An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 124

At the back of a deserted park.

 

Seo Jun stopped and looked at the sky.

 

“That’s not a bus, is it?”

 

Peering through the clouds, it was long enough that even with her eyes half open, she couldn’t mistake it for a bus.

 

But it was tall enough to be a train… and most of all, it was too simple in appearance. It had no windows, doors, or even wheels, just an elongated black rectangle.

 

“The core is inside.”

 

It was the most annoying, if not the worst scenario she could have imagined.

 

Seo Jun clicked his tongue slightly.

 

This room that could change shape at will was made of ghosts.

 

But there was no way that it could have been created by simply stringing cores together.

 

One more step was needed to transform the collected spirits into a concrete space.

 

And Seo Jun knew what that step was.

 

“Incorporating the “spatial spell” into the ghosts…”

 

Seo Jun was able to figure out how the thing that had been a bus, then a coffin, and now a flying thing had formed thanks to the answer she’d gotten from torturing the man-eating ghost at the subway station during their mission in April.

 

“It swallowed a little bit of the spell, just a little bit, just a bite, no, what kind of spell? Spatial spell, what it ate was spatial spell!” she asked.

 

She asked because the way it mimicked the shape of space and trapped people in it to kill them reminded her of the other world she knew, and she thought it might be related.

 

When she asked the ghost where it got the spell, it gave her the ridiculous answer, “I just picked it up and ate it,” but it was definitely a harvest.

 

She realized that by absorbing some of the spell’s power, it was able to do things that a normal cannibal wouldn’t have been able to do.

 

The spatial spell.

 

It was literally a spatial spell. It was a spell that was primarily used to trap something, but depending on how much power it contained, its effect could vary from slightly distorting the existing space of reality, causing a person to get lost, to creating an entirely new space, as it was doing now.

 

In any case, it was clear that the space that was slowly descending was also created by the “Spatial Spell”.

 

If the effect of the spell is so strong, it must mean that the spell is bound to the core.

 

So when the bus arrived, she tried to break the spell from the headlights.

 

She never thought that the core would have traveled into space.

 

Seo Jun raised his eyebrows.

 

“I guess I’ll have to ask Baek Iri to do it for me.”

 

Choi Hee-young would be in there, so Seo Jun couldn’t go in herself.

 

‘She’s an S⁺ class, so if she understands what I’m saying, she might even be faster than me at breaking the spell…’

 

The problem is that she doesn’t even know if there is a way to tell Baek Iri.

 

Baek Iri’s cell phone was with Seo Jun, and even if she had one, based on her previous experience, there was a good chance that she wouldn’t be able to reach her from this room.

 

“Maybe I should yell outside.”

 

There was no guarantee that the sound would reach the inside.

 

The blackened amulet paper crumpled in her hand.

 

As it turned out, the amulet had done all it could to bring the room here, and it was no longer useful.

 

She couldn’t make another one like it. It was a form of transferring some of the owner’s power to give orders to others. Only the true owner of the room could create the same amulet.

 

The room was now just a speck on the ground.

 

It was long and tall, like a giant wall in the middle of a park.

 

Of course, it’s completely invisible to the casual observer.

 

Seo Jun approached the space in front of her,

 

❰Skill: ‘Detection Dog’ activated❱

 

Use the ability to read the weaknesses and information in the room.

 

“Found…”

 

There were three or four spots on the outer wall that were unusually thin and made of a different material than the rest.

 

“They must have tampered with it from the inside.”

 

It was immediately clear that the walls had been thinned by artificial forces, not spells.

 

“I don’t know what happened, but this should make things easier.”

 

Then it was time to try and talk.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Have we landed?”

 

There was a single vibration from the ground and then silence.

 

“Landing or not, I can’t even get out of here on my own.”

 

Choi Hee-young grumbled and flopped down on the floor.

 

I wanted to lie down as well. Why?

 

Because the “possibility of an exit” that I firmly believed in had disappeared. 

 

‘Why the hell…?!’

 

The refrigerator door that Choi had secretly ripped out of the landscape was restored in the blink of an eye. I didn’t even have time to stick my finger through the gap.

 

Of course, it was much thinner than the rest of the ghosts and less connected to its surroundings.

 

The refrigerator door came off easily with half the force I used to pull the ghost out of the crack in the bus window.

 

But the speed with which the gap was repaired was not much different from the speed with which the coffin with Seo Jun in the middle was repaired.

 

My guess wasn’t wrong, but it was a half-assed guess.

 

I was right about the cohesion, but I’d forgotten about its incredible resilience.

 

“Damn… I can’t use this as a way out.”

 

Choi Hee-young, who didn’t know my inner thoughts, just relaxed.

