Congratulations on Your Magical Girl Duties

90 – A Brief Respite

“I can’t fucking do this anymore. Seriously.”

Choi Nayoon, affiliated with Magical Private Investigations, suddenly swore and clutched her head.

“Hey!!! I told you to stop cursing every time I’m working!!!”

“No, but there’s just no way not to swear!”

She was genuinely going insane.

No, maybe half-insane already.

The situation was just that utterly hopeless.

It all started with a single request given to her by Lee Seobin, once a magical senior when Choi Nayoon was a magical girl, and now a magical lieutenant general.

Choi Nayoon sighed and covered her face.

‘Seobin sunbae, seriously, what is this now!’

The request itself wasn’t that big of a deal. Honestly, it was so simple it was barely a request.

The request was to find records of two people who had gone missing after the monster invasion.

Even the people she had to find were just ordinary civilians.

‘I’m sure they said they were the parents of someone named Kim Siyul.’

Even though the records were all lost after the monster invasion, that wasn’t entirely true.

If you looked hard enough, you could still find them.

It was just that the state wouldn’t do it because of cost issues.

As a result, a new job was born that took advantage of this: Magical Private Investigations.

There was no real reason why “Magical” was attached to Private Investigations. It was just that the first person to seriously pioneer this field was a magical girl.

Just like how special forces personnel sell their tactical manuals as books after being discharged, they squeezed out as much information as possible from their time as magical girls to create a new job.

As more and more magical girls did this, Magical Private Investigations became established as a job.

Well, anyway.

Therefore, the main task of Magical Private Investigations was to find the records of missing people.

This was a task that Choi Nayoon was confident in.

Lee Seobin had even given her data based on what someone named Kim Siyul had said.

It was too easy to even call it a request.

More like a Magical Baby Submission.

So the moment Choi Nayeon took the case, she was sure. This would be over quick, she thought.

But.

‘Fucking hell, really?’

She’d discarded that naive thought a long time ago.

Now, all she did was mutter curses.

‘Shit.’

Despite the considerable time she’d invested, she hadn’t made any real progress.

‘Why can’t anything line up?’

It wasn’t that the name didn’t exist, but there wasn’t a single piece of information that perfectly matched.

Age, education, background, residence, and so on.

Just when she thought one thing might fit, the rest would inevitably fall completely apart.

And that wasn’t all. When she tried to connect the two people as parents, there wasn’t a single piece of matching information.

In the first place, the two rarely had any contact with each other.

They weren’t just unrelated as family, they weren’t even relatives, and even being in the same area was rare.

The closest they came was one being a tteokbokki shop owner and the other a short-term part-timer, so how could they possibly fit?

Needless to say, there wasn’t a single piece of information that matched that combination.

Nothing was right.

Like a zero-point test paper filled with deliberately wrong answers.

Choi Nayeon rubbed her throbbing head.

“Ha.”

She had never doubted her abilities. After all, she was the one who tirelessly tracked down the Magical Supervillains who were once the nemesis of Magical Girls.

That’s how confident Choi Nayeon was in her abilities. In fact, she was exceptionally skilled.

Even those who didn’t like Choi Nayeon had to admit her skills were impressive.

However.

Today, for the first time, Choi Nayeon couldn’t help but doubt her own abilities.

It felt like she’d hit a wall.

An insurmountable wall, a wall called her limit.

‘Couldn’t they have just done this themselves?’

“Better than me, of course.” Choi Nayun mumbled the complaint under her breath.

Whether she was a magical girl or, as now, a retiree from the magical life, that senior of hers was relentlessly exhausting.

“Damn it.”

Still, Choi Nayun swore, forcing herself to think. If she couldn’t find it, she’d at least have to report the most likely cause.

In cases like this, there are usually three possibilities.

First.

Lee Seobin made a mistake with the data.

‘No.’

She dismissed it immediately.

Lee Seobin was the worst kind of superior when they worked together, magical girl senior and junior. Not because she was incompetent, but conversely, because she was *too* good at her job.

The data was, of course, perfect. A level Choi Nayun couldn’t reach even if she poured years into it.

Therefore, the data’s integrity was not the problem.

Then, second.

The person named Kim Shiyul lied.

‘Not this either.’

It wasn’t entirely impossible, but the probability was very low. Almost nonexistent.

‘There’s no gain.’

Lying wouldn’t give him any advantage.

Choi Nayun’s magical detective agency charged a premium. Even if he hired them through Lee Seobin, there would only be a difference in priority, not price.

Besides, since Lee Seobin had paid the money herself, she must have paid a considerable price of some sort in exchange.

‘Though I don’t know what that price is…’

He wouldn’t burn something like that for a single, malicious prank, so she ruled this out as well.

So, finally, third.

Everything is completely incorrect information from the beginning.

‘This is the most likely, at least.’

If the information Kim Shiyul believed to be true was actually false, then things fit together to some extent.

