LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 47
“Why?”
The first words that came out of Ji-hye’s mouth were that.
In front of her were people who were supposed to protect the citizens.
Of course, nothing could be perfect. There isn’t a country in the world where law enforcement is flawlessly executed and crime rates sit at ‘0’.
But still.
Still, that shouldn’t be the case.
“Why did you do this?”
Without directing it specifically at anyone, she asked like that.
A few police officers around Ji-hye reached out to help her, but she merely looked at their hands and said,
“You guys hurt me. And you fought against the rampaging alien. You did what you couldn’t do, so why?”
For breaking the law?
She considered that could be a reason.
But still, was that really necessary?
Did she really think Ji-eun was responsible for what happened?
“Student. You seem really shocked right now—”
“Why did you do it?”
Ji-hye shouted at a middle-aged man who approached her as if to help.
“You helped me! Did it have to go down like this!?”
She repeated herself countless times.
Suddenly standing up, she grabbed the man’s clothes. He was wearing a bulletproof vest underneath a black shirt.
Did Ji-eun shoot a gun or something? Is that why he’s dressed like that?
As the police approached, trying to pull Ji-hye away, the man raised one hand to intervene and calmly said,
“Hold on.”
Then, looking at Ji-hye, he said steadily,
“The opponent wasn’t just an ordinary person, student. They were armed and were in the midst of a fight just moments ago—”
“They fought for me!”
Ji-hye shouted.
“They fought for me! After taking all those hits and falling down!”
Her gaze was firmly fixed on the person in front of her. Naturally, her voice was directed that way too.
But the meaning of her words felt as if it was directed towards herself.
“That’s a righteous act! So are you guys going to point guns at magical girls too!? Are you going to throw water over their heads!?”
“While the outfits might be similar, it cannot be said that girl is a magical girl—”
“…Can I speak instead?”
The police officer, trying to remain calm and raise both hands slightly as if to soothe Ji-hye, fell silent as he noticed the magical girl speaking to them.
And he seemed to find it better that way, letting his hands drop.
Ji-hye also released the man.
Her vacant eyes were directed towards Blossom.
“…Ji-hye.”
“Are you familiar with her?”
“Yes… She’s Ji-eun’s friend.”
“Oh.”
The man’s expression changed to a somewhat ambiguous one upon that explanation.
The name ‘Jeong Ji-eun’ was not just a strange name to the police present. It had been discussed enough over the past month to be considered a household name.
Some were so intent that they’d attack if they felt namedrop was necessary.
Although Ji-eun’s face had appeared on the news, it was typically obscured by mosaic. It seemed they had heard about the situation, but the special unit rarely inquired further. They usually only knew about the enemies they were meant to subdue.
In the first place, they didn’t seek out work for themselves; they acted only when alerted to a situation that needed handling. Information regarding accomplices typically came only at that time.
Taking a step back was due to realizing that no matter what was said now, Ji-hye wouldn’t be persuaded.
“You…”
Ji-hye was about to say something to Ha-yoon but then fell silent.
“How could you…?”
“….”
Ha-yoon’s mind went blank for a moment after hearing those words.
Objectively speaking, she hadn’t attacked Ji-eun today. Instead, they had fought together, and that was how they had managed to win.
Blaming herself for being late didn’t quite make sense—
But that wasn’t likely what she was referring to.
More than that.
“Ji-eun… that way…”
Her eyes were trembling.
It was clear that what Ji-hye was saying wasn’t coming from a rational state. She simply wished to place the blame on someone else in a moment of panic.
“Until now, Ji-eun…”
As Ji-hye spoke, her legs gave out beneath her.
Ha-yoon quickly caught her.
Should she help her stand? But Ji-hye was in no state for that at all. On closer inspection, there were ugly bruises forming on her lower neck.
Knowing it wasn’t just a simple mental shock, Ha-yoon quickly crouched down in front of Ji-hye.
