A scene from an unexpected jump scare horror game that I felt without meaning to.
I tried to calm my racing heart as it thudded loudly.
Even as I watched the monster’s body, shattered like fried rice ingredients and turning into fine powder, I pressed my right hand against the left side of my chest, my eyes wide open.
My face felt hot as if pulsating with the heartbeat.
It was a sign that my senses had become acutely heightened due to the sheer shock.
“That was insane….”
It was already a situation where I would have been startled just by its sudden appearance, but alongside it, Gomtaengi screamed in surprise too.
The monster had instantly dispersed into chunks of meat, so that meant dinner for tonight was already settled.
What remained on the snow-covered rooftop were Gomtaengi and me, along with a familiar metal plate.
Once my breathing steadied a bit, I fell into deep thought about what to do in this hopeless situation.
Breaking the silence with crossed arms, Gomtaengi was the first to ask.
“What now?”
What he pointed to was the metal plate accumulating shallow snow while I pondered.
I want a conversation.
An item inscribed with the intention of the monsters wishing for a dialogue.
It seemed that it had something important to say, but it was regrettable that the outcome had ended up like this.
In response to the vague question, I scratched the back of my head and frowned with one eyebrow raised.
“What can we do? We can’t take it, so we have to leave it here.”
“Is that alright?”
“It’s fine or not, there’s no helping it.”
While it was obvious to see, no middle school girl could lift such a heavy metal plate with her pre-transformation strength.
Besides, I couldn’t just go home holding this while transformed, saying, ‘Magical girl lives here~.’
In the end, the metal plate was left behind on the rooftop, leaving only discomfort as I soared into the sky.
On the way home.
“Did the monsters come to ask for that device back?”
“Maybe. It’s odd that the ones running away right away would wait around with that plate….”
I pondered anew with Gomtaengi why the metal plate with the intent for dialogue had come from the monster down to Earth.
Indeed, the most plausible hypothesis was a proposal to return the device.
We who hadn’t pressed the button could only speculate it as a ‘device that takes monsters back to their ship,’ but until we pressed it, it was uncertain.
Since I couldn’t conclusively trust the monster’s words 100 percent, I had some doubts about whether that device was genuinely a return device or a trap.
“That makes sense? It seems it wasn’t entirely useless.”
As we assessed the importance of the device,
Gomtaengi casually moved his mouth as if stating the obvious.
“Well, regardless of its usefulness, the situation of having something taken away isn’t good, right?”
“That’s true.”
I left a brief affirmation to Gomtaengi’s logical muttering.
Even if the device wasn’t that important, no group would be happy about having something taken or disappearing.
To compare it to everyday life….
Someone taking a pen from my pencil case or having one mysteriously disappear each day.
Even if the pen itself isn’t that important, no sane person would think, ‘Hey, that’s great,’ if one vanished every day.
So, um… about that monster?
It was like they came to ask nicely for those stolen pens back.
I landed a punch in the face that could cave in.
“Looking at it like this, it seems pretty trashy.”
Upon reflection, regardless of people or magical girls versus monsters, it was an act unworthy of life itself.
Looking back at myself, I had objectively become a wicked person.
A sense of guilt I hadn’t felt with monsters several times before.
As it covered my heart, I hesitated to make a decision and sought advice from the loitering Gomtaengi.
“Next time it comes, should I just return it?”
“Wouldn’t that just lead to the same drama again?”
“Maybe…?”
As I suggested to return it a bit cooler, I fell into another round of contemplation at Gomtaengi’s reasonable point.
It was that very action that sparked all this mess. Would it really happen again?
“No, but since it already got stolen once, wouldn’t they hesitate to fight?”
Attempting to speak with pure ideals, Gomtaengi shook his head, indicating that it didn’t hold water.
“From the perspective of the monster, I’m the one supposed to fight with you. That device is a device for going back to their ship? I’d press it without hesitation.”
Then he even brought in a four-character idiom, saying that one should consider the monster’s perspective.
If he were in a confrontational stance with me, under the assumption that the device was indeed a return device, he would have pressed it right away, giving an objective summary of my behavior from the monster’s viewpoint.
