ISEKAI EXORCIST

I had finally stopped hyperventilating by the time we found shelter: a small house that’d once belonged to a seamstress, and which had only three rooms. According to Master Owl, we didn’t want a place too big, since we might have to defend it. The notion of having to fight off a horde of unseen monsters only made my lungs constrict tighter as I struggled to maintain a steady breath.

“You’re looking mighty scared there, boyo,” he teased me. Despite his usual annoying jabs, I noticed that he was actually quite tense. Perhaps it was instinct kicking in or perhaps he was scared of what we were up against.

“You know what kind of monster this is, right?”

“Of course, but I’m not telling you. It’s your task to find out, remember? You gain nothing from me giving you the answer.”

“What are all those… those things?”

“Something like energy signatures?” he replied, sounding himself uncertain.

Rana stood near where we were sitting, arms crossed and on guard. Her shield was strapped to her arm, so she was clearly prepared for a fight, though it seemed obvious that she had no idea what it was that both Owl and I saw. Those handprints were also inside the house, as well as footprints. It was creeping me out that such things were only visible when I wore the goggles. Without them I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. I vowed to never take them off again.

“Here,” Master Owl said as he handed me a small hide pouch with a string that could be pulled to close it. I opened it slightly and looked inside. Something off-white like chalk dust was within.

“Line all the windows and doors with a thin layer of that, but don’t use too much, it’s expensive.”

I got up from the stool I’d been sitting on. I was still very exhausted from the hike to the village, and my legs were aching, but I doubted I’d be able to find rest in this place now.

“What is this?” I asked, as I started spreading a thin line in front of the doorway we’d entered through.

“Sacred Corpse Ash,” he replied.

I blinked a few times, then the name properly sunk in and I felt incredibly gross for having it all over my hands.

“I think I’m gonna go wash my hands in the river after I’m done,” I told him.

“Don’t leave this house,” he said, his serious tone brokering no argument.

We’re really in it here, aren’t we? How could I seriously have forgotten what I was doing here?? I scolded myself. Just because something looked peaceful, it didn’t mean it was. I could now suddenly understand why the mortality rate for my Role was so high, if all hauntings and such were so unassuming at first glance.

I frowned as I dipped my hand in the pouch and began spreading a line of the ash along the windowsill. The first sentence of the quest information suddenly echoed in my head:

Eight people have gone missing from the village known as ‘Hamsel’s Rest’ and all signs point to a Haunting, though no one knows the exact entity behind the disappearances.

I failed to supress a shudder. Whatever creature had left all those prints everywhere somehow had the ability to make people disappear without a trace. It had taken eight disappearances before the village had been abandoned… that thought alone was terrifying.

“Hey, Owl—”

“I prefer to be called ‘Master’,” he interrupted.

I frowned. “Master… this creature, does it have the ability to camouflage itself?”

He grinned in response, which made me think I was close to being correct.

After lining the two doorways and three windows of the house with the Sacred Corpse Ash, Master Owl called both Rana and I over, then had us expose our collarbones which were concealed by our clothes, before painting a single line on us both with a piece of cold and oily red chalk. Then he pulled down the neck of his own black blouse and did the same.

“What’d you do that for?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows.”

Then he held up the chalk and said, “This here is called Blood Chalk.” He handed it to me. “Keep it, along with the pouch in your hand.”

I frowned. I didn’t want this stuff… However, I didn’t argue and put both the ash pouch and chalk in the bag on my lower back that was hidden by my travel cloak.

“How am I supposed to figure out what kind of ‘entity’ is haunting this place?” I asked. It seemed like something that I ought to have been educated in, rather than this haphazard way of learning by trial-and-error, with error meaning death.

Master Owl had the look of someone who remembered something suddenly, then he grinned awkwardly and reached into his heavy coat, producing a little book that looked almost like a prayer book. Surprisingly, he held it out towards me, but, when I was about to take it, he pulled it away.

