An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 118

Choi Hee-young turned the gas can upside down and shook it.

 

As if to show that the contents were already empty.

 

Thud!

 

The gas can that had been thrown high landed on the asphalt with a loud clatter.

 

That must have been the signal for something.

 

 “Come back…!”

 

The ghosts surrounded Seo Jun with unprecedented speed.

 

Tightly packed together, the ghosts gradually lost their boundaries with each other.

 

At Seo Jun’s feet, the layers of ghosts merged into one huge thing.

 

The ghosts that had become a single “wall” were easily broken and shattered by Seo Jun’s and my skills, only to be restored in an instant. 

 

The speed of destruction could not keep up with the speed of repair.

 

“It’s not like this before! Why are these things recovering so fast?! This is not the time…!”

 

“I’ll do something about this, you try to stop the others from joining in!”

 

 Seo Jun tried, but it wasn’t enough to stop the thick wall from building up around her.

 

To take it down completely, I had to destroy the cores of the ghosts used here: the headlights of the bus lying in the dirt of the flowerbed.

 

 “This— it’s a coffin.”

 

“What?”

 

“These ghosts are being shaped into a coffin now—”

 

Seo Jun’s words were cut off by the ghosts piled up to her chin.

 

In that brief moment, it all made sense.

 

“Choi Hee-young, that crazy bastard!”

 

Outside the window, Choi was smiling eerily, waiting for the coffin to be completed. 

 

The lighter in her right hand flickered and died.

 

This wasn’t going to end neatly.

 

It meant she was going to burn this entire villa to the ground.

 

Choi Hee-young was a woman who would not mind if everyone in this villa burned to death just to kill Seo Jun.

 

In the meantime, to ensure that Seo Jun’s life would be cut short, the ghosts that made up the form of the bus were given the form of a coffin.

 

So that no one could escape the flames.

 

Forced to stay where she was, she could never escape death.

 

“You’d better come down quietly, little sister. You think you can save her if you stay up there?”

 

Choi Hee-young threw her head back and chuckled.

 

“Hahahaha, ahahahaha!”

 

My eyes flew open at that, and I realized that the dark night sky had suddenly turned bright red.

 

I poked my head out the window and saw flames leaping into the sky above our villa.

 

The roof was on fire.

 

“Shit!”

 

The blind psychopathic killer had done it.

 

The fire alarm blared loudly.

 

It was only a matter of time before the fire spread downstairs.

 

I had every right to be nervous.

 

She wanted me to lose my judgment.

 

Nice try, Choi Hee-young, but I can see what you’re up to.

 

All this was done to keep me away from Seo Jun.

 

Destroying the Headlight once and for all is the only way to get Seo Jun out of here, and I’m the only one who can do it now.

 

If Choi’s plan goes as planned, I’ll have no choice but to run out of the villa as soon as I see the fire. 

 

I have to get Seo Jun to regain her freedom of movement before the fire gets out of control.

 

But that would be like walking into a trap set by Choi.

 

The moment I leave the villa, Choi will set fire to the ground floor foyer. 

 

If both the roof and the entrance are sealed off, Seo Jun will be trapped in this inferno and won’t be able to escape.

 

I will never do that.

 

I won’t bend to her every whim.

 

That doesn’t mean that I will stay here and burn to death with Seo Jun.

 

There’s another way.

 

Choi Hee-young may have thought that this was the perfect plan to get rid of Seo Jun while keeping me alive, but unfortunately, she overlooked one thing.

 

The Master of the Space cares about me.

 

“Seo Jun, Choi set fire to the building.”

 

I looked at Seo Jun through the cracks in the coffin lid and said, “I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t wait, evacuate. The fire is upstairs, get down to the first floor.”

 

“I’ll come back for you…”

 

“Don’t forget memorandum number four.”

 

 I couldn’t wait any longer.

 

I tore off the bars Seo Jun had installed on the window and jumped out.

 

My vision went white as I caught a glimpse of Choi Hee-young’s face, flushed with horror.

 

 

***

 

 

─ “This stop, this stop, this stop, this stop, no stop, no stop, no stop, no stop, next stop is…”

 

My eyelids fluttered at the faint sound of broken machinery.

 

“Uh…”

 

My half-open eyes blinked reflexively at the brightness around me.

 

I woke up in the back of an all-white bus.

 

White floors, walls, and ceiling, white driver’s seat, white chairs, white handles, white windowsills, white windows, and white light shining through the windows.

 

If there were two things on this bus that weren’t white, one was me, and the other was Choi Hee-young, slumped against the back door, motionless.

 

It’s so white everywhere that I can only see her bright yellow bleached hair.

 

I don’t know why she’s here, but I hope it’s not because she was the last thing I saw before I blacked out.

 

I was alone with a serial killer in a mysterious room, but the thought of possibility overcame my fear.

 

I briefly considered calling Choi to wake her up but decided to keep my mouth shut until I could pull myself together.

