Alisa, with her black hair covering her face, suddenly woke up from her slumber inside the teapot due to a loud noise. She opened the lid and looked around, wondering if something strange was happening, but everything seemed normal.
Silence.
“…”
Alisa gazed at the sky. A giant egg laid by a chicken was cracking open, and the sun was flowing out, cooking towards evening. Clocks fluttered in the refreshing swamp breeze atop the trees.
Tick tock.
The clocks, unable to make a sound due to being soaked in the damp swamp, were now ringing out, as if someone had thoroughly dried them.
“…”
It seemed someone had already done the task of hanging the clocks that Alisa couldn’t tend to because she was sleeping.
“…”
Though Alisa couldn’t run errands for the white rabbit while asleep, she guessed a brown cat or a mad scale merchant had taken care of it.
‘Maybe a pigeon did it.’
Staring at the messy tea party table before her, Alisa dove back into the teapot for some more sleep. If the tea party started, she wouldn’t be able to sleep again, so she needed to make the most of it.
In the quiet darkness.
She sank her consciousness into the familiar void of nothingness.
Just being still and quiet.
That was how she envisioned life.
*
March 5th
“Is she a Magical Girl of [Dream]?”
“Yeah… Asya stayed behind at the hospital she recently went to, claiming she would heal long-term inpatients. It seems she goes there every day, trying to access the dream world.”
Natalia reported to me with a worried expression about Jo Yeon-seo, who quickly became friends with her due to their matching personalities.
Natalia, Lee Hua, Jo Yeon-seo.
Three people who could be called the protagonists of [Magical Girl HAZARD], as they shared most of the narrative together. They quickly got close after bumping into each other while traveling back and forth between Elysion in this changed history.
‘Although all three had some sense of justice to unite even in an apocalypse, perhaps they matched better in everyday encounters.’
As the story progressed beyond the middle point, it was noted that one by one, they had all died.
“…”
Yuki was still avoiding meeting them. Even though the world had changed, their familiar faces seemed harder to face now.
‘If only she would genuinely face those kids, perhaps things would resolve faster.’
I found myself in a position where I couldn’t really ask them to get close to Yuki, so I just observed from a distance.
[I passed the entrance exam! I’m so nervous about entering high school! What should I do, Hikari?]
Hoping to give Yuki a slice of normalcy after being dragged into the extraordinary, I asked her to follow her own path. Yuki mentioned her relationship with her father was also getting better.
‘I just need to keep walking my own path.’
Natalia was now in charge of transportation at Elysion.
Lee Hua, training as the head of the Freedom Magical Girl Alliance.
Jo Yeon-seo, operating in the domain of Russia included by the goddess.
And unexpectedly, Hong Na-yeon had enlisted as a new recruit in the White Wing Unit…
When I confirmed the names of these characters who naturally joined the society of Magical Girls while saving people and building Elysion, I felt a shiver.
‘Is this the grand path that my father spoke of encompassing everything?’
So I was keenly observing their movements when it seemed something was troubling Jo Yeon-seo.
“Could you give me the address of that hospital?”
“Oh, are you going to visit, Your Majesty?”
“Yes. I can always return to Elysion or the garden anytime. I’ll leave a clone behind.”
“I’ll tell you right away. No, wait! I’ll write it down for you!”
After confirming the address written on the paper Natalia pulled from her belongings, I passed through the warp gate located in Elysion, heading into Moscow. Given that Elysion was recently brought closer to the western USA due to the transportation issues of the Magical Girls, I felt the biting winds of Moscow even more.
‘Good thing I wore the thick outer clothing I brought just in case.’
As I exited the Grande Council office located in Moscow, I noticed people casting sidelong glances at my face.
“Hey? Isn’t that the [Start] Magical Girl?”
“What? Hmm… I can’t see well from drinking too much vodka… are you talking about the woman on the right or left?”
“Get a grip! There’s only one woman over there. Why are you so drunk? You only drank three bottles!”
I lifted the coat’s hem to partially cover my face and hurriedly headed towards the hospital Jo Yeon-seo mentioned.
After walking for several minutes…
Upon arrival, the state of the hospital was dreadful.
Rusting and twisted steel structures were visible everywhere.
The paint had completely peeled off, revealing the cement beneath.
An old man was sitting outside in a patient gown, chugging vodka.
“…”
In the hospital, which appeared gloomy at first glance, abnormal-looking individuals in shabby patient gowns wandered around aimlessly.
“What am I supposed to do now… I can’t remember.”
