An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 291

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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 291
Part 7. You Called Them a Possessed Person (2)
Vroom.
Inside the car gliding across the highway, I continued my conversation with Gwak Young-ho.
(Manager Kang! I heard Shin Director summoned you?)
“Yes. I’m on my way there now.”
(He probably wants to exchange New Year’s greetings with you face-to-face. These things can lead to additional orders, so make sure the conversation goes well.)
“Understood, sir.”
I answered with a faint smile playing at the corners of my mouth.
It was just past 1 PM, and as the surroundings grew increasingly barren, it became clear that I was leaving the city’s outskirts behind.
That desolate landscape mirrored my own heart.
The smile I forced onto my lips was barely holding back the emotions threatening to surface, yet Gwak Young-ho’s voice remained relentlessly cheerful.
(Then have a good trip, and fighting!)
Would I be able to have a good trip?
I’d already heard a rough outline of the situation from Shin Yoseph.
An exorcism ritual.
And it had to be performed on a corpse.
I swallowed the anxiety churning in my stomach and forced my lips upward even more as I replied.
“Yes. I’ll report back by phone once the meeting is over.”
Beep.
After ending the call, I let my smile drop.
It had only been a few days since I returned from the mountain cabin retreat.
Even though I’d encountered the Dog Spirit there, every moment in that cozy, peaceful place now felt like a lie.
Despite being under the same sky and in the same season.
Ding.
I answered Shin Yoseph’s incoming call and turned the steering wheel following the navigation’s guidance.
“I’m on my way.”
(How long will it take?)
“Not long. Did you do everything I told you?”
(I’ve prepared the countermeasures you mentioned. I’m at the base of the mountain now.)
“Don’t even look toward the mountain until I arrive.”
A mountain. Of all places, a mountain.
It’s inherently a place where malevolent energy flows, and now there’s a corpse there too.
A corpse possessed by a demon, no less.
The mountain itself would be like a demon’s lair, so even casting a glance at it would be sacrilege.
(Just get here quickly.)
The call ended, and I shifted my gaze to the navigation.
Then I accelerated further and began racing toward the mountain where Shin Yoseph was waiting.
How long had I been driving?
“You are approaching your destination. Navigation will now end.”
The navigation guidance ended as if signaling that my time as a company employee had come to an end.
Shin Yoseph was smoking a cigarette in the distance.
Grrrk.
As Kang Hyung-seok brought the car to a stop before him, Shin Yoseph flicked the ash away.
His gaze remained fixed on the vehicle, and behind him, a towering mountain loomed like a shadow.
Kang Hyung-seok stepped out of the car and stood face to face with Shin Yoseph, the mountain rising at his side.
“What’s the situation?”
“Not good. I covered the basics over the phone.”
“We can talk as we go.”
Shin Yoseph nodded and began ascending the mountain alongside Kang Hyung-seok.
Patches of white snow lay scattered throughout, and fallen leaves lay frozen in the cold. The path was treacherous, and the mountain’s terrain was rugged—climbing it was no simple task.
It was remarkable that a single person had managed to live here until old age and death.
“The deceased’s name is Park Pyung-sik. Age seventy-nine. The cause of death is presumed to be pneumonia, though nothing’s certain.”
Shin Yoseph’s voice came from behind, muffled by the mountain’s oppressive atmosphere, sounding strangely intimate.
So Kang Hyung-seok listened more intently than usual, moving forward with careful steps.
“He exhibited strange behavior starting two months before his death.”
“Who said that?”
“He was a Catholic believer. Thanks to that, the nearby cathedral also kept an eye on him.”
Kang Hyung-seok pressed his lips firmly together until wrinkles formed like walnuts beneath his chin, then nodded heavily.
These days, many people curse and dismiss religion itself.
But there’s one thing they don’t understand.
Regardless of denomination, religion fundamentally serves to gather people and unite them. Thus it forms a small society, and by itself performs functions similar to welfare services.
Whenever there’s a religious event, whether at a temple or church, meals are provided.
Not meals brought in by outsiders, but food prepared through the collective effort of the believers themselves.
“The decision not to cremate him immediately but to place him in a coffin—was that also the cathedral’s decision?”
“The priest must have judged it necessary.”
At least it was winter—a mercy.
Had such an incident occurred on a sweltering summer day, the stench of decomposition would have been overwhelming.
Fortunately, it being the depths of winter, even reaching the mountain cabin at this visible distance, there was no acrid odor assaulting the nose.
“Phew.”
Kang Hyung-seok exhaled heavily, as if casting off his frustration, and withdrew the Shaman’s Bell and spirit blade from his bag.
He gazed at them quietly, but the Shaman’s Bell made no sound.
Yet it trembled ever so slightly, as if issuing a warning.
It appeared almost as though it were foretelling that unimaginable events would unfold in that mountain cabin.
Crunch.
Upon reaching the mountain cabin with Shin Yoseph, Kang Hyung-seok carefully grasped the door handle and twisted it.
Simultaneously, a foul stench pierced his nostrils—but it was no ordinary odor.
“What’s your assessment?”
Shin Yoseph asked, covering the area beneath his nose with his index finger, which reeked deeply of cigarette smoke, while Kang Hyung-seok surveyed the interior of the mountain cabin where the coffin lay and opened his mouth.
“Well, it’s as expected.”
The stench was beyond description.
Beyond that, a distinct miasma of death pierced through my nostrils.
Had Shin Jung-ah, who had gained the ability to smell such things, come here, she would have retched so violently she might have lost consciousness.
Such a potent, malevolent aura swarmed through the mountain cabin like a nest of snakes in a cave.
