An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 94

Carved into the base of the stone statue were the names of people who committed suicide here.

 

“…Is it a curse?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

After giving an unclear answer, Seon-yeo knelt on the ground and looked closely at the base of the statue.

 

“Are you saying that the spell of carving names into the stone caused people to kill themselves? Not that I haven’t thought about it, and maybe it really did.”

 

I crouched down beside her.

 

“But there’s something else we have to worry about right now.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Think about it. Don’t you feel empty?”

 

Empty?

 

At Yeo Seon-yeo’s words, I turned my head.

 

Through the trees I could see Lee Dae-wook’s body swaying in the wind.

 

Wait, a body?

 

“Ah, no ghosts.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

Thirteen people have committed suicide in this forest, and we have yet to meet a single ghost here. Not a single one.

 

“They must be in the stone statues.”

 

The souls of the thirteen who died by suicide would have been sealed in stone statues with their names on them.

 

“Yes. I suppose so.”

 

Seon-yeo spoke slowly.

 

“Leaving aside the question of who and why the souls of the suicides were imprisoned in the stones, let’s take one out.”

 

We couldn’t just sit on our hands in the absence of information.

 

We had to figure things out and move forward, because that’s what the problem was asking us to do.

 

So we knew right away what we had to do.

 

Strike the “link” that binds the souls to the statue and pull out the souls of the suicide victims.

 

Apparently, the link is an unnaturally interlocking grain of wood.

 

What about stones? Do they have grain?

 

Well, there must be patterned stone, but unfortunately this statue was not made of that kind of stone.

 

If so, the links are probably the marks from the chiseling at the base of the statue. I wondered why there were knife scratches on the stone, but it made sense to me that they were the marks of the link that bound the spirit to the statue.

 

Seon-yeo must have thought the same, because she picked up a twig from the ground.

 

“Do it.”

 

I nodded, stepping back slightly, and she began to chisel away at the chisel marks on the statue’s base.

 

Kerchak! Thud!

 

The branch snapped in two with a thud.

 

With a vibration like the sound of a gong, Seon-yeo staggered backward.

 

A black aura spread out from the statue like dust, but it immediately dissipated.

 

The black aura could not expand beyond a radius of ten centimeters around the statue and was sucked back into the statue.

 

Like a spit out breath, it was sucked back in with a gasp.

 

“…I thought it was empty, but it has a soul.” She murmured, then looked back at me.

 

“The force that connects the statue to the soul is too strong. I shouldn’t do this.”

 

Saying that this is what an S⁺ rank should do, she punches me in the shoulder with her fist.

 

“Agh! Agh! Agh! Crazy, why are your hands so strong? Don’t make me do it, Seon-yeo, you can’t hit me again with your bare fist. I think my soul will come out right away.”

 

“You want me to hit a rock with my bare hands?”

 

“Just kidding.”

 

❰Skill ‘Creator of Something Out of Nothing’ activated❱

 

The black energy at my fingertips converged, forming a baseball bat with a sleeker shape than before.

 

“But why a baseball bat?”

 

“What, do you have a problem with that?”

 

“No. Wouldn’t a golf club be better for now?”

 

As it turned out, they were right.

 

I could easily make a golf club right now.

 

I modified the solid black aura into something that looked like a long, thin stick with an unshelled chestnut on the end.

 

It’s crude, but it looks like a golf club.

 

❰Congratulations on obtaining the third weapon in the Skill: ‘Creator of Something Out of Nothing’, a golf club!❱

 

I’m making quite an assortment of blunt weapons, I’ll have to try a club or something later.

 

“Careful, it has a recoil.”

 

“Okay.”

 

I clumsily grabbed the club with both hands and swung.

 

Bam!

 

“Wow, Baek Iri, nice shot!”

 

The head of the golf club hit the base of the statue on its side, right on the knife mark.

 

At the same time, a tremendous gust of wind hit me, and a black arm suddenly protruded from the statue’s crown.

 

“Uh-oh, there! An arm, an arm!”

 

“If you’re coming out, please come out properly!”

 

Seon-yeo desperately reached for the black arm.

 

She tugged at it, hoping to pull the ghost out completely, but the statue was quicker than she was to suck the arm back in.

 

The black arm didn’t struggle long before it disappeared inside the statue, and Seon-yeo lost her balance and rolled on the floor.

 

“Argh! I could have caught him! One more blow!”

 

Seon-yeo shouted, determined to tear it out like a radish this time.

 

Her orange eyes shone through her scattered brown hair.

 

“Calm down. If you make a mistake, Seon-yeo, you’ll be pulled in.”

 

“I know I’m not strong enough, but I’m just saying I think I can keep this thing going for a few seconds.”

 

“You mean touching the… stuff?”

 

“Yes. That’s it.”

 

The Seon-yeo I had seen so far was a calm, fiery person.

 

She knew when to go for it and when to let the flame die down.

 

She doesn’t hesitate to throw herself into the fray when necessary, but she doesn’t recklessly throw herself into things that are out of her comfort zone.

 

Yeo Seon-yeo was such a person.

 

“One more time then.”

