The Magical Hunter Girl Decorates the Dungeon! - Chapter 108

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Magic Hunter Girl Decorates Dungeons! Episode 108
‘No, I won’t do it! I won’t set it up! Ha-rin is Ha-rin!’
After Lee Ji threw out that frightening declaration,
she answered Ha-rin’s serious question.
“There’s no such thing as a Hunter’s world. Besides, we normally go to much scarier dungeons than this. Ordinary people can’t come along.”
“Even if I practice harder than I do now?”
“No. You can’t even carry an instrument into a dungeon.”
…….
“Dungeons have bad weather and monsters living in them. Your instrument might get destroyed.”
Ha-rin nodded quietly, her head bowed low.
Now it was Lee Ji’s turn to ask.
“Why did you say you’d come with me?”
“……To properly run away.”
“But you already did run away.”
“Mom doesn’t think so.”
Ha-rin showed Lee Ji her phone’s Cocoa Talk screen. A message from Ha-rin’s mother had arrived ten minutes ago.
Mom
The teacher told me you’re hiding at the academy
Mom knows you’re a good girl
Once you feel better, call me and I’ll come pick you up
“I clearly said I was running away, but……Mom didn’t take it seriously. I guess Mom just doesn’t know how to listen to what her daughter says…….”
“Sister…….”
“Can I stay on this island longer? I won’t even throw away trash—I’ll just quietly play piano.”
Ha-rin seized the moment and pressed the electronic organ keys. The tulips that had bloomed beside Lee Ji swayed gently with the music, and Ha-rin broke into a genuine smile.
For Ha-rin, who had looked like an angry kitten with its fur standing on end, to smile so purely was a rare sight indeed.
But no matter how peaceful a dungeon is,
it’s not a space that remains open to humans forever.
The hermit crabs at their feet seemed to whisper.
‘Will you stay longer? Do you like us?’
“No. Sister, we have to leave.”
“……Okay.”
“But listen,”
Lee Ji stopped Ha-rin as she reached for the electronic organ.
“Let’s teach your mom what ‘running away’ really means!”

* * *
To Seon-a, Ha-rin was the kind of daughter others envied. Well-behaved, beautiful, and she’d even inherited Seon-a’s own talent as a pianist.
When Ha-rin asked to learn piano, Seon-a felt a wave of relief. After the divorce, a sense of helplessness about raising the child alone had lifted.
‘I just need to raise her as a pianist. That’s the one thing I know best.’
She felt she could be the best mother her daughter could ask for.
Even if Ha-rin struggled sometimes…….
Once she reached her goal, Ha-rin would be happy.
But around the time Seon-a began to notice that Ha-rin’s interests were changing,
Ha-rin started saying childish things like “I want to play with Mom,” and when the conversation wouldn’t flow her way—
‘I’m going to run away!’
She dropped that bombshell and left the house.
It was unexpected, but her whereabouts were predictable. The academy teacher sent a message: “Ha-rin is practicing with a younger friend.”
Seon-a let out a short laugh.
‘Ha-rin’s playing older sister, it seems.’
There would be a minor conflict or two, but today would end peacefully like always.
She’d pick Ha-rin up later and buy her some delicious cake as a peace offering…….
But after she sent the message saying she’d come get her,
an odd Cocoa Talk came back.
Ha-rin
Mom I’ve decided to go where I’m actually needed Take care
Immediately after, a message arrived from an unsaved number.
Would you like to hear Ha-rin’s performance one last time? We invite you to the back entrance of Room 403 in the Piano Academy building.
What was this?
Assuming it was just the children playing a prank, Seon-a still rushed to the parking lot and called the academy.
But no one answered. The academy’s business hours had just ended.
‘Then where is our Ha-rin?’
The only places she could think of were the academy and the school. A chill ran down her spine.
When she arrived on the third floor, it was dim. Seon-a pressed herself against the academy’s glass door for a long moment, then glanced toward the stairs.
The fourth floor. Where the Pseudo Religious Cult was located, and where a small dungeon had appeared.
‘I really hate this……I should have changed academies long ago.’
This time, regardless of Ha-rin’s feelings, she’d enroll her at a strict academy.
Seon-a entered Room 403 with the resolve to get this over with quickly.
“Ha-rin? Ha-rin!”
The chill of the empty cult den was brief. A musical note memo stuck to the wall reassured her. It read, in childish handwriting: “This way⇒”.
‘She’s pranking her mother!’
Seon-a quickened her pace irritably.
The last memo was stuck on top of a refrigerator in the farthest room. The moment she bent down to read that particularly tiny handwriting,
‘……Huh?’
Something gave a gentle push against Seon-a’s back—
It wasn’t as if she’d hit anything.
In a situation she couldn’t even begin to understand, Seon-a lost consciousness.