“This is the most expensive thing I’m gifting you. It’s irreplaceable. You are not its first owner and you will not be its last. Major Quests have been issued just for its retrieval, when a holder died on duty. Do you understand me?”

I pulled my hand back. I almost didn’t want to take it now. “What is it?” I asked, but part of me didn’t want to know. It had to be something terrible, I was sure.

“There are about a handful of these in the possession of Exorcists and their apprentices all over the Hallem continent, but each is unique and shaped by the knowledge and teachings of those who possessed it, making every copy a highly-knowledgeable journal on the subject matters which we are uniquely tasked to dealing with.

“In short: it is an ‘Exorcist’s Encyclopaedia’. Its first half contains knowledge about the apparitions and entities we might encounter, including creature specifics, behaviour patterns, weaknesses, ways to exorcise them, and so forth. The second half has knowledge about the spirits that can be summoned to serve as familiars. There is a bit of overlap between the two, as many of the things we might invoke to aid us can also be found in the wild, plaguing the people of this world. The last few pages contain forbidden knowledge that, if utilised, might see you hunted down by other Exorcists or Witch Hunters.

“This is quite literally a death sentence to carry on your person, but it is also your most useful tool. Knowledge is what sets you apart from everyone else. To know your enemy is to wield the sword that might slay them.”

Finishing his speech, he then offered the book to me. It was quite small for something of such significance.

“Is the answer to this Quest inside?”

“Of course.”

I frowned, but then reached out and accepted it reverently with both hands. The burden and responsibility it represented made it like a boulder in my hands, and as I took a closer look at it, I saw that it was stained with rust-coloured spots, which was, undoubtedly, old dried blood.

How many aspiring Exorcists like me have died in the possession of this book?

Owl turned to look at Rana, then did a zipper motion across his lips.

The Vanguard looked grim in response, but then said, “As a Mercenary, you see many things that you are obliged to forget. I do not care about your forbidden books, so don’t worry about me.”

The old man chuckled in response and looked to me, then said cheerfully, “She’s a keeper this one!”

I looked past him and out of the window. The village outside our borrowed house was quickly darkening, owing to the fact that we were surrounded by trees and no one tended the streetlamps here like they did in Lundia. Owl had brought out and lit his own little lantern, but its light was weak and only illuminated part of the main room.

As I looked at the fast-moving shadows eating away the remnants of sunlight, a pair of sparkling eyes behind the large tree in the village centre caught my attention. I thought at first that it was a fox or some other woodland animal that made its home here, but then I noticed the pale face to which the eyes belonged.

It was a kid, and she was staring right at us.

Just like a scared and hungry animal.

I ran for the door, but Owl caught me by the scruff of my travel cloak and stopped me dead.

“Seeing things already, boyo?”

“T-there’s a girl out there!” I screamed, pointing to the tree.

Rana came over to the window and looked to where I indicated, then turned back to me and said, “I don’t see anyone.”

I wrestled myself out of Owl’s grip and came over next to her and looked out, but those glinting eyes were gone.

“Make a note,” the old Exorcist said. “It is active in the dark.”

A cold fear ran down my body, making my arms and legs tingle. It felt like the beginnings of a panic attack. I moved away from the window, suddenly worried that it might jump through the shutters that served as the house’s windows and ventilation. After all, this world seemed to have very expensive glass, so windows were basically just square holes in the wall that were either completely blocked off or covered in horizontal panels when closed. It made me feel like we weren’t fully protected from the outside world in here, but glass wasn’t exactly an impervious barrier, so I doubted I’d have felt any safer with normal windows instead.

“Was that the monster??”

“Did you see anyone when we were exploring the village earlier?” he argued back.

“What did it look like?” Rana asked.

“It was like a little girl, maybe around the age of six? She had eyes like a cat, with that strange kind of reflection in the dark.”

“Make another note: It can see in the dark.”

