An Exorcist Magical Girl!

He said he’d explain the details later and hung up.

 

Ping!

 

—I received a message with the address.

 

Banho Shopping Center.

 

I plotted the address on a map and realized it was a commercial building in the Banho apartment complex, not too far from here.

 

“Should we go there?”

Seo Jun asked quietly.

 

I nodded. I couldn’t find my voice.

 

“Get yourself together. I’ll call you a cab.”

Seo Jun slapped me loudly on the back.

 

It jolted me awake.

 

The director said my team’s mission was today. Something must have happened when I left for the mission.

 

As I recall, I was teamed up with…

 

“I’m pretty sure my partner’s name is—” 

I stuttered, unsure, and Seo Jun took over.

“Hanju Hwang and Yeo Seon-yeo.”

 

“That’s right, Hanju. Hanju Hwang and Yeo Seon-yeo. The mission we chose, the exorcism of the Jibak spirit, I think.”

I muttered, trying to organize my confused thoughts.

 

The only information I’d been given was that the students on the mission were in danger, and that they needed an S-rank or higher exorcist to resolve it.

 

What the hell am I going to face now?

 

“It’s a dangerous situation.”

 

A voice I didn’t want to think about pierced my ears like a hot wind.

 

I have to pull myself together. I have a job to do, and I need to go where I’m needed.

  

***

  “Taxi is here. Let’s go.”

 

Seo Jun looked at the notification on her phone and pushed me out of the store.

 

The taxi didn’t take long to arrive at our destination.

 

A five-story mercantile building with a rusted exterior.

 

The ashen exterior walls are covered in graffiti of unknown date, countless flyers have been tacked up and taken down, and the once-colorful signage is faded and lifeless.

 

The glass doors in the center of the ground floor of the mall were firmly closed, with no one coming or going.

 

It seemed that the director and some of the teachers from the training center, who were the first to arrive on the scene after what happened to Hwang’s team, had cleared out all the people in the mall.

 

At first glance, time seemed to have stopped in the mall.

 

The only thing moving in the gray cuboid building was a rotating sign for a beauty salon on the outside wall of the first floor.

 

The revolving sign never stopped spinning, a constant reminder that the deserted mall in the middle of the day was no fantasy.

 

A couple of police cars parked outside the glass doors of the building’s entrance.

 

Apparently, the teachers couldn’t evacuate the mall alone. They must have had some help from the police.

 

The director stood a few feet away from the uniformed officers.

 

I didn’t have to look closely to see the worry in his wrinkled eyes.

 

One of the boys next to him, listening to the story with a serious face, spotted me and said.

 

“I think there’s someone else here, Mr. Director.”

 

I recognized the face.

 

His expression was stern, but it didn’t completely hide his natural flirtatiousness.

 

His light brown curly hair swayed in the breeze, softening the atmosphere.

 

“I called for her,”

the director said.

 “Who is it? I thought you only called S-rank and above, so I assumed it was me.”

 

He sounded strangely nervous.

 

“In the old days, you would have. I’m late with the introductions. She’s the new S-rank, the new kid.” “What?” “Now, now. You can say hello later. Let’s get out there and start searching. You know we have to hurry.”

 

At the director’s urging, the boy looked away from me and started walking toward the back of the building.

 

After letting the boy in, the teacher grabbed me and began to explain the situation like a rapid-fire cannon.

 

“Don’t be alarmed,”

he said,

“your job is to find the spirits of Yeo Seon-yeo and Hanju Hwang, who must be somewhere inside the store.”

 

There was no time for questions.

 

“I don’t know how the Association misunderstood the difficulty of the mission, but it went off without a hitch. It was supposed to be a simple task, just exorcizing the ghost on the stairs from the third to the fourth floor of the mall, but apparently it wasn’t the only one.”

 

According to the schedule, the exorcism was supposed to be over by 15:00.

 

It should have been a quick job.

 

However, at 14:50, the message from Yeo said that the exorcism was over, but instead of saying that it was over, it said something else.

 

─Director, this is not an exorcism.

 

That was the last time they heard from her.

The teacher pressed her brows together and said.

 

“To conclude, Yeo Seon-yeo and Hanju’s souls have bounced out of their bodies. We’re still trying to figure out the cause. We need to retrieve their spirits first. I’ve sealed off the entire shop to prevent them from leaving, so they’re probably still in there.” 

Yeo Seon-yeo and Hanju Hwang are tasked with exterminating a ghost that sits on the stairs of a shopping mall and walks on people’s legs.

 

No one expected such an easy task to turn into such a big problem.

 

I wondered what I could do in this situation.

 

“Please tell me exactly what I need to do.”

 

The teacher pulled an amulet out of her bosom.

 

“You know this amulet, right?”

 

A familiar symbol was drawn on the paper.

 

It was the same kind of amulet Seo Jun had used to locate the man-eating ghost at the Rapid Transit Station.

 

The same amulet that would lead me to my target.

 “I didn’t use it myself, I just saw Seo Jun use it.”

 

The only difference was that this one had an extra symbol on the edge.

 

It was the same pattern that Seo Jun had drawn on the exorcism amulet she’d given me.

 

“I just need to know what it is. There’s not much to it, just keep picturing in your mind what you’re looking for.” “What I saw was a version without this symbol.”

