An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 105

“I will do something about those crazy puppets. Seo Jun, you go and stop the door from closing any further.”

 

“I don’t know how…”

 

“Look over there. The seal is fading and the door is closing. You just have to make sure it doesn’t disappear completely.”

 

Seo Jun’s eyes darted to where Chan-young’s fingertips were pointing. Sure enough, it was just as Chan-young had said.

 

The huge, intricate pattern on the ground was blurring, and the area in the middle of the street where the air was rising was getting smaller and smaller.

 

Chan-young swung the shovel and hammer he was carrying to knock the puppets out of the way and clear a path for Seo Jun to pass, the shovel he’d grabbed from an empty warehouse while running from the puppets earlier. 

 

Chan-young took the shovel and hammer, and Seo Jun took the shovel and dagger.

 

The puppets that had chased them for so long and finally stopped them in their tracks were all wooden spherical puppets about the size of an adult.

 

Peering through the ashen scrolls, their bodies were finely carved, but their heads were covered with traditional masks stamped with the Yanji Gonji, and their eyes were not visible. 

 

Dozens of such dolls blocked the way to the door.

 

No matter how hard Chun Chan-young tried, he was outnumbered.

 

Even when he and Seo Jun fought together, they were overwhelmed. 

 

It was impossible for him to handle so many puppets alone. 

 

Nevertheless, Chun gritted his teeth and fought his way through. 

 

“Go, Seo Jun, hold the door!”

 

Taking advantage of the puppets’ attention, Seo Jun ran towards the engraving.

 

Even at a young age, Seo Jun was a quick thinker. 

 

The gradual erasure of the seal meant that the power within it was diminishing, and if she used the spell she’d just learned to bind the power, she might be able to extend the life of the seal a little longer.

 

As her mind raced, she picked up a rock with a pointed edge.

 

With it, she scraped away the dirt and carved the words for the spell, filling the edges around the pattern.

 

The blurring slowed slightly.

 

But that was all. Seo Jun could not prevent it from fading further.

 

The sigil faded, slowly but surely.

 

This was as much as young Seo Jun could do.

 

“Chan-young, it’s not working! It keeps closing! You should just come out!”

 

No matter how many limbs he broke, no matter how many joints he pulled out, the puppets rose up like zombies.

 

The puppets, obviously half broken and lying on the ground, had suddenly stood up again and blocked the way Chan-young had opened. 

 

Chan-young couldn’t get any further from his previous position, so he rushed to hit the oncoming dolls.

 

Neither Seo Jun nor Chan-young were more than a young middle school student.

 

Both of them had already decided to become exorcists and were taking private lessons on the side, but they hadn’t even started school yet.

 

Frankly, They’re surprised they made it this far.

 

Seo Jun swung the shovel she’d brought from the empty warehouse, just like Chan-young’s, and swept the puppets away, closing the distance between her and her friend.

 

“Chan-young, take my hand!”

 

Their fingertips barely touched.

 

Chan-young threw himself at her and grabbed Seo Jun’s wrist.

 

They struggled together, but the path from there to the door was blocked again by the resurrected dolls.

 

Fighting back their despair, the two made their way to the door. 

 

Shrugging off the cold wooden hands that tried to grab them, they fought them off.

 

What happened next was, well, predictable.

 

“Seo Jun, you go first, quickly. I’ll be right behind you… “

 

Seeing that the door was barely wide enough for one person to pass through, Chan-young pushed Seo Jun out of the door with all his might.

 

“Chan-young!”

 

Thud─

 

The door slammed shut.

 

The last thing Seo Jun saw was through the crack in the door,

 

“A knife…?!”

 

Several puppets pulled long swords from the ashen scrolls.

 

Chan-young’s shovel blade, which had been clattering earlier, detached from the shovel handle and fell helplessly.

 

Chan-young’s pale face is colored with conflicting emotions of relief and fear.

 

The door is closed.

 

The plain wall of the ordinary alleyway had only the traces of a distorted space and a chill as evidence that the door to this space had ever been opened.

 

“Chan-young! Chun Chan-young! Chan-young!”

 

As Seo Jun crouches down to call out her friend’s name, she notices a pattern carved into the asphalt beneath the wall.

 

It’s a tiny corner of the huge, intricate pattern carved into the dirt beneath the door to the afterlife.

 

Some of the components of a pattern that had been completely lost in the otherworldly space, a piece of a giant puzzle, had been left outside the otherworldly space like a scar.

 

A glyph was a circuit of spiritual power with a specific purpose, and the fact that some of its components remained meant that the power that originally resided in the glyph also remained.

 

If she could harness it, she might be able to reopen the door.

 

Seo Jun immediately took off her cloak and scribbled the spell to activate the power within the seal on the cloth on her back. 

 

She had a pen, but no paper, so she had to use her clothes as paper.

 

The Plus Pen squeaked as the ink ran out, and she scribbled the words on the cloth.

 

The result was a success.

 

Only halfway.

 

The door opened again.

 

But before she could do anything, it slammed shut in two seconds.

 

That was the end of her chance.

 

Not a trace of the wall’s distortion, not a faint breeze, not a trace of the asphalt’s markings.

 

Two seconds.

 

In that split second, Seo Jun saw.

 

The blade of the doll sliced through his friend’s throat.

 

His friend’s spirit slipped from his lifeless body.

