An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 140

“But these boxes, are we really going to leave them like this?”

 

Seo Jun tilts her head and mumbles.

 

 “How long does it take for a monster to starve?”

 

“Well, I guess suffocation would be faster than death.”

 

 I gesture at the size of the box and Seo Jun nods in agreement. If you put a man this size into a box this big, his body would be crushed into a ball.

 

He’ll probably break his neck or slowly suffocate.

 

 “If they were living monsters, that is.”

 

 Seo Jun’s head snapped up at my meaningful addition.

 

 “What do you mean by that?”

 

“I’ve been thinking.”

 

 No gate, no rift, just a monster that suddenly appeared on the campus.

 

The ghosts had been hiding and cowering since the same time.

 

A magical girl’s attack that went right through them.

 

 All of these anomalies led to one conclusion.

 

 “Seo Jun, I wonder what happened to the souls of the monsters killed on the field that day.”

 

 This is a school where ghosts are imprisoned.

 

The souls of monsters would have been no exception.

 

 Seo Jun, who immediately understood what I was trying to say, listened in a daze. She seemed to be mulling over the sentence as if she understood it but couldn’t believe it.

 

 “So the monster in front of us is actually a ghost that died two months ago…”

 

“Maybe. I think so.”

 

“Well, there’s…”

 

 She nods slowly, as if there’s no other way to explain what’s going on, and then lets out a self-deprecating chuckle.

 

 “Heh… why didn’t I think of that, I mean, I knew what this school was all along, and why didn’t I realize the obvious fact that even the dead couldn’t get out of here.”

 

“Weren’t we a little preoccupied back then? How could we worry about all that when we were almost getting our heads blown off by bugs?”

 

 In the midst of all the chaos, how could anyone question the whereabouts of a dead monster’s soul when a flesh-hungry demon had appeared shortly after the monster was killed, followed by another bug incident?

 

It’s even stranger that I had time to worry about anything else when the bug carcasses were piling up everywhere I turned.

 

 “I don’t know where it’s been hiding all this time, but… If it’s a ghost, we should let it go.”

 

 With that, Seo Jun untied the red cloth from her wrist.

 

 “I’ll take the right one. Baek Iri, you take the left one.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Ready?”

 

 Watching the red cloth fold and unfold in a series of deliberate movements, I opened the account and formed a baseball bat, holding it in my right hand.

 

 “Then take it out.”

 

At the same time, the black boxes in front of me began to crack.

 

 Crack, crack, crack!

 

 “Huh? Seo Jun, what about your weapon?”

 

“I left my dagger behind to make an amulet.”

 

“And the paper and pen…?”

 

“Oh, I’ve been carrying those with me lately.”

 

 I pull some crumpled pieces of parchment and a blunt pen out of my pocket.

 

Seo Jun rips up the paper roughly, puts it on the bench and starts scribbling. Her grip on the pen is quite relaxed even though the box is about to break.

 

She is confident that she has enough time on her hands, probably because she has been drawing amulets for years.

 

 “Let’s not take too long, let’s get it done in one go.”

 

“Uh, yeah.”

 

 I turned away from Seo Jun and focused on the box to my left.

 

A monster’s legs poked out halfway through the crumbling walls of the crate.

 

 

❰Skill: ‘Light only visible with eyes closed’ activated❱

 

 

Under the tongue.

 

I already knew where the core was.

 

It was convenient in many ways to know where the core was without having to look at it.

 

‘First I hit the collarbone, and then…’

 

I was able to make a simple plan in the time I would normally have spent waiting.

 

With the amulet now complete, Somael took it upon himself to tear open the crack in the box’s exterior and slide the amulet he had just drawn through it. He stuck his hand inside the box and wiggled it around, apparently trying to attach the amulet to the ghost’s body.

 

“Hey, be careful, you’ll get bitten.”

 

“Don’t worry. I think this one’s for the butt.”

 

“Oh… I didn’t want to know that.”

 

 Soon, the box to the right of Seo Jun’s assignment began to spew black smoke with a tremendous roar.

 

It was as if it used a talisman of flame power, just as she’d done with the cannibal’s stomach at the Rapid Transit Station.

 

 “That one’s done.”

 

 I turned my attention back to the crate on the left.

 

 Boom!

 

 The box exploded and shattered, and at the same time, the monster’s soul tried to bloom out of its crumpled body. It looked like a giant chick hatching from an egg.

 

 “Where are you going….!”

 

 Bam!

 

 A baseball bat immediately struck the creature in the neck.

 

The flesh in the area of the blow was completely crushed, and the stubborn branch snapped.

 

 “I’ll be done in a minute.”

 

 As it struggled, I nicked its two front legs and its hind legs calmed down on their own.

 

The fact that I attacked it right after it broke free of its crate restraints, before it had a chance to go on a full rampage, made it easy and quick to subdue. I wouldn’t have been able to neutralize it so easily if it had just run down the hall.

 

 The subduing was quick and easy, but the problem was the core muzzle.

 

As expected, it kept its mouth tightly shut.

 

No matter how weakened the monster was, it was hard for a human to defeat its viciousness with bare hands.

 

 “Hmph. Not so easy.”

 

 I knew it would be difficult.

