An Exorcist Magical Girl! – Chapter 104

Author: Dakku-san

❰Additional Mission has been replayed❱

❰Extra Mission: Bystander❱

❰Successful completion of the mission will double your current defense progress❱

The same mission prompt appeared again.

❰Don’t get involved in what you’re about to face. Never intervene. Look the other way.

I turned to Seon-yeo once more, dutifully ignoring the status window message.

“Do you know where Seo Jun went? I haven’t seen her since the evaluation.”

❰Please pretend you don’t know❱

❰Pretend you don’t know❱

❰Please pretend you don’t know❱

❰Pretend you don’t know❱

What the hell is this? Even if I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t.

The message in the status window persistently filled my vision. Contrary to what it said, it seemed to be warning me to never pretend.

Fear gripped me.

“Seo Jun? She’s probably with them.”

“With them? Right now?”

“Ugh. I told her that it was Koo Young-chun who came out of the mirror earlier. Koo Young-chun who was in cahoots with Eom Jingyu. Seo Jun hadn’t heard anything about Hwang Hanju, so I thought she didn’t know. Anyway, she heard me and said that she had to ask the boys something.”

“No, when was that?”

“It was right after the evaluation, so about…, two, three minutes ago?”

“What? The teachers are all freaking out about Chapter 6, so who the hell is Seo Jun talking to and where is she?”

“Uh? Uh? Uh! Really?! Where the hell did she go?!”

Finally realizing the contradiction in her words, Seon-yeo’s eyes widened. Then she called Yin Charang.

“Hey, Yin Charang. Didn’t you see Seo Jun when you went over there?”

“I didn’t see her.”

❰Don’t get involved❱

❰Do not engage❱

“…Caravan.”

Where Seo Jun might have gone.

The only place that immediately came to mind was the caravan with the mirror in question.

“What? Hey, hey, hey! Come here! Where are you going?!”

I started running, leaving Seon-yeo’s screams behind me.

The status screen flashed frantically like a warning light.

I pushed the status bar out of sight, but the sense of foreboding that something had happened wouldn’t go away.

As much as I hoped it was just my imagination, a sense of reality weighed on my heart that I couldn’t ignore.

I knew all too well that this wasn’t just a story. Either something had already happened, or something was about to happen, and it had to be one of two things.

The moment I said Seo Jun’s name, I was asked to create another mission, twice.

As if to say, “Don’t care what happens to Seo Jun from now on.”

“Please don’t be late.”

After a few futile attempts, I called her, but she didn’t answer.

BANG! BANG!

***

I couldn’t remember which caravan it was, so I started at the entrance of the caravan camp and slammed all the caravan doors open.

“Seo Jun, are you here? Seo Jun! Hey!”

I yanked open the door of the fourth caravan.

The caravan door swung open halfway across the room, sending two ghost tumbling out.

It was hard to make out in the darkness, but someone in a long coat or something flapping wildly had crushed the other, much smaller man.

A flash.

Something between the two young men glowed frostily in the moonlight.

“A sword…?”

It was a longsword.

A longsword aimed murderously at cutting off a person’s breath.

The moment I realized that the handle of the sword was in the hand of a man in a long cloak, my eyes locked with the man on the ground below.

“… hundred?!”

As soon as I heard the voice, my body moved first, without measuring.

It was Seo Jun, crushed and struggling.

The tip of the Cipheran sword was pointed at Seo Jun’s throat.

❰Leave him alone❱

“You’re crazy… get the f*ck away from me!”

❰Leave it alone❱

❰This is your last chance. Do you want to accept the mission? ❱

“I don’t want it, so get lost!”

❰Yes/▶No◀❱

Acceptance is like freezing to death.

A mission to watch my friend get killed.

I threw my whole body to parry the sword, a flash of white light.

For a moment, everything seemed to slow down, as if time had stopped.

The blade spun off-center in surprise at my sudden intervention, Seo Jun’s eyes widened in horror, the white dust rising.

❰Additional missions have been extinguished❱

With that sentence, the status window message that had been bombarding me with missions to the point of coercion finally disappeared.

Only now am I completely convinced.

It was only when I saw with my own eyes what the “Bystander” mission meant that I was fully convinced.

The “Prove” mission on the April evaluation day, the five-minute “Exorcise Animal Spirits” mission on the last day of May in front of the black cat family on the playground, and today’s “Bystander” mission.

I realized that all three missions had the same goal.

I realize that the missions I’ve been given have always been like this.

The only way to pass the “Prove It” mission and gain an S⁺-level talent was to steal points from others, and the only way to complete the “Exorcise Animal Spirits” mission and increase my defense progress by 1.5x was to kill a live cat in front of me and exorcize its spirit.

What the “Bystanders” mission just asked me to do was a step up from the previous two.

It asked me to pretend I didn’t see Seo Jun on the verge of death in exchange for progress on the defenses.

