ISEKAI EXORCIST

A limb-quaking yawn escaped my body as I stretched my arms and legs in the comfortable bed of the inn. A night had cost forty copper crowns and a simple stew had cost ten, so I could stay for a while with the money Æmos had given me.

Driven by a gurgling and demanding stomach, I left the cozy inn that a sign out front named as ‘Hallie’s Hospitality’. I walked down the cobbled streets of Lundia’s Commerce Ward, where shops, inns, and restaurants were plentiful, searching for this world’s equivalent to a convenience store. Unfortunately, no such thing had been brought to this world by the influx of Otherworlders like myself, though I did manage to find a general store named ‘The Choice Goods’.

After stepping inside the wood-and-stone building, I was greeted with a neatly-organised store full of shelves and tables, whereupon was everything from boot polish to pickled vegetables, with no clear delineation between the wares despite the orderly fashion they’d been placed in.

It took me a few minutes of perusing before I found some sort of salami and some hardtack. Together they cost twenty coppers, but I reckoned it could last me a few meals, so I ended up buying them.

Another thing that had not been imported to this world was customer service apparently, as the owner of the store kept eyeing me suspiciously throughout my perusal and, when I paid, he looked as if he couldn’t wait for me to get out of his sight. He didn’t even let out a “Safe travels!” or “Thank you, come again!” to see me on my way…

I ended up finding a bench on the way to the Guild Ward, where I took a seat and ate a bit of the food I’d bought. It then hit me that I hadn’t found anything to drink, and the dry hardtack and smoked sausage really left me parched. Although I spotted a few wells here-and-there, I was fairly sure that drinking well water would make me seriously ill, so I kept my eyes open for a beverage-type shop as I walked back towards the Guild Hall.

A while later I arrived to the Adventurers’ Guild, having found some kind of cold tea store with drinks that tasted faintly of the mixture of berries and fruit that’d been cooked with the water, although it had cost me ten coppers per flask, so I had only gotten two. Suddenly it was starting to seem like the money from the Genius would not last that long.

After passing through the perpetually-open red doors of the building, I went over to the Quest Boards to see if there were any that seemed something I’d be capable of, but, when I considered the rewards for some of the Gathering and Delivery quests, I realised that I’d already spent more on food and drink this morning than I’d be paid for potentially spending hours on such menial tasks as walking to a nearby farm to deliver a few letters.

My eyes kept slipping to the lone Novitiate-ranked Exorcism Quest that hung at the top of the rightmost board, but I knew it was folly to even consider taking it, doubly so when I had yet to even attempt to figure out my Role abilities.

There were some quests labelled Troublesome which paid a few silvers, but most were Bounty or Extermination, which seemed to be focused on killing specific targets and, from what I remembered of my abilities, that seemed far from my forte…

I let out a sigh, then decided to have a look at the Group Board, which was covered in handmade posters and scrolls, several of which featured cute drawings and artistic scribbles. I noticed quickly that several of them had written at the bottom “No Librarians, Exorcists, & Summoners!” Although it was frustrating to see, it did make me feel a strange sort of kinship with Æmos, since he knew what it meant to be excluded based on your arbitrarily-assigned Role, and I suppose that knowing that not just Exorcists were excluded also helped a bit.

“Hey, newbie, are you looking for a group?” someone behind me suddenly asked.

Newbie?

I turned around to face the guy who’d asked, suddenly very conscious of my dumb outfit.

The guy was about a head taller than me, but I hadn’t really grown during puberty, so it wasn’t anything new. He had an unkempt and thick dark-brown beard and knotted overlong hair that looked like it needed a trim. His clothes were loose with some leather padding on his forearm and chest, and on his hip hung a shortsword about a metre long.

“You just arrived, right?” he asked, moving closer. I didn’t really know how to interpret his interest in me, but it seemed a bit overwhelming. From a look at the queue of people by the Guild Representative’s desk waiting for their Role Assignment, I knew that there was still a steady stream of new people coming in, so his interest in me seemed strange, almost desperate.

“What’s your Role? My group is looking for a spellcaster or ranger and you don’t look like the brawny type.”

“Erm, I’m an Exorcist.”

Immediately the guy took a step back. “Ah, you were the new one. I see… Sorry to bother you.” Then he was gone.

Not like I wanted to join your group anyway! I complained internally.

Moments later, a tall guy came over. He was wearing engraved expensive-looking plate armour that seemed to let off a faint golden shimmer.

If this guy is looking for group members, I’m saying yes no matter what! Even if I have to lie!

