Transformation or Death

Chapter 42

Red Vega was flustered. 

No matter how much she thought about it, there was no justification for her actions.

Her motivation was certain, and even during breaks, she kept moving her body little by little.

There should be no reason to freeze up when facing the enemy.

Her consciousness clearly knew what to do and how to do it.

But why was her subconscious ringing the alarm like this?

A shadow fell over the dazed Red Vega.

“Hahahahaha!!”

It was the villain of Turtle constellation.

The villain’s hideous charge was right in front of her. She wouldn’t die, but it was obvious she would take quite a bit of damage.

“Vega! Aren’t you coming to your senses?!”

A lance of ice pushed the villain’s body away. In fact, it was more like a tower lying sideways than a lance.

Even villains momentarily became weaklings in the face of violence with a mass several times larger than their bodies.

Red Vega, whose body trembled, nodded to Blue Sirius.

“So, sorry!”

“If you’re just going to space out like that, go back! Do you know how dangerous that was just now?!”

“I’m sorry!”

If Blue Sirius hadn’t saved her, she could have been seriously injured. 

It was a reenactment of what Pink Deneb had said before about unnecessarily coming to help and only getting hurt and causing trouble.

Red Vega felt like her throat was clogged with some sticky substance. 

It was suffocating and unpleasant. 

A thick, dim feeling resembling summer stickiness.

It was self-abasement.

“We’ll scold you later!”

The voice of Golden Aldebaran rang out. Her voice could be heard, but not her appearance. 

She had concealed herself with her unique cloaking magic.

Following that invisible voice came a sound like tearing the wind.

“This much at least…”

Several strikes rushed toward the villain who had broken through the ice lance. They were sharp and accurate.

Kaga-gagak!

A horrible sound followed, like forcibly scratching solid rock with fingernails.

Golden Aldebaran clicked her tongue as she revealed herself.

“As I thought, it’s too hard! I tried attacking the joints, but it’s useless!”

“It’s becoming troublesome.”

She had somewhat expected his attacks would not work.

From that brief exchange, Red Vega realized what kind of ability this Turtle villain possessed.

It was so solid that it could ignore any attack. A strength befitting its Turtle nature.

“Hahaha… useless… your attacks… like that…”

His tone was arrogant, but too slow. There was no need to even listen to him.

Blue Sirius immediately created a twin clone behind him. 

Circling the villain with her clone, she generated icicle spears.

With a heavy swing of her twin blades, all the spears rushed towards the villain.

Kwachang!

A sound like shattering glass rang out. All the icicle spears shattered instantly upon hitting him without leaving a single scratch.

“You can’t… leave a single… scratch… on my body…!”

The villain was still continuing the sentence he started earlier.

Blue Sirius wasn’t flustered.

She didn’t expect that attack to work anyway. It was merely an act to block the villain’s vision.

Moving across the ice like skating, Blue Sirius grabbed Red Vega’s arm.

“Huh…?”

“Kid, no need to overdo it.”

In an instant, they moved away from the villain. Red Vega let out a perplexed voice.

“We’ll figure out some way. So go back.”

Blue Sirius calmly urged the pale kid.

Red Vega refused.

“Well, the appearance I showed just now may have been unsightly… Bu, but! I’m really okay! Earlier I was just tired from moving too quickly…”  

“…Kid. This is a battlefield. A place where life comes and goes. You have no obligation to participate here.”

“I do… have an obligation.”

“Kid! Stop being so stubborn…”

As Blue Sirius’ voice rose, Golden Aldebaran shouted again.

“Hey! I told you to scold her later! I’ve been calling out this whole time, why can’t you hear me!”

The villain hid his limbs inside his armor resembling a turtle shell and spun around.

Using that centrifugal force, the villain charged again. 

A huge tremor was felt behind Sirius’ back. Something massive was gradually approaching.

“Ah… I did say so.”

Kwajik!

Blades sank deep into the ground. An ice rink formed under the charging villain.

The rink made the villain slip and accelerate his speed.

The villain charged even faster.

At that moment, the elevation of the path he was passing over suddenly rose. The ice rink rose up like a roller coaster climb, lifting him up.

He rode up the ice bridge created in the sky. Unable to stop due to inertia, he gradually reached the end of the bridge.

The bridge abruptly ended, and the villain flew into the air. Having flown for the first time, he marveled.