‘No, rather than that…’

It would be a bit more accurate to say that Kim Shiyul was not in his right mind and firmly believed in corrupted information.

‘That’s possible.’

Certainly, based on her assessment of Lee Seobin’s data, Kim Shiyul was not a stable individual.

A deserter who evaded capture even during the grotesque incursion.

A conceptualist claiming to have spent a decade in another world.

A lunatic who calls himself a lunar warrior.

And that’s not all. He adamantly insists he’s already discharged from another unit.

“Seriously, what even is the Roe Deer Brigade?”

Of course, no such unit ever existed in this world, nor ever would.

Truly a madman amongst madmen.

Could information known by such a deranged individual possibly be sound?

Absolutely not.

‘So, he’s the root cause after all.’

Thinking this, Choi Nayeon closed the file.

“Huh?”

Then, reopened it.

“Something’s off.”

A sense of unease settled.

Kim Siyul’s records were comparatively solid.

At least, up until his conscription and immediate desertion.

“The grotesque incident definitely occurred after his desertion.”

To summarize, it goes something like this:

Enlistment → Desertion → Grotesque Incident → Awakening of Magical Girl Collective → Grotesque Incident Resolution & Reconstruction → Capture, followed by Re-enlistment as a Magical Girl.

In short, nothing special. He was caught when everyone relaxed, once the world grew peaceful again.

However.

“…This doesn’t add up.”

In this case, there is a contradiction with Kim Siyul’s statements.

“He clearly stated ten years in another world.”

A slight discrepancy exists between the desertion period and the period he claims to have spent in another world.

Of course, this does not mean that Kim Siyul’s words hold truth. It is far more likely that he is falsifying.

Does another world even exist in the first place?

Those ten years must be the length of his desertion.

Nevertheless.

Given that Kim Si-yul was thirty-three, and he claimed to have been on the run for ten years, a reverse calculation placed his desertion at twenty-three.

‘Though he himself said he was discharged.’

In reality, records showed he deserted immediately after being assigned to his unit, having enlisted at twenty-one.

Thus, a discrepancy existed.

‘This requires a deeper…’

Look. Choi Na-yeon’s eyes glinted.

It was possible Kim Si-yul couldn’t properly count his time as a fugitive. From the perspective of a deserter, what difference would ten or twelve years make?

And given the state of his mental faculties, could he even be expected to make accurate calculations?

Besides, if others had left it untouched, there must surely be a reason. Perhaps the unease she’d just felt was merely a figment of her imagination.

However.

A strange interest was piqued.

It felt as though something was there.

The fact that Kim Si-yul became a magical girl also bothered her slightly.

‘Just… why?’

There was no benefit to be gained from designating Kim Si-yul as a magical girl. He was a man, and therefore couldn’t even use magic.

And yet, deliberately making him a magical girl?

Wouldn’t there have been other ways to handle it?

‘It seems sunbae has something in mind.’

Well, from the moment Lee Seo-bin identified him as someone to keep a close watch on, there was a high probability Lee Seo-bin’s influence was heavily involved in Kim Si-yul’s magical girl designation.

This was something Choi Na-yeon was well aware of.

Impossible not to know.

Didn’t Choi Na-yeon, herself, once fall victim to Lee Seo-bin’s magical silver tongue, signing up for magical extended service as if in a trance?

Not that she could blame Lee Seo-bin.

After all, *she* was the one who stamped her magical seal of approval.

‘Damn it, I really was a crazy b*tch back then.’

However.

Based on the data Lee Seo-bin provided, Choi Na-yeon surmised that the current surrounding Kim Si-yul’s magical girl trajectory had existed even before Lee Seo-bin’s decision.

To summarise:

Lee Seo-bin’s hand had determined which magical unit Kim Si-yul would be assigned to.

But, the magical girl thing? That began from the moment of his capture.

A feeling clung to the air, as if someone, somewhere, was determined to turn Kim Si-yul into a magical girl.

Couldn’t say for sure.

Just a fleeting impression, nothing more.

‘Well, might as well, just to clear my head.’

The eyes, moments ago dull with listlessness, flickered with renewed resolve.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the actual request.

Practically goofing off, truth be told.

‘But…’

If she played her cards right, maybe she could use this to smooth things over and wrap up the request. She rationalized with a practiced ease.

And so, Choi Na-yeon stayed glued to the monitor late into the night, fingers flying across the keyboard.

Trying to understand the life of Kim Si-yul.

“Look at that b*tch, trying to score overtime with more of her side projects, as usual.”

Oblivious to the way her own life was unraveling.

“That b*stard is going down, I’ll personally tank his performance review.”

Magical Investigations Inc. remained peaceful as ever.

And meanwhile,

Kim Si-yul, whose life was being laid bare by someone else, was currently…

“Hey, you useless lot. Move aside. Just do what they taught us in the training, it’s that simple.”

Fighting a fire.

“Kim Si-yul, you son of a b*tchhh!!!”

Using the Magical Company Commander.