An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 279

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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 278
Part 3. Three Are Needed (2)
Crunch, crunch.
White vapor poured from the mouths of Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph as they followed in Shin Jung-ah’s wake.
A cold and arduous season.
No matter how thickly I dressed, the chill pierced through to my bones like needles.
The darkness around us was so complete that I could barely see a hand’s breadth ahead.
Still, Kang Hyung-seok never lost sight of Shin Jung-ah striding ahead with such purposeful steps.
He couldn’t afford to lose her.
‘Manager, I’m sorry.’
This was the Goblin I’d summoned with such difficulty, and more importantly, the body it inhabited belonged to Shin Jung-ah.
If I lost sight of the Goblin, my objective of severing its flesh would crumble to nothing, and Shin Jung-ah’s body would vanish into the unseen darkness.
You feel the same way, don’t you?
When Kang Hyung-seok posed the question with his eyes, Shin Yoseph simply moved his feet diligently, his gaze heavy with thought.
I understood.
There was no choice but to be troubled.
While there were thoughts he likely shared with Kang Hyung-seok, the Goblin was heading beyond the Factory.
Where exactly were we going?
Crunch, crunch.
As if indifferent to human law and order, the Goblin walked straight down the middle of the Road.
The fact that there were no vehicles and even fewer people in this desolate place suddenly felt like a blessing.
A woman wearing a grotesquely fashioned white paper mask didn’t make for a pleasant sight walking down a Road.
“How much further?”
Shin Yoseph asked cautiously, and the Goblin answered without even turning around.
“Why is a useless sack of barley so curious?”
“…Barley?”
Shin Yoseph’s eyebrows twitched, and the Goblin’s voice continued.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Kang Hyung-seok placed a hand on Shin Yoseph’s shoulder and shook his head as if to say not to worry about it.
There wasn’t a false word in what the Goblin said.
We would understand once we arrived, and from the moment I summoned the Goblin until now, all Shin Yoseph had done was prepare for contingencies—he could indeed appear as useless as a sack of barley.
“Ha.”
Shin Yoseph let out a hollow laugh as if exasperated, glared at the Goblin, and continued walking.
We’d left the Factory, but we hadn’t gone somewhere completely different.
We were making a wide circle, keeping the Factory on our left as we followed the Road.
‘Something was done to the ground.’
Kang Hyung-seok cast his gaze toward the Factory far to his left.
That Factory, swallowed by the night and appearing pitch-black, was a place that had recently undergone remodeling.
The ground seemed to have fresh gravel laid down, and the Warehouse and Container Housing had been brought in recently as well.
Many construction vehicles must have come and gone.
Even though the ground had been dug up, Lee Jung-woon, the Factory Owner, said nothing.
A place not far from the factory.
Yet a place that could exert influence over the factory itself.
Wasn’t it possible that the sorcery of Daesu Daemyeong had taken firm root there?
Thud.
The Goblin stopped.
Following suit, Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph held their breath through their noses and surveyed their surroundings.
To the left, the pitch-black factory stood watching them, and as if resisting the overcast weather, a crescent moon scattered pale moonlight through the dark clouds.
“This is it.”
The Goblin turned his head.
“Will you recognize it?”
Kang Hyung-seok answered while examining the surroundings rather than the Goblin.
“Yes.”
It lay to the north, with the factory as the reference point.
Since it was not broad daylight, the terrain was not clearly visible.
Yet because it was night, certain things became apparent.
The shape.
‘The energy here is vicious.’
A proper geomancer might have perceived far more.
But even for Kang Hyung-seok, who was no geomancer, the malevolent energy was visible enough that this was a place where great calamity was inevitable.
If Kang Hyung-seok were to curse someone or perform a ritual sacrifice, this very spot where he stood would be the place he would choose.
“Where was the sorcery performed?”
“Beneath my feet.”
The Goblin stepped back one pace.
Then he gestured for them to come closer, and Kang Hyung-seok moved forward slowly alongside Shin Yoseph toward where the Goblin stood.
“There were three of us then too.”
The Goblin’s voice, as if searching through memories, sounded strangely distant.
“Three people came to this place, and they spilled blood.”
Daesu Daemyeong demands the sacrifice of other lives.
Crack!
Before the Goblin’s voice could finish, Kang Hyung-seok heard the sound of a chicken’s neck breaking.
And he could hear the sound of an axe being swung, the anguished cry of a torn cat, and the death screams of a dog and a goat.
Feeling himself becoming increasingly possessed, Kang Hyung-seok locked eyes with the Goblin.
“A chicken, a cat, a dog, and a goat.”
The Goblin, who had been about to nod, shifted his gaze behind Kang Hyung-seok and froze in startled surprise.
He too had seen it.
Kang Hyung-seok’s Guardian Spirit.
“Shin Yoseph.”
As Kang Hyung-seok, now with a deity inhabiting his body, spoke in a voice lower than usual, Shin Yoseph shifted his gaze toward him without response.
And then it happened.
“Three of them performed a corrupted ritual here.”
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes perceived something beyond the veil.
Thwack! Crack! Thwack!
A figure stood where he was, striking the ground repeatedly with a pickaxe and shovel.
Beside them stood a middle-aged man and woman.
Their clothing was unremarkable, and while the woman’s face was unfamiliar, the man’s was not.
‘A Japanese Onmyoji.’
I had already thwarted this sorcerer’s work twice before.
