NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40 – The Line We Must Protect (10)
“Is that…?”
“With Kim Soo-han…?”
The annoying whispers tickled my ears again. I dropped my pen and slouched in my chair.
Kim Soo-jung was still absent from the next seat, and I was all alone. The kidnap victim Kim Soo-han was also nowhere to be seen, and neither was that jerk Park Tae-jun.
Thanks to that, I was left alone to be the center of all the attention at school, taking all the aggro and tanking on my own. Everywhere I went, there were kids sneaking glances at me and making surprised faces as if they had seen something disgusting.
[These days, everyone keeps talking about juvenile offenders. Wouldn’t it be okay to just kill them? I could easily handle more than half of them here. Kids these days are really cunning.]
“Please, please… Ugh!”
The stress kept piling up, and I was only getting more irritated. I crumpled Ren in my hands, desperately trying to calm myself down.
At this point, I couldn’t help but feel disillusioned about the fundamental issue.
Why was I even doing this? I had come here to enjoy my leisure after feeling nostalgic for my hometown back on Earth.
But what was my current situation? The nostalgia for my homeland was being shattered by monsters and criminal organizations, and I was busy running around doing Magical Girl stuff to deal with those who disturbed my peace instead of having fun.
[I should’ve gone with the first plan. If I caught someone and threatened them with their life, they’d have happily brought me their identity, drinks, and anything else.]
“Don’t say that.”
Ren, crumpled in my hands, resisted, but I wouldn’t let it go. It was too late to turn back now, and there was no answer.
I was so pissed that I burst out of the classroom the moment the break started.
“…Huh?”
Though the hallways were more crowded with people who didn’t know me, I felt it wouldn’t take long for the news to spread throughout the entire school.
Just as I was coming back from the convenience store, someone appeared in front of me.
“Senior, what’s going on all of a sudden?”
“You were so confident in the car during our first meeting. How does it feel now that everyone is whispering and glancing at you?”
“Not particularly.”
A stiff-faced Hong Soo-young straightforwardly spoke. Her earlier serious advice about possibly struggling on the bus had turned out to be spot on. I had ignored her, though.
“…Stop lying.”
She sighed as she watched two female students pass us by, glancing at us quickly.
“This is the gaze we’ve always received. Disgust, curiosity, prejudice. How does it feel experiencing it firsthand? Isn’t it unfair?”
“Oh, so you came here to tease me?”
“I’m here to help you, just in case.”
She shook her head with a gloomy face. The white gloves on one hand fidgeted.
I realized that while I had yet to be harmed, she hadn’t been so lucky. She was an actual victim of illegal biological experiments, and she had received more discrimination and hatred than comfort and care.
Just a 15-year-old.
“Crazy world.”
I muttered quietly. I had seen it since the “Magical Girl” thing started, but this world was indeed insane. But was my Earth really that different?
“You don’t need to worry, Senior. I have a steel mentality.”
“You…”
“It’s true. So take care of yourself first. I’ll accept your concern gratefully.”
The ones I really needed to worry about were the foolish kids teetering on the edge of crossing the line. I might have to take care of those who spread nonsense before it gets worse.
Sipping on my juice, I passed by a surprised Hong Soo-young and returned to class.
But until I crossed the threshold of the classroom, I didn’t expect that some kids were already crossing the line.
“Wow. Did the seating arrangement change while I was gone?”
“You, go sit over there and attend class. We’ll talk to the teachers.”
As I stepped into the classroom, I couldn’t help but chuckle. A dense magic leaked from my body. I wasn’t angry at the kids; I was just annoyed.
“Just so you know, it was on public news!”
The kids, oppressed by my aura, turned pale and struggled to breathe, but one kid with the kind of courage fitting a hero stood up.
One of the girls who used to hang out with Kim Soo-jung stared right at me with trembling eyes.
Unfortunately, that courage was misdirected.
“Public news? That’s funny. So what did they say?”
“Since it’s the first experiment to yield results, we don’t know what side effects may occur. If we’re not going to isolate them, we need to keep our distance from the victims and be thoroughly prepared…”
“Ah, I see.”
I realized that the number of people I wanted to kill was increasing. If a cyber minor lucked out with a good job, it could be them.
