Magical Hunter Girl Decorates the Dungeon! Episode 013
— — —
A cold thought crossed his mind.
There is no such thing as free kindness in this world.
‘The moment the rescuer sees my face, they’ll try to squeeze me for a rescue fee.’
Furthermore, the world is overflowing with free malice.
‘They might even try to sell me off somewhere.’
Jin Si-heon had quite a few enemies who would love to hear his screams. It was the price he paid for living his life at odds with values like etiquette, humility, and compromise.
Regardless, he had to be on guard for any eventuality.
Fortunately, he could still manipulate his magic, and his body was moving.
‘My range of motion feels a bit off… Is it because I was trapped for so long?’
There was no time to dwell on it.
Jin Si-heon leaned his body, channeling magic into his hands.
Beneath the light, the real world revealed itself.
The first thing he saw was—
“Wow!”
…A child.
By any measure, she looked like a lower-grade elementary school student.
And she was dressed in frilly clothes, as if she had just dashed out of a school talent show.
‘Did that kid get me out? No way!’
But there was no one else around, and the child even reached out both hands toward Si-heon with a proud expression.
“Coochie-coochie-coo!”
‘Coochie-coochie-coo?’
Jin Si-heon recoiled in horror, releasing his magic into the air to pull his body back.
If a solid adult male, 187cm tall with 12% body fat, fell on top of that kid, it would be a catastrophe—
‘…Huh?’
No.
The catastrophe had already befallen Jin Si-heon.
The long legs that should have been treading the earth were gone, and what he saw in his field of vision was…
Furry rabbit hind legs.
“What is thisssss! …Argh!”
A black rabbit, 45cm long and weighing 3kg, rolled across the ground. The girl’s scream rang out.
“A rabbit! Oh, no. Mr. Hunter!”
— — —
* * *
“…And that’s how it happened.”
The girl began with an introduction, “I’m Shin Iji, a second-grader in Class 3 at Chamsae Elementary School!” and explained the sequence of events leading up to his rescue.
After hearing it all, only one sentence remained in Si-heon’s mind.
‘Is this not a dream I’m having while dead drunk?’
“I’m a magical rabbit belonging to a self-proclaimed nine-year-old magical girl…”
Si-heon clutched his forehead. The fluffy sensation of his front paws against his brow felt strangely pleasant, which only made him more annoyed.
The flying book called Grimoire spoke with a sharp sting.
[Why the long face? If it weren’t for Iji, you would have died slowly in agony, you fertilizer.]
“Fertilizer?”
[I already explained it. Until a moment ago, you were nothing more than Magic Stone fertilizer.]
“…”
[It’s a miracle you even survived.]
Si-heon gritted his teeth, recalling the time he had spent trapped in the crystal.
Regardless, it was true that he had escaped hell.
Even if he had been reborn as a rabbit.
Just as he was staring futilely at his rabbit paws, Grimoire whispered.
[By the way, did you forget something?]
“What? …Ah.”
Grimoire’s pages pointed toward Iji, who had retreated a short distance away.
Iji seemed focused on mining Magic Stones, but…
“Wow. These Magic Stones are so pretty! La-la-la! Oh, there’s one here too?”
She continued with acting so awkward it was embarrassing to watch.
‘She’s expecting something from an adult but trying hard to act like she doesn’t care.’
It was obvious what the kid wanted.
Si-heon suppressed his embarrassment, approached Iji, and said,
“Th… Thank you for saving me, kid.”
“I didn’t do it to be thanked! It was just the right thing to do!”
Even as she said that, the corners of Iji’s mouth twitched with joy.
It was an expression so cute that he subconsciously wanted to pat her head.
…Though that was impossible.
Iji noticed his flailing rabbit paws.
“Do you need something?”
“No!”
“But you just used your front paws to—”
“They’re hands, hands! Ahem. More importantly, you. You said you came in here to earn money, right?”
“I was originally going to look for my colleagues first, but… yes.”
“If you help me a little more, I’ll give you enough money. Enough to make a lottery jackpot look like pocket change.”
Iji asked with wide, round eyes.
“More than a first-prize lottery ticket? Then can I buy a house too?”
“Of course.”
“A two-story house with a garden?”
“Yeah.”
“Even if it’s in a prime location in Seoul right next to an elementary school?”
“Of course… wait, a two-story house can’t be right next to an elementary school. Do you even know what that means?”
“The grandmas in my neighborhood said that’s the best kind of house!”
“Ha… anyway, it’s all possible.”
“…!”
Iji’s eyes sparkled.
Even for Jin Si-heon, who didn’t particularly care for children, it was a gaze so bright that he subconsciously found himself wondering—
‘Couldn’t I just buy two floors of an apartment complex near an elementary school and renovate them to meet the criteria?’
“Thank you!”
“…Ahem. Is one house enough?”
“Yes!”
The verbal contract was sealed.
