LIGHTNOVELSTORY Anyway, after that day, I decided to temporarily take on the responsibility of monster hunting by myself.
Until Siyeon herself said, “I can do it!”
Whether it took weeks or months.
The bear cub, Gomteng, who I often neglect and toss aside, was made to stay nearby, at least until that uncertain day would come.
If a monster appeared while I was outside, I wanted to be ready to jump into action right away.
After all, it was partly my fault for leaving Gomteng in the bathroom.
The Sunday, a day when I could sort out my troubled mind, passed by surprisingly colorless.
When Monday came, the dawn of our field trip experience.
I quickly turned off the alarm ringing on my smartphone before even two seconds had passed.
“Hah.”
I let out a yawn that seemed to stretch yet ended all too quickly, and I got up.
Under the sink in the kitchen, the frying pan sat there, dried out and unused for ages.
“Sun.”
With this kind of body, cooking wasn’t easy, so I chanted my transformation spell and picked up the frying pan with a burst of energy.
There wasn’t any rule saying I had to transform only when the monster appeared, nor was there any fear of being caught inside the house.
Just like the frying pan, I placed the dried plastic cutting board on the sink, lifted myself just a bit, and opened a can of ham to set it down.
I lightly picked up a sharp chef’s knife, neatly sliced in one direction, laid it all down, and then cut again in another direction.
I dropped the small cube-shaped ham pieces straight into the frying pan.
When I turned on the gas stove hood, the sound of wind sucking in started echoing in the kitchen.
As the ham pieces began to sizzle and release oil, I quickly cracked an egg to scramble it, mixing it around with a spatula.
It’s important not to microwave the instant rice. The moisture that should be reduced in fried rice would rather increase.
For a cooking beginner, it turned into a trigger for making fried porridge instead of fried rice.
After tearing open the packaging of the instant rice, I simply tossed it into the mixture of scrambled egg and ham fragments.
Now, while breaking apart the clumped instant rice with just the spatula, I took a packet of sprinkle flakes and sprinkled some on top.
‘Fried rice is done….’
The lovingly prepared fried rice was pressed into each compartment of our lunch boxes.
The next lunch box had two sections that seemed capable of holding side dishes.
I took out seven or eight quail eggs from the fridge and spooned them into one compartment.
In the other compartment, I added what I dubbed octopus sausage.
As I cut into the sausage to let it burst while cooking, a thought suddenly struck me.
‘Wait, can’t I just eat a bit….’
It was a grievance against parents who only seemed to exert energy on picnic days.
“You don’t do this on usual days; what a fuss, what a fuss.”
Muttering in a pitiful tone, I moved the prepared sausages off the cutting board.
The pan that still had heat from frying rice was making delicious sounds as the sausages began to cook slowly.
Thinking they might get boring if eaten plain, I lowered the heat, added just a bit of syrup, and stirred them with the spatula to add shine.
Seeing the beautifully split sausage legs just like in the videos I watched over the weekend, I divided them in half and placed them in the side dish compartment.
Lastly, I added cherry tomatoes and Shine Muscat grapes.
I lightly washed them under running water, removed the stems of the cherry tomatoes.
For the Shine Muscats, I plucked them off one by one from the stem and put them in the empty container.
The fruit compartment went on the bottom.
The side dish compartment was in the center.
The compartment carrying the fried rice was at the very top.
After perfectly closing the lid and securing everything, I tucked them nicely into the corner of each of our bags.
Aside from that, I had a bag for trash, and some medicine like a bandage.
Tissues and wet wipes for cleaning up messes.
And a mat for resting securely against dust mites.
‘Hmm, ready!’
Compared to the kids’ picnic preparations, it seemed overly excessive.
Glancing at the clock, I noticed that already thirty minutes had passed.
‘Has it really been this long?’
“Release.”
I softly floated down from mid-air and canceled my transformation.
Feeling the overflowing energy drain away, I made my way to Siyeon’s sleeping bed.
Swaying gently, I shook her shoulder while shaking the blanket, using a mom-like tone.
“Siyeon, you need to wake up.”
“Ugh….”
“You’re going on a picnic, on a picnic.”
Hearing her pitiful groans as she struggled to wake up, I let her burrow deeper into the blankets.
If she truly couldn’t get up, that was where I’d have to resort to my ultimate method, only used in emergencies.
Tickling.
“Gah, ugh!”
As our frail bodies touched, an instinctual reaction caused Siyeon to burst into laughter.
If I could just keep her senses alert, she couldn’t help but wake up from me poking her side with my fingers.
“Are you still not getting up? Still?”
“I-I’m up! Just a moment….”
With the assault of my forceful fingers, Siyeon rose up.
Rubbing her eyes, she sat down at the low table.
For breakfast, there were a few pieces of sweet and sour pork left over from the day before, and some leftover fried rice in the lunch box with a bit of black bean sauce.
