An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 288

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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 288
Part 6. I Don’t Think I Can Keep a Dog (2)
Wrang.
In the mountains where thick darkness settled heavily, the Shaman’s Bell rang out.
Breath exhaled silently froze white, and damp snow laden with moisture weighed down upon my shoulders.
More than that, my heart grew heavy because of the bones buried in the frozen earth.
“Sigh.”
After a long silence, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled and began clawing at the ground with his frost-reddened hands.
“I’ll help.”
Shin Jung-ah brought stones and scraped at the rock-hard frozen earth.
The falling snow felt resentful.
Swish.
I swept away the accumulating snow with my palm and scraped the soil with the stone.
Then I carefully extracted each bone and placed it beside me.
Crack, crack.
Kang Hyung-seok’s face as he picked up and set down each bone was frozen harder than the frozen ground itself.
He didn’t like dogs.
Because they kept trying to reveal the locations of spirits to him.
How could he have liked dogs when he was a child who couldn’t even receive divine blessings to protect his own body?
Yet that was no reason to refrain from pitying them.
Vroom.
At the sudden sound of a car engine echoing in his mind, Kang Hyung-seok squeezed his eyes shut.
It wasn’t an auditory hallucination.
It was a memory embedded in the bone.
The memory carved into bone because it could not be forgotten flowed into his mind.
The dog’s name on the road was Choco.
It was a puppy purchased for 300,000 won for a young child, but it was actually raised for less than half a year.
“This one’s supposed to be smart, but can’t even control its bowels. Tsk.”
The reason it was abandoned was simply that housebreaking hadn’t gone well.
Choco barely survived three months on the streets and starved to death in the rain.
Clatter.
When I touched another bone, the memory of another dog flowed into my mind.
Its name was Happy, and it was a puppy that truly lived happily with its owner.
Until it became a full-grown dog.
“It’s too big now, so it’s not cute anymore.”
As if all that love had been a lie, Happy was abandoned.
Cast away without even a farewell, it fell ill and had its body eaten by maggots before dying in a place where no one would look after it.
Clatter.
The memories continued.
There were more than twenty dogs in total, so as I extracted every bone, that many dogs’ memories, names, the faces of their owners, and agonizing moments flowed into Kang Hyung-seok’s mind.
How much resentment had accumulated within them.
How cold, how scorching, how unbearable the suffering had been.
Clatter.
Now they would emerge from the frozen earth.
They would escape the cold and loneliness.
Clatter.
With each bone I unearthed, the pile within the soil grew smaller.
Once I had extracted every last bone, only the vast pit remained.
I rose, gazing upon the heap of bones, and swung my ritual dagger in four great arcs across the surrounding space.
Whoosh.
Shin Jung-ah stepped back, and I gripped the Shaman’s Bell tightly, producing a resonant cry.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
Deep in the night, upon the mountain where snow fell so thickly it seemed to bury the world itself.
The Shaman’s Bell rang out loudly, as if weeping in place of the dead dogs, and soon a solemn chant followed.
“Victim Spirits, as we chant in unified devotion, may your karmic afflictions dissolve and wisdom of enlightenment manifest, that you may transcend the suffering of birth and death and attain liberation and nirvana.”
My gaze remained fixed upon the bones of the Dog Spirits.
“May you be reborn in the Pure Land and all attain Buddhahood.”
In that moment, Shin Jung-ah unconsciously brought her hands together.
With palms pressed in prayer, though her body trembled in the cold, her heart remained unwavering.
“When one comprehends the true way, all suffering is transcended and one beholds the Buddha face to face.”
Compassion.
Only that emotion became a steadfast pillar, anchoring her heart.
“What gathers by karma disperses by karma; birth is karma and return is karma—why then cling to anything or grieve for anything?”
May you carry only the memories of being loved.
That you suffered cruel experiences through unfortunate circumstances was not your fault.
May you release attachment and escape from suffering.
“The path you travel stretches a thousand miles—where is the Pure Land? Where afflictions and delusions vanish, that place itself is the Pure Land.”
Go now.
Leave this place that brought only suffering, and drift away freely.
Please, find your way to a place of peace.
“If you cherish good karma and abandon bad karma, when you are born again, you shall encounter good karma.”
It was then.
Whiiiiing.
A fierce wind swept across, and the snow swirled in a violent vortex.
From within the pristine white chaos created by countless snowflakes, a dark silhouette emerged.
The Dog Spirit.
The Dog Spirit stood at a distance, silently watching over Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Jung-ah without the slightest movement.
“Cradled in the Buddha’s embrace, may you be reborn in the Pure Land.”
I recited the chant while gazing upon the Dog Spirit, and it bowed its head toward me from within the darkness.
The boundary between human and beast.
The relationship between the living and the dead.
Yet not the bond between master and companion animal.
“Who departs after completing their worldly life?”
Nevertheless, Kang Hyung-seok continued the sutra for the Dog Spirit.
The living reciting for the dead, and a person offering prayers for an animal abandoned by humanity.
“As water freezes into ice and ice melts back into water, so too are life and death in this world like water and ice.”
You came with empty hands and depart with empty hands,
So what binds you that you cannot achieve rebirth in paradise?
“Go.”
Kang Hyung-seok paused the sutra briefly and observed the Dog Spirit alongside Shin Jung-ah.