 

I thought I’d better clear my headfirst.

 

It wouldn’t do me any good to face Choi Hee-young with a foggy head.

 

I sat up straight and tried to get my bearings.

 

I lowered my legs to the floor, half dangling uncomfortably from the chair, and paused at an unexpected sensation.

 

The ground didn’t support my foot, and it gave way under my weight. It was like stepping on rotten jelly.

 

‘What was this, a dream? Or am I already dead and being transported to the afterlife?’

 

“Whoa…”

 

 Fortunately, I had a clear sense of inhaling and exhaling air.

 

The pulse in my neck, which I checked just in case, was still beating.

 

 The fact that I was alive now meant that my plan had been halfway successful.

 

I couldn’t call it a complete success yet, since I had no way of knowing if Seo Jun had been evacuated safely.

 

I wanted to believe that she was safe.

 

If she lost his mind, it would be after she climbed out of the fire.

 

When I calmed down and thought about it, I realized that it was a good thing that Choi was here with me.

 

If I had left this to the unknown, I would have gone crazy with fear by now.

 

By the way, waking up in a place like this wasn’t part of the plan, and it’s kind of embarrassing.

 

It wasn’t much of a plan.

 

The ghosts couldn’t attack me, and they were even trying to protect me, so I figured that between keeping Seo Jun tied up and saving my life, they would prioritize the latter.

 

So, I jumped. That way, the ghosts would fall away from Seo Jun to protect me.

 

It would be so fast that she wouldn’t be able to set fire to the front door in that split second.

 

I even drew a picture of me snatching the lighter out of her panicked hand.

 

 “Jaeenjaang…”

 

I spat out the words because it didn’t feel real.

 

Light came in through the window, but it was cold where it hit.

 

I couldn’t see outside the window.

 

Now I wasn’t even sure if it was a clear window.

 

I couldn’t tell if the window frame was made of white, opaque acrylic instead of glass, or if I was looking out at a stark white landscape.

 

I pushed and pulled the window handle as hard as I could, but it wouldn’t budge.

 

I thought, ‘If the window is like this, what if the door… is like this, and I can’t get out?’

 

Just as I was thinking that the wall I was leaning against shook like it was vomiting something.

 

*Pop, pop, pop! *

 

Along with the sound of giant bubbles bursting, the doorbells appeared everywhere.

 

Suddenly the place felt empty. The chairs and handles were arranged like the interior of a regular bus, but the details were less filled in.

 

I realized only now that there were no terminals for swiping transit cards, no air conditioners above each seat, and no LED boards announcing stops.

 

It was never built.

 

No, more accurately, it was still being built.

 

It looked like a hastily constructed room to catch me if I fell.

 

That’s why some of the chairs and the floor weren’t solid yet.

 

It was like a bunch of ghosts were still trying to form the shape of a bus.

 

I deliberately walked around, pushing things down.

 

The floor I stepped on first was now solid, and the other squishy parts gradually hardened over the course of a lap or two around the bus.

 

❰ Skill: ‘Creator of Something Out of Nothing’ activated. ❱ 

 

I created a weapon and struck at the still-hardened parts, but to no avail. 

 

The four sides of the bus cracked, but quickly returned to normal.

 

The same was true for the coffin surrounding Seo Jun, and even now, it seemed that the closer a particular shape came to completion, the harder it was to break.

 

“Wait a minute. Didn’t those bastards prioritize me before?”

 

Why aren’t they letting me out now, even though I’m such an idiot? They could have made a hole for someone to slip in and out.

 

 Two reasons immediately came to mind.

 

First, they’d only really let me go if she was ‘alive’, and the rest was none of their business.

 

Second, there are things outside the bus that could threaten my life.

 

If it’s the first, I’ll probably open the door for you if you’re about to starve to death in here, but if it’s the second, I’ll probably just go along with it and see what happens.

 

─”This stop is …Where? …We’ll be back. This stop is undetermined. The bus is running normally. We’re going somewhere. The next stop is undetermined.”

 

Another meaningless announcement.

 

I wondered if this one was part of the process of completing the bus, but it sounded less gibberish than the last one. It had gone from a broken tape to a moderately strange level.

 

By the way, creating a room out of dead souls.

 

It was an uncanny idea.

 

Suddenly, I remembered the man-eating ghost I’d encountered at the Rapid Transit station.

 

A ghost that was perfectly disguised to blend into the surrounding space.

 

This bus was very different from the man-eating ghost at the train station, but there were similarities.

 

It was formed by spirits.

 

I don’t know how the spirits were gathered and spatialized, but one thing was clear.

 

This is the work of “Father”.

 

Choi Hee-young is an F-ranked exorcist, so it can’t be her work. He just left it in Choi Hee-young’s hands.

 

We’ll know more when she wakes up.

 

I picked up the yellow-haired woman who was still lying helplessly on the floor and threw her onto a chair.

 

“Wake up. It’s time for a family meeting.”