I Became a New Magical Girl Priest

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It took me quite a long time to grasp the situation.

No, that might be an exaggeration. In terms of time, it could have been just a fleeting moment.

But thinking about the fact that I managed to stop the fall right before hitting the ground, I can say it felt like an eternity based on the ‘situation’.

Thud.

Since I barely managed to stop the fall at the last moment, I had no choice but to crash to the ground right afterwards. It was that hard for me to maintain my concentration.

“Ha-yoon!”

The first thing I yelled was that.

I called out to Ha-yoon.

There was no response.

I carefully wrapped my arms around the limp Ha-yoon and sat up.

My hands were wet. What was on them wasn’t Ha-yoon’s sweat.

Red.

It was blood.

We clearly hadn’t escaped the blast radius of “the 50-meter range” of the bomb.

Or perhaps, the problem could have become worse because I detonated it in the sky.

Things don’t just disappear that easily. The components at the core of the circuit might have evaporated due to the high heat, but all the surrounding components must have turned into ‘shrapnel’ and scattered everywhere. I was in such a hurry that I failed to confirm that. I should have just created a black hole and thrown it in.

The moment I noticed that red, my hands began to tremble. My breathing became ragged. Ha-yoon still lay unconscious with her eyes closed.

Did Ha-yoon manage to cast a magic barrier in that last moment? Was she able to block enough shrapnel? It seemed like her body wasn’t completely torn apart.

But she was still unconscious, with shrapnel embedded in her back and legs, and blood was oozing out. She might have suffered burns. My skin was feeling hot, so she must have been injured even worse.

Footsteps echoed in the vicinity. They weren’t Iris’s. It was a crowd of people.

We had soared into the sky and then plunged down freely. There was no way we would land exactly where we jumped from.

“We’re falling!”

I heard cries, and people raised their riot shields above their heads.

Every gaze that had been directed toward us had now turned skyward.

Everyone’s faces had gone pale.

Was it because they finally believed such a bomb existed? Or was it because I had thrown the bomb into the sky to deal with it? And because of that, Ha-yoon lost consciousness?

No, perhaps none of these reasons mattered. If they thought shrapnel was falling on their heads, it was only natural they’d look that way.

But those people didn’t need to worry about shrapnel.

Slowly, dark clouds gathered overhead.

I lifted my gaze.

Light was converging into one spot. As if disregarding the laws of physics, sunlight that had been scattering in multiple directions and filling the world was now flowing around the black hole as if it had become a river.

That… didn’t look promising at all.

There wouldn’t be a rain of shrapnel. The black hole that had already been hovering above before I fell must have been pulling things from the sky with even greater energy.

Ever since Ha-yoon had pulled me to bring me in front of her, it had been like that.

In the end, I couldn’t stop the fragments from colliding with her body—

“Something’s getting pulled in…!”

People’s concerns had completely shifted.

Those who had been worried about something falling from above were now huddling down as low as possible.

The hems of their clothes fluttered. The surrounding air seemed to be swirling as if it were caught in a vortex. It was all air rising toward the sky.

What had initially been a black hole smaller than a fist was now larger than anywhere I had created before. The black hole hovering well over 50 meters high nearly blocked a corner of my view. My left wrist was burning, and it was trembling uncontrollably.

Slowly, I stood up from where I was.

Unlike everyone else, my body seemed to be defying the laws of physics here.

Even while hugging Ha-yoon and slowly rising from my spot, I wasn’t being sucked into the black hole.

“Blossom!”

I heard someone shout from below.

Looking down, I saw Iris, James, and Cherry rising together.

James was riding on his drone. Cherry was perched on Iris’s hand. The drone that had brought her here was already wrecked.

Iris was holding my hammer in one hand. There was no gun. Had she stored it in a spatial pocket?

And then, many people were looking up at us. They were dressed in black, holding shields.

A few of them were moving slightly with the wind. A couple of cars seemed to be stirred up. But still, no one had been sucked in yet.

“…Jeong Ji-eun.”

Iris looked at me, seemingly surprised.

She couldn’t find any words after looking at Ha-yoon in my arms.

Ha-yoon’s clothes were already returning to what she had been wearing before. The parts that had been mercilessly torn by the pressure were starkly visible. It showed even more blatantly than when she was in her Magical Girl outfit, and the red wound was unmistakable.

“We have to go.”

“To where we used to live?”

Iris asked quietly at my words.

Was she not worried about Ha-yoon?

No, that couldn’t be it. Although she was trying to maintain her composure, Cherry’s hand that was resting on Iris was trembling slightly.