All three of these missions were designed to test how cowardly I could be, how cruel I could be, for the sake of my talent.

My blood ran cold.

The blade lunged at me, narrowly missing my left cheek, and then stopped.

I was so dazed that I didn’t realize it until now, but it wasn’t a human wielding a sword.

It was a human-sized puppet dressed in a long ashen scroll and a white robe.

The puppet sheathed the sword and took a step back.

“Seo Jun, are you hurt?”

“…Why did you jump in there? You could have been killed.”

“Damn, I just lost it.”

We slowly pushed ourselves to our feet, putting distance between us and the puppet.

The puppet didn’t move, just stared at us.

We couldn’t see its eyes directly through the white hood, but we could still feel its gaze.

“Are these puppets…?”

“It’s a spherical puppet.”

As Seo Jun spoke, I suddenly recognized the rounded joints of the puppet’s fingers.

“I see. Was that part of the story you wanted to tell me today?”

“…Yes.”

Seo Jun nodded blankly. Her gaze remained fixed on the face of the puppet covered in a white hood.

Suddenly, I remembered that the mission where Yin Charang had been so badly injured was called “Exorcism and Disposal of Demonized Puppets”.

“Seo Jun, don’t be so restless. Keep still.”

I should have said that I was angry. Seo Jun’s eyes were unfocused.

“I’m supposed to catch this…”

“You’re holding a knife? You almost got yourself killed.”

“I know.”

“If you know, then stand still.”

“I’m standing still now.”

I don’t know if it was frustration or coming back from the dead, but her voice sounded weak, like she was trying to plead.

“What do you want to do with him?”

“I wanted to ask him something.”

“About the puppet?”

“About the ghost inside it.” Seo Jun muttered softly.

The puppet stared at us for a long moment before it finally turned and went back into the caravan.

I could tell from its slightly repaired sword that it would not attack again.

Fortunately, Seo Jun didn’t push the matter any further. She dropped to the ground, apparently giving up on her plan to interrogate the puppet.

I crept closer to the caravan and caught a glimpse of the back of the giant ball puppet.

It was the same view I’d seen during my assessment earlier, a crimson sky stretching beyond the shimmering mirrored surface.

This crazy long sword-wielding ball puppet came from the same place as Koo Young-chun’s soul.

Through the gate of the interdimensional space that had spat out Koo’s soul, this puppet had also come out.

“What the hell is he doing?

After about three seconds, I kept asking myself the same question.

Just before stepping into the mirror, the puppet paused and half turned its upper body toward me in the doorway.

“……?”

Then it bows its head to me. As if to say hello.

“…What the hell was that?”

No, it wasn’t something resembling a greeting, it was a real “greeting”.

In a strangely stiff and respectful way, the puppet bowed to me.

Due to its position, it would have been invisible to Seo Jun.

I did my best to hide my embarrassment and thought quickly.

What the hell was going on when this puppet who was about to kill a person with a knife suddenly bowed to me?

That single action put everything into perspective.

Wasn’t the blade deflected the moment I stood in front of Seo Jun because the puppet panicked?

Given the way it had just acted toward me, it seemed reasonable to assume that it had deliberately changed direction to avoid cutting me.

So should I interpret the fact that it calmly put down its sword not as a sign that it was too much for both of us, but rather that it was forced to retreat because it wasn’t supposed to attack me?

‘…It’s not supposed to attack me?’

A forgotten memory flashed through my mind.

***

The day the gate of feeding station was closed.

Eom Jingyu tried to pull me out of the car as it rushed toward the five of us.

He must have been ordered by someone more powerful than him to protect me from being hit by the car. That’s what I guessed and it flashed through my mind.

That’s right.

I just realized that the puppet is under the control of the same “someone”.

Under the control of the same “someone” who ordered the soul abduction of Koo Young-chun and Eom Jingyu…

“You, how did you know to come here?” Seo Jun asked, suddenly awake.

“Is there any other place you can go besides here?”

“Oh…”

“Well, that’s pretty good timing. Isn’t it?”

“…Yes.”

Seo Jun looked curious as to how I had arrived just in time to be killed, but she didn’t inquire further.

Instead, she just looked me straight in the eye and continued.

“Before I tell you, I didn’t know that the otherworldly space in the mirror had anything to do with Koo Young-chun or Eom Jingyu, and I only found out that the ghost that came out of the mirror earlier was Koo Young-chun when I heard it from Seon-yeo after the evaluation. It’s true.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not lying, this is…”

“Yes, I believe you.”

Seo Jun bowed her head deeply.

“Now, what I’m going to tell you…” Her voice trembled. “I want you to know that I’m not asking you for anything. This is only… because you were the one who tricked me into telling it to you.”

“Telling the truth is the last thing I can do, so I’m just doing it.” Seo Jun added and started his story.