An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 256

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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 255
Part 3. As If Speaking to Oneself (1)
Crunch, crunch!
Shin Yoseph pushed through the withered brush that had died as winter drew near.
Yoon Sang followed behind him, rummaging through the ground, while the sky aided their search by spilling moonlight upon them.
My hands are freezing.
“Huff!”
Yoon Sang, who had picked up a stone the size of his palm before setting it down, cast a worried glance toward Shin Yoseph.
He didn’t know Shin Yoseph well.
All he knew was that he was a similar type of person to Kang Hyung-seok, so he had no idea how to resolve the situation.
Rustle!
Perhaps it was because his hands had stopped moving as his thoughts grew heavier.
When the sound ceased, Shin Yoseph turned to look back.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, no, nothing.”
“Rest if you’re tired.”
Shin Yoseph gestured with his chin toward a nearby bench in the empty lot, and Yoon Sang hesitated before speaking.
“Um, it seems like you don’t have any tools either. Are you sure that’s alright?”
Even that Kang Hyung-seok always carries the Shaman’s Bell and his sacred blade.
But Shin Yoseph appeared to have no tools whatsoever.
“Sir?”
When Shin Yoseph didn’t answer, Yoon Sang spoke again, but the only response was a horizontal shake of his head.
Crunch, crunch!
Shin Yoseph began pushing through the brush again.
Yoon Sang, reading the mood, followed suit and dug through the cold earth rising from below.
The situation remained the same as before, but Shin Yoseph’s mind grew increasingly complicated.
‘It’s not a Demon.’
Could prayer resolve this?
It would be a lie to say such thoughts hadn’t crossed his mind.
Rationally, seeking help from Kang Hyung-seok was the right choice.
Yet strangely, he wanted to resolve this matter himself, at least as far as his hands could reach.
He didn’t know why, but he simply wanted to.
Whoosh.
The headlights of a vehicle running along the nearby road illuminated them before disappearing, and Shin Yoseph, his eyes dazzled, groaned and rubbed them with his sleeve.
Whoosh.
Damn it.
What was with all these cars coming one after another?
Opening his eyes again, Shin Yoseph examined the ground with his back to the road.
That was when it happened.
Whoosh.
My shadow stretched long across the pavement, following the approaching headlights.
The shadow swayed like a pendulum before darkness swallowed it, and soon another vehicle’s headlights cast a new elongated silhouette.
‘What is that?’
Something on the ground glinted in the light.
Screech.
As another vehicle’s headlights approached, they illuminated the object again, confirming it wasn’t a trick of the eye. Shin Yoseph straightened up and rose to his feet.
Then he began running toward where the light had reflected.
“Huh? Hyung-seok?”
Shin Yoseph didn’t even respond, immediately beginning to comb through the area where the glint had appeared.
It could have been a glass shard or some toy a child had lost.
‘Damn it, it was around here.’
Yet Shin Yoseph continued searching through the brush and soil, his expression contorted with frustration.
“Yoon Sang!”
“Yes, yes!”
“Help me search here!”
“Yes!”
Yoon Sang rushed over and turned on his phone’s flashlight, angling it low against the ground to spread the light wide.
Then the glint appeared again.
Beneath a tree, among the thick overgrowth of weeds.
Clink!
With fingers hooked like claws, Shin Yoseph pulled a gleaming metal object from between the soil.
In that moment, both Yoon Sang and Shin Yoseph understood.
This was what they’d been searching for.
“It’s a ring.”
Yoon Sang murmured, and Shin Yoseph nodded silently, his lips pressed firm.
A ring.
A wedding ring, no less.
The silver portion had tarnished black, but the diamond at its end sparkled brilliantly in the light Yoon Sang cast upon it.
That light held no beauty—not when we knew the fate of its owner.
***
Ding.
Kang Hyung-seok, seated on the bed, shifted his gaze toward the Shaman’s Bell that had rung of its own accord.
The Shaman’s Bell, which I’d placed beside the pillow, trembled with a vibrating motion.
“Found you.”
I murmured and reached toward the Shaman’s Bell.
The cool touch of metal transmitted through my palm, and the Shaman’s Bell chimed softly, yet I did not rise from the bed.
The Wandering Spirit’s resentment had not yet been resolved.
Ding.
Moving the hand that held the Shaman’s Bell to my chest, I stared at the window with its curtains drawn, my lips pressed firmly together.
Soft moonlight and the city’s night glow filtered through the window.
***
“Hyung-nim, what do we do now?”
Yoon Sang’s question pierced my eardrums.
Shin Yoseph, gripping the ring, remained still for a moment before straightening his bent knees. Then he attempted to brush away the soil clinging to the ring, but it was not easy.
The earth, hardened by blood and moisture, refused to come loose.
Scrape, scrape.
Shin Yoseph tried to remove the soil with his fingernails.
But no matter how much I scraped and scraped, the soil would not come away.
The ring would not become clean.
Clink.
So Shin Yoseph placed the ring in his mouth.
“Hyung-nim, your tongue!”
Yoon Sang flinched in surprise, but Shin Yoseph rolled his tongue inside his mouth to suck away the soil from the ring.
Each time the ring touched my teeth, a clicking sound emerged, and my tongue tasted something metallic and bitter.
“Ptui!”
Spitting out saliva mixed with sand and soil particles, Shin Yoseph drew the ring deeper into his mouth until his cheeks hollowed.
“Ptui!”
Why go to such lengths?
The thought in Yoon Sang’s gaze mirrored my own heart.
“Ptui!”
But there was no helping it.
It felt too personal to ignore.
On a rainy day, a corpse transported to the hospital.
There was no extraordinary tale attached, no grand name befitting a powerful spirit.