Though Shin Jung-ah lacked spiritual sight, she could perceive the Dog Spirit’s presence through the silhouette her eyes created, and the distinct spiritual aura clearly revealed that the creature existed in that distant realm.
“Go. Sever the karmic ties and suffering, and journey to where you belong.”
As Kang Hyung-seok spoke with sincerity welling up from the depths of his heart, the Dog Spirit’s head nodded slowly.
Then it glanced once at the bone beside Kang Hyung-seok and turned its body within the snow.
As the Dog Spirit departed, its spiritual aura grew faint.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
He rang the Shaman’s Bell loudly, as if propelling the creature forward.
The bell’s resonance spread wide, like a blessing upon its path.
“By the sacred mantras we chant in unison, the gates of hell crumble and karmic debts dissolve; may Amitabha Buddha grant rebirth in the Pure Land of mutual benefit and coexistence.”
Kang Hyung-seok murmured softly after completing the sutra.
“Namo Amitabha Buddha, Om Aridara Svaha.”
A phrase repeated three times in total.
As the final repetition began, Shin Jung-ah followed Kang Hyung-seok’s lead and murmured the phrase alongside him.
Though their pronunciation was somewhat indistinct, their hearts aligned, and by the time all the sutras concluded, no spiritual aura could be sensed anywhere.
***
Vroom.
The next day arrived.
Gwak Young-ho, gripping the steering wheel, caught sight of Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Jung-ah in the rearview mirror—both looking unusually exhausted—and clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Goodness, looks like you two didn’t sleep a wink last night.”
“No, we’re fine.”
“Fine? Look at those dark circles.”
Gwak Young-ho let out a heavy sigh and shifted his gaze to Lee Jin-pyung in the passenger seat.
“Deputy Manager Lee, you slept well?”
“Yes, I slept well.”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Just then, Namgoong Min-ah, seated in the middle of the back row, suddenly thrust her head forward.
“Manager, aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Anyone can see you slept fine. Why would I ask?”
“That’s mean.”
“Your face is practically glowing.”
Gwak Young-ho shook his head and pulled the car to a stop near the Mountain.
It was the same Mountain where Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Jung-ah had come the night before.
Click.
After engaging the parking brake and turning off the engine, Gwak Young-ho stepped out of the car, turning to face the back seat.
“I’m not forcing anyone, so those who need rest can stay in the car, and those who want to go sledding can go ahead.”
Though he’d offered this for those who appeared particularly sleep-deprived, no one remained in the vehicle.
The members of Sales Team 1, each grabbing a fertilizer sack from the trunk, climbed the slope to go sledding.
Whoooosh!
“Kyaaaa!”
Youth truly has its merits.
Watching Namgoong Min-ah, who’d bolted down the slope like a hamster escaping its cage, reach the bottom first.
“Min-ah! Take it easy!”
“I’m fine, Manager!”
“Don’t stand up!”
Namgoong Min-ah was actually trying to stand on the fertilizer sack instead of sledding properly.
Gwak Young-ho let out an alarmed cry, and as Lee Jin-pyung absently tapped the styrofoam inside the fertilizer sack to check it, Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Jung-ah stretched into long yawns.
They were exhausted.
Honestly, they would have gladly taken a longer nap.
Yet their hearts felt at ease.
Whoosh, thud!
“Deputy Manager Lee! Why did you fall!”
“There must be a rock, Manager.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Sales Team 1 sledded and played with carefree hearts.
Baekseol was bounding playfully across the snow, while Namgoong Min-ah sat in a corner fashioning a snowman instead of sledding.
She paid no mind whatsoever to the Dog Spirit.
“It does mean something, doesn’t it?”
Shin Jung-ah murmured the question, and I answered with a nod.
“Do you think it went to a good place?”
“Since it departed, it must have gone somewhere.”
“What about the bones?”
“I kept them safe. I know a Monk, so though it’s late, I’m thinking of asking him to perform a proper merit-transfer ritual.”
I was referring to Jo Un-su.
The man who had spent his entire life tending the Medicinal Herb Field beside the well where his brother died.
I intended to entrust the bones of the dogs I’d unearthed from the soil last night to him, who had once been a Monk.
“Then that should be fine.”
Would it really be fine?
I swallowed the words echoing inside my mouth.
The Dog Spirit that had wandered this village had vanished, but dogs continue to be abandoned.
It’s estimated that over 100,000 dogs are abandoned each year.
That’s no small number.
Perhaps a second Dog Spirit, a third Dog Spirit, might appear someday.
Just as there is no one who deserves to be wounded, there is no animal that deserves to be wounded either.
“I don’t think I could ever keep a dog.”
I looked at her in agreement, and finally, Namgoong Min-ah, who had completed her snowman, began packing more snow to create something small.
“Min-ah, what are you making?”
“A snow dog? A snow pup? I’m making one.”
“A what?”
Since it was so small, it was finished in no time.
Namgoong Min-ah held up the snow sculptures—a snowman and a dog—in both her palms, her face radiant with satisfaction.
“It’s that dog from yesterday. I hope it meets its owner.”
“Ah, that abandoned dog?”
“Yes!”
Namgoong Min-ah answered brightly and placed the snowman and snow dog side by side, facing toward the village.
“I hope it becomes happy.”
Namgoong Min-ah’s innocent voice, knowing nothing of the truth, echoed across the Snow-covered Mountain where the bones of abandoned dogs lay buried.

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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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