“No, no…”
Ji-hye clutched her head with both hands.
“I didn’t want this. Why did it have to turn out like this?”
Tears flowed down from both of her eyes.
Ha-yoon’s heart sank.
She too was thinking that very same thought.
Why?
Why?
Even without a shot fired, it could have ended well. Because Ha-yoon was there. The police weren’t oblivious to that relationship.
Wasn’t it something that had been blasted across the news repeatedly? The thing about having a magical girl deceive and remain beside a terrorist.
“….”
Biting her lip as tears threatened to spill over.
Even now, Ji-eun’s voice seemed to echo in her ears.
The sight of her rampaging and trampling vehicles replayed vividly.
She must have wanted that for a long time.
And she likely didn’t want it to just end there.
She probably wanted to smash the face of the person who shot her. Must have thought about wanting to end everything.
That was a voice she had never heard before. Not just from Ji-eun, but from everyone she had ever encountered.
She hadn’t known.
No, she must have known. She had probably pretended not to know. Lost in self-pity, focused only on her worries, simply choosing to ignore it.
“Ji-hye, for now, let’s calm down, okay?”
“Ji-eun, what do we do? What should we do? Can’t we go back?”
Yet, when Ji-hye’s next question came, Ha-yoon finally couldn’t hold back any longer.
Ji-hye clutched Ha-yoon’s arm tightly and looked up at her.
Then she asked desperately,
“What should we do? If we get caught, will it be prison? Why? Was it really Ji-eun who did that? No, right?”
No. That wasn’t the case at all.
Yet Ha-yoon couldn’t voice that right now.
If she spoke without sufficient evidence about the magical girl, it would cause considerable trouble for the higher-ups—
“…”
Disgusting.
Someone inside her whispered softly.
Still, with such words, huh.
The whispering person was Ha-yoon herself.
The part of her deep down, the part of Ha-yoon that had been turning away from the truth.
Every single time she had made excuses and simply laid on her desk in Seoul, that was wrong.
She couldn’t say anything.
So what? Then Ji-eun needs to go to prison? For something she didn’t do, she’d just be treated like a terrorist?
…No. She had never thought that way.
Even if she hadn’t thought that, it was effectively the same.
Saying that she would stick to the rules was tantamount to saying it meant treating Ji-eun that way.
“…”
In the end, Ha-yoon couldn’t calm Ji-hye down.
The moment her colleague arrived, pulling Ji-hye away as she kept asking questions, their one-sided conversation finally came to an end.
But the thought that had emerged within Ha-yoon didn’t easily dissipate.
*
News about the new magical girl was not slowing down.
In a way, it was only natural.
The existence of a ‘magical girl’ was so rare in South Korea that there were hardly any to count. The mere addition of a new member would be big news, and yet the so-called ‘magical girl’ circulating in society wasn’t really the kind they thought.
A magical girl opposed to magical girls.
That was how people were saying it.
When she was first labeled a ‘terrorist’, the testimonies from her own schoolmates almost uniformly echoed, “I knew this would happen.”
Because she seemed ordinary, with a common appearance you could find anywhere, they hadn’t expected it. She seemed diligent and kind— such mundane testimonies didn’t even come out.
But now, whenever reporters sought responses and demanded testimonies, student reactions were somewhat different.
They didn’t say she had become kinder. They didn’t say she was ordinary.
They simply refused to testify.
In the beginning, the kids who had chattered excitedly suddenly fell silent.
And the reason for that change was crystal clear.
Fear.
No detailed information was disclosed to the public.
The little that was shared was already censored to some extent, so the masses didn’t know precisely what had happened.
They didn’t know that there had been warnings issued to prevent harm to anyone, nor did they know that efforts had been made to carry away those who had fainted.
They didn’t even know that the initial reason for attacking the alien was to rescue the hostages it had taken.
But within that controlled information, there was one entirely clear truth.
