An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 233

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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 232
Part 2. There Must Be Something at Daejeong Materials (3)
Slosh, slosh.
Carefully balancing the tray of drinks so they wouldn’t spill, Kang Hyung-seok pondered the entire way.
There had to be something at Daejeong Materials.
Otherwise, how could these incidents keep erupting one after another?
“Could you open the door for me?”
As Kang Hyung-seok spoke, the Nun who had been following behind hurriedly opened it.
Simultaneously, a stench rushed in.
The smell of burnt flesh and decay.
Whether Shin Yoseph’s prayers had been effective or not, the Victim Spirit, which had been hiding its form, now crouched upon Kim Sang-deok’s chest.
Click.
As Kang Hyung-seok entered, the Nun closed the door, and Shin Yoseph’s gaze, slick with cold sweat, followed him.
“You’re here?”
Kang Hyung-seok nodded and set down the tray of food.
Shin Yoseph naturally stepped back, and Kang Hyung-seok picked up the Shaman’s Bell and the spirit blade.
The offerings and ritual tools were prepared.
“Do you have any unused blankets?”
Shin Yoseph, his expression asking if anything else was needed, pulled away the thin blanket that lay beneath Kim Sang-deok.
Sizzle!
Ordinarily, the spirit blade’s edge was not sharpened.
But now it gleamed with such keenness that merely bringing it close to the blanket would slice it.
Rip.
Having torn a long strip of cloth and tied seven knots into it, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled a heavy sigh through the gaps.
Now all the preparations were complete.
Whoooosh!
The ritual for guiding the spirit to the afterlife was ready to begin.
Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell without pause, his brow furrowing, and he felt his Guardian Spirit drawing ever closer.
United with the divine, his very eyes transformed.
They became the eyes of a shaman who sees through all things in this world—the eyes of a medium possessed by a warrior spirit.
Flutter!
His hands moved of their own accord.
Covering Kim Sang-deok’s face with the remaining cloth, Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell and began to chant the sacred words.
“This day, the spirit of the departed—what binds you in resentment, what binds you in sorrow? Resentment becomes sorrow, sorrow becomes resentment.”
Whoooosh!
“By day, breathing in yang, become a bird and peer through the front gate; by night, breathing in yin, become a rat and peer through the back gate.”
In dreams you wander, in heart you roam—
When the soul arrives, you know it has come; when the spirit departs, do you know it has gone?
Thus flow the tears, thus heave the sighs.
Whoooosh!
“Contemplating the affairs of this world fills one with melancholy, so listen well to the words of my disciples who have come here.”
It happened immediately after.
Thud.
A rice cake from the pile of food on the tray fell.
No one had touched it, and there was no wind.
Shin Yoseph, with eyes narrowed to slits, held his breath, while Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze fixed on the tray of food.
“Since the deeply wounded Victim Spirit has come to this place, please pour out everything you wish to say.”
Kang Hyung-seok spoke in a slow, melodic rhythm, shaking the Shaman’s Bell once before continuing.
“I am prepared to listen.”
There was still something unknown.
What I saw at the factory was the Factory Owner’s memory.
To say that was everything left too many questions unanswered about the lingering attachment.
“Though the food I have prepared is meager, it is made with sincerity, so please, Victim Spirit, partake of it and release all your lingering attachments.”
What was the reason it clung so desperately to Kim Sang-deok and would not let go?
Wara-ra-ra-rang!
What lingering attachment prevented its ascension to heaven?
“Tell me everything.”
It was after Kang Hyung-seok spoke in a low voice.
Thud.
The food on the tray began falling one by one.
The stacked rice cakes crumbled, and the seasoned vegetables wilted.
Shin Yoseph saw nothing, but Kang Hyung-seok saw it clearly.
The Victim Spirit of a young man who had died in molten metal was consuming the food one piece at a time.
The accident had occurred years ago, and the Victim Spirit continued eating as if it had never once received a proper ancestral offering in all that time.
And when the Victim Spirit had consumed all the food on the tray, Kang Hyung-seok asked in a low, forceful voice.
“What is your suffering?”
The Victim Spirit’s charred hand stopped.
Then slowly, its head turned toward Kang Hyung-seok.
Melted skin.
Charred bone exposed beneath.
Eyes scorched white or burst open.
With a visage that stole one’s breath, the Victim Spirit began to weep.
Wa-rang-wa-rang-wa-rang-wa-rang.
I shook the Shaman’s Bell gently so the Victim Spirit could speak freely, and moved the ritual knife in circular motions to keep its attention from wavering.
It was then.
“That’s not it, I’m telling you—why can’t you understand what I’m saying?”
The voice of the Factory Owner from the factory began to echo.
“It’s business, business. No matter how close a friend you are, this isn’t right! What do you mean suddenly, out of nowhere, talking about disposing of the factory?”
“Stop being so stubborn. You know how massive our losses are right now.”
“Even so, you bastard! This isn’t the way!”
The emotions of the two colliding figures ran deep.
Kang Hyung-seok saw the face of the man confronting the Factory Owner.
If the Victim Spirit’s face had been intact, it would have resembled this man.
‘A founding member.’
Two men who had been close in their youth.
Yet running a business together cannot be sustained by friendship alone.
With differing philosophies and operational methods, the two former friends had begun to snarl at each other like enemies at the mere sight of one another.
“I can’t do it. I won’t do it even if it kills the factory!”
“Hey!”
“We’re both co-representatives anyway. Not until dirt fills my eyes will I ever bend to your will.”
