An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 129

─Hey, this is Mr. JANG Jin-cheol. Could you go to the roof right away?

─I didn’t know you were sick. I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it and get some rest.

 

“Ah…!”

 

Last Friday, Mr. Jang Jin-cheol asked me to take a look at what Mr. Heo Kyung-wook was doing on the roof a few times a month, every Monday.

 

Since the dates were not consistent every other week, I told him that I would start coming to school as early as possible on Mondays so that I could be on the roof at any time.

 

“Damn, why this week…!”

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“Oh, nothing.”

 

I should have told Mr. Jang about my absence before… Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it.

 

It’s already been two days, but I’ll have to apologize to him later during the first period break.

 

“What? Did you chew up Mr. Jang’s text?”

 

Hanbyul, who had been looking at my phone screen, opened her eyes wide and shouted.

 

“Shut up! I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t know he had contacted me.”

 

“But why is he looking for you? Did you do something wrong? Did you commit a crime? Have you been caught?”

 

“Hanbyul, who do you think I am…”

 

I wanted to ask her what she thought of me, but then I remembered the last time I was distracted in Magic and Ethics class and misheard Mr. Jang saying the correct answer to the question in the textbook and read the question verbatim.

 

“No, you thought Mr. Jang was a bad person who just wanted to get to know his students personally?”

 

“Huh? No, no, no, wait, what’s going on?”

 

Hanbyul waves her hands in the air desperately.

 

“It’s nothing, it’s just that Mr. Jang Jin-cheol is working on some kind of school project, that’s all.”

 

“Oh, the one where the students build their own school?”

 

“Uh, uh, yeah, that.”

 

It was the project the teacher told me to use as an excuse if I was caught wandering out of class during the head collector incident last week.

 

“Come on, you do that too, huh?”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“Huh? Wait a minute. That’s a foster program. Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that?”

 

“Oh, I joined the, uh, project a little late, so I don’t think they know about it yet.”

 

“Aha, I see. My friend in the broadcasting department was really bummed that she missed the application period.”

 

I broke into a cold sweat.

 

Damn, this is why I hate so many of my friends!

 

Oh, and now I’m going to be found out for asking Mr. Jang Jin-cheol for a favor. Damn it.

 

It wouldn’t do me any good if word got out that I agreed to help Mr. Jang Jin-cheol, because if it got to Heo Kyung-wook’s ears, my exorcism business would be limited.

 

“Hanbyul.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Just pretend you don’t know.”

 

“Pretend what?”

 

“Everything I said today, including Mr. Jang’s project.”

 

“What?”

 

“I need a favor. It’s for school.”

 

“……!”

 

The words I shouted out in frustration surprisingly worked.

 

Hanbyul’s face immediately turned solemn.

 

“I’ll get it out of my head. I didn’t hear anything today. What was the name of our magic and ethics teacher?”

 

“Don’t erase that, too.”

 

I don’t need to remind her, she’s not the kind of girl who goes around telling people not to talk.

 

Cha Hanbyul was often mistaken for a gossipy actress because of her wide feet and her tendency to spread rumors, but she was actually quite the opposite.

 

If I had to choose the two most important words to describe her, the second would be “Insa” and the first would be “loyal”, meaning she’s reliable and decent.

 

“So, you really don’t know what happened on Monday, do you?”

 

“Oh, yeah. I heard the general idea that something crashed outside the window and then something strange happened, but I don’t know the details.”

 

Hanbyul replied cheerfully and then quickly called someone.

 

The question of whether something falling out of the window was strange in itself rose in my throat, but I remained silent.

 

“I’ve let them know that you’re back at school.”

 

“Oh, thank you. I’ll contact Mr. Jang Jin-cheol myself.”

 

Soon the bell rang for first period, and we hurried back to class.

 

“I guess the only thing I can do now is to make up for that defense progress.”

 

My aunt’s words from the other day echoed in my head.

 

Yes, I had to make this talent my own as soon as possible. The Master of Space might try to take advantage of my unstable possession of the talent.

 

 

* * * 

 

 

A call came during the second period break.

 

I’m Jeong Sae-eun, the president of the third grade. 

 

─I’m really sorry for the first contact, but can I ask you a favor?”

 

Hanbyul gave her my Starstar ID, so she contacted me via Starstar DM, not Kaktok.

 

─I need you to find something for me…

 

What followed was far from an exorcism.

 

It was a request to find the whereabouts of a missing spirit.

 

It wasn’t my favorite kind of request, but I couldn’t ignore it. 

 

This kind of work is all about word of mouth. If I refused the request on my own terms, it would raise the bar for exorcisms. 

 

Besides, this client is an elder. If I refused, it would be embarrassing for Hanbyul, who had built a bridge in the middle.

 

As a good friend who has always supported my work, I didn’t want to do anything to hurt her.

 

“Well, it’s a shame that it’s not a direct exorcism request. We’ll just have to tell the ghosts to leave, like we did with the third grade.”

 

At noon, I went to the third-grade classroom to hear more, and I vowed that I would somehow get this case to the exorcism stage.

