An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 236

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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 235
Part 3. The Mountain Tiger (2)
Vroom.
As the car climbed the concrete mountain road, it rattled and jolted.
The sun had completely set.
The mountain road, devoid of streetlights, carried an unsettling presence.
Yet the crisp autumn air flowing through the slightly open window possessed a distinctive clarity that made Kang Hyung-seok’s expression seem unbothered.
Creak.
Parking in front of Lee Geum-kyung’s Shrine, I unbuckled my seatbelt.
At the same moment, the door opened and Chung-geum emerged, squinting against the glare of the headlights.
Beep.
As I quickly turned off the engine and stepped out, Chung-geum lowered her hand from her eyes and greeted me with a welcoming smile.
“It’s been a while, young master.”
“I hope you’ve been well.”
“Oh, you know me—always the same.”
“And the teacher?”
“She’s inside. But please wait just a moment.”
I nodded and gazed toward where Lee Geum-kyung would be.
There were no other cars around.
Yet unfamiliar shoes rested in the shoe rack, suggesting someone was present.
“Hmm?”
Catching a faint scent drifting through the air, I furrowed my brow.
“What is that? There’s a musty smell.”
“Ah.”
Chung-geum smiled faintly with an air of inevitability and lowered her voice.
“It’s likely the scent of a Fox Spirit.”
“A Fox Spirit?”
“Yes. Someone who recently returned from overseas. An animal spirit has possessed them, and the teacher is currently in consultation with them.”
“I see.”
I clicked my tongue sympathetically, looking at the unfamiliar shoes.
The shoes resting on the stone step between the courtyard and the main room seemed pitiable.
An animal spirit—and a Fox Spirit at that.
A fox perched upon a human form, and it felt precisely like those shoes upon the stone step.
Flutter, flutter.
Beyond the closed door came the sound of Lee Geum-kyung drawing out the five-colored ribbons.
“But what brings you here?”
Anticipating the consultation would take time, Chung-geum spoke carefully, her voice not carrying beyond the paper door, and I responded in a similarly measured tone.
“I have a matter I’d like to discuss with her.”
“Your eyes carry worry.”
I nodded, my expression turning bitter.
With that, I let my expression fall and glanced around cautiously.
It was a matter concerning Hong Kyung-soo.
There’s an old saying—birds hear what you say by day, and mice hear what you say by night.
Chirp, chirp, chirp.
Surrounded only by the chorus of grass insects in the mountain, I swallowed my words, and only after confirming that Shaman’s Bell remained silent did I speak.
“It’s because it concerns Hong Kyung-soo the Shaman.”
“Did you happen to encounter him?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just….”
As I struggled to articulate the serpentine coil of anxiety that had wound itself around my heart, the door opened and a man reeking of musk stepped out.
An ordinary-looking man.
He wore glasses and hiking clothes, and his posture bore the telltale forward neck slouch of the modern age.
Trudge, trudge.
Yet perched upon his shoulders was an uncommon Fox Spirit.
Eyes wide and gleaming, tail coiled around his neck, its jaws gaping as if ready to tear into his skull at any moment.
Trudge, trudge.
It was only after the man disappeared from view, trudging down the mountain, that I could breathe again.
“Why are you standing outside?”
I shifted my gaze to Lee Geum-kyung and smiled, drawing up the corners of my mouth.
“Teacher.”
“The night air is cold. Come inside.”
“Yes.”
I bowed to Chung-geum, and she nodded back, fluttering her wrist as if to urge me inside.
Click.
After stepping inside, I closed the door and sat before Lee Geum-kyung.
Lee Geum-kyung rolled up the five-colored cloth and opened her mouth with an air of indifference.
“You have many questions.”
“It seems so.”
“You’re wondering why I didn’t help that man, aren’t you?”
Lee Geum-kyung could have removed the Fox Spirit clinging to him.
But she did not.
She merely seemed to show him the way forward.
“Was he someone who committed a transgression?”
Lee Geum-kyung let out a soft laugh and set the neatly folded cloth beside her knee.
“He was a Hunter.”
“…I see?”
“It would have been better if he’d sent the foxes on gently, but since he played with them, his karma cannot be light.”
He was a man who had killed the kits one by one before the mother’s eyes, then skinned the fox while its breath still lingered.
He had done it almost as a jest, without any profound reason.
“The resentment runs deep. It won’t release easily, and he’s not someone worthy of my intervention.”
I nodded heavily, my expression grave with understanding.
It was the Fox Spirit’s obsession and possession.
It would be cruel and terrifying.
It would gnaw away at his life from the roots, and when he was at his weakest, it would try to cut off his breath.
Perhaps in the next life, and the life after that, and the life after that, the Fox Spirit would follow the man and persistently torment him.
“That’s not what you truly wanted to ask, is it?”
Lee Geum-kyung’s seemingly indifferent question touched the serpentine thoughts coiled within my chest.
“That’s right.”
“Who?”
The one who planted the serpent in your chest.
At Lee Geum-kyung’s heavy, forceful gaze, I took a deep breath through my nose before speaking.
“Hong Kyung-soo. A Shaman.”
“Tsk.”
“I haven’t encountered him directly, but while recently helping someone, I came across Hong Kyung-soo’s sorcery.”
“The sorcery?”
A question posed as if she already knew the answer.
So I spoke the truth in an equally calm tone.