Click.
Shin Yoseph closed the door, and at that same moment the Shaman’s Bell rang out with a sharp wrang, yet my gaze remained fixed on the interior of the cabin.
Regardless, this was a place where the deceased rested.
An ominous presence, a terrible stench, a profane atmosphere.
Setting all of that aside, I surveyed the interior as though etching the space into my corneas.
‘Had this person always loved photography?’
Perhaps for that reason, retro-aesthetic photographs taken with a Polaroid camera lay scattered throughout, pinned to the walls with thumbtacks.
Most depicted natural subjects—flowers, sunsets.
No matter how freely one chose their path in life, loneliness would not be absent.
I gazed upon the coffin with nails driven through it and exhaled a long, thin breath.
Wrang, wrang, wrang.
Gripping the continuously ringing Shaman’s Bell, I closed my eyes as if in prayer and recited the incantation rapidly.
It was the Tae-eul Body Protection Sutra, meant to shield my body.
Wrang wrang wrang.
The Shaman’s Bell continued to ring until the moment the incantation ended.
I had observed the proper etiquette, recited the protective incantation—now it was time to proceed to the next stage.
Whoosh.
I cast a glance toward Shin Yoseph to prepare him, then opened my mouth.
“Namu Eastern Direction Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits.”
This was an incantation used to drive out malevolent spirits.
A space where the possessed person reeked of death and the miasma vibrated.
The Demon had not yet revealed itself.
“Namu Southern Direction Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits.”
Knowing that to reach the deep essence and interior, one must first peel away the outermost shell, I continued the expulsion incantation while staring at the coffin.
“Namu Western Direction Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Northern Direction Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Central Direction Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Five Directions Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits.”
Clench.
Shin Yoseph gritted his teeth audibly and withdrew the silver cross hanging from his neck.
Then he gripped it so tightly his fingers turned white, while his other hand clutched a bottle of holy water.
“Namu Indra Palace Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Taeseong Palace Three Paths Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Eastern Direction Blue Emperor Dragon King Expel Evil Spirits, Namu Southern Direction Red Emperor Dragon King.”
It was then.
My brow furrowed as I continued the incantation.
‘What is this?’
The incantation was meant to drive out malevolent and minor spirits, and it was indeed showing effect.
Yet strangely, nothing was changing.
The air saturated with that acrid stench remained unchanged, and the damp, suffocating atmosphere filling the cabin grew denser rather than lighter.
I looked out through the window.
It was still daytime, hours before sunset.
Of course the window was bright, but those gnarled trees felt as though they were moving with sinister life.
Thud!
The sudden loud noise silenced Kang Hyung-seok mid-breath.
The sound came from the coffin.
“This is….”
Shin Yoseph’s face twisted into a grimace as he glared at the coffin, while Kang Hyung-seok, jaw clenched, moved toward it.
If only it were an auditory hallucination, something that didn’t truly exist.
He desperately wished for that, but the sound rang out again.
Thud!
The coffin lid trembled.
The white cloth wrapped around the coffin definitely shook, and a creaking sound emanated from the nails sealing the lid.
Kang Hyung-seok, his face rigid, slowly swallowed hard.
“Who is it?”
No response came.
“…Namu Seobang of the Eastern White Dragon King, Namu of the Northern Black Dragon King…”
But as the incantation continued, a rustling sound emerged from within the coffin.
And through a narrow gap, a centipede crawled out.
Sssssss.
The centipede descended the coffin and climbed the wall.
The centipede, larger than a hand’s span, absorbed the gazes of Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Yoseph like a sponge.
“Should I handle it?”
Shin Yoseph spoke as he watched the centipede crawl toward the window frame, and Kang Hyung-seok silently shook his head.
Then he signaled for them to retreat.
Click.
As the door closed, the smell vanished as if it had been a lie.
“Let’s go lower. We’ll catch something if we stay here.”
At Shin Yoseph’s words, Kang Hyung-seok shook his head and sat on a tree stump near the mountain cabin.
Shin Yoseph then stood before him, using his foot to sweep fallen leaves from the ground with exaggerated force, then crouched down and cupped his hands against the wind to light a cigarette.
For a moment, Kang Hyung-seok thought he looked like a hooligan, but he kept the thought to himself. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the mountain cabin.
“Now I understand why you were searching for shamans.”
“What?”
“Toxicity. Excessively so.”
Kang Hyung-seok, who never thought he’d witness something like this, clicked his tongue.
It was trapped.
The dead Park Pyung-sik was embedded in the coffin like a nail driven into wood, and behind it, a thick, malevolent aura wrapped around everything like a heavy quilt wound tight.
The toxicity was so potent that the Victim Spirit’s form was invisible.
“You have no method either?”
Shin Yoseph asked in an ominously low voice, and Kang Hyung-seok, his gaze fixed on the mountain cabin, shook his head.
“We’ll have to peel it away layer by layer. We need to look again at night.”
“Phew.”
“So let me ask you for a favor.”
There was something that had to be done first.
Kang Hyung-seok asked with a grave voice and expression, and Shin Yoseph, understanding what he meant, fumbled to pull out his phone.
Tap tap tap tap.
As Kang Hyung-seok watched Shin Yoseph send a message to Gwak Young-ho, he turned his gaze back toward the mountain cabin.
‘What on earth is happening here?’
Even though I couldn’t see it, I could feel something.
There wasn’t just one spirit trapped inside that coffin.
There were two.
Unable to even guess what circumstances were tangled up in this, I swallowed hard.
My mouth felt rough, as if grains of sand were tumbling around inside it.

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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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