An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 153

As soon as class was over, me and Seo jun had another out-of-body practice.

 

 “Hey, at least I got both arms out this time.”

 

 Earlier in the day, I’d only been able to sneak the soul out of one arm, but I’d gotten used to it, and the range I could pull it out with my own power had increased.

 

 “But it’s a little strange, isn’t it? Why is it coming out of your arms and not your head?”

 

“Yeah, I don’t know why.”

 

“Well, it’s a good thing it’s my arm, or you’d be wrestling me by the hair.”

 

“Sorry, I hate both.”

 

 Apparently, she wasn’t happy about having to tug on someone’s soul twice a day. Seo Jun was fed up.

 

 “Why do you hate it so much?”

 

“I hate it because it feels like I’m pulling someone’s snot out of their nose.”

 

“Nose, runny nose, isn’t that too much?”

 

“Uh…”

 

“Oh, I don’t know why you hate the analogy.”

 

 My classmates, who had already experienced out-of-body firsthand, would just shrug off whatever we were doing.

 

 “What are you guys doing?”

 

“Dude, leave it alone. Out of body experience, that’s it.”

 

“Oh, really, they can just do that to themselves?”

 

“They’re exorcists.”

 

“Wow, that’s crazy.”

 

 They don’t ask any more questions, and they even tell me that they’ll sleep when we come in later because they’re sick.

 

I’m both grateful and sad that they’re used to this kind of situation without me having to tell them.

 

 ‘Well, it’s the fate of Mukgyeong Girls’ High School.’

 

 I once told Hanbyul a similar story, and she replied with a sarcastic response.

 

 “Do you still have the amulet you wore this morning?”

 

“Of course I have it. But I’ll be damned if the study hall door isn’t locked after all this time.”

 

“Heh…”

 

 Seo Jun sighs in disbelief.

 

 “If it’s open.”

 

“Ugh.”

 

“I’m never helping you get out-of-body again, you… you snot.”

 

“Oh, please.”

 

 After exchanging some meaningless bullshit, the two of us made our way to the study hall.

 

We passed many people, but no one recognized us in our spirit state. Only the ghosts glanced in our direction.

 

 “So normal people don’t recognize out-of-body spirits at all?”

 

“It depends.”

 

 Seo Jun said that most people couldn’t see them, but some people with weaker energy could.

 

 “Those people are really haunted by all kinds of spirits. They’re very susceptible to interference, so of course their senses are often pressed.”

 

“That sounds just like Idamin.”

 

“Idamin? Oh, Hae-yoon’s friend, right?”

 

“Oh, you remembered?”

 

“Well, the name.”

 

 Seo Jun replied with a nonchalant tone and took the lead.

 

 “Almost there.”

 

 The door to the third-floor study hall was locked, as usual. Thankfully, I’d avoided being treated like a snot three times in one day.

 

 “Let’s go in.”

 

 I poked my head inside, followed by Seo Jun.

 

Even as we walked through the white wooden doors, my mind was filled with questions.

 

‘Was that really when the ghosts started to become active again?’

 

‘If so, what did it take in exchange for the meal plan?’

 

‘Why had it been quiet for so long and now it was back?’

 

 “Shall I turn on the light?”

 

“Oh, no, let’s not. We don’t need another study hall ghost story.”

 

 At that, Seo Jun let go of the fluorescent light switch.

 

 “I didn’t think of that.”

 

 With no one knowing we’d stopped by the study hall; I could see the rumors that would ensue if the lights suddenly came on when no one was supposed to be there.

 

 I took a quick look around the room.

 

The equipment was caked in a fine layer of dust, but still looked brand new from little use. The desks are long gone, the chairs are crammed tightly together, and the warmth of humanity is barely there. It’s as if the space has never been lived in.

 

 “There’s nothing here.”

 

 Seo Jun muttered as she looked around the room.

 

The dreariness of the study hall wasn’t just due to the untouched objects.

 

 There are no ghosts here right now, and there’s no sense of a force that connects them to the space.

 

None of the things I’d naturally expect to find here were there.

 

 “Are you sure this is a haunted place…?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

‘Where the hell did, they get all that stuff?’

 

In the classroom, only half of Seo Jun’s questions were answered vaguely.

 

 This ghost wasn’t haunting the study hall.

 

It was a ghost that was able to bring things to barter.

 

 The explanation for the “how” was simple enough.

 

And the questions that were left unanswered were the ones that branched off into many different directions, complicating things.

 

 Not to mention where it found and picked out all those old things.

 

 Seo Jun said, her tone subtly edgy.

 

 “Why did it only do that in the study hall?”

 

 She didn’t even bother to chase after those who had fled outside the day it grabbed someone’s ankles, and as the study hall emptied out, so did the ghostly bartering.

 

 “It acted like it couldn’t get out of the study hall at all, like it was all some advanced concept.”

 

 Countless speculations came and went.

 

The clues were so scarce that I had to dismiss them all as nonsense for now.

