Chapter 45. Exorcists Are Truly Terrifying!

It was resolved.

Qiao Qiao confirmed the location of the opposing sniper through the scope. He shifted his head slightly away from the gun beside him and looked at Suzuka, who held a stick with a telescope tied to its end.

“The decoy operation was quite successful. Thank you for your hard work, Miss Suzuka,” Qiao Qiao said.

After confirming the presence of a sniper, Qiao Qiao took three actions. First, he examined the wound locations and trajectories of Kato Takeya and Monk Xingming through the scope, establishing that both bullets came from the same direction—meaning there was only one sniper. Second, he conducted a simple ballistic analysis to estimate where the sniper might be, though the neighboring building offered many possible vantage points. While a barrage could cover multiple locations, it might give the sniper time to relocate.

Therefore, the third thing Qiao Qiao did was to create a decoy device to lure the enemy into firing. At the moment the shot was fired, he locked onto the enemy’s position and retaliated with a high-explosive round.

Suzuka stared at the three-story building, now destroyed by the grenade launcher, feeling something must have gone wrong.

“This is the QLU11 35mm sniper grenade launcher,” Qiao Qiao explained, thinking Suzuka was confused. He patted the mounted weapon. “It’s a semi-automatic sniper-type grenade launcher, capable of firing large-caliber 35mm grenades made in Huaxia. Its maximum range for point targets is one thousand meters, and with the powerful trajectory calculation of its optical sight, the maximum area target range can reach two thousand five hundred meters. I spent the last two months’ commission to get this gem.”

Qiao Qiao had used sniper rifles before, but lacking formal sniper training, his accuracy was poor—he could hardly hit anything. He realized snipers have their limits. After consulting his boss, he received an answer: if guns aren’t enough, use artillery. Where precision fails, compensate with destructive range.

Thus, Qiao Qiao’s favorite handgun uses explosive rounds. No need to aim—just graze the target, and it’s easily exorcised. Upon discovering the existence of sniper grenade launchers, Qiao Qiao felt they were custom-made for him. Unfortunately, this equipment was cutting-edge and hard to procure. His boss managed to get one only because he happened to meet an old classmate selling them at a reunion in Kyushu.

He didn’t expect it to come in handy so soon. Perhaps, it was a matter of mutual attraction.

Without lingering on the weapon’s power, Qiao Qiao continued to aim. After the previous exchange, the enemy seemed to have fallen silent—perhaps plotting a counterattack.

With this in mind, just as Qiao Qiao was about to fire another round, he turned to Suzuka.

“Miss Suzuka, these must all be big companies here. The buildings are insured, right?”

Suzuka was at a loss for words. If she said yes, would he just flatten the whole area with grenades? She glanced at Qiao Qiao’s magazine; it seemed more than sufficient.

Exorcists are terrifying!

“Um, Qiao-san, those monsters who stream online—they’re innocent,” Suzuka reminded him, hoping he’d restrain himself, considering the hostages.

“I understand.” Qiao Qiao wasn’t unreasonable. He removed the magazine of high-explosive rounds and replaced it with armor-piercing ammunition. The damage would be more focused, effectively avoiding collateral harm.

Soon, Qiao Qiao saw a burly, broad-shouldered figure slip out from the office building and head toward the sniper’s location. Through the scope, he confirmed it was Kumaji, who had abandoned his human form and was now a running bear.

Click—

His finger moved instinctively, pulling the trigger. The armor-piercing round, faster than the explosive, reached Kumaji in a blink.

At that moment, Kumaji, just out the door, sensed danger. Without glancing at the attack’s direction, he rolled forward twice, landing perfectly.

Bang—

The armor-piercing round dug a deep pit in the ground. Kumaji lay in the crater, twitched twice, and lost consciousness.

“Are monsters’ bodies really so fragile?” Qiao Qiao wondered. According to his boss, monsters grow by tempering their bodies—they should be tough, impervious to blades and bullets, immune to ordinary weapons.

Oh, perhaps these aren’t ordinary weapons.

It seems, whether bear monsters or bird monsters, if struck by artillery, they are wounded.

Qiao Qiao then repeated the strategy, using Kumaji’s fallen body to keep the remaining two monsters in place, blocking them at the office building’s entrance.

“This is called a baiting tactic,” Qiao Qiao said, testing it out—it worked perfectly. His boss was right: learn from everyone, even your enemies.

Suzuka gazed at the three large craters at the office entrance, afraid to speak, holding only one thought:

Exorcists are truly terrifying!

...

As Qiao Qiao had predicted, simple grenades could not kill these monsters—their hides were too thick. They survived a direct hit, where a human would be obliterated. Such overwhelming firepower, yet the monsters endured. Qiao Qiao’s understanding of monsters deepened.

Fortunately, the grenade launcher still suppressed them. Initially, Kumaji seemed to regain some strength and tried to abandon his companions and escape. Qiao Qiao fired again, and Kumaji stopped moving, holding out until police and the masters from the Onmyo Bureau arrived. Shikigami and talismans quickly surrounded the tech park.

From there, the matter was no longer Qiao Qiao’s concern. The onmyoji captured and questioned the monsters. Most of those coerced into making money were temporarily relocated to a shelter outside Tokyo after interrogation.

The most crucial point—how Kumaji and the others could rapidly produce shape-shifting monsters—was revealed through testimony and divination: a suspected monster gave them an item, which could instantly transform animals affected by spiritual power into shape-shifting creatures. Kumaji and the others relied on this to mass-produce monsters for profit. After enough monsters were made, the item was reclaimed.

Investigation showed all the money Kumaji earned was transferred to a foreign account, with no way to trace further. The newly gained clues seemed to vanish.

Yet, the warning effect on the Onmyo Bureau was significant. Although Monk Xingming and Kato Takeya received proper treatment and would likely return to work after six months of recuperation, it was pure luck. Had the monsters’ aim been better, the Exorcist Association might have lost two excellent exorcists.

Before this, almost no monsters used modern weapons against exorcists, so no one took precautions. After this incident, the Onmyo Bureau immediately convened an emergency meeting and drafted a new protocol for handling monster cases, adding bulletproof helmets and vests to the list of optional equipment.

Qiao Qiao was pleased to hear it.

May began in a rush.

On the sixth, the last day of the ten-day Golden Week holiday, Qiao Qiao was studying when the doorbell interrupted him. Opening the door, he saw Suzuka and Miss Sakura.

“Please take care of this child,” Miss Sakura said, pointing to Suzuka.

Now it was Qiao Qiao’s turn to be confused.