I moved to a point in main room where two walls formed a corner and I felt that I could observe the window and the outside world through its panels without anything jumping me from behind, then I sat down on the stool I’d pulled over.

Owl grinned when he looked at me. “It is only watching us for now. I recommend having a peek at the Encyclopaedia. We need to get you some familiars before we truly take on this thing.”

Unlike me, the Vanguard brought a chair over to the door and window, so she could sit and keep guard. Given the fact that many of the foot and handprints were on the ceiling, I doubted she’d be able to see the creature coming. The fact that it looked like a little girl was deeply unnerving.

While keeping an eye on Rana and the window, I opened the book that Owl had given me ceremoniously. There was no foreword or intro, as the first page just immediately got into describing, with a drawing, a creature called a ‘Poltergeist’. The depiction was just a bundle of reaching hands and the brief description about the entity said that it was a lingering soul known to inhabit a single place, like a house, moving objects around, and which would, if sufficiently disturbed, throw things at people to hurt and kill them. Signs of its presence could be handprints visible with Spirit Sight, objects relocating, and sounds of someone moving about in empty rooms.

Listed forms of exorcism were: finding an object closely associated with the spirit during its time as a human and which kept it tethered to the real world, then using the Sanctify ability on it; or to perform something called a Ritual of Obsequy on the possessed location, which then had a long list of bizarre requirements, such as hair from a dead relative and grave dirt. A note written later also added that, if a Priest was available, another way to exorcise it was to exhume the corpse of the dead person whose soul was haunting the place and then performing a new funeral for them.

I frowned. It seemed quite obvious that there were many different ways of dealing with spirits and their exorcisms, with each requiring a lot of investigation to even pull off. What’s more, as I leafed through the pages, I saw that many did not have listed signs nor depictions, with a few having ominous phrases like: “There is no known way to exorcise this entity.”

Some of the drawings were also ones that I had no doubt would revisit me in my nightmares. The worst one was something called a ‘Flayed One’, which had been drawn in gruesome detail as having its skin hanging around its waist, with its upper body completely flayed. It was said to be a type of Revenant that physically manifested to punish those that had tortured it during its life. The recommended way of dealing with it was to contract a Crusader with a blessed weapon, or to use a sufficiently-powerful familiar to destroy it.

“Those are a pain to deal with,” Owl commented, suddenly standing next to me and looking at the page.

“You’ve exorcised one of these?” I asked, incredulously.

He nodded simply.

“So, find anything yet?”

“No… there are too many apparitions who have the possible sign of leaving hand and footprints.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if the answer was easy,” he replied, sounding as though it was all just a game to him.

Similar to the spirit prints, there were also many in the Encyclopaedia that could be described as ‘active at night’ and ‘can see in the dark’, which meant that I still lacked something more distinct to really understand the apparition I was dealing with.

“There’s a man outside,” Rana suddenly said.

I looked up and saw a face pressed against the window shutters, the glinting eyes staring through. My blood froze in my veins and even Owl chuckled uncomfortably. Then it began sniffing loudly, while its reflective eyes scanned the room. The Vanguard looked to Master Owl, who nodded curtly. She got up, pulled her blade from its sheath and then stabbed it through the shutters, perfectly in-between the panels.

With a high-pitched screech, the creature pulled away and Rana withdrew her weapon. Before she could clean her blade with a stained and oily cloth, Owl stopped her and came over with an empty glass vial, which he scraped the black blood on her blade into.

“What do you need that for?” she asked, as he put a cork stopper into the vial and then deposited it in a coat pocket.

He just grinned infuriatingly in response.

“Is this why you had me use the ash on the windows and doors?” I asked, my body shaking from the sudden influx of adrenaline.

“Indeed,” he replied, strolling over to sit next to me as though nothing had happened. “So,” he started, “How about you share that food you’ve been hiding from us?”

