Chapter 1
“Ugh.”
My head hurt badly, and the hand that hit the floor was throbbing.
I felt like I could faint any second, but if I collapsed now, I’d probably die.
Shaking my head side to side, I stood up and realized that the situation had become the worst.
“Hehehe.”
A woman’s laugh echoed clearly from behind me, and it sent chills down my spine.
I saw a young girl lying in the corner, breathing heavily, and quickly ran toward her.
She was the one who helped me earlier, even though she was in danger herself.
I still didn’t know how she ended up in a place like this, but that wasn’t important right now. We had to get out of here fast.
“Wake up!”
The girl didn’t move at all. If it came to it, I would carry her out.
As I made up my mind and bent down beside her…
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
A woman shouted angrily, and my body slammed hard into the wall.
Before I could even wipe the blood from my head, the woman rushed at me.
I thought, This is it. Am I going to die? Feeling powerless, I closed my eyes tightly.
“Ahhh!”
At the sound of a painful scream, I opened my eyes to see the evil spirit burning and twisting in pain.
Barely staying conscious, I saw someone walking toward me.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Through my blurry vision, I saw a man with black hair and red eyes.
Anyone could tell he was incredibly good-looking, but I didn’t have time to admire him.
“First, the girl…”
As I barely said those words, all the strength left my body.
This must be my limit. As sleep slowly pulled me in, I let go.
I shouldn’t have come here.
With that short regret, I remembered what happened earlier that morning.
“Ahhh!”
With the scream, blue flames rose up in front of my eyes.
Since this was the only time I could actually see the evil spirit, I couldn’t look away.
“What are you doing? If you’re useless, at least try to move smartly.”
Only after hearing Cream’s cold voice did I lower the soul meter I was holding.
It was a tool that showed the rough location of invisible spirits. I was always the one who had to carry such big machines.
“This is why useless support types are no good.”
While I was taking pictures of the spirit traces and cleaning up, a mocking voice came again.
It was Cream and her team—people who always bullied me. They never liked me.
And honestly, I couldn’t blame them. Just like they said, I was a useless support-type exorcist.
“Why did the government approve someone like that as an exorcist? Offense and defense types are enough.”
Exorcist—that was a job that first appeared five years ago, when evil spirits started showing up.
No one knew how to deal with them, and the number of victims kept growing, until one day, a man suddenly appeared and defeated an evil spirit. After that, everyone started calling him the first exorcist.
“I will destroy all evil!”
With those words, the first exorcist gathered people who had the power to help him.
Thanks to him, machines were made that could measure spiritual power, and being an exorcist became an official job.
It was a new job that had only existed for five years, but it quickly became popular.
The pay was good, and sometimes people’s social status would even change depending on how well they could deal with spirits.
So it was no surprise that many people took the test to become an exorcist.
‘The test is actually pretty simple, too.’
All you had to do was pass the written test run by the government and have a spiritual power level above the standard.
Then you’d be placed into one of three types based on your ability: offense, defense, or support.
The problem was, I was a support-type exorcist who couldn’t even use magic properly. So I ended up just being someone who took up space in the guild.
‘The only thing I can do is a spell that sharpens the five senses, so this result is expected.’
Just as I picked up the meter and camera, a shadow fell over me.
When I looked up, I saw the same bright brown hair that always looked so pretty.
“You worked hard cleaning up, Luna.”
“No, Alex. It’s my job, so it’s no big deal.”
Seeing Alex’s bright smile quickly made my heavy mood feel better.
Alex Stein. He was the leader of our Eagle Guild and a well-known offense-type exorcist. Four years ago, he got one of the top 10 scores in the exorcist ability test, and it was big news.
‘I still can’t believe I’m in Alex’s guild.’
It felt like a miracle. Back then, the guild wasn’t that famous yet.
But at least they didn’t kick me out. I put a hand on my pounding chest as I looked at the shining Alex.
Alex, who didn’t know how I felt, quickly looked away and shouted loudly to the others who were putting away their weapons.
“Everyone, listen up!”
