An Exorcist Magical Girl!

The next day at school, I had to fight an uphill battle with my eyelids that kept closing.

 

It was a good thing school ended early because of the exams.

 

Due to the split in electives, I finished my test in second period, while Seo Jun had a third period test left.

 

This gave me about an hour to kill.

 

When I was wondering where I should spend my time, Cha Hanbyul suggested that we go to the vegetable garden, saying that she was in the same situation. 

 

So we decided to relax in the vegetable garden behind the school building and wait for our respective friends.

 

I hadn’t been to the garden since I exorcized the girl’s ghost.

 

Well, not much has changed since then. It hadn’t been that long since then.

 

We walked around the garden, checked out the tomatoes and lettuce, and laid down on a long bench to photosynthesize.

 

The aftermath of yesterday’s day washed over me as soon as I laid down.

 

Maybe thirty minutes passed.

 

I woke up to the sound of Hanbyul calling me.

 

“Hey, Baek Iri, are you sleeping?” “Uh, no. Why?”

I grunted.

 “You’re still taking those exorcism requests, aren’t you?”

Hanbyul asked.

 “Oh, yeah! Of course!”

 

I was about to say something, but at the mention of the word

“request”

I reflexively leapt to my feet.

 

“The class president of class three is a friend of mine, and she wants to ask you for an exorcism. Can I give her your number?” “Yes, here’s my number. I posted it on the hallway bulletin board anyway.” “Oh, you did, didn’t you? Is it still up?” “No. The teachers told me to take them down.” “What?!”

Cha Hanbyul, who had been clutching her phone, screamed and jumped up.

 

“Ha-Hanbyul, please be quiet. They’re still taking the test.”

I tried to calm her down.

 “Oh… Right.”

Hanbyul covered her mouth in embarrassment.

 

Luckily, the teachers didn’t kick her out or anything.

 

“They can’t even solve the ghost problem, so why are they interfering with your work? It’s ridiculous. Oh my God. They don’t call it “half the battle” for nothing.”

Hanbyul lowered her voice to a whisper of frustration.

 

“I know.” 

I didn’t like the school’s behavior either, so I agreed with Hanbyul’s complaint vehemently.

 

***

 

 

“Have you heard from the class president I told you about? I gave her your number earlier.” 

After a while of gossiping about school, Hanbyul brought up the subject of the request again.

 

Just then, a message popped up on my phone. I had my phone on silent for the exam, so the notification didn’t sound.

 

“Is this your friend?”

I showed her the name at the top of the chat room. 

 

I couldn’t recognize her real name because it was written with an initial

“ㅈ”

in the name field.

 

Hanbyul looked at my phone and said that it’s her friend.

 

Yang Ji-won, the president of class three, sent a cute emoji of a hamster waving.

 

This was immediately followed by a message that was not cute at all.

 

—I’d like to meet and talk about some job, when is a good time?

 

“Hanbyul.” “Yes?” “What the hell is this girl trying to get me to do, murder?” “Oh, come on, you can’t ask me that when I’m buying you a glass of grapefruit.” 

Well, sure. I don’t think it’s a bit, but no matter what the price, one shouldn’t be soliciting murders.

 

I held on to my fuzzy head and got in touch with Yang Ji-won.

 

She’s a prospective client, so I’ve been very nice to her, but if she asks me to do something that’s actually legally problematic, I’ll turn on her.

 

“Did she schedule an appointment?”

Hanbyul asked.

 “Yep. I’m going to see her the day after the exam.” “Oh, so that’s next Thursday?” “Because I’ve got five days of exams, and I’ve got a day off… Uh huh, right. Thursday. Anyway, thanks for the introduction, Hanbyul.”  “Oh, come on. Just do the request and let me off the hook. I’m really curious. Yang Ji-won won’t tell me what she was going to ask you to do.” “Oh, really?”

 

What, is it confidential?

 

“Well, I guess I can tell you as much as she’ll let me…”

I trailed off in apology.

 

My credibility in this business would plummet if I were to go around blabbing about what the client was trying to keep secret.

 

I shouldn’t even be doing it in the first place.

 “I see.”

Luckily, Hanbyul was quick to agree. She switched targets.

“Then tell Yang Ji-won to tell me.” 

She clutched her phone again and lay sprawled out, while I leaned back on the bench at an angle and went back into photosynthesis mode.

 

Soon, the chime that signaled the end of the exam echoed through the school.

 

“Hey, Cha Hanbyul, let’s go home!”

 

Hanbyul’s friend came down to the garden first. It’s her friend from the broadcasting department.

 

“I’ll go first, Ciao!”

Hanbyul said goodbye to me while waving.

 “Bye, bye. See you Monday.”

I waved back.

 

Hanbyul waved cheerfully and ran back to her friend, jumping up and down.

 

I added the appointment with Yang Ji-won to my calendar and waited leisurely for Seo Jun to come downstairs.

 

About five minutes later, Seo Jun appeared in the garden.

 

“I’ve been waiting a long time. My phone rang right after the exam, so I had to make a quick call.”

Seo Jun said.

 “That’s okay. Who was it?”

I asked.

 “The Exorcist Ji Woon. He said you weren’t answering your phone, so he asked me to come get you.” “Eh? He called?”

 

I quickly checked my phone.

 

There were a couple of missed calls from four minutes ago.

 

“Oh, you did call, but it was silent…”

 

I turned to Seo Jun, who had left her phone on silent.

“Should I go see him right now?” “Yeah, he’s at a cafe around here. It’s just around the corner from the one we went to last time.”  “He’s been through a lot, too. Didn’t he stay up late last night in the park investigating?”

I asked.