That ‘terrorist’ is a ‘magical girl’.
A magical girl who absolutely could not be called righteous, a capricious magical girl.
And that magical girl had never lost while fighting the ‘Federation’s magical girls’.
Even when she committed acts of terrorism, she boldly walked away after her escape. Despite numerous police chasing after her, she vanished without a trace, leaving behind large scars in the heart of Seoul.
She had stolen important items from the heart of the country’s largest corporation and casually made her escape.
She had fled solely relying on her own strength, even crumpling a police armored car like it was a piece of paper.
Summarizing all of that, the conclusion was simple.
There exists a being who can crush an armored car like a piece of paper, roaming freely in the current world.
A being with the potential power to tear people apart if they so wished, hidden away in a place where no one knows.
Those who testified against the ‘terrorist’ could only hold their breath. If they were to be found, they would be the next to be the ones to fold.
On the other hand, there were those who cheered.
Some believed that she was a being going against the regime that was changing this world. Those who were dissatisfied with the world in any manner, whether against the government or the entities beneath it, or those who deemed corporations evil, were cheering her on.
“…Damn it!”
And among the situation, the one most frustrated was—
“Didn’t you find James? What’s so hard about finding that little rat…!?”
—Of course, she was the one who created that situation.
The current chairwoman of the Noir Corporation.
The ‘former chairwoman’, now missing, was an alien with red skin, considerably younger than her older brother.
The appearance of a middle-aged woman with antennae might seem somewhat comical to humans, but right now, no one dared to laugh before her.
Not right now.
If they couldn’t capture the being who was currently tarnishing the company’s reputation, it wouldn’t be long before she would face ridicule, and be subjected to a hearing.
It was easy to escape the orders of this country.
But in doing so, she would soon become a target of the Federation’s pursuit. The reason she was able to remain safe was solely because she was considered important even by this country.
Deals are only valid above the planet. In order for it to be recognized outside the universe, the plan had to be executed all the way to the end right here.
Completing both circuits.
That was what the Federation desired. Failing to accomplish that and attempting to leave Earth would be treated as ‘escape’.
Moreover—
“Finding neither the chairwoman nor that rat, what can the Federation do…!”
“Didn’t you already know this!?”
Bang!
The chairwoman slammed her desk.
The man in front of her, with hair styled in a Mohican manner, flinched at the impact.
“Didn’t you know that was the case from the outset! Getting paid well and not being able to handle things properly! If you had treated it decisively from the start, we wouldn’t be in this situation!”
Regardless of anything else, that little rat had been with that ‘black magical girl’.
The hammer that the magical girl held was definitely the technology of the Squeaky Adults. With the power unique to circuits added to it, it truly exhibited ‘impossible’ firepower.
“…That magical girl. The combatant. Her name was Jeong Ji-eun, right?”
“Yes!”
The Mohican-styled man stood at attention and replied to the chairwoman’s words.
“Look for anyone useful around her. Someone who might show up if we take them hostage. I think I saw one last time.”
“…Chairwoman, no matter what, touching Earthlings is—”
“What do you think this company has been doing up till now!?”
The chairwoman frowned as she asked.
“What do you think this company does? We extract energy from Earthlings. That’s something even the authorities of this planet agreed upon, and most major corporations around the world are doing similar things. We’re siphoning energy far greater than that possessed by aliens, all of which belongs to the humans on this planet, right?”
The chairwoman sat back down, leaning into her chair.
“Those fools thought it was fine to fall away within their bounds. Do you think they would flinch if a few were sacrificed?”
“…”
The Mohican-headed man appeared somewhat dazed by her words.
“So let’s do this right. We’re a company, after all. We have to fulfill our customers’ demands.”
The chairwoman said with a somewhat weary expression.
“First, let’s draw out that magical girl and retrieve our company assets. If we can deal with her incidentally, so be it.”
She stared directly at the man as she said this.
