An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 176

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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 175
Part 5. I Was the Swallow (2)
Murmur, murmur, murmur.
With the Village Community Center packed with people, the spacious hall felt cramped.
Whirrrr!
Even with the air conditioning running at maximum power, humid air clung stubbornly to the space. The Village Chief wiped away the sweat streaming down his face and gestured for everyone to remain seated.
“Everyone, please settle down.”
“What did you call us here for?”
“I have laundry running and need to get back to hang it.”
“Ah, it’s not that urgent, is it?”
The Village Chief cast a pleading glance toward Kang Hyung-seok.
So Kang Hyung-seok approached the Village Chief and addressed the gathered crowd.
“I asked you all to gather because I have a request.”
Kang Hyung-seok’s words had far greater effect than the Village Chief’s.
All the bustling people fell silent and focused entirely on Kang Hyung-seok, and the Village Chief could not hide his disappointment.
“I would appreciate it if you could remain here until sunrise tomorrow.”
“Why?”
A Young Man sitting quietly furrowed his brow, his displeasure evident.
He was an off-duty Police Officer.
“You keep telling the villagers what to do. Why should we follow your orders?”
Kang Hyung-seok looked at the Police Officer in casual clothes and exhaled through his nose.
Then he met his gaze directly and spoke.
“Then leave.”
“What?”
“Can’t you sit still? Park Su is speaking right now.”
“Say something that makes sense. This is all superstition, nonsense.”
The Police Officer sent Kang Hyung-seok a disapproving look and twisted his lips.
It was right then.
“Don’t incite the others. If you’re going to leave, leave alone.”
Kang Hyung-seok spoke to the Police Officer with a toneless yet forceful voice.
“I only do what I can do. You’re free to leave, but you alone bear the responsibility.”
His voice was so resolute that the Police Officer flinched, but he did not stop speaking.
“Now you’re talking like you’re someone important. What exactly can you do?”
“You brat!”
An Old Man beside him struck the Police Officer’s arm repeatedly, but the officer remained unmoved.
“I will go to the Cave.”
“What?”
Kang Hyung-seok took one deep breath.
“I will go to the Cave and confront what the Imoogi said.”
At this, Lee Nak-yul, standing beside Kim Jae-sik, watched Kang Hyung-seok with eyes full of contemplation.
Several of the elderly men showed similar reactions.
A cave where entry was forbidden.
A cave so dangerous that it had been cordoned off with sacred rope.
“Talking nonsense about Imoogis. It’s just a cave, a cave. Nothing more, for heaven’s sake.”
“You insolent bastard!”
Before the Police Officer could finish speaking, one of the elderly men shot to his feet and cried out.
“What kind of cave is that! If you’re so confident, go in there yourself! You coward!”
“We praised you for doing well, and now you’re acting like a madman in front of all these elders!”
As the elderly men scowled and hurled insults, the Police Officer could only stand bewildered, unable to open his mouth.
“But I….”
“Shut your mouth! You’re not the one going into that cave!”
“Whose son is this bastard anyway?”
“Even a tiger wouldn’t bite a wretch like you!”
“Apologize, you fool!”
The Police Officer shifted his gaze toward the window.
Rain poured down in torrents, and the typhoon had drawn dangerously close to the Korean Peninsula.
Entering a cave on a night like this was no easy task, even for him.
“Everyone, please calm down.”
With a single word, Kang Hyung-seok quieted the elderly men and continued, addressing the Police Officer.
“I understand your skepticism.”
The Police Officer watched him in silence, and Kang Hyung-seok turned his gaze not only to the officer but to everyone present.
“I understand your discomfort as well. Still, I would appreciate it if you could remain here until tomorrow morning, just in case any problems arise.”
At this, the Youth Leader exhaled heavily and bowed his head. Somehow, the weight of this situation pressed down upon him with terrible gravity.
“The rest will be handled by the Youth Leader, the Village Chief, the Professor, and Lee Nak-yul.”
They were the ones who understood the full situation.
Kang Hyung-seok cast a meaningful look toward them before checking the time on his wristwatch.
Soon the sun would set.
The night the Imoogi spoke of was arriving.
Bow.
After bowing once to the villagers, Kang Hyung-seok crossed the Village Community Center.
With each step he took, the villagers’ heads naturally turned toward him in unison.
“Lee Nak-yul.”
“Yes.”
“I’m truly grateful for your help.”
It was Lee Nak-yul who would have to guard the Village Community Center.
Lee Nak-yul nodded gravely, and Kang Hyung-seok took the bag the Youth Leader handed him and slung it over his shoulder.
Inside were not only shamanic ritual tools.
A lantern that the Youth Leader had prepared was also packed within.
Bow.
After bowing to the Youth Leader and Kim Jae-sik as well, Kang Hyung-seok stepped out of the Village Community Center.
Outside, darkness had completely settled in.
Click.
Kang Hyung-seok heard the Village Community Center’s door close behind him.
The bright lights and murmuring voices from the center had all faded away.
Before him lay only the village shrouded in dark clouds and the fierce sheets of rain.
Now I was alone.
Kang Hyung-seok quietly turned his steps toward the Cave for the task at hand.
Upon reaching the Cave at the village’s edge, he set down his bag and unzipped it.