These days, this guy doesn’t adhere to the principle of the maximum pain for the maximum number….
Anyway, today’s negotiation table was overturned due to my blunder that resulted in our negotiation partner getting instantly killed.
Coming down to an empty white alley intersecting with a largely deserted street, I undid my transformation.
Now the snow piled high, almost covering my shoe insoles.
As if it had fallen straight from the sky, I thought as the crunching sounds began from the unconnected footsteps.
“This is going to cause a lot of accidents during the New Year….”
An ominous intuition surged forth.
Shaking off the moist piles of snow clinging to the soles of my shoes onto the entrance mat, I stepped into the elevator to return home.
Entering the house after punching in the door lock password.
“Hm?”
As soon as I stepped inside, I perked up my nose, sensing a rising aroma.
The savory scent of substandard canned ham exposed to heat and the light fragrance of eggs.
The key ingredients of the fried rice I had promised to make for Shiyeon after hunting the monsters.
Could it be that while I was out catching monsters, she attempted to make fried rice alone?
Click, I shut the door and casually took off my coat, hanging it on the dining chair, and walked towards the induction cooker.
Sure enough, there was Shiyeon awkwardly hovering over a frying pan and making fried rice.
“Uh-oh….”
Seemingly lost in concentration on the frying pan, Shiyeon didn’t notice my entrance.
I crept up behind her, casting a glance towards the induction cooker.
From behind her shoulder, I peeked in to check on the fried rice Shiyeon had made without anyone’s help.
“Ugh, what’s happening?”
But no matter how nicely I put it, what lay atop the frying pan was….
A blob that could hardly be referred to as fried rice, resembling a sticky porridge instead.
Perhaps it was failing to work out as intended, Shiyeon was muttering to herself with a pitiful tone as she stirred the blob with a plastic spatula.
This was a complete disaster arising from too much moisture remaining in the ingredients or rice.
Hmm, it was fated to turn out poorly from the beginning.
While I continued to ogle at the fried rice from behind,
The sea snake that had lingered near Shiyeon’s shoulder suddenly turned to me as if sensing my presence.
“Oh, Mary’s here.”
“Eh? When did you come in?”
Did she really fail to notice? Shiyeon seemed surprised upon turning around only after the sea snake pointed it out.
Knowing full well what the outcome would be, I casually asked how long she had been in.
“Just now. Did you make fried rice?”
“It turned out weird.”
In response to my inquiry about whether she had made fried rice, Shiyeon, with a pouty face, showed off her poor result.
A lump of fried rice… or rather, fried porridge, that had stuck into a singular mass on the frying pan.
The technique of coating the rice grains with the egg heat, etc….
That was a method best reserved for a restaurant with a sufficient firepower.
Attempting to imitate such a method at home would only lead to this result.
The canned ham pieces mixed in with the yellowish rice grains created a texture that seemed to be able to be picked up with chopsticks.
Regardless, it wasn’t inedible, so we ended up having Shiyeon’s failed dish of fried porridge for dinner, splitting it between our bowls.
“…I’m sorry.”
After I once made breakfast for her, Shiyeon had been quite confident in her cooking.
But today… after undergoing a significant failure of turning fried rice into mush, she seemed downcast enough to apologize.
Still, since it wasn’t completely burned, there was no need to be that gloomy, I retrieved some cutlery and ketchup from the fridge and sat down.
“How can a person only succeed and live? Failing is part of it.”
Sitting on the dining chair, I said matter-of-factly that in the culinary world, failure was a common occurrence.
A generous sprinkling of red sauce poured carelessly atop the sticky fried rice.
Fire, canned ham, eggs.
When considered by ingredients alone, they are a combination that goes well with ketchup.
Like I was casually tossing the ketchup in like curry, I shoveled in Shiyeon’s fried rice without a care.
It was, literally, clumpiness… a difference in viscosity.
As the ingredients weren’t much different from the fried rice I would make, the flavor was about the same.
In the midst of continuing our meal for a while….
“Ugh.”
I let out a small grunt as I flinched at the texture in the fried rice that shouldn’t be found there.
This thickness, this texture, this sound.
…Egg shell.
This is definitely a failure.
