Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

80 – Interlude – Not a Wrong Path, a Different Path

Immediately after Kim Shi-yul’s magical outburst.

Rei and Sora reacted in their own ways to the Magical Simulation Room that Kim Shi-yul had entered.

“Oh, this is a real mess… all my magical work is gonna be enveloped… and tomorrow’s supposed to be the Magical Weed-Out.”

“Ah, seriously, what is senpai thinking?”

Rei wore the expression of someone whose world had crumbled, while Sora stamped her feet, frustrated.

And then.

Taishi looked utterly incredulous.

It was understandable. To so readily accept a Magical Simulation Battle she could have refused. And even worse, to be the first one to enter the Magical Simulation Room.

It was an action Taishi would never, ever do.

An action she *couldn’t* do, either.

Afraid of the inevitable failure she’d face, terrified of having to walk the wrong path yet again, Taishi would have refrained.

That was why Taishi couldn’t believe it.

Kim Shi-yul was walking a different path than her.

But.

What she saw now was even more unbelievable.

“Wh-what on earth is going on…?”

No one dared contradict Taishi’s words.

Because the scene that unfolded before them was beyond absurd.

Inside the Magical Simulation Room, there weren’t two people, but five.

Kim Shi-yul and the other magical girls.

And that wasn’t all.

They were all in a terrible state, unconscious.

Kim Shi-yul’s condition was relatively better, but she was still out cold. It wasn’t as if she had no injuries, either.

Exactly what had happened inside the Magical Simulation Room remained unknown. Only the executive-level magical girls who monitored the Magical Simulation could know that.

But it wasn’t impossible to surmise.

Flesh scattered irregularly everywhere.

Blood sprayed so wildly it made the viewers dizzy.

Kim Shi-yul and the magical girls hadn’t engaged in a Magical Simulation Battle, but a real one.

In other words, they had selected the Magical Safety OFF condition.

There was no way Kim Shi-yul would have chosen that. The conditions for the Magical Simulation Room were chosen face-to-face. There was no way she would have chosen that after seeing four others.

Even the two cadre-level magical girls who should have been observing the Magical Mock Battle were wearing expressions of utter incomprehension.

The other conditions were to remain undisclosed.

“Bloody hell, what’s with all this commotion since I woke up…?”

“Ah, I just put the kettle on for Magical Cup Noodles…”

Or perhaps it was just magical dereliction of duty.

Regardless.

The condition of secrecy must have been chosen by Kim Si-yul.

If it was because she didn’t want to publicly display her humiliating defeat via Magical Feedback, it would make a certain amount of sense.

Of course, the Kim Si-yul that Taishi knew wouldn’t act like that, but unless the other side had special magical authority, it stood to reason that Kim Si-yul had chosen it.

‘Only cadre-level magical girls would understand this.’

To summarise roughly:

Some quite capable magical girls had conspicuously chosen that condition, just to inflict grievous injuries upon a mere ordinary person.

While resorting to such extreme means as Magical Aggravated Assault, or in more crude terms, a Magical Gang-Up.

And yet, they all lost to that one ordinary person.

Such Magical Deduction wasn’t limited to Taishi; all the magical girls could make it.

Sora and Rei, right then and there, were no different.

“Those bloody b*tches, what were they trying to do to our superior! I’m going to kill them for real!”

“Sora! Calm down! Calm down! Save it for later!”

Rei was desperately trying to restrain Sora, who had nearly lost her mind.

Meanwhile, the cadre-level magical girls, finally thinking about damage control, hastily started making calls.

Presumably to the Magical Medical Corps.

“Um, this is the Magical Training Ground, and we need you to come quickly. We have magical injuries here. Five people in total.”

“Um, sorry, but could we cancel the chicken order? It’s really not the atmosphere for eating right now.”

Not even a few minutes passed before…

A blaring Magical Siren could be heard, and shortly thereafter, magical girls belonging to the Magical Medical Corps rushed into the Magical Training Ground.

Upon witnessing the carnage, they paused momentarily, before setting about administering Magical First Aid.

“Magical Physician, what should we do with this? They’re all grievously injured except for one.”

“One to the Magical Infirmary, the rest to the Magical Capital Hospital. We can’t treat injuries like these here anyway.”

“By the way, it looks like one of them even suffered Magical Incontinence.”

“Tsk, Magical Urinary Incontinence at such a young age.”

The atmosphere hung heavy, a testament to the magic girls’ condition, far graver than anyone had anticipated.

At that moment, Sora and Rei hurried toward Kim Si-yul.

“We’ll help too!”

“I’ll lend a hand!”

They couldn’t perform professional magical healing, but they clearly intended to assist with something as simple as lifting her onto a magical stretcher.

“Ah, in that case, I’m afraid I must ask for your help. We are rather short-handed.”

“Yes, leave it to us.”

Sora nodded to the magic girl affiliated with the magical medical corps, then turned a serious face to Rei.

