Anyway, as I wandered around, there were many places out of people’s sight.
Just a short walk into the building between the mart, there appeared a quiet alleyway that couldn’t be seen by anyone.
Checking the nearby windows, confirming the path I came from, and verifying the opposite road.
Only after I confirmed that hardly anyone comes to this place did I mutter a short transformation chant.
“Sun.”
At that moment, as I bent my legs and jumped up into the sky, the mascot that had been keeping its mouth shut finally crawled out of my pocket.
Since I couldn’t just go anywhere without knowing the direction, I made it hover in place while nagging it.
“Do your job, Monster Navi.”
“Um, it seems like over that way towards the beach?”
The Gomtaengi replied ambiguously, mixed with strange groans today.
Not pleased with that either, I pressed on its answer.
“What do you mean ‘seems like’?”
“Well, since it’s an area I haven’t been to before, just a little…”
Scratching its head under the pressure, it came up with a ridiculous explanation.
I’m not overseas; it’s just a three-hour drive, and it’s malfunctioning?
Pulling up one corner of my mouth while looking at it like it was trash, I said,
“Useless little thing…”
“Ah, I think it’s probably right!”
The Gomtaengi, with its only function now broken.
Just when I thought about returning it, the ambiguous words were further covered with vagueness.
Still, with no other option, I headed toward the place it pointed to.
As I got closer and focused my gaze down at the ground, I could roughly infer the location by looking at where the evacuating people were headed.
From this point on, I didn’t really need the mascot’s guidance.
The beach that Shiyeon so wanted to visit.
Although it was due to the monster, I ended up arriving there first.
“Ugh, what’s getting in my way?!”
As I looked down, I saw a creature that resembled a turtle with a dome-shaped shell.
It was wreaking havoc on the beach, amidst the unfurled umbrellas and traces of vacationers that hadn’t been cleared away.
While the monster was throwing a fit at the beach, the umbrellas from the rental store…
Even the rental store itself was being smashed, and honestly, it felt refreshing.
Around this time, people who behaved like this were squatting and demanding rental umbrellas while committing tax evasion.
Anyway, since it was a monster, I had to exterminate it, and as I put my hand in my pocket…
It was only then that I felt something missing where it should have been.
“Ah, I didn’t bring my mask.”
That’s right.
I had left the mask, a symbol of fear, back at home.
I had thought to not forget it, and lamented inwardly while leaving my empty pocket behind and slowly descending to sit on the turtle’s shell.
I heard that the turtle’s shell evolved from bones, right?
“What, what is it?!”
“Oh, you figured it out right away.”
Maybe that’s why the monster reacted quickly, almost immediately after I climbed on.
With a short sense of admiration, I jumped off the shell, standing in front of it.
Certainly, anyone would notice if someone climbed on their bones.
“Are you the magical girl they call Venus?!”
“Hmm?”
I tilted my head at the sudden question.
Ah, this was Sokcho.
Most monsters likely knew the masked faces rather than the plain ones, so mistaking me for Venus was understandable.
However, there was no need to correct the monster’s question and say otherwise…
And in this heat, it was pointless to walk around wearing a mask, so I decided to just let it be during this time.
“Uh, yeah, let’s go with that.”
“Ha ha! You look weaker than I expected! Your pathetic magic won’t break through my defense!”
I knew that there was communication between monsters.
But it seemed the news was quite delayed.
In fact, I had been dispatched to Sokcho not too long ago, so it would have been hard for this guy to know.
It isn’t common for news about which magical girl was assigned to which region to circulate actively.
Anyway, this turtle monster was unbelievably unlucky.
“Turtle, turtle, show your head-♪”
A chillingly rhythmic song flowed freely from my mouth.
Twisting my magic cane into flamethrower mode, a hissing sound started to echo.
“If you don’t show it, I’ll roast and eat you-♩”
Not long after I sang my chilling song, the outcome was already decided.
The monster that came to Sokcho, Kirshyafur, was in despair.
Even among monsters, its mouth possessed unique destructive power.
But it was of no use against me.
“Eek—!”
Without changing its expression, it blew flames into its mouth as if swatting away a bug.
The shell that was said to be the hardest jewel on Earth, diamond, boasted several times more strength than that.
And likewise, it did nothing to me.
“I said I’d roast you, didn’t I?”
“Gaaah!”
