An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 174

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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 173
Part 4. It Saw Me (3)
“Huff! Huff!”
Less than twenty minutes into the climb, the Youth Leader’s breathing had grown as ragged as a dying man’s.
Whoooosh!
The rain fell steadily, and the muddy ground clung to my ankles with each step.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
Kang Hyung-seok caught the Youth Leader just as he stumbled over a rock, nearly falling hard, and offered a wry smile.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes.”
The Youth Leader answered as though he were dying of exhaustion.
Then he cast an apologetic look toward Kang Hyung-seok, who wore a black raincoat.
“I feel like I’m just holding you back.”
“Not at all. Without you, I would have lost the way long ago.”
It was no mere courtesy.
The downpour and fierce wind battered the mind, and the dense forest surrounding us stripped away all sense of direction.
Crack!
Kang Hyung-seok snapped off a suitable branch and offered its smooth end to the Youth Leader.
“Hold this. I’ll lead the way.”
“…Ah.”
“Really, it’s fine.”
The Youth Leader grasped the wooden staff with a sheepish expression, and Kang Hyung-seok began pulling him forward, taking the lead.
“Hup, hup!”
Even as they moved forward at a near-running pace, the Youth Leader grunted with effort at every step.
“What did you do before? How is your stamina this good?”
“I served in the military at a rather demanding post.”
“I’ve heard the military has gotten easier these days, but it seems that’s not entirely true.”
“The difficult places must remain difficult.”
Especially the place where Kang Hyung-seok had served.
“Huff! Huff!”
The Youth Leader, pulling himself along by the wooden staff, occasionally called out directions.
It was as they crested the midpoint of the Mountain.
Kang Hyung-seok stopped in his tracks, and the Youth Leader following behind released the wooden staff with a face that seemed to say, “Finally, a rest!”
But the halt was not merely for rest.
Whoooosh.
A rainy Mountain.
And a rain-soaked Mountain births thick Mist like clouds.
What some called active Mist was beginning to form from the midpoint of the Mountain.
“Do you truly believe Park Su is responsible for the Imoogi?”
Gazing at the thick Mist as if something might burst forth at any moment, Kang Hyung-seok answered.
“Yes.”
“But isn’t an Imoogi still just a Snake?”
“That’s right.”
Kang Hyung-seok drew in a deep breath.
A peculiar fishy stench hung in the air.
Whether it was from the rain or the putrid reek of earthworms rotting in the floodwater, I couldn’t tell.
“All this death and destruction over a mere Snake. Damn it.”
The Youth Leader wiped the rainwater from his face as if brushing away tears.
“It’s not merely a Snake.”
“Snake or not, how many people have died because of it?”
Kang Hyung-seok had witnessed two deaths himself.
Later, he heard that five more had perished.
In a Rural Village where the population was dwindling, that was no small number.
“It’s an Imoogi. It must have harbored deep resentment.”
“What cursed grudge could possibly be so profound as to drive it to slaughter like this?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Kang Hyung-seok gazed at the Mist, ran his tongue across his lips, and continued.
“When an Imoogi that has cultivated for a thousand years ascends to heaven, if someone calls it a Dragon, it becomes a Dragon—but if they call it a Snake, it must cultivate all over again.”
The Youth Leader lifted his rain-slicked face and looked at Kang Hyung-seok.
“A thousand years of effort rendered meaningless—how immense must that resentment be?”
“Even when I was young, I never heard rumors of the Village seeing an Imoogi.”
“It could have been forgotten because it happened so long ago.”
Kang Hyung-seok turned his gaze from the Mist to the Youth Leader.
“Or there might be things we still don’t know.”
“Sigh…”
“Let’s just go as far as the Lake and come back down before sunset.”
“…Yes.”
It was the moment the Youth Leader reached to grasp the wooden staff that Kang Hyung-seok had raised.
Flash! Crack-crack-crack!
Lightning struck nearby.
“Aaahhh!”
The Youth Leader cried out in shock, and Kang Hyung-seok watched as a tree fell with a heavy sound.
Snap! Crack-crack!
The tree was falling directly toward the Youth Leader.
Boom!
Kang Hyung-seok shoved the Youth Leader aside and threw himself in the opposite direction.
Whoosh!
The fallen tree landed precisely between Kang Hyung-seok and the Youth Leader.
“Ugh! Aaahhh!”
The Youth Leader who had been sprawling in the mud scrambled to his feet, caked in earth.
“Are you—are you all right! Are you hurt!”
“Y-yes! Thanks to you.”
Kang Hyung-seok and the Youth Leader stood in silence with the fallen tree between them.
Their positions held profound significance.
Kang Hyung-seok stood higher up the Mountain.
The Youth Leader stood lower down.
“Is this… is this all right?”
The Youth Leader asked with a trembling voice, but I couldn’t answer.
‘This is no coincidence.’
The Imoogi can control the rain.
This happened while climbing the Mountain where the Imoogi dwells.
This is a warning.
“….”
I gazed silently at the tree, then shifted my gaze to the Youth Leader beyond it.
“Wait here.”
“Pardon?”
“It seems to be calling only for me. And just to be safe.”
The Youth Leader had nearly been crushed by the tree.