However, as Jin Si-heon was mentally reviewing a few accounts he could quickly withdraw from, Grimoire asked with a taunt.
[How will you get the money? Do banks give money to rabbits?]
“You stuffy old book, you clearly don’t know that the modern convenience of mobile banking… exists.”
Though the realistic hurdle of not knowing where his phone was—and the unprecedented question of ‘Can this body use facial or fingerprint recognition?’—crossed his mind, Si-heon didn’t let it show. He didn’t want to be looked down upon by a stack of paper.
“And when I get back, I’ll have to track down a healer Hunter. There’s bound to be one who can solve my problem.”
[Hmm. You dream big.]
“If you have something to say, say it properly, book.”
[That plan won’t even get off the ground. You can only move when Iji transforms into a Magical Girl.]
“……What?”
“Ah!”
Iji checked her skill window and nodded.
“That’s right. This skill only works when I’m near the Magical Girl.”
“Kid! You, you can’t transform outside the dungeon?”
“Magical Girls aren’t supposed to transform in public. That would just make me a weirdo.”
“…”
Faced with such a bizarre response, Si-heon lost the will to argue.
He couldn’t force her to transform, either.
If a Hunter truly believed that, the chances of it being impossible were likely high.
The ordeal he thought would pass quickly weighed on him anew.
“I’m going to be a rabbit forever…”
“Don’t worry too much, Mr. Hunter! Sometimes, when a Magical Girl gets stronger, her magical animal friends become independent by the end!”
That was not a helpful consolation.
Just then, Grimoire approached and asked.
[You, you used magic earlier, didn’t you? How much of your original power do you think you have left?]
“Probably between 15 and 20%… Ugh, why are you touching my head!”
[Hold on. Ho, this is interesting.]
Grimoire, having placed a page on the rabbit’s head, said after a moment.
[When the dungeon shattered, it seems your soul was torn into six pieces and scattered. You are just one of those pieces, which is why you only have 1/6th of your original magic.]
Iji’s eyes went round.
“Is that even possible? If a body is torn into six pieces, you die!”
[You were destined to die, obviously. You just happened to pull off something extraordinary.]
“Oh… hehe.”
[I have no way of finding the body that lost its soul, but… I suspect it’s lying around somewhere relatively intact.]
“How do you know?”
[Souls mimic their vessels. Didn’t your whole body appear in the reflection in the crystal earlier?]
Grimoire looked down at Jin Si-heon again.
[So, if you collect the remaining five souls, you might be able to reclaim your body.]
Si-heon’s eyes wavered.
“Re… really? Is there even a slight possibility?”
[Yes. Though I don’t know if you can meet the conditions of ‘finding all five pieces one by one’ and ‘absorbing them faster than anyone else’?]
It was effectively a declaration of impossibility.
The rabbit ears drooped on their own. Si-heon was horrified by himself for a split second.
‘Argh! I’m already adapting to this body!’
Just then, Iji crouched down and patted Si-heon’s head.
“We’ve already saved one soul, haven’t we? We did something everyone said was impossible!”
“That’s… true.”
“Since Grimoire found the first soul, you can find the rest too, right?”
[It’s not… impossible, I suppose.]
Faced with a grumpy Grimoire, Si-heon voiced an uneasy suspicion.
“You aren’t suggesting we look for my soul together, are you?”
“Yes! Let’s explore dungeons together—”
“No.”
“Huh… What? But you asked for my help earlier!”
“Did you think I meant let’s go dungeon crawling together? What kind of lunatic would let a child into a dungeon?”
“But I came in on my own…”
“At least I won’t let it happen in front of me. Forget about crawling into any more dungeons the moment I say so.”
He had to stop a child from walking into a minefield.
Even for Si-heon, who had no social skills, that was a self-evident truth.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you a large sum of money right now. Instead, I’ll at least show you the route to sell the Magic Stones you’ve mined…”
“…Are you going to stop me from going to dungeons?”
“That’s right.”
“Even so?”
“Huh?”
Something felt off.
As he tilted his head up, he saw Iji with a look of shock on her face.
“We’re colleagues… it’s strange for you to stop me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Colleagues shouldn’t get in each other’s way.”
“Ha! Since when were we colleagues? If you could just stop being a nuisance…”
“…”
Oh no.
Iji’s expression changed again at the sentence Si-heon’s tactless frontal lobe had reflexively spat out.
It seemed he had pressed the button to start the tear factory.
Iji’s voice grew increasingly damp.
“I thought… we had become colleagues. In cartoons and fairy tales, when you save someone’s life, you usually become friends…”
“Look, about that…”
“I was so excited… I even confessed that I was a Magical Girl…”
“Shin Iji? Take a deep breath for a second. Okay?”
“I didn’t know I was a burden, *hic*, I was just excited by myself, I’m sorry… *sob*, *hiccup*!”
In that moment, Jin Si-heon realized for the first time.
‘I’d much rather she just bawl her eyes out!’
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