An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 106

It’s mid-February, the end of my junior year of high school.

 

It was time to choose the March mission for the sophomores.

 

Exorcism of a Haunted Doll in an Abandoned Landfill.

 

Overview: Near the Rose Apartment Complex in Bulgwang-dong, Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, a vacant lot where large garbage such as furniture was dumped was reported to be haunted by a human-sized spherical articulated doll that moved every Wednesday night.

 

“A human-sized spherical puppet.”

 

Seo Jun accepted the assignment without hesitation.

 

On the night of the mission, she found herself in a remote, deserted lot. They’d been there for about two hours.

 

“Seo Jun, is this it?”

 

“…Yes, this is it.”

 

The surface of a full-length mirror, tilted at an angle and supported by a tower of chairs, flickered to life, and a familiar articulated figure creaked out of it.

 

An intricately carved wooden body, an ashen scroll, and a traditional mask embossed with soft jigonji.

 

Seo Jun was reunited with the monster that had beheaded her friend after four years.

 

“You have to be careful; it’s hiding a sword in the scroll.”

 

“Okay.”

 

The puppet wandered frantically through the abandoned furniture.

 

She pulled out the drawers of a dresser with rattling handles, opened and closed a chest of drawers with peeling paint, and knocked over a dog leg stool with a missing leg.

 

When she was done, the spherical puppet turned toward the mirrored doorway.

 

“Get him!”

 

Yin Charang and Seo Jun jumped out from behind the tree and grabbed the spherical puppet, sending it sprawling.

 

The puppet, which had half of its upper body in the mirror, suddenly lost its center and staggered,

 

Thud—

 

The mirror closed in an instant.

 

As the door slammed shut, the doll’s body, straddling the boundary between space and reality, was neatly severed.

 

A straight line from its left ear to its right flank was eerily smooth.

 

The puppet was missing the right half of its upper body and was lying on the floor.

 

“So, it’s not “the alter ego of something” after all.”

 

Seo Jun muttered while picking up the writhing doll, held it down, examined it closely.

 

Seo Jun had two theories about the identity of the spherical puppet that had chased her and Chan-young through this space.

 

Either they were the alter egos of a powerful spiritual being, or each puppet contained a single soul.

 

If it was the former, they would be marked somewhere on their bodies with the markings of their alter egos and would regenerate indefinitely until the markings faded or their mother died.

 

If the severed part did not regenerate, it meant that the doll was not the “alter ego of a spiritual being”.

 

“Well…. but it didn’t feel like it was regenerating even then.”

 

Seo Jun recalled other dolls that had staggered to their feet with missing joints and broken limbs.

 

If they had been the alter egos of a being, they would have been fully functional.

 

“Seo Jun, look at its expression.”

 

Yin Charang pointed at the puppet’s head. The mask had fallen off in pieces, revealing the doll’s eyes.

 

One corner of the doll’s mouth was twisted in an unnatural way.

 

“Ah, that’s the link.”

 

The presence of a link meant that the puppet was still haunted.

 

Seo Jun quietly pulled a length of rope from her pouch.

 

“Let’s tie it up for now, it’s a nuisance.”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

The two of them quickly tied the doll’s remaining left arm, torso, and legs together so that it could no longer move.

 

“Okay. Now let’s try to open the door again. Seo Jun, give me the amulet.”

 

Yin Charang held out his hand curiously.

 

But Seo Jun hesitated. Even though she wanted to open the door.

 

“Wait a minute, Yin Charang. Wait a moment. This is a bit strange, isn’t it? There’s no sign of the space being warped, but there’s still a fragment of the seal, why…”

 

“Seo Jun. Does it have to be a warped space? Couldn’t you open the door from the outside with just the seal?”

 

“Well… I’ve never seen anything like this before, so I can’t say for sure…”

 

“Hmm, so you won’t know until you open it yourself?”

 

Even in this situation, Yin Charang’s positive attitude shone through.

 

“That’s reckless. We might as well just record the patterns.”

 

“This could be our last chance to open the door?”

 

“That’s…”

 

Seo Jun couldn’t argue. She didn’t know when another opportunity like this would present itself.

 

She had once had grandiose plans to collect all the pieces of the seal and build a door to this space herself.

 

But in the past four years, she has only collected three pieces. Counting today’s, there were only four pieces.

 

She didn’t know how many more years it would take to complete the huge, complex pattern.

 

She might never see another trace of this place in her lifetime.

 

Yes, it was true, this might be her last chance.

 

“I’m sorry,” Yin Charang said, patting Seo Jun’s shoulder as she shivered slightly.

 

“It’s my job to open the door anyway. I’ll take care of my part, don’t worry. Seo Jun, you just need to concentrate on getting your friend out.”

 

Ah, how reassuring and supportive.

 

If she had only known that she shouldn’t have leaned on him, she would have regretted it.

 

“… Yeah. Let’s at least try, maybe we can figure something out.”

 

She shouldn’t have nodded at that moment.

 

Yin Charang was mad with self-improvement and Seo Jun was exhausted from a task she didn’t know when it would end.

 

Unaware that their minds were clouded, they continued with their plan on the spot.

 

Yin Charang reactivated the glyphs, and Seo Jun cast an amulet designed to summon specific demons.

 

The mirror’s surface began to shimmer again, and soon a familiar scene unfolded behind it.

