An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 84

Chirp, chirp, chirp─

 

The fire alarm sounded loud enough to drown out the chorus.

 

Startled by the sudden noise, the chorus of mouths in the music room stopped.

 

A few voices broke away from the chorus.

 

In an instant, the pitch and beat were off, and the powerful chorus lost its power in a second.

 

Without missing a beat, Kim Hae-yoon screamed.

 

Hae-yoon’s scream pierced the void created by the dissipating chorus.

 

The Head Collector slowly turned its massive, transparent body toward the cage outside the music room, and for a split second, the chorus stopped completely.

 

“Da-miiiiiiiin!!!!” Kim Hae-yoon’s voice was filled with emotion.

 

“Da-min, it’s me! I’m Kim Hae-yoon! I’m Kim Hae-yoon, first year, fifth grade! Oh, that’s right. We’re in the same class! Da-min, I’m Kim Hae-yoon who’s been in your class for three years since middle school!”

 

The song that had mesmerized the entire school and distorted their memories stopped for a moment, and the memories that had disappeared seemed to return.

 

“If you’re in there, please wake up and come out, Da-min, please!”

 

In Hae-yoon’s eyes, who hadn’t even noticed Lee Soo-yeon’s soul leaving before her, she began to see a blurred image of Da-min in her mind.

 

Was it Hae-yoon’s will to see her, or was it her will to be seen by Hae-yoon?

 

The head collector, unable to watch the scene any longer, waved its arms wildly like a conductor.

 

At the same time as the head collector gestured, the heads it had collected opened their mouths again and the chorus continued.

 

Only one remained silent.

 

“…Kim …Hae-yoon?”

 

“Da-min!”

 

A single soul met our eyes.

 

It was Lee Da-min.

 

***

 

Sorry, but let’s save the emotion of the reunion for later.

 

“Bring out the girl sitting next to you. Come on!”

 

At my words, Da-min’s head snapped around and she looked at the sophomore who was still singing in the seat next to her.

 

“Yes, her, bring her out too. Now!”

 

Head collectors are rather slow to act.

 

They’re also slow to react, at least that’s what I’ve observed so far.

 

So if they can get from the front row where they’re sitting to the door, they can get away without getting caught.

 

Da-min grabbed the arm of the sophomore next to her and started running.

 

“Goooooo!”

 

The head collector panicked and tried to come over, but was blocked by the desk.

 

It struggled and stretched out its arms, but Da-min was faster.

 

It threw itself at us, dragging the second grader who was flailing around like a piece of paper.

 

Just in time, the bell rang to end the third period, and the two souls slipped safely out of the music room.

 

I expected them to follow, but instead, the Head Collector was pacing the music room, screaming at the top of its lungs.

 

How on earth did it speak when it had no head, but when I looked closely, I noticed that its mouth was on its right palm.

 

The palm twitched and opened, and from between its sharp teeth came the voice of the Head Gatherer.

 

It must have used those teeth to collect the heads of the school’s inanimate objects.

 

The fact that the two escaped souls are still in front of the music room, and they’re still so angry, means that they have no intention of leaving.

 

I tried to nuke them as they rushed out in a fit of rage, but alas! Dealing with the source of all this trouble will have to wait.

 

I will deal with the two souls that managed to escape first.

 

Da-min had been freed from the Head Collector’s mind control and had regained her full self, but the soul of the second-year student was still dazed and dull.

 

Even though they had both made it out of the music room, Da-min was the only one who had escaped possession in the first place.

 

“Let’s go to the infirmary.”

 

I led everyone to the infirmary where the two bodies lay.

 

Now that they had stopped singing to themselves, the memories of the entire school would return.

 

Just as I was thinking that, I received a message from Seo Jun.

 

I think her name is Yoon Ga-hyun.

 

─The kids in class 2 suddenly asked me where she had gone.

─No one remembers what happened in second grade.

 

Except for me, Seo Jun and Kim Hae-yoon, who was directly involved in what had just happened, no one remembers the events of that morning.

 

The fact that their classmate’s existence had been erased from their minds had become a distant memory.

 

“Um, Ga-hyun? Yoon Ga-hyun? You said you were Yoon Ga-hyun, a sophomore, right?”

 

“…….”

 

Just calling her by her first name was not enough to wake her up.

 

She needed a familiar voice to break the spell.

 

When I told Seo Jun this, she said she would come to the clinic with one of Yoon’s classmates who was close to her.

 

We were the first to arrive at the clinic.

 

Da-min entered her body by herself and opened her eyes.

 

Yoon’s soul wasn’t completely unconscious, so she was able to follow our instructions and enter her body, but she was still dazed after entering her body.

 

“Hey, Yoon Ga-hyun, do you know how long we’ve been looking for you? If you’re going to the infirmary, at least say something!”

 

Yoon woke up when she heard her friends’ voices.

 

“…why are you in the infirmary?”

 

“Oh, she’s really sick, right?”

 

“If that’s the case, you should leave school early, Ga-hyun.”

 

After Da-min, Hae-yoon, Yoon Ga-hyun and their friends went back to their respective classrooms, Seo Jun and I slowly left the clinic.

