An Exorcist Magical Girl!

Once we had safely incinerated the remains of the doll and shopping bag, it was almost time for class.

 

We headed back to our respective classrooms, looking forward to next Friday.

 

“How’s your time with the club going?”

 

Yuri asked on the way up to the classroom.

 

“It’s fun! The others are nice. Oh, and I actually like knitting.” “Really? I’m glad to hear that.” 

Yuri smiled brightly.

 

I gave her credit for taking care of me and asked her the question I had been wondering about earlier.

 

“Oh, by the way, who was that… Kang?” “Kang Yoonju?” “Yeah, Kang Yoonju. Were there any other girls like her?” 

Yuri tilted her head at my question.

 

“Girls like Yoonju?” “The brave ones who practice necromancy at school.” “Oh, she was probably the only one, as far as I know. It’s such a sensitive issue at school that rumors travel really fast. But I haven’t heard anything about her yet.’ “I see. So she was alone during the ritual?” “Yeah, I think so. I saw her getting yelled at in the staff room, and she was the only one getting yelled at.” “Hmm, I see.”

 

I nodded, keeping my mouth shut.

 

I didn’t bother to mention that the minimum number of people for a necromancy ritual is two.

 

 

***

  

Today during the fifth and sixth period, there were no clubs, but instead we had CPR training in every class.

 

When I returned to the classroom after lunch,  I found a CPR training dummy and a bag under the table.

 

Hanbyul, who came in after me, saw it and jumped up in surprise.

 

“Oh, my God, I thought it was a dead body!”

 

It was certainly a frightening sight.

 

From the back door, it would have looked like a real person lying there, with the waist delicately hidden by the table.

 

“You’re early.”

 

Seo Jun muttered as she picked up the dummy and placed it on the table.

 

Thankfully, the students who came back to class later took one look at the model and walked past it without freaking out.

 

I sat down and began sketching in my notebook.

 

I wanted to finish the art team assignment Hana had given me earlier,

“Sketch a Poster Idea,”

as soon as possible.

 

I thought it could be a picture of a man praying while looking at a spider, right? Or maybe a scene of someone cutting thread with scissors.

 

Since the quality was going to suck anyway, I decided to show my sincerity with quantity.

 

I scribbled about three pages,

 

“Are you making an amulet?”

Seo Jun asked from next to me.

 

I turned around in a panic, and she actually thought I was drawing an amulet, so I couldn’t even say anything back.

 “No, ah… Okay…” “What kind of amulet?” “Didn’t it occur to you that it might not be an amulet?” “Isn’t it?” “That’s it. Go away.” “So it wasn’t an amulet?”

Seo Jun pondered for a moment, then asked again.

“So, chick in the flower garden again?” “Really?”

 

A thousand flames of anger burned inside me as I began to explain, pointing out every detail of the painting.

 

“Look. This is a spider.” “Mmm, yeah. It has eight legs.”  “This is a man praying.” “That’s a person?” “Take off the question mark.”

I barked at her.

 

Seo Jun tried again.

“A person…” “And this is a pair of scissors.” “Scissors? I have no idea.”

 

I broke down there.

 

“Seo Jun, can you please go tell Hana about this and repeat it to her? I really can’t do this.”

 

Seo Jun looked at me sympathetically, then scribbled on my drawing.

 

─This is a spider

 

─This is a person

 

─This is a pair of scissors >^.^<

 

“Dude, you’re harsh.”

 

Seo Jun giggled softly as I rolled my eyes.

 

***

 

Five minutes before lunch, the teacher came in and wrote a big announcement on the board.

 

“Due to an insufficient number of human body models, the even numbered classes will practice first. Please bring them to the front class (3rd grade) before the start of 6th period!”

 

Then she put a USB stick on the table next to the model.

 

The homeroom teacher told us to transfer the PPT and video materials stored on the USB to the classroom computer, and then she hurried back to the staff room.

 

Class president Min Jiyoon rubbed her sleepy eyes and stood up to connect the USB to the classroom computer.

 

The bell rang for the fifth period.

 

The outside teacher, who specialized in safety education, introduced himself energetically and quickly scanned the announcements on the board.

 “Oops, I have to pass it on to the next class. I originally planned to watch the PPT and video in this class and then do the exercise in the next class, but we, class 4, will quickly watch the PPT and then do the exercise in class 5. The video will be in the 6th period, okay?” “Okay.” “This class is really good at answering questions. Thank you, let’s get started.” 

Everywhere we went, we were praised for our good answers.

 

It was thanks to Hanbyul, who was always the first to answer.

 

If no one answered, everyone would have shut their mouths and looked away, but because she always took the initiative to speak up, our classmates became accustomed to responding to the teacher’s words.

  

A free spirit. But now with a touch of kindness.

 

That’s how I defined her recently.

 

By the way, I originally defined Seo Jun as

“a person I don’t know,”

but after listening to her story in the mirror, I added three letters in the middle.

 

So now Seo Jun is

“a person I don’t know and won’t know half the time.”

 

“Come out quickly from number one so we can practice!”

The class president announced.

 

Min Jiyoon repeatedly shouted

“hurry up”

and helped everyone finish the drill within five minutes.

 

“58, 59, 60. One minute left. Get out! Next! Roll call number 9, 10, come out and wait.” “Wow, it’s like a factory.”

Someone in the front snickered.

 

As a result of this, we were all able to finish the exercise a minute before the bell rang.

 “It’s already recess time. The president of this class is in charge, please pass the dummies to the next class.”

 

The outside instructor left the classroom for the break.

 

Min Jiyoon called the vice president to the front and put the dummies in a storage bag.

 

“Jiyoon, do you think you can lift it by yourself?” “I think I’ll be fine, I’ll go by myself.”

 

With the bag on her shoulder, Min Jiyoon was about to leave the classroom—

 Knock, knock, knock!

 

Someone was knocking on the front door.

 

Soon, the door slid open and a familiar face peeked out.

 

A pair of piercing eyes, round glasses, and an overall impression of a schoolboy.

 

It was Yang Ji-won, the class president of class three.

 

“Eh? Yang Ji-won!”

Hanbyul called out to Yang Ji-won.

 

Yang Ji-won greeted Hanbyul and me with a slight wave of her hand.

 

Then she looked at our class president, Min Jiyoon, and took out the paper she had brought to our class.

 

“I came to give you thi-this.”

 

Yang Ji-won stuttered immediately, unable to hide her confused expression.

 “Why do you have a CPR mannequin in class? Will someone else bring it to us? Which class do I go to?”

 

She stuttered for a moment. Yang Ji-won quickly resumed her usual stern tone.

 

In her hand, she held the same dummy bag that Min Jiyoon was carrying.

 

Seeing it, Min Jiyoon’s face turned red with embarrassment.

 “We were just packing the dummies to bring them to your class, and we were just about to leave.” “To our class? Why?”

 

Yang Jiwon asked, and Min Jiyoon pointed to the announcement on the board.

 

“The even numbered classes are supposed to write it first and hand it to the first class before 6th period. Why are you the ones with it?” “The teacher told us to give it to class 4. I think there’s a mistake.”

 

Everyone was confused.

 

“Didn’t they give them to the wrong people in the first place?”

Min Jiyoon asked, and Yang Jiwon nodded.

 

“That’s most likely. They must have given them to the wrong class, so one of the classes didn’t get the dummy.” “Oh, when are you going to look for it again, it’s annoying.”

 

The two class presidents exchanged troubled glances.

 

“Why don’t we leave them in each class for now? The class that needs it will find it on their own.” “That’s better, then I’ll go back to—”

 

BANG!

 

As if to stop Yang Ji-won from leaving, the door slammed violently.

 

“It’s the wind.” “Shut up.” 

Someone was about to crack a joke, but Min Jiyoon silenced them.

 

“Can’t you hear anything?”

 

A flash of frozen air.

 

In the silence, there was a scratching of cloth.

 

“Hey, why is that moving?”

 

Someone pointed to the storage bag with the lamb support.

 

A black cloth bag that didn’t move.

 

“It’s not moving.” “Oh, you’re being silly.” “No, I saw it!” 

At that moment the black cloth bag squirmed as if there was a live animal inside.

 

“I’m right!”

 

At the same time that the first person to speak up cried out in despair, everyone in the classroom was thinking.

 

Should they throw it outside, or should they walk out?

 

For less than a second.

 

In their minds, they simulated the worst possible outcome in each case.

 

But they soon realized that they didn’t need to think about it.

 

Their bodies were too stiff to take a single step.

 

The scratching of fabric was followed by the sound of the bag’s zipper sliding open from the inside.

 

A dummy pulled itself out of the bag and stood upright.

 

It was obviously only partially constructed.

 

The body crawled out of the open black fabric, complete with two arms and two legs, and was dressed in a school uniform.

 

It looks like a mannequin you’d find in a student clothing store.

 

Barely even a dummy anymore, it staggered a few steps before falling flat on its face.

 

Then, it stood up, head first.

 

*Thump, thump, thump* 

It stood up straight, head thumping, and moved to stand right next to the classroom table,

 

“…I’m bored. I’m bored.”

 

It began to speak.

 

We were pressed into scissors as a group, forced to watch the whole thing without blinking an eye.

 

Our eyeballs rolled in the direction of the ghost’s movements.

 

“You’d better open up your account well enough in advance, before you’re pinned down by the ghost and your senses are taken over.”

 

I suddenly remembered what Seo Jun had told me on the first day I came to this school.

 

Her advice that day was to prevent this situation.

 

There was nothing I could do if I was trapped by the ghost.

 

I realized that I should have left my account open in the hope of preventing such an eventuality.

 

It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to keep it open, and then it closes when it’s really important.

 

Damn it, I don’t have an answer.

 

Even as I desperately tried to think of a way out of the situation, the ghost continued to talk.

 

“I am bored. I’m so tired of this.”

 Thump, thump!

 

“You don’t know this boredom. I can’t wait to get out of this boring shell, but you don’t know that. Ahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

 

Thump, thump, thump.

 

It laughed so viciously that both of its eyes were bloodshot, and then it pulled a reddish mass out of its mouth.

 

It was the core.

 

The fact that we could see the core even though our account wasn’t open, even though I didn’t use the clairvoyance skill, was because the ghost decided to

“show”

it to us.

 

It pulled its own core out of its body and placed it on the ground in front of us,

 

Bam!

 

It jumped up and landed on the core with a crash.