 

Ten, twenty seconds passed, and the door still didn’t close.

 

“It’s open! Seo Jun, I told you, you never know until you open it yourself…”

 

Plop.

 

“Eh…?”

 

“Yuck!”

 

A drop of blood dripped from his nose.

 

“This is strange. Why are you like this all of a sudden? Haha…”

 

The laughter didn’t last long.

 

As if crushed by an immense force, Yin Charang’s knees buckled.

 

Blood spurted from his mouth as he cowered helplessly. The thick liquid trickled down his throat.

 

“Stop, stop! That’s enough, that’s enough!”

 

Seo Jun panicked and pushed him away. 

 

“No, it’s okay, I can handle it. I mean, Seo Jun, why don’t you just…”

 

“Are you crazy? What are you talking about? There’s nothing okay about it!”

 

“Seo Jun, don’t call the director. You don’t have to call the doctor!”

 

“I’m not calling the doctor, I’m calling 911. You’re bleeding, you’re bleeding so much, what…”

 

“I know my condition best, Seo Jun, please. I can handle this!”

 

Yin Charang squirmed and insisted.

 

But it was just greed.

 

“Blergh…!”

 

The mirror door slammed shut as Yin Charang coughed up another mouthful of blood.

 

Seo Jun grabbed the paper with the spell that activated the power in the seal from Yin Charang and tore it to pieces.

 

“Seo Jun…, I wanted to be of service to you, to help you…”

 

“Don’t say it.”

 

“I wanted to give you what you wanted, with my own hands…”

 

“Then…, then this…”

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

 

He shouldn’t have collapsed and died in front of her.

 

He shouldn’t have risked his life.

 

Seo Jun swallowed hard.

 

It wasn’t the same as when she had grabbed the spherical puppet before, or now, or when she had been trapped in the other dimension with Chun Chan-young.

 

This time, the door didn’t slowly close in time with the erasure of the sigils in the otherworldly space like it had four years ago.

 

Today, the door to the mirror she was facing closed too abruptly.

 

Someone had used the power of Yin Charang to force the door shut..

 

Whoever could do such a thing, whoever possessed such power, must be the master or ruler of that dimension.

 

Seo Jun drew her dagger and pointed it at the corner of the orb’s mouth.

 

“…You know who the master of this damn world is, don’t you?”

 

The sharp tip of the dagger was about to sever the link that bound the ghost to the doll.

 

Faster than the blade could fly, the link vanished.

 

The dagger lodged in the corner of its mouth, which quickly returned to its natural form. 

 

Whether it realized that Seo Jun was trying to pull the soul out of the doll or not, the soul inside the puppet had vanished first.

 

One thing was clear: the spirit hadn’t left on its own. The doll had been “emptied” by someone from afar.

 

“…who?”

 

Seo Jun raised her dagger.

 

“Who!”

 

Kwak-!

 

Even though she knew that there was nothing in it anymore, Seo Jun kept hitting the puppet with the dagger. She felt like she couldn’t stand it if she didn’t.

 

“I’m going to hunt them down and burn them all to the ground. I’ll smash them all to pieces…”

 

No longer in the mood to scream, Seo Jub kept her hand on the dagger.

 

No tears came to her eyes until the end.

 

Only the dull sound of the blade’s tip digging into the wood echoed through the clearing. 

 

The teachers from the training center, curious that she hadn’t called them back from the mission long after it was over, arrived at the clearing before the ambulance Seo Jun had called.

 

She won’t spoil the details of the rumors that spread through the Institute afterward.

 

 

***

 

April.

 

Seo Jun met Baek Iri at the assessment center.

 

She knew instinctively that she had talent beyond her years. 

 

And recklessness beyond measure.

 

Seo Jun took to heart the image of Baek Iri at the end of the April evaluation, tattered and on the verge of collapse.

 

She knew from experience what could happen if she explained her situation to someone who could be so reckless.

 

If Yin Charang had been insane with a twisted sense of self-validation, Baek Iri had been swallowed up by a twisted sense of heroism.

 

If Yin Charang was the kind of person who would cough up blood to open the door to the afterlife, Baek Iri was the kind of person who would enter it herself.

 

Both were too much good will for Seo Jun to accept.

 

So if she wanted to use Baek Iri, she’d have to fake it from start to finish.

 

Let her go only as far as Seo Jun wanted her to go.

 

To make sure she didn’t recklessly go further and end up on the wrong side of death like Yin Charang.

 

Soon after her time with Baek Iri Seo Jun realizes that she made the right choice in deceiving her.

 

Baek Iri must have heard all about Seo Jun from Seon-yeo yet she still refuses to break her promise to her.

 

She was the one who offered to be the bait to lure the giant man-eating ghost when their were being chased by it.

 

It was Iri who offered to exorcize the ghosts of the school for a glass of grapefruit soda.

 

She was the one who looked at the magical girl on the school grounds with a mixture of envy and longing, even though she said no when asked, “You don’t want to be a hero, do you?

 

Maybe Seo Jun envied her because she wanted to be a hero.

 

A hero.

 

That was something she could never be.

 

So Seo Jun lied to Baek Iri, who asked, “The mission to the Rapid Transit Terminal station was originally a reconnaissance mission?

 

At that point, Seo Jun hadn’t imagined that they would both make it out of that room unharmed, but she figured if it was her last time, she might as well pretend to be a hero for the greater good.