“Ask the Federation for help too. She could potentially be classified as the very first Earth-born alien. If someone becomes an alien as a result of energy influence, there’s no reason to claim that the source of that energy isn’t an alien.”
“Given the current situation, if we seek more help…”
“What? Do you genuinely think we’d be at a disadvantage if the balance tips in that direction?”
The chairwoman scoffed as she said.
“We’re a company. One of our tasks is to search for better customers everywhere. Do you really think it matters on which side the money flows?”
“No, it’s not that…”
“If the core technology falls into the wrong hands…”
“Even then, the government can’t produce the production process directly. Someone has to take on the business contract, and the one who knows that technology best is us.”
“…”
“Is it peculiar to throw away chances like this just to dodge taxes? Isn’t it better for us to take on that Hope Circuit project of the government and move ahead?”
Other companies struggling for assets in other countries likely also knew that such a thing was futile.
Thoughts like that almost rose at the back of his throat, but the man held his silence.
“To monopolize technology and create a new world? Do you think such a fantastical thing is possible? If it were possible, it wouldn’t even be worth money. Resources become exceedingly cheap once they expand infinitely.”
The chairwoman turned around to look down at the city beneath the skyscraper.
Countless lights were bustling around down there. Each one, busy, like enormous sources of energy.
To the chairwoman, they looked like jewels.
Once she equipped each with an efficient circuit and loaded them onto a spaceship, how efficient an energy source would it become?
How much could be sold for? If they could simply restrict supply, it could become a more lucrative endeavor.
“A company isn’t a religious organization. Movements foresightful of billions of years ahead are sheer delusion.”
The chairwoman said, then frowned again.
“She said her granddaughter is on Earth. Find out the location of that granddaughter. If she’s not an Earthling, it should be easy to find.”
“…Understood.”
Finally, the Mohican-headed man nodded.
*
“By the way, are you okay?”
At my question, the Squeaky Adult’s antennae twitched slightly.
“Huh?”
“I mean… you can’t work at the company. That was the place you could get the most.”
“Oh.”
The Squeaky Adult slurped up a noodle and replied.
“Well, it’s not like I can’t live. We’re sharing rent for now. In fact, it seems like our living expenses have gone down a bit.”
It didn’t seem entirely like empty words. The expression on his face as he looked, lost in thought, indicated he had seriously calculated the living expenses.
Once he seemed to finish calculating, the Squeaky Adult nodded with a serious expression.
“Cutting our rent in half is a pretty big deal. We can divert that to food expenses. Well, it’s true I need to work more now.”
So he must have been able to relax for days on the money he earned from one job before.
In fact, it seemed like the more frequently he worked now, the more stable his finances had become.
“…Really?”
I looked at him with a slightly dubious expression, but the Squeaky Adult just shrugged.
I had no choice but to nod.
What other reaction could I have?
It had been about two weeks since the incident that happened in Chungmuro.
My body had recovered much faster than expected, and so I was able to get back to work quickly.
By late February, we had been able to live quite peacefully. I went to my part-time job in the morning and came back home with the day’s wages.
During that time, James sat in the corner, continually creating something.
Every time I asked, all he gave were theories that knotted up my brain, so I gave up asking what he was making.
He seemed to enjoy watching me struggle with the confusion he caused too.
“…”
Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
After all, he’d just come to me and tell me what to do anyway.
I lay back down on the floor and absently stared at the stained ceiling.
Are both of them okay?
Honestly, I was at my wit’s end worrying about them. I wanted to go check in on them and see if they were okay, but the fact that I couldn’t only made it more tormenting.
“…”
In the end, what swelled up was a thirst for revenge.
It was just because of internal strife within a corporation that I had ended up this way.
No longer was it about James’ words.
I, too, wanted to smash the heads of those filthy bastards.
I promised myself that I’d keep going until I could swing a hammer to crush their skulls.
For now, it felt like the only thought that would keep me from going mad.