I smiled slightly and took my desk from the back of the classroom.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m warning you not to do anything stupid. What’s the point of this? It’s not like we’re isolating anyone. If I really had to split open their heads, cut open their skulls, and insert electrodes into their brain to follow their commands, then—”
With every word I spoke, the terrified kids began to stagger and tear up, but I didn’t care.
“You guys would be dead in a few seconds. Your necks would snap, your bellies pierced, and your limbs severed.”
“Ugh, uaaah!”
Eventually, some kids couldn’t take my murderous intent and broke into tears. I didn’t feel sorry at all. I had spared them this once, so there was no reason for them to escape punishment just because they were young.
“Go prepare for class. Oh… Min-jung.”
I read her name tag and called her name. She bit her lip and could only return to her seat, speechless.
“Good decision. But… it seems there’s a reason the other victims can’t come to school.”
Ren, sitting at my desk, tapped my arm. I ignored it and started scrolling on my phone.
I needed to find the officials from the state-run broadcasting company who had inflicted damage and humiliation on me with their stupid news. I was already in a bad mood lately, and they were giving me more reasons to explode.
[Magical Girl sounds nice. Since they’re all already deserving of death, it’s convenient for me to rampage as I please.]
“…Yeah. That’s right.”
Ren, unable to stop me from saying I would kill these kids, bitterly smiled and looked down.
How ironic. I had killed a handful of humans when I lived as the Demon King, but as a Magical Girl, I’d already reached three figures.
*
“What about the kids who were experimented on? Are they okay?”
“Well…”
Takilas, currently in class with the female student Lee Jin-ah, was getting irritated at this moment.
Meanwhile, the Magical Girl Aria, still in the hospital, was inquiring about the experiment subjects to the head of the Management Bureau, Oh Yoon-seo.
“It’s tough. Their methods are so brutal that we can’t approach them yet; we’ve only managed to contain them.”
Heo Seung-hoon, a physician and state-certified Magical Girl researcher, shook his head at her words.
“They’re cutting open skulls and implanting dozens of chips into their brains to control them. By now, their minds must be shattered. Even if we remove the chips, they would be empty shells, as if their souls are gone. We couldn’t save them…”
He lowered his head in a somber voice. As Aria covered her eyes with her arm, she couldn’t suppress her rage and ground her teeth.
Recently, it had become too frequent that things hadn’t been going her way. It was the first time she felt that even the power of an S-ranked Magical Girl was insufficient.
‘Takilas!’
She knew the cause.
The rookie Magical Girl Takilas, who suddenly appeared like a comet.
But the dark-haired girl, who wouldn’t stop the slaughter, was accumulating increasingly rough labels.
Grim Reaper from Hell, Demon Girl, Psychopath Witch, and so on.
She was in the process of rewriting all the records.
“What about the bet with Takilas… how did that go?”
“I’m not sure. Mamute has recently appeared in Shanghai, China, and killed dozens of people there. Meanwhile, we managed to find their facility, albeit as tails. However…”
Aria paused to sigh.
“In the end, we lost; we were on the verge of dying, and it was Takilas who saved us.”
It was clear that there were opponents Takilas hadn’t killed. But she was the only one saved for no apparent reason.
Holding onto the memory of that time, Aria frowned. Technically, she had won the bet, but she couldn’t muster the courage to confidently tell Takilas that.
“No, you won the bet. That girl Takilas has to comply.”
Oh Yoon-seo comforted her with encouraging words.
“Rest well. Everything has been taken care of.”
“But what about that organization…”
“It’s an international organization. For now, let’s just be satisfied with taking down the Korean branch.”
After Oh Yoon-seo and Heo Seung-hoon left the room, Aria lay there in a daze, staring at the sunset until the sun went down.
“…That girl Takilas has never killed any Magical Girls. The companies don’t have any reason to intervene.”
“She’s neither a psychopath nor insane. I know that even though she kills many people, she certainly doesn’t kill just anyone.”
“If that girl isn’t crazy, then who the hell is?”
The mascot Lulu mumbled in disbelief. However, Aria shook her head.
“She feels almost inhuman. A deeper, heavier, colder existence.”
Aria remembered the moment Takilas saved her from going on a rampage.
The moment that revealed the authority of the Demon King. After witnessing that moment, she couldn’t hide her confusion.