An Exorcist Magical Girl! Chapter 97

Things don’t go so well for the sculptor, who has all ten of his fingers trapped, as he begins to aggressively defend himself.

 

BANG! BANG! BANG!

 

The Sculptor tries to hit us with his massive fists, and the ground rumbles, almost knocking us over several times.

 

I had to dodge the flying fists, protect the woman who couldn’t care less about her surroundings, and destroy the symbols by biting them off… My mind was racing and my hands were short.

 

To make matters worse, the nausea was getting worse.

 

The only good thing was that it hadn’t tattooed the symbol like the head collector, so it took a relatively short time to remove it.

 

Whoosh!

 

Just as I’d finished the tenth human figure, the sculptor swung its arm around, threatening to wipe out everything around it.

 

“Seon-yeo! Dodge!”

 

I grabbed her and rolled across the floor.

 

“Ugh… thank you.”

 

She was exhausted. The light from the halo wasn’t as bright or hot as it had been at first, and the distance it traveled was getting shorter.

 

Still, the effort had not been in vain. 

 

The sculptor’s arm was shredded in places, and the wrist that had taken the brunt of the attack was now so melted that more than half of the core was visible.

 

“You’ve done well, I’ll help you now.”

 

“Help me? What are you going to do…”

 

Seon-yeo gave me a doubtful look.

 

***

 

Right now, I couldn’t even touch the core up there.

 

If I made a rod five or six meters long and swung it, I might be able to reach it, but there was no way I could destroy it.

 

I had to be able to disembody myself and fly.

 

Getting to the core would be easy enough, but being disembodied would put me at a disadvantage because my attacks would be less powerful.

 

However, the window of opportunity was too small to just target the wrist when it was close to the ground, as I had just done.

 

So I took another approach. One I’d used before.

 

“I’m going to pull this thing down.”

 

“Pull it down?”

 

“Yep. I’ll know it when I see it.”

 

I ran out without waiting for her to say anything more.

 

This time I had a nailed club in my hand.

 

I aimed for the underside of its forearm, near the rubble, where the flesh had been melted away by Seon-yeo’s beam of light, leaving a large gash.

 

I drove the club into the wound at an angle.

 

The sculptor struggled to shake me off, slamming his arm to the ground and then flailing it in the air, his razor-like nails whipping everywhere, slicing through the wood and stone around him.

 

Even as its body leapt into the air and crashed to the ground, I never let go.

 

The nails embedded in its head sprouted in all directions, digging into the inside of my arm and finally piercing the flesh.

 

The sculptor, realizing what I was doing, stopped dead in his tracks.

 

“It’s too late.”

 

I yanked on the angle as hard as I could, spinning the sculptor’s arm half a turn on its axis.

 

Paddle, paddle, paddle!

 

The club spun, slicing through the flesh.

 

The sculptor’s arm soon fell apart in a messy heap, revealing its cross-section.

 

Kwoosh─

 

The upper part of my arm crashed to the ground with a heavy thud, like a tree falling under an axe.

 

My fingers twitched and flailed, and the recoil sent my entire arm flying like a fish out of water.

 

Nails scraped the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust.

 

I coughed, but didn’t care, and climbed onto his wrist.

 

The spiky ball in my hand had turned into a baseball bat.

 

I picked it up like a mortar and brought it down.

 

Thump! Bang!

 

The flesh covering the core was crushed, and the core cracked.

 

Within three blows, the core shattered, sending large shards flying.

 

The coolness of the blow must have blinded me.

 

“Hey, get back here!”

 

I looked up at Seon-yeo’s sharp voice.

 

From the chaotic severed arm, human figures identical to Nara’s were emerging from the temple.

 

One was already down to his legs.

 

“Damn it, I’m tired of this…”

 

At that moment, a lotus flower taller than a man grew out of the dirt, wrapped around one of the human figures, and trapped it in the bud.

 

It was another of her abilities.

 

The human figure trapped inside the lotus bud slowly melted away, only to return to its original form.

 

She quickly rushed over and sprayed something at the remaining human figures.

 

“Kyaaaaaaaaah!”

 

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

 

“Keeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

 

The humanoids crawled out of the way and ducked back into the cutout.

 

“…What’s that?”

 

“Salt.”

 

Chaaaak! Chaaaak!

 

“My Lotus flowers can only bloom one or two at a time.”

 

She added, sprinkling more salt over the area. The human figures that were about to poke their heads out again hesitated.

 

“This is only a temporary solution. It won’t last long.”

 

“Okay, I’ll make it quick.”

 

With three or four more blows of the club, the core could take no more and shattered into pieces.

 

“That’s it!”

 

“Ha, finally…!”

 

Seon-yeo sank to the ground in a heap as she watched the core being destroyed.

 

The sculptor slowly disintegrated and finally vanished into thin air.

 

“You did a good job.”

 

“So did you.”

 

“Would you like some matcha?”

 

 She offers me a drink of my choice.

 

“Don’t you have any water? I need to rinse out my mouth.”

 

“I have… chewing gum. Would you like some?”

 

“No. Thank you.”

