An Exorcist Magical Girl!

Bam!

 

This is the seventh classroom I’ve stopped by and exorcized.

 

I’m getting tired of doing this.

 

–I can knock the spirits out and exorcize the ghosts in the classroom, but I’m sweating as I sprint up and down the stairs with the mop, and it’s not even that hot.

 

“Have you gotten a lead yet?”

 

 

I checked my notification and saw a picture of Joo Yeon-seo holding a flamethrower on our class group chat.

 

“You’re here!”

I exclaimed.

 

A message from Seo Jun followed, signaling the start of the burning.

 

Soon after, I could see acrid smoke rising from the field.

 “Looks like everything’s okay over there. I’m glad.”

 

I’ve asked Seo Jun to stay by the bug corpses piled up on the playground until I set them on fire, in case the ghosts go there.

 

Then it’s time to finish up.

 

I grabbed the mop and headed over the field.

 

Crisp air, clear sky, flowers in full bloom.

 

I passed through a spring landscape so neat and tidy that it was hard to believe that the abomination of a bug infestation had ever happened and arrived at my destination: the vegetable garden behind the school building.

 

I walked briskly and stopped in front of the statue of a girl reading a book in the center of the garden.

 

The ghostly face I kept seeing over and over again.

It was the face of a girl that I had seen recently.

 

“Hey, I think I’m the only one who realized who you are.”

 

I opened my account and saw clearly what I didn’t want me to see.

 

The reason no one else recognized the gray face they saw every day was because you were so careful not to show every detail of your face.

 

Of the two of us who could voluntarily escape such a selective visual invasion, I was the only one who had more than 50% of the account open.

 “Seo Jun was opening the books just a little bit, just enough to see what was going on.” 

In the end, I was the only one who recognized the ghost.

 

“You didn’t want to give away the fact that you were the ghost of a girl.”

 

The core is inside this statue girl.

 

***

 

 

I leaned back against the statue’s feet.

 

The feel of the cold stone against the nape of my neck. 

 

The squishy grains of dirt against my legs.

 

My whole body relaxed into a half-lying position, and I gently lowered my eyes.

 

Then I held my breath.

 

And just like that, I melted into the peaceful afternoon landscape.

 

Like a corpse.

 *Crunch*

 

“Gotcha!” 

❰Skill: Simple Clairvoyance is active❱

 

The familiar sound scraped against my eardrums, and my eyes flashed open.

 

A gray body shielded from the sunlight.

 

A circular red light glowed near its heart.

 

With the mop, I swiped at the demon’s legs, knocking it over.

 

I jumped on top of it and pressed down on its throat to prevent it from getting back up.

 

Panic flashed across the girl’s ashen face.

 

“Hey, how does it feel to have a corpse you thought was dead come back to life?”

 

Crunch, crunch

 

I gave the girl ghost exactly how my classmates must have felt when the crushed bug carcasses climbed out of the trash can and started moving.

 

That’s right.

 

The girl ghost had recognized me as a corpse and approached me.

 

How did this happen?

 

It would be a great loss if the ghost lost its vessel for its soul and disappeared altogether, or if it went on a rampage.

 

So, I devised a way to dispose of the ghosts in a certain way.

 

A ghost will only release its hidden core when it has a human body.

 

Conversely, a human corpse is the only way to get the ghost’s core.

 

So, I decided to pretend to be a corpse.

 

I had heard this story before at a retreat.

 

–There was a student who wanted to stay in the classroom to study until late in the morning when the class was over. The teacher told him to go home because it was dangerous, but he was so worried about the exam that he insisted on staying. The teacher reluctantly agreed but warned him that if he heard footsteps outside at 1 a.m., he should hold his breath, and not breathe until they were gone.

 

–At 1 a.m., there was no one in the hallway, but footsteps started coming from far away. The student remembered his teacher’s words and held his breath.

The footsteps moved smoothly past the student’s classroom, but the moment the relieved student took a deep breath…

 

─Dada-dada-dada-dada-dada-dada!!!

 

I heard it on the last night of the retreat, when we were telling scary stories with the lights off.

 

The point was to pause at the end to scare the person next to you, and the kid who did it screamed a three-octave solo and got in trouble with the group.

 

I’m pretty sure I was up all night, too, now that I think about it.

 

No, that’s not the point.

 

In the story, the ghost just walked past you when you held your breath, which means it doesn’t recognize you as a person if you hold your breath, right?

 

And I still have Seo Jun’s amulet from the last time I used it to summon the straw man!

 

My plan was this.

 

First, go to the statue of the girl where the ghost hid the core.

 

Second, activate the amulet and hold your breath.

 

Third, the ghost will think you’re a corpse and destroy you the moment you pull out the nuke!

 

Perfect!

 

When I shared this plan with Seo Jun, she tilted her head in disbelief.

 

“I don’t know if that amulet will work.” “Was it a one-time use?” “No, I think it can be used two or three more times.” “Then why?” “It’s a matter of the level of the ghost you’re trying to summon. The stronger the ghost, the less likely it is to be attracted to such a simple amulet.”

Seo Jun explained.

 “Ha, damn.”

 

My carefully crafted plan is going down the drain!

 

Just as I was about to give up, Seo Jun informed me that there was hope.