“It’s all over…”
While there were no visible external injuries on those who had passed through the healing volunteer activities of the Magical Girls, most looked abandoned, as if they were just excuses to exist.
People suffering from mental illness, banging their heads against the walls.
Individuals left by their families, inflicting self-harm out of despair while trying to remain in the hospital.
Demented elderly people who wanted no one to care about them.
Nothingness.
This run-down hospital was filled with void.
The doctors and nurses, wearing shabby patient gowns, ignored the patients clinging to liquor bottles. They too, merely pretending to work, treated this place as their final stop in life.
I walked past them and entered the room on the uppermost floor. No one stopped me even as I silently approached the patient room.
Knock, knock.
When I knocked on the door, Jo Yeon-seo, impressed with her purple eyes and hair, opened it with a look of shock upon seeing me.
“Uh?! [Start] Magical Girl?”
“Hello, Asya.”
“You’re calling me by that nickname. Did Lee Hua or Natasha tell you? …Oh! What brings you here?”
“Natalia said you seem to have some worries.”
Through Jo Yeon-seo, I could see a black-haired girl sleeping. I cautiously closed the door, but a grating noise came from the rusty hinges.
I was startled and turned to the sleeping black-haired girl.
“Eep…?!”
“She won’t wake up from that,” Jo Yeon-seo said with a wry smile. Looking around the room revealed it was in a dismal state, just like the outside of the hospital.
Mold-covered walls.
Curtains flapping in the wind, yellowed from age.
Rusty, damp, cheap beds here and there.
“No matter how many windows you close, the cold wind still blows in.”
“…Alisa has been sleeping alone in a place like this for her whole life.”
“For her whole life…?”
Jo Yeon-seo explained the circumstances in a softly spoken tone.
“I see. It’s such a massive dream that even the Magical Girl of [Dream] cannot comprehend it.”
“Typically, even if the unconscious space is vast, it directly connects to the conscious space. But this girl only had the endless depth of the unconscious.”
“…”
I pondered what a dream would be like for someone who had never learned anything or felt any emotion since birth.
“I can relate a bit… because I’ve wasted time due to narcolepsy. This girl’s life feels like someone else’s story.”
Jo Yeon-seo gently stroked Alisa’s sleeping face. From what I heard, Alisa had turned 17 this year, yet she looked like a middle school or late elementary school student.
“If Alisa wishes to reclaim her life robbed by slumber, I want to help her.”
That’s why Jo Yeon-seo stayed for several days in Moscow, where she placed the magic of the Magical Girl of [Dream] at her grandfather’s house in Yekaterinburg.
“…”
For me, it would probably be more advantageous to ignore this and either return to Elysion to get organized or create memories with friends, including Yuki, for the remaining time.
But…
[Magical Girls exist to protect everyone!]
After saying such a thing, I couldn’t just turn a blind eye and run away.
I also calculated that by helping Jo Yeon-seo solve her troubles, I could introduce Yuki to a new important connection, easing her hesitations.
“I’ll go into the dream world with you.”
“Really?!”
“If Asya’s dream and my fantasy merge, we could show Alisa something amazing enough to draw out her faint consciousness.”
Jo Yeon-seo grabbed my hand, teary-eyed, and bowed her head.
“Thank you so much. I felt uneasy thinking I was solely being stubborn.”
“At times like that, just hold your head high and say it’s the belief of a Magical Girl.”
Pfft.
Jo Yeon-seo offered me her first small smile at my blatant remark. And in no time, she poured purple starlight upon me as I settled down. The potent starlight within me automatically reflected those around me, but I made a conscious effort to absorb it.
My eyelids began to feel heavy.
A cozy sensation.
Darkness.
Jo Yeon-seo and I entered the dream world of the girl named Alisa.
And what we saw there was…
“…”
“…”
“Why is there a river in the dream? Is this usual for everyone?”
“I’ve never experienced anything like this either… Normally, even in the unconsciousness, it starts from a familiar space. If nature appears, ultimately people are found where humans live.”
The air felt cold, damp, and heavy.
Under the gloomy sky, a river ran endlessly.
Jo Yeon-seo pointed toward the gently glowing river.
“I can feel a weak consciousness over there.”
“Let’s cross over once.”
Upon hearing that, Jo Yeon-seo grew flustered.
“I can’t use the Magical Girl’s powers to cross here.”
“Uh?”
“If we try to go through the air, we’ll just end up back at the starting point.”
“Then what…”
“However, there’s one method we could try…”
Jo Yeon-seo looked somewhere, and I followed her gaze.
Before a shabby raft stood a skeleton squatting down, drinking.
“……”
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