An Exorcist Magical Girl! – Chapter 154

Author: Dakku-san

Why?

It felt like a million “why?” questions were gnawing at my brain.

There were only so many questions I could answer without coming face-to-face with the ghost that had done this.

Seeing my expression, Seo Jun clapped her hand next to my ear.

“Speak up. Now, what’s the most important thing you want to know?”

I took a step back from my tangled thoughts.

Okay, let’s start with the strands closest to me.

“I thought things would never come back here. Once it bartered, it was over, right?”

‘Why was the stolen study hall ever returned to its rightful place?’

Seo Jun’s answer to my question was simple.

“It doesn’t have the power.”

So far, the ghost had only stolen small items.

There’s no way it could have had the power to permanently alter two huge spaces, Seo Jun said.

“I think it knew that if it touched the space, it wouldn’t be able to keep it.”

“It knew it would fail?”

“The ghost knows best how strong it is.”

The sentence was muttered in a whisper, followed by a meaningful comment.

“There must have been a reason it tried, knowing the limits of its power.”

It was now our job to find out what that reason was.

Seo Jun glanced around and approached the whiteboard.

Aside from a small scribble or two in the corner, the board was pristine white.

“Thank goodness. They have markers.”

It was clear that they hadn’t cleaned up the mess when they closed the study hall.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know, I think the quickest way to find out is to ask you.”

Seo Jun’s eyes lit up with a vaguely definitive answer.

“Aha.”

Once I understood what she meant and took a step back, Seo Jun began to draw a familiar picture on the whiteboard.

I flicked my hand in an attempt to erase the scribbles in the corner, but my hand only passed through the board in vain. Seo Jun, seeing my flailing, made a small sound that I couldn’t tell if it was a chuckle or a sigh.

“I’ll take it. Just be still, just be still.”

I realized that was a pretty way of saying I’m crazy, but I let it slide.

While Seo Jun worked, I scanned the study room one more time, curious to see if there were any more traces of the shuffling. I poked my head into desk drawers and lockers, but the last piece of space that hadn’t been put back in place was a pane of glass.

“What a timely arrival, we are. An hour later and we’d have missed all this.”

“Yeah.”

When I thought she wasn’t listening, she chimed in as she continued to draw the symbols diligently.

“So, it’s a “summoning” amulet today, huh?”

“Yes.”

After trying to find a ghost without an amulet once, the convenience and value of the amulet is realized.

“Why are you looking at me so intimidated?”

“I thought you were amazing.”

“What?”

“That I have such a high-level person next to me.”

“…I think that’s what I’m supposed to say.”

I got a blank stare back. I wondered if she thought it was something I shouldn’t say to someone being a S⁺- level talent myself.

“Don’t be silly, it’s 100% genuine, and you shouldn’t thank me.”

“Okay, thanks.”

The amulet was quickly completed, and now it was just a matter of waiting for it to take effect.

Seo Jun rests her hand on the corner of the whiteboard and concentrates.

A minute or so passed.

Her calm face furrowed in concern.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“It’s not working.”

“The amulet? Why?”

I felt like a question mark killer, but “Why?” was all I could say.

“The amulet’s energy is fine, but.”

“But?”

“It’s flailing around pointlessly. I don’t think it’s even reaching the ghost.”

The amulet’s energy must reach the ghost in order to attract or capture it.

This meant that the ghost we were looking for didn’t exist, at least not within the amulet’s range.

I feel a sense of foreboding.

A familiarity from a past too near to forget.

“…I can only speculate.”

Seo Jun spoke again, breaking the brief silence. She says it’s a guess, but she’s already convinced.

“There was another ghost you couldn’t find with the amulet, wasn’t there?”

The spirit of the monster that appeared out of nowhere yesterday.

The last one had never been seen or detected by the amulet.

“I wonder if this ghost and the remaining monster’s soul are in the same place today.”

Ah, yes.

We had both come to the same conclusion based on the same clairvoyance.

The corners of Seo Jun’s mouth twitched upward as she read my eyes, and her calm voice, as always, drove the point home.

“Maybe there’s a secret place somewhere in this school where the amulet’s power isn’t crazy, where there’s a bunch of stuff left over from years ago, and where you can hide four giant monster ghosts for two months.”

I didn’t say, “Here’s what I think, and here’s what you think.” because I didn’t feel the need to say, “I think so, too”.