As unbearable heat from outside began to heat the inside, the monster had no choice but to pull its head and limbs out.
Even if it tried to shake me off by spinning rapidly, in terms of simple brawling, I was overwhelmingly dominant.
With that small hand holding its body, it could do nothing but squirm.
Tail swings, turning its heavy body, biting.
All those struggles became meaningless, and the monster surrendered.
It just hung limply, aware of when it would be killed.
Conscious that it was being dragged somewhere slowly.
Splashing water seeped through the cracks of its divided skin.
That creepy, moist sensation made Kirshyafur snap awake.
“What the…”
Its home planet was a dry one, without a drop of water.
It couldn’t swim at all.
For its species, the most disgraceful death would be drowning.
Dying after digging down to a watery place beneath the planet symbolized sheer stupidity.
Although I was unaware of this, my actions were on the verge of offering Kirshyafur the utmost humiliation.
“Tortoise can’t swim, I’ve heard….”
Turtle?
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but Kirshyafur’s instincts screamed at it to beg me for mercy.
Water.
It was being dragged into the water.
Not knowing what a land turtle was, Kirshyafur thought of those words as a rope that might get it some mercy.
“I-I remember! I’m the same! I’ve never…”
“Oh really? How nice to hear….”
But the rope it thought it had was just one last step to the edge of the cliff.
In the end, Kirshyafur’s words couldn’t be completed, as mine covered it.
“Oh, how nice to hear.”
Immediately after those words, Kirshyafur was flying through the sky.
Spinning and spinning at a speed it had never felt before.
Kirshyafur realized that the sky he usually looked up at was now at the same height.
Dizzy from the spinning view, it saw the magical girl smiling brightly.
‘Is she a devil?’
Its large, heavy body quickly sank into the sea.
At that moment, Kirshyafur’s breath began to choke.
“Wow, you really can’t swim.”
As I watched the giant body disappear deep into the sea, I recalled a photo I had once seen on the internet.
It was from some foreign chat app showing a turtle that had been on land and proudly claimed it had returned to the sea.
And in response to that, someone was correcting that it was a land turtle.
It didn’t seem like even shallow water where a land turtle could possibly swim; what a pity.
That was that, but a monster was still a monster.
Perhaps because of its bulk, the bubbles rising in the sea were large.
‘When is it going to die?’
It seemed like its lungs were on a massive scale too, as the bubbles showed no sign of stopping.
Standing still on the sandy beach, the weather made me sweat profusely.
If that was the case, I might as well have just roasted it, so I called out to the Gomtaengi.
“Hey, is it ready yet?”
“Just a moment, I think it’s still….”
The Gomtaengi was about to say it was still alive.
At that moment.
“Ah.”
It must have felt the monster’s signal had cut off. It spat out a short exclamation.
“It’s dead.”
“Okay, let’s retreat.”
With the Gomtaengi vouching for the monster’s signal loss.
With that as a signal, I kicked off the sandy beach and soared into the sky.
Looking down at the ground from above, everything seemed out of place.
In a hidden spot where the monster had appeared, I released my transformation.
The villa was quite far away, but the mascots could at least guide each other’s locations.
The Gomtaengi wriggled around in my pocket to find Shiyeon’s mascot response.
It would be possible to find with a map app, but I had honestly forgotten the location.
“I’m back—”
So guided, I returned to the villa.
The public servant uncle was nowhere to be seen, only Shiyeon was there alone.
Inside the villa, the air conditioner had already been blasting away.
As soon as I entered, it was refreshingly cool, honestly a bit chilly.
And waiting in there was….
“Mary! Did the uncle buy you chicken nuggets?”
“Oh.”
Just by looking, it was a shiny, reddish, sweet-and-sour chicken.
As the uncles talked in the car, Sokcho had water-ice and squid sundae.
There were plenty of other goodies, but did they think chicken was the best for the kids?
Admiring the excellent choice, I sat down in a chair at the dining table to indulge in the chicken nuggets contained lovingly in the paper box.
Kudos to Shiyeon for bringing me a fork in advance.
I immediately brought the glistening chicken nuggets that seemed coated in syrup to my mouth and chewed.
Remaining between hardness and crispness, it proved to be delicious even cold.
And within, the tender meat peeked out.
“It’s delicious!”
“Yeah!”
It’s common knowledge that fried chicken is delicious.
But getting to eat it for free made it taste even better.