With a gauntleted thumb, he pushed the beak of his feathered helmet up to reveal his face. His eyes were warm and his skin was a pale tan. Light-brown locks of hair flowed out through the bottom of his helmet and ran down his back.

“Was that guy bothering you?” he asked in a deep thrumming voice. For some reason he reminded me a lot of Renji with his charming and comforting aura.

“Erm, no. Not like anyone want to team up with an Exorcist like me anyway,” I replied with a fake laugh.

The man’s heavy gauntleted hand landed on my shoulder and he looked me directly in the eyes. “Don’t put yourself down like that. Exorcists serve a very important role in this world. I’m sure you were chosen for that Role for a reason.” Even though I didn’t really believe his words, his kind demeanour and aura made me want to believe that he was right.

“I’m pretty sure that I was chosen due to my bad luck,” I replied, self-deprecatingly.

The armoured guy let out a chuckle. “I suppose that an F-tier in Luck is a bit worrying.”

I frowned in response, although his chuckle made me want to laugh as well.

“Have you already spoken to the Genius? Roles like yours benefit the most from learning from people with a lot of experience.”

“I did. What Role do you have, if you don’t mind me asking?”

In response he used his right hand to pull his Guild Card from a small bag attached to his left hip, then he held it up in front of me. As an act of respect, I also showed him mine.

“Wow,” I replied, seeing his incredible attributes. Not a single one of them was under D-tier… From the presence of ‘Paladin’ and ‘Crusader, I realised that he had an Advanced Role, similar to Æmos.

“My Attribute Graph kind of looks like a shield, don’t you think?”

I smiled weakly. “Thank you for showing me, Harleigh.”

“Don’t worry about it, Temaru.”

“Please just call me Ryūta,” I replied. “I feel like I might be the only one who gave my full name to the Guild Lady.” I’d been listening to the names people gave as they registered for the Guild and thus far I was the only one who given more than just my first name.

“There are a few different reasons,” the Crusader explained. We had moved a bit away from the Guild Boards so that we weren’t blocking the many people who looked through the postings. “Some people come from worlds where surnames aren’t very common, and some see this as a chance to reinvent themselves so they pick names that they aspire to match.”

“Which kind are you?” I asked.

He grinned, showing rows of perfectly-aligned white teeth, the very image of a picture-perfect smile. “I’m not telling.”

“Ah man, I wish I’d been as lucky as you. Crusader sounds like someone strong and reliable and popular.”

Harleigh shrugged, but I noticed the slightly uncomfortable look on his face. Perhaps it was a lot of work to maintain such an image, though he definitely radiated such energy to me.

“Can I admit something?”

I blinked in surprise. “What is it?”

“I recognised you from hearing your Role Assignment yesterday, and I approached you with hidden intentions.”

Oh no… I replied internally, fearing the worst.

“Erm, what kind of intentions?”

“The last Exorcist Novitiate I saw before you was this really kind girl with a warm smile, but, like everyone else, I just ignored her. A few days later she was killed on a quest she attempted alone, and I felt really guilty for not helping guide her. Those of us who have been Adventurers for years understand how dangerous the job is, and know how especially hard it is for some Roles, so it ought to be our duty to educate Novitiates so they might thrive. But instead we just focus on ourselves first and only approach those whose Roles might benefit our groups in some way…”

“I… I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

Harleigh grinned, though there was no mirth in it. “Sorry, that was probably a bit weird, right?”

I scratched my chin awkwardly, but then replied boldly, “If you want, I could use some help finding equipment to suit my Role, as well as some guidance on how to use my Abilities.”

He nodded seriously and I suddenly felt like back when I’d approached Renji in middle school to hang out for the first time and he’d said yes.

Harleigh showed me the For-Rent Armoury on the first floor, where racks of every weapon imaginable lined the walls, and tables in the middle of the floor were covered in things like shields, spell tomes, and bizarre talismans. At the back of the floor was an archway past which lay a mirrored version of the layout, but instead with every type of imaginable armour.

“Exorcists have a limited kind of weapons they can use,” he explained. “They are Staves, Foci, and a unique type called Possessed Weapons. The latter are pretty rare and quite dangerous, so the Guild doesn’t keep them on open display, but if you make a special request you can rent such a weapon, though you need to be of Eminent Rank or higher.”

I nodded. I remembered as much from looking at my list of Exorcist abilities. “Which one should I pick?”

“Actually, I think it’s a good idea to get both a Staff and a Focus.”

“I don’t really understand the difference,” I replied, nudging a two-metre-long metal staff with a ring at the top onto which had been fastened a bunch of small bells.

“Staves are used to channel certain things like prayers, blessings, summoning, and anything you might consider ritualistic, while Foci are mostly for offensive spells and things like banishment or detrimental effects.”

That didn’t truly make much sense to me, but it seemed that Harleigh realised as much, because he took the staff I’d been poking and shoved it into my hands.

“Oh, that’s a weird feeling,” I replied.

The moment my hands grasped the shaft of the staff, it was like a familiarity arose in my muscles and knowledge I’d forgotten resurfaced in my mind after a decade. Without even moving my hands, the bells atop the staff began to ring slowly in unison.

“Is that supposed to happen?” I asked, concerned.

“Right now, your Soul energy is unfocused and leaking from your body en masse, so this kind of empathic response from a magical tool that you’re aligned with is quite normal. As you become better at utilising your potential, you can control the flow of your spirit. Picture it like holding a heavy weight in your outstretched arm: to begin with you can’t really hold it like that without shaking, but as you practice, you’ll be able to keep your arm steady.”

“And what about the focus? I have no idea what I’m looking for. I don’t even know what a focus is…”

Harleigh chuckled. “That’s normal. When I first came here this was all very confusing to me as well. It took me breaking my arm twice to learn how to properly wield a shield,” he said, laughing as though that was a fond memory.

He didn’t notice my expression though and instead began searching for a focus I could try.

A few moments later he called me over to a table close to the archway leading to the other part of the armoury.

“There are a few here to pick between,” he told me. I looked down at the objects he indicated, letting out an involuntary “Eww” when I saw that one was a horned skull.

Besides the horned skull, which was possibly the skull of a ram or a goat, there was a metal orb made of thin metallic string with a triangle within, a glass vessel that looked like an old lantern, a simple iron bell on a half-moon handle, and a doll made from some kind of animal fur and stuffed full of beans of some kind.

“Which one should I pick?”

Harleigh let out a contemplative “Hmm”, before answering, “The type of magical effects and characteristics of your spells depends on the type of focus you’re wielding. The skull and doll are made from parts of animal bodies, which makes them good for spells that affect living beings, such as curses, afflictions, and such things, but those are more suited for Summoners and Advanced Roles like the Necromancer.”

“Necromancer?” I asked, surprised. That sounded very ominous. From the little bit of fantasy I’d read in the past, Necromancer-type characters had always been exclusively evil…

“It’s one of the Specialisations that Summoners and Exorcists have access to. A lot of Summoners go for it, because it compliments their Summoner Skill Set, but I don’t know of any Exorcists who have picked that. But, then again, Exorcists are one of the few Roles where most of the Specialisations are still unknown.”

“Because so few live long enough?” I replied.

His smile faltered for a moment, but then he said cheerfully, “Don’t be so gloomy! Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, the bell-type of foci are optimal for summoning spells, while the lantern-type is great for projections and illusions. But I think, for you, this steel ball is the best kind, since it is versatile and your Role has a lot of different spells. You could also benefit from using a tome as a focus, although it would require a lot of practice to utilise as effectively.”

I picked up the wire orb and it naturally came to rest in the palm of my hand. As my untrained energy surged into it, the wire triangle within lifted and began hovering perfectly in the centre, jittering slightly and letting out a deep pulsing hum. Once again, that bizarre feeling of familiarity flowed through me, as though I was holding a baseball and had in the past been a talented pitcher.

Looking back at the bell-staff that Harleigh was holding for me, I asked, “Do staff types also have an impact on my rituals?”

He nodded, “But don’t worry, this one will serve you well for pretty much any ability you have.”

With the bell-staff and wire orb in hand, I went up to the counter of the For-Rent Armoury and the Clerk tending it asked me, “You’re renting these two then?”

I nodded.

“That’ll be one silver crown per week per item.”

I nearly choked, not feeling like I had money to spend, but also feeling pressured by the Crusader’s in-depth help and expectations of me.

Harleigh immediately came over and placed four silver crowns on the counter. “He’s renting them both for two weeks.”

“Very well,” the Clerk answered and took the coins, before pulling out a slate similar to the one that had decided my Role, but wider, the size of a keyboard or thereabouts. “Card please,” he asked and I offered him my Guild Card, which he laid atop the slate, alongside the Focus and then the Staff. Then he wrote down a note about the items and my name, Rank, and Role, probably so they knew who had rented what.

“Thank you,” I said to the Clerk. Then turned to the Crusader and bowed deeply, before thanking him as well.

