An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 16

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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 16
Part 6. The Charlatan Shaman Will Fear the Young Master (1)
Kang Hyung-seok spent a truly peaceful Saturday.
I binged a drama I’d been wanting to watch through an OTT service, had a meal using a gift certificate that arrived on my birthday, and even enjoyed a leisurely walk near my home.
A day off with nothing to worry about.
Nothing to concern myself with at the office, nothing from the shamanic side of things either.
Since I had no idea when another day like this would come around, I made the most of my day off.
So there was no reason to have a nightmare.
Tap.
Lying in bed and scrolling through my phone, I set it down as drowsiness washed over me.
Then I surrendered to sleep, letting the bed pull me under.
Uuuuung.
The dream began with a low, heavy resonance that felt ominous.
A dining table.
Sitting in a chair at my own dining table, I was looking at my phone.
I didn’t know why.
Dreams are always sudden and illogical, after all.
Ziiiiing.
A phone call rang out as if on cue, and I answered it automatically.
“Hello?”
(Manager Kang.)
Shin Jung-ah’s voice on the other end sounded like that of a corpse.
“Yes.”
(I think I’m going to die soon.)
“Yes.”
My response was as wooden and indifferent as stone, and Shin Jung-ah’s voice was equally hollow.
(I wanted to hear the voice of someone I know one last time.)
“Yes.”
Suddenly, the scene in the dream shifted.
A new apartment complex I’d never seen before.
Probably the apartment Shin Jung-ah had moved into.
Whiiiiing.
A heavy wind blew in through the open balcony window, and white silk curtains swirled and fluttered.
Shin Jung-ah was between the curtains.
More precisely, she was perched on the railing while talking to me.
“I don’t want to die.”
(Yes.)
“I really don’t want to die.”
Contrary to her words, her body was leaning further and further over the railing.
The cars and residents far below looked impossibly distant.
No one had noticed Shin Jung-ah. They went about their day in peaceful oblivion.
Only Shin Jung-ah, plummeting through their midst, radiated an alien presence—a discordant note in their harmony.
“Save me.”
With those words as her final plea, Shin Jung-ah hurled herself over the railing.
The terror of her fall crashed over me with overwhelming force.
In that fleeting moment when I wanted to close my eyes,
A deafening boom!
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
“Ugh, ugggggh!”
“What, what is it? Aaaah!”
“Don’t look! You can’t look!”
An enormous sound erupted, piercing through the screams of passersby.
And the scene shifted back to Kang Hyung-seok.
He held his phone numbly to his ear, then ended the call and remained motionless.
Doing nothing, showing no disturbance—as if it were entirely someone else’s affair.
Simply… still.
“Gasp!”
That was when Kang Hyung-seok jolted awake.
“Gasp, gasp! Gasp!”
Eyes wide open, he gasped for breath and wrapped his arms around himself.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
My heart raced as if I’d sprinted at full speed.
‘Damn it. What kind of dream was that?’
Shin Jung-ah’s final moment had been chilling enough, but the version of myself I’d witnessed in the dream was far more grotesque and sinister.
A person had died.
She’d begged for help, and I’d turned away.
No matter that it was just a dream—how could I have done such a thing?
Did I harbor such darkness within myself, unknown even to me?
Disturbed by these thoughts, I rubbed my goosebumped arms vigorously and got out of bed.
“It was a dream. Just a dream.”
Really?
My subconscious interjected.
‘I’ve received a divine calling, and I had such a vivid dream—can it truly be just an ordinary dream?’ it whispered.
Kang Hyung-seok swallowed hard and picked up his phone.
‘Damn.’
I’d slept deeply.
I hadn’t gone to bed late, and the dream hadn’t been particularly long, yet morning had already arrived.
The time was 8:30 AM.
An awkward hour to reach out to someone.
As I hesitated, I recalled the version of myself from the dream—eerily still, doing nothing.
