An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 145

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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 145
Part 2. Japanese Sorcery and Korean Shamanism (3)
Click, click.
I waited in the car.
In the back seat, Yoon Sang had been preparing the filming equipment, which looked like it must have cost several million won.
“How much was that?”
“I bought it used, so it was cheap. I think I paid about three million won for it!”
Disgustingly expensive.
Still, seeing how serious Yoon Sang was about the broadcast, I didn’t complain.
“Sigh—!”
“Hyung-nim, if you’re tired, why don’t you get some rest? You’ll be moving around at night anyway, right?”
He had a point.
Yet sleep wouldn’t come easily.
This had happened a few times before.
It was always when I had to do something, and each time it felt as though someone was breathing strength into me, easing the fatigue.
Just like now.
“I’m fine. You get some sleep.”
“Even cold water has its order—how could I possibly?”
It was right after Yoon Sang spoke carefully, gauging Kang Hyung-seok’s reaction.
Thud!
Kang Hyung-seok adjusted his posture in the driver’s seat, cupped his ear with his hand, and signaled Yoon Sang to be quiet just as he was about to speak.
It was the hour when the sun was about to touch the western mountain.
The wind blowing in was lukewarm, and even in the shade, the humid air pricked at the skin—that particular time of day.
The boundary between day and night.
The threshold of evening.
In such an hour, a sound rarely heard distinctly reached us.
Creak.
While Yoon Sang fiddled with the camera, wondering what on earth was happening, Kang Hyung-seok opened the driver’s side door.
Then the faintly audible sound became clear, tickling his ears.
“It’s a gut.”
“Pardon?”
“Come on. It looks like a shamanic ritual is underway—bring the camera too.”
With a camera as large as a cannonball, it could certainly be used like a telescope.
Kang Hyung-seok signaled Yoon Sang to hurry.
Then he walked with Yoon Sang toward the direction of the sound without hesitation.
“It really is a gut.”
Yoon Sang murmured from behind, and Kang Hyung-seok agreed in silence.
A gut uses traditional Korean instruments.
These instruments heighten the atmosphere and gather people and victim spirits together.
‘It’s a gut for guiding spirits to heaven.’
Each ritual uses different incantations, food arrangements, props, and musical melodies.
Though the distance prevented me from hearing it clearly, I could tell it was a ritual to comfort and guide a spirit to heaven.
Out here, far from any residential area, they were performing a spirit-guiding ritual.
“Hey, hyung, slow down a bit…!”
“Give me the camera!”
Kang Hyung-seok received the large camera, and Yoon Sang, unaware of his intention, simply looked grateful.
Finally, the ritual site came into view, and Kang Hyung-seok stopped walking and turned to Yoon Sang.
“You go ask.”
“Huh?”
“There are spectators there. Ask them which spirit this ritual is guiding to heaven.”
Yoon Sang simply stood there looking bewildered, not moving.
His expression clearly showed he had no idea why he alone had to go.
“If I go, I might disrupt the ritual.”
“Ah, I see.”
A Shaman who serves a spirit suddenly intruding upon another’s ritual.
I didn’t know which spirit this Shaman had received.
However, the chances that a higher-ranking deity than my Guardian Spirit would appear were far too low.
A greater spirit could disrupt the ritual, which would be neither morally right nor proper etiquette.
“Then hyung, I’ll just go and come back.”
Yoon Sang hesitantly moved forward and even pulled out a recorder from his pocket.
Watching from behind, Kang Hyung-seok moved behind a large tree and began fiddling with the camera.
This thing costs three million won. Three million won.
And that’s the used price.
‘How do I turn this on.’
Then I pressed a button and the camera whirred to life, so I removed the lens cap and observed the ritual site.
It was indeed a spirit-guiding ritual.
There were no traces of Japanese sorcery as I’d suspected.
Boom, boom.
As the sounds of traditional instruments reached me, I carefully watched the ritual.
Meanwhile, Yoon Sang was conversing with someone, and I gazed at the Shaman conducting the ritual through the lens.
