How could I possibly describe the monster standing before me?

First, it was unnaturally thin, its skeletal frame almost sickly, and its upper body was completely bare, exposing its bony ribcage. What made it all the more grotesque were the intricate, swirling tattoos that seemed to be etched deep into its skin. The designs weren’t just ink—they moved with the creature’s muscles, almost as if they were alive.

This monster, intimidating in a different way from my father, dropped its “Scream”-like pose and pointed straight at my father. There was something even more unsettling about seeing this pose in real life, on a creature that could rip us apart if we weren’t careful.

‘Knocking before entering is common courtesy! What if I were in the middle of changing, huh?!’

The monster slammed the wall, hysterically yelling.

Wait. Was it implying that it wasn’t in the middle of changing? So, the fact that it was half-naked was just… normal? The absurdity of the situation left me blinking in confusion. Was this even a monster? Or just some deranged spirit with a very odd sense of propriety?

“Manners? You’re seriously talking about manners?” my father replied, completely unfazed by the monster’s dramatic performance. “You’ve taken over this school, and you want to talk about courtesy?”

“Schools are built with taxpayer money,” the monster snapped, its voice rising to a high-pitched whine. “They belong to everyone.”

“Spirits don’t pay taxes,” my father responded flatly, stepping into the dimly lit “Science Preparation Room.”

The monster’s face twitched as it watched him enter, much like a teenager finding their parents snooping through their room, barely concealing its frustration.

I followed my father into the room, keeping my guard up.

Though Sato-sensei had mentioned the room hadn’t been opened in decades, there was no dust, no cobwebs, nothing to indicate that time had passed here at all. The air was heavy, but not with the stale scent of an abandoned building. It felt… unnatural.

The room was filled with things you’d expect to see in any school: beakers, a broken anatomy model, and steel storage shelves.

But something odd caught my attention—the doors to the storage shelves were all torn off, and on top of the shelves sat two Rubik’s cubes, perfectly arranged.

“I’m not here for conversation. Two teachers came here, didn’t they? Answer.”

The monster’s lips curled into a grotesque smile, revealing rows of uneven, jagged teeth. “Oh, they came. Pathetic creatures. So ugly, so miserable, so helpless. I did them a favor—I made them beautiful.”

At the monster’s words, the moonlight shining through the windows grew just a bit brighter.

“Made them… beautiful?”

‘Yes, I made them beautiful, beyond what any human could hope to achieve.’

As the light illuminated the shelves, the cubes on top began to stand out. What I had thought were Rubik’s cubes were now revealing their true nature.

‘Big Exorcist, do you know what the most beautiful shape in the world is?’

“…”

‘The perfect cube.’

The first thing I saw was hair—strands of black hair embedded in the cube’s surface.

The cube itself was made of muscle or blood—I couldn’t tell which, but it was a deep red. Clumps of yellow fat dotted the surface.

And most horrifying of all, one of the cubes even had an eye, wide and bulging, still intact and staring lifelessly into the distance. and another had lips, twisted into a silent scream, frozen in time.

Two of these grotesque cubes were proudly displayed on the shelf.

‘A cube with five-centimeter sides is the most beautifully complete form! Those pitiful humans deserved nothing less than to be transformed into something so magnificent.’

The monster’s rambling stopped there.

Suddenly, my father vanished from where he had been standing. In the next instant, the monster’s body was was sent flying across the room, slamming into the wall with a deafening crash.

BANG!!!

The sound of the monster’s body crashing into the windows reached my ears a beat later, vibrating through the room.

The shockwave from the impact shattered every glass pane in the door and windows, sending shards flying through the air. The broken glass reflected the moonlight, falling like snowflakes.

The monster’s body hit the wall with such force that it left a crater, and there, in the middle of the crater, the monster hunched over, clearly in pain.

“I see. I understand now. So, you—”

My father stepped forward, his boots crunching the shattered glass beneath them. His voice was calm, with no trace of anger or haste—just the firm resolve of an exorcist, ready to banish the abomination.

