An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 267

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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 266
Part 6. The Affairs of Mortals (3)
“…Brother.”
Yoon Sang muttered like a man whose spirit had been shattered.
It wasn’t that I doubted Kang Hyung-seok, but the thought that he might be possessed gnawed at me relentlessly.
Crackle.
At the sound of the ceremonial knife tearing through flesh, Yoon Sang squeezed his eyes shut, while Kang Hyung-seok furrowed his brow as he stared down at the jar.
Blood cascaded over the paper sealing the jar.
The arm had vanished, and the blood was being drawn through a small hole in the paper.
As though someone were pressing their lips to it and gulping the blood down greedily.
‘Consume. Feast to your heart’s content.’
The Guardian Spirit was not aiding me.
I understood why.
Those who had been sacrificed to the greedy were ones who had once revered the divine.
It was likely the Guardian Spirit’s way of refusing to show them that I stood alongside the sacred.
It was to prevent resentment from festering into envy and jealousy.
Drip.
So I hoped the matter would be resolved through my own strength alone.
I widened the wound with the ceremonial knife, allowing more blood to pour forth, and it continued to flow, thoroughly drenching the metal box within the jar.
-Uuugh, hrrgh.
-Uaaaang, aaaang.
-Aaaaak! Ahhhhh!
The Vengeful Spirits trapped in the box wailed.
Their thirst quenched, compassion for themselves now overwhelmed them.
Clatter.
Setting down the ceremonial knife, I pressed firmly against the wound and opened my mouth.
“…Has your hunger been sated?”
-Hrrgh! Uuugh!
-Uaaaa! Haaaak!
“You desired blood, so I have given it. If you hunger for flesh, I shall provide that as well.”
I listened intently to the cries of the Vengeful Spirits and continued with sincerity.
“What I seek is your peace. Your ascension. Your rest, and the continuation of the lives you could not complete, reborn in the next world.”
-Hrrrrgh! Uuuugh!
-Kyiaaaak!
-Uuuaaa! Auuaaak!
The cries of the Vengeful Spirits swelled as though they would shatter the house itself.
Lives crushed beneath the weight of their tormentors.
Spirits unable to ascend even in death, rendered powerless.
What more could be needed to console them?
With what could I comfort their souls?
Rustle.
The sudden sound captured Kang Hyung-seok’s attention.
“Ugh, ugh, uhhh.”
Kim Il-hong was beginning to wake.
“Ah, ah.”
Yoon Sang, alarmed, gripped his arm firmly, and Kim Il-hong suddenly let out a groan.
“Ahhh!”
“A-are you alright?”
“Ah, ah, ah!”
Yoon Sang grew even more flustered at the anguished cries.
He cast a desperate look toward Kang Hyung-seok for help, but the man only twisted his lips.
“My eyes, my eyes. They hurt. What is this?”
Kim Il-hong, squeezing his eyes shut, thrashed against Yoon Sang’s grip.
“My eyes hurt! My eyes, my eyes!”
It was then that Yoon Sang’s face went rigid at this abnormal reaction.
Kang Hyung-seok approached Kim Il-hong and seized his shoulders.
With his other hand, he pried open Kim Il-hong’s eyelids.
“H-hyung, what’s happening?”
Kang Hyung-seok glanced briefly at Yoon Sang, then returned his gaze to Kim Il-hong.
His lips remained twisted, his brows furrowed.
“Kim Il-hong, you need to calm down.”
“Ah, ah? Ah.”
“Listen to me carefully. Don’t listen to anything else, don’t look at anything else—focus only on me.”
Kim Il-hong blinked with unfocused eyes, his body trembling like an aspen leaf.
Through his expression and his entire body rather than words, Kim Il-hong was asking what had happened to him.
“Your spiritual sight has opened.”
“…What?”
Both Yoon Sang and Kim Il-hong stiffened in bewilderment.
“What do you mean, spiritual sight?”
“It means you can now see things you couldn’t see before.”
Successive possessions.
And the bloodline of a Shamanic Practitioner.
