Chapter 04
A Coincidence, Yet Inevable
Magical Girl Happy Life was practically a toxic substance for innocent children who dreamed of becoming magical girls. Yet, thanks to its unconventional story that completely overturned the genre’s clichés, it was also highly praised by many fans.
After the series ended, it even received a game adaptation.
The final boss introduced there possessed the following stats.
Pandora Requiem
▶ Basic Information
Rank: Earthly Heavenly Star (地天星)
Classification: Mental-Type
Threat Level: ★★★★★
▶ Status
Health: ■■■■■■■■□□ (84/100)
Mental Strength: ■■■■■■■■■■ (∞)
Attack: ■■■■■■■□□□ (67/100)
Defense: ■■■■■□□□□□ (48/100)
Agility: ■■■■■■□□□□ (58/100)
Special Ability: ■■■■■■■■■■ (99/100)
▶ Unique Skills
[Final Requiem] — Rank S+
- Materializes the target’s trauma and deepest fears.
- Increases mental corruption by 600%.
- Duration: Unlimited
- Cooldown: 24 hours
[Despair Absorption] — Rank S
- Absorbs the victim’s despair to increase health and overall stats.
- Absorption Efficiency: 145%
- Maximum Stacks: 7
[Choir of the Dead] — Rank A+
- Manipulates the souls of deceased victims.
- Increases mental damage by 300%.
- Duration: 30 minutes
- Cooldown: 1 hour
▶ Resistances / Immunities
- Physical Damage: 35% Resistance
- Magical Damage: 75% Resistance
- Mental Attacks: Complete Immunity
▶ Special Traits
- Grows stronger as the number of victims increases.
- Gains a 30% stat boost in places steeped in despair.
- Regeneration doubles under a full moon.
Magical girls were destined to carry trauma.
Making a contract with Mung-Mung to become a magical girl meant there was a wish so important that they were willing to stake everything on it.
That alone made Pandora Requiem the absolute worst possible opponent for any magical girl.
No matter how powerful a magical girl became, at the end of the day she was still an immature girl who hadn’t even reached adulthood.
Once her trauma was dragged into the open, very few could withstand it.
As if that weren’t enough, the monster possessed the utterly insane ability to become stronger every time another victim was added to the pile.
‘And somehow… I’m supposed to hunt something even worse than this lunatic.’
The condition Mung-Mung had given me for terminating the magical girl contract…
…was to hunt a Heavenly Killing Star-class (Cheonsalseong) monster—a rank even higher than an Earthly Heavenly Star.
Looking purely at the difficulty, Mung-Mung was right.
It would be far wiser to quietly collect Starlight instead.
The only problem was that doing so led to the absolute worst bad ending…
…where the protagonist personally slaughtered every magical girl.
“…It’s cold.”
A sudden gust of wind swept through, and I instinctively pulled my collar tighter around my neck.
It was late spring—April.
The daytime was pleasantly warm, but once the sun went down, the temperature dropped sharply.
Glancing at the large clock in the park, I saw that the hour hand had already passed ten o’clock.
Even the people who had come out for an evening jog were gradually heading home to prepare for tomorrow.
Even after accomplishing my goal of meeting Mung-Mung and gathering information, there was a very clear reason I was still wandering around outside.
I simply had no idea where my house was.
No cheat abilities.
No memories.
I’d hoped that if I kept walking, something might eventually trigger a memory…
But nothing came.
It seemed I had no choice but to resort to the last remaining method.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket…
…Huh?
A phone?
“…Ah.”
Was it then?
The memory of being trapped inside the Otherworld Barrier by Mung-Mung suddenly resurfaced.
I had struggled desperately to escape the creeping shadows that slowly swallowed everything.
As a last resort, I had tried to contact someone the original owner of this body knew—but all I could do was stand there in despair as I felt the empty pocket where the phone should have been.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
In twenty-first-century South Korea, where smartphones had become indispensable, losing your phone wasn’t simply a matter of losing a way to contact people.
It also meant losing access to all your bank cards, payment apps, and digital wallets stored inside it.
In other words…
I had been reduced to a penniless beggar in the middle of Seoul in the blink of an eye.
This was all modern technology’s fault.
Seriously, how could losing one phone leave someone in such a hopeless situation?
“Damn you, Mung-Mung, you little bastard.”
I spat out the curse, but nothing changed.
Instead of wasting time venting, it would be better to hurry back to where I’d seen Unibel.
If I got lucky, maybe my phone would still be lying there.
Just as I turned to leave—
Someone came running toward me from the distance.
…Out jogging?
Though for someone exercising, she was dressed rather lightly.
As I’d noticed earlier, April nights were still chilly.
You could chalk it up to her simply not feeling the cold, but the desperation on her face made me uneasy.
A moment later, the girl frantically scanning her surroundings locked eyes with me.
I was about to ignore her, assuming she couldn’t possibly know me—
“…Why are you still out here at this hour instead of coming home?”
She spoke first.
“Honestly, I can’t believe you. If you lost your phone, the first thing you should’ve done was come home and tell me! What good does wandering around looking for it do? Do you know how worried I was?”
The girl sitting across the dining table grumbled.
Her name was Lee Hye-jin.
She was the younger sister of Lee Woo-jin, the owner of this body, and it seemed the two of them lived together by themselves.
I wanted to ask what had happened to their parents, but bringing that up now would be far too unnatural.
“I swear, I can’t survive with an older brother like you.”
After finishing her lecture with her hands on her hips, Hye-jin headed into the kitchen and returned carrying dinner.
Soybean paste stew.
Several side dishes she’d taken from the refrigerator.
An ordinary homemade meal.
“…It’s delicious.”
“Huh? Since when do you compliment my cooking? Did you catch a cold or something?”
Honestly…
I was surprised.
Since it was such an ordinary meal, I’d assumed she had simply reheated leftovers.
But after taking a bite, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Every dish was excellent.
The soybean paste stew carried its rich, savoury aroma perfectly, and although the vegetables had clearly been simmered for quite some time, none of them had turned mushy.
Each ingredient still retained its own texture.
More impressive, however, were the side dishes she’d casually taken out of the refrigerator.
I picked up a mouthful of seasoned shredded squid.
The syrup made it slightly sticky, but the strands separated easily.
Considering how syrup hardens over time, this had clearly been made not long ago.
The other dishes told the same story.
Food left in the refrigerator for days inevitably loses moisture, leaving the surface dry and dull.
These weren’t like that.
Every single dish was still moist and fresh.
Which meant only one thing.
They had all been cooked shortly before I arrived.
It wasn’t difficult to picture it.
The girl waiting at home…
Cooking dinner while eagerly hoping her older brother would return soon.
She had probably imagined him smiling after tasting her food.
Instead…
The brother she’d been waiting for never came home until late at night.
The meal she’d carefully prepared had gone cold, forcing her to put it away in the refrigerator.
She must have been disappointed.
Most people would’ve sulked in their room after something like that.
But Hye-jin had done nothing more than scold me a little.
Rather than being angry…
She actually looked relieved.
There was even a faint smile on her face.
She’s a remarkably mature girl.
At the same time…
I felt a stab of guilt.
The person she treasured so dearly…
Wasn’t actually the brother she believed I was.
“Thanks for always making such delicious meals.”
“W-What’s gotten into you? Stop patting my head. It’s embarrassing.”
Well…
She wasn’t exactly honest with herself.
After dinner, Hye-jin and I sat together on the sofa watching television.
Judging by how she’d silently left the seat beside her open for me from the beginning, this was probably part of the siblings’ usual evening routine.
Out of habit, I switched the TV to the news.
Hye-jin immediately pulled a disgusted face before eventually losing interest and fiddling with her phone instead.
Even so, she didn’t leave.
Perhaps my disappearing without a word earlier was still bothering her.
“Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“It looks like someone found the phone you lost. They said if we tell them where we live, they’ll bring it over.”
She held out her phone.
Sure enough, a text message had arrived.
Apparently whoever found it had looked through the contacts and reached out.
These days, someone willing to personally return a lost phone instead of just leaving it somewhere?
What an unbelievably kind person.
Borrowing Hye-jin’s phone, I replied myself.
As the one who’d lost it, I couldn’t shamelessly ask them to deliver it.
So I wrote that I’d come and collect it instead.
Then an unexpected name appeared.
Hwayeon Middle School?
Wait.
That was the school where I currently worked.
“What is this?”
After washing up in the first-floor bathroom, Ga-yeon returned to her room and noticed something unfamiliar.
A black smartphone covered in scratches.
It wasn’t hers.
Nor did it belong to her parents.
Instinctively, her eyes turned toward the culprit.
If neither she nor her parents had brought it home…
There was only one possible suspect.
“It was lying on the ground, so I picked it up. Humans say these things are important, don’t they?”
Inside the small basket beneath the bed, lined with a fluffy cushion…
Mung-Mung lay curled up, using its plump tail as a pillow.
Hearing its explanation, Ga-yeon felt a splitting headache coming on.
“You can’t just pick up someone’s lost phone without telling me…”
If you found lost property, the proper thing to do was hand it over to the police.
If that wasn’t possible, leaving it where it was found was usually the safest option.
If she took it home without permission, the owner might mistake her for a thief.
There were plenty of stories online about people who’d tried to do a good deed only to end up being accused instead.
“What should I do…”
Holding the phone, Ga-yeon fell into thought.
It was already far too late to go out looking for a police station.
If her parents saw her leaving now, they’d definitely stop her because it was dangerous.
That ruled out taking it back to where Mung-Mung had found it as well.
Which left only one choice.
“At least it doesn’t have a screen lock.”
She first opened the contact list.
The owner didn’t seem to have many friends.
There were only three saved contacts.
Carefully, she sent a message to the one labelled ‘Younger Sister.’
The reply came almost immediately.
The owner said they’d come to pick it up if she told them where she was.
Giving a complete stranger her home address felt uncomfortable.
After hesitating for a while…
Ga-yeon told them the name of her school instead.
At school there would be teachers.
The security guard.
If anything happened, there would be adults nearby to help.
Thankfully, the other person readily agreed.
They promised to wait in front of the school gate after classes tomorrow.
“…Phew.”
Only then did Ga-yeon let out the breath she’d been holding.
She wasn’t particularly antisocial…
But talking to someone she’d never met still made her nervous.
She glared at Mung-Mung, who merely yawned lazily and swished its tail, before flopping onto her bed.
As she prepared to sleep…
A thought suddenly crossed her mind.
What kind of person are they?
No lock screen.
Only three contacts.
It suggested someone who didn’t interact much with other people.
Or perhaps simply someone uninterested in smartphones.
Still…
The fact that they’d politely insisted on coming to collect it themselves instead of asking her to bring it over…
Made them seem like a decent person.
Once the curiosity appeared, it only grew stronger.
It felt as though she’d accidentally found someone else’s diary.
She knew she shouldn’t read it…
Yet she couldn’t stop wondering.
“…J-Just a little should be okay, right?”
Ga-yeon’s curiosity won.
It wasn’t often you had the chance to legally peek into another person’s “diary” without anyone ever finding out.
Even so…
She still had enough of a conscience to draw the line.
Photos and videos were off-limits.
Private messages and chat apps were absolutely forbidden.
She would only look at things that weren’t deeply personal.
Things like…
The internet browsing history.
Or bookmarked websites.
“…What if there’s something dirty on here?”
A rather mischievous thought crossed her mind.
Even though no one was watching, she glanced around the room before cautiously touching the screen.
“Ghost stories… supernatural phenomena… magic…?”
Those weren’t the kinds of searches she’d expected.
“Magical girls… and Unibel…”
The smartphone slipped from Ga-yeon’s hand and hit the floor with a thud.
