“Hello-!”
A few days later, the consequence of Shiyeon’s wrong choice.
With a face that looked like she had bitten into a piece of dung, I ended up accompanying Tiara on her surprise visit to Korea.
People are not as concerned about others as one might think.
In the United States, there is a magical girl, Anne, who is active and reveals her face.
But such a celebrity was completely unrecognizable before her departure, just because she wore colored lenses and changed her hairstyle a bit.
In fact, it would be normal not to recognize her at all unless you were an extremely dedicated stalker.
“Hello!”
“Oh! Nice to meet you!”
When I met Anne at the meeting place, I greeted her cheerfully.
For the record, today is the first time the two of them have met directly.
By the way, aside from her voice, she looks like a completely different person, right?
It’s quite strange hearing a familiar voice from a completely unfamiliar face.
Even though it was a surprise visit, there wasn’t anything particularly special planned.
Just checking out the market near home and having a meal at a typical meat restaurant found downtown.
At this rate, I wondered if there was a need for her to insist on us.
When I asked her about it, this was her answer.
“It’s good to hang out with friends!”
Tiara had visited our home once under the pretext of sightseeing in Korea when we were in the second year of middle school.
“When you came last time, there wasn’t much free time to play.”
At that time, it seemed there was hardly any free time due to various scheduled programs the country arranged, as I didn’t know much about Korea.
So on the first day of her second visit to Korea, it seemed she wanted to enjoy the freedom she couldn’t experience last time.
Fortunately, because she was unrecognized in the surroundings, we had time to take in the slowly changing scenery of the streets, breathing in the fresh air.
Bringing Tiara along… Well, how can I describe it?
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s a gopchang restaurant.”
“What’s gopchang?”
“Grilled intestines.”
“Like sausage?”
“It’s a bit different from that…”
Whenever she asked what something was, I had to answer smoothly as she inquired, but it wasn’t bothersome at all.
If I had to liken it, it felt like wandering through downtown with a somewhat naive younger sibling?
…Although she didn’t seem naive at all physically.
In any case, after wandering around downtown, it was around 6 PM.
The winter sun, setting earlier, had already darkened the sky, and the streets were particularly lively, buzzing more than during the day, as was typical for a weekend night.
And then, a blunt something was pressing down on my abdomen.
In the pockets of my thick coat, the gomtaengi was pushing down on my lower belly with her arm.
Shiyeon and I halted in our tracks simultaneously.
“It seems it’s out?”
“Yeah, I received the signal too.”
“What?”
As we briefly stopped our previously steady steps to talk, Anne also stopped walking behind us.
With a “What?” in a local accent, she tilted her head, seeming not to understand our behavior.
It seemed a signal had not been arranged with the mascot when a monster appeared nearby.
“Well… um.”
I was trying to explain something when suddenly a mouse burst from Anne’s pocket, choking off my words.
The creepy little mouse climbed up her coat and settled on her shoulder after its natural mouse-like actions.
Regardless of being a man or woman, it was just biologically unsettling.
I barely restrained a scream from escaping.
“X Monster XXXXX.”
“A-ha!”
I didn’t understand what she was mumbling, but her fluent accent made it clear she was speaking in English.
The only part I could grasp was the word “Monster.”
What if it comes out like this so openly?
And Tiara, you should be saying something instead of just “Aha”…
As I was lost in perplexity, unable to say anything, my mind going blank, suddenly, one of Anne’s arms gently wrapped around my waist.
With her other arm, she similarly wrapped around Shiyeon’s waist.
I had no idea what she wanted to do; was she suggesting we do a circle dance like this?
I looked at her, my expression no doubt resembling a question mark, only to see her smile knowingly as if she had a plan, and she opened her mouth.
“Transformation!”
While casting the transformation spell, she shot up into the sky.
A blade-like wind brushed against my cheeks and flesh with the icy chill of winter.
When compared to how it felt after transforming, my senses were heightened by several degrees.
Would I feel this way if I slipped and fell from a building rooftop?
