An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 161

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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 160
Part 7. In the End, It’s All Connected (2)
“You will arrive at your destination shortly. Navigation will now end.”
Kang Hyung-seok furrowed his brow as he gazed ahead.
The location Bu-yong had marked was expansive.
Broad enough to encompass both the commercial district and residential areas.
So when he was about to relocate in search of a parking space,
Vroooom.
A car pulled out from the public parking lot on the road.
‘Is this a sign that things are working out?’
Kang Hyung-seok pulled into the miraculously vacant spot that had appeared at precisely the right moment, turned off the engine, and unbuckled his seatbelt.
Click.
“Hyung, where should we start…?”
“Stay quiet.”
Yoon Sang clamped his mouth shut and nodded with a soldier-like expression, while Kang Hyung-seok retrieved a bag from the back seat.
The bag containing the Shaman’s Bell and the spirit blade.
Slinging the bag over one shoulder, Kang Hyung-seok checked his phone and began walking toward the nearest Shamanic Temple.
‘Tae Ho, Fu Xi, Shen Nong, Yellow Emperor, Yao, Shun, Yu the Great, Tang, Wen, Wu, Duke of Zhou.’
The sun hung high in the sky above the street.
With so many people passing by, he couldn’t afford to recite the incantations aloud.
‘Confucius, Mencius, the Four Sages, swift as lightning, veins of heaven and earth, transformation of all things.’
I humbly make this request.
Divine spirits, I beseech you to lend me your ear.
‘Nine times nine, eighty-one, the vital force of heaven and earth strengthens, eight times nine, seventy-two, harmony of yin and yang, from beginning to end.’
There are those in need of aid.
As I wish to help them, divine spirits, I ask that you lend me your strength.
‘Heaven’s expanse, infinite and eternal, two hundred and sixteen nights.’
Chanting the invocation like a prayer, murmuring it only within his mouth, Kang Hyung-seok looked up at the officetel where the Shamanic Temple was located.
Without hesitation, he headed toward the elevator.
The elevator was ascending to the fourth floor.
The Shamanic Temple he needed was on the third floor.
Bang!
Unable to wait for the elevator, he threw open the emergency exit door and began sprinting up the stairs.
Right behind him, Yoon Sang followed with a pleading expression, as if begging him to slow down.
***
“Would you like a receipt?”
“No, thank you.”
Lee Ha-yoon took the card and stepped out of the taxi, with Shin Jung-ah following behind her with an “Ugh!” sound from deeper inside.
The complete opposite direction from where Kang Hyung-seok and Yoon Sang were.
It was toward the Residential District.
“So! Where should we start?”
“Is this something to get excited about?”
“Why not? It’s fun.”
We had something to do on the weekend.
Watching Lee Ha-yoon’s unbridled joy, Shin Jung-ah rubbed her warming forehead.
“Can you really spare the time? Don’t you have work? You only just opened your office.”
“…Yeah.”
Lee Ha-yoon’s expression fell so suddenly that Shin Jung-ah quickly grabbed her arm.
“Hey, let’s go quickly. I’m sorry.”
“Okay!”
“Ugh, you’re impossible, really.”
Shin Jung-ah grumbled while pulling up the text with the Shamanic Temple’s address, but Lee Ha-yoon just stared blankly.
“Hey, search for one too. There are more than one or two places to check.”
“Can’t you just go?”
“Huh?”
“I looked it up in the taxi earlier, and they said that talisman you got is that kind.”
A talisman for protection.
Conversely, it’s the kind of talisman that’s good for someone easily influenced to carry.
“Just go to wherever you feel strongly drawn to, right? You’ve always had mysteriously bad luck, so you used to visit the Shamanic Temple all the time.”
Lee Ha-yoon asked with eyes sparkling as if she were looking at a psychic, and Shin Jung-ah made a face.
“Say something that makes sense.”
“Why? It’s possible. And didn’t you say your regular Shamanic Temple turned out to be a weird place before? Kang Hyung-seok helped you then too.”