They had torn open Kim Il-hong’s spiritual sight.
Perhaps it was inevitable—or rather, this situation had made it so.
“What do you mean? Surely you don’t mean I’ve become like my mother? Right?”
Kim Il-hong’s voice trembled with terror as he shook off Yoon Sang’s hand and seized Kang Hyung-seok’s shoulders instead.
And then it happened.
Right after.
Kim Il-hong’s eyes, which had been fixed on Kang Hyung-seok, moved toward the ceiling like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
“…What is that.”
Now Kim Il-hong could see them too.
Everything that filled this Sealed Room.
“What? This, what is this?”
Kim Il-hong muttered while staring at the ceiling and walls.
At the same time, Yoon Sang—who lacked spiritual sight—looked panicked toward Kang Hyung-seok, but he shook his head.
Then he answered Kim Il-hong.
“These are the things you will carry with you.”
“…What?”
“These are the things you will continue to see from now on.”
The Sealed Room was thick with black, shimmering toxic energy.
The ceiling was covered with the faces of Vengeful Spirits.
Confronted with a scene like something from hell itself, Kim Il-hong rubbed his eyes vigorously, opening and closing them repeatedly, but the visions would not fade.
“Ah, aah. Ah….”
Kim Il-hong’s face was contorting with despair.
Kang Hyung-seok had once endured suffering from spiritual sight himself, so he could understand what Kim Il-hong was feeling.
But this was not the time for comfort.
“Kim Il-hong.”
“Please, do something for me. Please! Whether it’s a talisman or anything else, just make those things—!”
Kim Il-hong, his face ashen, clung desperately to Kang Hyung-seok.
But Kang Hyung-seok removed his hands and met his gaze directly.
“What you see now is the resentment dwelling in that jar.”
“What… what?”
“The original sin of your family.”
“W-original sin? What are you saying! Original sin?”
“What your mother tried to hide—what drove your younger sister to her death.”
Kim Il-hong could not bring himself to look around, desperately trying to maintain eye contact with Kang Hyung-seok.
“That, what does that even—”
“The resentment dwelling in that jar will follow you and your son forever. And your descendants as well.”
A deeper terror spread across Kim Il-hong’s eyes.
A despair far greater than merely seeing ghosts.
The horror that his own children would be afflicted.
Crack!
Kim Il-hong, gripping Kang Hyung-seok’s arm with all his strength, opened his trembling lips.
“No, no! That can’t be! You’re saying my son will be followed too!”
It was then.
-I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.
-You bastard! I’ll rip out your guts!
-I’ll gouge out your eyes and sever your tongue.
-I died too, so I’ll kill you as well!
The voices of the Vengeful Spirits reached not only Kang Hyung-seok but Kim Il-hong as well.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Kim Il-hong clapped his hands over his ears and curled into a ball, while Kang Hyung-seok looked down at the back of his head and opened his mouth.
“There is no escaping this, Kim Il-hong.”
Kim Il-hong lifted his trembling face.
His eyes were brimming with tears, and even in the darkness of the Sealed Room, the whites of his eyes glistened.
“H-huh, huh-uh, huh-uuh.”
“It is resentment embedded in blood. You must appease them.”
Kim Il-hong’s throat convulsed sharply.
His trembling lips quivered as though trying to form words, but what escaped was not speech—only weeping.
“Uuh-uh, uuh-uck!”
Sobbing.
And within it, a desperate yearning.
Even as despair twisted his face, Kim Il-hong’s eyes posed a question with unmistakable clarity.
What was he supposed to do? How could he possibly do it?
“They desire something. You must give it to them.”
“Huh-uck, huh-uuh-uck.”
“What dwells in the jar is a sin committed by humans. It is evil perpetrated by one person against another, and so it must be ended by a person.”
The Mugho began with blood.
The curse of Mugho spreads along the bloodline.
It was not only the deceased Kim Il-ju who inherited the blood.
Kim Il-hong, too, carried the blood of the deceased just as Kim Il-ju had.
“It must be repaid in blood.”
