An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 83

I couldn’t get in.

 

“This is…”

 

Upon closer inspection, I could see blurry symbols etched into the transparent wall surface in front of me.

 

It was an unidentifiable set of symbols that looked like the Arabic alphabet squeezed into a square frame, or some random combination of Chinese characters and accessories.

 

“Oh, Seo Jun knows this stuff…”

 

I first summarized the situation and sent it to Seo Jun, and then took a picture of the symbols.

 

Although invisible to the naked eye, exorcists can recognize spiritual subjects in photographs.

 

—I asked Mr. Jang Jin-cheol to take care of my freshman friend and I’m in the music room right now.

—(Photo)

—Do you know what this symbol is?

—There are some out-of-body people in the music room, so I can’t go in.

 

Normally, Seo Jun wouldn’t check her cell phone during class, but if she cared at all, she’d notice that I wasn’t in my seat long after third period started.

 

—That means she’s not letting anything but her soul in.

 

Thankfully, she responded within a minute.

 

I didn’t expect it to be so fast, as if she was waiting for me to contact her.

 

Nothing but its soul can enter.

 

The way Seo Jun explained it, I’m still in my body, so I was just blocked by this wall.

 

And the way out?

 

“I’m sorry, can you go in for a second?”

 

I grabbed a ghost nearby and threatened it.

 

The ghost went into the music room and then scurried out when I yelled, “Come back out!”

 

I had been worried that ghosts could only enter and not leave, as was the rule in Mukgyeong Girls’ High School, but apparently that was not the case in this music room controlled by the head collector.

 

“Okay. You can go now. Thank you.”

 

I waved him off and he scurried away.

 

I was stuck again.

 

There was no way I was going to go into the music room myself right now, so I had to make those two souls come to their senses and leave.

 

The problem was that the spirits of Da-min and the sophomore were firmly possessed.

 

“Damn, it’s that song.”

 

The song had possessed them and brought them here, and now they were singing under the spirits’ direction.

 

It had to stop.

 

It was a good thing that the sound from outside still carried well into the music room.

 

The spirit that had been my test subject earlier had heard me talking outside and had come back out, so if I made a lot of noise in here, I might be able to stop the choir for a while.

 

Of course, stopping the chorus was unlikely to bring me out of my trance.

 

I needed a punch to cut through the mess of the song to get me back on track.

 

“I’m scared of the gym teacher… I’m in trouble…”

 

Surely the third period is P.E., right?

 

***

 

 

“Wow, she catches it.”

 

“Throw it right, right!”

 

Bam!!!

 

“Ah! I could have caught it.”

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, good job.”

 

“Wait, it’s just me and Minjoo now? Dude, when did our team die like this?”

 

“That’s because Yerim doubled them both earlier.”

 

“Whoops, ball over! Catch the ball, ah, why isn’t anyone catching the ball, what’s your defense?”

 

“Oops, it’s ours.”

 

After pair badminton, dodgeball was in full swing on the playground.

 

It’s a game that everyone participates in enthusiastically at the beginning, but later in the game only those who throw the ball get to throw it, and only those who receive it get to receive it. That was the situation.

 

Kim Hae-yoon, who came out early in the game, had been running around to pick up loose balls and was finally sitting in the corner resting.

 

As she took a breather from the hustle and bustle of the other kids, she felt a rush of unpleasant emotions that she hadn’t noticed while chasing the ball.

 

“Why am I worried? I think I forgot something important.”

 

To use an analogy, she felt like she’d left home without her homework.

 

Of course, the feeling was much deeper than that. She was afraid to even try to think about what she had forgotten.

 

Hae-yoon fiddled with her phone, trying to calm her anxiety.

 

She scrolled through the new social media posts, turned on the notepad she rarely used, flipped through the pictures she’d taken in the gallery, and unconsciously checked her recent call logs.

 

‘Huh? When did Baek Iri and I talk on the phone? The time was just before P.E. Why can’t I remember? We talked for four minutes, and I even made the call?’

 

Kim Hae-yoon freaked out when she found a call log she couldn’t remember.

 

Had she dialed the wrong number?

 

That was the most plausible hypothesis at the time, but somehow it didn’t seem to be the case.

 

She should have gone with the faulty cell phone theory instead of the bullshit story that she called her for some reason, had a four minute conversation, and forgot all about it in less than an hour, but somehow she didn’t.

 

“Hey guys, is dodgeball over? Whose team won?”

 

“My team!”

 

“Want to play another game of dodgeball or something else?”

 

“Let’s play something else! The winning team gets to choose the sport!”

 

“No, let’s let the last man standing on the losing team pick.”

 

“Oh, okay, that sounds good.”

 

When the dodgeball game was over, the students who had been hanging around began to notice.

 

Some of them moved around, muttering about whether or not they were disturbed.

 

“Hassolah, what do you want to do?”

 

“Hassolah, how about playing dead? Please play dead. Please, please…!”

 

“Sorry, Jinseo, I like to move.”

 

“You were fired with a single blow, weren’t you?”

 

“So what are you going to do?”

 

“Um… Hey, can I get some ice cream?”

 

“Do whatever you want. The time left is vague anyway…”

 

“Waaaah! Let’s do ice cream!”

 

“I want to play first!”

 

“Finish at least five minutes before the bell rings.”

 

“Yay!”

