An Exorcist Magical Girl!

I put the timer window to one side and took stock of the situation.

 

My stomach burned as I watched the time tick away.

 

“Show me you’re worthy of this gift.”

 

That was the only description of the mission.

 

It was too abstract. It didn’t give any specific criteria for passing the mission.

 

How can you describe a mission and leave out the criteria? Isn’t that the most important thing?

 

Even the name of the mission was seemingly simple.

 

《Mission:

Proof

》

 

So much for minimalism in names and descriptions.

 

I tried to make something out of the information I was given, but it was impossible.

 

I don’t even know where I am, so I can’t put it together.

 

Trying to figure it out when I didn’t know anything about it was frustrating and boring.

 “Proof…” 

Was I supposed to be desperate? You want me to give you a teary-eyed shit show of how I really wanted this talent? Or are you asking me to shoot a 10,000-level movie in four hours?

 

I mean, even if you’re a fraudulent talent, isn’t that unrealistic?

 *sigh* 

The sigh was cut short.

 

Suddenly, an announcement sounded. It was the same voice that woke me up.

 

《We are currently 50% through the assessment. You have 4 hours left to complete the assessment. 》

 【04:00:00】 【03:59:59】 

The minutes flew by as I rolled my eyes.

 

No mercy. Meanwhile, what’s with the ratings?

 ‘Oh, wait.’ 

If we’re 50% of the way through the evaluation with 4 hours to go, that means this

“evaluation”

or whatever it is was supposed to be 8 hours long.

 

I didn’t just get the Exorcist talent and then blindly delete my existing talent out of ignorance. I did my own research and thought beforehand.

 

It’s not like I’m in a hopeless state of not knowing anything about exorcism.

 

I quickly recalled the research I had done after receiving the Exorcist talent and before deleting the Magical Girl talent.

 

The information I skimmed over in those weeks came and went.

 

I started with how exorcists use their powers, and then moved on to things like their professionalism and the nature of their society.

 

And then I pulled out the one word that seemed most relevant to my current situation.

 

“Eight-hour practical assessment”

 

It’s early April, so the timing is perfect.

 

Just as underage magical girls are trained and evaluated by the Academy of the Korean Magical Girls Association, underage exorcists are trained and evaluated by the National Exorcist Training Center.

 

There are even a few branch training centers. It seems like there are quite a few.

 

Anyway, the evaluation system conducted by this training center was the

“8-hour practical evaluation”

.

 

According to Newtube, it’s a format where you hunt ghosts within a certain area for a limited time.

 

You release the ghosts into the area. Dozens of them. The most recent one was an abandoned villa complex. Yeah, five stories. You’re in there for eight hours, and you’re hunting ghosts. Oh, and you’re releasing the ghosts that the federation has in storage, and you’re using some kind of exorcism amulet or something.

 

I was told that the evaluation results were calculated by pointing out how many demons you hunted and how strong they were.

 

In Magical Girl, there was also an evaluation system called “simulation test”, so it wasn’t an unfamiliar concept.

 

The only difference was that you had to deal with real ghosts instead of virtual monsters.

 

→Ah, the demons you kill are stored in a ring and converted into points later.

 

You just turn in the ring when you’re done.

 

I remembered what the newcomer had said and dug through the inside pockets of my coat until I found a ring I had never seen before.

 

This confirmed my suspicions.

 

This hotel room is in the

“zone”

of the eight-hour practical assessment, and I’m only halfway through it.

 

Once I realized where I was, it became clear what the status window was expecting of me.

 

To put my name in the top quartile of this assessment.

 “Let’s see how far I can go with nothing but talent, with no experience, no nerve, no nothing.” 

I get the intent of the mission.

 “Haha…” 

I knew it all too well, and it was grim.

 

It’s not always easy for a newbie to climb the ranks of the experienced, even if they have fake talent.

 

It’s not like everyone here is a low-grade talent, and there are definitely people with S-rank or higher talent among the experienced players.

 

And we’re already more than halfway through the evaluation process.

 

You want me to eat the top of the line?

 “Hey. Honestly, this is a job that even an experienced S-rank person would have a hard time with.” 

This was an impossible mission.

 

If you’re going to do this, why did you give me a talent, even if it’s just a one-month experience?

 

Was this just an event to screw people over?

 

Oh, I’m pissed.

 

…But what can I do, there’s no way.

 

I have to. I’ll do what I can.

 

Frustration doesn’t make the mission listen to me.

 

There’s nothing more embarrassing than sitting still and returning your talent.

 

Time remaining, 3 hours, 54 minutes, 17 seconds.

 

My skill total, 1. My talent, S-rank.

 

Exorcist talent, I’ll be hanging on to you like a vice.

 

Of course, I don’t know how to exorcize ghosts.

 

Actually, I’m pretty good at exorcizing ghosts because I used to catch monsters as a magical girl, so I guess I’m a bit of a con artist.

 

The problem is that I can’t see the ghost.

 

How do you catch them when you can’t see them?

 

I’ve read about how exorcists can see ghosts, but I don’t remember the details.

