An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 120

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 119
Part 1. Please, Just Trust Me (3)
“So you came alone?”
The next day, 3 PM.
Kang Hyung-seok arrived at Shinjin Construction and met Shin Yoseph alone in the smoking area.
“That’s how it turned out.”
Kang Hyung-seok answered while brushing his thumb across the aluminum can of coffee he held.
Until I left Daejeong Materials, Shin Jung-ah had been at my side.
Gwak Young-ho had even seen us off, telling us both to take care.
But I came alone to meet Shin Yoseph.
Tap, tap.
Shin Yoseph flicked the ash from his cigarette, drew in a deep breath that puffed out his chest, and opened his mouth.
“Where is she now?”
“At the Shamanic Temple. A trustworthy place.”
I had asked Lee Geum-kyung to look after Shin Jung-ah at her Shamanic Temple.
Fortunately, Chung-geum and Lee Geum-kyung agreed to my request, and Shin Jung-ah ended up staying on the Mountain.
“…Is that so?”
“You can rest easy.”
Kang Hyung-seok took another sip of coffee before shifting his gaze to Shin Yoseph.
“So there’s no need for that expression.”
“…What do you mean.”
Shin Yoseph let out a small laugh in response, but his eyes still carried a heavy weight.
We had gone from three people to two.
Though Shin Jung-ah is not a shaman, she knows how to play a supporting role.
If any unexpected situation were to arise, she would certainly be a source of strength, so it made sense that he might be unsettled by her absence.
“Before I left, the teacher said that where the body is doesn’t matter.”
Shin Yoseph looked at me as if asking what I meant, and I shook my head.
I couldn’t fully grasp what Lee Geum-kyung meant either.
But I felt certain that this was the answer.
The Guardian Spirit had left me a revelation, and there was a glimmer in Lee Geum-kyung’s eyes suggesting she knew something.
“It must mean that what matters is the heart.”
In the end, it’s about salvation.
Those bewitched by cults, those suffering, those who will suffer.
We seek to save them, and as long as our hearts don’t waver, we’ll be fine.
I was ready for this.
“Shall we go?”
I spoke while watching the cigarette burn down to a stub, and Shin Yoseph flicked his cigarette into the ashtray and began walking.
His footsteps, without a trace of hesitation, seemed to tell me that he too was prepared.
***
Vroom.
We traveled in Shin Yoseph’s car.
In the back seat lay Kang Hyung-seok’s bag containing the sacred instruments, with Shin Yoseph’s briefcase beside it.
Oink, oink, oink.
And a black piglet as well.
The piglet, unfamiliar with the moving vehicle, wandered about with constant squealing—so captivating that it was hard to believe such a creature existed.
“Why did you bring a pig?”
“We might need it for an exorcism ritual.”
Shin Yoseph, gripping the steering wheel and wearing sunglasses, answered.
“I know it bothers you. But it’s necessary if we’re going to perform an exorcism.”
“It’s going to draw too much attention.”
Shin Yoseph clicked his tongue, his expression showing he had given this considerable thought.
“Well, what can we do? Stopping it won’t make it quiet.”
It seemed he had already attempted that.
Kang Hyung-seok watched the piglet wandering through the back seat and shook his head slightly, turning his gaze away.
If demons truly existed, I knew what would become of that pig.
‘It’s a life destined to die, so I suppose one cannot be too harsh about it.’
In an exorcism ritual, the pig becomes a vessel to contain the demon.
The demon’s name is revealed, it is driven from the possessed person’s body, and then confined within the pig’s form.
And then the pig is killed.
Thus the exorcism ritual returns the demon to where it belongs.
“Quite different from what you do, isn’t it?”
Shin Yoseph spoke as if he understood what I was thinking.
“The entities we face are different. And on our side, we also shed blood when necessary.”
The Daesalgut ritual is an example of such traces.
It involves receiving incoming arrows with a pig’s corpse instead, though rituals using living animals also exist.
In such cases, pigs, chickens, and goats are typically used.
Vroom. Oink, oink, oink.
Listening to the engine’s roar and the piglet’s squealing, Kang Hyung-seok cast his gaze outward.
This was truly a remote place.
From the serpentine winding of the road itself, there was a strong sense of disconnection from the outside world.
Dense forest covered the nearby mountain.
It felt like a barrier blocking the outside, creating a definite sense that we were heading toward an ominous location.
“Since there won’t be time if we don’t do this now, I’ll tell you in advance.”
Shin Yoseph’s words, spoken while staring ahead, drew Kang Hyung-seok’s attention.
“I’ll handle the external activities.”
Kang Hyung-seok nodded heavily while regarding him, and Shin Yoseph rubbed the inside of his mouth with his tongue before continuing.
“In the meantime, you move around a bit. I brought surveying tools and temporary business cards for identity cover.”
A request for Kang Hyung-seok to act while drawing attention away.
Recognizing this as the most efficient approach, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled and responded.
“Got it.”
“If anything goes wrong, call the number on the business card. Someone will answer and help you.”
A secretary? An attendant?
Having someone watching my back felt like a safety net.
Kang Hyung-seok rubbed his face and exhaled hot breath through the gap between his fingers.
The farther the car drove, the closer we drew to the end of this road, an inexplicable sense of dread crept over me.
‘Is this what it’s like dealing with the living?’
Not a Malevolent Spirit.
Living people.
