An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 152

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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 151
Part 4. It Was a Stake (4)
What remains shall remain.
What must be released shall be released.
This is resolution—the role of the dead and the living.
Rustle.
Leaving the fallen hammer head behind, Kang Hyung-seok grasped the talisman.
The corners of the talisman that the Japanese Onmyoji had placed directly were now blackened.
It was not merely the passage of time.
“Mm.”
Yoon Sang stared rigidly at Kang Hyung-seok, who held the talisman.
‘How did he know the talisman was in there…?’
He knew it was a meaningless question.
Kang Hyung-seok was a Shaman, so he could see, hear, and sense what ordinary people could not.
Yet what the mind knows and what the heart feels are always different.
“Yoon Sang.”
“Yes, yes!”
Startled, Yoon Sang answered loudly, and Kang Hyung-seok extended his hand toward him.
“Do you have a lighter?”
Yoon Sang couldn’t even answer before frantically searching his pockets.
Then he pulled out a lighter and handed it to Kang Hyung-seok.
From within the pit, Kang Hyung-seok reached out and received the lighter, then spun the flint of the lighter while cradling the doll in his arms.
Click, whoosh!
As a small flame cast a crimson glow that dimly illuminated the surroundings, Kang Hyung-seok brought the talisman close.
Whoooosh!
The thin talisman ignited in an instant, as if it were drinking in the fire.
And as Kang Hyung-seok released his hand, the talisman soared into the air as if dancing.
Strangely, the talisman’s flame did not extinguish.
It burned high in the air, as if waiting for something.
Wa-rang!
Shaking the Shaman’s Bell, Kang Hyung-seok chanted the sacred words as if expelling his breath.
“Siwang-gwi howi chulseong.”
A gentle voice spread through the quiet Mountain.
“Ingan-chilsip gorae-huiyeo, han-nyeon-palship yuhuiro-da. Hwayong-yuhuи baeknyeon-sinse, yuri-gwang-eum butyeosseuni.”
Wa-rang! Wa-rang!
“Baeknyeong-joein samsip-woneun wonmyeong-joein-iyeo. Chilsip-woneun bimyeong-inde bimyeong-hoengsa sseureojini.”
Chanting the Inmun Departed Spirit Scripture, Kang Hyung-seok prayed that the spirit of Hara Seiko could ascend to heaven.
“Pitiful wandering spirit. To whom shall you turn for refuge?”
A spirit murdered by her own son.
A spirit with no one to rely upon.
“To change what is evil and turn toward what is good—is this not the spirit of the wind and light?”
A spirit who had abandoned her homeland, married in a foreign land, yet whose life was not long.
“The flower that falls in the eastern wind blooms again in the bright spring.”
Like a petal scattered by the spring breeze, dear woman.
May you be reborn, I pray.
May you depart gently, without lingering attachment.
Ding-ding-ding!
As the Shaman’s Bell rang loudly, the form of the talisman began to crumble.
The falling ash scattered like tears upon the doll, upon the dark earth below.
Throughout it all, Yoon Sang stared at the talisman as though his soul had left his body.
‘A photograph…’
To use it for the broadcast, I would need a photograph.
I raised my phone toward the talisman, yet I could not bring myself to take the shot.
Somehow, I felt it would be wrong to do so.
Ding-ding-ding!
On the Mountain where only moonlight quietly illuminated the darkness, the Shaman’s Bell rang.
And Kang Hyung-seok cradled the doll and the Shaman’s Bell in his arms, bringing his palms together.
“Ascending through white clouds, you have journeyed to the realm of the deceased.”
Whoosh.
The talisman scatters as ash, fading away.
Gazing up at that talisman, Kang Hyung-seok recited the final verse of the Entrance Prayer for the Departed.
“Returning to the realm of bliss, may you be guided toward rebirth.”
Whoooosh.
The talisman became ash.
Darkness returned.
The cold night air, forgotten for a moment, blew once more.
Hara Seiko had departed.
“H-hey, hyung.”
After a long silence, Yoon Sang spoke with trembling lips.
“Is it… is it all over? Has she been guided to the afterlife?”