 “Yeah.” “I should never work for an association.”

I thought.

 “… Me neither.”

Seo Jun agreed.

 

I’d only been to the cafe once before and had forgotten the way, so I meekly followed Seo Jun’s directions this time.

  

I arrive at the café, grumpy, to find the exorcist sitting in the corner.

 

***

 “Hi.”

I waved at Exorcist Ji Woon.

 “Oh, thanks for getting here so quickly, please have a seat.” “Sure.”

 

As soon as we were seated, Exorcist Ji Woon began.

 

“I’d like to give you the results of our investigation yesterday, and I’d like the two of you to check with us to see if we missed anything.” 

With that, the exorcist pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and showed us some photos.

 

“These were taken yesterday at the scene. Take a look at these traces here.”

 

The photo showed the beginning of the rose tunnel, where the invisible wall had been.

 

A section of arched barbed wire columns peeked through the rose stems.

 

At the bottom of it was a hand mirror with a long vertical crack.

 

Next to the mirror in the photo was a red thread wrapped around the barbed wire and the charred head of an animal carcass.

 

“Ugh, what is this?” “It’s a trace of the artificial creation of the mirrored space.”

 

As he began to explain, the exorcist pulled something out of his bag and placed it on the table.

 

It was the hand mirror in the photo.

 

“You said that you were trapped in an otherworldly space with the properties of a mirror, and it seems that this hand mirror and a sacrifice was used to create the otherworldly space, and this red thread was used to bind the mirror and the sacrifice.” “Did they perform some sort of ritual with the offerings?”

I asked.

 “Yes, it appears so, and to correct what I said earlier, they didn’t create a new anomaly, they just modified the space reflected in the hand mirror to a size that a person could enter.” “Oh, so the anomaly we were in was actually the space inside the hand mirror?” “Yes.”

He confirmed.

 “Oh, wait, so whoever the Rose Tunnel search team was, they didn’t find this? I mean, it’s just not visible from the outside, but if you poke around with some tongs, you’ll actually see it.”

 

The exorcist sighed at my question.

 

“I checked and it turns out that no search teams were assigned to those tunnels, which is a real shame.” “Well, that makes it pretty clear that there’s someone in the association who’s in cahoots with the killer.”

Seo Jun, who had been quietly listening to the exorcist’s questions and answers, asked.

 

“So the crack in the hand mirror is because we created an exit to the space, right?”

Seo Jun added.

 “Yes, that is correct, and if you look closely at the surface of the hand mirror here, there are two places where shards of the mirror have completely broken off. The mirror suffered more than just cracks when the two of you escaped.”

 

Exorcist Ji Woon pushed aside his weariness and continued.

 

“As you might have guessed, the killer was trying to use this to kidnap you. Perhaps he intended to trap someone in this hand mirror and transport them, though we don’t yet know where he intended to take them or what his ultimate goal was.” 

The way they were trying to trap a person in a portable mirror was a sure sign of kidnapping.

 

“So, is it the same culprit as last time in Banho Shopping Center? The method is different, but the goal is the same, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that student exorcists were involved both times. Seo Jun, you’ve heard about it at the training center, about Yeo Seon-yeo and Hwang Hanju.” “Yes, I know.” 

When Seo Jun replied that she knew, the exorcist’s face showed relief.

 

He didn’t have the energy to explain the whole story from the beginning.

 

“You’re saying that there might be a faction trying to kidnap a high school exorcist?” “Yes. Well, we think so too, and we’re investigating. Oh, and about this mirror, I think you can have it.”

 

Exorcist Ji Woon handed me the mirror.

 

“What? Me?”

 

Isn’t this evidence? Why would I want this?

 

I stared at it in disbelief, and he gave me an even more disbelieving answer.

 

“Oh, well. It says the owner of this mirror is a student named Baek Iri.” “What?” 

The owner of the evidence is me? Am I a suspect, a killer, or something?

 “Uh, that’s not mine, I don’t carry a mirror or anything, and I don’t even look in the bathroom mirrors.”

 

Exorcist Ji Woon chuckled at my exasperation.

 

“Not that I suspect you of being the culprit, Baek Iri, you said you cast a spatial skill when you escaped, right?” “Yes, that’s right, I did.” “Because the mirror was imbued with your power, the mirror recognized you as its owner. In other words, it’s as if you carved your name into the mirror.”  “But still, it’s evidence, and I don’t think the investigation is over, so why can you just give it to me?”

I said, trying to push the hand mirror back.

 “Oh, we can’t investigate it anyway.” 

 

‘What the hell?’

 I thought.

 

“As long as the mirror serves you as its master, there’s nothing anyone else can find out from it, let alone investigate, or even simply use.” “Is that so…?”

 

When I hesitated, the exorcist turned the mirror himself and tried to reflect his and Seo Jun’s reflection.

 

To my surprise, I didn’t see their reflection. Only my face was reflected.

 

“Would you like to try it out?”

I took the mirror and looked at myself.

 

As I held the mirror, I could see the other people in it properly.

 

“Wow, it has all these things. Seo Jun, do you want to try it?” “No thanks.”

 

Seo Jun rejected my offer coldly and turned to the exorcist.

 

“So, you’re leaving Baek Iri to investigate the mirror?” “No. The mirror is hers to keep and dispose of as she wishes. Actually, the mirror itself doesn’t mean much anymore, because with a new owner, any information about the criminals who used it before has probably been lost. So instead of holding a mirror, we should be investigating the way the ritual was performed and the marks left on the offerings.”

 

I was still dumbfounded.

 

“…recognizes me as its owner?”

I mumbled to myself.

 

As if in answer, the mirror’s surface shimmered.