An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 142

“Narea is…, where is Narea?”

 

Where is she? If she’s not here, she’s probably on campus doing her magical girl thing.

 

My head knows the obvious, but for some reason my stomach won’t settle.

 

 “Wait a minute, what if she’s out here being reckless? No, she’s safe, so that’s a bad thing… What if you run into a monster?”

 

 A magical girl who had spotted the two of us gasped and rushed over. It was the same magical girl who shot orange flashes at us earlier.

 

 [Ⅱ─Team α / Kim Joo-hye.]

 

 My eyes scanned the letters on the nametag.

 

Kim Joo-hye, from the second division’s Alpha Team. She looked vaguely familiar, but I’d seen her before, a few years ago, when two or three academies held a joint training exercise. Of course, she doesn’t remember me.

 

“It’s not a monster, it’s a ghost.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s not a monster, it’s a ghost that looks like a monster, and because it’s a ghost, the magic didn’t work.”

 

 I realized that it would be a long explanation to say that it was the ghost of a monster that died last time, so I just sort of stammered.

 

Unable to find the right words to answer, the magic girl, Kim Joo-hye, purses her lips in confusion.

 

 “No, not that… No…”

 

“You’ve heard the rumors about this school, right? A crazy school with more ghosts than teachers.”

 

“Well, even if that’s true, how do you know they’re ghosts-“

 

“Because my friend and I each dealt with one.”

 

 Before Joo-hye could ask what that meant, I pointed at a suitable ghost that happened to be hovering nearby.

 

 “You see that one.”

 

“Oh, yes. I see it…”

 

 I reached out and grabbed the ghost by the neck, just as the magical girl in front of me nodded in confusion.

 

 “……?!”

 

 I ripped the core from its forehead and crushed it with my bare fist.

 

I didn’t even give her a chance to fight.

 

 “I…”

 

 In an instant, the ghost’s form collapsed and vaporized.

 

Kim Joo-hye’s eyes widened as she watched the spectacle in real time.

 

 “I’m an exorcist.”

 

 It’s faster to just show it than to explain it.

 

 “Against a ghost, even a magical girl is just an ordinary person. Just like an exorcist is powerless against a monster, so leave the rest to us.”

 

 With that, Kim Joo-hye looks back at the other officials behind her.

 

One of the older magical girls who had been watching us tilted her head.

 

It was a sign of permission to hand the job over to the mysterious exorcist who had suddenly appeared.

 

I could tell she didn’t like the idea of being forced to relinquish control of the situation because there was nothing she could do about it.

 

 “Me and my friend are going to escort the students to the playground, so I need you to get them as far away from the school as possible, starting with her.”

 

 I say, gesturing to Idamin who is standing stiffly beside me, and Joo-hye gently takes her hand and leads her away.

 

 “Okay.”

 

“Tell them to evacuate all the magical girls who are still on campus as well.”

 

“Is there anything else we can do? We can help evacuate people.”

 

 I was about to say no, but then I thought better of it, because there’s nothing we can do when we’re facing a monster demon.

 

Since there were only two of them left anyway, I thought it would be more efficient to get the rest out of the school while Seo Jun and I tied them up.

 

 “Then I’ll go in and make sure there’s a safe way out, and you can lead the way for us to escape that way.”

 

“Okay. You can be reached at…”

 

“Give me the radio.”

 

 As Kim Joo-hye turns to leave, the older magical girl gives her permission again.

 

 “Oh, sure. I’ll set it up and give it to you right away. How to use it is-“

 

“I know how to use it.”

 

“What? Oh, I see, exorcists use walkie-talkies too?”

 

“Haha, yeah. They do.”

 

 I answered Kim Joo-hye’s question vaguely. This is not the time to explain that I know because I’ve actually used them in training.

 

 Behind me, I heard the magical girl from the Beta team radioing to the Alpha team still on campus.

 

 “It turns out to be a ghost, not a monster. Please step back and wait in a nearby classroom. Reminder. The creature currently on campus has turned out to be a ghost, not a normal monster…”

 

 One by one, the magical girls of the Alpha Team responded.

 

While I was busy with that, a black object was suddenly pushed in front of my eyes.

 

 “Take the walkie-talkie, please.”

 

“Oh, thank you.”

 

 Just then, Seo Jun came out with two students from the seventh grade.

 

 “Nice to see you. This is my girlfriend. She’s also an exorcist.”

 

“Oh, does your friend need a walkie-talkie too?”

 

“……?”

 

 Seo Jun looks confused.

 

Two of the rescued seventh graders hug Idamin, like it or not, and run around in circles shouting, “I’m alive!”

 

 “Hey, guys? Ha… no. That’s it.”

 

 Seo Jun tries to stop the juniors, but quickly gives up and turns to me.

 

 “I thought you said there were three of you in the fifth grade?”

 

“Oh, that’s…”

 

 I explained the situation to Seo Jun. From why I had only brought Idamin out, to how I had informed the magical girls that it wasn’t a monster but a ghost, and that they had agreed to help evacuate the rest of the school while we held the monster captive.