“When was that? Why are you bringing up that story?”
“So you have a knack for finding weird Shamanic Temples, don’t you? That’s bad luck.”
“Sigh, really.”
Shin Jung-ah swept her hair back and looked at the text.
I didn’t want to admit it.
But there were a few that stood out.
Among them, there was one place that caught my attention strongly.
“Pick one quickly, come on.”
“Wait!”
“You’ve already decided, haven’t you?”
Shin Jung-ah furrowed her brow further and stared at her phone as if trying to bore a hole through it.
“Phew—!”
After a long moment of deliberation, Shin Jung-ah selected one from the list.
There was a peculiar pull toward the place that had been nagging at me since earlier.
“Let’s start from here.”
“It’s close?”
“I don’t know. Just go. For now.”
“Hey, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if we found it before Kang Hyung-seok?”
“Is that funny?”
Shin Jung-ah bickered with Lee Ha-yoon as they made their way toward the Shamanic Temple.
***
Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle!
The bell chimed as it swayed.
It was the Shaman’s Bell held in a hand marked by the passage of years.
Inside the Shamanic Temple, a worn middle-aged woman stood tensely before the Shaman, clutching her bag tightly.
Jingle!
The Shaman’s Bell fell silent, and a profound hush descended like a lie.
“Um, um, how will it go….”
Tap.
The middle-aged woman set down the Shaman’s Bell and continued speaking, her eyes sharp and gleaming with an otherworldly light.
“It’s worked out well. Your son approves as well.”
“Then, then what?”
“There will be no problem with the marriage.”
“Phew! Thank you, thank you so much.”
The woman opened her bag and pulled out a thick, pristine white envelope.
“This, this is for the blessing fee….”
“Woman, is a betrothal sealed with just a blessing fee?”
“What?”
“A spirit wedding is still a wedding. You have to tie the blue and red threads, arrange the wedding procession properly—you can’t do all that with just a blessing fee.”
The middle-aged woman’s lips pressed firmly together.
Her hand holding the bag trembled slightly.
“If you’re overextending yourself with what little you have, go home. Your late son was happy about getting married, but you’re only going to deepen his sorrow.”
“What?”
When the middle-aged woman looked up, the Shaman twisted her lips and eyebrows, pointing behind her.
“Don’t you see how disappointed your son is right now, standing behind you?”
The middle-aged woman reflexively turned around, but there was nothing to see.
“And is this just any marriage? It’s a marriage between the dead and the living—where exactly do you think you can cut corners?”
“Ah….”
“If you have nothing more to say, go home. There are plenty of others who will marry.”
“No, no, that’s not it!”
“I said get out!”
The Shaman’s eyes gleamed as she shouted harshly.
“Frankly, if your son becomes a wandering spirit and drifts through the nine heavens, is that acceptable to you? And the woman I’ve chosen—is she just some common girl? She comes from a good family with a bright future ahead, and there aren’t many who would agree to bind her to someone like this!”
“I-I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The Middle-aged Woman prostrated herself with such abject desperation that it was pitiful to witness.
Her forehead touched the floor, and her body trembled as though the Shaman standing before her were a deity incarnate.
“I spoke out of turn! I’ll find the money somehow, please, please.”
“Bring it by next week.”
The Middle-aged Woman swallowed hard, her throat dry, and struggled to lift her trembling face.
She dared not ask how much she needed to prepare, fearing it might displease the Shaman.
The exact amount remained unspoken.
“The cost of marrying off a son is standard knowledge—what’s there to deliberate about?”
The Middle-aged Woman squeezed her eyes shut.
Then, with great effort, she nodded, rose to her feet, pressed her palms together in gratitude before the Shaman, and bowed deeply.
“I understand….”
“Don’t think me cruel. You’re arranging a betrothal with a respectable family—that fortune will flow into your household as well.”
“Th-thank you.”
