Chapter 5
[Title: So, what is Alice up to these days?]
[Author: Anonymous]
I haven't heard that she retired, but lately, there's been hardly any word about her.
Anonymous(59.10): Word, my ass. Is this an OB-GYN clinic?
Anonymous(121.134): She's just been buried in obscurity, so that's why, but news about her does trickle in now and then. Seems like she's been active less often, though?
Anonymous(175.207): You old farts keep saying Alice this, Alice that. Who the hell is she?
ㄴAnonymous(121.134): How can you not know Princess Alice and still be on the Magical Girl Forum?
ㄴAnonymous(223.62): She's a first-generation magical girl who still hasn't announced her retirement.
ㄴㄴAnonymous(175.207): If she's first gen, wasn't that almost ten years ago?
ㄴㄴㄴAnonymous(223.62): Yep. About that long.
[Title: Come to think of it, I saw Alice a little while ago, but she wouldn't even sign something for me]
[Author: Anonymous(183.97)]
She just wiped out the Abyss monsters in no time and left, didn't she? I was going to ask for an autograph, but she disappeared before I could.
Anonymous(223.62): Alice is famously bad about giving autographs. She did sign some during her early days, but after seeing her signature being sold online, they say she stopped giving them altogether.
ㄴAnonymous(183.97): Would it have been worth much if you'd gotten one?
ㄴㄴAnonymous(223.62): In terms of rarity, she's probably number one among magical girls. The ones still out there are already locked down by Alice's hardcore fans, and they won't sell. Her fossilized fanbase is surprisingly thick; even now, if you insult her, they all come running in a pack and cause a huge fuss.
[Title: You ignorant fools, who don't even know Princess Alice's achievements]
[Author: BunnyLover]
Princess Alice defeated Leviathan! If she hadn't, you couldn't even use the Han River!
Anonymous: Oh lord, Grandpa's at it again. Give it a rest, brush your teeth, and go to bed.
ㄴBunnyLover: Kids these days... no manners...
Anonymous: She's definitely damn strong for a first-gen girl lol. I looked her up, and she was still beating B-rank Abyss monsters solo.
ㄴAnonymous(106.241): How do you solo a B-rank? Isn't the recommended raid party four?
ㄴㄴAnonymous: First-generation magical girls fought with however many people were available, raid or no raid. There was never a recommended number. Alice herself was one of the top-tier girls even among the first generation.
ㄴㄴBunnyLover: It's the power of love.
Anonymous(175.116): That Leviathan aggro ping-pong was pretty damn spectacular.
ㄴBunnyLover: (Applause meme)
ㄴㄴAnonymous(175.116): But if she debuted ten years ago, isn't she an auntie by now?
ㄴㄴㄴBunnyLover: Blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* * *
Abyss monsters are basically creatures that hurt people and destroy buildings, causing countless casualties and property damage, but from a dispassionate perspective, they aren't actually all that dangerous.
At least, they don't seem to have any particular intention of destroying the world like the monsters commonly seen on television.
As I said before, what Abyss monsters want is the negative energy generated by their acts of destruction, and the most efficient sources are human emotions such as despair, regret, anger, and sadness.
Killing a few people is an efficient enough way to obtain negative emotions, but if they destroyed the world and wiped out humanity, wouldn't their source of supply disappear?
Under that calculation, Abyss monsters plug straws into multiple dimensions from which they can draw energy and steadily grow larger.
To put it bluntly, from their perspective, Earth is a hunting ground where they can gain experience. Or perhaps a mine where they can dig for ore.
Wouldn't they have to be idiots to do something as stupid as destroy such a place?
...If anyone found out that a magical girl was thinking this, there'd be a huge uproar, newspaper articles, and all sorts of content vultures tearing me apart. But who cares?
I didn't become a magical girl to gain popularity, make money, or fulfill some sense of duty in the first place.
I'm only smashing Abyss monsters' heads because my contract leaves me no choice.
Do I look like I'm enjoying wealth and glory from doing this?
-Clunk.
'...I should take out the trash.'
I was aware that I didn't keep my room particularly clean, but I did at least take care of the basics.
The trash collection point wasn't very far away, either.
Since it was already getting dark outside and I figured I wouldn't have to run into many people, I pulled my hood over my head, took two trash bags in my hands, and headed out.
The increasingly chilly wind slipped through my clothes and gave me a cold sensation, so I frowned and quickly tossed the bags into the collection area. I was on my way back when...
"Oh... Hello...?"
"..."
"Did you just go outside for a bit? You must be cold dressed like that..."
I had run into the annoying woman from next door again.
When I merely stared at her without responding, she seemed embarrassed and fidgeted with her hands before changing the subject and trying again.