A middle-aged woman dressed in colorful ritual robes.
Her mouth moved busily, but with the distance and the sound of the instruments drowning everything out, I couldn’t hear her words.
Still, I could sense it.
‘She’s gathering Victim Spirits.’
If so, they were likely localized Victim Spirits.
It could be summoning a Malevolent Spirit or Victim Spirit causing trouble in this region.
What was certain was that this wasn’t a ritual to bless the factory being constructed.
Whirr. Click.
I accidentally took a photo, and startled, I looked at the camera once before observing the Shaman again.
It was then.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
The Shaman dropped his instrument and clutched at his throat.
“What’s happening?”
Kang Hyung-seok raised his camera to capture the Shaman as something unprecedented unfolded during the ritual, and moments later, the Musicians rushed in and surrounded him.
Something was going terribly wrong.
Kang Hyung-seok pulled his eye away from the camera, then pressed it back against the viewfinder.
Damn it, they were too far away—the camera was the better vantage point.
“Aaaahhhhh! Aaaahhhhh!”
The instruments fell silent as the Shaman’s screams pierced through.
A cry of anguish as if struck by a curse.
‘The ritual has collapsed.’
Clenching his teeth, Kang Hyung-seok raised his lens skyward, away from the Shaman thrashing about in the crowd’s grip.
The Shaman’s Guardian Spirit couldn’t handle whatever had arrived.
I had to find it.
Glug! Glug!
Dark crimson blood poured from the Shaman’s mouth and nose, and screams erupted from the crowd.
Even as this unfolded, Kang Hyung-seok desperately peered through his lens, searching for the cause of the Shaman’s condition.
Then I saw it.
“…What the hell.”
A head.
A single head attached to a thin neck hovered above the ritual space, staring down at the Shaman.
Its pale, expressionless face was deeply unsettling.
Click.
Kang Hyung-seok accidentally pressed the shutter,
“Gasp!”
and the head suddenly thrust its face directly into the lens.
The enormous visage filling the entire screen nearly caused Kang Hyung-seok to drop his three-million-won camera.
“H-hey, hyung! Hyung! Come here! Quickly!”
Hearing Yoon Sang’s voice calling from a distance, Kang Hyung-seok turned his gaze that way. When he looked back, the head had vanished without a trace.
“Hurry! Hyung!”
At Yoon Sang’s desperate plea, Kang Hyung-seok tucked his camera under his arm and exhaled sharply.
Rokurokuби, the cause of all this, had disappeared from view.
Now I could help the Shaman.
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
Kang Hyung-seok sprinted toward Yoon Sang, quickly handed off the camera, and shoved people aside.
“Hey, what the—”
One of the Musicians tried to grab Kang Hyung-seok, but another immediately stopped him.
No explanation was needed—he recognized it.
That Kang Hyung-seok was also a Shaman.
Glug, glug!
I set down my bag before the Shaman, who continued spewing dark crimson blood from his mouth and nose.
Then I retrieved the Shaman’s Bell and shook it vigorously, driving away the lingering murky energy.
“Jade Emperor’s Messenger, White Horse Great General, Left and Right Executors, Ling Zhong Malevolent Spirit Slayer, Heavenly Platform Master Slayer of Malevolent Spirits, Heavenly Realm Master Slayer of Malevolent Spirits, Underground Realm Master Slayer of Malevolent Spirits.”
Whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrr!
The moment I finished reciting the Shaman’s Bell and the True Name Expulsion Sutra, the blood stopped flowing from the Shaman’s mouth.
Yoon Sang gazed at me in admiration, and even those who had tried to stop me gasped in shock as I put away the Shaman’s Bell and pointed to one of the people present.
“Get him to the Hospital quickly. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
“Hurry!”
“Yes, yes!”
The people scrambled to prepare to take the Shaman to the Hospital.
They carried the Shaman and loaded him into a car, while others began tidying up the ritual grounds.
Amid the commotion, Yoon Sang’s burdensome gaze clung to me with stubborn persistence.
