An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 108

When I got home, I washed up, fell asleep, and woke up to find it was four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. 

 

I’d been dreaming the whole time, so I didn’t feel much better after a long night’s sleep.

 

“Ugh…”

 

It was a shitty dream.

 

In the dream, I was forced to accept a “mission” over and over again.

 

I don’t remember what the mission was, what the conditions were, how I got there, or the circumstances. 

 

All I remember is the vivid replay of my hand moving by itself to select “yes” when asked if I wanted to accept the mission.

 

“Gross.”

 

My stomach was somewhat empty, but I didn’t feel like eating. 

 

I don’t know if it was the dream or if I’d slept too long, but I had no appetite.

 

I lay there, eyes wide open, thinking.

 

Can’t I just stop the mission notifications from coming?

 

There’s a chance that missions could start without my consent, like the one that automatically changed my profile.

 

Maybe I should ask an expert.

 

Well, I don’t expect them to be able to completely solve my situation.

 

When my first exorcist talent arrived, I asked my aunt, who is a status bar expert, to make sure it wasn’t a scam, but even she, who is a member of a well-known research team in the U.S., didn’t expect me to freak out as soon as I accepted the talent, saying it was a one-month rental.

 

Still, it’s better to ask for a consultation, just in case. Maybe this time she’ll actually be able to help me.

 

I wanted to send her a message right away, but then I remembered the time difference and set up a scheduled message. It was still early morning where she was.

 

I was often left in her care as a child, so when I think of a trusted caregiver, she’s the first person I think of.

 

We lost touch after she moved to the U.S., but I still saw her more often than my parents until I started elementary school, and when my parents divorced and I didn’t know where to live, I stayed with her for a few weeks, so she was more than my parents in terms of closeness.

 

But we weren’t as close as my parents.

 

She seemed to love me as her own daughter, but she was always cautious.

 

When I was younger, I was tempted to ask her if she felt obligated to take care of me because I was her biological child, but now I realize that this distance is perfectly natural.

 

After all, we’re aunt and niece, not mother and daughter.

 

I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep again, so I turned on my phone and read the messages I’d missed while I slept.

 

─(Photo)

─Won one game and got ice cream.

─But next time, you should learn to play Go… I don’t like it.

 

It was a message from Yin Charang. In the last chat room I created, there were often useless stories like this.

 

This was followed a few hours later by a poodle emoji from Yeo Seon-yeo. Judging by the time she replied, she had just woken up. Charang and Seon-yeo exchanged a few more words before disappearing from the chat room. 

 

─A point of interest.

─?

─No classes at the institute on Mondays

 

One unread mark remained on each message. 

 

─Maybe you didn’t read…, Hwang Hanju?

 

Since she didn’t answer, it was probably Seo Jun who read it. 

 

If it was Hanju Hwang, he wouldn’t have reacted like that to the news of no class. 

 

He would be jumping up and down with joy and making all kinds of noise in the chat room, but he’s quiet, like he’s still sleeping.

 

I’m sure he’ll use any excuse to skip school tomorrow and treat Monday like Sunday.

 

‘Should I skip school tomorrow?’

 

I briefly flirted with the idea, but the temptation to take my own vacation didn’t last long. 

 

I knew there was no point in staying home alone anyway, so I decided to play nice and go to school.

 

After the five-person chat, I was about to check some messages from Senior Shin, who said he was having a hard time, when I saw a message from Narea.

 

─How was the evaluation?

─How did it go?

─Are you still asleep…?

 

Since we last met and had dinner, we’ve exchanged messages like this many times. 

 

Now that you mention it, Narea is free on Sundays and Mondays.

 

Should I ask her to have dinner with me then?

 

***

 

About an hour later.

 

I was sitting across from Narea in a malatang shop near my house.

 

“Would you like to order some kubarou?”

 

“Well, if you don’t think you’ll have enough, order it. It’s a shame to waste it.”

 

“You sound weak. Narea, do you think you’ll be full after that?”

 

“Oh, I actually had lunch at 2:30. So I’m not really hungry.”

 

“Really? No, then it’s been less than three hours since lunch. Let’s meet up later.”

 

“That’s fine. I think the bigger problem is that your first meal of the day was a malatang… What level is that?” Narea asked, pointing to my bowl of malatang.

 

“Level three.”

 

“For some reason, the color of the broth is too red. Are you sure you won’t get sick if you eat it on an empty stomach?”

 

“I will eat it and die.”

 

“Wow, you have a strong stomach.”

 

I’m not usually a fan of spicy food, but on a day like today, I felt like eating something spicy. Maybe it was the tightness in my chest. 

 

When I said that, Narea laughed and said, “What? You sound like your grandfather.”

 

“I heard this was your first official evaluation. How was it?”

 

“It was okay, the evaluation itself. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a real evaluation, and I got a good score and a good grade, but I was tired. It would have been better if it was during the day, but it was in the middle of the night.”

 

“The evaluation “itself” was okay?” Narea was quick to catch the subtlety of my words.

 

“Huh? Uhh… Did I just say that?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I see.”

 

I hadn’t even realized I sounded like that until Narea pointed it out.