 

 I walked away from the doorway I had been standing by and began to search the study hall in earnest.

 

I looked around like I was grasping at straws, even though I knew there was nothing more,

 

 “Uh, Seo Jun.”

 

 Standing in the doorway, I noticed something foreign on the wall toward the hallway that I couldn’t quite see.

 

 “What is it?”

 

“Look.”

 

It was a picture frame.

 

It was an old-fashioned frame with a lion’s name written in fancy calligraphy. It was a stark contrast to the cozy, sophisticated feel of the tutorial room.

 

 Seo Jun, however, was dismissive.

 

 “Did you think that was a ghost?”

 

“No, it wasn’t?”

 

“No, the teachers hung it themselves when they opened the new study hall. They said it belonged to a teacher who retired a long time ago.”

 

“So why would they hang a picture from so long ago?”

 

“They didn’t want to throw it away, so they moved it from staff room to staff room, and when they finished the study hall, they put it here. It’s a lion’s name, and it goes with the room.”

 

 Aesthetically, they don’t go together at all.

 

Seo Jun added, reading the kanji slowly.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It just means to study hard.”

 

“Ah…, that sounds perfect for a study hall. By the way, Seo Jun, you know your kanji pretty well, don’t you?”

 

“Kanji?”

 

“Uh, yeah, that and the story about the retired teacher who wrote it.”

 

 I was surprised that Seo Jun knew so much about the school, given her bystander attitude.

 

 “Oh, that?” Seo Jun says, as if it’s no big deal.

 

 “There was talk of hanging it in the library once. I moved it with my friends from the library on vacation.”

 

“Aha.”

 

“We tried to put it on a bookshelf, but it didn’t fit.”

 

 Again, she only knew because it had something to do with her.

 

 “That’s heavier than I thought it would be.”

 

“Yeah, it must be an expensive picture frame.”

 

 I put my hand on the frame, knowing I wouldn’t be able to lift it anyway.

 

When am I going to be able to hold something freely, even as a spirit?

 

 “…back here.”

 

 Seo Jun called after me, her voice suddenly serious.

 

 “What’s wrong?”

 

“Here. Look.”

 

 Seo Jun had already stepped over the long table in the center of the room and was peering at the floor behind it.

 

 “What is this…”

 

 I hurried over and my mouth dropped open when I saw where Seo Jun’s gaze was pointing.

 

 “The floor is… What’s wrong with it?”

 

 Unlike a regular classroom, the floor of the study hall was laid with square, pale beige tiles about 40 centimeters long by 40 centimeters wide.

 

Obviously, the entire floor of the study hall was laid like that.

 

 As if one tile had run out and another had been hastily thrown in, a darker, more bronze-colored wood flooring had replaced it.

 

 “Oh, and here.”

 

This time it was a window.

 

Only one window was different from the others, and it was terribly dirty.

 

 “Does that make sense?”

 

“No…”

 

 We exchanged stupid words like people in a daze.

 

 “The ghost bartered for all of this stuff?”

 

“No, I don’t think so.”

 

 Seo Jun’s urgent voice cut me off.

 

She grabs my shoulder and spins me around to face her.

 

 “It’s…, damn it.”

 

 The unnatural wooden floor I’d just seen was fading into a blur.

 

And in its place, the same beige tiles that surrounded it.

 

 The floor was being replaced in real time.

 

 “I’m going to use my skill for a second.”

 

“Uh, yeah.”

 

 Seo Jun used the same skill she had used in the first and second place theater cases at her previous school, the skill that reads information in space. Did I mention the skill was called “Detection Dog”?

 

 I looked away from Seo Jun, who was sharpening her focus, and stared at the dirty pane of glass alone.

 

It was grimy, as if it had been picked up from an old building.

 

 “It’s going to be replaced like the floor.”

 

 Even if the transformation didn’t happen in front of my eyes, it was easy to see that this one dirty pane would soon be gone, replaced by the same glass panes that flanked it.

 

 I was about to look around to see if there were any other similarly disparate parts of the room, like the windows or the floor, when Seo Jun finished using her skill and looked up.

 

 “What do you think? Do you see anything?”

 

“Yeah, for now…”

 

 She paused as if trying to organize her sentence, so I waited impatiently.

 

 “This time, the ghost didn’t “exchange” things for things.”

 

“Then?”

 

“It traded the entire study hall for another room.”

 

 The calm voice continued.

 

 “I don’t know where this “other room” is, but I do know that there was an exchange of space for space.”

 

“And these are…?”

 

 I asked, alternately pointing to the glass windows and the spot where the dark wood floor had disappeared, and Seo Jun nodded.

 

 “You’re right, the two spaces got mixed up in the process of being put back together. Perhaps the meal ticket didn’t follow the original space during the shuffling and ended up here.”

 

“Do you think all of the objects that were switched were in the same space as the meal plan?”

 

“I’d say so.”

 

 It was clear that there was an abandoned space somewhere on campus that we didn’t know about.

 

A space that was abandoned with things from the past still there.