Chapter 6
It's worth mentioning again, but Abyss monsters are mainly active during the daytime.
Creatures who regard human negative emotions as the finest delicacy in the world—how efficient could they possibly be if they operated in the middle of the night, when all the humans were asleep?
Well, if they made a huge mess in a densely populated area at the crack of dawn and woke everyone up, they could probably be fairly efficient...
More than that, though, they seem to prefer streets crowded with people, so they rarely appear at the dead of night, when hardly anyone is out.
Who knows? Maybe they sleep in their own homes at night too.
But... there is a magical girl who operates at night, like me. Could there really be no Abyss monsters that operate at night?
"Kiiiiii..."
-Screeeeeech!
"Shut up. Just looking at you makes me so annoyed I could die."
A Grade D Abyss monster. Its traits were nocturnal activity, intangibility, servitude, and mental infiltration.
Commonly known as 'Nightmare.'
Unlike the ones that destroy buildings, hurt people, and collect negative emotions, these loathsome monstrosities roam through people's dreams in the dead of night, inducing nightmares and stealing their mental strength.
They were one of the Abyss's signature monsters, constantly respawning no matter how many times they were cleared out.
As befitted creatures whose purpose was to infiltrate and gnaw away at the mind rather than directly harm people, they were highly stealthy, making them difficult for even mascots to detect.
If they weren't exterminated and were allowed to accumulate into a group, they would even evolve into a higher-grade individual, making them one of the most troublesome Abyss monsters for magical girls.
They even appeared at night, meaning you had to run around without sleeping if you wanted to catch them...
Unless you were a magical girl like me who operated regardless of the time of day, most people had to fight them while exhausted, making them the worst kind of trash mob.
'I had a feeling we'd be cleaning these bastards up soon.'
Eight years as a magical girl weren't for nothing.
Even without Bunny warning me, I could instinctively tell that it was time to deal with the ones that had been accumulating.
If I left them alone and a higher-grade individual was born... they would become truly troublesome, so it was much better to deal with them now and endure the fatigue.
-Wham!
"Kyaa!"
-Fsssh...
The stingray-shaped creature lost the form it had barely maintained and scattered away as black smoke.
[That's seven! There seem to be... about four left nearby!]
'What time is it now?'
[It's 2:17 a.m.! At this rate, we'll be finished before three!]
'...Even when we're finished, it's not like I can go straight home.'
The downside of cleaning up Nightmares.
Since they were dealt with in the early morning, the last train had stopped running long ago.
Not that I used public transportation in the first place.
As I said before, magical girls weren't provided with an automatic return service, so once a mission ended, they had to make their own way home.
Successful magical girls often hired staff to support them, and whenever they went out on a mission, those employees would pick them up by car after it ended.
Well, it could be a friend instead of an employee, but don't expect someone with a twisted personality like this magical girl's to factor human affection into the equation.
-Stare...
"...There wasn't any rain in the forecast."
[You mean the humans' weather forecast, right? Weather can never be predicted perfectly.]
"I'd like to finish before it starts pouring, if possible..."
A magical girl wouldn't catch a cold from getting rained on, but I couldn't help feeling unpleasant about it.
The costume I wore during transformation disappeared automatically when I de-transformed and reappeared intact the next time I transformed, but the moisture clinging to my body didn't vanish completely, leaving me feeling just as clammy.
I hadn't brought an umbrella when I came out in the first place, so the moment I de-transformed, my regular clothes would get soaked too.
'What a life...'
I sighed inwardly, manipulated the starlight beneath my feet, and began flying as quietly as possible toward the location of the next Nightmare.
I didn't want to wake people up for no reason and end up with even more nasty comments.
I didn't care in the slightest what the public thought of Alice, but I had no desire to go out of my way to increase her number of antis.
Unless I was quietly forgotten and faded away, deliberately drawing attention in a negative way would only make things more troublesome, wouldn't it?
"Groooooan..."
"Another one."
-Fssssss...
Intangible Abyss monsters didn't possess physical bodies, so if you let your guard down, they could slip through walls and escape like ghosts.
A magical girl could surround herself with magic and grab them, but ordinary people couldn't touch them in the first place and could barely perceive them. In the case of these 'Nightmares' especially, if the mascots failed to detect them, they would multiply in an instant and evolve into a higher-grade individual.
In other words, once you detected one, you had to pull it out by the roots if you wanted it to stay quiet for a while.
And even setting that reason aside, I particularly hated Nightmares among all the Abyss monsters.
Why?
As someone who periodically suffered from nightmares and insomnia, I had ample reason to hate monsters that caused nightmares.
Their very existence was utterly loathsome and repulsive.
-Tap tap
"Bunny. I think we're nearly done cleaning. Do you sense anything?"
[Hmm... It doesn't seem like there are any more around here! Good work!]
"Let's see... The time..."
[It's 2:58 a.m.!]
"At any rate, I did finish before three."
-Flap flap
When I flapped my clothes, a cool breeze reached the spots damp with sweat from all the running around.
This was a luxury I could indulge in only because there was no one around at this hour.
People wanted magical girls to be perfect idols, almost like celebrities. They didn't particularly want to see such human, image-breaking behavior.