* * *
An incessant song was playing.
“I know it now, your gaze, it’s, like, ma, gic!”
Some six or seven-member girl group that Ha-rin liked—whether it was Moon Blit or Jack Black didn’t matter.
But the difference from the song she’d been forced to listen to on YouTube every day was—
“……Ha-rin?”
This was Ha-rin’s voice, vivid and real.
Seon-a bolted upright and doubted her own eyes.
‘An island?’
A small island surrounded by sea on all sides. On one edge, Ha-rin was playing a cheap electronic organ.
“Ha-rin, what are you doing here?”
Seon-a walked toward her daughter.
This was strange. This surreal landscape couldn’t possibly be anything but a dream.
Yet the feeling of sand sinking beneath her feet, the way Ha-rin’s lower lip stuck out oddly while she played—everything felt too vivid, too real.
Ha-rin paused the song briefly. But she continued playing as she spoke.
“Did you come to say goodbye, Mom?”
“Goodbye to what?”
“I told you. That I was running away.”
“What are you saying? You’ve had enough fun—time to come home.”
“……You really didn’t understand anything I said, did you?”
“Didn’t understand? Of course I did! I heard everything!”
Hours ago, her daughter had said she wanted to spend time with her mother.
She understood. Ha-rin was making a request that didn’t suit her age.
So Seon-a had offered a solution.
Play with your friends. You’re at the age when you should be getting closer to kids your own age.
So Ha-rin went to the academy, but…….
‘Has Ha-rin ever even mentioned her academy friends?’
The moment a question she’d never bothered to ask before occurred to her,
someone spoke to her.
“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”
Right beside her, a girl with large eyes like a Roborovski hamster was looking up at Seon-a. Her outfit—like a Magic Girl’s costume—was cute.
But somehow, Seon-a couldn’t bring herself to smile.
Especially not after hearing the girl’s cheerful voice.
“I’m the Magic Girl who’s going to take Sister Ha-rin with me.”
“What, what are you talking about? Who’s taking whom?”
“Me taking Sister. Sister told me just now, didn’t you?”
Ha-rin nodded.
“Lee Ji said she’s a Magic Girl, so my performance is exactly what she needs.”
“Magic Girl? Ha-rin. There’s no such thing, no such…….”
The words wouldn’t come. Of course there was no such thing in reality. So why did her sense of reality feel like it was shifting?
Why did this girl, who seemed to have walked straight out of a school festival, suddenly feel like a genuine Magic Girl?
“There is.”
Behind Ha-rin’s firm voice, Seon-a felt a sense of wrongness.
Her daughter had stopped playing just now. So where was this relentless song coming from?
You’ll believe right away, my, voice, is!
You’ll only believe in me…….
“Mom. Let me explain again.”
Lee Ji smiled brightly. She looked like a hamster fairy.
Seon-a had kept a hamster as a child, so she knew. They were never truly tame, and could bite their owner’s fingers and hide away forever without warning—fragile little creatures.
“I need Sister Ha-rin. And because I’m a Magic Girl, I can keep Sister Ha-rin by my side forever. Is that okay?”
“How could that possibly be…….”
Then Ha-rin cut in with a sharp voice.
“It’ll be okay. I need to be here to make Mom’s wish come true.”
“My wish?”
“To become a mature pianist.”
“What? When did I ever——”
“Mom was always saying it. Ha-rin, don’t act like a kid. Ha-rin, play idol songs seriously too…….”
‘Did I really say that? Did I?’
……No memory of it came to her.
‘Weren’t all those words necessary?’
Ha-rin, for all her love of being called “mature,” acted childishly, and her piano skills were still lacking.
Every word had been for her sake, but…….
In front of Ha-rin’s expression, Seon-a was at a loss for words. Instead, she found herself turning inward.
‘Was that right?’
When Ha-rin became a pianist, would all these moments transform into rose-colored memories simply because she became happy?
Before Seon-a realized it, Ha-rin—the child who had once been so easy for her to make happy—was crying with a flushed face.
“Mom. If I stay here, I can be the older sister forever, and I’ll become the very best pianist. ……Won’t that make you happy too?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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