Merely a Wandering Spirit bearing only its own sorrow.
Sadly, even that resembled me.
Clink, clink.
No matter how much I sucked away the caked-on soil, the ring would not easily return to its original form.
The silver had oxidized, and the scratches were unmistakable.
Wounds that would be difficult to recover from had been left behind.
But Shin Yoseph desperately sucked the dirt from the ring.
“Ptui!”
He spat the ring onto his palm.
Though cleaner than before, the scratches and blackened surface of the ring remained unchanged.
“W-water! I’ll go get some water, hyung!”
Yoon Sang hurried away, leaving Shin Yoseph alone in the dark empty lot, staring down at the ring in his palm.
‘That’s right. There are no miracles.’
In this world, there are no scars that simply vanish.
Shin Yoseph gazed at the ring with a heavy heart and smiled bitterly.
As he clenched his fist around the ring, he felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Whoosh.
Shin Yoseph looked around.
To the right were the road and the elementary school, and to the left was the villa district—all empty of people.
Yet he felt a presence.
Shweeee.
A passing vehicle’s headlights swept across him and then faded into the distance.
But for that brief moment, Shin Yoseph could see it clearly.
The shadow that had appeared before him and then vanished.
Shhhhh.
Shin Yoseph exhaled a long breath and extended the hand holding the ring forward.
Then he opened his fingers to reveal the ring.
“Are you the owner?”
No answer came.
Yet he felt a tactile sensation, as if someone had touched his finger.
“…I am a priest.”
Shin Yoseph continued, looking at the ring in his palm.
“And I am someone like you.”
Nothing remarkable—just someone living on this earth with personal circumstances, like all others.
Someone who can empathize with you.
A wandering spirit, just like you.
“I understand your story.”
Though unintended, Shin Yoseph spoke with a strained voice, his eyes leaving the ring.
He gazed into the darkness ahead and continued.
“I wish to honor your spirit. May I pray for you?”
The answer did not come immediately.
Still, Shin Yoseph waited.
He waited in silence, without urging.
Tap.
And when he felt the sensation on his finger, he nodded heavily.
“Then I will pray.”
Shin Yoseph closed his eyes.
“Lord, receive those you have called from this world, grant them eternal happiness, and let them praise you alongside the saints. Through our Lord Christ, we pray.”
Shin Yoseph did not know the religion of this Wandering Spirit.
Nor did he know the scriptures that would soothe this Wandering Spirit’s soul.
Yet it did not matter.
“My soul waits for you, Lord. From the depths of the abyss, I cry out to you—hear my voice, I beseech you.”
A Shaman is called a kija—one who prays.
A kija is one who prays.
And an exorcist priest is also one who prays.
“Hear the prayer I offer you.”
Though the object of prayer may differ, the heart is not so very different.
Shin Yoseph moved his hand—the one without the ring—to his chest to pray.
“My soul waits for you, Lord, and I wait for your word. More than watchmen wait for dawn, my soul waits for you.”
Forgive this Wandering Spirit’s sins in life and show mercy.
“With you, Lord, is mercy, and with you is plentiful redemption. You shall redeem Israel from all their iniquities.”
Hold your people in your embrace.
Comfort them.
“Lord, see me. I have come before you to follow your will.”
God, in your mercy, have pity on us.
Great is your compassion—erase our sins.
Wash away our wrongs completely and cleanse us of our transgressions.
“Sprinkle us with the waters of purification.”
Then we shall be made clean.
“Wash us.”
We shall be whiter than snow.
“God, in your mercy.”
Shin Yoseph stopped praying and covered his mouth.
Suddenly, a deep black chasm settled in his chest, as if clawing through his very entrails.
His shoulders trembled, and his heart felt as though it were being torn apart.
These were prayers for the Wandering Spirit, yet the words pierced his own heart.
Gulp.
Shin Yoseph swallowed the salty saliva that filled his throat with difficulty, and forced out the next verse.
“Have mercy on us.”
Shin Yoseph slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he saw before him the form of a Wandering Spirit dressed in black.
The Wandering Spirit, clad in full protective gear with scarred hands resting upon a ring, covered their face with the other hand and wept.
***
Whang—rang!
The Shaman’s Bell rang out loudly.
Kang Hyung-seok rose from the bed and approached the window.
In his hands were the Shaman’s Bell and the divine blade.
Whang-rang, whang-rang, whang-rang, whang-rang, whang-rang.
The Shaman’s Bell rang of its own accord, as if speaking.
The Wandering Spirit’s soul had been soothed, and now the conditions for ascension were complete.
‘You’ve done well.’
Only the wounded can understand the wounded.
Only those who weep can understand those who weep.
Only the lonely can comfort the lonely, and only those with lingering attachments can soothe those with lingering attachments.
Though the Wandering Spirit was merely a Malevolent Spirit, there was something about it that resembled Shin Yoseph.
And so Shin Yoseph could comfort it not with scripture, but with prayer.
He could weep alongside it.
Those tears belonged to the Wandering Spirit—the sorrow left unfulfilled in life.
Whang-ra-ra-rang!
Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell vigorously, then slowly closed and opened his eyes.
Then he began to recite the incantation.
“Seventy years for man is but a fleeting dream, eighty years for woman passes like a game.”
It was a gut—a shamanic ritual.
The Korean gut is not solely for the deceased.
It is for both the living and the dead, an act of consoling both the departing and those left behind.
“In this fleeting existence of a hundred years, the light passes like glass—thirty of a hundred sinners find their karma resolved, while seventy meet untimely deaths and fall.”
Kang Hyung-seok hoped this opening incantation for the deceased would console both the Wandering Spirit and one person.

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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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