 

“He’s not going to leave his daughter here to starve.”

 

Choi Hee-young knew that her father would not be pleased if she returned to him with a failed murder, but she had long since decided to simply wait patiently until he brought the entire market alley into the room.

 

She would be scolded, but she would get another chance anyway.

 

The next time, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

 

She chewed her lip nervously.

 

At this rate, I would be stuck with Choi Hee-young in the other dimension.

 

My instincts were still warning me that if I entered the room now, I would see something that my rational mind could not handle.

 

I had a vague idea of the nature of the situation my instincts were telling me to avoid.

 

It’s not organized into a neat sentence, but it’s not so unclear that I can dismiss it with the word “I don’t know.

 

Oh, why is it that lately I feel like I have to pretend I don’t know.

 

I wanted to rip my brain out if I could.

 

“Choi Hee-young. How did you know that our destination wasn’t the room? You did the same thing on the bus earlier when you realized you were going back to your father.”

 

“Oh, that?”

 

Choi Hee-young said as if it didn’t matter.

 

“I said that I gave father my blood so that I could feel if he was near. A little strong… yes, a sudden chill is the right word for it. I get a similar feeling when Father is looking for me. That’s why I was able to answer his call even in prison.

 

Choi Hee-young was incredibly proud of herself.

 

I don’t know whether to call it filial piety or loyalty.

 

No, when I looked at it again, it wasn’t filial piety or loyalty, but pride that she was one step closer to her father than I was.

 

It was so twisted it was almost unbearable.

 

“So the bus picked us up and rushed us to the room because your father called for us?”

 

“No, it’s a habit, a homing instinct. If the bus doesn’t have a clear destination it goes back to my father first.”

 

Choi Hee-young added in a sarcastic tone.

 

“If my father finds me, it will be after midnight tomorrow, because that’s the deadline.”

 

Aha, so if Choi Hee-young doesn’t return by midnight tomorrow, they’ll have to find him themselves, which means the deadline is still one day away.

 

“If I succeed, I will never be seen in this world again. I will live forever with the things I love and my father. Peaceful and beautiful forever.”

 

Yes, keep spinning that hope wheel.

 

I won’t let you have your way, no matter what you do.

 

I felt the corners of my mouth twitch.

 

It was a good thing that Choi Hee-young was lying down. 

 

If she’d seen my face, she would have gotten angry and tried to fight me again.

 

It was then.

 

“Hey, Baek Iri.”

 

I heard an all too familiar voice.

 

“What is this, a hallucination… aaaaaaaah!”

 

“Shut up. I’m not dead, I’m out of my body.”

 

I turned around and there was Seo Jun in a transparent state of mind.

 

“Oh, this crazy bastard is suddenly screaming and yelling, and if you have nothing to do, just stay still like me and don’t aggro.”

 

Choi Hee-young, startled by my scream, jerked her upper body up and then lay down with all kinds of irritation.

 

She must have seen that… Oh, right.

 

F-rank senses can’t detect a disembodied spirit. No shape, no voice, no sign.

 

“Don’t answer, just listen, Baek Iri.”

 

The question why she’s here rises in my throat, but I manage to keep my mouth shut.

 

“Choi Hee-young dropped an amulet and I used it to call the bus ghost.”

 

Aha, so that’s what it was.

 

The target was where Seo Jun was.

 

“The walls over there were strangely thin, so I was able to go through them in spirit. There were a few more like that, but I’ll tell you what happened later.”

 

I rolled my eyes and followed Seo Jun’s finger. She pointed to the teepee that housed the Praise Tree.

 

It had been hastily put together, but it didn’t look like it would keep the spirits out.

 

“There’s probably some kind of enchantment attached to the core, maybe one that completely envelops it.”

 

Seo Jun spoke like a rapid-fire cannon.

 

“That spell is what’s causing the room to form. We have to separate it from the core, and then the spirits that make up the space will start to crumble, and you’ll have to get out of there. Do you understand?”

 

Instead of nodding, she blinked once, slowly, to show that she understood.

 

“Bring me the spell you tore off. I have work to do.”

 

“……?”

 

“It’s to protect me, please.”

 

Seo Jun left it at that, saying that she had to prepare something.

 

With Seo Jun’s short explanation, it made sense to me why the room changed shape the moment I tried to smash the headlights of the bus. It wasn’t the core that reacted, but the magic surrounding it.

 

By the way, I’m supposed to find the one real core among dozens of fakes.

 

I’ve been given a difficult task.

 

I moved my hand closer to the lamp on my right. A faint heat, almost as faint as the brightness of the light, radiated from my fingertips.

 

I’ll find it this time.

 

Just like I did with Choi Hee-young, finding the one lie among the many truths she told.