 

I point to the edge of the amulet, and she explains that it’s a symbol that allows someone who doesn’t understand the language and structure of the amulet to get the full effect of the amulet.

Ah, so that’s why Seo Jun put the symbols on my amulet, since she’s a great talisman maker herself and wouldn’t need them on her own amulet.

 

“Baek Iri, why do you still look so puzzled?”

 

She’s a teacher, after all. She could tell from my expression that I was nervous about something.

 

“Writing this means that Seon-yeo and Hanju are using…”

 

I hesitated for a moment. It was an awkward thing to say but I had to make it clear.

 “Are you saying that Seon-yeo and Hanju are dead?” “No.”

 

Luckily, I avoided the answer I feared.

 

“They’re as close to dead as you can get. Their soul is out of their body.”

 

The explanation quickly followed that a living soul is a much stronger entity than a dead soul.

 

The

“soul of a person”

in a body is so powerful in its own right that it can’t be located or summoned with an amulet, as is common with ghosts.

 

If it were possible to track and summon a paper shredder in the first place, every missing person in the world would be solved with an amulet.

 

Right now, the spirits of Yeo Seon-yeo and Hanju Hwang are alive, but they’re out of their bodies.

 

So while it’s possible to locate them with a talisman, it would take as much power as it would take to locate a powerful demon.

 

That’s why they’ve summoned an S-rank exorcist.

 

“So, you’re looking for an S-rank or higher, so that you can push the amulet’s power beyond its limits?”

 

The teacher was slightly surprised by my question.

 

“You know that well.” “I’ve done that before, a few days ago.”

 

S-rank and above can temporarily extend the amulet’s effectiveness even against stronger ghosts.

 

It was thanks to it that I was able to summon the life-thirsty ghost to the girl statue.

  

***

 

Seeing that the doubts on my face had cleared up, the teacher opened the glass door for me.

 “Yin Charang, the boy who went in first, decided to look for Hanju. Come here, you will find Seon-Yeo.” “Alright.” “Please, come here.”

 

With the teacher’s heavy voice, the glass door slammed shut behind them.

 

【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】【Status: Utilized】【Total – Open ▾■■■■■■■■□□ …80% ▾】【Skill: – 】

 

I opened the circle and activated the amulet.

 

“Yeo Seon-yeo. I need to find her.”

 

The amulet turned black, from the red symbols to the yellow background.

 

A tiny flame sparked in one corner.

 

As I had seen that day, the amulet burned and gave me directions.

 

The interior of the mall was quite large and complex. There were two basement levels, so in total, we had to search seven floors.

 

It was understandable that they would use the amulet to find it.

 

Maybe it’s because everyone has left but it was chilly even in broad daylight.

 

Ping!

 

My heart skipped a beat as my cell phone rang louder than usual.

The director had told me to keep the notification on so I could receive it as soon as the information was updated.

 

How pathetic of me to be so distracted by my phone.

 

I scolded myself, then checked the message.

 

 

A cold breeze blew over my shoulder as I read the message.

 

“What the hell?!”

 

My nerves were on edge.

 

The ghost in the form of a child giggled and flew forward.

 

They say ghosts have no intelligence, so they don’t know if they’re supposed to be there or not.

 

Do they mean I shouldn’t exorcize ghosts when they’re running around?

 

Actually, they’re just little buggers, and if they bother me, I can just ignore them, but if a really strong one shows up, it’s a big deal.

 

I’d better hurry.

 

I hurried down the hall, guided by the embers in my amulet. 

 

There was an elevator off to the side of the small guardhouse and a staircase behind it.

 

The flame pointed up the stairs.

 

I followed the direction of the flames to the third floor.

 

The moderate flame suddenly grew insane, consuming the entire amulet in an instant.

 

“What’s going on? Hey, hey, hey, isn’t this…?!”

 

I could only stare helplessly at the ashes scattering from my fingertips.

 

In a panic, I shook the hand that had held the amulet ten seconds ago, knowing that it would not bring it back to life.

 

I wondered if this was how a raccoon felt after eating cotton candy.

 

I grabbed a few more amulets. But at this rate, I’d use them all up before I could pinpoint a location.

 

Oh, darn it.

 

Just then, a scene from the other day flashed through my mind.

 

Seo Jun had cut her index finger with the corner of a piece of paper.

 

The blood soaked the amulet red.

 

She said something. I think she said that the amulet paper wouldn’t hold up if she didn’t use blood despite the magnitude of the event.

 

The scale of the event refers to the level of the ghost that caused the event.

 

The stronger the ghost, the more power it takes to summon or find it.

 

I pulled out my new amulet and ran my fingertips over it, remembering Seo Jun’s words.

 

A drop of blood trickled down the sharp, stiff tip of the paper.

 

“Right”

 

Following the newly glowing flame, I made my way past the bookstore, the family doctor’s office, and the dentist.

 

Around the third corner, the flame at the tip of the amulet died down.

 

It was a sign that I had reached my destination.

 

Here was Yeo Seon-yeo.

 

 

In a nervous voice, I called out to her.

“Seon-yeo, it’s me Baek Iri… Can you hear me?”

.

 

I didn’t know if she could hear me or not.

 

In the distance, I saw a familiar face.