NOVEL NEXT That night.
I set my smartphone by the bedside with the alarm clock.
After jamming my prepared earplugs in, I set the perfect conditions for a cozy sleep.
Before heading to school, I made sure my lunch was in the fridge.
You might think 9 PM is too early to lie in bed, but this little body demands more sleep.
When the right time came, the wave of drowsiness hit me; it couldn’t be explained otherwise.
The body of a child feels uncomfortably strange.
“….”
I had a dream.
It was a space filled with monsters, the location unknown.
I was engulfed in a sense of exhilaration, surrounded by pools of blood with a bright smile as I set everything ablaze.
It was a dream where I lay upon a mountain of corpses, enjoying a peaceful deep sleep.
Ah, this is it.
This is truly the peace I longed for….
“Mary!”
“Ugh…?”
I was pulled back to reality immediately.
The all-black scenery slowly shifted my mind from the dream back to reality.
Siyeon’s hand, shaking my arm where I lay, reminded me that the earlier scene was just a dream.
I wanted to dream just a little longer.
Dreams are where everything can be overlooked, even things that shouldn’t be happening.
Still, I really wish I could slice through monsters like that just once.
No blood would come out, but hey, it’d relieve some stress.
“Haaah….”
I pushed aside the desires I felt in the dream for a moment, yawned briefly, and then turned my body halfway, peeking with one eye.
Looking at the stairs leading up to the second floor of the bed, I saw Siyeon peeking out, her expression looking somewhat uneasy.
I lost one of my earplugs while tossing about, then I asked Siyeon.
“What’s wrong, is something up…?”
“I hear a baby crying.”
“A baby crying…?”
The eerie reply that came back was that a baby’s cry could be heard.
Before I could ask if she heard a ghost or something, it came—
“Aoowww—”
A sound reminiscent of a baby’s cry came from behind the curtains.
Hearing it ring out consistently at short intervals, it was clearly a cat’s meow.
It seemed that the unpleasant lower-pitched sound of meowing had been mistaken for a baby crying.
If one hadn’t heard it much, it could surely be heard that way.
“It’s the sound of a cat, a cat.”
“…Really?”
I waved my hand dismissively as if it was nothing while Siyeon sought confirmation again.
“Yeah, really.”
I said it with such certainty that I could almost swear it wasn’t a lie, but then Siyeon seemed to hesitate to head down.
Then she wondered what to say, and it went…
“I want earplugs too.”
“….”
Hearing Siyeon’s request for earplugs, my intent to lie back down abruptly halted.
I thought they wouldn’t be necessary, so I only brought one pair of earplugs.
For her to ask for them was like saying, “Hand over the last bit of sleep you have left for today.”
“Just press down here and stick them in your ears.”
After fidgeting around, I found the earplug that had fallen out of my ear and, blinking my sleepy eyes, I fitted them into Siyeon’s ear holes.
With that, Siyeon exited to the first floor of the bed.
Once the last earplug was gone too, the quiet noise that had surrounded me mercilessly pounced on the eardrums in both my ears.
“Meowww-!!”
“Damn….”
The sharp, piercing sound of a cat’s meow from beyond the curtains and window scratched at my ears.
Sleep was entirely out of the question now.
Desperate for some information, I turned on my smartphone.
As the bright screen of the smartphone struck my groggy eyes with maximum brightness, it involuntarily made me squint one eye shut.
I searched again for the keyword “Cat mom eradication.”
Filtering through methods that those under 14 can’t do or similar crimes mentioned in a spur of anger, I barely found a good solution.
“Capture trap?”
Attached was a link to purchase a trap made of iron bars, a kind-hearted eradication post.
It rambled on a bit, but the crux was that capturing for relocation was not illegal.
My sleepy eyes widened at the solution, and my mind snapped back to full clarity.
“Oho.”
“This is it.”
With a small movement, I snapped my fingers together, making a short sound.
This is it.
There’s no other way.
I looked at the upper right corner of my smartphone to check the time.
It was 2:47 AM.
Truly, the best time for not a soul to wander in this shabby apartment.