With the lantern in his pocket, the Shaman’s Bell in his left hand, and the sacred blade drawn from its sheath in his right, he approached the golden rope.
Shhhhiiing.
In the darkness where even moonlight hid behind the clouds, the sacred blade’s edge sharpened with a sanctified aura.
Snick.
The old golden rope touched by the sacred blade severed without resistance.
And Kang Hyung-seok entered the Cave.
The boundary between inside and outside the Cave was nothing but a paper-thin line.
Yet standing within it, I felt as though I had stepped into another world.
Everything had changed.
‘The smell…’
It was not the scent of the Sea.
Nor was it the distinctive odor of a cave.
Not musty, not briny, not the stench of decay gathering in corners.
Instead, a faint reek of rot and a chilling aroma that froze the soul pressed forward.
Whoooosh! Whoooosh!
As if pushing me forward, the sound of waves from the Coastline reached my ears.
The Sea I turned to face lay submerged in night, revealing only endless black.
“…Let’s go.”
Kang Hyung-seok murmured to no listener, then began walking slowly deeper into the fathomless Cave.
The Shaman’s Bell made a soft tinkling sound.
***
Whoooosh!
Kim Jae-sik trembled faintly as he watched the rain pouring down as if to judge the world itself with water.
Kang Hyung-seok had gone to the Cave.
By now, he would have begun entering the Cave.
“Will Park Su be… all right?”
The Youth Leader, who posed the question he most wanted answered, bore a sunken expression.
“He should be fine.”
Kim Jae-sik, able to say nothing more, offered a forced smile.
The eyes of the dozens of people gathered in the Village Community Center turned toward him, and Kim Jae-sik resolved to instill some measure of reassurance in their hearts.
The ominous gazes of tens of people.
“If you listen to the old tales of our country, there are quite a few similar patterns.”
Kim Jae-sik continued speaking in a gentle voice, as if to soothe their anxiety.
It resembled the manner in which a grandfather tells old stories to his grandchildren.
“Whenever something strange occurred in a village or to a person, a passing Monk, a scholar, or a Shaman would resolve the matter.”
That Shaman is Kang Hyung-seok.
Kang Hyung-seok is the Shaman who will cleanse this village of its calamity.
“Most of these stories share the common point of ending happily. So Kang Hyung-seok and this village will both be safe.”
“Hmm.”
The Youth Leader laughed as if releasing a sigh, but the others could not.
Would it truly end well?
That foreboding remained vividly etched in their eyes.
“Do you know the tale of the magpie of Chiaksan Mountain?”
Thus, Kim Jae-sik reflexively drew forth the story that lingered in his mind.
And immediately regretted it.
It was absolutely not a story suited to the present situation.
“Ah, yes. I do know it.”
The Youth Leader responded without tact.
The flow of conversation, difficult to break, had been seized.
“In that story, the scholar does not undertake to resolve the incident.”
Yet it still ends happily.
Kim Jae-sik had clearly meant to say as much.
But the words Hong Kyung-soo had spoken slowly surfaced in his mind.
The narrative structure of the magpie of Chiaksan Mountain also rose in his thoughts.
“…Oh no.”
Why had he not realized?
The Imoogi sought to harm the scholar.
The magpie sought to save the scholar.
He bolted upright.
Kim Jae-sik, rising unconsciously, gazed at the window through which rain poured with a bewildered expression.
The Imoogi is an Imoogi.
The scholar is a villager.
Then the magpie is Kang Hyung-seok.
Just as the magpie had headed to the Bell Tower to save a person from the Imoogi, Kang Hyung-seok headed into the cave.
***
Thud, thud.
The cave was vast and deep.
Many gazes converged upon Kang Hyung-seok as he walked, illuminating the path ahead with his lantern.
They were not the gazes of people or Victim Spirits.
Ssssshhh.
Nameless long insects passing beneath my feet like a whisper.
Bats hanging in clusters from the ceiling.
Amphipods clinging to the walls.
These were the gazes they sent toward Kang Hyung-seok, a stranger who had entered this cave for the first time in decades or centuries.
Clang!
The Shaman’s Bell rang as if pointing the way.
Kang Hyung-seok looked in that direction and exhaled a deep sigh through his nose.
Water.
They had said there was a lake at the summit of the mountain where the Imoogi dwelled.
Though I had not seen it, that lake was likely similar to what lay before my eyes now.
A pool of water as vast as a lake stood before me like a colossal barrier.
Whoosh, whoosh.
I swept the lantern around the surroundings, but saw only dead ends.
To venture deeper, I would have to enter the water.
‘That is the innermost point.’
At the far end of the Cave Lake, there was a narrow space where the low ceiling met the water’s edge.
The end of the cave lay beyond there.
Splash.
Kang Hyung-seok began walking into the lake.
A murky lake that had never seen light for countless ages, where the carcasses of animals and insects rotted in its depths.
Because of this, the Cave Lake resembled Anmok Reservoir in some way.
Splash, splash, splash.
It was exactly the same as when I had entered Anmok Reservoir.
There was no difference.
With a task to accomplish, there was no hesitation.
As I walked deeper into the lake, the water grew progressively deeper.
An environment where one could lose their very life at any moment.
What of it?
Kang Hyung-seok walked along the bottom toward the cave’s end, and soon began to swim.

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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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