“Now let’s find you some clothes as well,” Harleigh told me, all but dragging me by the elbow into the other part of the Armoury.

“I can’t have you pay for all of this,” I complained weakly.

“It’s not that much to rent stuff,” he replied.

“Are you sure?”

He clapped me on my back, making me stumble forward and through the archway. “Don’t be so serious about it, just let your senior treat you!” Then he laughed heartily. I suppose that in his own way he was making up for the guilt he felt from not doing enough as an experienced Adventurer to help the new members.

In the end, Harleigh bought me a pouch-like bag that sat on my lower back and attached to a belt around my waist, as well as some sturdy grey linen trousers, a simple white shirt, brown hide boots, and a dark hooded travel cloak with pockets on the inside.

The Focus attached to a hook on my belt and the Bell Staff turned out to have a telescopic shaft that allowed it to be collapsed to a metre-long baton, rather than its usual two metres, and it too could be attached to my belt on a simple loop on my left hip.

In the end, he had spent a total of close to twenty silver crowns on me and I felt incredibly obliged to pay him back as soon as I could.

After the purchases and rentals, we had gone out back behind the Guild Hall to a vast courtyard with dummy targets and enough space to practice magic without damaging any of the buildings nearby, should something go wrong.

“I’m serious, Ryūta, this is my gift to you. This kind of money isn’t really anything to me. My group takes on really dangerous quests that pay at least a few gold crowns each, so I mostly just have a bunch of money that I don’t know what to spend on.”

“Still,” I replied, “I’m going to pay you back!”

He chuckled. “I suppose it’s good to have goals.”

“Now,” he continued, “I don’t know how to help with practicing the Pact-based abilities like summoning and rituals, but a few of your other abilities are similar to ones that Paladins and Crusaders have access to, such as barrier-type skills and offensive abilities like Repel. I think we should start with your Meditation ability though, since that’s one I think will benefit you the most in terms of improving your skill with manipulating your soul energy.”

Harleigh had me join him by a tree that shaded a corner of the courtyard, next to the backwall of the Guild Hall. We sat below its shade, as a gentle breeze occasionally washed over us and played with the leaves in its canopy. He told me that the posture did not matter, so long as it was comfortable, so I ended up seated with my legs folded across each other and my right hand resting within the palm of my left in my lap just below my stomach. The deep thrum of his voice guided me through the kind of imagery I ought to try and invoke within my mind’s eye, and though it took quite a while, I eventually started being able to vaguely sense the energy that coursed through my body, picturing it as a continuous flow of light that ran down every limb, using the veins of my body as a highway.

I couldn’t really sense how my energy was supposed to be leaking from my body, but I assumed that kind of awareness would come in time. For now I was just happy to be making a tiny bit of progress.

“The reason we started with Meditation is because it is the easiest to learn and is a great stepping stone to learning how to utilise your other abilities that require a specific image in your mind, as well as intense focus. I think we should try Repel next, as this is really the only truly offensive spell in your arsenal right now.”

“It sounds quite strange that I am expected to take on very dangerous quests, but have no offensive capabilities.”

“To my knowledge, Exorcists rely a lot on their summoned familiars or paid bodyguards for such matters. Exorcism Quests are, from my understanding, quite a lot like Investigation Quests, but narrower in the sort of expertise required.”

I gave him a confused look in return, so he rewinded a bit and explained, “Investigation Quests are a type of unique Role-based quest, meaning that not all Roles are capable of doing them. As the name suggests, there’s a lot of research and in-depth analysis involved. Exorcism Quests are basically the same, but with many esoteric elements added on top, which is why they are only possible for Exorcists to deal with.

“For example, an Investigation might deal with finding out how someone died through looking at evidence, witness testimony, following clues, and such. The difference with Exorcisms is that, while the elements might be similar, they are basically invisible to everyone but Exorcists and might feature obstacles that only you might be capable of dealing with.”

I nodded diligently. Suddenly the idea of an Exorcism didn’t sound so scary, after all, from how he was presenting it, it was more like detective work that dealt with the supernatural.

“But, let’s return to the training for now. You shouldn’t even consider trying an Exorcism Quest until you have familiarised yourself with your abilities.”

“So, what should I do for Repel?” I asked, leaving the shade of the tree. The weather was nice like yesterday, sunny and probably around twenty-five degrees, but with a wind that had a cold edge to it, which made the shade a bit chilly after sitting there for what might have been half an hour.