After the three of us ate all my hardtack and sausage and shared a bottle of the now-lukewarm fruit tea, I had a brief epiphany and began flipping through the book. I quickly came to the page that mentioned the ‘Bloodfiend’, which was characterised by hunting at night, a strong sense of smell, and looking just like any normal person. The cause behind them could be a few different things: a Vampire had created them by feasting on humans; a powerful cursed artefact had transformed people who found it and they now searched endlessly for food; or someone had deliberately created them by feeding people Dead Man’s Blood over a few weeks.

I almost showed the page to Owl as my answer to the Quest, but then I paused, suddenly uncertain. From the descriptions, the Bloodfiend sounded like a creature that was no different than a rabid animal looking for food. Given that the Haunter of Hamsel’s Rest was still here after the village had been abandoned, it seemed to be territorial somehow, as though something tied it to the place.

It felt as though this was a puzzle and I was still missing a piece to explain the rest. The issue with the Encyclopaedia was that it had too many possibilities, which confused me more than it helped me.

“How many do you think there are?” I asked Owl.

He just shrugged in return.

At first I had assumed it was just one creature responsible, due to the Quest description, but, when I thought about it, we had seen two different human-like entities, and the prints that glowed on the surfaces of everywhere I looked came in at least half-a-dozen shapes and sizes.

I’m definitely not sleeping tonight… I thought to myself, imagining that the house was surrounded by angry monsters on all sides.

After some prompting from Master Owl, I looked through the second half of the book, reading about the many different types of spirits that I could turn into my familiars. There seemed to be a few categories that a familiar could be assigned to: Watcher; Protector; Tracker; & Fighter.

Some of the spirits were listed in several categories, but a few weren’t categorised at all and had a strange trident mark. I pointed one out to Owl, from a spirit named, ominously, ‘Abyss Serpent’.

“Those are a kind of familiar you should not try to sign a pact with. In fact, most of the ones with this mark are forbidden to invoke.”

“I thought the forbidden parts were in the back of the book?” This one had been towards the middle of the second half. The inclusion in this part of the book seemed odd, if there was a second part specifically for banned familiars. The idea that such forbidden matter was listed in the first place was also quite unsettling.

“The latter part is more for things like raising the dead, curses, and such.”

I noticed that Rana had a brief expression of interest on her face when she heard him, but she quickly schooled her face back into a neutral mask. It was probably best to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

“You will also occasionally see that mark on some of the entries about apparitions in the first half. It usually means that you’re dealing with something that another Exorcist brought into this world. The Abyss Serpent is one such creature.”

I suddenly remembered the name, because it was one of the entries that’d had no listed way to exorcise it nor much information in general. I wondered what it did.

“A lot of the familiars you can contract with simply expect soul energy in return for their service or maybe a bit of your blood. Given that we Exorcists are basically a fountain of such energy, it is a simple thing for us to pay them. One of the Spellhand Specialisations also features familiars, but they are far more limited in what they can get, because they generally don’t have the same tier of the Soul Attribute as we do.

“The dangerous types of familiars are the ones that expect more than just your energy or blood offering in return for their aid. We generally refer to such Pacts as having Tolls or Remunerations.”

“Have you used any familiars like that?”

“Yes,” he replied simply. “I don’t recommend it.”

“The thing that took your eye, was that one of such familiars?”

“No, that was just a mistake on my end. A Pact that you form with a familiar is a contract that is binding to both you and your summoned entity. I made the dear mistake of giving a command that lay outside my contract, so the entity was allowed to take a payment in the form that it desired…”

“I don’t think I want to use a familiar,” I told him. It sounded like playing with fire.

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

I frowned. I felt sure that I was about to sign my soul away to the devil. “Which one should I pick? There are so many different ones…”

Master Owl took the book, flipped to a specific page and handed it back to me.

“Eye of the Observer,” I read out loud. It was a Watcher-type of familiar, though I wasn’t completely sure what exactly a Watcher was supposed to be good for.