An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 133

Just in time, the bell rang to signal the start of the sixth period.

 

The students in the hallway quickly returned to their classrooms.

 

 “Hae-yoon, you should go inside too. Don’t worry too much.”

 

“Yes, yes!”

 

 I said a little too eagerly.

 

 “I don’t want you to beat her up for the whole sixth period, okay? Just pat her on the back and shoulder now and then, like you’re dusting her off. Just when you think she’s a little dazed, I mean, just when she looks dazed.”

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, once in a while.”

 

 If I hadn’t added the words, Hae-yoon’s palm and Idamin’s back would have stuck together.

 

I ask Hae-yoon to do this just in case I can’t handle the ghost’s sudden behavior. I’m 99% sure that it won’t put Idamin in danger, but just in case.

 

It was more an instinctive weight difference than a conceit. It decided to flee before it had a chance to fight me. I’ll keep my eyes open from now on, so I don’t get into trouble for being slow to react.

 

 “The teacher is coming, go inside.”

 

“Oh yeah, you should go in too!”

 

“Uh-oh.”

 

 After sending Kim Hae-yoon back to the science lab, I threw the baseball bat at the water ghost who was measuring the escape angle again.

 

 Bam!

 

 “You’re going to run again.”

 

 A clump of hair that had been trying to drag the goblin down the stairs jumped back from the bat.

 

I could now clearly see what its owner looked like.

 

 Rolling around in the wet, stagnant water was a round head with a neatly decapitated neck.

 

The skeleton of a face barely recognizable as male or female, each eye lopsided and far away from the temple, the eyeballs bulging as if the eyelids had been deliberately pulled up and down.

 

 And two legs behind each ear, and two arms from the sides of each mouth.

 

 His limbs were short and thin, barely able to support his head.

 

It was like the front and back legs of a frog.

 

 “Grrr, grrr, grrr, grrr, pole…”

 

 The hair, which must have been at least three meters long, moved again. It was obvious what it was after.

 

A mosquito crouched in the stairwell, babbling a string of meaningless words.

 

 It’s not trying to attack anyone, so I’ll leave it alone for now, because I have some questions I’d rather not answer right now.

 

 ‘My next teacher is always five or ten minutes late, so I’m sure it’ll be fine for a while.’

 

 The hair that had been twitching in anticipation caught the staircase louse as soon as I took a step back to watch.

 

 “Heeeeeeeeeeee!”

 

 With a monotone scream, the louse was grabbed by the hair.

 

It happened in the blink of an eye.

 

As soon as the dragged mosquito touched the surface of the shallow water, the water spirit quickly descended to the stairwell where the original mosquito was.

 

 “Aha, it’s not teleportation, it’s just a quick movement.”

 

 The ghost wasn’t teleporting like the bug, it just looked like that because the distance was close and the speed was high.

 

 The hair seems to extend beyond its normal length.

 

 I don’t know the exact limit of how far it extends, but it seems to extend up to five meters.

 

 I guess it can’t go through walls.

 

As it stretched its hair out into the hallway from the second science lab, I squeezed through a half-open window. I just managed to avoid the wall and the railing, sending the hair down in an A-curve.

 

 “Now, let’s have a little talk.”

 

 I spread my black energy in a wide circle before approaching the water ghost in the stairwell.

 

Most ghosts would sense my aura and stay away.

 

As for the water ghost, it was effectively cut off.

 

“Grrrrr!”

 

“Sorry, can’t you speak human? I have a few questions for you.”

 

“Grrrr, grrrrr…!”

 

“No matter how I listen to you, your vocal cords are human. What about the frog sound, is that a concept?”

 

 It was a far cry from the croaking, phlegm-boiling, animalistic screams of other spirits.

 

It sounded too deliberately mimicked to be a random noise, and too froggy… to be meant to intimidate an opponent.

 

No, it doesn’t make sense to make frog noises to appear intimidating. It’s not like mimicking the roar of a tiger or a lion or any other predator.

 

 I crouched down and locked eyes with the water spirit.

 

 “You don’t want to answer?”

 

“Grrr.”

 

 The ghost crouched before me, realizing it couldn’t run anymore. I could almost hear the words coming out of its mouth becoming more pathetic.

 

Was it because it had lost the ability to speak human language that it was still grunting and moaning in unintelligible words?

 

 “Damn, I’m in trouble. Hey, you.”

 

“Grrr?”

 

“Can you even speak human language? One grunt for “yes” and two grunts for “no”.”

 

“Grrrrr.”

 

“Haah…”

 

 Damn.

 

It doesn’t matter how wide open I leave my account, if I can’t speak the language, it’s useless. Opening up a lot of accounts just makes it easier to hear the ghosts clearly. Just because the sound quality is clearer doesn’t mean I understand everything they’re saying.

 

 As an aside, this is why it’s essential for exorcists who want to go abroad to study English and a second language. You can use a translator to communicate with the locals, but you can’t bring a translator to a conversation with a ghost.