“Hyung-nim, really, wow….”
I clicked my tongue softly and shook my head.
Even those cleaning up the ritual grounds sent me glances tinged with reverence.
Yet the image of Rokurokuби’s face still flickered before my eyes, so I silently ground my teeth.
***
Bubbling, bubbling, bubbling.
At a nearby Kisa Restaurant, Yoon Sang and I sat across from each other, spooning kimchi stew into our bowls.
“Hyung-nim, enjoy your meal!”
Yoon Sang ladled kimchi stew directly onto my plate, and I poured water into a cup and set it before him.
“Wow, Hyung-nim, you’re really amazing. How did you resolve that situation so cleanly?”
“Let’s eat first.”
I scooped a spoonful of kimchi stew from my plate and mixed it into the rice in the stainless steel bowl.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten a proper lunch.
So the moment I saw the rice glistening with red broth, my jaw ached with hunger I’d forgotten about.
“Phew, phew!”
I took a large bite and also ate a chopstickful of the dried anchovy side dish that came with the meal.
A drama was playing on the TV mounted on the wall, and I wondered if it was already that time of evening.
“But Hyung-nim, I did ask about it.”
It was then that Yoon Sang spoke to me while filling his own plate with stew broth.
“Was it the landowner? Or a resident?”
“Ah, they seemed like just a bystander, but I think they were a resident.”
Yoon Sang moved his eyes as if searching his memory, then continued speaking.
“Apparently, people in this area have been having nightmares at an increasing rate. It’s strange, isn’t it? Even though there aren’t many people in the Village, they’re all having the same nightmares.”
“So they called in a Shaman?”
“Yes. From what I heard, there’s a Malevolent Spirit wandering around.”
Yoon Sang narrowed the space between his eyebrows and muttered, “Is it Rokurokuби?”
“That’s right.”
“What? You saw it?”
Kang Hyung-seok nodded, and Yoon Sang set down his spoon, his eyes and mouth opening wide.
“Wait, you should’ve told me first! So, how was it? Was it really just a head floating there?”
Kang Hyung-seok exhaled through his teeth and pointed to the camera resting carefully on the chair beside Yoon Sang.
“I did press the shutter, but I’m not sure if it actually captured anything.”
Clatter!
Yoon Sang pushed his rice bowl aside entirely and picked up the camera to check.
He tapped at the complicated-looking buttons, then swung his fist with the joy of someone who’d won the lottery.
“It’s all hazy! Here, here! It’s captured!”
“Is something like that even broadcast material?”
“It’s more than enough, hyung. I’m really grateful.”
If the Restaurant Owner hadn’t been watching with that look of ‘what are these guys up to?’, Yoon Sang would’ve bowed all the way to the temple.
“Hyung, you’re seriously amazing. Wow, how did you even think to take a shot like this?”
I hadn’t intentionally pressed the shutter with any particular purpose in mind.
Still, seeing Yoon Sang so unusually delighted, I picked up my spoon without much comment.
“Hyung, how about a second round at a hof bar? I’ll pay!”
“I don’t make a habit of mooching off my junior.”
Yoon Sang’s face suddenly filled with emotion, and he mumbled something with his lips.
He called me hyung.
That was roughly the shape his mouth made.
“Stop getting sentimental. We don’t need a second round—just rest. I’m going to check on something else.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Without even asking where?”
“If you’re going, hyung, I’d follow you even to hell.”
His eyes held the sincerity to back those words.
“Sigh, I don’t think talking you out of it would work anyway.”
“Haha, but where are you going?”
“I want to ask someone if they know anything.”
As Yoon Sang made a questioning face, I shifted my gaze to my rice bowl.
“I noticed one on the way here—there’s a jangseung near the Village.”
A carved statue erected at the Village Entrance.
Though the lack of proper maintenance made it look like weathered wood with peeling bark, it was a proper jangseung with even a soldeuk pole erected beside it.
If that jangseung, the guardian of the Village, was what I thought it was, it would surely know something.

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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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