So You Want to Be a Magical Girl? - Chapter 7

Sariel offered no real explanation for Siren’s words.

Three days later, after much hesitation, he solemnly warned me, “Do not leave your room tonight. Whatever you hear, ignore it and sleep.”

Now I was even more curious.

Still, I understood that curiosity killed the cat. Sariel would never hurt me; if he said to stay inside, he had a reason.

Despite my questions, I nodded obediently. “Don’t worry. The moment my head hits the pillow, I’ll sleep like the dead.”

Sariel gave a helpless laugh. “There is no need to go that far.”

As it turned out, sleeping like the dead did not help.

Perhaps I went to bed too early. Perhaps something else caused it. Whatever the reason, when the clock struck midnight, I dreamed I was sinking into the deep sea.

Waves surged beside my ears. Half asleep, I climbed out of bed with my eyes closed.

Sariel had personally selected the carpet beneath my feet, yet it felt like cool, yielding sand.

An unseen tide controlled my body. I unlocked my bedroom door and walked out, step by step.

The sky was cloudless and the moon stood high. The night should not have been bright, but neither should it have been this dark.

In the thick, unsettling blackness, the hazy sound of the tide vanished. I jolted fully awake.

The instant my mind cleared, danger screamed through every nerve.

Unfortunately, everyone knows an ordinary human who has just woken up cannot immediately launch into a hundred-meter sprint.

So I looked up stupidly and, with alarms blaring inside my head, met the blood-red eyes that had been watching me from the sky.

“Ah…” I said.

No wonder there was no moonlight.

Six immense black wings had blotted it out.

Six. Black. Wings.

Me: “…”

Me: “Holy crap—a Kentucky Fried Crow!”

The man in the air: “?”

All right. First, Colonel Sanders had long ago denied the rumor that his logo had six wings.

Second, if this were a crow beastman, he should not have possessed a face I knew so well.

I gaped at the silver-haired, crimson-eyed, black-winged Sariel. “So this big mystery is that you secretly gave yourself an edgy makeover?”

It looked good, admittedly. He reminded me of several dozen of my fictional husbands.

“I understand dyeing your hair, but can you dye wings? Won’t Michael—”

“Xie Ying?” Edgelord Sariel spoke lazily, amusement curling through his voice. “Did he not tell you to hide tonight?”

His black wings shifted, and moonlight condensed into stairs beneath his feet.

He descended toward me, tearing at something as he came.

Only a few steps later, he stood before me.

Then I saw that he was ripping apart iron chains covered in thorns.

They looked like instruments of torture, wrapped around every part of his body. Whoever had bound him must have feared and hated him beyond reason.

Yet the silver-haired Sariel seemed unable to feel pain. He tore the locks apart with ease and let the holy-water-soaked thorns carve countless wounds into his skin.

“Who did this?” Shock and fury surged through me. “Sariel, is someone hurting you?”

He paused. His hands slowed for half a beat.

Then bloodstained fingers caught my chin.

“That hypocrite did not tell you? Of course. He has always treated me as something too shameful to be seen.

“Then allow me to introduce myself.”

Like an artist laying paint across a canvas, the silver-haired fallen angel smeared his blood along my jaw.

“My name is Saliel, beautiful lady. I am Sariel’s… other self.”