Chapter 15
A few days after the walking incident.
After a sudden summons from my senior, I headed to the university lab—
“Senior, I'm here.”
“Oh, you're here.”
As always, my senior was sitting in a chair drinking coffee,
and beside her stood Ms. Chaeyeon, her squirrel ears perked up.
“Hi, Seolhwa. It's been a few days, huh?”
“Ms. Chaeyeon? What brings you here?”
When I wondered about such an unusual combination, my senior took a sip of coffee and spoke.
“I called you. I heard you two had met before.”
“You two know each other?”
When I asked, still bewildered, Ms. Chaeyeon hugged Narae and said,
“Yeah. We're university classmates and best friends.”
“We're not that close. We're just acquaintances.”
“Seriously…. You're so aloof.”
“Don't poke my cheek.”
Ms. Chaeyeon playfully approached my senior, swishing her squirrel tail and poking her cheek.
And my senior defended herself with the file binder beside her.
Just as Ms. Chaeyeon had said, they did seem to be close.
If I did that, my senior would have gotten angry and melted me….
"If you keep this up, I'll scream again."
“We're not even in an alley, so calling me a pervert again won't do you any good, you know?”
“Tch.”
A pervert?
Now that I thought about it, Ms. Chaeyeon had said last time that a rumor about her playing around with a friend had gotten blown out of proportion when she'd been mistaken for a pervert….
Was that friend my senior...? Small world….
“Anyway, the reason I called you is to conduct an experiment to awaken your abilities as a Snow Woman.”
Snow Woman abilities…?
“Um…. Aside from the penalty of rapidly losing stamina during the day, I had an ability?”
If possible, I'd like to get rid of this ability… no, this debuff.
Thinking that, I looked at my senior, who met my gaze with an exasperated look and spoke.
“...Idiot. Don't you remember exhaling an icy breath on your first day?”
Ah, now that she mentioned it, that had happened.
I hadn't managed to do it even once since then, so I'd forgotten….
“If you could do that, you should be able to do other things too. Like her.”
My senior said that while pointing at Ms. Chaeyeon beside her.
Ms. Chaeyeon was a somewhat strange variant mutant called Squirrel Thunder who could generate electricity from her body.
She'd even charged my phone with that ability last time….
Then I could make ice from my body too…!
Make it….
Uh….
“...What would I use ice for after making it?”
No matter how I thought about it, making ice from my body seemed like an inferior version of a refrigerator….
“Hahaha…. Seolhwa, don't think of it as simply making ice like a water purifier.”
Ms. Chaeyeon said that while extending her hand and running electricity through it.
“This is basically a superpower like the ones you see in manga, so you can use it in all sorts of ways.”
When Ms. Chaeyeon finished speaking, the electricity in her hand wound around her arm, then spread until sparks were crackling all over her body.
C-Cool…!
“If you train properly, you'll be able to use cool techniques like in manga. Though it'll depend on you.”
Oh-ho….
So could I learn to use it in some cool way too…?
“But don't learn it just to add a new party trick. It's also for self-defense.”
“For self-defense?”
“I heard you thought she was a demon last time and begged her to let you live?”
“Ugh…. That….”
“At least if you learn something like this, you'll be able to deal with situations like that more flexibly. Your ability to fight has gotten incredibly weak, after all.”
She wasn't wrong, but did she really have to use someone else's dark history as an example…?
Somehow, my senior seemed more like a demon than anyone….
“I don't want my valuable test subject to get hurt, either. You should at least acquire the ability to defend yourself.
And learning that ability should help with my research, too.”
Test subject….
That wasn't wrong, but the word had an unpleasant connotation….
While I was feeling uneasy about the term test subject, Ms. Chaeyeon beside me said with a wry smile,
"You really are a tsundere. You say that, but deep down you're worried about your precious junior—"
"Shut up."
"Agh?!"
Before Ms. Chaeyeon could finish speaking, my senior yanked hard on her tail, and Ms. Chaeyeon collapsed on the spot, apparently in tremendous pain.
I don't have a tail, so I can't really tell, but it looks painful….
“Come to think of it, there's something I'm curious about.”
“What?”
“Before, you said you were going to study me because you didn't have a research subject, but couldn't you have asked Ms. Chaeyeon?”
“Well, I did consider that…. But she's smarter than she looks, so she wouldn't fall for it…. I mean, she simply refused.”
Aha…. So after she refused, you ended up making a contract with me…?
I feel like I heard a bothersome word in there, but that must just be my imagination.
Mhm, I'm not stupid, after all.
...Right?
====
Thus, with my senior Narae and the squirrel mutant Chaeyeon watching, I began training to awaken my Snow Woman abilities, but….
“Nngh…!”
The problem was that neither of them had any idea how to awaken my Snow Woman abilities.
For now, following Ms. Chaeyeon's suggestion that something might come out if I simply strained, I stretched out my arm and exerted myself, but….
“How is it? Do you feel like anything's about to come out?”
“I-I can feel my arm going numb….”
