Chapter 390 – Side Story – About How My Modern Times Were Urban Fantasy (5)
-Hello. The Magical Girl Association’s… No see. If you don’t mind…
When lunchtime was almost over, Hajin tilted her head when she saw a message that arrived through SNS.
“Association? How does the association know about this account?”
The account was created to function as Asil after returning to Earth.
After I created it, I changed the account here and there, and it was annoying to use, so I abandoned it.
After thinking for a moment, Ha-jin remembered that she had told Topaz about this account the day before.
“Right. He was also part of the association.”
Among the stories I heard the day before, there was also a story that magical girls were a more valuable human resource than we thought.
When she becomes a magical girl, what benefits does she get, what support does she receive, how is she treated, etc.
Now that I think about it, it seemed like Topaz was trying to seduce Asil in her own way. But when Ha-jin heard that, she became even more upset.
I heard that valuable manpower meant that more work was done.
So she tried to say no nicely.
– Thank you! I’ll send Magical Girl Topaz Blast as a guide, so please be kind to me!
“… Huh?”
When she came to her senses, she was already talking about going to the association.
The other person’s speaking skills were so clever that Ha-jin couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked at the conversation log several times.
As she looked at it calmly, she was rather impressed. Even now, she doesn’t particularly feel bad.
Hajin transformed into Asil and started preparing to go see Topaz.
Perhaps out of consideration for Asil, who did not want to reveal his home, the meeting place with Topaz was located a little away from Asil’s house.
Her hair was now arranged with her familiar hands, and her clothes…
She decided not to change her clothes.
When Asil transformed, the clothes she was wearing were her magic costumes, so she boasted strong defense power despite her appearance. If there was a fight, the clothes were much better than the ones she bought back on Earth.
It seems unlikely, but it was insurance just in case.
Instead, it might be a little bit exposed and attract attention, but… I could tolerate that much.
After finishing her preparations, Asil left home early so that Topaz wouldn’t have to wait.
…
I did.
“Ah. Sister! Hear, hear!”
There were more than 30 minutes left until the appointment time, but Topaz had already arrived at the appointment location.
Maybe magical girls also transform like Asil, but Topaz was no longer wearing the girlish dress typical of magical girls, and her yellow hair that sparkled like a jewel had returned to the black hair of an ordinary Korean.
However, even though she was dressed in ordinary clothes, her appearance and liveliness that she could not hide attracted the attention of those around her.
She arrived early and Asil, who had planned to go to a café nearby, was dazzled by the aura of popularity felt by her Topaz, but waved her hand in front of her. She couldn’t even run away because Topaz was waving her hand so excitedly.
“Have you waited long? “She goes into any store.”
“Oh no. “I just arrived too!”
A conversation like lovers before a date. She swallowed her thoughts, saying that she wanted to have this conversation when she was Ha-jin.
“Sorry. “I have a lot of things I want to talk about with her sister, but her manager told me to come right away.”
Yesterday was the second time we met in person, and even though the first time was all we did was watch from a distance and run away instead of having a conversation, where on earth did we have something to talk about?
She comforted Topaz, who was quite disappointed, by telling her to meet her separately next time, and she loaded her body into the car that was waiting with Topaz.
I never thought the day would come when I would ride in a car driven by a driver in a suit. Asil, a natural-born commoner, felt an indescribable awkwardness, but also wondered if it was basic for an association that had a monopoly on those expensive spirit stones to do something like this.
“Sister, since when have you been active? I am…”
Asil couldn’t stand it as she was heading to the association, so she listened to Topaz’s chatter, killing some time.
Luckily, Asil had some experience when it came to just listening to what was said. So and Flora, they were women who were literally the embodiment of sociability.
Are you two getting along well?
I know very well that my nose is too big to worry about these two people, but I still remembered what came to mind.
Topaz quickly realized that Asil was thinking about something she missed, so she spoke less.
‘Those warm eyes… You must be thinking of someone special. You are such a pretty sister. Of course, you have a boyfriend, right? But somehow I feel nostalgic… Omg. Could it be that we can no longer meet her? Like a lost lover?’
The only thing I was quick about was how I could perceive the atmosphere, and the things I imagined were completely absurd, as expected of a girl of her age.
Topaz began writing a story that would be difficult to see in dramas.
In Topaz’s mind, the tearful love story between Asil, a child who suffered from a rare disease that caused her hair to lose all color, and her boyfriend, who died in an accident and gave Asil life by donating his organs, is nearing its conclusion, when the car finally comes to an end. Arrived at the association.
“Oh. “Isn’t it amazing?”
