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“…Huh?”

I stared blankly at the creature in front of me.

It was a hamster with pink fur. Of course, being a hamster, it was cute, but if someone had dyed a hamster’s fur like that, I would have definitely considered it abuse. If it were a puppy, it might be different, but dyeing an entire hamster could be too much for such a small life.

However, even though it looked like a hamster at first glance, there were completely different aspects to it. For one, unlike a hamster, its tail was fluffy. It reminded me more of a fox’s tail than a squirrel’s, so fluffy that I wanted to touch it once.

I knew the name of this hamster.

Cherry.

And that Cherry was perched on Ha-yoon’s hand.

That alone was cute. My goodness, a talking hamster.

Of course, it was an alien, and it just looked like a hamster. In reality, it was as human as they come, so it wouldn’t be easy to raise it as a pet, but…

…Still, I felt like I could take care of it. Maybe if I offered to provide food, it would come and stay with me?

Ah, but there were so many kids in the orphanage; that might be a problem. Even if I treated it like a person, the other kids wouldn’t see it that way at all. Some of them would rush to touch anything that looked even remotely like an animal.

Wait, hold on a second.

What did it just say?

“Ji-eun, was it?”

Cherry said that, then cleared its throat.

With its little arms bent, it placed both hands on its waist and puffed out its chest, looking up at me.

It was quite a bold pose, but honestly, it still looked cute. If it were a puppy instead, it might even have a different image.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Ha-yoon.”

“M-My story?”

I blinked a few times and asked back.

Then I looked at Ha-yoon.

Ha-yoon’s cheeks turned a slight shade of red as she smiled shyly.

Ha-yoon was a magical girl. Technically, she was supposed to become one. Probably about a year from now. After all, we were still in the first year of middle school.

For the past few years, I had no idea what kind of world this was. For a world I had been reborn into from another, it was way too similar to the one I had lived in.

The only difference was that the hair colors of the people felt far more diverse than what I was used to.

I should have realized that was a hint, but I just thought it was like a typical slice-of-life anime or comic.

Ha-yoon was the protagonist of a magical girl story.

It started out as comedy but slowly introduced strangely serious settings, and eventually, I couldn’t help but comment.

I felt inferior next to Ha-yoon.

Most of the characters who had been reborn into another world lived well and thrived. They became the protagonists of that world, enjoying lives far better than the original protagonists.

I was not one of them. I was, in every aspect, far inferior to Ha-yoon.

“…”

But why was Cherry, the magical girl mascot, here with me?

No, more importantly, how did Ha-yoon already know Cherry when she wasn’t even at the point of becoming a magical girl?

“I met Cherry not long ago!”

Ha-yoon said, her eyes sparkling.

“Our parents are related to that kind of work.”

I had heard of that. So I also knew that Ha-yoon was struggling a bit because of it. A child from a family of privilege has their own set of concerns, and I would often comfort Ha-yoon whenever she faced challenges related to that.

“But while talking with Cherry, we felt like we needed more magical girls, so I shared your story.”

Once she finished speaking with excitement, Ha-yoon looked at me with a slightly deflated expression.

“Is it okay to… to do that?”

“…Uh, well.”

I was still a bit confused.

Aliens appeared, and shortly after, heroes began to emerge all over the Earth. And yes, I meant heroes in the sense of those from stories. An archetypical American comic hero in the U.S., and magical girls in places like Japan.

By the way, I was a magical girl.

It probably didn’t have any special reason. They just deemed it more picturesque. Perhaps it was simply the influence of the original work.

“So, what’s the reason you came to find me?”

Even as I asked, my heart was racing a little.

Because there’s only one reason a magical girl mascot would come looking for a ‘girl.’

To ask her to become a magical girl.

The older magical girls that had been introduced last year didn’t just jump in right away. They most likely took their time to verify their candidates, train, and then moved on to real-life situations.

“That’s because I was looking for candidates for magical girls. While chatting with Ha-yoon, your name came up, so I came to see you.”

Ha-yoon placed Cherry on the table. The cup in front of me was much larger than Cherry’s height, but Cherry looked completely unfazed, as if it were already used to it.

“Hmm.”

Then, tilting its head while resting its chin on its fist, it looked up at me.

“How do I look?”

I asked, a bit flustered.

What kind of conversation do you have in this kind of situation?

Ever since I realized that Ha-yoon was going to be the protagonist, I became incredibly jealous of her. I wanted to become like her, no, I wanted to be an even greater magical girl than Ha-yoon.

Unfortunately, I had nothing.

I was abandoned from the moment I was born and was growing up in an orphanage without a family. Though the other kids I grew up with and the teachers caring for us could be called family, sadly, none of those people could ever be my ‘backers.’

Magical girls were different. Each one was a child from a family related to the Eun-ha Federation.

I couldn’t say those kids entered without any skills, but the fact that magical girls could be born only shortly after aliens made contact meant that those kids were prioritized, as they were capable of such ‘contact.’

“Hey, Ha-yoon.”

Cherry wandered around the table observing me, while Ha-yoon continued to smile brightly at me.

I called out to Ha-yoon.

“Yeah?”

“What’s the deal? A magical girl, really?”

“That’s… um, actually, I got a proposal too.”

“Uh…”

Right, there’s also Iris, a magical girl of the same age. Of course, she probably hadn’t received a formal proposal yet, and was just being considered as a candidate.

“But it feels like it would get lonely to do it all alone…”

Ha-yoon said, wringing her hands shyly.

“Magical girls aren’t alone. There are already other magical girls active.”

“…Even so.”

Ha-yoon and I went to the same school. Whenever she faced challenges among the kids, I would often take her away to a quiet place to hide and spend some time together. It seems during that time, Ha-yoon had grown to rely on me.

And if she became a magical girl, she would encounter other well-off girls too.

It seems she thought having at least one friend would ease her worries.

“…”

What should I say?

I was happy.

But at the same time, my feelings of inferiority hadn’t vanished. Ha-yoon would definitely become the best magical girl.

She would become the center that holds together the rival magical girls.

“Um, okay.”

Finally, Cherry said that and looked up at Ha-yoon.

“Ha-yoon, could you take that out for me?”

“Okay!”

Ha-yoon rummaged through her bag and pulled out a long box. It looked like the kind of box you’d get when buying a smartwatch.

When she opened the box, sure enough, inside was something akin to a smartwatch. But I knew what it was.

The Hope Circuit.

It’s what magical girls use when they fight. It returns to the realm of hope, and the stronger the hope they hold, the stronger they become. It’s literally a wand of the ‘magical girl.’

Well, there is an actual wand, but still, you need a circuit to use it.

“Do you want to try it on?”

“Uh?”

“Right now, transforming might be difficult, but at least we can check if you have the aptitude.”

I felt a rush of excitement.

I took the watch with both hands. It felt a little heavy. Perhaps that’s because it had various devices inside. On the outside, though, it didn’t look much different from a smartwatch.

I swallowed hard and put it on my wrist.

At first, it didn’t activate right away.

Ha-yoon and Cherry both looked a bit tense as they stared at the watch—

“Ah.”

Ha-yoon suddenly smiled with a glimmer of joy.

Was it because she thought I might become a magical girl alongside her?

On the black screen, suddenly an analog-like hand appeared and began to slowly turn.

The circuit was turning.

My heart rate rose, and the circuit began to spin even faster.

“…!”

Transforming was pushing it, but that screen glowed brightly.

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

Cherry looked up at me and smiled.

“So, Ji-eun, how about considering becoming a magical girl?”

“…Uh, yeah!”

Without even realizing it, I blurted out my answer without thinking.

 

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