 

We sat and rested for a minute or so. Remnants of wood and stone, cut by the sculptor’s nails, lay scattered about.

 

“So these statues were made by roughly chipping away at the stone here with its nails. What nails are harder than stone?”

 

I rolled the cracked stone back and forth in vain.

 

Seon-yeo stared at the debris and muttered. “I thought you were going to dress up as a Seonangdang. That sculptor is so funny.”

 

Seonangdang cosplay…

 

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

At first glance, the sculptor’s figure rising from the rubble looked like a new tree surrounded by debris.

 

“I don’t understand why they moved the statue so far away.”

 

Seon-yeo smiled wryly.

 

There was uneasiness in the question that slipped out.

 

I don’t know why it bothered me so much now that I had dealt with the sculptor who was the cause of all this. As if there was something more.

 

“Seon-yeo, do you think these stones have always been here?”

 

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

 

There was a meaningless back and forth.

 

“I guess that’s the end of the problem, right?”

 

“I guess not. I exorcised all the suicidal spirits, and you exorcised the sculptor.”

 

“Yeah, well. That’s it. I’ve done enough.”

 

“Mm-hmm. Let’s go.”

 

And just like that, the problem was over.

 

***

 

 

Thump! Thump! Thump!

 

“Seon-yeo, can you hear that?”

 

“Yes, I can hear it.”

 

We were tired but alert again.

 

The distant sound came closer and closer.

 

“Coming this way.”

 

I quickly formed a baseball bat and swung it.

 

“Whoa… I thought we were done with problem 13?”

 

She sighed and pulled out her halo again. Suddenly she realized something and made an “Aha!” face.

 

“Damn it! This isn’t over!”

 

“Why?! Why isn’t it over?!”

 

“They’re coming for an empty seat!”

 

Seon-yeo explains that the ghosts, who have been quietly hiding, are rushing to fill the sculptor’s empty place.

 

“When the power that controls an area breaks down, the spirits are bound to run wild.”

 

Now that the powerful demon that occupied the area is gone, the spirits that coveted the space have noticed their master’s absence, and it’s only natural that they’ll try to take over the vacated area.

 

Oh, come to think of it, I had a similar experience in the Rapid Transit Station mission. 

 

I exorcised a man-eating ghost that had taken over one of the stations, and on my way out, I got a lot of bugs.

 

I thought to myself, “Now that the man-eating ghost is gone, I’m sure all the bugs have sensed it and are scurrying.”

 

Then I remembered Seo Jun’s words.

 

Ah, how often does Seo Jun solve problems now…

 

“Get back here!”

 

It was time to break the bonds.

 

One of the ghosts was caught in the lotus flower that Seon-yeo had bloomed. 

 

The petals opened, trapping the wraith, and the wraith was swallowed by the bud, slowly dissolving inside.

 

I launched a full attack on the one running right behind me.

 

I fought them for about 10 minutes as they came at me from all directions. 

 

If this had happened in the real world instead of a simulation, I’d be celebrating the blessing of cheap points.

 

“Huh… Are we really done here? Please tell me we are.”

 

“Seon-yeo, you asshole, don’t deny reality. I can hear it.”

 

 Tell the person who wrote the questions to come out! Tell the person who wrote the questions to solve them!”

 

She covered her ears and screamed as another group of ghosts came out of the forest in the distance.

 

“No matter how advanced the question is, it should be done in moderation, moderation! How many ghosts are there in one question? Aaaaah!”

 

“Seon-yeo, let’s calm down and think. You don’t think they want us to kill them all, there must be another way.”

 

“Whoa, yeah, right… There’s nothing wrong with removing every single mole. Let’s use common sense. What’s the problem with asking us to do that?”

 

I was being me, and she was being her, and we were both silent for a moment.

 

“Seon-yeo, do you think you can make a connection or something?”

 

“Connection? Oh, you mean we put a boundary here so they can’t get in?”

 

She thought for a moment and shook her head.

 

“I only know how to make a temporary barrier with salt, and I can’t do that right now. I ran out of salt earlier… Baek Iri, what about you? Can you do it?”

 

“I’m just asking because I don’t know how to do it.”

 

“Oh…”

 

I wanted to build an invisible wall to block access to this room, like the Head Collector did with the music room, but that won’t work.

 

Instead of going the hard way, can’t we use the items from the simulation in question 13?

 

I thought back over the events from the time I circled the same place until now, trying to think of something that could be used in the current situation.

 

I thought, “Let’s work backwards from… Seonangdang, statue, body, Jangseung… Jangseung?!”

 

My voice grew louder.

 

Thinking that I was onto something, Seon-yeo turned her head to look at me.

 

Unfortunately, my question didn’t seem to have much to do with solving the ghost situation; I was just vaguely suspicious of the Jangseung, but I couldn’t even formulate the question into a sentence.

 

While I kept my mouth shut, Seon-yeo leaned in close.

 

“What is it, Baek Iri? What was that?”

 

Well, if it’s bullshit, she’ll sort it out herself, right?

 

“Seon-yeo, did the Jangseung always look like that?”