If it were someone else, perhaps I could dismiss it as merely a dream—but not when it concerned myself.
“Haaah.”
I exhaled a deep sigh, as though expelling every last breath from my lungs.
Brrrring, brrrring.
While calling Shin Jung-ah, every conceivable thought flooded through my mind.
Please, let it just be a dream.
I wouldn’t even mind if Shin Jung-ah, still half-asleep, answered with an irritated, muffled voice.
Just let her be alive.
Then she could curse me out freely!
Brrrring, brrrring, brrrring.
With each passing moment of the ringing tone, my anxiety intensified.
An ominous dread swelled rapidly—what if?—and I was already searching the room for my car keys when it happened.
“Hello?”
Finally, the call connected.
“Manager!”
“Uh, yes? What’s wrong?”
Hearing the alarm in her voice, I released a breath of relief and spoke.
“I had a strange dream. Is everything alright with you?”
“A dream?”
“Yes.”
Even as I said it, the question felt reckless.
A simple inquiry about how her move had gone would have sufficed.
“No, wait. You’re really onto something, aren’t you?”
But Shin Jung-ah’s response carried an unsettling undertone.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, ugh. Ahhh.”
Shin Jung-ah vented her exasperation mixed with frustration, then continued.
“I saw a ghost at the house.”
“…At your new place?”
“Yes! I mean, how am I encountering something like this right after moving?”
“Wait. Are you inside the house right now?”
“No. I was so startled that I came outside. Once the Shamanic Temple opens, I’m going straight there.”
Relief washed over me at the confirmation she wasn’t trapped inside—until the mention of the Shamanic Temple made me stiffen.
“The Shamanic Temple?”
“Yes. Actually, I visited the Shamanic Temple Friday night.”
The word “charlatan shaman” suddenly materialized in my mind with sharp clarity.
‘Damn it.’
I muttered the curse silently and began pacing around the bed as I spoke.
“What did they say at the Shamanic Temple?”
“Huh? What?”
“Please be honest with me. There’s something bothering me.”
(He said to try attaching the talisman, and if something felt off, to come back. Then we’d perform a gut ceremony….)
Kang Hyung-seok pressed his lips firmly together and picked up his car keys.
“I’m leaving now. Please stay put and don’t go anywhere.”
(No! This isn’t something Kang should worry about. I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s fine—I’ll go to the Shamanic Temple.)
“That seems to be the problem.”
Kang Hyung-seok continued speaking as he hurriedly prepared to leave.
“I’m asking you—don’t go anywhere and just stay here. Don’t even go inside the house.”
(Kang….)
Her voice carried an apology.
Yet beneath it lay an unmistakable current of gratitude.
Damn it, I have no desire to meet my workplace superior on a Sunday.
But I dreamed of someone dying.
I suspect my tutelary spirit sent me a revelation through the dream, and I refuse to carry the guilt of knowing what would happen and doing nothing to prevent it.
I won’t live that way.
“Just text me the address.”
After hanging up, Kang Hyung-seok looked up at the ceiling before leaving his house.
The ceiling revealed nothing.
Yet he gazed upward with a mixture of resignation and spoke.
“Please. Next time, send me a gentler revelation.”
The dream had been so unsettling and ominous that I could only make this request of my tutelary spirit.
Kang Hyung-seok closed the door behind him, leaving the silent house in his wake.
***
Vrrrroooom.
My mind churned with countless thoughts during the entire drive to Shin Jung-ah’s apartment.
Was I becoming too deeply entangled with Shin Jung-ah?
What if she wasn’t a charlatan shaman?
What if she truly was more capable than me and had noticed something I’d overlooked?
Honk!
The car behind me blared its horn—apparently I’d been driving too slowly without realizing it.
I flashed my hazard lights in apology and pressed the accelerator, forcing myself to focus on the road.
‘I’ll understand everything once I get there anyway.’
This was a situation where action took precedence over deliberation.
