An Exorcist Magical Girl!

Fortunately, this ghost arm is invisible to the naked eye.

 

I walked through the halls with confidence, holding the arm like a fishing rod.

 

A club room where I was the only person in the room.

 

I feel like I’m in deep water, drowning out the sounds of students talking, walking and playing outside the classroom.

 

This is not an assignment to show anyone.

 

It’s a ghost that drops things and is vicious, so it’s better to be without people.

 

There’s no wind, and the door slams shut behind me with a thud.

 

I wonder if the ghost knew I’d come prepared.

 

The air in the club room seems to have gotten even colder.

 【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】【Status: Utilized】【Connection─Open ▾■■■■□□□□□□…40】

 

The ghost is trying to close my account again.

 

Well, do what you want.

 【■□□□□□□□□□ …10】

 

I didn’t try as hard to open the gate as before, but I used the minimum amount of energy.

 

I had other uses for my remaining power.

 

❰Simple Clairvoyance skill has been activated❱.

 

I captured the red aura of the core.

 

It was as faint as a drop of strawberry milk in a cup of white milk, but as long as I could see it, I was fine.

 

I fixed the

“tongue and arm”

I had hidden behind my back like a sword and stabbed it into the center of the red energy.

 

‘Success!’

I thought.

 

Just when I thought I’d pierced it, the red aura of the core shook.

 

A streak of red lightning tore through the

“tongue and arm”

and flew towards my heart.

 

“Aahh!”

 

I spun quickly to avoid a direct hit to my heart, but the red flash grazed my right shoulder.

 

I knew it in my gut. The bastard had a shield around his core.

 

“There is a way to wrap the core in layers of crystals, making it indestructible.”

I remembered something I had read in a theory book.

 

I realized that what I thought I had drilled was not the core, but a layer of grain protecting the core.

 

However, the grain was very different from the

“protection”

I had imagined in the theory book.

 

A protective layer that shoots back at anyone who touches it is a pretty radical shield.

 

It was like a safety device on a safe in a cartoon. If a thief touches something wrong, a knife pops out.

 

But damn it, the knife was cursed.

 

The pain in my right shoulder radiates throughout my body.

 

The status bar beeped incessantly, frantically popping up a bunch of stupid pop-up windows.

 

❰ERROR!❱

❰WARNING❱

❰ERROR!

ERROR!❱

❰WARNING❱

 

With a sweep of my cold right arm, I wiped away the status bar.

 

I could finally focus on the scene before me.

 

The core hadn’t been destroyed, but it was still a shock, and the ghost couldn’t quite contain itself.

 

Like a man who’s been hit hard enough to keep him from dying.

 

If only I could use this moment to deal with it once and for all.

 

But my body doesn’t listen, and neither do I.

 

In the midst of the crippling pain, there was only one thing I could control.

 【Talent: Exorcist (Aspiring)】【Status: Utilized】【Connection─Open ▾ ■□□□□□□□□□ …10%】【■■■■■■■□□□ …70% 】

 

My senses were clear, thanks to the absence of the ghost’s interference.

 

The enemy in front of me is suddenly clearly visible.

 

A young-looking ghost wearing a white dress.

 

A gaping hole in the middle of his face.

 

That’s where I attacked.

 

Through the torn flesh, the raw core of something that had lost its shield was clearly visible.

 

It was where a human eyeball would have been.

 

The core of the orb was about to break in half.

 

The attack hadn’t just shattered the shield, it had touched the core.

 

But there was no time to gloat over the success of the attack.

 

As I struggled to breathe, I took a closer look.

 

Inside the skull, a red thread was wrapped around the core. And dangling from the end of that thread was a large object.

 

If I’m not mistaken, this is the head of a rat.

 

Red thread and charred animal head.

 

It was a familiar combination, albeit of a different species.

 

The mirrored chamber that Seo Jun and I were trapped in.

 

You said it was used in a ritual to renovate the room.

 

What kind of ritual was this installed in a ghost’s body for?

 

I fought to hold on to my mind, which was clouded with pain. I wanted to hit it, but I couldn’t lift a finger.

 

Then it happened.

 

A snap.

 

The knot of red thread snapped, and the rat’s head fell completely out of the ghost’s skull.

 

The head rolled across the floor, separating from the rest of the flesh.

 

It rolled toward me.

 

Oh, no.

 

It wasn’t rolling.

 

It was gliding toward me at a steady pace, holding its severed limb.

 

Clink, clink, clink─

 

The sound of severed bones scraping the ground.

 

The mouse’s head, advancing as smoothly as a chess piece moved by an invisible hand, stopped halfway between me and the ghost.

 

And it was…

 “The condition for performing the ritual, the “annihilation crisis,” has been met.”

 

It began to speak.

 

“We will now begin to play “Escape from Hell.””  

The voice continued in a high, uneven tone.

 

“If you are captured by the demon within the five-minute time limit, the positions of the souls in the “alive” state and the souls in the “dead” state will be reversed.”

 

Above the head of the ghost opposite, a marker appeared that read

“Sulleh”

.

 

That sneaky bastard.

 

The switching of positions between my living soul and the dead ghost meant that if I was captured by the demon, it would take over my living body.

