As the questions deepened, autumn truly passed in an instant.
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter have now become old tales.
Why is autumn so short? Before we knew it, the spirit of early winter had enveloped Korea.
It wasn’t extremely cold, but the windows that had been opened were all closed, and it was the kind of weather where outerwear must be donned.
The cicadas, which had been so noisy, seemed to be all dead, and outside the window was nothing but silence.
The only sound was the wind blowing occasionally, rattling the window.
I could usually tell that autumn was coming by the dragonflies seen outside the window, but this year, it seemed like I hadn’t seen a single shadow.
It was already winter, so it couldn’t be said that they hadn’t appeared yet…
As I worried about the invisible autumn guests, on the promised even-numbered day in the afternoon.
At the time that Shiyeon should have been at the academy, I was lazily lying on the sofa when Gomtaengi came fluttering in from inside the room.
There was only one reason it would crawl out of the room on its own on such a leisurely afternoon.
“Did it come?”
“Yes.”
“Just wait a minute.”
As I presented the reason I had guessed, Gomtaengi gave a short affirmative reply.
With a request to wait, I got up from the long sofa where I had been lying and walked leisurely towards the room without any sense of urgency.
Since the weather had gotten colder, I took out long pants and long-sleeved clothing, along with the black pantyhose, a winter essential, to wear as an undergarment.
Honestly, I can only say that I felt more resistant to pantyhose than to a bra.
That resistance was swept away by the warm comfort that hit me as soon as I put them on.
The faintly remaining pride as a man faded in the face of practicality.
If I were a man, it wouldn’t be strange to hear, “This is finally crazy,” but in my current appearance, there was no problem at all.
Pulling the pantyhose up like it was innerwear and sliding my feet in, I adjusted it up to my waist as if I were putting on pants.
The soft texture of the pantyhose clung to my thighs and calves, seeming to consider the wearer.
Underneath the black fabric, my skin shone slightly through, and I put on black tracksuit pants over it.
This was better than any ordinary undergarment.
Once I surrendered to practicality, the first thought that came to mind was, “Why didn’t I wear this good thing earlier?”
I had even bought four pairs of innerwear to wear underneath, but what was I going to do with all that.
Pantyhose, long-sleeved underwear, and a tracksuit set of long-sleeved top and bottom.
With a face mask that hardly had any meaning now stuffed in my pocket, I was all set to go out.
Yet, instead of heading straight to the front door, I took a detour to the refrigerator.
Hearing the rustling sound, Gomtaengi, who was already at the entrance, peeked his head into the kitchen and asked.
“Are you not going out?”
“I’m just a bit bored…”
“You’re not even replying now?”
“Ah, just wait a minute… it’s just a few seconds difference.”
With Gomtaengi urging me, I opened the refrigerator and reached with the arm that wasn’t holding it to pull out a large bag.
It was 500 grams of dried squid, the grayish snack I had bought to mix with gochujang and corn syrup for a side dish.
I took a handful of the squid from the bag without closing the refrigerator door.
After putting the squid bag back in its place and firmly shutting the refrigerator with a thud, I stuffed the handful of squid into a small zip bag and crumpled it in my pocket.
With my hands buried in the pockets of the tracksuit that held the small bag of squid, I nodded to the side as if pointing toward the entrance.
“Let’s go.”
“Wow… it’s visually shocking.”
“What’s shocking?”
As I crammed my foot into the back of my loose sneakers, I could hear Gomtaengi’s dismay mixed with complaints from the side.
“I thought magical girls would have at least a little different image than this…”
When I asked while tapping the front of my sneakers against the ground while looking at the fluttering Gomtaengi, it sounded like it had picked up something weird again.
Well, to be honest, Gomtaengi’s words weren’t all that off.
When anyone first hears the term “magical girl”…
They probably wouldn’t think that the magical girls would go out through the front door with a cursed expression on their faces every time a monster appeared, checking the empty streets before transforming to catch the monsters.
“A battle with a dubious arch-nemesis! Friendship! A joint attack! Isn’t that hopeful development more mainstream?”
It felt like Gomtaengi was passionately laying out the basics of magical girl shows, as if it had just watched a hopeful children’s anime somewhere.
Considering that this creature is essentially the greatest victim in the magical girl’s world, its claims were somewhat amusing.
With a snicker, I softly recounted what had happened to it so that it could realize.
