Chapter 06
 The School at Night
Contrary to what people might think, students don’t actually spend that much one-on-one time with their homeroom teacher.
Unless you were a first-year middle school student still awkward in your new uniform, or a third-year preparing for high school entrance exams and constantly attending counselling sessions, a second-year student like Gayeon rarely felt any difference between the homeroom teacher and any other subject teacher.
That was why, even though it had already been about a month since the new school year began, Gayeon didn’t have much of an impression of the man named Woojin. As far as she was concerned, he was simply a teacher who wasn’t very talkative and whose classes weren’t particularly interesting.
“So you were trying that desperately to run away?”
“N-No! I wasn’t trying to run away at all! Really!”
…Which was precisely why the reality of sitting across from her homeroom teacher after school, just the two of them separated by a table, was enough to leave her mind completely blank.
Watching Gayeon frantically wave her hands in panic, her homeroom teacher, Woojin, burst into hearty laughter.
“I’m joking. You don’t have to be so nervous. Just relax. I’m not here to scold you.”
They were at a café a short distance away from the school.
At Woojin’s recommendation, saying he’d been there before and liked it, they had come here. The cafĂ© was packed with people stopping by for a break in the early evening.
To Gayeon, the situation was actually something of a relief.
If it had been a quiet cafĂ© with barely any customersâa place perfect for two people to have a private conversationâshe would have been far too conscious of her teacher to speak properly.
…Was this his way of being considerate?
She took another sip through the straw stuck into her strawberry smoothie.
After repeatedly refusing, she’d finally been half-forced into ordering it.
Annoyingly enough…
It was delicious.
“As I mentioned earlier, there won’t be any remedial classes for the time being. We need to rearrange the schedule a little.”
“…I see.”
“Normally we’d just borrow an empty classroom after school and run them for about two weeks. But this case is a little unusual. The school administration seems to be having a bit of a headache over it.”
“…What do you mean?”
Instead of answering immediately, Woojin silently met Gayeon’s eyes.
A bad feeling washed over her, and she unconsciously swallowed.
“What else? You’re the only student who failed the midterm exams. Every single subject.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologise. Teaching students who struggle academically is part of a teacher’s job, after all. Though… thirteen points in maths was a bit much. Usually, even if you guessed every answer, you’d get around twenty.”
Gayeon felt wronged.
She wasn’t normally that stupid.
This time, there had simply been special circumstances beyond her control.
Yeah… it couldn’t be helped.
She had become a magical girl at the absolute worst possible time.
Exactly two weeks before midterm examsâthe point when everyone normally started studying.
She had fought monsters for the first time, then spent day and night training to master her magical abilities.
On top of that, monsters appeared at completely random times, forcing her to leave school early over and over again.
There had simply been no chance to focus on studying.
Of course, she couldn’t exactly explain any of that to Woojin, an ordinary person.
So all Gayeon could do was lower her head like a guilty criminal.
“Well, I suppose that covers everything. Any other questions? If you’re about to ask me what’ll be on the final exams… I’m afraid even I can’t answer that.”
“As if I’d ask something like that. Seriously.”
“Good. Then study hard. Once the remedial class schedule is finalised, I’ll let you know.”
Woojin stood up from his seat.
“Are you leaving?”
âI still have some work to do at school. Thanks for picking up my phone.â
Waving the phone Gayeon had returned to him, Woojin turned toward the counter to pay.
She couldn’t let him leave like this.
She still hadn’t asked the questions she truly wanted answered.
Why had he searched for magical girls on his phone? How did he know the name of her magical girl form? Had he somehow become involved in something related to magical girls?
There were so many things she wanted to ask.
âU-Um… well… you see…â
But unlike the urgency in her heart, the words that came out of her mouth were hopelessly clumsy.
After all…
This was about magical girls.
The very thing that kids started calling childish by the time they reached the upper grades of elementary school.
And now she, a middle school student, had to be the one to bring it up first.
For Gayeon, who was shy by nature and constantly teased by her friends because of it, that was almost an impossible task.
âHave… have you noticed anything strange happening around you lately?â
âStrange?â
âLike… seeing a giant wolf, or the sky suddenly turning red… something like that.â
Hearing her question, Woojin looked directly at her.
It was impossible to tell what he was thinking just from his expression.
âNow that you mention it…â
âYes?â
âI guess there is a problem these days.â
â…A problem?â
âEighth-grader syndrome.â
â…â
âI know it’s the age where people are easily influenced by that sort of thing. But you should take it easy. Unless you want to lie awake years from now kicking yourself out of embarrassment. Anyway, see you.â
With a smile, Woojin waved goodbye and walked away.
âT-That’s not what I meant…!â
Several seconds later, Gayeon finally snapped out of her petrified state and shouted after him.
Unfortunately, her voice was swallowed by the surrounding noise and disappeared almost instantly.
â You finally had a chance to make contact with Unibel. Are you really okay with letting it slip away?
The alley beside the café.
As if it belonged there, Mung-Mung was already waiting.