Kang Hyung-seok gazed at the point where the talisman had burned.
The silence stretched on.
As Yoon Sang’s anxiety grew with each passing moment and he unconsciously gripped his chest, that was when Kang Hyung-seok spoke.
“Hara Seiko has departed.”
What must leave, leaves.
“…Pardon?”
Yoon Sang watched with eyes that asked, ‘Then it’s not all over?’, but Kang Hyung-seok shook his head.
“Rokurokuби is not.”
Then his gaze shifted to the hammer head buried in the earth.
What must remain, remains.
That is resolution.
Whoooosh.
The leaves trembled in the wind that swept through.
Kang Hyung-seok gazed down at the hammer head with troubled eyes.
Hara Seiko had departed, yet something remained behind like that hammer head.
The yokai Rokurokuби.
Kim Ki-ok’s karma.
***
Glug, glug, glug.
Kim Ki-ok, having filled a glass with water, stroked his throat.
Strangely, his energy felt depleted.
“Damn them. How dare they crawl into a place like that and cause such pointless trouble…”
It was likely due to the ominous incident that had occurred at the Factory.
It was likely because the Altar had been destroyed.
With such thoughts, Kim Ki-ok entered the Bedroom with an unsettled heart.
Tick, tick.
The second hand of the wall clock moved ominously—it was 1 AM.
Tonight, sleep eluded him unusually, and with his eyes closed, he stared into the darkness behind his eyelids.
He tried to cast away distracting thoughts and focus only on the comfort the bed provided.
Tap, tap, tap.
A faint vibration from beneath the bed tickled his back.
Kim Ki-ok’s eyes snapped open, and he tried to move his body.
Yet he couldn’t move a single finger, as if pressed down by sleep paralysis.
“What… what is this?”
Still, his mouth moved.
Since placing the food spirit, he had never experienced sleep paralysis before, so Kim Ki-ok couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Tap, tap, tap.
Again, a vibration came from beneath the bed.
Between the bed and the floor.
In that pitch-black space devoid of light, something clinging to the underside of the bed was tapping with its fingers.
“Ugh! Gasp!”
Kim Ki-ok struggled desperately to escape the bed,
And it crawled out from beneath.
Then it slowly raised its upper body.
“Aaaah!”
When their eyes met, Kim Ki-ok reflexively held his breath.
An expressionless face.
Familiar features.
It wore the appearance of Hara Seiko—it was Rokurokuби.
That thing wearing Hara Seiko’s appearance was Rokurokuби.
“Huff, huff. This, this thing….”
Kim Ki-ok stopped speaking and stared at Rokurokuби’s mouth.
A wave of profound alienation and dread washed over him.
-Hee! Hehehee! Ehehehehee!
Rokurokuби was laughing, emitting that grotesque sound.
Since becoming a food spirit, it had shown no expression whatsoever.
And now it was laughing.
“Wh, what…?”
That was when it happened.
Rokurokuби’s neck began to elongate silently and gradually.
Still wearing that laughing face, it looked down at Kim Ki-ok.
The head, rising higher and higher, crawled across the Ceiling.
‘It’s not Mother. It’s not Hara Seiko!’
What remained on this land.
Like the hammer Kim Ki-ok had used to murder his mother, it was a yokai that could not leave this earth.
Ssssssk.
The sound of Rokurokuби’s hair scraping against the Ceiling echoed.
Thus Rokurokuби’s hair became increasingly disheveled.
Between the pitch-black strands, only that laughing mouth was visible.
“No, no! This can’t be!”
Rokurokuби is not Hara Seiko.
Therefore, that smile was not her mother’s laughter.
It was the laughter of a yokai that had found its object of resentment—Kim Ki-ok.
Thud! Thud!
Kim Ki-ok thrashed his only mobile neck, trying to escape the scissors, but it was futile.
Shhhhh.
The head began descending gradually.
And when its face drew so close that their noses nearly touched,
Crack!
Rokurokuби, beside the Bedroom, seized Kim Ki-ok’s head.
“Agh! Aaaaagh!”
Kim Ki-ok shrieked at the brutal grip.