The first time I saw the Japanese Onmyoji, a veiled woman and a baby spirit had been at his side.
Could this middle-aged woman be that same person?
Then could the one wielding the pickaxe be the baby spirit, now grown?
‘No, the ages don’t match.’
Merely a servant or accomplice.
The Japanese Onmyoji’s gaze fixed upon the man was cold and utterly devoid of emotion.
“Since three of them wrought this curse, three are needed to break it.”
As Kang Hyung-seok shifted his gaze toward Shin Yoseph, the man nodded in understanding without a word.
No questions were asked.
Click!
Shin Yoseph opened his lighter and withdrew a chunk of myrrh from his pocket, igniting it.
The sound of rosin burning crackled through the air, and soon the acrid scent of myrrh and smoke billowed through the darkness.
Splash.
After pouring holy water upon the earth, Shin Yoseph traced the sign of the cross before unfastening the silver crucifix hanging from his neck.
“Lord, open my lips.”
Jingle.
The silver crucifix trembled in Shin Yoseph’s hand as Kang Hyung-seok gripped the ritual blade and Shaman’s Bell, then knelt upon the ground.
He drove the ritual blade deep into the earth.
That was the moment.
Squelch.
Foul-smelling blood seeped from the soil, vibrating with malice.
The blood the Japanese Onmyoji had poured into this earth decades ago had not decayed—it flowed forth as if driven out by the ritual blade.
“My lips shall praise the Lord. God, help me.”
Shin Yoseph looked back at the Factory where the cult had caused casualties.
As he did, he shook the silver crucifix, blocking the approach of malevolent forces while Kang Hyung-seok unraveled the curse.
“Lord, come swiftly and aid me.”
Kang Hyung-seok’s face, fortified by the divine, grew stern with the resolve of a general, his eyes blazing with an extraordinary light.
Thwack! Crack!
As the ritual blade struck the earth spewing black blood, all manner of toxic energy erupted in anguished screams.
“Shrieeeek!”
Through this, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled heavily and raised the ritual blade high, the Shaman’s Bell rang of its own accord to drive out the corruption, and Shin Yoseph’s prayers shielded them both.
“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.”
Thwack! Crack!
As Kang Hyung-seok continued scraping the earth with the ritual blade, he cast a glance toward the Goblin.
The creature stood with arms crossed, staring down at the soil that bled and wept.
Waiting for his moment.
Then I would create that moment for him.
Thwack!
Kang Hyung-seok drove the ritual blade deep into the earth with a heavy blow, then set down the sacred implement.
With both hands, I began clawing the soil away.
The air was cold enough to see my breath, yet the earth burned hot.
Sizzle.
As I scraped away the mud—saturated with blood like tidal flats—the heat intensified with each handful.
Splash!
Shin Yoseph sprinkled holy water once more, then knelt beside Kang Hyung-seok and began clearing the soil alongside him.
Thwack! Crack!
Whenever hardened earth appeared, they shattered it with the ritual blade, then resumed scraping away the blood-soaked soil.
Clang!
The tip of the ritual blade, driven deep into the excavation pit, struck something solid.
The two men locked eyes, then urgently began clearing away the remaining earth.
***
Hisssss.
Inside the Temple, where a humidifier sprayed white vapor, the Middle-aged Woman sat before a bed.
It was the bed where the Old Man—once active as a Japanese Onmyoji in his youth—now lay. She pulled back the blanket, found the tube, and removed the collection bag attached to its end.
A catheter bag connected to the urinary line.
What had once been clear fluid now sat clouded in the bag, having passed through the Old Man’s body.
Click, clack.
Having done this many times before, the Middle-aged Woman replaced the catheter bag with practiced, emotionless efficiency.
Drip.
A red liquid flowed down the urinary line.
The woman’s composed expression hardened instantly.
Click, clack!
Beneath her feet as she frantically checked the cardiac monitor, drops of the Old Man’s blood began falling one by one into the collection bag.
***
Squelch! Thud! Crunch, crack!
The deeper Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph dug into the blood-soaked, mud-caked earth, the more they understood.
They were drawing closer to the true nature of the curse.
And that it was beginning to fracture.
Crunch!
Kang Hyung-seok swept away great handfuls of soil with both hands, his breathing ragged through his nose.
The mouth of a rounded earthen jar emerged from the ground.
When Kang Hyung-seok lifted his head to look at the Goblin, the creature nodded in confirmation.
Then this was the source of the sorcery.
“How do we open it?”
The jar’s opening was sealed shut with a lid.
Shin Yoseph grasped the seal on the jar and asked, but Kang Hyung-seok quickly seized his wrist.
“Don’t.”
The energy emanating from within was far too potent.
This curse was designed to drain the life force from people—whoever opened the lid would not survive.
So Kang Hyung-seok turned his gaze toward the Goblin.
If this being, a spirit rather than human, could somehow handle the curse…
As Kang Hyung-seok fixed the Goblin with an intense stare, the creature, who had been watching with arms crossed, stepped forward.
Squelch!
It began to excavate the jar buried in the earth.
Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph watched as the complete form of the vessel was rapidly revealed.
It was then.
Chime.
The Shaman’s Bell rang out, warning of something sinister’s approach.
At the same moment, Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph turned their heads in the same direction.
“Damn it…”
On the Road, devoid of streetlights.
Something familiar was crawling toward them along the path connected to the Factory.
It was the flesh that had nested itself on the Factory’s ceiling.

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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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