Apparently, my arm had gone numb from holding it out for so long.
Worse, there wasn't even a sign of cold air, much less ice.
“Strange…. Ordinary mutants can use their abilities so easily….”
Even Ms. Chaeyeon, who had been watching me, seemed a little flustered.
I'd heard that mutants could mutate according to their species and awaken abilities.
For example, the dragon mutant I'd seen before knew how to breathe fire, while the gumiho are said to be able to use illusions.
For some reason, it wasn't working for me….
“C-couldn't you give me some kind of tip…?”
“Even if you call it a tip…. I only ever did exercises to control my excess electricity….”
...Must I feel the difference in talent even here?
What exactly was a Snow Woman's advantage…? No, could I even make ice at all?
Maybe that breath I let out before had just been unusual….
“I brought her along thinking she'd be helpful, but she's completely useless….”
“Ugh…. Then do you have any good ideas, graduate student in xenobiology?”
At Ms. Chaeyeon's sarcasm, my senior took another sip of coffee.
“Well, I only studied the theory, so I don't know the details, but…. I think Seolhwa is lacking an image.”
“An image?”
“An image of using your ability. You were just straining without thinking at all until now, weren't you?”
Whoa. How did she know?
Could Narae really read minds after all…?
“...It's just that your thoughts are too obvious. Anyway, that's not important.”
My senior drank her coffee and continued.
“I looked through some materials while you were fooling around like that, and apparently drawing an image in your mind is important.”
As she said that, my senior handed me the materials.
“To summarize, it would be better if you tried to use your ability while imagining yourself using your Snow Woman powers.”
“Me using my ability….”
Me using ice powers….
Powerful and cool me….
Competent, powerful me, freely using ice powers….
“Hmm…. I can't really picture it….”
“Don't you feel like there's something strange about the image you're imagining?”
I tried to picture myself using my ability, but I couldn't imagine it very well.
No matter how I imagined it, all I could picture was myself failing….
“Hmm…. What if we gave you a staff or something to create the image of casting magic?”
“That's not a bad idea. If we even dressed you up like in manga, it would be easier to create the image.”
That would definitely make it easier to imagine, but….
This talk of dressing up couldn't possibly mean….
“For now, let's find something that will make it easier for Seolhwa to imagine herself using magic.”
I had an uneasy feeling about it, but for the time being, I decided to find props to create the image, just as my senior had suggested.
======
So we brought in some items to help evoke the image and put them on, but….
“...I-Is this really right? Do I really have to wear something like this to use my ability…?”
“Oh, it definitely gives you the image of being able to use magic, so it'll work. Probably.”
“B-but I'm so embarrassed I could die…?!”
At first, I was handed a magic wand to create the image of casting magic.
That was manageable enough, but….
When Senior Narae suggested that I should get an outfit too, we voted on what kind would be best,
and after various opinions about different outfits were offered, I somehow ended up cosplaying as a magical girl.
I want to die from embarrassment…!!
“Pfft…. A-At least the image is perfect….”
“Seolhwa, you're so cute!”
Senior Narae's snickering and Ms. Chaeyeon's sparkling eyes as she called me cute only made me feel even worse.
Ah…. What am I even doing…?
I used to be a man, but somehow became a woman, got forcibly put in a dress, and finally ended up in this floaty magical-girl outfit….
In so many ways, I felt as though I'd lost a great deal of myself, and today in particular, I really wanted to die.
“...I don't have to do this every time I use my ability, right?”
“Don't worry. After a try or two, you'll get used to it and be able to use it normally.”
That was at least a relief….
“...I've gone this far, so if I can't use my ability, I'm really going to get angry.”
Since I'd already put it on and was embarrassed enough to want to die, I wanted to at least gain the ability properly.
...Otherwise, all I'd have done was cosplay as a magical girl at the school I attended.
“Phew….”
I extended the magic wand my senior had given me and concentrated.
Image, image….
An image of condensing my ability, like Ms. Chaeyeon….
Using ice as a medium instead of electricity….
...Aha! It came to me…!
“E-Eternal Blizzard!!”
When I shouted the name of the technique that had come to me with all my might, cold air like a blizzard began swirling around my arm.
Soon, the cold air gathered in my hand and grew, then burst with a bang, covering half of my senior's laboratory in snow and freezing it over.
Is this… my ability?
“It worked…! It worked, senior!”
I turned around in delight at finally succeeding….
“......Th-the labo…. ra…. tory…….”
My senior stood there with unfocused pupils, gazing at the laboratory in despair.
“A-amazing…. What do we do about this….”
Ms. Chaeyeon was also dumbfounded after seeing my ability, but the frozen laboratory seemed to be a bigger problem than the ability itself.
Uh…. Oh…. What do I do at a time like this….
“...Th-thank you for your hard work!”
I instinctively sensed that my senior would kill me if I stayed there, so I immediately fled outside the laboratory.
That day, photos of my blue magical-girl cosplay circulated online.
...I want to die.