 

I swung the bat again.

 

Bam!

 

There was a cool crack, and this time the side of the statue spat out a blackened head.

 

Once again, a gust of air pushed me away.

 

“Ow!”

 

While I was off-center and rolling like a falling leaf, Seon-yeo quickly grabbed my hair and pinned me to the ground in a tug-of-war.

 

“Come back!”

 

I crawled over and grabbed her. Slowly, her body was dragged forward and finally stopped.

 

I reached out and grabbed her black ears with my right hand and her black hair with my left.

 

Then I pulled as hard as I could.

 

Swoosh─

 

“That’s it!”

 

Fortunately, the ghost was easily pulled out.

 

I stood there stunned as I watched the ghost slip out of the statue and tiptoe away.

 

That shouldn’t have happened.

 

I should have made sure the knife marks on the underside of the stone were gone.

 

For a moment, we both relaxed and let our guard down.

 

We thought we’d gotten all of the ghost’s body out of the way and that the connection between the stone and the ghost was completely broken.

 

But the knife marks had not disappeared, and the ghost was still bound to the statue by an invisible force.

 

As soon as the hand holding the ghost’s head loosened its grip, the statue sucked in the blackened soul.

 

“Ah…”

 

“Wow, I didn’t expect it to be bound so tightly…”

 

We could only stare at each other in disbelief.

 

Even the Gourdwood, a tool specially made to seal souls, didn’t have such a strong connection. 

 

Our gourdwood was a good tree that could unravel the grain and spit out the soul with just the right blow.

 

So the fact that the connection was still intact after all this time meant that there was another powerful force at work, one that strengthened the connection between the statue and the spirit many times over.

 

The identity of this powerful force was easily guessed by both Seon-yeo and myself.

 

A name carved into the center of the statue’s base.

 

The name was the problem.

 

Some unknown person who had gotten hold of the names of the dead had carved them into the stone with a curse, and the names had become the strongest shackles binding the souls of the dead to the stone.

 

Names hold power that cannot be ignored.

 

If called with malice, it becomes a curse, and if you give your real name without asking, it can take away your body and soul.

 

The last time Cha Hanbyul almost died, she gave her student ID card with her name on it to a ghost.

 

“This name is a stronger link than the connection.”

 

“Yes, it’s almost 100% that it’s the name, and there’s no other way to explain it right now.”

 

“Ergo… So what should I do now, be good…?”

 

“Of course not. It’s already engraved. It can’t be erased like a pencil mark.”

 

I could see the root of the problem, but I couldn’t think of any pointy numbers.

 

“Is the answer to break the stone altogether?”

 

“How are you going to break the stone without any equipment…”

 

Seon-yeo stared at me blankly.

 

There was a tone of disbelief in the air, but it didn’t deter either of us; we were just trying to figure out what to do next.

 

“It should be…”

 

“Uh, why?”

 

“Am I the only one who thinks the atmosphere is different here?”

 

“Atmosphere? Oh, yeah. My vision is definitely more…”

 

It was blurry.

 

A white mist had been descending rapidly for some time, and now that I was aware of it, it was getting colder.

 

“Oh no, this is ominous…”

 

It would be a big mistake to be ambushed while it was cold and hard to see.

 

“Let’s do something.”

 

“How? Have you thought of anything? Hurry up and tell me, Baek Iri.”

 

Seon-yeo stared at me with narrowed eyes.

 

“Hmm, I don’t know if this will work… Right now, the ghosts must be trapped in there because their names are carved into the stone, right?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Then what if the name isn’t theirs…?”

 

“……?”

 

Seon-yeo asked with a glare, wondering what that meant.

 

“I mean, change the name.”

 

“Baek Iri, I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand you. Show me.”

 

She pushed me away and said she wouldn’t blame me if I failed.

 

At her insistence, I took the Black Meteor Magic out of my bag.

 

Ms. Kang In-joo had told me to bring it because I might need to draw talismans or symbols depending on the type of problem, but I never thought I’d use it like this.

 

“Ha…Is this right, or am I just making a fool of myself?”

 

“It’s okay, I won’t gossip.”

 

“Right…”

 

I crouched down in front of the stone statue that read “Lee Dae-wook”.

 

I traced the strokes of the consonants and vowels across the indentations. I filled the shallow gaps in the gray stone with black, hoping to cover the curse carved into the strokes.

 

My head tingles strangely as I concentrate.

 

“Isn’t this just tracing the letters?”

 

“Wait.”

 

After overwriting the last “a” with black, I added another stroke next to it.

 

“…Edward?”

 

Seon-yeo narrowed her eyes. She quickly realized the intent of my actions and gasped.

 

“So this is what you meant by changing the name,” she said, “If the name on the stone becomes “Lee Edward”, it will have no power to bind his soul.”

 

“Hmph, that’s what I was hoping for, but I’m not sure if that trick will work… Haha.”

 

I scratched the back of my head and Seon-yeo motioned for me to get up. 

 

She was holding the branch she had broken in half earlier.

 

“We’ll see.”

 

She took a deep breath and stabbed the stone floor with the tip of the short branch.