If we continued climbing together, one of us would surely die.
That was the premonition I felt.
“Are you… are you certain about this?”
The Youth Leader, sensing something was terribly wrong, asked with a trembling voice, and I nodded heavily.
“Yes. How do I reach the Lake from here?”
“Just… just keep going straight ahead.”
The Youth Leader spoke in a voice thick with barely suppressed tears, wiping his mud-caked eyes with muddy hands.
“You’re really going?”
“I have to.”
The Youth Leader seemed to sense the danger as well.
“Oh dear, oh dear!”
“If anything happens to me, I’ll shout. When I do, please come help me.”
Without this assurance, the Youth Leader wouldn’t find peace of mind.
“Yes, yes! I understand. I’ll definitely come!”
“Wait for me.”
I turned away, leaving the Youth Leader behind.
Then I walked out into the deep Mist.
I continued onward toward the Mountain’s summit for a long while.
Then it happened.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
A tremendous sound echoed out.
I stopped in my tracks and surveyed my surroundings through the suffocating Mist.
‘What is this?’
Something was moving within the Mist.
As if it had been waiting for me to be alone.
As if it had been anticipating this very moment, something began to reveal itself.
Sssssss.
What moved through the Mist was a massive white form.
Sssss… Sssssss!
And there was a sickening, fishy stench of serpent.
‘It’s the Imoogi.’
The Imoogi I had seen on this Mountain last night was now revealing itself from the mountainside, emerging from within the Mist.
Sssssss!
As I tracked the rapidly moving Imoogi with my eyes, catching glimpses of it flickering through the Mist, a chilling realization dawned on me.
Everywhere my vision reached, I saw the Imoogi’s body.
I couldn’t distinguish where its body ended and where something else began.
At the edge of my sight, another curve appeared, another scale writhed.
Sssssss!
The Imoogi was surrounding me with its enormous body.
As if to cut me off from the outside world.
As if to bind me in place.
Clang clang clang!
I pulled out the Shaman’s Bell and shook it, following the Imoogi’s movements.
“If you have intent, then speak to me!”
I cried out loudly toward the Imoogi.
“There must be a reason for this! What resentment could possibly drive you to take lives!”
Sssssrrrk!
“Speak to me!”
I am ready to listen.
Please, let me hear that voice.
Clang clang clang!
“Reveal yourself and speak!”
My voice echoed loudly across the mist-shrouded Mountain.
For a moment, the sound of rain diminished.
As if to confirm that it was indeed the Imoogi controlling this rain.
Clang.
The Shaman’s Bell rang out on its own, and I gazed at the motionless body of the Imoogi undulating within the wind-swept Mist.
Then I slowly lifted my trembling gaze.
But my eyes could not reach the sky.
“Imoogi.”
The massive serpent’s head was blocking out the heavens as it looked down upon me.
Shhhhh.
Between the Snake’s closed lips, a blood-red tongue writhed as if stained with crimson.
“…I believe you are not merely an evil existence.”
Whoooosh.
My voice was quiet.
But as the rain softened, the surroundings grew still.
Believing my words would reach the Imoogi, I continued.
“What is your resentment?”
-Park Su. Scholar. Human.
If a beast were to speak in human words, would it sound like this?
High and sharp, yet eerie and dreadful.
“Already, many lives have been taken by you.”
I swallowed the rainwater entering my mouth along with my saliva and continued.
“I am a Shaman.”
-So.
“I will listen to what you have to say.”
-Why.
From the Imoogi’s voice, I felt a thick killing intent and rage.
The emotion was so vivid that it would not be strange if that enormous mouth opened and swallowed me whole.
“Because I wish no one to grieve.”
Not merely for humans alone.
Last night, the Cattle Shed Owner wept while clutching a calf.
The mother cow would feel no differently than he did.
Even if lowly, even if beasts, emotions exist in all creatures no differently than in humans.
“What is your resentment? What do you wish me to help you with?”
-Why.
“Because resentment is suffering.”
Suffering manifests outward.
That is resentment, and that is grudge.
-Why.
“Because I wish your suffering to end.”
-Why.
“Do you need a reason?”
-Why.
My throat bobbed heavily as I looked up into the Imoogi’s inscrutable black eyes.
“Because I believe you, too, are a being capable of sorrow.”
The Imoogi said nothing.
It merely gazed down at me with those lustrous black eyes.
Patter, pitter-patter, patter.
The rain grew lighter, yet the drops grew heavier.
It felt like tears streaming from the Imoogi itself.
“A thousand years of cultivation wasted? Who called you a Snake?”
-Yes.
“Is that all the resentment you carry?”
If so, I can barely breathe.
A thousand years rendered meaningless—the sorrow and rage must be immeasurable.
Could such burning resentment, hot as molten iron, ever be released?
-No.
“…Then what is your true resentment?”
-All of it.
“What?”
-All of it.
The answer repeated, relentless.
As an eerie presence pressed down upon him, Kang Hyung-seok felt his blood freeze.
The Imoogi’s resentment was not singular.
Beyond the rage of failing to ascend to dragon form, beyond the thousand years of cultivation rendered void, there existed something else—another reason that compelled it to slaughter the villagers.

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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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