Well, not every magical girl adopted the pure-and-delicate beauty-girl concept... Some took on mature and alluring concepts, while others went for bold and easygoing ones, so magical girls of the latter type might not have cared about something like this.
Alice didn't qualify, though.
'What a bizarre concept. A white-haired beauty who refers to herself in the third person and loves everyone.'
Whoever had come up with it had created a remarkably unrealistic concept.
'Isn't that right, Bunny?'
[I-I think it's fine by mascot standards...]
'Do you know what people call it? A concept freak. A concept freak.'
If you stick to the concept, they bitch and call you a concept freak. If you don't, they bitch that you've lost your original spirit.
What a bunch of people with endless complaints.
-Churn...
"Ugh..."
At the familiar sensation of something disgusting crawling down from my brain, I braced myself against the wall, pulled emergency medicine from my pocket, and shook it into my mouth.
It was a sensation I never got used to, no matter how many times I experienced it.
[Breathe slowly and deeply. I've confirmed that there are no CCTV cameras or people nearby.]
"Hoo... Huuuu..."
I closed my eyes and clenched and unclenched my fingers as usual, and thankfully, the sensation was forcibly washed away before long.
"If you're sure there's nothing around, deactivate the transformation."
[O-Okay.]
-Pop
The transformation deactivated without any unnecessarily flashy effects, and I returned to my usual gloomy appearance.
It was a truly shabby form for Alice's true identity—the girl whose long, lustrous white hair and star-blue eyes sparkled.
-Step...
"...Let's go out to the street and call a taxi."
[Um... But, Sejin? The clouds look ominous, and it's about to...]
-Drip... drip...
"...Oh."
…Rain.
There had been a time when I liked it.
Not because I liked it myself, but because someone else had.
"...Disgusting."
-Patter patter...
On days like this, when it was difficult to get home, I sometimes considered flying near my house as Alice, de-transforming, and going home from there.
But I rejected the idea because I didn't want to increase the connection between 'Alice' and 'Han Sejin' even slightly.
Even the tiniest clue—the sort of thing people commonly thought, 'What's the big deal?' about—could become a sharp shard of glass that tore through the veil of lies and revealed the truth.
To hide the truth perfectly with lies, you needed an obsession.
An obsession bordering on illness.
* * *
[Boss. I'll quit this part-time job after working through yesterday. Please send me the pay for the eight days I worked along with my severance pay.]
"Who the hell asks for severance pay after working eight days!"
-Bam!
After quitting her company, she had opened a convenience store with the hope of doing something with her savings, but all that increased these days were the wrinkles on her forehead.
Perhaps it was because she had recently realized that it wasn't only customers who could be troublemakers; part-time employees could be troublemakers too.
After the part-timer she had barely managed to find left irresponsibly, she had to cancel even her long-standing plans with her friends and mind the store herself.
'I did put up a hiring notice, but... sigh... When will someone apply...?'
It was already difficult to find part-time workers these days, and she had no idea when someone might come after seeing the posting she had only just put up...
-Jingle jingle
"Welcome!"
"Um... I saw the job posting outside and came in."
'Already?!'
The applicant had arrived so unexpectedly quickly that she raised her head to examine the woman, and once again, she couldn't help being flustered.
'Why would someone like this be working part-time at a convenience store...?'
She had met several handsome or pretty part-timers before, but even she found this case difficult to understand.
Her age... Judging by her looks, she was a college student? If one guessed younger, she might even have been below that age, but she strongly gave off the impression of a fresh-faced freshman.
She was a little on the short side, but her overall impression was cute, so that only served as a charming point.
Her bust, which stood out more than her height, contrasted with everything mentioned above, advertising its own charm and presence.
Honestly, she looked like someone who should be a model or actress rather than a convenience-store worker...
"Are you still hiring?"
"Y-Yes! Of course!"
In any case, it was already statistically proven that employing an attractive worker in this line of business caused sales to skyrocket.
In that sense, it would be a considerable shame to let go of someone whose appearance was not merely above average, but so memorable that it would be difficult to forget her after a single glance.
"Wow... What a relief. I needed to find a new part-time job anyway... and one opened up right in front of my house..."
"Here are the conditions... If there's anything you'd like to negotiate, just tell me. I'll try to accommodate you as much as possible."
"Really? Wow, you're incredibly kind, Boss!"
"Of course I should meet you partway. I'm the one who should be asking you for a favor."
-Beaming
And in truth, even if the applicant hadn't been attractive, finding a part-timer as quickly as possible was more important to her.
Her plans with her friends had ended in mere disappointment... but a family trip they had only just managed to schedule for this week was at risk of being canceled.
"Then... may I ask your name?"
"Oh. I'm Kim Sina!"
"The hours would be from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. You'll be working overnight; is that all right?"
"I often work late into the night anyway. Hehe."
The two continued their negotiations smoothly and without incident, and were able to seal the deal without any trouble.
It would be good news for the customers who mainly visited the convenience store during those hours, giving their eyes something pleasant to look at,
but someone who didn't care about such things might frown at the fact that the employee had changed again.