“Magical Girl said, ‘Tteokbokki and gimbap have arrived!’”
With a playful tone that sounded like something out of the Bible, she kicked open the door to the house.
“Did you come?!”
The black plastic bag filled to both hands contained gimbap and tteokbokki.
As soon as that dazzling sight entered the house, Shiyeon’s face turned bright.
She quickly dashed to the kitchen, grabbed a deep adult-sized bowl and four chopsticks, and returned to sit at the low desk.
Taking out the steaming hot tteokbokki from the black plastic bag, she placed it into the deep bowl and loosened the opening.
The combination of tteokbokki and gimbap arrived just in time for her hunger.
If it were up to her, she would have wanted to bring back assorted tempura and such…
But with this small body, there was simply no room for anything more than six pieces of tteokbokki and a single piece of oden gimbap.
She shared a line of gimbap with the two Jin-su who were acting as the monster alarm system and, to avoid feeling lonely, stared at her smartphone while listening to the TV chatter.
With her right hand, she dipped the gimbap into the thick tteokbokki sauce while bringing it to her mouth.
“Cat mom… extermination method….”
Her gaze focused on the smartphone screen as her other hand searched for useful information.
Various communities, galleries, and other random news sources.
There were reviews and articles on how to deal with these bothersome people, but most of them were methods that I could never implement.
Join the apartment app and write a review about the cats in the respective apartment.
Submit a complaint to prompt the removal of that location.
In either case, as a lower grade elementary school student, it was impossible for me to achieve.
Why?
Let’s consider my age; it’s obvious.
“A damn country where those under 14 can’t do anything….”
Realizing that most methods provided online were useless, I cursed my unfortunate situation.
“Should I just trust the juvenile delinquent law and poke once?”
I barely pushed away the negative thought that popped up and washed the sticky tteokbokki bag before throwing it in the place I kept plastic trash.
Similarly, the aluminum foil wrapping the gimbap crumpled up and went toward the general trash can.
With my stomach full and feeling sleepy after not having any proper rest, I immediately lay down.
Ah, how nice it would be to fall asleep like this.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon.
There couldn’t be a better time to drift off to sleep.
Wearing the same clothes I had on outside, I took out the package of the earplugs from my pocket so the noisy sounds wouldn’t disturb my sleep.
Bright orange, squishy earplugs, larger than my finger joints.
I cleverly squished them and stuffed them into both ears.
I couldn’t perfectly block the noise, but it was the best choice.
Just as I was about to drift into comfortable sleep in the peaceful silence…
I felt a soft something press down on my shoulder, waking me up.
“What is it.”
It was a bearcub.
It seemed like it had something to say.
“…I’m a monster.”
“What?”
To hear the muffled sound trapped by the earplugs again, I took one out and blinked my eyes in confusion to replace the question.
“I’m a monster.”
Hearing the fact I suspected from my own mouth made my body twist again in a scream of despair and resentment.
“Damn it… just leave me alone, please…”
“Um, should I go alone…?”
Amidst my wails, I heard a voice.
Seeing how tired I looked, Shiyeon said that.
“….”
If we were both older, maybe I would have gratefully accepted her offer.
The only thing that calmed my bursting anger was the worry that flowed from Shiyeon’s innocence.
The resentment toward the monsters and the world cooled down instantly.
Right, how could I send her off by herself?
Rubbing my eyes, I sat up, closed my eyes tightly, and fiddled about.
Using only the strength of my hands while sitting, I approached the closet, pulled the door, and felt the magnets release as I took out the mask from the inside.
“No, let’s go, we have to go…”
With lethargy and yawning, I stepped onto the first floor.
The cats gathered around the rice bowls scurried into a nearby flower bed.
Excited to see a wild beast that wasn’t often seen nearby, Shiyeon tugged at my sleeve and pointed to the cats shining with delight from the flower bed.
“Wow, a cat! Mary, Mary! Look over there!”
“I saw it earlier.”
“So cute!”
“Gross!”
As Shiyeon exclaimed about how adorable they were, I muttered a difficult word inside, walking until we reached a secluded place.
The monster appeared in the middle of an apartment in the bustling downtown, guided by the bearcub.
It was a playground that seemed to have many children, complete with playground equipment.
There, a large cat with a mixture of orange and white fur, looking bigger than ordinary large dogs, was loitering.
“Of all things, a cat.”
With movement from the cats, it seemed things in the apartment would go amiss, but a monster being a cat was even worse.
“It’s a cat!”
“Ahhh!”