“I can exorcise you without hesitation now.”

Wrapped around my father’s left leg and right arm were threads of Silveit.

His movements had been so fast that my eyes, unenhanced by body reinforcement, hadn’t fully caught them. But I could tell what he’d done.

It was Taidan—a close-combat move where the exorcist rushes into their opponent’s space, delivering a powerful blow with their full body weight. The monster’s caved-in chest was proof of that.

However, the monster hadn’t turned into a black mist yet, meaning it wasn’t dead.

As my father extended his Silveit to finish it off before it could do anything, the monster screamed:

‘Pain is—love!’

In a flash, the monster extended its own Silveit threads, slicing a square hole in the wall and escaping through it, plummeting toward the school grounds.

‘Love is pain! Pain is excruciating!’

Shouting as it fell, the monster was a perfect target for my magic.

“I’ll handle it, Dad.”

Long-range attacks are my specialty.

“Homurabachi.”

A spear of fire flared to life in my hands. I launched it at the monster, the blazing projectile flying at supersonic speed.

Just as I was sure it would pierce through and incinerate the monster, the flame was caught mid-air—entangled in Silveit threads.

In seconds, the fire spear was compressed and transformed into a cube of flame.

It happened again—that eerie magic that turns everything, even humans, into cubes.

‘Ooooh! Behold, this is beauty. Simplicity is the essence of perfection! Do you understand? Even if you don’t, that’s fine. I’ll make you understand!’

The monster extended its Silveit threads toward me, but I countered with a quick shot from my own threads.

Before our attacks could collide, my father grabbed me and leaped from the preparation room, just as the monster’s threads sliced through the air where we had been standing.

The threads struck the ceiling light, and in an instant, the bulb was compressed into a perfect cube.

… I see.

Watching the scene unfold, I quickly grasped the nature of the monster’s magic.

It was Keshitsu Henka—a magic that alters the physical properties of objects.

In Japanese magic, there are two primary categories: Zokusei Henka (attribute alteration) and Keshitsu Henka (physical transformation).

The magic this monster was using was the latter, the power to change the very physical structure of objects.

It might seem like an unusual magic, but it wasn’t unheard of.

I’d encountered this kind of magic before—the acorn bombs that a monster used against me in the forest had been a form of Keshitsu Henka.

By overwhelming an object with massive amounts of magical energy, you can invade and rewrite its physical properties. It’s violent, but once you understand the trick, there’s no need to fear it.

My Silveit threads were already in motion.

‘Nooooo! Don’t look at me with those insolent eyes! It makes me want to teach you a lesson!’

Ignoring the monster’s outburst, I calmly aimed my next spell.

The monster screamed as my purple lightning crackled through the air toward it.

In an instant, the monster’s threads shot out, attempting to block my attack. But I had a plan.

I smiled. “If you think cubes are so beautiful, then maybe that lightning isn’t quite perfect for you, is it?”

Just as my words left my mouth, the electric spear—no, the cube of lightning—connected with the monster.

It’s not about the shape. What matters is that the magic is in place.

‘A five-centimeter cube! It has to be exactly five centimeters—any more, any less, and it’s ruined! Do you understand that, little exorcist?!’

The monster went on, oblivious, so I calmly responded.

“Well, if that’s the case, I guess that lightning isn’t so perfect, is it?”

BAZZZZZZT!

The moment I finished speaking, the lightning cube, now hovering near the monster, discharged, sending a devastating bolt of electricity straight into it.

The magic I’d set up, a trap spell that activates with a time delay, had hit its mark. While the monster had been distracted by transforming the cube, it didn’t notice the delayed lightning strike.

The monster’s body smoked and crackled as it staggered back, but it wasn’t done yet. It raised a trembling hand toward me.

‘You’re quite the cocky one, little exorcist. But you—are filled with love.’

“What are you even talking about?”

My father wasted no time. With one swift motion, he crushed the monster with a final strike, reducing it to black mist.

And just like that, the battle was over.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep