An Exorcist Magical Girl! – Chapter 114

Author: Dakku-san

Seo Jun and I had the same hypothesis and came to the same conclusion, but our starting points were diametrically opposed.

Wherever Seo Jun’s reasoning started, it was clear that it was different from mine.

When I began to suspect that Choi Hee-young might be an exorcist, it was only after I was sure that she and I were not related.

“I won’t touch her because he’s my father’s favorite.”

A mysterious man who was called Father but was never our biological father.

Someone who never gave me a name or a face, and yet, strangely enough, prevented the killer from harming me.

Based on this, there was only one candidate I could think of.

The Master of the Space.

If anyone could force a psychopathic killer to keep me alive, it would be the Master of the Space.

The one who made Eom Jingyu pull me out of the path of a car, the one who made the spherical puppet who had drawn a knife to kill Seo Jun fall back down.

With that as my first stroke, I began to draw.

Choi Hee-young, a serial killer who calls the owner of the Space “Father”.

It was easy to imagine how Choi Hee-young was connected to the Space.

Maybe she killed every Wednesday night to offer souls to the owner of the space?

If this is the case, then Choi Hee-young must have been a gifted exorcist who could detect ghosts.

The moment her aunt confirmed that Choi Hee-young had the talent of an F-ranked exorcist was also a moment of confirmation.

This made it clear that Seo Jun was in danger of being killed.

I was terrified. So much so that I wanted to beg her to target me instead.

Besides, the most fundamental question remained unanswered.

Why does Choi Hee-young call him father?

No, more than that, I wanted to know why the owner of the Space was both his father and my father, and why he was trying to keep me alive.

Choi Hee-young treated me, who had never had any contact with her, like family.

She couldn’t hide her hostility towards me, but strangely enough, she didn’t stop talking to me like we were siblings until the end of the call.

Father, sister, it was all a bunch of bullshit, but there’s no way a serial killer who escaped from prison and is being hunted by the police would have called me to play games.

There had to be a very good reason why we were bound together as a family.

To be honest, I had an idea, but I couldn’t put it into words.

I intuitively knew that the reason would be my fatal stain, the one thing I didn’t want even myself to know, the one thing I must never be found out about.

I was afraid to tell this story to anyone, even more so because I couldn’t tell them why.

How can I just talk about my family’s connection to a serial killer who terrorized a whole country, who was responsible for ruining my friend’s life?

I’m not even ready to give a proper explanation for that right now.

So I hesitated, and I didn’t explain it properly.

The result was this. I rambled on, reminding Seo Jun of Chun’s death, which made her panic.

If I wanted to be blunt about this shitty situation, I should have done so from the beginning.

I needlessly triggered Seo Jun’s trauma with the nuance of sacrifice.

I was the worst friend ever.

─…Dad?

Seo Jun murmured in a trembling voice.

“Yes, “Father”. I don’t know why she called him that. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the owner of the space cares about me.”

I recited the entire conversation I’d had with Choi Hee-young on the phone, word for word.

Seo Jun was silent, whether she didn’t answer on purpose or because she couldn’t find the words.

“Do you remember the day the gate of the feeding station blew up and Eom Jingyu tried to run over all five of us at the last minute to kill us, but he actually tried to pull me out of the car so I wouldn’t get hit?”

I used the Mirror of Truth skill on Seo Jun, horrified and disgusted at my own situation where the roles were reversed and I had no choice but to ask her to believe me.

“Just stay with me until Choi Hee-young is caught by the police. I don’t care if you call me suspicious, protected by a soul snatcher. I don’t care how you’re misunderstood, just let me stand by you.”

I was desperate.

I didn’t want to lose my friend just like Seo Jun didn’t want to lose hers.

I didn’t want to watch her die without being able to do anything.

Seo Jun didn’t say anything for a long time, a silence heavier than ever.

I understand. She doesn’t know where to start and where to stop believing my story.

If I’m lying, she can’t use me as a shield because I could be attacked at any moment, and if I’m telling the truth, she can’t trust me completely because I’m in league with evil.

I was at a dead end where putting both hands on a lie detector wouldn’t solve anything.

After a few more minutes of silence, Seo Jun finally spoke.

─”Where is your house?”

* * *

“I’m on the first floor. Come down.”

6:30 AM.

I arrived at the first floor of Seo Jun’s apartment and called her.

About two minutes later Seo Jun came downstairs.

“I thought you said your apartment was on the 15th floor. Why are you coming downstairs?”

“I don’t want to take the elevator.”

“Earth-loving, eco-friendly or something?”

“No, I’m just a little creeped out by the mirrors on either side.”

“Aha.”

Seo Jun was dressed in a casual black t-shirt and baggy black pants.

On her back she carried a bag that looked heavy.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got everything packed. Let’s go then. I’ve called a cab.”

The destination was my house.

Seo Jun was staying with me for the time being. I couldn’t ask her to come alone, so I picked her up myself.

While Seo Jun was at my house, I wanted to minimize my outings.

I thought it would be better if she didn’t go to school or the training center.

I didn’t want her to break down the door or set fire to the house while I was away.

“I owe you. Take care of yourself.”

“Uh, okay.”

Even though I told her it didn’t matter because I lived alone anyway, she was polite enough to enter the front door.

It was the first and last time I’d seen her acting strangely stiff and walled off.

“Maybe I should have brought my trump card… You’ll be bored at home with nothing to do.”

Seo Jun muttered worriedly as she kicked off her shoes and stepped inside, and I stood there stunned, my eyes narrowing.

“Does it matter now?”

“Do you like puzzles? I brought a few sets.”

“No. Does it matter?”

Deciding not to pursue the subject of our earlier phone conversation, Seo Jun began unpacking her luggage in earnest, making small talk about nothing in particular.

She had half dozed off during the taxi ride, and I wondered if she had relaxed. The atmosphere became strangely light. It was like a breath of fresh air.

“Oh, right. I brought frozen dumplings from home.”

Not wanting to be left out of the conversation, she pulled three bags of frozen dumplings out of her bag.

“Meat dumplings, kimchi dumplings, and just in case, some short rib dumplings… Where do I put them?”

Seo Jun was strangely busy, not like her usual self.

As if she was switching personalities. And yet she didn’t seem to wonder why I lived alone.

I realized it wasn’t that she was trying to bury the important story and move on,

I soon realized that it was an attempt to create a limited atmosphere of conversation until we could get back to the important stuff.

In short, it was a way to relax and calm the nerves in a situation where lives were at stake, and she wanted to have a conversation with a calm mind.

“Put your clothes in the bottom drawer. It’s empty. You can use it.”

“Oh, thanks.”

As soon as Seo Jun was done organizing her things, she pulled a notebook and pen out of a bag she’d tucked away in a corner.

“What’s with the notebook?”

“I thought I might need to write things down. You should get a pen and sit down.”

“Huh? Uhh…”

Seo Jun gestured to a chair across the table, the only one available.

Leaning casually at an angle with one hand on the table, Seo Jun placed a piece of paper torn from her notebook in the middle of the table, then spoke in her usual calm tone.

“So let’s pick up where we left off.”

All that awkward chatter was just a prelude to this.

I could see that Seo Jun was trying to create a relaxed atmosphere for the conversation to go smoothly, and I felt like I was about to cry.

Unfortunately, the relaxed atmosphere didn’t last long.

Papers were left on the table, the door sensor went off at the wrong time, the also untimely whirring of the refrigerator, the chair that creaked so badly today, the backlit face of Seo Jun standing with her back to the window and me looking up at her.

I feel like I’m about to write a bloody memorandum, but I can’t help crying.

Undeterred by my shaky gaze, Seo Jun continued.

“I think we should write a memorandum, for each other.”

Oh, I didn’t think we were going to write a damn memorandum.

“Hey, hey, sit down, you’re scaring me.”

“What? No thanks.”

Seo Jun snapped, as if she thought I was worried about hurting her leg.

“Whatever… So what do you mean, “for each other”?”

“Literally, to keep us both from taking on more responsibility than we have to, and to keep us from feeling unnecessary guilt.”

There was bone in her words.

“Okay, maybe we should settle this now and move on. For later, when you never know how a little deviation might come back to haunt you.”

“Baek Iri, you don’t know how you got involved with them, do you?”