 

“If the trickster loses, the trickster will suffer an annihilation penalty.”

 

The purpose of the ritual, which involved threading red thread and a rat’s head through his body, was probably a final act.

 

His core was on the verge of destruction anyway, so he decided to take one last gamble by challenging his attacker to a one-on-one deathmatch.

 

If they lost, they would be sent to their destruction, but if they won, they could take the living body.

 

From the ghost’s perspective, it was a gamble worth taking.

 

“This dog, this bird, …”

 

As it cursed under its breath, a familiar feeling ran through its body.

 

The same sensation I had felt when I entered the Incorruptible Treasury.

 

With a last gasp of strength, I raised my arms and wrapped them around my head.

 

***

 

Holy shit. I’m out of my body.

 

In an instant, the landscape before me has changed.

 

It’s an ordinary playground, the kind you’d expect to find in any apartment complex.

 

Bright wooden railings and flooring. To the right of the railing is a red spiral slide.

 

On the other side of the railing was a swinging bridge leading to a ship-like building, and on the other side of the slide was a dense netting with a rock-climbing theme that sloped down to the sandy floor below.

 

A ship-shaped building attached to the other end of the swinging bridge had tunnel-like slides on either side, one leading to another wooden building and another staircase that could be climbed from below.

 

The two wooden buildings were connected in an

“A”

shape with the ship in the middle.

 

The wooden building across from the ship was quite low compared to the wooden building and the ship, and had a simple steel slide.

 

It was the kind of slide you’d burn your legs on in shorts in the summer.

 

The sky was pitch black.

 

As if this playground was the only one floating in space.

 

The black sky was covered with numbers.

 

05:00

 

It was the timer for the five minutes I mentioned earlier.

 

Below the timer were the rules of the game.

 

   

 

Since only my spirit had escaped from the body that had been attacked earlier, I had no problem moving.

 

So I raised my arms above my head and threw a double punch.

 

“The name of the game is “Escape from Hell,” and it’s not that I have to escape down a certain slide to succeed, it’s just that you have to survive to the end without getting caught. Who made the rules? We didn’t do that in my neighborhood, and what? 10 seconds and 15 stares? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

 

It turns out you can open your

“King’s eyes”

for two and a half minutes, half of the five minutes the game lasts.

 

There were no rules about non-skilled players being able to hit the ground.

 

The deck was stacked against me.

 

But my cries of frustration fell on deaf ears.

 

The rat-head’s voice sounded like an announcement.

 

“You will be summoned here in ten seconds. 10, 9, 8…”

 

Huh?

 

If I were a ghost, I’d want to finish this game in the two and a half minutes I have to open my eyes.

 

Huh? But doesn’t it have eyes now? I just punched a hole in its face.

 

Can it use its eyes?

 

Well, I’m going to find out for myself in about seven seconds.

 

This is no time for useless wishful thinking.

 

I pick up a long branch lying on the ground.

 

Black aura? Skill? As expected, it didn’t work.

 

The black energy generated at my fingertips didn’t penetrate the weapon, it just flickered outward.

 

Still, it was better to have something than nothing, so I didn’t throw the branch away.

 

I’m going to use a technique that was considered too dangerous and taboo among elementary school students back then.

 

I stepped on the wooden railing and crawled onto the roof.

 

“Two, one, zero, bang! Here we go!”

 

The summoned ghost shouted and charged at me from the far swing.

 

It still had its face ripped off, but instead a giant eyeball with a timer popped up above its head.

 

Working feverishly with its remaining lower jaw, it protested.

 

“Hey, you shouldn’t be up there!” “You should have played by the rules.”

 

Fortunately, the ghost couldn’t move faster than a human.

 

That meant it couldn’t do anything deceptive like teleport from the swing to the slide or fly up to the roof where I was in one fell swoop.

 

The ghost huffed and puffed and followed me up the railing, then struggled to get to the top of the roof.

 

Dirty play at its finest.

 

“No biggie.” “…..?” “Sneak attack!”

 

It’s not supposed to climb high, it’s not supposed to push or hit a challenger.

 

There was nothing in the rules that implicitly protected safety.

 

I smacked the ghost’s hand that was reaching for my leg with a branch, then smacked it down on the fingers that were gripping the shingle, knocking them off.

 

“Hey, that’s not allowed!” “Yes, it is, because it’s not in the rules.”

 

04:13

 

The ghost has sprawled across the sand.

 

Meanwhile, the fourth King’s  Eyes chance had vanished.

 

And the ghost began to cheat.

 

Oof!

 

With a bone-crunching sound, the ghost’s right arm stretched out.

 

It could reach the roof in an instant.

 

“You shouldn’t do that with your King’s eyes!”

 

It was the rat, not the ghost, who spoke.

 

“Using one’s physical abilities is not a problem.” “Whatever, then let me use my abilities!”

 

I shouted, but inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that teleportation was not one of the ghost’s physical abilities.

 

His long arms swung wildly.

 

I jumped onto the swinging bridge and jabbed a branch into its arm.

 

The branch pierced the arm, weakened by its rapid extension.

 

He yanked, and the branch tore off his elbow like a radish in a field.

 

“Gaaaaaaaah!”

 

It tried to stretch its left arm. It will make you want to escape from this hell.