“I’ll get senpai onto the magical stretcher. You, unni, cover her with the magical blanket! And wipe the blood from her face with water!”

“Got it!”

As Sora carefully lifted Kim Si-yul onto the magical stretcher, Rei swiftly draped the magical blanket over her.

From toes to the tip of her head.

And then, she poured water on her face.

“Complete-o!”

An effective magical first aid procedure, to be sure.

“This friggin’ useless b*tch almost killed someone.”

“Oh, I revived her!”

All thanks to them, Kim Si-yul had regained consciousness.

While Rei cheered, Sora approached Kim Si-yul with a worried expression.

“Senpai, are you alright? What happened?”

“Just dodged their own little knife fights, like with the weird creatures. Ended up getting nicked a bit.”

“A ‘nick’? This is far beyond a ‘nick’, senpai! Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe.”

Taishi still found it unbelievable.

That she’d survived against not just one, but four magic girls and was relatively unscathed. The easy way she brushed off it all off like she dodged everything.

But.

Taishi hadn’t been listening closely to what Kim Si-yul said. A far more important question consumed Taishi, rendering those details inconsequential.

Perhaps that was why. Without realizing it, Taishi approached Kim Si-yul and opened his mouth.

“Inferior species… why…”

Kim Si-yul fixed her gaze on Taishi.

“Squid, what are you curious about?”

“Why push yourself so hard?”

Taishi genuinely wondered.

Was he not afraid?

Did he know no fear?

Failure seemed inevitable, yet why did he hesitate not even a little?

Surely, when he entered the Magical Mock Chamber, Kim Shiyul could have chosen to immediately declare defeat upon facing those four.

“What reason could there have been to do that, pray tell?”

And that wasn’t all. Before, when Taishi was being bullied, Kim Shiyul could have simply turned a blind eye.

After all, Taishi and Kim Shiyul were strangers. Bound only by the flimsy connection of being Magical trainees together.

Back then, Taishi didn’t even know Kim Shiyul existed. Even if Kim Shiyul had ignored him, Taishi wouldn’t have blamed him, not even in the slightest.

But Kim Shiyul hadn’t.

He simply didn’t look away, instead choosing to confront it head-on.

Stubbornly, without a single care for the consequences.

Outnumbered, outmatched physically and magically, despite the overwhelming difference in power that stood between the Magical Girls and Kim Shiyul…

Even so, Kim Shiyul hadn’t faltered or turned back. He wasn’t afraid of failure.

Unlike Taishi.

“Why else.”

Kim Shiyul looked at Taishi, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“Because I’m a hero.”

With that, Kim Shiyul waved a hand and was quietly wheeled away on a Magical stretcher.

“Anyway, I’m off. I’m dead tired, truly.”

Watching Kim Shiyul go, Taishi realized something.

“Ah.”

At last, he understood the answer to the question he had been seeking.

How Kim Shiyul thought and lived.

The answer had always been there. Taishi had simply continued to ignore it.

A hero.

A fictional character found only in fairy tales at best.

A fabricated being that could never exist in the real world.

Yet, Kim Shiyul kept uttering the word.

Even faced with the question of why Taishi had helped in the past, even with Sora and Rei’s frantic reprimands from just moments ago, even with the doubt Taishi offered now.

Kim Shi-yul’s answer never wavered.

Though it may be nothing more than a delusion, a mental illness, Kim Shi-yul continued to call himself a hero. Never once did he deny it.

And so, Kim Shi-yul was able to advance.

Not down a wrong path, but a different one.

Unburdened by the slightest fear of failure.

A truly simple answer it was.

‘So it was.’

But.

Taishi had no intention of being satisfied simply by receiving an answer.

‘Then, this maiden…’

She desired to walk alongside that hero.

Without distinctions of superiority or inferiority, from the same position, facing the same direction.

Even if only for a moment. Even if far apart. Even if Taishi were completely ignored.

‘Such things are inconsequential.’

Taishi simply wished to know.

How to tread the same path, but differently.

How differently to see the same landscape.

She yearned to know what the world looked like from his vantage point, what it felt like to walk with his stride.

Romantic love?

She did not know. Perhaps not. She could not say for certain.

Admiration?

Not to that extent.

An ambiguous feeling, neither romantic love nor admiration.

Furthermore, she still didn’t quite understand what a hero was. Or how important it was to Kim Shi-yul.

In her honest estimation, it still seemed like nothing more than a severe case of magical mental illness.

But.

If only they could walk together, she felt it didn’t particularly matter what feelings she harbored now, or what this ‘hero’ thing was.

If only they could walk together like that.

‘Someday…’

Perhaps his life, once deemed a failure, wouldn’t seem so entirely bleak. The thought occurred to him.

Tai-shi watched as Kim Si-yul was carried away.

For reasons unknown, Kim Si-yul seemed, strangely, to shine a little brighter.

Like the moon rising in the dark of night.