An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 260

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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 259
Part 4. You Did This, Didn’t You? (2)
A heavy silence descended.
A silence so suffocating that even breathing became difficult.
From the grave, a steel stake as thick as a child’s forearm was pulled free.
It was absurd, nearly impossible to believe—yet there on the ground lay the undeniable reality of a rusted steel stake drying in the air.
“You. You.”
The middle-aged man inhaled sharply as he spoke, then seized Kang Hyung-seok’s collar with brutal force.
“It was you! You did this!”
“F-Father? What are you doing!”
The son tried to intervene, but the man’s fury would not subside.
“You bastard! You drove that steel stake into the grave beforehand and orchestrated this whole charade! You conniving bastard!”
The middle-aged man gripped Kang Hyung-seok’s collar roughly and shook him.
“Call the police! These con artists! These dogs trying to extort money with this garbage!”
“F-Factory Owner! You can’t do this!”
Yoon Sang rushed to intervene, but the middle-aged man reached toward him as well.
“Where did you punk learn such filthy tricks!”
Crack!
Kang Hyung-seok caught the hand that was reaching for Yoon Sang.
“Let go! You bastard!”
The man tried to wrench his hand free, but Kang Hyung-seok did not release his wrist.
“You… you?”
The bewildered middle-aged man tried to pry his arm away with both hands, but Kang Hyung-seok remained utterly unmoved.
Instead, he simply spoke with unshakeable composure.
“I understand you don’t believe.”
Even in his agitated state, the man flinched at the calm voice that cut through to his ears. He looked at Kang Hyung-seok, whose gaze remained steady and penetrating as he continued.
“But you already know. You know this wasn’t my doing.”
“W-What…”
“You have a suspicion about who it was.”
The middle-aged man’s face drained of all color, and his grip weakened.
Only then did Kang Hyung-seok release his hand, gesturing with his chin toward the steel stake rolling across the ground.
“Who is she? That woman.”
“…What?”
“Your wife? Or perhaps… your sister?”
“You… what are you? Who are you?”
The middle-aged man retreated, stumbling backward as though he had encountered a ghost.
“You’re lashing out at us because you didn’t want to believe. Because you never imagined someone could go this far.”
It was not only the Guardian Spirit who was revealing this to Kang Hyung-seok.
He was discerning it also from the actions of the Victim Spirit—the grave’s original occupant—who still bore the stake.
Even now, with blood streaming from its eyes, it pleaded with both palms pressed together in desperate supplication.
Please forgive us.
I beg you to overlook my son’s rudeness.
The Victim Spirit pleaded with Kang Hyung-seok.
“Your mother watches over you from that grave. Whether you believe it or not matters little, but this is hardly the place to behave as you have before her resting place.”
“Uh, u-uh….”
The Middle-aged Man, overwhelmed by Kang Hyung-seok, shifted his trembling gaze toward the grave.
Yet without spiritual sight, all he could see was the mound with its disturbed earth.
“So tell me. Who is that woman?”
“Uh, h-ugh, h-uh….”
In the quiet, desolate Mountain, only the ragged breathing of the Middle-aged Man echoed through the silence.
His mother slept beneath the earth, and his son watched from above.
“Dad….”
The Middle-aged Man glanced at his son, then drew a trembling hand across his face.
His gaze fell, clouded with confusion, as he struggled to open his mouth.
“Let’s go down. We should… talk down below.”
Kang Hyung-seok watched the Middle-aged Man’s eyes fixed on the iron stake, then nodded heavily.
***
Flick, flick!
The Middle-aged Man descended the Mountain and immediately lit a cigarette.
Yoon Sang said he had an interview to conduct and took the son some distance away, while the Middle-aged Man trembled as he lit the cigarette with shaking fingers, then drew the smoke in deeply like a sigh, exhaling it repeatedly.
Whoooosh.
Winter was drawing near.
Temperatures hovered in the single digits, and in the early morning hours, they sometimes dipped below freezing.
Kang Hyung-seok observed the cold wind pouring down the Mountain and the trees shedding their leaves, then spoke softly.
“Your younger sister.”
The Middle-aged Man flinched and turned his gaze toward Kang Hyung-seok.
How could he possibly know? How much did he understand?
Was this man even human?
Meeting that gaze, Kang Hyung-seok shook his head gently.
“I understand you dislike Shamans.”
“…Huh!”
“Your mother. She was a Shaman, wasn’t she?”
The Middle-aged Man’s face went pale as if his entire body had erupted in goosebumps, and he hastily glanced toward where his son was.
But his son was out of sight, conversing with Yoon Sang.
“Your son doesn’t know. That the deceased was a Shaman.”
“How could you possibly—”
“I am also a Shaman.”
The Middle-aged Man breathed heavily through his nose.
He drew deeply on his cigarette, then exhaled smoke as he spoke with his head bowed.
“…I don’t understand any of this.”
The middle-aged man then lifted his head, his gaze fixed upon Kang Hyung-seok with eyes that bore the weight of exhaustion.
“Kim Il-hong. That’s me.”
“And your son?”
“…Kim Yi-jun.”
Kim Il-hong and Kim Yi-jun.
The names possessed an oddly memorable quality.
“Shhh, huuuh.”
Kim Il-hong exhaled a long plume of cigarette smoke, his gaze drifting toward the Mountain where his mother’s grave lay, and he smacked his lips.
“My mother was a Shaman, but we didn’t have a good relationship. No, none of us siblings got along well with her.”
Kang Hyung-seok nodded, understanding the circumstances.
