The detailed address was provided to the taxi uncle, and I finally arrived home.
It was a day filled with rest and food intake in Sokcho, but for some reason, the moment I returned home, fatigue hit me all at once.
Indeed, the place where I feel settled is neither too wide nor too narrow, just right—my home.
I tightly closed the door and turned on the air conditioner in the small room that had become a little steam room.
I felt the cool air slowly spreading around me and wished to stay near the air conditioner for a bit, hoping the room would cool down faster.
In a few days, the school opening ceremony would be held.
There was not much time left for this comfortable lifestyle.
I pulled a dusty bag from the corner of the room and put in the vacation homework that I had finished a while ago.
“Shiyeon, what vacation homework do you have left?”
“A diary!”
I was the type who always did my vacation homework in the last two days.
Yet here I was, finishing my homework ahead of time and helping someone else with theirs.
It was a fresh feeling, and I murmured to myself that I never thought I would do something like this again.
Shiyeon was filling in the last part of her homework diary.
She drew shrimps and crabs as illustrations, covered in honeycomb ice cream.
The memories were vivid enough that I didn’t feel it was a waste to have bought them.
Watching her draw even if only through illustrations brought a smile to my face.
Even if I had been caught off guard by marketing, I didn’t feel like I wasted money.
“The part ‘to go,’ there needs to be a double consonant.”
I corrected her less-than-perfect spelling, and that’s how Shiyeon finished her last vacation homework.
That day, early in the morning, about three days remained before school started.
At the usual hour, just like an elementary school student should, I had gone to bed.
Right before I drifted to sleep, I slowly lifted my body at the movement that shook me awake, with a dazed look.
“Yawn.”
An irresistible yawn escaped, and I took a big breath of air, letting out an empty sigh.
I took out my smartphone from beside my pillow and checked the time; it was three in the morning.
Now, no need for further conversation, the Gomtaengi that had climbed onto the bed went down the stairs first, and I quietly followed suit without making a sound.
The black mask that had been waiting for the owner’s touch in Sokcho.
With half-closed eyes that repeatedly opened and closed, I stepped into the dim corridor on the upper floor, opened the rooftop door, and uttered the transformation incantation.
“Sun.”
I forcefully tucked my long orange hair behind the mask, feeling the humid heat of midsummer, I leaped into the sky.
My annoyed murmur flowed out, accompanied by a yawn that followed my discomfort level.
“Of all times to appear, at this hour…”
Following the Gomtaengi’s guidance, I arrived at a place about five subway stations away from home.
There were no people wandering around at this late hour, but oddly enough, I couldn’t see any monsters either in the desolate streets.
As I descended slowly to the ground and surveyed the surroundings, perhaps due to the lack of people, the silence of the street was eerie, and I tilted my head in confusion.
I was already sleep-deprived; was it possible that she misstepped after coming back from Sokcho?
Frustration welled up, and with my cane gripped in one hand, I rounded the Gomtaengi’s neck and pulled it close to my face.
“What’s going on? There’s nothing here? Is this a joke?”
“No, this can’t be… The signal is definitely here.”
As the Gomtaengi tilted its head, its eyes widened in surprise.
The arm that I had tightly gripped was wiggling in a panic.
“Behind us, behind!”
“Huh?”
From behind us, where there had been nothing, a soft sound of footsteps echoed.
In a reflex, I dodged to the side, and something faintly visible swooped down from above to below, parting the wind.
Immediately afterward, the form that cut through the air vanished quickly into the darkness.
“A monster using cloaking? Shit…”
Now the monster appeared, fully hidden from view.
A hazy form, an assassin type.
It felt similar to units I had seen in some RTS space battle games.
Since it was an alien, could we be distant relatives?
‘Where is it running around…’
I stared in the direction it had disappeared for a while.
It didn’t seem completely invisible; I captured an entire area in my line of sight, standing still like a scarecrow.
With just my eyes moving around, I focused my gaze on the darkness.
Wiggling, wiggling.
Like searching for a mosquito that had stolen blood in the night, I spotted the dark knight lying still in the air.
Just like in the game, once its position was found, it was no trouble to chase it down.
I dashed forward, stomped hard enough to make the ground crack, and charged in a straight line.
Seeing the revealed form flinch, it seemed it was trying to avoid me…
But it didn’t have the reflexes for my speed and ended up caught tightly by the joints of my fingers.
