An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 162

“…So suddenly, Seo Jun?”  Seon-yeo asked, genuinely confused.  “Her? Self-study?”

 

 I don’t know why Seon-yeo’s so incredulous when Seo Jun’s just having a personal training session.

 

 “Why, not?”

 

“Uh, I’m just a little confused.”

 

“Hey, you guys have your own classroom to study in, so why not me and Seo Jun? What’s the big deal?”

 

 I asked in a playful tone, and soon Seon-yeo’s response was one of enlightenment.

 

 “No, no, no. It’s not like that. It’s… ”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s not like they study for real… It’s more like skipping class…”

 

“That’s a different interpretation.”

 

“It means you misunderstood.”

 

 As it turns out, all the students who have been leaving to study have been using it as an excuse to skip class. They would come in and out of class with excuses such as wanting to practice what they had just learned intensively on their own, or wanting to look up a theory book.

 

 Thanks to this, the word “self-study” was naturally replaced by “dork” in Seon-yeo’s mind. It’s the same way that dieting is synonymous with slacking off.

 

 So, once again, she understood Seo Jun’s self-study to mean “Seo Jun skips class”.

 

It’s Seo Jun who skips classes… It’s definitely a cognitive dissonance, and I can see why she repeatedly asked me in disbelief.

 

 “Yeah, that’s not what self-study means.”

 

 When Seon-yeo realized that I meant “real self-study,” she had a look of disbelief on her face, like someone who says they’re going to lose weight and then actually does it.

 

 “Ha…, I thought it was just a matter of course. It’s all because of Hwang Hanju! He was the one who started it.”

 

 Hwang Hanju, who had been silent, looked up in surprise.

 

 “Hwang Hanju, aren’t you paying attention?”

 

“What? Why only me…?”

 

 Hwang Hanju cried out in frustration, but Yeo Seon-yeo slipped away like a minnow, pretending that nothing had happened.

 

 “Wow, the world is so mean to me. Wow…”

 

 She snorted, saying it was all karma.

 

Then she lowers her voice and asks me again.

 

 “But what is she really doing by herself? Is Seo Jun already looking for a job?”

 

 It’s funny that she asks as if she can’t think of anything else but job hunting. Well, it’s not like it’s impossible for Seo Jun to get a job a year earlier than everyone else.

 

 “No, I don’t think so. She’s probably mass-producing amulets.”

 

“…what is she up to, blow fast.”

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

 

 I don’t know anything except that she’s trying to catch a ghost and get rid of it. She draws dozens of amulets I’ve never seen before, trying to figure out how to repay it. I wonder if she’d rather chase and torment it until it begs to be exorcized.

 

 When I ask her to tell me whether the amulet is for people or ghosts, she just shouts back, “What the hell do you think?” Then she changed her mind and kindly replied, “Of course it’s for ghosts.

 

 I’m so sorry for my dear friend, but the misconception that I’m trying to immerse a human being is an old one.

 

Even if she’s reconciled with someone, it’s hard to get rid of the old image unless she’s heard the whole story.

 

 “Oh, Seo Jun.”

 

 I bemoaned inwardly, then briefly explained that it was to deal with the school’s ghosts.

 

I planned to keep the details to myself. It would be embarrassing for me to admit that I had been played in the palm of a ghost’s hand.

 

 Just thinking about it again didn’t make me feel good, so I tried to change the subject.

 

 Poof!

 

 “……?”

 

 I stared blankly for a moment, then turned my attention to my desk, where a small folded note had fallen.

 

It was Yin Charang.

 

 In fact, I could feel him glaring at me from the back of my head the first time Seo Jun’s name came out of my mouth, but I tried to ignore it.

 

I don’t know how he managed to pick out the three letters “Seo Jun” from all that babbling, even though we were talking in hushed tones.

 

 ─What are you talking about? Let me hear it.

 

 Oh, Charang…!

 

From where I was sitting, it was awkward to send a direct message to Yin Charang, so I sneakily sent him a Kakaotalk instead.

 

 ─Yeah, just swearing at each other.

 

 Now I’m almost in the back of his head…, but who cares? It’s the fault of the person who sat too far away in the first place. Next time, try to predict where the jam is coming from, Charang.

 

 “Hey, hey. I wanted to ask you something.”

 

 I turned back to Seon-yeo.

 

 “Huh?”

 

“Seon-yeo, what if you’re a thief?”

 

“……?”

 

 A big question mark appeared on Seon-yeo’s face as she heard the word thief.

 

 “Imagine you’re a thief.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Oh, there is such a thing.”

 

“Okay, let’s say I’m a shoplifter.”

 

 Not wanting to distract from the lesson, Seon-yeo goes along with the pun.

 

 “For a thief, you have a little conscience, so you don’t just steal, you make a kind of barter agreement with the original owner.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“For example, giving a Joseon Dynasty postcard and taking a ten thousand won bill.”

 

“What, you have a conscience about all that?”

