An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 151

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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 150
Part 4. It Was a Stake (3)
Thud! Crack!
No one would ever know.
Beneath the black sky.
Deep within the black Mountain.
That I was excavating black earth.
Whoosh! Thud! Thud!
Even a false Grave is still a Grave.
“Ulul Cheongsong-ri, layer upon layer of white stone, Soyao Seongmo-sin, bedrock cave deep, ten thousand learning thousand peaks fixed, Bodeok Daejin-gun.”
Kang Hyung-seok recited the sacred incantation to pay respects to the Mountain Spirit, warding off spiritual contamination and unknown afflictions.
Once he finished all the prayers, he lifted his shovel and began breaking ground.
This night, only the moon and clouds would witness this sight.
Thud! Crack!
Kang Hyung-seok and Yoon Sang carved downward through the earth with pickaxe and shovel, sweat streaming down their faces.
Beside them, a steadily growing mound of soil accumulated.
As the two men dug deeper, Yoon Sang’s pickaxe struck something unfamiliar.
“H-hyung-nim.”
At last, we had reached the coffin.
Yoon Sang spoke in a trembling voice, and Kang Hyung-seok swept away the earth around the pickaxe with his shovel in broad strokes.
Then, in the beam of the headlamp, a flat wooden plank was revealed.
‘A coffin.’
Kang Hyung-seok sent Yoon Sang out of the pit and used the pickaxe and shovel to fully expose the entire coffin.
Indeed, it was a false Grave.
I sensed something other than the typical aura of a coffin.
Something far more sinister and violent.
The aura of something that should never have taken root here.
“Stay back.”
Kang Hyung-seok issued a low warning and brought his pickaxe down hard on the coffin’s edge.
Then he thrust the handle outward,
Crack!
The thick wooden coffin shattered, creating a gap.
Simultaneously, stale air that had accumulated for decades rushed out.
“Ugh! Uuugh!”
Even an ordinary person could sense the foul miasma; Yoon Sang made a sound as his insides twisted.
In that moment, Kang Hyung-seok wedged his fingers into the gap,
Creak!
and began to push the heavy coffin lid open.
His forearms swelled, thick veins rising prominently.
And slowly, the coffin lid opened.
Thud!
As the coffin lid slid to the side, Yoon Sang peered down into the pit with a trembling face.
Relief washed over him at the sight of no corpse, though his eyes glistened with unshed tears.
But this was no time for relief.
“Huff… huff…”
Kang Hyung-seok, breathing heavily, stared down at the doll nestled in the coffin with a rigid, contorted expression.
A doll depicting only the upper body of a young girl.
Its face was pale white, its hair jet black.
It wore a kimono.
A Japanese Ichimatsu doll.
“Wh…?”
Yoon Sang’s face, obscured by Kang Hyung-seok’s frame and unable to see the doll clearly, drained of all color.
He had noticed the doll’s grotesque peculiarity.
Its neck was far too long.
Click.
As Kang Hyung-seok lifted the doll, its elongated neck stretched and extended, the head tilting back.
A neck like that of a centipede.
Grotesque and repulsive—insects crawled from the doll’s clothing—yet Kang Hyung-seok did not drop it.
“So you were inside.”
He understood what dwelt within the doll.
Rokurokuби.
More precisely, the spirit of a person who had become Rokurokuби.
“Hara Seiko.”
The moment Kang Hyung-seok spoke her name.
Clatter.
The doll’s head moved.
It appeared at first that Kang Hyung-seok was shaking it, but his hands remained perfectly still.
Only the doll rattled and shifted on its own.
“Gasp… gasp…”
Yoon Sang’s ragged breathing froze white in the cold air.
A fearsome yokai rested in Kang Hyung-seok’s arms.
The truth Kim Ki-ok had hidden from the world—his own mother.
As though grieving the long years of burial, the doll slowly shook its head.
“What weighs so heavily on your heart?”
Kang Hyung-seok spoke to the doll in a calm, low voice, as though soothing a child.
“I am ready to listen. Please, tell me.”
Clatter, clatter, clatter.
As the doll continued its rhythmic rattling, Yoon Sang tremblingly withdrew his phone.
In that instant, Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze shifted toward him.