In that moment, Rokurokuби grabbed a thick glass bottle filled with water.
And then,
Smash!
It brought the bottle down upon Kim Ki-ok’s head.
“Kraaagh!”
Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash!
Just as Kim Ki-ok had done before.
Rokurokuби brought the bottle crashing down upon his head again and again.
“Ahhh! Uuuaaah! Aaaahhh! Craaahhh!”
Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!
Kim Ki-ok’s screams were so brutal they seemed almost inhuman.
Yet his body wouldn’t move—he couldn’t flee.
Crash! Crunch! Crunch!
Like a watermelon being pulverized in a mortar, Rokurokuби continued to smash Kim Ki-ok’s head down again and again.
Her grotesquely elongated neck, stretched like a spider’s web across the Ceiling, still loomed above him as she stared down.
That gaze was terrifying.
Thud! Thud!
With teeth shattered and his nose flattened, Kim Ki-ok vomited dark crimson blood in thick globs.
He no longer felt pain.
As he sensed his life slipping away, Kim Ki-ok understood—he was being murdered by his own mother.
‘Mother.’
Karma follows the laws of heaven and returns.
Good deeds bring fortune; evil deeds bring punishment.
Kim Ki-ok understood he was receiving the retribution for his own actions, and because of this, he was consumed by a terror far greater than what Rokurokuби inspired.
He had tried to build a shrine that would overshadow the gods of this nation.
That karma had not yet arrived.
“Please… spare me.”
Kim Ki-ok pleaded desperately through his shattered mouth, and Rokurokuби’s hands stopped.
Then she embraced him tightly, his eyes crushed shut.
It was nothing like a mother’s warm embrace.
“Please… spare me. Spare me.”
Anticipating what would come next, Kim Ki-ok trembled in terror as Rokurokuби pushed him toward the Bedroom.
Downward, toward depths even deeper.
To a place not of this world.
To where beings like Kim Ki-ok belonged.
To hell.
“Uuuuh! Uuuaaahhhhh!”
As Kim Ki-ok’s screams tore through the air, a sickening crunch echoed from the Bedroom frame.
***
Tick, tick, tick.
Morning had arrived the next day.
The second hand of the wall clock moved as if nothing had happened last night.
The room, with its soft light filtering through the curtains drawn over the Window, exuded an atmosphere of silence and tranquility.
Knock, knock, knock.
Kim Ki-ok’s door was rapped upon.
“It is time to wake up.”
The Attendant’s courteous voice came through, but only the sound of the second hand moving echoed from within the room.
Knock, knock, knock.
The knock sounded again, and the Attendant repeated that it was time to rise, but only silence returned.
“Did anything happen yesterday?”
“Nothing occurred while I was here until I left work.”
The Attendant conversed with the Housekeeper before exhaling a long sigh.
“I’m going in.”
Something might have befallen the elderly Kim Ki-ok.
The Attendant, having reached this conclusion, lowered his head and twisted the doorknob, while the Housekeeper watched from a step behind with an anxious gaze.
It happened immediately after.
“Kyaaaaaahhh!”
The Housekeeper covered her mouth and stumbled backward, then shielded her face.
The Attendant reflexively held his breath and stared at Kim Ki-ok lying on the Bedroom with a bewildered expression.
Bzzzzzz.
A fly crawled out from Kim Ki-ok’s mouth.
With his eyes wide open and his face contorted to the point of appearing inhuman, Kim Ki-ok lay upon the Bedroom.
“Q-Quick! Call an ambulance! Hurry!”
“Y-Yes, yes!”
“Get a hold of yourself! Hurry!”
The Housekeeper, unable even to wipe her tears, withdrew while pulling out her phone.
The Attendant stood motionless at the doorway, watching Kim Ki-ok.
‘What on earth did he experience….’
There were no visible wounds on his body.
Yet, as if he had been dragged alive into the depths of hell, he bore no resemblance to someone who had met a natural death.
The Attendant gazed with trembling eyes at the glass bottle placed at the head of Kim Ki-ok’s Bedroom.
The water contained in the large, thick glass bottle was as still as a Lake, revealing nothing whatsoever.

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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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