 

 “Grrrr, grrrr, off, off, off—-”

 

“Shut up. I’m getting agitated.”

 

A nervous hand gesture and it’s silent.

 

How much smoother it would have been if it had been easy to handle. I sigh.

 

 There were two things I really had to ask this half-man, half-frog.

 

 Why it only showed itself to humans yesterday, when it had been a constant presence in the lab for at least a few months.

 

Why it chose to become a ghost again when it was finally able to move freely.

 

 These were all very personal questions related to the ghost’s personal situation, but for some reason, I didn’t feel like, “That’s enough”.

 

On the contrary, I felt that it was complacency not to keep asking.

 

 I felt an inexplicable pressure to get answers to these questions.

 

My instincts were whispering that I had to keep digging.

 

 I wanted to rip out my brain and whip it.

 

But then another question came to me with similar determination.

 

Which is more powerful, the water ghost’s ability to escape or the power that binds the soul to the laboratory?

 

If the former is weaker than the latter, then all this “switching around” is only temporary.

 

It’s like a rubber band that never breaks, and once it goes to the limit, it always ends up back in the lab.

 

 That is, if the force that binds space and spirit, the force that assimilates the spirit into a place, is stronger than the water spirit’s own qualities.

 

 Ah, now that I think about it, I can hear the answer to the question I just asked, because it’s the kind of question that narrows down to one of the two prophecies.

 

 “Hey, listen and answer me. If it’s the first one, you grunt one, if it’s the second one, you grunt two. You…”

 

 But I didn’t have to say it out loud.

 

 The answer was right there in front of me.

 

The water that had been pooling in the stairwell rushed back up the stairs and into the second science room like a torrent. My head was floating on the water, and I couldn’t help but be pulled along by the current.

 

 Bam!

 

 The head, thrown through the half-open window, hit the ground with a splash.

 

 ‘Should I go through the window too?’

 

 The second lab was not directly accessible from the hallway but had to be accessed through the first lab.

 

And there was a class in the first lab.

 

It wasn’t a matter of life and death, but I couldn’t just go into a classroom to exorcize a ghost.

 

 Seriously, I briefly considered climbing through the same window the ghost used to get in and out of the classroom, but I soon realized that it was a hopeless idea and gave up.

 

Unlike the other classrooms, the windows in the science room were too high, and even if I could get a foothold, they were too narrow for my body to fit through.

 

 It would be best to come back during the next break.

 

 The door between the first and second science labs was closed earlier…

 

 The ghost can’t pass through walls, so as long as we keep the door closed, it won’t be able to harm Idamin.

 

‘I put a lot of pressure on Kim Hae-yoon.’

 

 I picked up the mop that was leaning against the corner of the hallway, closed the window, and went to class.

 

Sixth period was less than five minutes away. I quickened my pace, thinking that if I was fast enough, I might beat the teacher in.

 

‘That’s just as well,’ I thought, ‘I needed some time to think.’

 

 For the next 45 minutes or so, the enforced grace period before the exorcism, I would try to come up with answers to the questions I’d asked myself earlier.

 

 “You’re late. Did you finish your work?”

 

“No, I have to go back later…”

 

“I see.”

 

 Seo Jun didn’t ask any more questions, probably because he noticed that I looked half-awake.

 

The teacher didn’t return for another five minutes. He said he forgot he had a class. I was glad that he wasn’t one of those teachers who made us stay until the next break because we were late. Otherwise the exorcism would have been a day late.

 

─“Hae-yoon, I’m sorry, but can you tell your class president not to lock the science lab door after class?”

 

 I’ve already left a message for them, just in case they lock the door. I don’t want to have to go back and forth to the teachers’ room to get the key.

 

 After I quietly put my cell phone back in the drawer, it was time for my own thinking chair.

 

In fact, the next three to four minutes until the end of the sixth period were perfect for speculating and comparing.

 

 “Hey… can you show me your notes when you’re done? I dozed off and missed them.”

 

 While I was scribbling in my notebook, Joo Yeon-seo, who was sitting nearby, said to me,

 

 “Oh, this isn’t handwriting…”

 

 I shrugged my shoulders and showed her the page full of unrecognizable scribbles, and she turned her head away with a look of despair.

 

I feel so sorry for her, even though she hasn’t done anything wrong.

 

“Yes, this is it.”

 

 Three minutes left in the sixth period.

 

I’d finished organizing my thoughts. I hadn’t come up with a strong candidate for either question, but I was confident that I could get the ghost to answer at least one of them.

 

‘That’s good enough for me. Oh shit, I thought too much.’

 

 I enjoyed the feeling of my head throbbing with satisfaction,

 

 Bam!

 

 Two minutes before the end of the sixth period, a sixth grader in gym class threw a baseball so hard on the playground that it shattered the window of the science lab.