An Exorcist Magical Girl!

It was last Friday when Yeo Seon-yeo and Hwang Hanju souls were forcibly separated from their bodies on a mission.

 

Today, Exorcist Shin Ji Woon, an employee of the National Association of Exorcists, invited the two of us, me, and Yin Charang to a café near the association to explain what happened.

 

And the

“explanation”

we got was something I honestly didn’t expect at all.

 

“Baek Iri, you killed…?”

, Yin Charang stammered, his mouth agape.

 “Mr. Charang, can we start with the details of how Seon-Yeo and Hanju’s souls ended up out of their body?” Exorcist Ji W

oon interrupted.

 “Ah, yes, yes, yes, please do.” “First of all, that piece of wood is called “gourdwood”. It’s usually used to seal ghosts, but if it’s powerful enough, it can also attract the souls of the living, so a special sigil is drawn on the outside of a powerful gourdwood to suppress its power. So that the power can only work on the ghost.”

 

We nodded and listened to the story.

 

“The gourdwood that the man had and the one that absorbed the two students were both “that kind” of gourdwood.” “You’re saying he suppressed his power with a sigil?” “Yes, that’s right.” “Why was that thing in a math academy with children?” “I’m guessing it was dropped somewhere and the elementary school kids picked it up thinking it was a toy.” “Well… It looks like a die at first glance.” “There were two of them found in the math academy, and one of them was targeting the staircase ghost and pulling it in. The ghost tied itself to the stairs to avoid being absorbed by it, and then two students exorcized the staircase ghost.” “So, it wasn’t possessed, but it was tied to one place.” “But I still don’t see the connection between the exorcism and our souls being absorbed by the gourdwood.”

Yeo Seon-yeo said dissatisfied.

 

Hwang Hanju, sitting next to her, nodded frantically to show that he didn’t understand either.

 

“Think of it like a tug of war. Imagine a situation where both sides are holding on to a tight rope, what happens if one side lets go?” “The other side falls.” “Oh, I see! So, the gourdwood is trying to pull, and the ghost is trying not to pull, and they’re both balancing their forces. So, when they exorcize the ghost, it affects the gourdwood?”

Understanding the exorcist’s analogy, Yin Charang exclaimed excitedly.

 

“That’s right, the aftermath broke the sigil that was suppressing the gourdwood, even the sigil of another gourdwood that was right next to it.” 

I raised my hand and asked.

“But don’t gourdwood absorb souls that are close to them? If that’s what you’re saying, shouldn’t the people in the academy at the time have been caught, not just the two of them?” 

Wasn’t the man I knocked over also absorbed because he was closest to the fallen gourdwood?

 

“Ah, you make a good point. An untargeted gourdwood will randomly absorb nearby souls, but when it is targeted, it will prioritize the target. So, when the two of you got rid of the staircase ghost, which was a target, the gourd naturally recognized you as a new target.” “That’s how it works.”

Hwang Hanju, who had been listening, muttered.

 

“Still, it’s a good thing we got involved. If it was just a bunch of elementary school kids who got disembodied, that would have been a real 9:00 a.m. news story.”

Seon-yeo frowned, feeling creeped out just thinking about it.

 

“Well, I think you all understand, then, so I’ll explain what I said earlier.”

 

The exorcist took a sip of his coffee before moving on.

 

“In our exorcist association, we select the less difficult and simpler cases that come to us as candidates for missions at the academy. The ones that aren’t urgent, given the three weeks the students have to choose and prepare for their assignments.”

 

When the four of us nodded in understanding, the exorcist continued.

 

“However, after this incident, I went back through the list of requests that were considered for assignments, and I realized that the Banho Shopping Center case never even came up.” “What?” “Someone slipped it into the final list of missions to be sent to the Academy, and while we’ve been tracking down that “someone”, it’s unfortunately still a mystery.”

 

The exorcist adds briefly that the association is working with the police and is speculating that this was an inside job.

 

“And the man who was held by Baek Iri and Yin Charang was killed on his way home from a police investigation for allegedly trying to use gourdwood on a person.” “Aaahh…”

I sighed in relief.

 “The most plausible hypothesis at this point is that the person who tampered with the training center’s mission list and the person who killed the man are the same person or were paid by the same person.” “So, you’re saying that the, uh, the man we captured is like the Mafia’s mob boss from the movie…?”

Yin Charang asked, his hands shaking.

 

As I listened to Yin Charang’s story, I remembered what the man said as he ran away.

 

“Damn it, they didn’t tell me this!”

 

Was he resenting the person who didn’t explain the situation to him properly?

 

Anyway, the question-and-answer period continued for a while, with Yeo Seon-yeo and Hwang Hanju gaining courage after seeing Yin Charang asking questions without restraint.

 

When the onslaught of questions had subsided, the exorcist looked at me and asked.

 

“Baek Iri, do you have any questions?”

 

I brought up something that had been bothering me from earlier.

 

“Well, when you were making the mission list for the association—” “Yeah.” “—Do you just stick to the really easy ones?” “Yeah. Since you’re not a professional exorcist and you’re still underage, we make the final list of missions with safety in mind.”

 

Hmm? I thought of my life-or-death escape from the Rapid Transit station.

 

Somehow, I don’t think that applied to our mission.

 

Asking high school students to take on a man-eating ghost is a little…

 

But I wasn’t the one who mentioned the Rapid Transit Station mission.