Just one word from him made everyone turn their attention to him. That’s how strong Alex’s presence was.
Feeling all the eyes on him, Alex gave a confident smile and said,
“A request just came in, and the pay is pretty good. They say weird things are happening and want us to check it out. Since it’s on our way back, I thought we could stop by. They asked if we could deal with it quickly, too.”
“Where is it?”
“They said it’s a mansion at the top of Crystal Mountain.”
“There’s a mansion in a place like that?”
As people started whispering, Alex clapped his hands briefly.
Then everything went quiet again like nothing had happened.
“It shouldn’t be a hard job, so only a few of us will go. There’s a lot of gear, too.”
Alex called out a few names. Probably the ones who would go with him.
‘I want to go with Alex too.’
As I was thinking that, my eyes met Alex’s exactly.
“And the last one is Luna Sterie. Just the four of us will go.”
“What? What’s the point of taking a support type?”
Other people complained and grumbled, but I was so happy I almost cried.
Someone as amazing as Alex had picked me, someone so useless!
I could never thank him enough.
Maybe that’s why I started to have feelings that could never come true.
I placed my hand over my pounding heart again and smiled.
The road to the mansion was harder than expected.
By the time we finally arrived, the sun was setting behind the mountains.
The big mansion, seen through the red sunset sky, looked a little spooky.
“Okay, let’s hurry and finish this quickly so we can go back. The client said they didn’t want to come here, so I got the key from them.”
Alex said that as he put the key into the lock under the doorknob.
As I was looking around the mansion, Cream, who was standing next to me, muttered quietly.
“If you slow us down, I won’t let it go.”
Creak. Right after his warning, the heavy door opened with a loud sound.
The inside was dark since there were no lights on, but I could still see that there were a lot of expensive-looking things.
“Looks like the client is pretty rich. This request might pay well.”
“Enough chit-chat. Let’s go to the second floor first. They said there were strange sounds or objects moving by themselves in the last room.”
“Things like that could just be the pranks of a spirit that hasn’t turned into an evil spirit. This request might be easier than we thought.”
Cream and Alex talked while heading upstairs.
As soon as we reached the second floor, we walked down a long hallway and arrived in front of the room in question.
Alex, who was in the front, opened the door without hesitation.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong.”
Cream glanced at the soul meter I was holding and mumbled.
If red showed on the screen, it meant an evil spirit was nearby. If it was blue, it meant it was just a regular spirit.
Only a few faint blue shapes could be seen now and then—nothing else.
It looked like there weren’t any evil spirits here. We should probably check another area.
But it didn’t take long for me to change my mind.
Creak. Creak. Ha, haha!
The creepy laughter of a woman made everyone look around nervously.
Alex frowned and drew the sword from his waist.
“Everyone, get ready to fight. Looks like there is an evil spirit here.”
“Wait, Alex!”
Right then, the soul meter suddenly made a loud sound and exploded.
Now, we couldn’t even check what was around us anymore. Something was definitely wrong.
An evil spirit that didn’t show up on the meter, and then suddenly made it explode in a house with no owner?
This couldn’t be a coincidence. The situation felt far too dangerous.
Everyone looked clearly tense—maybe they were thinking the same thing as me.
‘This is the work of an evil spirit.’
In my four years as an exorcist, I’d never seen an evil spirit with this kind of power.
It was dangerous. My instincts were screaming at me to run away.
“If the evil spirit can show its presence this clearly, it must be very strong. We should go back to the guild, bring more people, and come back to deal with it…”
“Do you even know how far the guild is from here? This is why scaredy-cat support types are useless. Stop making noise and get out of the way!”
Cream shoved me, and I fell straight to the floor.
As I looked up at him laughing at me and tried to get back up, I saw Fran’s face suddenly turn pale beside me.
“Guys… Something just grabbed my foot…”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Fran fell forward.
At the same time, a door in the corner burst open.
The room inside was so dark we couldn’t see anything, and just as I gasped, Fran’s body was pulled in quickly—like something had grabbed him.
It all happened so fast that no one could even react or try to save him.