“I broke it.”
“Then you would have realized something.”
That I broke the sorcery.
Just as the abyss sees those who gaze into it.
Hong Kyung-soo would have realized it.
“Was it reckless?”
“So you’re that Hunter.”
I furrowed my brow, and Lee Geum-kyung offered a smile that seemed somehow weary.
“I don’t believe you broke that sorcery in jest, carelessly, or without meaning.”
“…I helped someone.”
“Then that’s enough.”
“Even if Hong Kyung-soo found out?”
“Even if he did, there’s nothing he can do about it.”
Chirp, chirp.
The autumn insects are loud.
Even with the door closed, the sound pierces through and fills the room.
“No matter how bright the moon shines, it cannot outshine the sun, and no matter how deep the darkness, it cannot swallow the light. If you are light, then Hong Kyung-soo is darkness, and he cannot harm you.”
….
Though I nodded, my expression remained uneasy.
Hong Kyung-soo is an inscrutable figure.
That’s why I want to avoid entanglement with him as much as possible, and keep my distance.
“Should you happen to encounter him, guard your tongue alone. Your tongue alone.”
A person without hesitation in deceiving others, and skilled at it.
Understanding what Lee Geum-kyung meant to convey, I nodded heavily.
“I will keep that in mind.”
“More than that, I find it curious that you’ve sought me out like this. Perhaps it is fate.”
“Fate?”
Kang Hyung-seok asked in return, and Lee Geum-kyung nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful, before continuing.
“A few days ago, someone I know came and asked for my help.”
“What sort of… request was it?”
“They asked me to visit a place, but it doesn’t seem like something I can handle myself.”
With that, Lee Geum-kyung rubbed her knees.
It was the look of someone who needed physical action—someone who hoped a young shamanic practitioner like Kang Hyung-seok would move instead of her.
“I will go.”
“Without even hearing what it is?”
“It seems like something you wish to entrust to me. I’ve received so much help from you, and you always offer counsel like this. I will gladly go.”
Lee Geum-kyung smiled, pulling up the corners of her mouth, then murmured “Aigo” like a sigh.
“I warn you—this will not be an easy task.”
“There hasn’t been an easy task so far, it seems.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
“I suppose it is my fate. At this point.”
“Wherever you go, incidents and accidents follow. It’s no wonder you think that way. But remember this.”
It was a familiar tone of voice.
When Kang Hyung-seok was very young, frightened and despairing over seeing ghosts, he had once asked Lee Geum-kyung when he might receive a spirit.
At that time, she had comforted him with the same warm, grandmotherly tone she used now.
“Your Guardian Spirit connects you with all those who need your help.”
“….”
“They are people who would have become far more unfortunate without you, living lives like hell itself. These were things only you could do, so your Guardian Spirit guided you to them.”
Kang Hyung-seok smiled bitterly and replied.
“I understand.”
“I hope this matter is the same….”
Lee Geum-kyung narrowed her eyes, lost in deep thought.
Time passed, and she finally opened her mouth, her gaze still heavy with contemplation.
“Go to Busan. There is a remote village where strange things are happening, they say.”
“Strange things?”
Lee Geum-kyung nodded slowly and continued.
“Animals are dying there.”
Perhaps it was because of her lowered voice.
Or perhaps because Kang Hyung-seok had also fallen silent.
Chirp, chirp, chirp. Chirp, chirp, chirp.
In the quiet room, the sound of insects crying seemed unnaturally loud.
As if warning of something.
The insects did not cease, crying out desperately.
***
Crunch, crunch.
“Is it much farther?”
The middle-aged man leading the way up the Mountain Road turned back with an apologetic expression.
“Just a little further.”
“Damn it. I’m going to die out here.”
“Really, just a bit more.”
“Sigh—”
Hong Kyung-soo released his frustration with a heavy sigh, narrowing his eyes sharply, and the man awkwardly resumed walking.
A deep Mountain.
No signs of life, and quite distant from the Village.
Chirp, chirp, chirp.
In the Mountain where the sound of insects sang with unbearable loudness, the two men continued climbing.
Then it happened.
Crunch.
The man guiding the way stopped, shone his lantern ahead, and stepped aside.
A look that said to see for myself.
Hong Kyung-soo clicked his tongue and stepped forward, approaching where the lantern’s light dimly illuminated.
“You see, all the Village dogs have disappeared recently. I thought something was wrong, so I’ve been searching for them….”
“Shh.”
Hong Kyung-soo kept his gaze fixed and signaled for silence.
The man’s mouth closed, and Hong Kyung-soo crouched down and pulled out a cigarette.
Click, flare.
The man’s gaze followed Hong Kyung-soo as he quietly smoked.
Wondering what this could mean.
Desperately hoping it wasn’t something serious.
The thought in those pleading eyes was clear, but Hong Kyung-soo twisted one corner of his mouth and shook his head.
“This isn’t the work of humans.”
“Then, then who did this?”
“We’ll have to investigate that gradually.”
Hong Kyung-soo turned his head.
The man stood right behind him, and the lantern’s light reflected off his pupils, making them gleam unnaturally.
The man let out a faint groan and shifted his gaze to what lay behind Hong Kyung-soo.
There lay the corpses of the Village dogs that had disappeared.
The remains of dogs torn to shreds and rotted away.
As if consumed by something, parts of their bodies had gradually vanished.

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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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