“The living must live. Isn’t that so?”
Among the living the Shaman spoke of, those destined to marry Victim Spirits were notably absent from consideration.
They were tools. Means of profit.
To the Shaman, unmarried men and women with auspicious birth charts were merely such instruments.
“Yes, yes!”
As though discovering a glimmer of hope within despair, the Middle-aged Woman’s expression brightened.
“Go now.”
“Yes, yes!”
Moments after the Middle-aged Woman departed the Shamanic Temple with repeated bows,
the door swung open.
A young woman with sharp eyes and a short bob haircut emerged from the Inner Room.
“What a pathetic wretch.”
She spoke with venom, her tongue as cutting as a blade—the Shaman’s daughter.
Her name was Lee Ju-hyun.
Also Bu-yong’s Friend.
She was someone who extracted birth charts from acquaintances through deception, and someone who possessed five mobile phones.
A soft rustling sound.
The Shaman withdrew a thick notebook and underlined a name written densely across its pages as she spoke.
“Still, she’s a client. Watch your tongue.”
“Mom, you should be more selective about who you take on. What is she? Everything she says is so vulgar.”
The Shaman looked at the Short-haired Woman and twisted her lips into a smile.
“More importantly, how are the preparations coming along?”
“It’s not easy. I’ve already squeezed everything from those around me.”
“Next time, try attending church. Scout around Cheongdam-dong too, and look into the Department Store Culture Center. I’ll give you the money.”
“Really?”
Lee Ju-hyun smiled wickedly at her mother, Jo Myung-sook.
The mother and daughter had been doing this sort of thing for years.
Lee Ju-hyun would obtain the birth charts of young men and women, hand them over to Jo Myung-sook, and Jo Myung-sook would receive substantial sums from those seeking spirit marriages, then unite the living with the dead.
“Remember that friend from before? There’s no one quite like her.”
“Who? Oh, her.”
Lee Ju-hyun shook her head with an expression of utter disgust at the thought of Bu-yong.
“Do you know how many years I spent trying to extract that woman’s birth chart? I’m absolutely sick of it.”
“Still, she got married for a good price.”
“Mom suffered a lot because of her too, didn’t you?”
“Ugh, don’t even mention it. That boyfriend’s Victim Spirit was so attached to her, lingering around everywhere. We went through so much trouble just keeping it at bay for a while. But has she contacted us since?”
“No? She said she was going overseas and threw away her number.”
“My poor daughter has had such a hard time. We’d need a lot more young people to die to make things easier for her.”
The easiest thing was pairing Victim Spirits with other Victim Spirits.
For that to happen, many young people needed to die.
That’s why whenever a major disaster occurred, the mother and daughter would clap their hands in joy.
Excellent deaths. Excellent deaths!
Yes, yes, more deaths!
Damn it, don’t rescue them!
Wow! They’re dying, they’re dying!
Look, look there! See them pulling out the corpses!
They were not human.
Those two back then.
“Mom, don’t be so conscientious about it. Just attach multiple spirits to one person. That would be easier, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s how problems start. When the ones I’ve married off appear in nightmares and cause trouble, it becomes such a hassle afterward.”
“We can just move again, so what.”
“Shh.”
The Shaman, speaking in a low voice, glared at the door.
Then, with a gesture of her chin, she pointed toward the Inner Room, and Lee Ju-hyun looked toward the entrance before stepping inside.
And shortly after,
“Hey, is this the right place?”
“Wow, it’s scary. This is my first time here.”
The voices of two young women could be heard.
Jo Myung-sook sat down facing the door, spreading out her notebook.
Knock, knock.
The door was tapped.
“What are you doing! Come in already!”
Jo Myung-sook barked, and the door opened.
Two women of marriageable age.
It was Shin Jung-ah and Lee Ha-yoon.
“Hello. We’d like to have our birth charts read.”
At Lee Ha-yoon’s words, Jo Myung-sook swallowed a sinister smile.

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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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