The greasy remnants of black bean sauce left in the fridge, along with the heat from the freshly made fried rice, made for quite an adequate breakfast.
I just wish there were some pickled radish left.
“Water and lunch boxes are here, wet wipes and tissues are in the front, medicine is here in case you get hurt, and the trash bag is right here.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t get hurt, alright?”
An unbelievable one-sided conversation exchanged, far from how kids of the same age would normally interact.
Siyeon and I were in different classes, so once activities began at school, I worried even more since I couldn’t look after her directly.
After all, what was there to worry about at the kids’ picnic?
Just, just a mindless worry wanted to come forth.
It felt somewhat like watching a cat meandering around while someone was trying to set up a domino display.
A strange sense, implying that something could happen at any moment.
“Alright, everyone! Follow the teacher closely!”
Each class had a teacher leading the students.
The line of kids following together felt as if they were baby ducks trailing after mother duck.
Or maybe, it resembled a marching formation.
Thank goodness I didn’t have to do that nonsense in this life.
Since we had to act as a class, we probably wouldn’t have time to meet separately during the field trip activities.
Free time was given only to those who were a bit older.
If they granted such a thing to first graders, it would turn the school upside down if anything went wrong.
The field trip, the picnic.
There really isn’t much in terms of activities that first graders could do anyway.
“Look, that over there floating in the pond is called a water strider.”
“Where?!”
“Over there! Right there!”
We were at a park not far from school, somewhere close enough that it hardly felt like an outing.
It was all just chasing around kids observing the occasional insects around a spot with some grass and a pond.
It was just the time as summer approached, so there were quite a few insects I didn’t even know the names of.
Every time I saw black specks fluttering in front of me, I waved my arms to chase away the bugs.
Why did it have to be a day filled with insects like this when I came out?
Just as it seemed the insect observation was winding down, lunch time arrived in the shade.
“Alright, everyone, spread out your mats that you brought!”
“Yeees!”
Following the teacher’s order, we unfolded our mats, and soon enough, a wide safe zone was spread out in the middle of the grassy area.
With all the mats lined up, I felt less worried about being bitten by ticks.
“I brought inari sushi!”
“Let’s trade for kimbap!”
“No way!”
Ignoring the kids who were bickering over what they had brought, I opened my own lunch box.
The fried rice I worked hard to make piled high in the top section of the lunch box.
The soft yolks of soy sauce quail eggs that had cooled in the fridge mixed in with the fried rice, creating a harmonious combination.
Maybe this would also be nice sometimes, making something to eat like this.
After satisfactorily stuffing some cherry tomatoes and Shine Muscat grapes into my stomach for dessert, I pulled out a water bottle from my bag and opened the cap.
The bottle of water that had never been opened.
After making a quiet popping sound, I gulped it down quickly, washing away the remnants of food in my mouth down my throat.
“Ah.”
I let out a refreshing sigh of satisfaction, having finished my meal, and began to tidy up my clean lunch box.
After lunch, the plan was to lie down or sit on our mats and draw out a fascinating insect from the papers we were given.
During this time, a buzzing sound like a drone being flown suddenly caught my attention.
As I focused on the increasingly sporadic sound that I had heard for a while, I turned my gaze to a nearby tree.
It was too large to be a wasp.
“Whoa, that’s intense.”
Admiring its remarkable size and appearance, I gently rose from my spot and ducked out beyond the mat.
As I moved out, the teacher approached, eyeing me curiously.
“Marie? What’s wrong?”
“There’s a bee over there; shouldn’t we avoid it?”
“A bee? Where….”
Pointing at the gigantic body of the hornet, which could have been spotted even with a compound eye, the teacher’s expression stiffened instantly.
Then, they immediately crouched down and urgently began calling the students.
“Hey kids! Kids?! There’s a bee, so slowly get up from your spots and come this way!”
Once the students managed to evacuate as best as they could.
The hornet began to crawl around on the empty mat as if searching for a cozy spot to settle down.
The teacher and the students from our class had retreated far enough away.
Staring blankly at the deserted mat from a distance, another teacher from a different class approached slowly and asked our teacher.
“Seola, is something going on?”
It was Seon-wook, the male teacher from the next class.
As he tilted his head and approached, our teacher spoke to him in a low tone, as if feeling uneasy.
“Oh, we have a bee on our mat…”
“A bee? Just one is fine, leave it to me!”
“Um, I think it’d be better if you didn’t get too close…”
Ignoring the teacher’s warning, Seon-wook marched boldly toward our mat.
Sure, it was a bee, but a hornet with a totally different level of physicality?
What else could it be besides that hornet?
That day, I learned how quickly people could run away.
The terrifying size brought about a fear that was independent of age.
I was compelled to draw the hornet’s face on the field trip activity paper that asked us to sketch an interesting insect.
‘What a spectacle, what a spectacle.’