“You’ve already lost the moment you started catching monsters and turning them into mascots.”
“Ah.”
Unfortunately, this place was the world patched with “Hell Korea.”
Realizing that it was already contradictory to its statements, Gomtaengi, too late, spilled out a short gasp filled with confusion.
“Stop talking nonsense and come down, it’s too high to grab.”
I stuffed Gomtaengi into the opposite pocket that held the squid, and we exited the front door.
The elevator was on its way down from the 13th floor.
Standing dumbly in front of the elevator door, I fiddled with my smartphone while my opposite hand slid into the slightly opened zip bag to pull out some squid and chew.
Unlike the squid leg that needed much chewing even with solid teeth, the dried squid tore apart pleasantly with a soft sweetness after just five bites.
Chew, crunch.
Chew, crunch.
With my left hand busy going back and forth between my mouth and my pocket, I stepped quickly towards a deserted alley.
Nevertheless, for some reason, it was hard to find any empty streets here and there.
People were everywhere.
It didn’t seem like people were looking for some transformation point as it had when the black box had caught it; most had simply stopped in their tracks, fiddling with their phones.
Gripping the smartphone in one hand and scratching the back of my head with the other, I wondered if I needed to head to some secluded underground parking lot when…
“Did you catch something?”
“Yes?”
In the alley where people wandered, an unknown woman approached me.
Did I catch something? What?
As I tilted my head with a puzzled expression…
She glanced at my smartphone screen for a moment, then bowed her head in embarrassment as if realizing she’d made a mistake.
“Oh, I’m sorry…I thought you were playing a game.”
‘Game? What game?’
The woman awkwardly retreated as she started concentrating on her smartphone like others loitering on the street.
A game that you absolutely had to pay attention to even when you came outside.
‘Ah, is that it?’
In that moment, I recalled the game that Shiyeon had caused a ruckus over, saying she wanted to go all the way to Sokcho.
Was it Earth Walk or something for running? Has it become nationally available?
After that realization flashed by, I finally understood why the once empty streets were crowded with people.
While it was great that the lazy shut-ins had a reason to burst outside…
‘Man, where am I supposed to transform?’
On the contrary, I was consumed by thoughts of how tricky this had become.
Thanks to some sudden trend, even the alley that had been neatly empty was now dotted with a few people wandering around.
In the end, after wandering through alleys, I entered a somewhat shabby apartment building.
“Sun.”
After transforming in a place with windows between the stairs of each floor, I dashed out of the window.
Having taken quite a while to find a place to transform, I quickly sped towards my destination, led silently by Gomtaengi, who had already made it outside.
However, while heading toward the skyway, the path and destination felt strangely familiar.
It turned out that the destination was the rooftop of Seongwon Middle School.
It was the moment when Seohyun’s wish of hoping a monster would appear at the school took form.
‘This really works.’
Though somewhere the monster would have emerged anyway, the thought I dismissed as nonsense materialized, unintentionally making me resent Seohyun.
If the monster really did destroy the school as she wished…
The same bad thought crossed my mind, but if that happened, the internet judges would surely add me to their list of achievements, so I decided against it.
It was pretty late, and as I was intending to quickly see the monster’s face with a mask on and head home…
“Ugh…!”
“…?”
After checking my own face, the monster freaked out and vanished in an instant from the school’s rooftop.
It wasn’t the case that it had hidden using some kind of ability like in a game, but the monster really just disappeared right in front of me.
I was left bewildered, having just arrived.
“What?”
As I let out a stunned groan, Gomtaengi next to me tilted its head in confusion as well.
There was nothing in front of me, so much so that the phrase “caught with my eyes wide open” made sense.
Even saying it was an illusion seemed off since the alarm had gone off properly…
“Are you now at a point where you can kill without lifting a finger?”
“Stop talking nonsense; what the hell was that…it feels like I’ve been pranked.”
While I scratched the back of my head, feeling uncomfortable about the monster that had suddenly disappeared right in front of me…
The very monster that had vanished before me was at that moment, clinging to the life-supporting device in the transmission room, facing a thrilling moment.
The monster took a deep breath of relief, relieved from the precarious situation.
“Damn, I was really scared….”
One small device it clung to with parts of its trembling body was a reverse teleportation device often used by high-ranking monsters.
With its extremely limited range, purpose, and direction, it had become something that could be produced in small quantities, and the monsters had no praise or cheers left to offer it.