“You bastard! Stop spouting this frustrating nonsense!”
Crack!
The conflict deepened over the question of closing the factory.
The proposal was to shut down the unprofitable factory and instead sell the real estate, allowing each to pocket a substantial sum.
One man sought to prevent the closure of the factory to which he’d devoted his life.
The other sought to find a way for each to survive before the debt grew larger.
Both men stood firm, each with reasons they could not abandon.
“Are… are you all right?”
“Get out.”
“No, you should go to the hospital first.”
“I said get out!”
The conflict escalated until violence erupted.
A year passed in this manner.
Now it had transcended the factory’s survival and become a matter of pride.
‘That bastard—I’ll kill him one day.’
Resentment gleamed in the Factory Owner’s eyes.
Yet ironically, it was not the Factory Owner who had murdered the Victim Spirit.
“A warning light has activated!”
“Damn it, what’s the problem?”
“I’d need to check directly, wouldn’t I? Or we could shut it down and wait for it to cool, but—”
“Do you know how much more we’d lose that way? Come on! I’ll go up myself!”
“But… but—”
“Move!”
The factory was already struggling to operate properly.
If they waited for the molten metal to cool every time the machinery malfunctioned, the losses would mount exponentially.
So the Victim Spirit climbed toward the Furnace with nothing but a cloth in hand.
He intended to wipe the sensor, or if that didn’t work, to cover it—
Splash!
Accidents always occur in the most unexpected moments.
Screams erupted from the Factory Employees.
It took only a few seconds for his breath to cease.
The time was brief, but the suffering was far from insignificant.
Glub, glub, glub!
As the figure melted into the molten metal, the scene shifted back to the Sealed Room.
Kang Hyung-seok stared at the Victim Spirit with a rigid expression, and the Victim Spirit twisted his lips while returning the gaze.
A deep resentment emanated from the Victim Spirit.
“…There was something else, wasn’t there?”
Now I could see it clearly.
There was one more thing unknown to the world.
“What.”
Shin Yoseph spoke to me, but I shook my head without turning my gaze toward him.
Shin Yoseph’s face stiffened slightly as he clicked his tongue, and soon an image began to appear.
The back of a man with long hair tied at the nape of his neck.
The location was a cold Factory, and the Factory Owner sat before the man.
“So you called me out for that reason?”
A familiar tone and voice.
When Kang Hyung-seok’s face hardened upon recognizing who he was, the hollow-cheeked Factory Owner nodded.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. You called me out for such a trivial reason? Do you know what kind of person I am?”
“I know very well.”
“And yet you make such a request?”
Click, flick.
In the Factory where there were no employees and the machines had stopped as if their lives had expired, the man lit a cigarette.
He exhaled a thick plume of smoke, and even through the haze, his face was recognizable.
‘Hong Kyung-soo…?’
“I heard you deal in curses.”
“And?”
“As I’ve said repeatedly. Make that bastard’s spirit wander the Nine Heavens eternally.”
“Pfft, you’re insane.”
Hong Kyung-soo laughed, his face creasing as he held the cigarette between his fingers.
“Come to your senses. He’s already dead anyway. What good does it do to torment him…?”
“He went too easily.”
“What?”
The Factory Owner’s eyes glistened as he continued.
“That bastard. He died too easily. I suffered at his hands, was beaten by him day after day! And he just went so easily!”
“…I see.”
Vengeance that death could not stop.
That was what the Factory Owner desired.
“It’s not difficult to grant your wish, but I assure you, you won’t come out unscathed either?”
“I don’t care at all.”
Hong Kyung-soo stared directly into his eyes, then twisted one corner of his mouth.
“Huh? Your gaze is quite sharp.”
“So will you do it? Or will you refuse?”
“That thing in your inner pocket—it’s a hammer, isn’t it?”
At Hong Kyung-soo’s words, the Factory Owner flinched and his shoulders trembled.
In contrast, Hong Kyung-soo calmly stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and lit a fresh one.
“Were you planning to drag me down with you if it came to that?”
“U-uh.”
Click, crackle.
“Phew—! Listen to me carefully.”
Hong Kyung-soo continued speaking, leisurely smoking while observing the Factory Owner, whose lips were pressed firmly shut.
“Even in death, you won’t find a place of peace.”
“….”
“The moment you harbored the intention to curse another, you already accumulated karma. And if you actually carry it out, what do you think will happen?”
“….”
“Do you want to die?”
As Hong Kyung-soo finished speaking, the Factory Owner’s face turned ashen.
Already drowning in massive losses, and now with a fatal accident on top of it all, operating the factory had become impossible.
His final plan was to perform a ritual feeding and then take his own life.
“I don’t care what you do, but don’t even dream of achieving enlightenment and rebirth.”
Hong Kyung-soo exhaled a long plume of smoke, then beckoned with his finger as if calling a trained animal.
The Factory Owner hesitated, then pulled an envelope from his pocket.
Rustle.
Hong Kyung-soo took only the thick stack of money from the envelope, then pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket.
He then filled the envelope with dense Chinese characters.
‘So that was it.’
Now I understood everything.
Why the ring wouldn’t come off.
Where the curse inscribed on the ring had originated.
Whoosh.
“You have the iron plate where that bastard’s body melted, right? Make a ring from it, and inscribe this on the inside.”
The Chinese characters Hong Kyung-soo wrote on the envelope he handed to the Factory Owner.
They were identical to what was inscribed inside the ring.
It was Hong Kyung-soo’s ritual feeding that bound the Victim Spirit, and it was the curse.

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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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