 

“Aaaaahhhh!”

 

She wanted to vomit her heart out. A scream came out of her mouth with every breath.

 

It was only a short cry. Seo Jun was a rational woman and she knew exactly what to do.

 

“You must remember. You must never, never, never forget. You must remember.”

 

A single symbol on the asphalt, the one that had been the key to reopening the door, and then it was gone.

 

Seo Jun began to draw it from memory. She had to write it down before she forgot it. 

 

If she remembered the symbol correctly, she would have another chance someday.

 

Fortunately, Seo Jun had a good eye and a good memory, and she was able to draw some of the marks left on the asphalt on the back of her coat.

 

But the marks were quickly erased.

 

No matter how many times she drew it, it was erased from the fabric as if it had never been drawn at all.

 

Like a pressure to leave no record of that space.

 

“Why…? Why? Why? Why?!”

 

There was no one to answer her frustrated question.

 

Seo Jun picked up the dagger impulsively. It was the same dagger she’d taken from the empty storage room in the room.

 

“Whoa…”

 

As soon as her right hand stopped shaking, Seo Jun slashed at her left arm. The slash continued without hesitation.

 

Seo Jun was on the verge of marking her skin. The energy of her hand gathered in the tip of the blade, seeping into each wound on her left arm as the blood flowed.

 

The pain of tearing flesh was nothing compared to the pain of witnessing Chun Chan-young’s murder.

 

“If you can erase this, erase it.”

 

The stab wound is a living, breathing record and memory. It is a promise to bring him back and a promise to never forget his sacrifice.

 

‘Erase it. I wonder if your desire to erase the record is deeper than my kindness.’

 

❰You have learned the skill: ‘Numb Ink to Remember’❱

❰Numb Ink to Remember: The records you leave behind are protected by your blood❱

❰Currently 100% embodied❱

 

That fall, Seo Jun enrolled in the Academy.

 

“Sir, I want to study amulets more professionally.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I’m… I’m, um, interested in things like the symbols on amulets.”

 

“It’s just, it’s fascinating.”

 

Seo Jun drew, memorized, and analyzed various talismans, learning that those with S-level talent or higher could multiply the effectiveness of the symbols.

 

Seo Jun’s talent was A⁺.

 

If she had a little more talent, she could have bought enough time to extract Chun Chan-young’s soul that day.

 

Once she realized that, she stopped listening to people who praised her A⁺-level talent.

 

To others, she was a genius, but to Seo Jun, an A⁺-class talent was nothing more than an insignificant talent that couldn’t save her friend’s soul.

 

It was only because of Seo Jun that Chun Chan-young’s soul was still trapped in that space.

 

At least, that’s what Seo Jun thought.

 

“Hey, there are many other good missions… Why do you insist on this mission?”

 

“Just. It looks more fun than the others.”

 

The official mission began in the fall of her junior year.

 

When her teammates asked her why she insisted on a particular mission, Seo Jun couldn’t answer because there had been disappearances near the mission location in the past.

 

“Seo Jun, you can’t talk to ghosts, they’ll follow you, dude!”

 

“I thought you said not to touch the place because it might be haunted… Ma’am?”

 

“Ehhhh, what the hell is behind it-kaaaaahhh!”

 

Seo Jun was all over anything that looked like it had anything to do with the space that day. 

 

Bloodthirsty bastard, thrill-seeker, and all sorts of other dishonorable labels were thrown at her, but she was happy to oblige.

 

“Seo Jun, if you do this again, I’ll never work with you again.”

 

Still, Seon-yeo was forgiving. She gave Seo Jun another chance, even though her behavior had ruined the mission.

 

Of course, Seo Jun’s attitude didn’t change on her next mission.

 

On a mission to exorcize a ghost that had taken over a missing person’s office, Seo Jun pissed off a ghost that had nothing to do with the mission, and Seon-yeo changed the mission team immediately after the incident.

 

It didn’t matter. Because by provoking the ghost, Seo Jun was able to find the traces of the interdimensional door and record the engravings.

 

Until she could save Chun Chan-young’s soul, she felt she had to live for Chun Chan-young alone.

 

Maybe she felt it wasn’t fair that her friend was dead and wandering endlessly in a strange place, while she was the only one alive to make new friends and have fun.

 

So Seo Jun continued to gather information about the otherworldly space, viciously trying to destroy her reputation.

 

Where the door to that space had opened, there was a trace of space distortion, a chill, and a carving.

 

If she reactivates the seal where the space is distorted, she can reopen the door.

 

Once the door is reopened or the sigil is written on paper, all traces of the warp and sigil are gone.

 

If a door is created by a mirror, only a fragment of the pattern remains, with no trace of warping.

 

And that a door created on a mirror surface should never be reopened.

 

She learned about the mirror surface on a mission with Yin Charang in early March of that year.

 

He was the only one who knew everything about Seo Jun’s life.

 

That’s because Seo Jun had been honest about her situation and had asked for help, saying that she needed S-class power. 

 

At that time, Seo Jun had decided that if she was going to borrow someone else’s power, she should at least be honest with its owner. 

 

She later regretted her decision.

 

Yin Charang helped Seo Jun with all his heart. He was almost blind.

 

Seo Jun, grateful but clueless, did not realize until their last mission together that this devotion was Yin Charang’s way of “proving himself”.