Kim Il-hong was middle-aged, and when he was young, the social image of Shamans was vastly different from what it was now.
Nowadays, even those who need not receive a spirit become Shamans by accepting one.
But was it the same in the past?
Many would do anything to avoid receiving a spirit, yet unable to escape their fate, they became Shamans by accepting their destiny.
“I always hated it. The incense smell clinging to her, being ostracized by my peers, being pointed at by adults as coming from a filthy household, her bringing home food from who knows where.”
The eyes of one recalling painful memories grow dark.
Yet such darkness is rarely so profound.
“What made her profession so remarkable that she lectured us about it endlessly?”
“There must have been a reason.”
“A reason? What reason are you talking about?”
Kim Il-hong’s eyes flashed with ominous light, as though he harbored an axe, and his lips twisted.
Conversely, his eyes glistened with moisture.
It appeared as though he were pleading for Kang Hyung-seok to listen only to him now, forcing him to swallow words that tickled his throat.
“My younger sister was the one who had the worst relationship with her. She hated our mother greatly, but I wonder if she would truly go that far.”
What expression did his younger sister wear when she drove the iron stake into the grave?
No matter how poor their relationship, could such a thing be done?
Could it truly have been his younger sister’s doing?
Kim Il-hong rubbed his mouth with troubled eyes, while Kang Hyung-seok turned his gaze toward the night sky.
The clouds hung thick.
Despite the air being so pure in this place, not a single star was visible.
“As for the rest, well, it’s a family matter after all, so I’ll handle it myself.”
Kang Hyung-seok shifted his gaze to Kim Il-hong, who rubbed out his cigarette and carefully extinguished the ember with his shoe.
“Thank you for finding the cause.”
“…Kim Il-hong.”
“Yes?”
Kang Hyung-seok opened and closed his lips briefly before speaking with measured care.
“Your mother was often ill, wasn’t she?”
As Kim Il-hong’s face stiffened before him, Kang Hyung-seok continued.
“Among the things your mother nagged about, there must have been warnings of heavenly secrets.”
Not everything a Shaman says should be disclosed.
There exists a destiny set by heaven, and should a Shaman reveal it, they suffer a corresponding punishment.
This is called divulging the secrets of heaven.
“You were someone who cared so little for yourself that you’ll be remembered for your nagging. You chose to be a mother rather than a Shaman.”
“….”
“Thanks to that, your two children grew up well without any major incidents.”
Kim Il-hong watched Kang Hyung-seok in silence, then turned his body as if staggering.
His eyes did not reflect complete trust.
But they were eyes filled with confusion.
Step, step.
Kim Il-hong walked away with listless footsteps, and soon after, Yoon Sang—who had left with his son—returned alone.
“Brother, have you finished saying everything?”
“Yeah, well.”
“Man, this turned out to be bigger than I thought. There was a reason he mentioned that grave wind feeling.”
It seemed he had heard quite a lot from his son, Kim Yi-jun.
Yoon Sang had chattered excitedly at first, but gradually fell silent.
Kang Hyung-seok’s sunken expression was part of it, and he had also sensed the atmosphere of something not quite working out.
Vroom.
The silver van, emitting sound and light, captured the attention of Yoon Sang and Kang Hyung-seok.
The car, driven by Kim Il-hong with Kim Yi-jun in the passenger seat, was moving away as if fleeing this Mountain.
***
Screech!
The silver van came to a stop in an ordinary Residential District.
There were streetlights, and true to a Friday night, the neighborhood was packed with old Apartment Buildings, their Roads cramped with illegally parked cars.
“Go up first.”
“Why?”
“Go up.”
When Kim Il-hong spoke curtly, Kim Yi-jun read his expression and got out of the car.
He went up to the Rental House, and only after seeing the Entrance door close did Kim Il-hong take out his phone and cigarettes.
He normally didn’t smoke in the car, but his head was too muddled.
Click! Whoosh.
As he lit the cigarette, he called his younger sibling.
She didn’t answer at first, and when the second call was about to go to voicemail, it connected.
(What is it, at this hour?)
Kim Il-ju, Kim Il-hong’s younger sibling, spoke in a voice still heavy with sleep.
“Hey.”
(What? Is something wrong?)
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
(What do you mean, ‘was it you’?)
Kim Il-hong, on the off chance, looked at his own Rental House and spoke again.
“You drove a stake into Mother’s Grave, didn’t you?”
(What? What are you talking about?)
“There’s no one else who would do something like that!”
(I have no idea what you’re saying.)
A tone of utter exasperation.
Yet the reason I couldn’t easily believe her was because I knew exactly what kind of person Kim Il-ju was.
“I just came back from the Grave! I even pulled out the iron stake!”
(…What?)
“You’re the one who drove that iron stake in!”
(Wait, hold on. You pulled it out? That thing?)
Kim Il-hong’s face went rigid.
“Was it really you?”
(Damn it! You pulled it out?)
Kim Il-ju pressed urgently, and Kim Il-hong, his face contorted, poured the burning heat surging within him directly into his voice.
“Yes! I pulled it out! I pulled it out! What is that thing? What the hell were you thinking doing that?!”
Kim Il-ju had no answer.
Kim Il-hong irritably lit a cigarette and pressed the phone tightly against his ear.
He was hoping for some kind of excuse, but instead of an excuse, Kim Il-ju muttered to himself.
(Damn it, that shouldn’t have been pulled out.)
It was the exact type of response Kim Il-hong least wanted to hear, and his face twisted in despair.

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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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