 

 “Ah, so you’re going to use your walkie-talkie to…”

 

“I’m sure you already know this, but you just press left and talk.”

 

“…Ah, yeah.”

 

 Seo Jun shakes her head once at the “you already know that” comment and hands over the radio. She looks surprised, like “I know how to use a walkie-talkie?” but she’s not overtly impressed.

 

 “Well, it’s faster and more efficient than trying to get us all out.”

 

 She pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and begins to draw an amulet.

 

 “A protective charm?”

 

“No. I don’t think it’s a ghost that will come just because you call it, so we have to find it.”

 

 Seo Jun had created an amulet, the same one she’d used to find the cannibal at the subway station. An amulet that would tell them where the target was.

 

 “I think we’ll need some blood for this, too…”

 

“Blood? Ah, the amulet paper needs blood to hold up.”

 

“Yeah, right.”

 

 Seo Jun looked at me and then continued.

 

 “Hold still for a second.”

 

“……?”

 

 She put a piece of paper on my lower lip and pressed it down as if she wanted to take a picture of me.

 

 “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

 

“It’s…”

 

“Eh, what did you do – what, did I have a bloody mouth?”

 

 A small blood stain was clearly stamped on the paper she took out of my mouth.

 

Seo Jun hands over the bloody paper with a very nonchalant face.

 

 “Didn’t you know? Here, take one.”

 

“Oh, I thought you wanted me to eat the paper out of nowhere.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

I’d been chewing on my lip for a while, but I hadn’t noticed that I’d gotten a drop of blood on it, and it tasted like iron.

 

I noticed it and felt a faint twinge of bitterness in the back of my throat.

 

 “Let’s go. What are you doing?”

 

 Seo Jun, who had started walking ahead of me, urged me on.

 

 “Oh, we have to go. We have to go…”

 

 I tried to keep up, but my attention was distracted.

 

I can hear the beta team on the radio in real time, and they’re saying something strange.

 

“…please give us a status report.”

 

 The voice of the beta team is getting more and more impatient.

 

 “What’s going on?”

 

“Only one member of the Alpha team on campus is currently unresponsive.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Well, you know, the first department magical girl who was a late applicant…”

 

“Damn, is that Narea? Give it to me. Narea, answer it. If it’s an emergency, at least send a signal, Narea!”

 

“Isn’t she acting alone? There’s no way that Narea can’t radio…”

 

“She’s doing it because there’s no monster in there!”

 

 Ah, crap.

 

What I feared had happened.

 

 “Baek Iri?”

 

 Seo Jun, who had gone first, stopped and turned around.

 

 “Is that your friend, the leader, the one you said was… unreachable?”

 

 Seo Jun scans my expression and immediately recognizes the correct answer. Her grip is stronger this time and she pulls me to my feet.

 

 “Let’s go.”

 

 It was a different kind of urgency.

 

 “Move, Baek Iri. There is no time for this, not until it’s too late.”

 

 We have to move.

 

 My stiff legs trembled with the words.

 

 The ghost’s scream, which had been silent for a while, echoed for a long time.

 

The vague sense of foreboding that had been in the air was now palpable.

 

 I hope that wherever this amulet leads me, it’s not just a cold corpse.

 

 I hoped as I ran.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Why does it keep pointing in the same direction?”

 

 Four monsters had died that day, and we had dealt with two of their souls earlier in the central garden, so there were only two left in the school.

 

So I was told that Seo Jun’s amulet and mine were created to lead to each of the spirits.

 

 The paths suggested by the two amulets were exactly the same.

 

 “Does that mean that the other two are in the same place, or is the power of the monster’s soul interfering with the amulet?”

 

“The latter is certainly not the case, because a strong demon could scatter the amulet’s power on purpose, but that’s only if it has the intelligence to figure out our intentions. There’s no way a monster spirit could do that.”

 

 The amulet led the way to the central garden.

 

 “I have placed two conditions on the amulet I am holding: First, it will be drawn to the power of the target I visualize in my mind. Second, it will ignore the power of the target set in your amulet.”

 

 If there are names that distinguish objects, then we can think of different names as targets. But what we’re looking for is a nameless monster. If they had a distinctive appearance, we could target one of each, but that’s not possible, so we put a condition on the amulet.

 

It’s more efficient to take care of each one, since we don’t have time.

 

 “The first one is like a prerequisite for the amulet to work, and the second one is just a simple add-on.”

 

 Seo Jun pauses, then adds.

 

 “If these two conditions conflict with each other, the first one always takes precedence.”

 

“So in some cases the second condition can be completely ignored?”

 

“Yes, and I think this is probably one of those cases. Look at this.”

 

 Seo Jun unfolds my amulet.

 

 “The symbol for the second condition has faded.”

 

 Seo Jun explains that this means that the symbol has lost its power.

 

 For some reason, the condition of not chasing the same target has been invalidated.

 

 If the two spirits were only pointing in the same direction because they were together, the sigil should have been fine. That’s because the first and second conditions are compatible.

 

 So, that narrows it down to one possibility.

 

 Apparently, there were only three monsters at the school today.