There was already a smile on Seo Jun’s face that recognized that our thoughts were traveling in the same direction and at the same speed.

“Where that is…, we’ll have to find out.”

Her tone was less than curious as she described what was to come.

It was vague.

I didn’t know anything about it, except that it existed somewhere in this school.

The glass window behind Seo Jun was slowly becoming crystal clear and clean.

It meant that the ghost had finished exerting its power to exchange the two spaces.

Part of me wanted to grab hold of the pane of glass and question it.

‘Where did it come from, and where is it going?’

These were questions that even Seo Jun’s Detection Dog skill couldn’t answer.

The study hall, briefly possessed by a ghost, was about to be returned to its rightful place.

A shallow theft.

Would this be a failure, or a success made perfect by failure?

The last part of the unidentifiable space had been returned to its rightful place.

Pajik─

“……?”

The amulet she’d drawn on the whiteboard responded.

“…, Seo Jun. That’s the one that worked now, right?”

“Yep.”

Seop Jun’s hand, which had only been resting lightly on the board’s rim, twitched.

Suddenly, the amulet began to work, which meant that the ghost we were looking for had come within the amulet’s reach.

“Why this time? No, no, no, I don’t think it’s “why”.”

Seo Jun nodded her head in agreement at the words I spat out.

“Yep. It’s not a “haphazard”, that’s for sure.”

It couldn’t be a coincidence that the moment the ghost’s power was exhausted coincided with the moment it stepped out of the mysterious room.

“Either it’s after something else, or it’s not…”

“Or it has no reason to be there anymore?”

I was asked casually.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this “space exchange” was a sign of something.

The fact that it disappeared for a while and then suddenly reappeared, and the fact that it was willing to make a temporary exchange for something it coveted that it couldn’t afford.

I don’t know if that’s the end or the beginning of something.

“I tried…, but it’s not coming.”

“Yeah.”

It’s been a minute or so since the amulet started working properly, and the ghost hasn’t shown up.

“Aha…, it’s not at the level to be attracted by a charm, isn’t it?”

I was annoyed that a stronger ghost wouldn’t be fooled by such an amulet, and that a subject that didn’t have the power to permanently alter the space had the ability to avoid it.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance, and Seo Jun laughed, wondering why I was getting upset at such an odd point.

“Well, it’s okay, we’ll find the ghost ourselves.”

In fact, the locator amulet had already been used to locate the cannibal ghost at the Rapid Transit station, so the ghost was in the palm of Seo Jun’s hand.

“We should probably get back to class.”

Seo Jun takes her hand off the whiteboard and starts to walk away.

“Why? Has class started?”

“No, no, no, no, no. There’s no paper here.”

“Oh.”

She forgot to mention that we have to follow the direction of the talisman in real time.

A talisman drawn on a whiteboard would be impossible.

There was nothing more to do in the study hall anyway, so we headed back to the classroom.

As soon as I put my soul back into my body in the classroom, the bell rang over the loudspeaker, signaling the start of class.

“Oh, recess is over already, damn it.”

I wanted to make a clean break before class started.

I’d come back into my body to avoid getting blood on the amulet, but if I’d known this was going to happen, I should’ve stayed out of body.

“You have three options, pick one. One, you can just walk out of class.”

Seo Jun folded her fingers together and began to rattle off her “ways”.

“Two, you activate the exorcism talisman, and three, I disembodied myself again and go looking for it.”

I dismissed the first option. I’ve made it a rule of mine not to do anything that will get me caught by my teachers or my friends.

The second option was to use S⁺-class power to increase the amulet’s effectiveness beyond the limit. It wasn’t a bad idea, but I decided to put it on hold for a while because I didn’t know what kind of commotion it would cause if a ghost suddenly appeared in the classroom.

The third and final option was to use…

“Hey, Seo Jun.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you really think I’m snotty?”

“Not that I think you’re snotty, I’m just saying that there’s a situation where I have to take someone’s soul out for them—”

“Enough! I don’t want to hear it!”

“Yes, like a snot.”

The scary thing about Seo Jun was that she maintained a calm tone while saying this.

That calm voice, the way she could call someone a “snot” and not seem to mind at all!

I can’t tell if she’s mocking me or if she really thinks I’m a snot.

“Hurry up and pick one.”

“Huh… Of the three, I’d rather have the second one.”