"Um, come to think of it, did you enjoy the rice cakes? W-Were they all right? My parents always say that in times like these, you should at least be friendly with your neighbors, so that if a monster ever gets you, they can call an ambulance..."
I threw them away.
Who would blindly eat food handed to them by a stranger in this day and age?
Just because someone looks gentle on the outside doesn't mean you should assume they're the same on the inside. Besides, rice cakes weren't something I liked anyway.
...Still, I wasn't so socially inept that I would tell her to her face that I'd thrown them away, so I simply nodded appropriately.
"Ah... That's a relief. I've never lived on my own before... Hehe. How old are you, anyway? The landlady told me before I moved in that you'd lived here for quite a long time..."
That only got her excited, and her chatter was making my expression steadily tighten. I had a feeling she would keep bothering me if I left things as they were, so I forced my mouth to move and spoke to her.
"Um... I appreciate you looking out for me, but... I tend to feel uncomfortable around other people."
"Ah..."
"I'd appreciate it if you kept your distance as much as possible."
That should be polite enough for her to understand that I was putting up a firm but courteous wall.
One might think that being outright cold would ensure she never spoke to me again... but the first reason I didn't was that, no matter how twisted my personality was, I didn't actually enjoy making people dislike me for no reason.
The second reason was that if I did that and happened to pick a fight with the wrong person, it would only make things more troublesome.
It wasn't as if I had never experienced that before, either.
It might be easier to understand if you considered that not wanting to get involved with other people was a separate matter from being needlessly rude and deliberately making enemies.
"I-I suppose that's understandable! Then..."
"...Goodbye."
-Clunk.
"Oh... Ah, goodbye!"
Even after I put up such a firm wall, she still tried to keep the conversation going, so I hurried inside.
Normally, people would keep their distance after being treated like that, thinking, 'What is with this person?'
Was she simply not used to being rejected so coldly by someone else?
'She looks like she was raised in a sheltered environment.'
Objectively speaking, the combination of her not-particularly-tall stature, cute appearance, and seemingly friendly personality was enough to suggest that she usually got along quite well with other people.
On top of that, her mature figure, which seemed surprisingly developed for someone her height, probably would have been an especially distinctive feature... I suppose.
But not to me.
Women—especially younger ones—were the combination that brought out my strongest wariness, since I already disliked other people to begin with.
I trust no one would say something insane like, "Did you start liking men after working as a magical girl?"
The fact that the person saying this was pretending to be a woman while working as a magical girl made it nothing short of comedy.
'11:58 p.m....'
I was on the terrace, smoking as usual and watching the vacation I had barely managed to obtain draw to a close.
What had I done over the past two days...?
...Nothing in particular.
I just hadn't fought any Abyss monsters. Other than that, I hadn't done anything productive; I had simply repeated the same routine of playing games and reading novels.
If I had to name life's one pleasure... it was probably getting through new games and novels.
Even this, after doing it for years, had become less of a hobby I enjoyed and more of a task I repeated mechanically.
-Whoooosh.
The chilly wind slapped my face, making the warmth in my hand stand out more sharply.
With the weather growing colder, the year must be winding down.
Chuseok had passed recently, and Halloween was coming up soon, if I remembered correctly.
'Another festival...'
-Hiss...
What was so great about a day when the ghosts of another country went out to play that everyone held all kinds of events everywhere?
Even when society was in a festive mood, Abyss monsters never rested.
No, if anything, they acted more intelligently.
It was something anyone could understand with a little common sense.
What Abyss monsters wanted was human beings' negative emotions.
Dragging the mood of people whose expectations had risen in anticipation of a festival all the way down into the depths of despair... Wasn't that obviously an excellent source of negative emotions?
It wasn't only Halloween.
If I were to list long holiday periods that happened to overlap with public holidays or special days accompanied by major events,
New Year's Day, Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, White Day, Children's Day, Chuseok, Christmas...
...Now that I think about it, more than half of those were days for damn couples to fool around.
Well, from the Abyss monsters' perspective, if one side fell into despair, the other would as well, making them an efficient negative-emotion extraction device.
Ah, right. A magical girl shouldn't think things like that so carelessly.
'11:59:50 p.m.'
While I was lost in thought, the time had almost come.
I knew my vacation ended at midnight, but why was I standing by while counting down the time to the exact second?
55 seconds.
Unlike most working people, who had to be at work the next morning,
57 seconds.
this splendid profession of magical girl
59 seconds.
was for complete strangers again today.
00 seconds.
-Daaang!
[Han Sejin! You're being dispatched!]
To protect their peaceful, unchanging daily lives,
day and night, year-round,
whether at work, resting, or asleep, it was a beautiful profession that required me to be ready to deploy at any moment.