“…To a place we can heal.”

I felt the same.

My voice was steady. In fact, it was far more calm than when we were arguing over how to handle the bomb earlier.

But in reality, it was not that calm at all.

Rather, emotions were swirling within me, to a point where I didn’t know how to express them. It was precisely because of that that my voice was flat. I didn’t know what kind of emotions I should convey.

However, amidst all that, one thing was clear.

That massive black hole.

The abyssal hole that could only be completed by my ‘despair’ was larger than any hole I had ever created.

Even at such an altitude, I couldn’t see the color of the sky.

Everyone around me must be witnessing this. After hearing the sound of the explosion in the sky, something like this had emerged.

…I wasn’t even thinking about the repercussions right now.

“I’m going. Together.”

Iris said that.

There was no need for me to respond.

*

The medical center went into a panic when they saw us.

It was understandable. This had truly been out of nowhere for these people.

Usually, you would have to wait in a lengthy line to get in, but carrying Ha-yoon, I was rushed into the emergency room by the medical staff.

At least the people here didn’t chase me away knowing my identity.

I thought James would say something when he saw me in this place, but he didn’t say a single word.

In the medical center, they hardly performed any ‘surgery’. If someone had completely lost a limb, that would be different, but for a broken bone, they would set it in place and heal it with magic. There was no need for pins or plates.

And Ha-yoon’s condition was much better than that.

“….”

I sat down next to Ha-yoon’s bed, fully aware that the patients around us were panicking.

My clothes were still those of a Magical Girl.

Just a few months ago, if they had asked me to wear these, I would have reacted strongly against it. I would probably not have worn them even if they offered me money.

But now, I didn’t care at all.

No, rather, I had to stay like this. It could be a problem if someone came and insisted on taking me away.

Iris had returned to her original outfit. She carefully set my hammer down beside me.

… I was powerless. I couldn’t do anything for Ha-yoon. She lay unconscious.

It was all because of me. All of it.

I should have just left. The explosion was something beyond my control. Besides, it wasn’t my fault.

They said the police had taken care of evacuating the people nearby, so I should have trusted that and just left. If I had, Ha-yoon wouldn’t have been hurt.

I was, I was an idiot.

Iris beside me clenched and unclenched her fists. She seemed uncertain about whether she could place her hand on my shoulder.

I raised my impassive face to look at Iris.

“…Go back. I’ll send you back. Over there… with Cherry and James.”

As I mentioned Cherry’s name, she sat there next to Ha-yoon, looking concerned, and her attitude didn’t change at all.

Was this a silent agreement?

“… I’ll stay here.”

Iris replied softly.

I didn’t bother refuting her.

Minutes later, police officers naturally rushed into the emergency room.

But nobody could say a word. Was my atmosphere that heavy?

Or was it just the hammer sitting beside me that intimidated them? If I made a fuss here, it would put all the patients and the medical staff in danger.

I didn’t say anything.

Though Iris looked slightly worried.

After sitting for a long time, I grabbed the medical staff who came to check on Ha-yoon’s condition.

“Hik, hik…!”

When the world’s most wanted criminal, recognized as one of the most dangerous individuals on earth, strolled right in, the medical staff was taken aback.

“… What’s her condition?”

When I asked concisely, the staff swallowed hard and replied.

“There are no significant external injuries. We are doing everything we can, and… If there are no major issues, she should wake up in a few hours….”

“… Got it.”

I said that and got up from my seat.

Since I wasn’t hooked up to IVs, I picked up Ha-yoon, who was lying on the bed, and stood up.

As Ha-yoon’s arms dangled limply, Iris grabbed them and laid them back on my chest.

Turning my body, I walked toward the exit of the medical center.

If they had come to arrest me, now would have been the perfect time, but people cautiously parted the way for me.

The way they looked at me while holding Ha-yoon was somewhat different. They were all police officers.

Some of them had already taken off their hats.

I could see that their attitudes had changed, but my head was already filled with thoughts of Ha-yoon, so there was no time to dwell on that.

I just wanted to hurry back and protect Ha-yoon. I wanted to lay her down in a place warm and safe.

The body of Ha-yoon in my arms was warm. Her chest was still rising and falling steadily, so the words of the healer were probably correct.

So I tried not to worry. I didn’t want to worry.

I didn’t want to blame myself.

…..

On the way back, the black hole I created was massive again.

I had been trying to deny it all along.

I thought I liked Ha-yoon very much and considered her a close friend, but I hadn’t thought of her as a goal or anything like that… at least I thought so.