 

“Count to ten! 10, 9…”

 

When one of the students started counting to ten, the group of students dispersed again.

 

Bae Jin-seo and three or four others who had been eager to play Corpse shouted “Ice!” at the beginning and froze.

 

“Oh, come on guys, let’s limit the number of ice cubes!”

 

Someone shouted as they ran past Bae Jin-seo.

 

“Bae Jin-seo, move, move, move, move!”

 

The sound froze Hae-yoon for a moment. It’s not like she just shouted in her ear.

 

She suddenly remembered that someone was singing a song this morning, so she stopped.

 

Hae-yoon shudders as she remembers the nursery rhyme she heard in the hallway during the first period today.

 

‘I wonder who was singing it? I woke up because of that sound…’

 

The words “The teacher is waiting for us” kept ringing in her ears, giving her goosebumps.

 

Then Hae-yoon surprised herself again.

 

─Hae-yoon, it’s me, Baek Iri. Can you come to the school for a minute to use the bathroom?

 

 

***

 

 

“Oh, hi!”

 

Shortly after sending the text, Hae-yoon came running into the main entrance.

 

“I’m sorry for calling you out of class.”

 

I started to apologize.

 

“That’s okay, that’s okay! I just wanted to know why you called me out of the blue.”

 

Kim Hae-yoon looked confused. No, not that she didn’t know anything, but that something was bothering her and she couldn’t figure out what it was.

 

Well, it didn’t have to be Kim Hae-yoon.

 

The “one shot” needed to bring the disembodied spirits back to their senses is the familiar voice of Lee Da-min and my sophomore classmate.

 

It didn’t matter who it was, as long as it was familiar to one of them.

 

I could have brought any number of people from the second grade class with me.

 

I have friends there who are in the same drama club as me, so it’s easy for me.

 

Still, I didn’t bother to invite Kim Hae-yoon, who was a year younger than me,

 

And if you have a moment, please send me an email at … Please tell me to remember Damin and tell him that I was a very grateful friend. Please, Baek Iri.

 

Because just before his memory was distorted, Kim Hae-yoon had asked him this.

 

“Da-min. Do you remember?”

 

“……?”

 

I ask and get a confused voice back. I wasn’t really expecting anything.

 

“It’s your friend. You don’t remember calling me earlier, do you?”

 

“Uh, uh, yeah, well, I thought it was weird that I had call logs… Me, why do you think I called…?”

 

So much for Da-min’s memory.

 

Judging from my experience with last school’s first-place ghost story, distorted memories are restored when the soul returns to the body.

 

I talked to Seo Jun a bit more while waiting for Hae-yoon, and it seems that if we can save their souls this time, everyone’s memories will return to normal.

 

If the song sung by the processional in the hallway captured the souls of the two students, the song they’re singing now in the music room has captured the entire Mukgyeong Girls’ High School.

 

Seo Jun explained that there had been a similar case decades ago, and she sent me a bunch of references.

 

In short, the song they were singing affected the entire school, causing memory distortion in everyone, and when they stopped singing and regained their bodies, everything went back to normal.

 

I don’t know if I’ll ever remember my classmates, or even the fact that I’ve completely lost my memory of them, but at least one person, Damin, won’t be forgotten forever.

 

On second thought, it might be easier for everyone to forget this morning’s collective memory distortion.

 

“Hae-yoon asked me to tell you about Damin.”

 

“Me?”

 

Even when she repeated, Hae-yoon didn’t look incredulous.

 

I just explained myself.

 

“I… I thought I forgot something. I’m sorry, but as I told you earlier, the phone call I had with you wasn’t about me… at all.”

 

“You don’t need to apologize to me, Hae-yoon, just call your friend ‘Damin’ out loud. Don’t say that you don’t know who she is, but call her by her real name.

 

“Uh, will that really help me find this kid named “Damin”?”

 

Will it really help?

 

To be honest, I don’t know. I don’t know if hearing a classmate’s voice will really wake them up or not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

But I can say this for sure.

 

“It is necessary.”

 

“For ‘Damin’?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Not to Damin, to you, Kim Hae-yoon.

 

You said she was a good friend.

 

If you miss the chance to save such a friend for whatever reason, it will haunt you for a long time.

 

I didn’t say it out loud because it’s a lame story.

 

“Damin… Damin… Damin… Why does it stick in my mouth for some reason…”

 

Kim Hae-yoon followed me, mumbling the name she couldn’t remember over and over again.

 

I didn’t say anything to Kim Hae-yoon and walked to the music room, organizing my thoughts.

 

The sound of two souls and heads singing loudly came closer and closer.

 

“Se-senior.  Don’t you hear something…? It sounds like someone is humming…”

 

The use of the word ‘humming’ in reference to this loud sound seemed very weak to Kim Hae-yoon.

 

“Don’t be so scared, listen. From now on, I’m going to interrupt the song you just heard as much as possible.”

 

Kim Hae-yoon shudders and asks, “What should I do then?”

 

“Sing ‘Damin’ like I said. Pretend to be a master of hide-and-seek. Now you have to make sure that your voice reaches Damin, who is hiding somewhere in the distance, by shouting that the game is over and it’s time to come out of hiding.”

 

Hae-yoon nods nervously.

 

“Okay, here we go.”

 

“Yes…!”

 

I pressed the fire alarm on the wall of the hallway.