As I stepped down the stairs of the bed and opened the closet.
Clunk, the sound of a magnet dropping echoed as I opened the closet.
Along with that sound, which needn’t ring out at this hour, I detected a presence behind me.
“What are you doing at this hour?”
There was no need to turn around; the owner of the voice was the stuffed bear.
I treated the surprised voice with indifference and, as if it were normal, grabbed my mask.
“I’ve come up with a sudden plan. If not now, I couldn’t pull it off.”
“What exactly are you planning to do…?”
“Operation, Comfortable Night.”
“??”
The bear looked confused, tilting its head despite hearing my response.
It’s pitiful how dull it is to not realize a grand plan name like that.
In the end, it got dragged outside still on my shoulder.
The cat yowls, which had been loud until just now, abruptly fell silent the moment a human presence was felt at the entrance.
At least it had some sense.
Arrogant little beasts.
“Sun.”
With a brief activation phrase, I stretched my fingers, cracking my knuckles.
The confused bear clung to my shoulder and frantically expressed its bewilderment by pulling at my clothes.
“No, if you transform here…!”
“It’s fine. I’m wearing a mask and no one is watching.”
That’s precisely why I said it was something I couldn’t do unless it were at this time.
I wouldn’t need a capture trap in transformed form.
Today, I’d undoubtedly show those beasts that the powers of a Magical Girl could be misused for personal gains.
“Where are you hiding—?”
When a cat decides to run at full speed, catching it is no small feat.
Of course, this is the standard for a regular person.
But now that I’ve transformed into a Magical Girl, it’s nothing more than chasing after a running ant.
“Haahh-! Haahh-!”
I could carry at most two in my arms.
Successfully capturing one black-furred cat from the flower bed.
And one orange-furred cat, innocently munching on its food at the entrance without realizing a person was coming.
With both of them clinging to my shoulders, I bent my legs, completed my warm-up, and flew high into the sky.
Just before taking off, those little beasts were scratching my arms with their claws and hissing.
But the moment I took off, they seemed to freeze as if time had stopped, fully aware they’d be in big trouble if they were let go in this state.
Is this instinct from the wild? Amazing.
Who knew they’d recognize their situation so quickly?
“Phew.”
‘This should be enough, right?’
I released the two of them on a hiking path away from the apartment, and returned once again.
Even when they were frozen stiff, they flailed as the ground neared, scampering off as soon as I let them go.
Three trips back and forth like that, and—
‘They’re not gathering here anymore.’
The first-floor entrance became empty.
The meowing had noticeably decreased.
Since it seemed that the place where food and water bowls were placed had turned into a trap, the cats showed no intention of appearing at the entrance anymore.
And yet, do they think I can’t find them?
There are obvious places where those beasts could hide.
“I found you—”
No matter how muddy they got, I squeezed into spaces that even an adult would have trouble entering and caught all those pesky cats.
Under the first-floor balcony of the apartment, meticulously checking every nook and cranny.
Once again, after three trips along the apartment and hiking trail, I steadily reduced the number of cats.
“Phew, I’m done!”
After taking care of the raucous strays, I prepared to head back inside with a refreshing laugh that could even be felt through my mask.
I didn’t know how much time remained before school, but surely I could manage a quick nap before the alarm rang.
“Ughhh-!”
Letting out a sound like an uncle while stretching my body, I took in the beautiful world with a blue sky, the bright sun shining down from below the horizon.
Checking the time, it was 4:41 AM, not quite early enough to be called dawn.
As I realized I had only provided a cat movement service for over an hour, everything felt empty.
But then again, I’d hopefully be able to sleep soundly starting tomorrow, so a sense of relief wrapped around me.
However, that was, of course, only concerning the comfort to come tomorrow.
It was an undeniable fact that I had completely ruined tonight’s sleep.
“Mary, the dawn has come.”
The stuffed bear dutifully emphasized that undeniable fact.
Having confirmed my death sentence, the refreshing feeling abruptly sank into the depths of despair.
In such a situation, all I could do was….
“Damn it.”
Just curses.