Yet Yoon Sang, struggling against the weight of the moment, touched his phone and sent a desperate, pleading look.
I’m not taking pictures, so just wait a moment, hyung.
Yoon Sang, his eyes conveying exactly that message, turned on the translator and entered what Kang Hyung-seok had said.
Click.
When he pressed the translation button and the pronunciation audio, Japanese flowed from the speaker.
I’m ready to listen. Please go ahead.
It was right after the translated Japanese words poured from the speaker.
Darkness seeped into Kang Hyung-seok’s vision.
Light receded.
Instead, wind rushed in.
Whoooosh.
The memory began from that ringing in the ears.
Gasp! Gasp! Gasping!
Ragged breathing.
Drip, drip.
Red liquid flowing from the hammer.
It was a young Kim Ki-ok holding the hammer.
Wipe, wipe!
He wiped the blood splattered on his body and hands with a clean towel, but it wouldn’t come off easily.
It couldn’t be helped.
In the fantasy, I looked down at the woman in a kimono collapsed before Kim Ki-ok.
Hara Seiko…?
A woman with her head caved in, collapsed.
She had been attacked in the place that should have been most peaceful, by the son who should have been most harmless.
I clenched my teeth and turned my gaze toward Kim Ki-ok.
Sob! Sob! Sobbing.
Kim Ki-ok was wiping away the blood on his hands with tears.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mother.
Kim Ki-ok was speaking in Japanese, but because these were Hara Seiko’s memories, I could understand his words.
Why did he kill her?
Was he really trying to create Rokurokuби from the start?
It was then that I watched Kim Ki-ok in silence.
Ah… ah.
Hara Seiko groaned and moved.
Kim Ki-ok’s face turned pale and hardened, while Hara Seiko reflexively crawled forward.
It was a movement to escape rather than anything deliberate.
But it was enough to instill great terror in Kim Ki-ok.
Ugh, uuuaaaaaah!
Kim Ki-ok, as if seized by convulsions, raised the hammer and lunged at his mother, mounting her back.
Crack!
Blood burst forth as Hara Seiko’s hand shook violently, and
Crack! Crack! Thud! Snap!
Fingers fell lifelessly under the frenzied swings of the hammer. Each time it struck his head, his body convulsed from the recoil.
Hara Seiko died like that.
Crack! Crack! Crunch!
Yet Kim Ki-ok did not stop swinging the hammer for a long time.
I knew she was already dead.
But fearing she might move again, I refused to release the hammer.
“Ugh! Gah! Uuuugh!”
Only when his mother’s head shattered and its contents spilled did Kim Ki-ok finally stop.
Then I embraced my mother’s cooling body with all my strength and pulled myself up.
“Kim Ki-ok.”
Kang Hyung-seok called out to him, drenched in blood.
A memory. A phantom.
I knew he couldn’t possibly respond.
Yet the desire to condemn and reproach him was so overwhelming that words spilled from my lips.
At that, Kim Ki-ok’s gaze turned toward Kang Hyung-seok.
Thud, thud.
Kim Ki-ok strode forward and opened the drawer beside Kang Hyung-seok.
He quickly gathered documents and clutched them to his chest.
I didn’t know what they were, but the way he held them so carefully revealed they were the reason for Hara Seiko’s death.
“You killed your mother… for just that?”
Kang Hyung-seok asked in a groan, but his words never reached Kim Ki-ok.
He simply moved about in frantic haste.
Splash, splash, splash, splash!
After drenching Hara Seiko’s corpse and the surrounding area with oil, Kim Ki-ok lifted a portable kerosene lantern with trembling hands.
The flame trapped within the glass flickered, casting sinister shadows.
Kang Hyung-seok’s face contorted with contempt and despair as Kim Ki-ok’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently.
Crash! Whoooosh!
The lantern Kim Ki-ok threw shattered on the oil, and flames erupted skyward.
A wooden building.
In an instant, fire raced up the walls, consuming the curtains, Hara Seiko’s kimono, and her hair.
And the home where mother and I had built our memories.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
Kim Ki-ok breathed in ragged gasps.
In the hellish house filled with scorching heat, I stared at my mother’s corpse and slowly moved my trembling lips.
