An Exorcist Magical Girl!

It’s lunchtime and the classrooms are empty as everyone rushes to the cafeteria.

 

I rolled up my yellow blanket and pressed my forehead against my hastily made pillow.

 

Not in my seat, but right next to the back door but I wasn’t really trying to sleep.

 

My eyes fluttered open and I remembered the situation earlier. A heated talk about scissors had swept the classroom.

 

Apparently, there were quite a few people in this classroom, as well as in other grades and classes, who had fallen asleep in their seats near the classroom door and been cut by a scissor. 

 

Similar stories were spreading like wildfire.

 

There were a lot of students here and there who said that they had heard the same story.

 

Anyway, all of the people who had been cut said they first heard a crying child knocking on the door.

 “Is that why you woke me up last night and yelled at me not to open the door?!”

I finally noticed, raising an eyebrow.

 “Yeah. Do you get it now?”,

She replied.

 “Well, Seo Jun, you bought me bread from the canteen, so I don’t have any complaints, but I have one question.”  “What is it?”  

I pondered on the thought.

“I’m not the only one who sleeps during lunch, but what’s to say that a ghost will appear in front of me? In my old school, there were a lot of students who didn’t eat and slept on bad days.”

 

 “Ah, good question. You’re right, the ghosts are random. There are always students sleeping, and there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be one sleeping by the door right now.”  “I see.”

I nodded, agreeing to her point.

 “Well, of course, I’m not going to tell you to just push your luck and wait it out, that’s a waste of time.”

She sounded like she knew what I was going to say and what I was worried about.

 “Yeah, sure.”

When I nodded my head in agreement, Seo Jun rummaged through her bag and pulled out a sheet of lined paper. She began to scribble on it with a red pen.

 “I will summon the ghost before you.” *** 

The hand holding the pen moved busily, and the parchment was soon filled with red symbols.

 “What is this? Is it an amulet or something?”,

sounding like an innocent kid.

 “That’s right.”

Keeping her eyes fixed on the paper, Seo Jun quickly answered my questioning mutterings to myself. 

 

Then she dotted the corners of her ears and handed the paper to me.

 “What?”

I asked.

 “Take it. It’s done.”

Seo Jun put the paper in my hand.

 “Already?”  

She shrugged,

“I can make a simple amulet like this quickly.” 

The amulet was finished in a flash. As I stared at it open-mouthed, Seo Jun traced the symbols with her hands, explaining their meaning and use.

 “It’s a specific spell, and if you keep thinking of the spirit you want to exorcise, it will work on its own, and by dotting the corners of the paper like this, you’re binding the spirit’s energy to the paper.”

Seo Jun explained.

 “Oh, that’s interesting. How do you know this stuff? Do they teach it in school?” 

Seo Jun tried to explain.

“I learned it from —”  

As I accepted the amulet and inspected the dish, Seo Jun barked at me to get back to my seat, the little bastard. Shame on her.

 

I clutched the amulet tightly in my hand and looked around the classroom for something I could use as a weapon.

 

Pencil case, sharpener, notebook …

 

I hesitantly curled the thin notebook into a wand and took a seat, just as a square-folded blanket flew by. 

 “Ow, what the hell!”  

Seo Jun had thrown it.

 “Use it as a pillow.”

she said.

 “Am I supposed to pretend to sleep when I have an amulet?”

I asked.

 “Even if the scissor ghost is drawn to this classroom by the amulet, if there’s no one in the classroom who looks like they’re sleeping, it’ll just go away. It’s a simple amulet, it doesn’t have the power to bind the ghost.” “Okay. I’ll get down.”

while trying to wrestle the blanket to make it as comfortable as possible.

 “And you’ll want to open up your senses well enough in advance, before you’re crushed by the scissors and your senses are taken over.”

Seo Jun continued.

 “Ah, yes.” 

I went through the motions I’d practiced on my own for days, peeling away the invisible fabric in front of my face.

 

A rough, cold sensation, now quite familiar, moved along my hands.

 【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】【Status: Utilized】【Link Open】【Skills: Simple Clairvoyance | Body Color – 100%】【Skills: Simple Destruction | Body Color – 50%】 

The talent in the status window activated, indicating that the crystal circle covering my senses had opened to 50%.

 

Even during the morning, when I hadn’t opened my senses at all, there were still quite a few ghosts that I could detect. I would see something moving quickly, hear an unidentifiable thumping sound, etc.

 

This meant that there were definitely a lot of ghosts trying to open up and invade our senses.

After all, Mukgyeong Girls’ High School was famous for its ghosts.

 

Until that morning, I had encountered the school’s ghosts from the perspective of an ordinary person with no psychic abilities.

 

Not in the sense of seeing, hearing, or feeling, but in the sense of being seen, heard, and felt.

 

And now, having opened the senses with my own hands, the school was even more chaotic than it was in the morning.

 

I could see all the ghosts who had deliberately chosen to be invisible, and all the ghosts who were powerless to interfere with the system.

 

It’s not a pretty sight, but I’d rather have it a little darker.

 

I focused my attention on my senses, remembering Seo Jun’s advice earlier.

 

Opening … 50% …85%.

 

My senses opened to 85% in a flash. The clarity of the world changed in an instant.

 

I slumped back against my desk, pillowed in my blanket, with the ghosts’ mutterings as my lullaby.

 

I clutched the amulet in one hand and my notes tightly in the other.

 

And now.

 

I was only pretending to be asleep, but when I pulled the blanket over my head, sleep poured out of me.

 

I’ve been mentally exhausted for the past few days.

 

I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking that if I kept this up, I’d sleep so soundly that a ghost could tap dance on my head and I wouldn’t even notice.

 

All the while, I kept thinking about the ghost I was trying to summon, just as Seo Jun had said.