“….”
“Can you do this?”
Kim Il-hong gazed at the wound on Kang Hyung-seok’s forearm.
Then he pressed his lips firmly together and stopped his weeping.
His eyes held the weight of much deliberation.
But his hesitation did not last long.
A nod.
He nodded with the expression of one who could not pass calamity down to his children and descendants, and Kang Hyung-seok brought the jar before him.
Then he extended a ritual knife toward him.
A soft sound.
Kim Il-hong received the ritual knife.
“Huh-uck, huh-uck, huh-uuh-uck.”
Then he brought the tip of the ritual knife to his own forearm.
Yoon Sang squeezed his eyes shut, while Kang Hyung-seok gazed upward at the Vengeful Spirits that filled the Ceiling.
“Receive this offering.”
This is my atonement for you.
Let your wrath be soothed, and let those tears of blood cease.
Though you were slain without guilt, this man too bears no sin.
Yet still, he accepts the sins of his ancestors and offers his apology.
Let this resentment be assuaged.
Slice.
“Ughhhh!”
As Kim Il-hong drew the ritual blade across his forearm, blood gushed forth in a torrent.
His face contorted in excruciating agony, yet he did not cease the blade’s movement.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.
Creating wounds far deeper than those Kang Hyung-seok had inflicted, Kim Il-hong wailed in anguish.
Splash!
Kim Il-hong’s blood drenched the jar completely.
The paper already soaked in blood tore away, leaving a gaping hole, and Kim Il-hong’s blood filled the vessel within.
“Ugh! Khhhhh!”
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!
Kim Il-hong continued to widen and enlarge the wound, pouring forth his blood.
That desperation flowed dissolved within the crimson tide.
The paper that had sealed the entrance fluttered and fell away.
Though the seal was broken, the Vengeful Spirit did not surge forth—instead, she drank Kim Il-hong’s blood in serene silence.
‘Still, still one remains unfulfilled.’
The Vengeful Spirits remained calm, yet their wrath was not entirely appeased.
As Kang Hyung-seok watched the Vengeful Spirits, as though they might pounce upon Kim Il-hong at any moment,
“…I did not know.”
Kim Il-hong opened his mouth.
Though his face twisted from the agony of tearing flesh, the tears that streamed down were born of desperation and remorse toward the Vengeful Spirits.
“I did not know, and I am truly, deeply sorry. I beg your forgiveness.”
Kim Il-hong sobbed, clear saliva spilling from his lips.
“I did not know. I truly, truly did not know. I was not even aware of your existence, and I gave you no thought whatsoever.”
The deceased had hidden the jar’s existence from Kim Il-hong to spare his son from harm.
But that was wrong.
What was needed was not avoidance and neglect, but acceptance and acknowledgment.
“My family committed deeds worthy of death, and I was ignorant of them.”
Kim Il-hong widened the wound with the ritual blade.
“Ahhhhh!”
Then, trembling throughout his entire body, he filled the jar with the blood that gushed forth.
“I should have known everything, yet I did not. I lived in ignorance of the suffering you endured. I will pay the price of that sin, so let this end with my generation.”
Kim Il-hong, who had never believed in Shamanism, was different now.
His spiritual sight had opened, allowing him to see all, and he now faced the original sin that had descended through his family line.
His heart overflowed with profound remorse and reflection.
Drip, drop, drip.
As blood droplets fell upon the jar, creating ripples, Kang Hyung-seok gazed upward at the Vengeful Spirits with a face as serene as sleep.
Though the resentment had not yet faded, the hatred was being worn away.
Hundreds of years.
This was the first time.
The first time I had witnessed someone atone for their family’s sins with tears and blood.
Wa-ra-ra-rang.
The Shaman’s Bell rang of its own accord, drawing Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze.
At the same moment, I felt the Guardian Spirit watching from afar drawing closer.
The final missing piece was filled by Kim Il-hong’s atonement.
It seemed to whisper that the time had finally come.
It was time to guide the vengeful spirits dwelling within the jar brimming with hatred to salvation.

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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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