 

If I knew this was going to be a crappy mission, I’d have read up on it better.

 

Well, at least I don’t have to worry about getting stuck here.

 

The ability to learn and utilize what others practice for a month and make it my own in a day or two. We call that innate sense

‘talent’

.

 

The S-rank talent I know of is the kind of talent where you can pick up some skill just by watching them for a short period of time.

 

So what I need to do right now is observe and absorb what others are doing and how they’re doing it.

 “…Ah! Get it! Drive it down!” 

Just then, the hallway outside the room became noisy.

 

Okay. I’m following it.

 

Done. I crept out of the room and was greeted by a grimy hallway.

 

Broken picture frames, a fallen chandelier, and walls and floors vandalized with red paint.

 

The interior elements that once gave the room an old-fashioned atmosphere were all broken and chipped and looked dreary.

 “Oh, I missed it. Can’t you keep the door closed?” “I told you I have a hard time keeping it open.” “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t be so mean, and speaking of which, rest up. We’ll catch the big guy later.” 

Two, no, three people were talking nearby.

 

As I listened, I began to recall the text stored in the back of my mind.

 

Apparently, I had said that the

“barrier”

is like a wall between ghosts and people.

 

There are only two ways a person can sense a ghost: the ghost opens the

“barrier”

, or the person opens the

“barrier”

.

 

The former is

“felt”

, the latter is

“sensed”

.

 

It is one thing to have your senses invaded by another entity, but it is quite another to open up your own senses and expand your sensory field.

 

There is a clear difference in everything from what you can perceive to what influence you can exert, but in short, it is the latter that can exorcise ghosts, not the former.

 

And, as luck would have it, a live lesson on

“Opening the books”

was about to unfold before their eyes.

 “Hey, guys.” “Not that guy from earlier.” 

One of them had just spotted a new ghost.

 “Do you want to catch that one?” “I’m good. What about you? Can you reopen your account?” “……for a while.” 

One of the students muttered something bluntly, and soon reached out in front of his eyes.

 

His hand flailed from side to side as if he were grasping and pulling at something.

 

It was as if he was removing an invisible cloth that covered his entire body.

 “Not this one, not this one either.” 

When that didn’t work, he repeated the same motion a few more times.

 

Finally, on the fifth time, the student let out a sigh of relief.

 “Got it!” “Well, that took forever.” “You have to be conscious that you’re actually grabbing something and peeling it off, not just going through the motions, right?” “I know, kinda.” 

After some irritating exchanges, they moved on to chase the ghost.

 

As I watched the process, I raised my right hand to face level.

 “…by grabbing something real.” 

I clenched my fist.

 

To my surprise, instead of the familiar warmth, something harsh and cold filled my hand.

 “…Peel it off.” 

Slowly, I pulled the thing diagonally away like opening a curtain.

 

And just like that, the bonds that had closed off my senses opened.

 

It felt like a layer of air was being peeled away from my body, and a new world took over my sight and hearing in an instant.

 

A blurry figure floated in the middle of the messy hallway.

 

A squeaky voice that I couldn’t tell if it was laughing or talking.

 “… This is the world an exorcist sees.” 

It was muddled and cluttered.

 

This is the world I want to live in from now on.

 

This new realization didn’t make me regret it.

 

On the contrary, I was happy.

 

A world where I could become a master of S-rank talent would have seemed lovely, even if it was hell.

 

That is, of course, if I passed the mission.

 

Then, my vision flickered and a pop-up appeared.

 【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring) (Rental)】【Status: Utilized】【Number of connections – 40%】【Skill – 2】 

The Talent Activation window looks exactly the same as it did in Magical Girl. Although the items are different.

 

When you use a talent, you’ll see the talent activation window like this.

 

The status window gives me an indication of how much of each ability I’m using.

 

Anyway, I think I just opened up 40% of the balance with my last attempt.

 

Not bad for a first attempt.

 

When I clicked on the

“Accounts”

category, I was greeted with a message.

 

《The more you open your karmas, the wider your awareness and the sharper your senses.》

 

I nodded and clicked on the

“Skills”

category below it.

 【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring) (Rental)】【Skills: Simple Clairvoyance | Body Coloration …10%】【Skills: Simple Destruction | Body Temperature …10%】 

When I first arrived here and loaded my Talent, I didn’t see anything in the Skills section, but the Talent I was using had two Skills floating around.

 

This means that these two skills are the default skills for anyone with the Exorcist talent.

 

Built-in skills don’t have a name in the skills section.

 

I clicked on each and a description popped up

 【Simple Clairvoyance: Discover a demon’s core. 】【Simple Destruction: Destroys a demon’s core. 】 

These seem to be the abilities that are the basis of exorcism. The descriptions were simple, but I have a vague idea of what the skills do.

 

Damn. I started out with similar skills when I was a magical girl.

 

Still, I figured I’d have to try it out to get a clearer picture, so I was searching for a ghost that seemed like a good fit.

 “It says you don’t belong to a chapter.” 

An unfamiliar voice flew toward me.

 “Who are you?” 

I turned around to see a female student with neatly tied navy blue hair.