 

Contrary to my expectations of the stifling atmosphere of the reading room, the hallway outside the third-grade classroom was bustling with activity.

 

 

“Oh, Cody, come on. If your concept is cool, you should have just kept it cool. Why are you being so experimental with it? You’re driving me crazy.”

“Ticketing, okay? The whole universe is telling me to study, f*ck.”

“Dude, are you sure you want to play in September? I honestly don’t think there’ll be as many next years as this year if Annie drops out… Oh, what am I going to do, I don’t think they’re going to give me a third term.”

“Crazy kid, you’re a senior…”

 

 

I don’t know if it was the end of the June mock exams or the fact that lunch was always a little more relaxed.

 

It wasn’t overly loud, but it wasn’t so deathly quiet that you could hear every footstep. 

 

This made me sneak around a little more and then a little less carefully.

 

‘Thank God,’ I thought to myself, ‘I thought they would be very noticeable.’

 

As I walked by, I noticed that the atmosphere varied from class to class. Some were moderately noisy, some were quiet with all but one or two students asleep, and some were openly playing whatever the previous class was playing.

 

The only thing they all had in common was that they all looked like corpses.

 

I was almost in the third-grade classroom.

 

“Hey, in here!”

 

“……?”

 

One of the older students with a King’s Claw pin in her hair spotted me and scurried into the classroom.

 

“Hey, Sae-eun!”

 

There was a loud bang from inside and a taller student in civilian clothes ran out, not the one with the claw pin.

 

“You’re Baek Iri, right?”

 

“Uh, yes.”

 

“Good to see you. I’m Sae-eun, the student who sent you a DM earlier.”

 

“Hi.”

 

 While we were awkwardly exchanging greetings, the claw pin student who had been watching earlier came running out and placed a shopping bag full of grapefruit juice in both of my hands.

 

 “Ye-Yes? This-these are all…”

 

“Ah, Jeong Sae-eun, I don’t want her to leave this behind. Come here, don’t say no, just take it.”

 

“I wanted to go in and give it to her. Look, she’s overwhelmed!”

 

“Oh no, I’m fine.”

 

“You’re not making sense. Come on, let’s go inside.”

 

“You’re the one with no sense. Who buys grape soda all the time? You should mix it up a little. I should have stopped going out, not you.”

 

I staggered into the third-grade classroom, led by her hand.

 

“Come on, this way.”

 

She gestured to me to an empty seat in the middle of the second section, and the students standing by the front door turned off the classroom lights.

 

I could finally see inside the classroom.

 

The windows were blacked out, the beam projector screen was draped over the blackboard, and three videos were stored in folders on the screen.

 

These girls are serious.

 

“Okay, let’s start with the videos.” 

 

As soon as she said that the first video played.

 

She held her phone vertically and took a picture of a window on the playground.

 

About three seconds after pressing play, something white fell out of the window right next to the locker in the video.

 

 

─“Is it 10:00 yet? Oh, 58 minutes. It’s a little early today.”

─“Did you get it? Wow! We got it!”

 

 

Those two words stuck in my ears amidst the din of voices.

 

It was a spirit that had crashed.

 

In the video, the ghost was visible even without opening the account, and it was just as visible to the rest of the audience.

 

The ghost’s presence on the recording was strong enough to penetrate the human senses.

 

“Here’s the next one. It’s the same one as before, just zoomed in a bit and edited at 0.2x.”

 

I quickly switched to the second video.

 

 This time the shape of the falling ghost was clearer.

 

The ghost had the stereotypical appearance of a “virgin ghost”. It was dressed in a white cowboy suit, with loose black hair, a pale face, and a trickle of blood running down its chin.

 

 

─“Every time I see him, I don’t understand him. Why does he come to school in a cow suit? It’s not even a uniform.”

 

 

I could hear the student muttering to herself as she played the video. 

 

I thought we would move on to the third video, but we didn’t. The video screening paused for a moment before Jeong Sae-eun began her story.

 

“We have watched it every day since March 2. 10 a.m., ah, sometimes it’s a little later or earlier, but it’s always at 10 a.m.”.

 

The ghostly crash repeated every day. She doesn’t know if it started on March 2nd, or if it’s been happening since winter break.

 

At first, everyone freaked out, but after seeing it every day, they’ve come to accept it as an alarm clock, albeit an inaccurate one. 

 

I can only imagine how many “Oh shit!” and “I don’t want to sit in that seat!” moments it took for it to become part of the daily routine.

 

“I even tried covering the windows with blinds, but the noise was too loud.”

 

She’d rather suffer visually than hear the horrific thudding and bone-crunching sounds every day. At least you can close your eyes and hear the sound even if you don’t want to.

 

“And it’s already June…”

 

Sae-eun shook her head excitedly. It was hard to believe that it was already the fourth month that they had watched the ghost fall from the same place at the same time.

 

“What happened on Monday that made you call me?”

 

If she wanted to get rid of this ghost, she would have hired me when I started my exorcism business on campus.

 

Why did she come to me now, when the ghost was fully integrated into her daily life?

 

“Oh, I’ll show you.”

 

As if she’d been waiting for this question, Sae-eun instructed.

 

“Play the third video.”