“Oh… Oh…”

Red Vega undid the arm holding her as if throwing a tantrum, flapping her freed arm. Simultaneously, she compressed her magic power into her feet. The compressed power immediately turned to flames.

Kwahng!

As the compressed flames were released, Red Vega leapt into the sky like a rocket.

In contrast to earlier, a shadow was now cast over the villain.

Red Vega spun her body and drove her fist downwards.

It was a more comfortable stance for using her legs, but there was a reason she deliberately used her fist.

Wanting to become like Sky Polaris, she even mimicked her minor combat habits.

Gravity and flames combined knocked the fiend down.

Emitting light like a comet, she plummeted below.

Towards the landing spot, Blue Sirius created icy spikes.

The villain’s body, greatly heated by air friction and flames, made contact with the snowy field.

As he fell, the villain smashed the spikes to pieces and left a crater in the ground, but his sturdy armor remained unscathed.

“Damnably hard…” Golden Aldebaran muttered. Everyone agreed.

It went beyond hardness, giving the impression of being untouchable.

Despite clearly making contact, the inability to leave any evidence of contact made it no different from not touching at all.

“Ugh… ugh…”

Groaning painfully like someone seasick, the villain stood up.

Red Vega’s fist approached his head.

“I do… have an obligation!” 

Ttang!

A sound like barely tapping solid steel with bare hands. It was heat intense enough to instantly melt ordinary steel, yet it only glowed without melting.

The fiend swung his arm. Red Vega immediately spun through the air, dodging the attack. 

“I’m a magical girl after all…”

Her voice trembled. Blue Sirius held back a sigh at that feeble declaration.  

Red Vega decided not to think about it.  

The strange behavior showing in herself now, the fear, why things like that were happening.

The more she thought about it, the more it would consume her, so she would just erase it from her thoughts.

For now, she would simply do her best to defeat the villain. Unnecessary feelings could be ignored.

Must be ignored.  

Must not know.

The pale girl turned her eyes away, and Red Vega focused on the villain in front of her.

Kagagagak!

Sparks flew from near the villain’s neck. An invisible strike. 

It was Golden Aldebaran.

Matching her timing, Red Vega also dashed forward.

“Kid, please!” 

“Red Vega enters everyone’s hearts!!”

“How about a plan to concentrate attacks on where I just struck to weaken it?!”

It was at the level of collective soliloquy. Blue Sirius dashed out with mixed feelings, twin blades in hand.

While scolding the child for her reckless action was important, the top priority was to take down that villain first.  

As Red Vega had just said, they were magical girls after all.

Her sigh froze into a long breath of white pathos.

***

Ippotranslation

***

“Don’t you want a drink?”

Botis pointed at the cup in front of Han Jae-jung and asked. Inside it, some animal’s milk was sloshing around, its origin unknown.

“Isn’t that the rumored milk that turns you into a villain the moment you drink it? No thanks, I’d rather not drink that.”

“There’s a rumor like that? Hmm…this doesn’t have that effect. Besides, you’re already a villain, yet you say strange things.”

Botis drained the contents of his own cup in one gulp and laughed. 

He was being mischievous. A lie? Or the truth?

Hard to say for sure.

However, it is true that one of Botis’ abilities is to turn ordinary humans into villains. 

Not monsterization.

He literally switches them. 

The human vanishes, leaving only the villain behind.

Stripping away the individual’s personality, ideology, consciousness and appearance, replacing them with a generic, uniform monstrous form.

A dreadful power.

“The magical girls who came before drank it just fine…”

“What?”

“I helped out at Libra’s request before. So I fought some magical girls. Of course, I invited them here and asked them to drink this cup.”

Botis smiled bitterly, licking his lips.

“They cried and screamed and even left what seemed like last wills…because of that rumor, I guess. Well, they ended up drinking it all eventually, hahaha.”

“‘Drank it just fine’ doesn’t seem like the right way to put it.”

“In the end, they drank it fine. Since they were freed after drinking, it turned out well.”

Botis laughed cheerfully and grabbed the remaining cup.

“Maybe if I add some honey, you’ll drink it…?”

“No need. This casual chat has gone on too long.” 

“But this is how people get friendly, through conversation…don’t you want to be friends?”

“If you want to befriend someone, first show some goodwill that can break down walls of the heart. This suspicious milk doesn’t seem very friendly.”

With his arms crossed, Botis let out a long “ummm” sound, showing he was pondering something.

“Yeah, I guess the impatient one should make the first move.”

Uncrossing his arms, Botis smiled.