 

“Well, if your talisman is S-ranked or higher, you might be able to activate it for a short time.” “Really?!” “Yep. Depending on the user, the amulet’s effects can be multiplied.”

 

I can do it.

 

I’m an S-rank talent, it’s possible.

 

That was a truly heartening statement.

 

If I think back to my last experience with the straw ghost, the time it takes for the ghost to react to the amulet and be drawn to it is about a minute.

 

Holding my breath for a minute is nothing to sneeze at.

 

As I held my breath in the garden, I kept thinking about the ghost I was trying to exorcize.

 

‘The ghost, the demon that craves life. The disgusting demonic ghost that wouldn’t mind a bug’s body for an empty body. The fiendish ghost that greed for human corpses.’

 

There was a creaking sound, and the amulet in my hand turned black.

 

The amulet had been overloaded with effects beyond its capabilities, and it had died a slow death as soon as it had served its purpose.

 

And now.

 

“Resurrection? I’m in.”

 

The corpse play was over.

 

The ghost pressed against the mop was about to cast another teleport.

 

I stabbed my hand into its heart.

 

***

 

 

Poof

 

An eerie sensation piercing through the body.

 

But I didn’t hesitate, grabbing the core with my right hand.

 

As long as the core was in my hand, this bastard wouldn’t be able to leave.

 

“Actually, I was wondering…”

 

The ghosts’ mouth gaped open, and it rose to its feet, poised to devour my right hand.

 

“…How far does this skill go?”

 

Apparently, the skill description for

“A Craftsman’s Wear’s No Tools”

said that when the user’s aura is imbued in an object that is not a weapon, it is protected by the user’s familiar weapon, the aura.

 “You’re probably wondering, too: can “flames” be protected by aura?”

 

According to the skill description, this skill only applies to

“things”.

 

… Is that a limit I can’t cross?

 

“Here, take it.”

 

Seo Jun arrives just in time to hand me the burning branch.

 

In exchange for his promise to join me on the mission, I asked Somael for two things.

 

To stay by my side until I collected the bodies and set them on fire.

 

And that he would bring me a flamethrower, which I would use to set the branches on fire and carry them back to the garden.

 

❰Skill: A Craftsman’s Wear’s No Tools has been activated. ❱ 

 

The black energy from my right-hand travels up the branch and touches the flame at its tip.

 

The black energy slowly covered the dying flame.

 

Soon, the flame turned black and flickered.

 

“This works.”

 

I tossed the core in my hand high into the air.

 

Then I swung the black flame with the gnarl.

 

BANG!

 

The sound of the blow was hard to believe could come from a flame.

 

The core was shattered and destroyed as soon as it touched the flame.

 

The body of the demon on the mop sack slowly turned to dust and disappeared.

 

The status window popped up triumphantly.

 

❰

【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】

You are 8.0% of the way to defending against the Erasure Crisis❱

❰Defense work progress totaled 12.6%❱

 

Oh, that’s an 8% jump in one go.

 

But the good news didn’t end there.

 

❰Skill: A Craftsman’s Wears No Tools has reached 100% embodiment! ❱ 

❰Congratulations on making the Skill: A Craftsman’s Wears No Tools your own❱

 

 

After reaching 95% in the Rapid Transit Station mission, I have finally reached 100%.

 

It’s also my first 100% Embodiment in my life.

 

Mastery is a measure of how much a skill a user has mastered.

 

The more you use the skill, the more comfortable you are with the skill, the higher your saturation will be.

 

In fact, at 8-90%, it is already at peak skill utilization.

 

At that point, one will be able to use the skill without any problems and achieve the desired effect.

 

However, one can’t get to 100% embodiment just by using a skill well.

 

It requires something more than just learning the skill.

 

When one can apply the skill freely and treat it like its own body, that is already at 100% embodiment.

 

‘Completely mine.’

 

A smile of pure joy tugs at the corners of my mouth.

 

The thick smoke rising from the playground on the other side of the building slowly dissipated.

 

***

 

 

The training center after school.

 

Baek Iri and I were busy finalizing the mission report we had written yesterday.

 

“If it’s going to teleport, at least do it right. It should have appeared right next to the monster corpse in the first place. No, what’s with all the running around?”

 

Baek Iri felt sorry for the ghost’s stupidity, but then again, the ghost had been sleeping inside the girl’s statue the whole time and woke up when it smelled death, so it was understandable that it didn’t make good use of its teleportation ability while it was in a non-dream state.

 

Tired from the commotion at school, Baek Iri shook her head repeatedly.

 

Her short black hair brushed along her jawline.

 “So, Baek Iri, what can I do for you?”

I asked.

 “Seo Jun, I can’t stay on the playground, so if a ghost appears on the playground, can you chase it away for me? It could be dangerous for the other students.” “Okay. Is there anything else?” “Oh, can I ask for this, too? I’d like you to bring a flamethrower to the pile of corpses and then bring me some fire after you see that they’re on fire. I’ll be in the vegetable garden, so you can just light a branch or something. “Okay.”

 

I’ll let her choose our next assignment, I promised, gladly, for something so small.

 

I’m not sure what this

“exorcism request”

means to her but I’m willing to help her one more time.

 

This time, I feel like I’ll owe her.