This was my first time heading toward a village full of such people, and I felt my nerves sharpen more than usual.
Thump-thump!
Oink! Squeeeeeal!
At the pig’s ear-splitting cries as we passed over the speed bump, I let out a sigh-like remark.
“Is that pig actually going to be okay?”
Shin Yoseph had no clear answer either, his expression growing somber.
***
Oink, oink, oink!
Eventually, the pig was placed in a portable dog cage.
With a leash attached, it almost looked like a pet.
“Not bad.”
Shin Yoseph lowered his sunglasses at me holding the cage, his eyes briefly conveying an apology.
Then he mouthed for me to be quiet—but we had already arrived at the village.
Whoooosh.
The car passing beside us, the elderly man walking with a cane in measured steps, even the parking lot attendant—they all seemed to be watching us.
Even the low-rise buildings did the same.
Holding the cage with the pig, I followed Shin Yoseph while surveying the village from the corner of my eye.
A typical place you’d find on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
The strangely stale air made it clear this wasn’t completely rural.
Step.
Shin Yoseph stopped in front of the District Office and extended his hand.
“I’ll contact you. Just prepare for the survey, and we’ll meet up later.”
“Yes, Director.”
I answered while aware of the people staring at us from the smoking area nearby.
Step, step.
Shin Yoseph entered the District Office with the cage containing the pig, and I moved forward with a bag of surveying tools tucked under my arm.
I also had a backpack slung over my shoulders.
So to anyone watching, I didn’t look like a mere outsider—I looked like someone with a purpose.
‘First… the high ground.’
The maps available online were years old.
So I wanted to see this entire village with my own eyes.
Kang Hyung-seok searched for bus routes on his phone and boarded a bus heading to the highest Mountain in the vicinity.
Beep.
After paying the bus fare with his phone, he deliberately took a seat in the very back.
This won’t be easy.
In many ways.
The passengers’ stares that clung to him were something that couldn’t be dismissed as mere imagination.
‘A Bible?’
An elderly woman holding a Bible in particular stared at him intently, but he pretended not to notice and gazed out the window.
A Village where a Cult had taken root.
A Village where human sacrifice, or perhaps something even worse, might occur.
Kang Hyung-seok rested his chin in his hand and gazed out the window.
Among the passing buildings was an old Commercial Building with faded letters on the third floor reading “Church.”
That wouldn’t be it.
What I needed to find was either hidden more discreetly, or perhaps constructed with ostentatiously ornate architecture.
“Tsk.”
Kang Hyung-seok clicked his tongue and leaned his head against the window.
Evening was drawing near.
The heated glass pane was warm to the touch, and the decrepit Village bus rattled and swayed, inducing nausea.
Was the absence of hunger because my nerves had grown sharp?
Or was it because of the sensation of having entered someone’s stomach?
Hisssss—!
Upon reaching my destination, Kang Hyung-seok tapped his phone against the card reader and disembarked.
Just before the door closed, he gazed at his darkened phone screen.
Reflected in its mirror-like surface was the face of a person peering forward, staring directly at Kang Hyung-seok.
My breath caught in my throat.
Hisssss. Grooooan.
Even after the bus closed its doors and departed, Kang Hyung-seok remained in place for some time before finally moving forward.
The air was viscous.
The cracked paving stones with weeds sprouting between them seemed to cling to my feet.
Kang Hyung-seok opened his bag, retrieved a tripod, and deliberately tucked it under his arm.
Thus radiating an air of “I came here on business,” I climbed the path marked as a hiking trail.
Crack, crunch!
The hiking trail was in truly terrible condition.
The surroundings darkened rapidly, and the wooden steps constructed as a hiking trail were rotting and crumbling in places.
It felt as though I were climbing over corpses.
“Hahhh!”
Climbing the wooden steps, Kang Hyung-seok halted midway up the Mountain.
After confirming that no one was nearby, he unfolded the tripod.
Click.
What he mounted on the tripod was a camera.
It was painted gray so that anyone unfamiliar with it would mistake it for a level.
Kang Hyung-seok aimed his camera at the village sprawling below and zoomed in.
As the digital camera expanded his field of vision like a telescope, the entire village came into sharp detail.
‘It has to be somewhere.’
A cult organization, a gathering place, somewhere hidden away.
Anywhere would do.
Just reveal yourself.
Kang Hyung-seok continued surveying the village through his camera as the sun gradually sank behind the mountains.
Then it happened.
Kang Hyung-seok spotted a group of people disembarking from a bus, and he carefully panned his camera toward the direction they were heading.
And soon he discovered a building with no signage whatsoever.
‘What is this?’
Whoosh, whish.
He scanned left and right with his camera, but there were no other notable buildings—the commercial district had long since died.
Which made it all the more suspicious.
So many people getting off at once in such a remote location.
Click, click, click.
Kang Hyung-seok frowned as he zoomed in further.
He watched the people enter the building.
But the windows were covered with tinted film, so he couldn’t see anything inside.
‘Either way, that’s the most likely place.’
Click, click, click!
Kang Hyung-seok took several photographs of the building and lowered his camera.
He was about to save the building’s location on his map application when a familiar sound reached his ears.
Creak.
The sound of footsteps climbing the old wooden stairs.
As the sound drew steadily closer, Kang Hyung-seok turned off his phone and shifted his gaze toward the stairs.
Creak, creak.
The footsteps were growing closer.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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