âUnfortunately, I don’t accept suspicious deals.â
What were the odds that Gayeon, the protagonist, would just happen to find the phone he had dropped in the park?
Especially after returning to the very same park only minutes after leaving it.
The moment Woojin saw Gayeon standing in front of the school gate holding his phone, he understood.
This was a scripted event.
Dropping the phone had almost certainly been Mung-Mung’s doing.
He pulled the phone from his pocket.
The screen lit up immediately without asking for a password.
…The pattern lock had already been removed.
No wonder Gayeon had been acting so strangely.
Looking over at Mung-Mung, who stood elegantly atop a rubbish bin with its head tilted in an adorably innocent pose, Woojin clicked his tongue.
The more he looked at the creature, the more irritating it became.
He deleted the search history and replaced the pattern lock with a password.
From now on, it would probably be best to avoid doing anything sensitive on his phone.
Who knew what kind of prank Mung-Mung would pull next?
Putting the phone back into his pocket, Woojin started walking again.
Mung-Mung floated onto his shoulder, its fluffy tail swaying lazily in front of his eyes, making him even more annoyed.
â Still, I don’t understand. Your goal is to enter the world of magical girls, isn’t it? Anyone could see that was the perfect opportunity. Yet you threw it away yourself. Why? Why would you choose the difficult path when the easy one was right there?
âLike I said before, I don’t deal with suspicious offers.â
â No. I think you know something nobody else does. That’s what interests me more than anything. What exactly are you seeing? I’m sure the reason you turned down this opportunity is connected to that knowledge.
Mung-Mung wasn’t wrong.
There was a very clear reason he had rejected what appeared to be the perfect opportunity.
In Magical Girl Happy Life, the protagonists faced more enemies than just the monsters from the Otherworld.
Among them was the group that clashed with the heroine more than anyone else:
The magical girl villain organisation known as NOVA.
Their primary objective was hunting magical girls who collected Starlight and stealing everything they had gathered.
NOVA would stop at nothing to achieve its ambitions.
Hunting magical girls was only the beginning.
They committed every violent crime imaginable.
In the story alone, they were responsible for assault, robbery, and kidnapping.
The list went on and on.
If necessary, they wouldn’t even hesitate to commit murder.
Without question, NOVA was one of the greatest dangers in the series.
Woojin had no power to oppose them.
Until he was fully prepared, he couldn’t risk contacting Unibel instead of Gayeon.
The moment his identity became known, there was no telling what kind of danger would come his way.
If they were ever to meet…
It had to be somewhere completely isolated.
Somewhere no one else could observe.
Inside an Otherworld Barrier.
Better yet, a space so thoroughly distorted that no other magical girl could enter.
And that time wasn’t far away.
Ignoring Mung-Mung’s endless chatter beside him, Woojin looked up at the night sky.
The sun had long since disappeared, leaving only a pale half-moon hanging overhead.
If his memory served him correctly…
The first episode of Magical Girl Happy Lifeâ
ăNight Of Schoolă
âbegan on the night of a full moon.
âAbout one more week.â
He had done everything he could.
Now…
All that remained was to wait.
ââŠThis looks like something straight out of a horror movie.â
Woojin gazed at the tightly locked school gate and muttered to himself.
In a sense, it really was a horror movie scene.
He was about to climb over the wall and sneak into an empty school in the middle of the night.
If a group of cursed ghosts started chasing him around until morning, it would practically be a complete horror film.
…Come to think of it, that’s basically what’s about to happen anyway.
Crossing the sports field, he reached the back entrance.
Using the emergency key he had quietly borrowed before everyone left work, he unlocked the door and slipped inside.
The interior of the school looked exactly the same as it had during the day.
At least on the surface.
The atmosphere, however, was completely different.
The lights that normally illuminated the corridors were off.
That alone made the entire building feel unsettling.
It genuinely felt as though a ghost could emerge from any corner.
Without realising it, Woojin found himself glancing nervously around every few steps.
âHow did she manage to walk around this place like it was nothing?â
According to the original story, this episode’s victim, Yoo Eunhye, wasn’t staying late at school for the first time.
Ever since joining as a new teacher, she had worked alone late into the evening many times.
When reading the comic, Woojin had barely given it a second thought.
Oh, I guess that’s just part of her routine.
But experiencing it firsthand was another matter entirely.
It was terrifying.
Quietly admiring Ms. Eunhye’s courage, he carefully made his way toward the faculty office.
âThey’ve already started.â
The moment he opened the faculty office door, he saw them.
âGrrrk?â
Why was this episode called ăNight Of Schoolă?
Because it was a parody of a famous Western horror film.
As if reacting to his muttered words, every one of them turned toward him.
…Or at least, he assumed they did.
It was hard to be certain.
None of them had faces.
No eyes.
No noses.
No mouths.
They possessed only vaguely human silhouettes.
These creatures were the main enemies of this episode.
Void.
A swarm-type monster classified as Comet-Class.
The long night…
Had finally begun.