The monster was slammed right down to the ground.
“Gah! W-What?!”
Along with a pained groan came bewilderment.
Don’t underestimate the eyes that have seen pixelated haziness.
It’s not strange that I couldn’t see the form of such a giant.
“Do I look like an idiot to you? Is that what you call cloaking?”
“Clo…?”
I climbed onto the peculiar shape that seemed to have something in the air and felt along what could be its face.
Where a regular organism’s mouth should be, I felt an unusual smoothness.
“Wow, is this thing really a relative of ProX? It doesn’t even have a mouth.”
I decided to change my plan slightly and made to shove the heated cane into its mouth.
“Pro…?”
The monster, failing to understand the native language being thrown around.
Its body was surprisingly as cold as ice, and the feeling of being on top was not bad at all.
The difference between an RTS game and reality is that I could damage invisible units even without a detector.
The heated adornment on the cane, resembling a red dot of a nuclear attack, approached the hazy form, leaving behind a glowing mark.
“Didi-didi, Nuclear Launch Detected.”
The beginning of the end was marked by the red dot.
The monster probably didn’t understand the meaning of the words being spoken, but that was something to learn from now on.
As the heated adornment gradually descended toward its body, like in a game, it seemed to fall slowly.
The moment the heated adornment made contact with the monster’s body.
“Poof.”
“What? Wha—Craaah—!!”
As the Sun mimicked the explosion, the lamenting scream of the poor monster began to echo.
As its flesh cooked, it darkened and burned away, and I felt the sensation of melting from the intense heat.
This was not a monster accustomed to pain or torture.
It was a coward who always lay hidden in the dark, waiting for someone to make a move.
It was the type that looked down at the fellow monsters returning to the recovery room depending on recovery facilities with disdain.
Having never had to fight someone head-on, it had no means of escaping from the overwhelming torture and pain it faced.
However, was it because its stamina and strength, along with its tenacity, were too weak…?
No… thanks to that, it quickly escaped from the shock of the Sun’s torture.
“The low HPs are the same as ever.”
Watching the monster begin to dissolve into magical powder too early, the Sun murmured in disappointment.
And then it was the recovery facility’s healing device.
Grabbing my own nape inscribed with the memories of incoming pain, I awoke from slumber.
“Gah!”
“Oh, you’re back. How was the fight with Saturn?”
As usual, it was Medik Tenkl who welcomed the monsters waking up in the recovery room.
In the recovery room of the ship, where it had become natural for monsters to lose, the invisible monster immediately turned the question back to Medik Tenkl.
“Was that masked magical girl’s name Saturn?”
“…Huh? Masked? No, that can’t be… Didn’t the magical girl you encountered have long, light yellow hair?”
A symbol of fear for the monsters.
A black and white mask.
It was a symbol unique to the Sun, and since other regional magical girls had never seen such a mask, it was now regarded as the Sun’s emblem.
Monsters speculated that the mask represented glory bestowed on the strongest of magical girls.
But suddenly, that masked magical girl returned to the original location?
“No, she had orange eyes.”
“O-Orange? No, no, that can’t be? She was supposed to return after two Setsre…”
“I’m sure. It was orange.”
Medik Tenkl was bewildered.
The transmission room had clearly stated to change the black zone in two Setsre…
No, no, that memory went back just a bit further.
Just as the fish monster Quufilet had said, a word in the precise terms.
“Two weeks, a unique unit? Does that mean a little after day and night change 13 times on Earth?”
Medik Tenkl’s fleeting realization.
Hastily, he dashed out of the recovery room to report that fact to the transmission room’s monster.
“Gate Keeper! Stop the transportation to the old black zone immediately!”
“Medik Tenkl? What’s going on? Why are you running in such haste?”
The Gate Keeper, an officer in the transmission room crackling with electricity from both hands, was surprised to see Medik Tenkl, who interrupted while carrying out the ongoing monster transports to fill the energy quota assigned to the ship.
“We need a correction in information. The replacement of the black zone is not after two Setsre, but two weeks, the date after 13 changes of day and night based on Earth!”
“What?!”
“Wait, you didn’t send anyone else out, right?”
“Uh… There was still energy left, so I just sent one more.”
Looking at the transmission device that only had traces of someone having been sent, Medik Tenkl dropped his arms in despair.
His empty muttering spread throughout the transmission room.
“Shit.”