But now…

Depending on Ha-yoon’s condition, on what she would say to me, how I would feel about her, my circuit state was changing rapidly.

Therefore, I had to admit it.

In the end, Ha-yoon’s existence was a hope for me.

Simply because she was by my side, I hadn’t fallen any further.

I was just jealous of that hope. I was simply denying that fact.

I realized it too late.

*

Ha-yoon woke up… though she wasn’t properly aware of how long she had been unconscious.

However, she could tell at least that quite a bit of time had passed. All the kids were sleeping.

The last place she had fainted was high in the sky, but when she opened her eyes, what greeted her was somewhat unfamiliar orange fabric.

A tent?

She had seen that color of a tent before. Ha-yoon had been living with Ji-eun. That was the color of the tent Ji-eun used to sleep in.

Startled, she tried to get up, only to realize that her body was strangely bound.

No, it wasn’t binding—she found herself inside something akin to a sack.

Looking again, it wasn’t a sack, but rather, Ji-eun’s sleeping bag that she used at night. Someone had put Ha-yoon there and zipped it up completely to her neck.

The inside of the sleeping bag felt a bit damp. Frankly, it was a little warm. Although it was still a bit chilly at night, the sleeping bag was warm enough to completely block out the chill and cause her to sweat a little.

As she awkwardly unzipped the sleeping bag, she suddenly realized that the inside of the tent felt very cramped.

“…….”

It was strange. The tent that Ji-eun had prepared shouldn’t have been this small, but it also wasn’t so small that two people couldn’t fit inside properly.

If it were just her in there, there should have been plenty of space left, but now for some reason, both her shoulders were pressed against the walls of the sleeping bag.

…One side was definitely the tent wall made of fabric. She could feel the tension of that fabric if she pressed against it a little.

But the other side was blocked by something a little hard.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a rock—or more so, it was soft and warm, rather like…

Yes, like a person’s back.

Ha-yoon took a short breath.

For no particular reason, she felt as if she knew whose back that was.

Slowly, she rose her body out of the sleeping bag and looked at the person lying beside her.

It was Ji-eun.

Ji-eun was sleeping next to Ha-yoon. Although she was turned away, she was almost completely pressed against her.

It couldn’t be helped. With two people sleeping in this tent, it was unavoidable. So in that case, it meant Ji-eun had shoved Ha-yoon in there, folded herself to come in, and was forcibly lying by her side.

Long, beautiful hair was visible. Although the ends were a bit split, it looked quite good compared to all the experiences they had gone through so far.

Her shoulder, gently rising and falling as she breathed, was partly exposed. Ji-eun’s favorite t-shirt had already stretched out so much around the neck that if she wasn’t careful, one of her shoulders might show.

And her white legs were visible beneath the short pants.

…She didn’t appear to be injured anywhere. Since Ha-yoon had embraced Ji-eun from the front, she might not have seen if there were any injuries.

At least, Ha-yoon’s body didn’t hurt at all.

Could it be that she had received treatment somehow? Even when she touched every part of her body, she couldn’t feel any injury.

“…….”

There was still no solid basis for her assumptions, but somehow she had the feeling that this condition was possible because Ji-eun was taking care of her.

No one was awake now. Everyone was quietly asleep. That’s probably true. The tent was shut, and it was impossible to see the outside.

Ha-yoon slowly came out of the sleeping bag.

Ji-eun’s uncovered state looked pitiful.

After pondering what to do, she turned the sleeping bag inside out. Then she spread the unzipped part over the two of them like a blanket. It might be a little tight, but it was enough to cover everyone.

It had to be snug.

Still feeling a bit damp and slightly chilly, Ha-yoon pressed her body against Ji-eun’s back.

Ji-eun felt warm.

Still holding on from behind, Ha-yoon thought.

Ji-eun had let her sleep here, so leaving her uncovered would create too many issues.

But if Ha-yoon left her uncovered, Ji-eun might get hurt.

So—this was the best she could do. For the time being.

To secure that tight space even more, Ha-yoon carefully wrapped her arm around Ji-eun’s waist.

Perhaps because she had experienced such exhaustive events, Ji-eun remained deeply asleep.

From her hair, a sweet scent emanated. Ha-yoon didn’t know what that scent was, but she vaguely thought it was pleasant.

Feeling Ji-eun’s warmth, Ha-yoon soon fell asleep again.

She remained deeply and comfortably asleep until Ji-eun woke up in shock and screamed when she saw the situation the next morning.

 

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