“Repel is a concentrated blast of your Soul energy and depending on how much innate power you are able to put into it, it could potentially be quite dangerous, so I recommend we go over to the target practice area.”

I nodded and followed Harleigh to the part of the courtyard where primitive wooden dolls were placed at the end. In the interval since we arrived, a pair of bow-wielding Adventurers had taken up the spots furthest down the line of the eight targets that were spaced evenly along a ten-metre-wide wall.

One of the two archers was someone I recognised from yesterday as having been two spots ahead of me in line for the Assignment. He was a ‘Ranger’ if I remembered correctly. From what I recalled of Æmos’ explanation of Attributes, I assumed that his main ones were Dexterity and Acumen, as those seemed most closely connected to skill-based abilities.

“Eyes up front, mister.”

I immediately snapped back to look at the Crusader. “Sorry.”

“To be able to pull off spells, it’s important you don’t let your mind wander. You have to shut out all other unnecessary stimuli.”

“I understand,” I told him. I had a tendency to zone out though, so it was easier said than done.

“For offensive or target-based spells and incantations, it works the best if you say the name of the spell out loud and tether your imagination to its name. For this particular spell, I would recommend that you picture energy building in your body, before flowing down your arm and shooting out your palm in a particular shape. The result should be something that pushes targets away by metaphysically repelling their souls. Anyone hit by it will feel compelled to move away from you, but against inert objects it will seem as though a wind pushed them, if that makes sense.”

“Not really,” I wanted to reply, but I stayed my tongue. “Got it,” I replied instead.

Harleigh looked at me for a while and I wondered if he wanted me to go ahead and try it, but then he said, deadpan, “You’ll need your Focus for this.”

“Of course… sorry.”

I pulled the wire orb from my belt and held it in my right hand. My jingling staff was in my left hand, though he took it from me and said, “Try to pull it off without holding the staff first, since it might make it more difficult to accurately channel the energy for it.”

“So, should I give it a try?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed hard, then took a step up to the knee-high wall that people were meant to stand behind while aiming for the targets that stood eight-to-fifteen metres away, depending on which you went for.

Thank god I went through that cringe-inducing phase in middle school where I thought I’d become an ESPer. I feel like my mind is perfectly suited for this sort of thing thanks to those delusions.

I held out my hand with the wire orb and pointed it towards the closest target, which stood maybe nine metres away from my position and off to the left slightly. Then I imagined that light I’d pictured while meditating and felt it swirl around my chest, building up power, before uncoiling itself and shooting down my right arm and entering into the wire orb, from where I released it by yelling:

“REPEL!”

The air itself began to sing and dust flew to the left-and-right of my invisible projectile as it flew down the range, before it collided with the target doll and blew it off its simple wooden stand and sent it flying down towards the backwall of the range. Upon impact with the stones, the dummy was pulverised into bits and came apart as a bundle of disorganised straw and broken sticks.

“As expected of an S-tier in Soul, your potential is very high with any skills based in that attribute.”

“Thank you,” I replied, letting the praise wash over me.

“However. You took too long to cast the spell. This is not an incantation with a litany that must be recited, so it ought to be something instantaneous requiring very little build-up.”

It felt a bit harsh, but he was the expert here, so I didn’t argue back. Besides, I was really just excited that I was capable of literal magic! I suddenly felt incredibly powerful, but then had a thought: If I’m capable of causing this much damage to an object, but this is my only offensive attack, then what must other Adventurers be capable of?

“Pick a new target and try to cast the spell as fast as possible.”

I took in a deep breath, mentally picked a target that stood twelve metres away and then lifted my arm and yelled, “REPEL!”

This time, nothing happened.

“You forgot to picture your spell, didn’t you?”

“I did,” I replied embarrassed.

“Do it again, but remember the order of things.”

I repeated the process, but it still took probably eight tries before I was able to instantly shoot off a Repel, though this time the power was only enough to tip over the target.

Harleigh nodded, satisfied with the results. “I think that’s enough practice for today. You seem quite a natural at this. If you’d like, we could try some other abilities tomorrow?”

“I’d very much like that,” I replied, “Thank you so much for your guidance!”

Harleigh smiled warmly. “Don’t mention it.”

Before I could leave, he added, “Try and make it a habit to meditate every morning and evening. It may seem pointless, but you will notice how much better your spells will work after doing it for a while. Just like a muscle, it is something you need to train and keep strong.”

“Thank you,” I said again. I couldn’t wait to learn more tomorrow and progress ever-so-slightly towards the distant goal of becoming a proper Exorcist.