 

The ghost of a crying child knocking on the door. The ghost of a crying child knocking on the door. The ghost of a child knocking on the door, crying …

 

It was then.

 “Waaah, waaaaah!”

, The eardrum-ringing cries of a child.

 

At the same time, there was a

*thump, thump, thump*

on the back door.

 

There they are.

 

My skills haven’t changed since my assessment.

 

I only have two basic skills: Simple Clairvoyance to discover the ghost’s core and Simple Destruction to destroy the core.

 

I remembered how I struggled like a dog when I exorcized with only basic skills during the evaluation.

 

All I got out of that roll was a win in the skill total, 100% embodiment, and a trick to combine the energy of my right hand into a weapon at will.

 

At first, the energy was subconscious, but after hours of exorcisms, I was able to draw it out and infuse it into my weapons at will.

 

It’s a synergy of talent, utilization, and forced repetition.

 “Waaahhh! open it, waaahhh!” 

*Thump, thump, rattle, thump, thump.*

 

I lightly tapped the corner of the note with my index finger.

 

The cold energy in my fist radiated into the curled notes.

 

Don’t underestimate a piece of paper.

 

This was a terrifying weapon that could crush cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, and other insects in one fell swoop.

 

Besides, compared to a cockroach the size of your thumb, a ghost is just a cute little thing.

 

“Hahaha, you’re so cute…  I’ll kill you.”

 

I jumped up from my seat with the intention of killing the ghost at the same time as the door but I was stunned by the sight before me.

 

***

 

There was a ghost in the classroom.

 

Instantly, I remembered a popular elementary school myth.

 

→There was a kid who used to sneak into the school’s computer lab during vacation, but the security guard locked the door from the outside and he got trapped and died.

 

That was true. The kid knocked on the door, not to get in from the outside, but to get out from the inside.

 

I’m a little surprised by the unexpected variable, but it doesn’t change my behavior to exorcise this ghost.

 

《Skill: Simple Clairvoyance activated》

 

My gaze swept up and down the child ghost.

 

A small figure that looked like a third or fourth grader. Its movements seemed defenseless.

 

The core should be easy to find but I couldn’t see it.

 

Not in the head, not near the heart.

 

There was no core anywhere on the body.

 

I was faced with a variable worse than the ghost being inside the door.

 

‘Wait a minute, a variable?’

I thought

.

 

Haha, I’ve been dumbfounded. The first one wasn’t a variable, it was a contradiction.

 “You’re not a child ghost, are you?”

I smacked it in the back of the head with all my might.

 Bam! 

God. Its ears twitch and its head turns toward me. Its face is creepily expressionless, unlike its pitiful cries.

 

It soon began to laugh, contorting its entire body in grotesque ways.

 Tsk, tsk, tsk. 

The ghost sheds its childlike appearance as if molting.

 

If you’re really a

“mythical ghost”

trapped in a school somewhere, there’s no way you’re going to be able to leave even after you die.

 

It’s called a possession. My knowledge of exorcism is still zero, but I do know the word.

 

But this guy showed up in the classroom, no matter how many floors up.

 

This was not possible according to common sense.

 

I don’t know why or how, but this kid in front of me was imitating a school ghost.

 Ding, ding, ding. 

Finally, it emerged from its flaky shell, and it was a two-meter-tall straw doll.

 

Black-red stains, whether from rot or blood, were visible all over its body. A reddish glow through the stains on the largest breastbone.

 

When the body appeared, the core was clearly visible.

 

The doll lunged at me, its skinny, twisted body shaking.

 

A long arm flew out, aiming for my throat.

 

I ducked low to avoid the arm, and then used the momentum to launch myself at the doll’s chest arm.

 

《Skill: Simple Destruction activated.》

 

I swung the notebook like a baseball bat and struck the Straw doll ghost. The black energy in the notebook scattered like a comic book effect.

 

The Straw doll ghost didn’t stand still. It attacked, poking my hand with its jagged, protruding sticks.

 “Oh, it stings.” 

I tightened my grip on the notebook and pushed the Straw doll ghost up against the wall.

 

Like a nail in a curse doll, I stabbed the notebook into the puppet’s chest arm and slammed it down with my fist.

 Bang, bang, bang, bang! 

Keep going until the tip of the notebook rolled up like a trumpet breaks the nucleus.

 

Faster and faster.

 

Finally, with a jubilant sound, the core shattered.

 

The doll’s body collapsed, as if engulfed in flames, and it was reduced to ashes.

 

The exorcism is complete.

 

I smirked at Seo Jun by the table.

 

Seo Jun, who had watched everything with an expressionless face, spoke up.

“There are two kinds of straw dolls: human substitutes made to cast curses, and… ” 

Seo Jun jerked at the last of the vanishing ashes and continued.

“Those born as someone’s alter ego and given a mind of their own. I think that one just now was the latter, because such things can be cloaked.” “Did you know that?”

I asked.

 “No, I didn’t. I didn’t realize it until you started cursing at the ghost. I should have helped you, but you took care of it on your own. You only used basic skills, right?”  “Oh, yeah.”

I said, not very amused.

 “Your weapon was crappy, and… I know you felt it on evaluation day, but you’re amazing.”  

What? What did she just say? Amazing?

 “Your talent, even if you’re not good, you’re at least S-rank, right?”

Seo Jun asked, clearly intrigued by me.

 

I nodded, kind of stunned. Because she was right.

 

Then the corner of Seo Jun’s mouth twitched upward. A faint smile crossed her blank face.

“You’re a genius.” 

A genius.

 

That one word made my stomach turn.

 

It was the first time I’d ever gotten confirmation from someone other than a talent rating.

 

Then it happened. The status window vibrated and popped up.

 

《

【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】

Defense against deletion crisis is 4.5% complete》