As Shiyeon yelled happily, the massive cat’s fur bristled in alert, hissing loudly.
It looked like just a cat, but it was a monster.
It seemed to lack the intelligence to talk; all it did was glare and hiss.
For a cat that big, honestly, it was no different from a tiger.
Imagine if a tiger that had escaped from a zoo appeared in the middle of a children’s playground in an apartment complex.
That would turn the world upside down.
“This time, I’ll do it by myself!”
Rarely showing enthusiasm, Shiyeon stepped forward first.
“Sure, give it a shot.”
I guess because this monster didn’t look scary, she seemed braver than when we dealt with the werewolf monster.
“Moon shower!”
The cool blue energy emanating from Shiyeon’s round crescent-shaped cane froze the legs of the cat monster.
The cat monster could no longer move, wide-eyed, trying to withdraw its legs while repeatedly hissing.
While it was good that it couldn’t move, the problem was what came next.
Since I always wrapped things up, how Shiyeon would proceed remained uncertain.
The two of us made a set.
If Shiyeon used spells to restrict or control movement, I would bring overwhelming destructive power.
…But I was too strong, and Shiyeon rarely had a chance to shine.
So, in various community summaries of magical girls, the stories about us always flowed that way.
In terms of destruction tier, I was always in the top tier, while she was in the lower tier.
In the cuteness tier, she was in the top tier, while I was in the lower tier.
In many ways, we were extremes.
Well, the reason she fell in the lower tier for the cuteness section was mainly because of the essential black mask.
“Um, what should I do now?”
As I had expected, she managed to restrict the movement but hesitated to finish it off herself.
It was more relieving to deal with monsters that straightforwardly say ‘I’m the villain’ when heading for the final blow; it felt awkward with this beast-type monster who couldn’t express itself.
Let alone for kids like Shiyeon who simply see animals as cute, this role was far too cruel.
“Cover your eyes and turn around.”
“Okay…”
“It’s okay; you did well.”
Shiyeon’s voice was dull.
Still, her resolve to try alone was worth commending.
With its legs frozen, the cat monster still leaned its head towards me, flinching.
Even if it were just a mute beast, being a monster, and capable of hurting people,
It shouldn’t be seen simply with pity.
As I thought before, what was in front of me was comparable to a feral beast that had escaped from a zoo.
If left alone, it would eventually lead to harm.
The light-hearted name of a magical girl carried a heavy conviction.
One day, Shiyeon would face this reality as well.
‘Until then, I’ll have to take care of it myself.’
“Sun, you’re so kind.”
“If you keep babbling, I won’t end it painlessly.”
“Ah!”
As the bearcub flew in next to me while praising subtly, I threatened it to shut its mouth.
One step.
Standing in front of the aggressively resisting cat monster, it fought desperately for survival.
Two steps.
The revealed teeth and successive hisses showed the monster’s extreme anxiety.
“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”
‘At the very least, without pain.’
With both hands tightly gripping the magic cane.
It was a scene you would see more in martial arts comics.
A skilled swordsman’s last stance, raising the long sword to unleash their full power.
The clean, straightforward massive shock struck the monster’s forehead from the tip of the cane.
It created an immense shockwave that could be gauged.
Dust erupted, and the ground fractured.
The gigantic cat, unable to even scream, began to dissolve into magical powder and scatter away.
Not even allowing the monster to show a slumped figure, I waited for its complete disappearance before looking at Shiyeon, who was tightly covering her eyes, and spoke.
“It’s over; you can open your eyes.”
“Okay…”
After finishing off the monster, we returned to a spot not far from home to release our transformations, then found ourselves back near the apartment.
With a pout, Shiyeon’s expression showed that her spirit was quite crushed, evident to anyone.
It seemed she didn’t feel like she dealt with it all alone, and her mood had plummeted.
Feeling that clumsy comfort would do more harm than good, I walked beside her in silence.
“Ah, a cat…”
Again, the cats gathered near the entrance on the first floor.
Shiyeon, who had been gloomy, finally responded a bit.
However, it seemed these cats were not easy to tame.
Even though I had shown my face about three times, they hid into the flower bed before I could get close, keeping a watchful eye.
‘…Huh?’
Feeling a strange gaze besides the cats, I looked around and turned my head to our upstairs window, wondering.
There stood a woman, presumed to be the one who had set the rice bowls, staring intently where the cats’ bowls were.
‘That crazy woman….’
A chill swept over me from the terror of her obsession that I couldn’t even put into words.