 

So I had an idea.

 

 I set the baseball bat down on the ground for a moment, and then I formed two heads.

 

“After…”

 

I jabbed two prongs inside the tightly closed mouth,

 

 Snap!

 

 The teeth cracked and broke where the prisms had penetrated, and it made a horrible noise.

 

 “Kkkkkkkk!”

 

 Its will to defend the core was futile.

 

The monster’s spirit scratched at its neck, growling as menacing as it could.

 

 I crossed my arms in an X across my chest.

 

 “I’ll make you do this.”

 

 If only it had opened its mouth obediently.

 

It’s cruel, but I have no choice. Time is running out.

 

Narea killed four monsters that day. That means we have two more to deal with today.

 

 What I’m about to try is a method our ancestors often used to open the mouths of sinners.

 

It’s called the “spouting technique” or, as they call it, “the snout twist”.

 

 I put weight on each crossed neck and pressed down, and with a pained groan, the gills opened slightly.

 

Just enough for my fist.

 

Okay, that’s it.

 

 “Gulp, gulp, gulp!”

 

 I grabbed its gaping lower jaw and pinned it open, then slipped my hand under her tongue.

 

Sticky fluid and bits of broken tooth stuck to my hand as I searched its mouth for the core.

 

It even bit into the flesh of the monster’s alter ego during the evaluation, something like that.

 

It didn’t feel good, but it wasn’t out of the question.

 

I finally managed to pull the shriveled core out of its damp mouth.

 

 BANG! Boom! Wha! 

 

 Holding the baseball bat vertically, I slammed it down a few times, and the core couldn’t take it and was quickly destroyed.

 

 The monster’s soul crumbled to dust, just like the last of the countless ghosts I’ve faced.

 

 It’s strange.

 

My first monster hunt of my life was after I gave up on the magical girl.

 

Even if it was against a ghost, not a living monster.

 

 

❰【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】 You‘re 0.05% of the way to defending against the erasure crisis❱

❰A total of 47.15% of the defense work has been completed! ❱

 

 

Since it wasn’t an exorcized request, the progress of the defense task went up to a point where I didn’t even notice.

 

It’s a bit of a shame, but I’m not going to make a request, no pun intended, when everyone is praying for this to end. I think it’s inhumane to put personal gain above the need to get these poor students out of this horrible situation as quickly as possible.

 

 When I finished, I turned around and saw that Seo Jun’s side was completely finished.

 

The flames from the amulet had already consumed the core.

 

 “There are two more left, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Phew, that’s going to be tight.”

 

“Shall we lock them in the box like we just did?”

 

“Seo Jun, are you really… Don’t be so casually scary.”

 

 Putting it in a box meant that Seo Jun would be the one to kill it.

 

No matter how safe she was, I didn’t want to put my friend on the front lines of being killed.

 

“……Naranambul.”

 

 Seo Jun follows, whispering for all to hear.

 

 “What did you just say, Naranambul?”

 

“I didn’t say anything.”

 

“You did.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“I heard you.”

 

“You’re hearing things.”

 

 Oh, my God, this is so ridiculous.

 

 “Let’s evacuate the students first.”

 

 I change the subject, knowing that the one who cries wins the argument.

 

 “Let’s do it.”

 

 Seo Jun nods obediently at the suggestion to prioritize getting the still-hiding students out of the school over finding the monster’s soul.

 

 And that’s where the help of student council member Yang Ji-won comes in.

 

 —Ji-won, where are you?

─I have a favor to ask the student council.

 

Yang Ji-won read the message as soon as I sent it, as if she had been waiting for it.

 

─Hey!!!!!

─You’re alive!!!!

─You’re real!!!!!

─Do you know how worried I was?!!!!!!???????!!!

 

About ten more messages arrived saying how glad they were that we are okay.

 

In five seconds.

 

The messages were uncharacteristically Yang Ji-won, with lots of exclamation points and question marks.

 

─Your friends in the club are all safe thanks to your lure. They’re so grateful.

—Yuri was even crying.

─She cried again when I told her I heard from you.

—Oh, my God.

—I’m sorry, I know I did something good.

─So, what do you want to ask me?

 

It’s Yang Ji Won.

 

Yang Ji-won’s excitement is short-lived, and she quickly returns to her usual tension and gets to the point.

 

—Can you share the location of the people who are still in the school?

 

We’re planning to escort them all out of the school gates so that they’ll be safe if they encounter any monsters on the way out.

 

 There are three people in class 5 on the third floor, and two in class 7. I only heard about them about five minutes ago, so they’re probably still there. I’ll find out about the others and get back to you.

 

 “Wow, a fifth-grade class and a seventh-grade class. That’s some distance.”

 

 Seo Jun muttered, looking over my shoulder at my phone screen.

 

 All the first grade classrooms were on the third floor, but class 7 was in the annex, which was quite a distance from class 5.

 

 “I’ll go to class seven. Baek Iri, you go to class 5. Share the next location with me.”

 

“Okay.”

 

 Now that I knew the monster was a ghost, there was nothing to be afraid of.

 

There was no need to be afraid, no need to run and hide.

 

It’s my job to catch ghosts.

 

 I’m an exorcist.