 

“Anyway, let’s say you were a thief like that. But then you woke up one day and upped your thieving game.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Well, you went from stealing textbooks, locks, cosmetics, that sort of thing, to, uh, recently, trying to rob a new apartment building that was being torn down, and failing, so to speak.”

 

“Isn’t that crazy?”

 

 Yeo Seon-yeo had gotten a little too caught up in the thief’s hypothetical theft.

 

 “But how did he steal the apartment? Did he change the house documents?”

 

“Something like that. Maybe.”

 

 I shrugged it off as unimportant for the moment.

 

It was time to get down to business.

 

 “What do you think it would take to catch a thief like that?”

 

 My question was met with a blank stare.

 

 “If you were the thief, what would you want?”

 

 My vow to minimize Seo Jun’s help was still in effect.

 

This was a question for me to ask the ghost of the study hall on my own, without Seo Jun’s amulet.

 

 Whether it’s locating it or calling it over here, luring a particular ghost without the use of an amulet requires the right bait.

 

Just like the missing arm was used as bait to elicit a response from a ghost.

 

‘What will the ghosts in the study hall respond to?’ What should I put in the middle of the altar marker so they can smell it and catch it?’

 

 Jeong Sae-eun, the third-year student who handed me the diet chart, didn’t really ask for an exorcism directly; it was more of a last-minute request, as she was worried that something was wrong in the study hall.

 

In a way, I had already done her a favor. I snorted at Seo Jun and went back to the study hall to check out the place.

 

 Still, I pursued the study hall ghost to the end because I had a reasonable suspicion that it held a very important key.

 

 A secret room somewhere in the middle of the school.

 

The ghost of the study hall had procured items from there years ago.

 

 The mystery of the place was something I was going to dig into as much as I could.

 

 Seo Jun and I had a rough division of labor. I told her that I wanted to focus on the prankster who had isolated the fourth floor for now, regardless of how carefully she planned to do her job, so I’d go after the study hall ghost on my own.

 

 She offered to make me a new tracking amulet while she was at it, but I declined.

 

The situation wasn’t urgent enough to give up my independence.

 

I thought I might as well take this opportunity to learn how to make amulets,

 

 If I could just trace a pattern and make an amulet, I would have made one myself.

 

The process of understanding the patterns and symbols and properly placing the power within them is hard to master without both talent and hard work shining through in both directions. Knowing what to draw first and what to draw later, what to make dark and what to make light, all of these things must be mastered before a fully functioning amulet can be created.

 

I’ll probably need to spend a month or two just learning the basics.

 

Oh, and if I consider that Seo Jun is the one teaching and I’m the one learning…,

 

haha, I’ll be burning the midnight oil for at least three months.

 

Seo Jun was never good at teaching others, and I’m…

 

I can’t draw.

 

I once tried to trace a couple of intricate patterns that Seo Jun often scribbled down for fun, but, well.

 

I won’t bore you with the details of how it turned out.

 

 For this reason, making my own amulets is probably in the distant future.

 

I’ll have to keep the symbols that form the basis of the foundation in my head from time to time, but it’s clear that actually using them won’t happen in the near future.

 

 I was planning to use the “light that can only be seen when the eyes are closed” skill to track down the ghost, so now I was urging Seon-yeo to pretend she was a thief and use her imagination.

 

 “Think about it. What do you think you would want right now?”

 

“I really don’t know.”

 

“Try to empathize.”

 

“No, I’ve never stolen anything, how can I empathize?”

 

“Use your imagination. If you were a thief, why would you do it, what would you do next, and so on.”

 

“Hah…”

 

 At my urging, Seon-yeo clenched her jaw and made a contemplative gesture.

 

 “Hmm, what do you want, to prove to me that needle thieves are cattle thieves, but I really don’t know.”

 

After repeating the word “I don’t know” three more times, Seon-yep soon lost interest and turned her head away.

 

At the same time, the teacher’s voice came from the front.

 

“How long are you going to talk?! Turn off the local broadcast.”

 

“I just turned it off…”

 

 Seon-yeo wondered if she was being unfair.

 

 I thought I could get a fresh answer from a third party.

 

I was hoping for one of those mystery novels where an innocent child’s one-liner is enough to clue me in, but it didn’t work.

 

Seon-yeo seemed interested at first, but then she gave up trying to think deeply.

 

 I can’t help it. I can only think about it by myself for now.

 

Well, it’s not like she’s the only one I can talk to. There’s Hwang Hanju, who never misses out on anything that seems fun, and Yin Charang, who still has his eyes fixed on us.

 

 Honestly, if I asked him what he thinks the study hall ghost would covet, he’d probably think long and hard before coming up with a pretty good idea.

 

I wouldn’t consult Yin Charang on the matter of the study hall thief.

 

I can already see him getting all puffed up and talking as if he’s grateful that I’m thinking about it with him.

 

 I gulped down the cold water unnecessarily, furious at the thought.