“Alright, I’ll tell you about the belt.”

He took an object from his pocket and set it down. It was a belt of the same design as the one currently around Han Jae-jung’s waist.

“I don’t know all the details either. I just received it.”

“From whom did you receive it?”

“Bear…ah no, that’s a nickname, she has another name you might know.”

Botis answered straightforwardly.  

“Sky Polaris.”

“…!”

Han Jae-jung was surprised, but not shocked. Considering the webtoon author’s name and the parallel worlds shown by the belt, she was one of the likely suspects.

“It’s an item she entrusted to me. She made several of them, but I don’t really know why you have one. Ah, I knew at some point but then forgot.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“I lost my memory! That’s why I don’t know!”

“You’re being ridiculous…”

Botis laughed and guffawed. Han Jae-jung forced a laugh too. 

He had thought Botis was a formidable villain, but it seemed he might not obtain as much information as expected. 

He even felt a slight sense of intimacy, a feeling arising from the disappointment.

‘This guy might be closer to an ally than Jason.’

Of course, he had no desire to treat him as an ally or become friends.  

Moreover, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Botis was lying instead of telling the truth.

“So? What is the purpose of this belt, and who made it?” Han Jae-jung asked immediately. 

There was no time to dawdle here leisurely.  

“How cold of you. I tried to build rapport by mentioning my lost memory.”

“There are plenty of people who’ve lost their memories besides you, like all those turned from humans into villains.”

“Fair point, that does irk me…Anyway, I don’t know who made it, I told you I just received it. Bear…no, Polaris might have made it, or maybe someone else did.”

At least it was clear the belt was deeply connected to Sky Polaris.

“But! I do know what kind of functions this belt has.”

Botis clapped to draw attention. Not that there was anyone else to draw attention from.

“This is an object that observes possibilities.”

His deceptively gentle-looking hands carefully lifted the belt like a precious treasure.

“It can observe various events that someone could experience, or might experience. That’s this belt’s function, or so I was told. Unfortunately, it can only be used by humans, not villains.”

It was an unnecessarily long-winded explanation, but Han Jae-jung got the gist.  

A device that observes possibilities.

If this explanation was true, it would explain the strange occurrences he had experienced.

The quests giving directions as if predicting the future with perfectly timed instructions.

Seeing his parallel world self when he first touched the belt.

The former would be observing possibilities of what could happen in the future.  

The latter would be observing the possibility of parallel world themselves.  

Countless possibilities were contained within the word ‘possibility’ itself.

It could be a prediction, a prophecy, a gateway to another world, or even a fantasy.

A machine that sees possibilities…he had gained far more information than expected.

Seeing his interest, Botis grinned confidently. Satisfaction could be felt from his shadowed, hooded face.

“In short, it’s a tool that reads various possibilities and helps guide you toward the world you desire. Amazing, right? Don’t doubt it unnecessarily. Just believe and follow it.”

“…Your ideology suddenly seems overly reflected in those words.”

Unlike before, this latest statement sounded distinctly propagandistic, meant to preach something.  

“Oh…did it come across that way? My apologies if so. It’s nothing really.”

Botis smiled sheepishly and continued, “I just wanted to convey that even if the belt suggests a path you dislike at first, you should faithfully follow it. You have the appearance of a young lamb, you see, so I can’t help but worry.”

Han Jae-jung slowly sensed the atmosphere turning ominous.  

The formerly pastoral space had taken on a bleak, solemn air.

“You have an idea, don’t you? Then you should pursue it. I want all the young lambs to achieve their dreams. You have this great tool, after all? You should use it well. You might doubt my words. But don’t doubt it.”  

He instructed, as if admonishing.

“No matter how wrong it may seem at first, eventually you’ll realize that everything you did was for the sake of your dream.”

It was as if he was trying to absolve himself of immense guilt, to have everything accepted and understood.

“Do you know what I’m trying to do?”

“I told you, this is a machine that reads possibilities. An unobserved future is merely a possibility…”

It was effectively an affirmative answer dodged through wordplay.

“But you said villains cannot use this.”  

“Yes, so I cannot use it right now.”

In other words, he had been able to use it previously.

“You… Were human.”

Botis just grinned wordlessly.

“That’s what I, who knows the future, can assure you of.”

He subtly pushed the milk-filled cup toward Han Jae-jung, as if offering it, and persuaded again, “Do not doubt the actions the belt suggests.”

It was extremely unpleasant.

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