With the determination of someone pulling a drowning person from the water, I drove into the apartment complex Shin Jung-ah had directed me to.
“Over here!”
Shin Jung-ah, standing in front of the security barrier, spotted my car and immediately tapped on the security office window.
“Sir! This is my guest. Building 112, Unit 1501!”
The barrier arm rose smoothly, and Shin Jung-ah hurried over.
“Get in.”
Shin Jung-ah climbed into the passenger seat and rubbed her face, which bore an expression mixing anxiety and relief.
She turned to look at me, and I noticed her whites were glistening with moisture.
“I’m sorry. It’s your day off.”
“No, it’s fine. You said Building 112, right?”
“Y-yes.”
I craned my neck toward the windshield and examined the numbers written on the apartment complex’s exterior wall.
Building 112 seemed to be located deeper inside.
As I slowly drove further into the complex, Shin Jung-ah’s subdued voice came from beside me.
“Could it be because of the talisman…?”
It had taken ten minutes to reach the complex.
During that time, Shin Jung-ah had begun to voice the concerns and thoughts she’d been wrestling with.
“You said you saw a ghost? Do you know what kind of talisman it was?”
“A ghost-repelling talisman.”
“Do you have a photo?”
“No….”
I nodded as if that made sense and opened my mouth to speak.
“Did this start happening after you put up the talisman?”
“I put it up after finishing the cleaning last night, and I saw the ghost this morning.”
“What kind of ghost was it?”
Shin Jung-ah shuddered and forced herself to speak.
“While I was washing my hair, I caught a glimpse of a pale blue hand.”
It wasn’t the hand of a living person.
A corpse’s hand.
And it had reached toward my face as I stood in the shower.
Startled, Shin Jung-ah appeared to have rushed out of her apartment without even properly rinsing the shampoo from her hair.
The strong scent of shampoo clung to her, and her outfit didn’t look hastily assembled at all.
A white box tee paired with a black cardigan.
Beneath that were pink pajama pants with cartoon characters—the kind one wore only when alone at home.
Rustle.
Shin Jung-ah, conscious of Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze, tugged the hem of her cardigan down as if to hide her pants.
“We should check the apartment first.”
Kang Hyung-seok turned his attention forward and spoke, while Shin Jung-ah pressed her lips tightly together.
Right now, Shin Jung-ah looked exactly like a desperate visitor to the Shamanic Temple at dawn.
That’s how urgent and dire her situation appeared.
When someone in such a state kept their mouth sealed shut, there was only one reason.
Grrrr.
As Kang Hyung-seok parked the car, he exhaled as if sighing before speaking.
“I’ll go up alone.”
“…Sorry.”
“No need. Just give me a visitor pass.”
If I came back down to find a no-parking sticker on the car, it would feel truly pathetic.
“Got it. Anything else you need?”
“Just send me the password by text.”
Kang Hyung-seok reached back, grabbed the backpack containing the Shaman’s Bell, and stepped out of the car.
It happened immediately after.
Crash!
The sound of something heavy falling from above reached his ears.
At the same moment, the Shaman’s Bell in his bag chimed with a sharp ding.
Before he could reflexively dodge to the side,
Boom!
A large brick crashed down exactly where he had been standing.
Thud! Wail, wail, wail!
The ricocheting brick struck a parked car, triggering its anti-theft alarm.
In an instant, all eyes turned toward the commotion, and a uniformed Security Guard came rushing over.
“Hey there! Young man! Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
The Security Guard asked urgently, while Shin Jung-ah burst from the car with wide, alarmed eyes fixed on Kang Hyung-seok.
“K-Kang Deputy Manager!”
Their voices didn’t reach my ears.
Kang Hyung-seok breathed shallowly and looked upward.
There was nothing that could explain how a brick had fallen.
Yet the profane energy emanating from above made his expression harden further.
‘Damn it.’
An uneasy premonition that the situation might be far more serious than anticipated spread through my mind like black ink dropped into clear water.

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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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