 

“Didn’t you pack this?”

 

Seo Jun, who came out a little later than me, handed me a folder.

 

“Ah! Mr. Jang gave it to me.”

 

I’d carried it with me earlier, but when we got to the infirmary, I put it on the bed and forgot about it.

 

“You said you still haven’t gotten rid of the head collector, right?”

 

“Ugh. I can’t get in, so I’ll just return this quickly and go back to the music room.”

 

“I’ll be there.”

 

“Do you mean the faculty room…?”

 

“No, the music room. I’ll go first.”

 

***

 

 

Seo Jun waved and made her way to the music room.

 

Come to think of it, Seo Jun had a knack for sensing the weaknesses of a room.

 

Perhaps it would come in handy again.

 

By the way, Mr. Jang won’t remember anything either, so should I just give this back to him and say that I found it in the hallway… He won’t be mad that I have his papers, will he?

 

I thought to myself as I walked to the staff room.

 

Well, in the end, it was a useless worry.

 

Mr. Jang doesn’t remember the situation, but he was aware of it.

 

He had written down the incident in his notebook.

 

In his notebook, he wrote everything from the fact that someone had an out-of-body experience in the second period, to the fact that he shouldn’t have called an ambulance, to the fact that he carried the student to the health center after meeting with me.

 

At the bottom of the note he had written, “Take notes in case your memory is manipulated again,” and the time he wrote it.

 

But why is this note still intact?

 

When the memory tampering happened to erase the disembodied students, their names were erased from name tags, attendance books, and other records.

 

Yoon Ga-hyun from Class 2 was also wearing a name tag that had been erased in white, and even the PPT she presented was missing her grade, class, and name.

 

It was strange that after another memory distortion under the guise of “memory recovery”, the relevant notes were still in the notebook and fortunately had not disappeared.

 

“Mr. Jang, I’m sorry, but could you please show me your notes again?”

 

I took Mr. Jang’s notebook and carefully looked at the notes again.

 

I heard from student Baek Iri that the same thing happened to student ( – ).

 

 When I looked closely, I saw that something had been erased in the middle of the sentence.

 

“I heard from Baek Iri that the same thing happened to student Da-min (1-5).”

 

When I looked at the top line again, I noticed that there was also a space where he had written down what happened in the second period.

 

“During second period (-) student collapsed.”

 

It probably should have read, “Student 2-2 collapsed during 2nd period.”

 

Mr. Jang’s notes were not immune to the distortion.

 

Apparently, the distortion only affects the direct identifying information of the disembodied student.

 

“I think I wrote down the name, grade, and class, but it was erased, which I found strange.”

 

The teacher noticed where my gaze had wandered.

 

I handed the notebook back to him and thanked him for the file.

 

“Mr. Jang, Thanks for your help earlier,” I said, “I didn’t get in trouble with the other teachers because of your file.”

 

“It’s kind of embarrassing to be thanked for something I can’t even remember.”

 

Still sounding blunt.

 

“We should thank you. You take care of things that should be the teachers’ business…”

 

But I know he means it.

 

“Come on, Ms. Baek. If you don’t remember, you said earlier that you would give me the ‘next story’ when I get my file back…”

 

“Oh, I did say that.”

 

The teacher’s reaction showed that he hadn’t missed a thing.

 

“Is that the end of the story for this morning?”

 

“Oh, no. In fact, I still haven’t caught the ghost that caused it, and I’d like to before something worse happens.”

 

“I see. What’s your next lesson?”

 

“Well, something… Sorry, I’ll be right back…”

 

I turned on my phone to check the schedule and spoke again.

 

“Uh, my next class is P.E.”

 

“P.E.?… I’ll make sure to talk to the P.E. teacher for 4th period.”

 

With that, he handed me an orange vest that said “Community Service” on the back.

 

“If anyone asks, tell them I’m in charge of the Student Handmade School Project. I’ve done it a few times in class, so they’ll think it’s just another one of those things.”

 

“Oh, okay! Thank you! By the way, do you have another vest that looks just like this one?”

 

Mr. Jang happily hands me another orange vest and asks why.

 

“Oh, my friend wants to exorcise ghosts with me.”

 

“A friend?”

 

“Yes. She’s Seo Jun from my class.”

 

“Seo Jun?”

 

Mr. Jang murmured in a questioning tone.

 

It doesn’t make sense that you don’t know who Seo Jun is, he knows me, a transfer student, and you don’t know Seo Jun who has been attending this school for two years.

 

“Stop, Mr. Jang, why-why are you doing this…?”

 

Suddenly, I was scared again, so I asked him, and he said it was nothing, that I shouldn’t worry about it.

 

Then he tore a page out of his notebook, scribbled his phone number and gave it to me.

 

“If anything happens, call me. If you ever need to call a professional exorcist…”

 

“Okay, thanks!”

 

“….We’ll talk next time when you get the vest back.”

 

The teacher motioned for me to leave.

 

I put on the orange vest and ran to the music room where Seo Jun was waiting for me.