Asil got out of the car and was amazed when he saw a large building that looked like the headquarters of a famous company.
“Well… Sister… You have to live strong…”
“… Why are you doing that again?”
Afterward, Topaz came out of the car and held onto her hand, shedding tears like chicken shit, and I was really surprised by her sincerity.
“No, what…”
Asil, who heard Topaz’s delusion, didn’t know where to start and just laughed.
She had a lot of things she wanted to say, but her head hurt to even think about it, so she just asked for guidance.
Topaz smiled slightly awkwardly and guided her asil. Even though she was Topaz, she seemed very embarrassed, and silence fell between them. It was rather a comfortable atmosphere for Asil.
“Here. “Sister.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Well, then!”
“No, wait, hey!”
-Tap-tap-tap…
Topaz guided her child to a large room and quickly left, her face turning bright red.
No, you should at least introduce the other person’s face. What if I just go away?
Asil was dumbfounded, but that didn’t stop her from wandering around the building without knowing where she was, looking for Topaz, who had already disappeared.
Asil glared at her door, which she could tell was a high-ranking person’s room just by looking at it. She sighed and steeled herself.
– Knock.
“Please come in.”
Asil slowly opened the door, slightly nervous at the sound of a deeper voice than expected.
“You arrived on time. She was worried it might leak in the middle… Hmm?”
“… Ah. Hello.”
It must have been Topaz who brought Unknown, but Topaz was not visible, and there was a woman smiling awkwardly in front of her.
The manager, who was momentarily embarrassed, quickly regained his composure and confirmed formally.
“Umm… Are you Unknown?”
Unknown. Asil, when she was in middle school, she felt goosebumps at the naming sense that reminded her of dark history.
“Hey, that. She said calling herself Unknown was a bit…”
“Ah. Sorry. It wouldn’t be polite to call something unknown when it’s right in front of you. “What can I call you?”
“Please just call me Asil. You can speak comfortably.”
“If it’s convenient. Okay. As much as you know. “Have you heard anything from Topaz about why you asked to meet?”
“No.”
“Ha… “I thought so.”
The manager spoke in a half-resigned tone. It seemed like Topaz had forgotten something important for more than a day or two.
He certainly didn’t seem like the type of person to take such meticulous care of things. Asil secretly agreed.
“Then can I explain?”
“It’s okay, but… “First of all, I have no intention of becoming a magical girl.”
Asil hit the nail on the head from the beginning.
Although she thought about making money with spirit stones, it felt like it was just a small-scale way to earn pocket money, and she had no intention of turning it into a career.
“That’s a bit unfortunate. So how about this?”
Despite Asil’s firm refusal, the manager made another proposal, as if he had expected rejection from the beginning.
To summarize what the manager said, he asked Asil to continue working as he pleased now, but to sell Youngseok to the association.
It was an offer from the manager who anticipated that there would be no place to exchange the spirit stones that Asil had collected, and it was also an offer that Asil had no reason to refuse.
“That’s a good thing for me. But what does the association gain by doing so?”
Asil was suspicious of the manager’s proposal, which was too advantageous for her to solve the problem she had recently been worrying about, but she had already prepared an answer.
“We can maintain our exclusive position on spirit stones.”
Monopolies make money. It was something that even Asil, who had only common sense knowledge about the economy, could roughly understand.
After resolving his doubts, Asil decided to accept the manager’s proposal.
“Good. Then, I have to register with the exchange, so can you give me a little time? It won’t take long.”
“Well, that’s okay.”
“Thank goodness. “I’ll call Topaz again, so let her guide you.”
“Yes.”
Asil left the room as soon as the story was over.
Topaz may not have arrived already, but standing in an empty hallway was much more comfortable than being with a man I didn’t know yet.
“…”
The manager, looking at the spot where Asil was standing, recalled a fact he had momentarily forgotten.
“Really. Who was the registrar?”
The registration officer working today was someone who had not properly passed the association’s verification.
Originally, due to the nature of the organization operating out of sight of the public, the association prioritized secrecy and accepted only carefully verified personnel.
But it wasn’t easy after deciding to reveal the existence of magical girls to society.
An explosion of work occurred due to the rapid increase in the appearance of shadows and the bifurcation of the organization. If you graph the workload, it bends almost vertically, and the verification process is greatly reduced due to the hasty hiring of new people.
Even so, I think we have filtered out as many villains as possible… He couldn’t be as confident as he used to be.
“I don’t want any problems to arise.”
In order to prevent any untoward incident, the manager sent another magical girl, separate from Topaz, to the registry office.