At first, I wept.
But soon I laughed.
Young Kim Ki-ok wept and laughed as I gazed upon my dead mother.
“This… this is how I know I’m alive, Mother.”
A mother would do anything for her child, wouldn’t she.
Just one more sacrifice for my sake throughout your life.
Isn’t that what parents do—wanting their children to thrive?
And Mother, you’re the one who abandoned your homeland and married into this land.
For the sake of my son, let’s remain on this land a while longer so we won’t be ashamed before our ancestors.
“Heh, heheheh.”
Kim Ki-ok’s mouth smiled while his eyes wept as he fled the Rental House with the documents in hand.
It was at that grotesque retreating figure that Kang Hyung-seok felt a hollow despair settle over him.
The surroundings shifted once more.
Clatter.
A doll with an elongated neck.
The doll that had been exhumed from the Grave now rested pristinely in the Japanese Onmyoji’s hands.
Though night was beginning to fall and darkness crept across the surroundings, Kang Hyung-seok could see everything as clearly as if it were broad daylight.
The Japanese Onmyoji, Kim Ki-ok.
And a Young Woman cradling an infant whose face was concealed by cloth.
Swish.
The Japanese Onmyoji undressed the doll while gazing at Kim Ki-ok.
Then he placed the hammer head with dried black blood and a talisman inside the doll.
“With this, Hara Seiko has become your shikigami.”
Kim Ki-ok bowed deeply to the Japanese Onmyoji with his hands pressed together in gratitude.
‘What on earth is he grateful for?’
Because it was a vision, Kim Ki-ok’s emotions transmitted to Kang Hyung-seok as well.
Kim Ki-ok felt genuine gratitude toward the Japanese Onmyoji for transforming his mother into a yokai.
“Just as your mother protected you, your shikigami will shield you.”
The Japanese Onmyoji’s voice was devoid of emotion and rhythm.
It even carried the quality of an incantation or spell.
“Your remaining years will be peaceful and prosperous.”
It was then.
Sensing a gaze upon him, Kang Hyung-seok shifted his attention in that direction.
Behind a tree, a young Na Sung-hwa in work clothes stood watching Kim Ki-ok and the Japanese Onmyoji, his face drained of all color.
“Now you have a duty to fulfill.”
“I will keep it in mind.”
“Become a Bridge connecting the two nations.”
“I will do so.”
“Build shrines to suppress the gods of this land and summon our gods to this earth.”
“Yes.”
So that everything on this land becomes entirely ours.
The Japanese Onmyoji’s eyes spoke those words clearly.
Kang Hyung-seok squeezed his eyes shut.
He did not wish to witness this.
It was abhorrent, vile, and contemptible.
“Waaah! Waaaaaah!”
From somewhere, the sound of a baby crying echoed through the air.
Was it the last remnant of Kim Ki-ok’s conscience weeping?
Or perhaps Hara Seiko’s memories of Kim Ki-ok as an infant?
Or could it be the cry of the baby that once stood beside the Japanese Onmyoji?
“…Sir!”
A familiar voice reached his ears.
“…Brother!”
The voice grew louder, pulling his consciousness back to reality with sufficient force.
Kang Hyung-seok turned only his head to look at Yoon Sang.
“B-Brother! Are you alright?”
As Kang Hyung-seok tried to respond, he understood why Yoon Sang looked so alarmed.
The scent of blood emanated from his breath.
The blood vessels inside his nostrils had ruptured as if torn, and his eyes throbbed with pain as though pierced by an awl.
It was the consequence of holding the doll—the source of Rokurokuби—for far too long.
“I-I’ll come down right now!”
Yoon Sang attempted to descend into the pit where Kang Hyung-seok lay.
I stopped him with a shake of my head.
“Now I understand it all.”
The circumstances surrounding this doll, its origins, its limits.
I’ve come to comprehend everything in the depths of my heart.
Rustle.
Before Yoon Sang’s helpless gaze, I removed the doll’s clothing.
Then, through the hole in the doll’s back, I extracted the hammer head and the talisman.
“I’m going to begin the resolution.”
With those words, I let the hammer head fall to the ground.
The hammer head, still stained with dried blood, fell silently onto the earth.

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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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