower than before.
“...We have to attack them at the same time?”
“That was my hypothesis. Looks like it’s correct.”
An ability like this naturally ought to have a weakness. Broken powers like Contradiction’s weren’t handed out to just anyone.
“If we can land a lethal blow on all three of them simultaneously, the attack should succeed... urk?!”
In that moment, the lightning sank deeper into my body. It meant I was running out of time before I lost my reason. An ill omen.
“There’s no time. Quickly...”
“What is this?”
A familiar voice came from the distance.
“Why are brothers and comrades fighting one another?”
It was Jason. He looked angry.
Why was he here? With no time to answer that question, Jason placed his hand on his belt.
“What a terrible outcome! What a cruel trick of fate! Ahh... how regrettable! I shall sever this misguided destiny!”
“Hey, wait—“
“Oi, youngest, hold on!”
Before September and I could stop him, his belt moved.
The entire landscape warped, and everyone present lost their way.
**
When the scenery cleared, what met my eyes was...
“Oh my?”
The Corrupted Magical Girl, Virgo.
“Well, what do we have here?”
And the human corpses she was trampling underfoot.
[Quest notification.]
I had less than thirty seconds before I lost my reason.
[Ensure her survival.]
The new quest was absurdly unreasonable.
We’re fucked.