 

Okay, the evaluation itself was fine.

 

It was my friend’s near-death experience and the death-like mission that came with it that was the problem.

 

The questions it raised were nagging at me, but I didn’t realize it was so obvious in my tone.

 

‘Yeah, it was unbelievable… Damn.’

 

If it wasn’t for that, the June assessment would have been a good memory.

I didn’t feel like I was going to cry because things didn’t go my way during the assessment, nor was I disappointed when I saw the results. It was even fun.

 

I remember teaming up with Seon-yeo to tackle the higher level questions, panicking when the lower level questions were over so quickly that I thought I had missed something, running into Yin Charang who had also failed the fitness test when I was so exhausted at the end of the assessment that I seriously considered going to sleep in an empty caravan, being found and laughed at by Hwang Hanju while we both lay on the floor together begging for a chocolate cake because we didn’t mind being made fun of.

 

“Evaluation… The evaluation was fun and I figured it out halfway through. I was like, “Oh, this isn’t going to be a bad evaluation,” or “I’m going to like it,” and I think that’s why I enjoyed the process more.”

 

‘Was it the talent that made it enjoyable?’

 

Maybe I enjoyed it because I was a beginner. 

 

Even when I was an aspiring magical girl, everything was fun when I was a beginner. 

 

Even if I didn’t get a good score, even if there were a lot of people who were better than me. 

 

I used to look forward to tomorrow because I knew that tomorrow I would get a new badge on my uniform, and tomorrow I would learn about another type of monster. 

 

I looked forward to those little things.

 

Looking forward to? Nothing… It’s easier to live life if you let go of those things early on.

 

***

 

Once at a dinner with my parents, where I didn’t know why we were eating together, I said something to break the silence at the table. 

 

That I loved being a wannabe magical girl, that I wanted to live at the Academy forever.

 

It was a sort of passive rebellion.

 

I wanted to show them that I could have a life outside of this dreary home, that I could have as much fun as I wanted.

 

And that was the answer that came back to me that day.

 

“Don’t have unrealistic expectations.”

 

I don’t remember if it was my mother or my father who said that. Years after that dinner, all I have left of it is a feeling of regret.

 

When I heard it, I let it go. It’s not that I didn’t expect that kind of perverse reaction. 

 

So there was another reason for the unpleasantness.

 

Because they weren’t wrong.

 

I shouldn’t have expected to do anything with a D-grade talent in the first place.

 

I tried in vain, believing that if I worked hard enough, I would eventually improve.

 

‘Oh shit!’, I thought to myself.

 

“Oh, by the way, do you need an apron?” I asked Narea.

 

“All of a sudden? I’m wearing a black t-shirt, I’m fine.”

 

“No, your pants are colorful.”

 

I used the apron as an excuse to get up from my seat, an attempt to shake off my thoughts.

 

Narea took the apron from me and placed it in her lap.

 

“Where were we?”

 

“About your evaluation.”

 

“Aha.”

 

“Isn’t it time to talk about the things that didn’t go well?”

 

Judging by the way Narea’s persistence didn’t seem to bother me, I guess I was just as eager to get the events of the past day off my chest. 

 

Not that I’d be able to tell her everything in detail anyway.

 

“Just… My friend got into something dangerous. She, um, almost got hurt badly, right in front of me.”

 

I swallowed hard at the word almost.

 

“It happened right after the evaluation, so I didn’t even have time to get drunk on the results.”

 

“Uh-oh…”

 

“It’s okay, I made it home safe and sound.”

 

“Glad to hear you’re okay. That must have been scary though.”

 

“No, not really. I was a little freaked out… but whatever. So, Narea, what’s going on with you? Tell me about yourself.”

 

“Uh, meh. No big gates since the feeding station gate blew up, which is nice, but they won’t give me a vacation. They’re short-staffed.”

 

“Short-staffed?”

 

“Yeah. There are a few injured people and a lot of seniors who retired from the last gate. So they’re hiring more people later this year.”

 

“Hmm, I see.”

 

Narea paused for a moment, then spoke again carefully. “Iri, you’re not thinking of coming back, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

I want to go back, but I can’t. My magic girl talent has been taken away.

 

Now I’m just a normal person who can’t use magic.

 

And I have no intention of going back.

 

“Are you sure…?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good. You’re sure.” Narea smiled ruefully.

 

“Then I guess we’ll have to keep meeting separately.”

 

“Oh, we’ll see each other often enough.”

 

“You should just check in with me more often, and if you can’t be bothered to reply with a sincere message, just send me an emoji or something.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

 

I couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden punch line.

 

But it didn’t bother me. I was late a few times, or rather a little too often.

 

Afterwards we talked about things as usual. Narea told me about a miscommunication at a feeding station that almost derailed our route, and I told her about a point stealing incident in Branch 6.

 

As we chatted, I was about to get up to leave when every cell phone in the store rang at the same time.

 

It was a security text. People anxiously checked their phones.

 

“What the hell?”

 

“Are you crazy?”

 

“Wow, Evande…”

 

Soon there was a stream of curses and sighs.

 

Narea and I, who had read the text a few seconds too late, froze.