I Became a New Magical Girl Priest

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I thought about what it would be like to give up my daughter.

Honestly, it wasn’t that easy. Our circumstances are different. I’ve probably never lived as hard as this person has.

In my past life, I grew up in an ordinary family. We lived quite well… well, saying “well” doesn’t really fit, but it wasn’t so bad that I could say “my family is poor.”

If I had become an adult and had to fend for myself without any backing, I might have found myself in a similar situation.

I had no intention of dating a man, but who knows how life turns out?

… I can’t fully empathize with being abandoned either; I still have doubts about the word “give up.”

People’s thoughts and experiences are things we only understand before we hear them.

And I had no desire to evaluate this person’s life or dig into their past.

I just felt a bit of sympathy for their tears.

“…So, now what…?”

Yeah, what should we do now?

I thought I couldn’t just cut ties at this point.

If they were truly someone who approached me with malice, it would be a different story, but this person didn’t seem like that.

Now that I think about it, even though I saw their face quite often, I never bothered to find out who they were.

So, could they have been my mother…?

I was feeling a bit unsettled. If they really were my mother, it could definitely complicate things now that I’m a magical girl.

Realizing that I just started thinking like this made me think that I can be quite petty sometimes.

I patted their back and said, “…So, what have you been up to these days?”

“…”

At my question, the woman raised her head.

Her eyes were brimming with tears, but right now, her expression seemed more shocked than sad.

Yeah, it was a bit strange that I asked after I had relaxed, but I quietly looked at the woman while leaning against the bed.

“Ah… yes, um.”

She switched to formal speech.

Now that we’re strangers.

…

I wondered if that’s how it should be.

After all, didn’t this person leave their child at the church?

At this point, finding the children that were there probably wouldn’t lead anywhere. I’d heard that the pastor had no children, so there was no one to inherit the church.

If someone had inherited that church, maybe there would’ve been a list, but it wasn’t the case.

In the end, the kids who were being taken care of there scattered everywhere.

I quietly listened to the woman’s words.

She said that now she lives as an ordinary office worker. She didn’t particularly get married to anyone.

It seemed that when she gave up her child, life was so tough that she had a hard time putting food on her own plate. Moreover, for various reasons, she had the child somewhere other than a hospital and didn’t know what to do.

It wasn’t until several years later that she thought about the child again. By then, she was okay to take care of herself.

The church was long gone by then. She didn’t know who managed the list.

… The child wasn’t born in a hospital, so there wasn’t even a birth registration.

“…”

This wasn’t all my story.

It wasn’t my story, but… yeah, it was also my story. I didn’t know my parents either, and I was left at the same church.

Maybe the person who left me there thought the same way. If such a being exists, that is.

Since I resolved not to judge or blame the woman after hearing her story, I could listen calmly.

She sobbed a few times while telling her story and eventually calmed down. In the end, she could calm down by the time the story was almost over.

Maybe it was comforting for her just to have someone hear such a story.

As the story was nearing its end…

Knock, knock.

I heard a knock on the hospital room.

“Come in.”

Even though I thought I could guess who it might be, I answered like that.

The door opened, and Ha-yoon cautiously entered.

A little while ago, when we talked over the intercom, she had a bright voice, but it seemed she caught on. That news could also be another despair for me.

Well, it did ease the tension, as Ha-yoon thought.

Ha-yoon froze when she saw the crying woman coming into the room.

Upon seeing Ha-yoon enter the hospital room, the woman jumped up from her seat. And while wiping her tears, she stammered out.

“Um, um, I’ll just… go back. Ah, goodbye…”

She barely gathered her things and slipped out of the room.

She was definitely a bit smaller in stature than me.

For a moment, seeing her back, I felt a strange déjà vu. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that feeling was, but—

“Excuse me, wait a moment.”

I unknowingly called out to her to stop.

She halted her steps but didn’t turn to look at me.

She was a person who genuinely thought of me as her daughter. Just seeing my face might shatter her heart.

“…I’ll contact you later.”

I said that.

If I don’t contact her, I thought I would reach out.

Right. I have no biological mother or father. Even if they were to appear now, I had no intention of acknowledging them.

But, still. If they were someone else, someone who wasn’t very related to me… I hoped that our relationship wouldn’t completely sever.

Yeah. It might be a bit strange of a thought. A selfish thought that it’s okay because it’s not tomorrow.

But still—yeah, I’m a magical girl, aren’t I?

In this world, I don’t just fight for dreams and love, but still.

“…”

The person who shrugged their shoulders a few more times turned to me, nodding their head several times before hurriedly leaving the hospital room.

“…Ji-eun.”

Ha-yoon called my name.

“Just leave it.”

I replied.

“It just turned out this way.”

“…Yeah.”

Ha-yoon nodded slowly in response to my answer.

The other magical girls who entered after her felt the same. They all stood around me with slightly subdued expressions in the hospital room.

“…Phew.”

I exhaled slowly.

Then I closed my eyes and organized my thoughts.

…Yeah.

This way of expressing things feels a bit off, but I have once again… completely become alone.

While I had friends around me, at least the person who holds rights over me is still just me.

That means I can do whatever I want as I choose.

I slowly opened my eyes.

The circuit seemed to be running as if it had never stopped.

It wasn’t spinning with as much vigor as when I was fighting, but it certainly was turning. My hope had returned to my heart.

I thought my personality was quite twisted. The hope was even more intense without my parents than with them.

…No, I know.

The reason I fell into this world is because of some divine scheme meant to make fun of me for cursing my world. They act like they don’t care at all about how I live far away—thinking I won’t do anything, that I won’t be the protagonist following that fate, I figured.

That might even be a delusion of my own suffering.

But even so, I think it’s not a bad thing to blame an entity that doesn’t even exist.

Since I’m the one fighting against the fate handed to me.

I was watching that turning circuit when I looked at Ha-yoon.

And I smiled, saying, “Ha-yoon, let’s have a duel soon.”

I transformed while facing Ha-yoon.

So, once more.

Let’s ignite the fire within my heart again. That’s what I thought.

“…”

Looking at my smiling face, Ha-yoon, who had a moment of dazed expression, found her smile again.

She sparkled her eyes as she looked at me and shouted, “Yeah!”

It was an unremarkable, pretty smile, not much different from usual.

But deep down in that smile, I thought, there was definitely a sense of competition.

“Me too, me too!”

Seo-hee immediately jumped in.

“What? Against someone who got hurt? Well, I was thinking about fighting too.”

Right after, Yeon-woo joined in.

“…Me too.”

Chae-yeon followed as well.

“Of course, me too! I need to adjust my wand! Ji-eun rested her wand for quite some time!”

Not that it had been quite a long rest.

But, you know.

It didn’t really matter.

Aren’t these the same rivals I had fought with before?

I nodded my head with a smile.

My circuit was whirling around very well.

*

I was discharged the very next day.

Well, the original wounds had almost healed. I was just staying a bit longer to have my health checked.

“Ji-eun!”

Ji-hye rushed straight to me and hugged me.

Her arms wrapped around my neck tightened so much it almost felt like they would break.

“Ji-hye, calm down, calm down.”

I said while patting her back.

Ji-hye stepped back.

As always, true to her emotional nature, her eyes were glistening with tears.

“How do you feel? Are you okay?”

As I turned my head side to side, she burst into laughter and playfully hit my upper chest.

“…”

While I was looking at Ji-hye stepping back, I suddenly—

Hmm.

No, it wasn’t that I had a thought; rather, I felt a strange sense of dissonance.

Before I could even think about what that dissonance was, it flew away, leaving me unable to find out what it was.

 

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