A momentary thrilling sensation, enough to provoke that thought.
“Gyaaaaaaah-!!”
“Kyahhhhh-!”
Screams bursting from our mouths without a chance to hold back.
I began to understand how terrifying it must be to take to the skies thanks to someone else’s unintentional actions.
I could understand the feelings of the puppy monster I had once taken along to an animal cruelty protest years ago.
Suddenly airborne from downtown, we tightly held onto Tiara’s much smaller body like it had shrunk in fright.
Logically, she could have just transformed, but when a person is too scared, they can’t think straight…
I found myself clinging to something, be it a nearby object or person.
Having suddenly taken off into the skies, what on earth was happening here?
“Here, no one can see!”
Tiara proudly exclaimed as she uttered those few words.
“Oh geez, that scared me… Sun.”
I let out an annoyed murmur while thumping the slightly concave area between my chest and ribs, getting ready to transform.
These days, I had heard foreigners are familiar with Korean curses, so I held back my swearing.
As my body felt smaller with the transformation, the heart-pounding sensation that had felt like it was beating with a hammer suddenly dissipated.
Unbeknownst to me, perhaps transforming also had a calming effect?
“Mu, Mu mu, Mun Power, transformation….”
Shiyeon fumbled over her words, and after a struggle, she managed to recite the transformation spell.
With the pressure of her arms that had been tightly holding my waist releasing, I let out a sigh and floated in the air.
“Ha.”
“I was really startled…”
As the three of us completed our transformations, an alarm sounded at just the right time.
People, who appeared tiny as dots, evacuated in an orderly fashion to the alarm, but perhaps because they were at a suitable distance, they moved about lazily.
If they keep this up, something major might happen one day.
As I stomped on my irritation at the indifference towards the alarms, I was about to take the mascot out of my pocket when—
“Who wants to have a competition to see who can defeat the monster first?”
Tiara, who spoke a bit more slowly, began to reveal her thoughts to us.
It looked like she saw defeating monsters as some sort of sports final or checkpoint.
“Excuse me? Why…”
Honestly, it didn’t matter to us who defeated it, so I tilted my head in curiosity at her suggestion when she suddenly assumed that “Oh?” meant affirmation.
“Then, I’m going!”
With that, she suddenly darted in one direction, flying away at breakneck speed.
Why is she competing over this?
Even so, I wouldn’t think the number one person from the United States would be beaten by a monster in this cramped little patch of land…
Thinking it might cause a problem for us all, I hurriedly took out the gomtaengi from my pocket and asked.
“Hey, is that the right way?”
“Yes, let’s hurry and follow!”
“I want to go too!”
We arrived at the scene near downtown, a major street crossing in front of a department store.
While it might be fine if it was a suitably far-off location, it appeared everyone had evacuated from the site where the monster had appeared.
There, we could witness Tiara’s battle, which she had jumped into just a moment before….
“Hey, fucking monster! Die! Die! Die!”
In the voice of a small girl, heavy curses that are usually not heard came out.
And the sound from her cane resonated heavily, echoing through the air.
Usually, gunfire is depicted as light sounds like bang-bang or boom-boom, right?
But the piercing gunfire that struck my ears was a deep tone reverberating “Turrng!”
Turrng….
The cane she was holding… no, whether to really call it a “cane” was questionable.
Although cutely decorated with pink paint and star ornaments, the sinister appearance made it obvious what it was.
In any case, it boasted impressive performance without betraying the user’s expectations—a shotgun.
In more commonly known terms, a double barrel shotgun.
“What a damn unique cane.”
As expected from a country of firearms, even a cane looks like that.
Moreover, the terrifying aspect of that double barrel… no, the cane, was that it had no separate ammunition.
That crazy shotgun cane could fire energy blasts repeatedly at that insane appearance.
The monster that had already been on site was now a bloody mess, unable to be recognized as anything other than a piece of meat.
“Oh man…”
“Why are you covering your eyes? I want to see too!”
“If you look, you won’t be able to eat dinner tonight.”