 

“What about their mission? Their mission was ridiculously demanding!”

It was Yeo Seon-yeo who brought up the Rapid Transit Station mission that Seo Jun and I had gone on.

“Hey, I heard it all, you guys got eaten by a ghost.” “What?! You were eaten? How are you still alive?”

Yin Charang asked in surprise.

 

“They said you were eaten through the stomach! Right? Come here, you, Seo Jun, and—”

After saying that Seon-yeo shut her mouth with a pained expression.

 

“Seo Jun?”

Yin Charang jerked his head in my direction.

 

His voice was the coolest and calmest I’d ever heard.

“Ah, it was you who went on this mission with Seo Jun.” “Uh. I was.”

 

He shook his head and muttered.

“Are you okay?” 

“Are you okay?”

What did he mean by that?

 

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

 

The first day I went to the training center, Seon-yeo stopped me and said something

“That girl almost killed someone last time, and she’s doing it again!”

.

 

Before I could even form the possibility into a sentence in my head, Seon-yeo drove the wedge.

 

“Seo Jun’s mission partner, it was him, Yin Charang.”  

Yin Charang chewed on his lip as he stared at her.

 

Well, even if she hadn’t said it, they would have gotten to know each other on the next mission anyway.

 

I don’t blame her for bringing it up.

 

The timing was a bit off, though.

 

“Well, everyone. First of all, I’d like to point out that the mission at the Rapid Transit Station that Baek Iri and Seo Jun went on was not an “exorcism” mission, but a “reconnaissance” mission.”

Pressing down on this murderous atmosphere, Exorcist Shin Ji Woon said.

 

“Now that that’s out of the way, should we get up and leave? You two students will receive separate damage compensation.”

Exorcist Shin Ji Woon quickly summarized the situation.

 

We followed him and got up from our fidgeting positions.

 

***

  “Are you all going straight home?”

Exorcist Ji Woon asked.

 “Uh-huh.”

Yin Charang answered first.

 “Our parents are talking at the association. We’re gonna wait here a little longer, then we’ll take their car.”

replied Seon-yeo and Hanju.

 

Exorcist Ji Woon turned to me and asked.

“How about you?” “I’m… Uh…”,

I stopped answering and stared at Exorcist Ji Woon.

 

“Anything you want to say?”

 

 “There’s something else I’d like to ask you.”

I finally said.

 “Well, do you want to talk about it here?” “No, there’s something I’d like to check out.” “Then let’s go to the association together,”

he urged.

 “Guys, that’s it. I’m going to the association.”

I informed the other three.

 

The association was a five-minute walk from the cafe.

 

I was escorted by Exorcist Ji Woon into an empty conference room.

 

“What do you want to see?”

He finally asked.

 “Data on the Rapid Transit Station mission. Oh, and can we also find out what mission Seo Jun and Yin Charang were on? The one where Charang was badly injured.” “I’ll have both of those for you in a moment, but I can’t give you the details of the latter mission, because that would be like revealing someone’s test scores without permission.” “Yes, just knowing what the mission was will suffice, thank you.”

 

Exorcist Ji Woon quickly returned with a few papers.

“These are the materials for the Rapid Transit Station.” “Thank you.”

I took the first couple of papers.

 

Reconnaissance mission regarding the disappearance of Exit 9 of the express terminal station.

─It will take about two to three weeks for the police to fully hand over the investigation to the Exorcism Society, giving you plenty of time to prepare for the mission.

 

I wondered why it was so slow for a missing person’s case, but then I realized there was a problem with the investigative authority.

 

I skimmed the paragraph.

 

And soon I realized that the exorcist was right.

 

All of the forms that had been filled out to nominate candidates for assignments to the Academy to investigate missing persons cases had said,

“Aspirants are to be assigned only light reconnaissance”

.

 

It didn’t make sense that the wording could have been changed in the short time I was left alone in the conference room.

 

It was strange.

 

Surely the mission order I’d been given by Seo Jun had said

“exorcism”

.

 

I couldn’t keep a busy professional on hold for hours on end, so I put my doubts aside and accepted the assignment that Seo Jun and Yin Charang had left.

 

─Exorcise and dispose of a possessed doll

The ghosts in the dolls were presumed to be weakly powerful demons.To evaluate whether they could properly separate spirits from objects, and whether they understood how to deal with disturbed objects.

 

It was an ordinary mission.

 

What the hell was he doing back there that almost killed him?

 

From this, I couldn’t figure out whose fault it was that he was so close to death.

 

But holding on to the documents wasn’t going to help me figure anything out, so I thanked the exorcist and left the room.

 

The exorcist kindly told me to contact him if I had any questions.

 

As I turned to leave, a familiar face stopped me.

 

Yin Charang was waiting at the front door of the association.

 

“What’s up, you didn’t go home yet?”

I asked innocently.

 “I told you earlier. Seo Jun’s partner was always me.”

 

You waited all this time to say that?

 

But what Yin Charang spat out next was even worse.

 

“It was me, and it will always be me.”

 

Hearing those words, I hardened my heart.

 

“Charang, what can we do? Seo Jun is supposed to go with me on the next mission.”

 

Charang’s face stiffened. The last bit of light in his eyes vanished.

 

His green eyes held a dullness that I couldn’t tell was annoyance.

 

I spoke up, unperturbed.

“So shut up. Don’t be an asshole.”