An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 3

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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 3
Part 1. Follow the Divine Guidance (3)
The situation was dire.
Yet Kang Hyung-seok asked in a voice as though entranced.
“…Do you hear the bell ringing?”
“What are you talking about! I’m dying here!”
Noh Su-chul gasped out his response, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
It was the answer I needed.
‘It’s not actually audible. It’s spiritual.’
A sound only I can hear.
By any rational measure, it made no sense.
But we had long since abandoned the comfort of rationality.
Ding-ding, ding-ding, wa-ra-ra-rang!
‘The sound of a shaman’s bell.’
The significance of a shaman’s bell runs deep.
It summons the divine, opens the sacred ritual space, and repels malevolent spirits.
Nowadays one can purchase such things with money, but traditionally a shaman would craft theirs over years of spiritual discipline.
There was no way a malevolent spirit like Changgwi could imitate such a sound.
Whoosh!
“Argh!”
Noh Su-chul’s scream spurred me to twist my body urgently toward the source of the bell sound.
Sssssssss!
Changgwi was driving us forward, but the bell rang from slightly behind where we were being pushed.
Ding-ding, ding-ding. Wa-ra-rang. Wa-ra-ra-rang.
“Where are we going! Hey!”
Noh Su-chul’s complaints were interfering with my ability to hear the bell.
“Be quiet! Now!”
When I shouted with the force of thunder, Noh Su-chul’s face hardened and he clamped his mouth shut obediently.
Yes, just stay like that for now.
That way I survive, and so do you.
Ding-ding, ding-ding.
The bell sound continued ahead, as if beckoning me to follow.
Sssssssss!
Changgwi’s movements grew violent.
It suddenly swept past us on one side, then rushed like wind between Kang Hyung-seok and Noh Su-chul.
“Uuuaaaahhh!”
Each time, Noh Su-chul tried to collapse in terror, but my grip held him up.
I could not stop or change direction.
If I did, we would truly die.
What I feared about Changgwi was not that it was a spirit.
Changgwi guides the marked person toward the tiger.
Whether it was a real tiger or a spiritual manifestation of one, I couldn’t say—but one moment of lost focus meant I wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.
Ssssshhhhh!
No matter how much Changgwi interfered, Kang Hyung-seok clung desperately to the bell alone.
Ding!
Suddenly the bell rang out loudly,
Whoosh!
A wooden wall materialized abruptly from within the mist.
Thud!
The sudden stop meant that Noh Su-chul, who had been following close behind, crashed hard into my back.
“Gasp! Gasp! Gasp!”
I breathed heavily and stepped backward to take in the full sight of the wooden wall.
‘A Spirit Shrine.’
It wasn’t a properly constructed one.
Still, it had been built with care, and without a door, I could see inside.
“Why… why did you come here?”
I didn’t respond, only gazing into the shrine’s interior.
“C-come on, say something! Kang, is this how you usually act when you’re upset?”
It would be a lie to say I harbored no such feelings.
But examining the shrine took priority.
‘The bell stopped. This is the destination.’
Statues of the celestial maiden, the chief spirit, and the minor spirit.
A straw mat lay across the floor.
Though there were no fallen leaves or cobwebs, it was clear this shrine had no shaman.
An altar holding an incense burner and candlestick.
And upon it, a shaman’s bell.
Ssssshhhhh!
The sound of Changgwi darting about the surroundings came like damp, biting night wind.
Yet it could advance no further, pouring out only harsh, wrathful energy.
Whiiiine.
Tree branches swaying in the wind, leaves cascading down.
My breathing growing strangely ragged.
My heartbeat, conversely, settling into calm.
I looked at the chief spirit statue and the celestial maiden, their paint peeling in patches, and pressed my lips firmly together.
“Answer me! Kang! Hey!”
Noh Su-chul pressed repeatedly for a response, but it didn’t last long.
“…Kang?”
A profound sense of wrongness.
A presence warning against rash action.
Since arriving at this shrine, I had been emanating an aura unlike my usual self.
Sssssssss!
The sound created by Changgwi and the desolate wind echoed through the air.
Even as Noh Su-chul trembled in terror, Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze remained fixed solely on the shaman’s bell.
Something unknowable seemed to open its eyes deep within his chest.
‘Was it you who guided me here?’
The abandoned Spirit Shrine and the shaman’s bell.
I yearned for an answer from my tutelary deity about this.
Sssssssssss!
Listening to Changgwi’s sound, as if carving through the air with a cold blade, I closed my eyes tightly.
Then, opening them again, I brought my hands together in reverence.
“Please reveal your will to me.”
“Hey, hey! What are you doing?! Now?!”
Because this was no ordinary action, Noh Su-chul clung to me with a trembling voice filled with dread.
Yet I remained focused on my prayer.
“I have come guided here. I wish to understand the purpose for which you called me to this place.”
I continued my prayer with earnest and sincere conviction.
“Speak to me. Is this the moment I have been waiting for all this time?”
Noh Su-chul’s anxious gaze turned toward me.
I was speaking to the divine.
A strength and sincerity he could not normally perceive became palpable to him as well.
“Are you telling me that the time has come for me to receive you?”
Ding!
In the windless Spirit Shrine, the bell rang of its own accord.
“The, the bell just now….”
Startled, Noh Su-chul hastily covered his mouth.
For reasons he could not explain, he felt he must not speak. Even breathing seemed irreverent in this moment.
Something was about to happen in this place.
Ding, ding.
As Noh Su-chul’s eyes trembled, the bell continued to ring.
“…Are you telling me to listen to this?”
Ding.
The bell rang as if answering the question.
The bell connects the divine and humanity.
Therefore, I could understand my tutelary deity’s will.
Ding, ding, ding.
I felt my mouth growing dry.
My tutelary deity was speaking.
Take this shaman’s bell.
This was the moment I had waited for so long.
Yet my hand would not reach out.
Because it was a matter upon which my fate hung.
Ding-ling.
The bell that continued to ring seemed to speak to me thus.
Face your destiny.
Follow the will of the divine.
I will be with you.
Screeeeeeee!
The sound that Changgwi produced drew steadily closer.
The air trembled fiercely, and the stench that Changgwi exuded pierced my nostrils.
It was then.
Crash.
Changgwi entered the Spirit Shrine.
“Ghaaa! Ghaaaaa! Aaaaagh!”
Noh Su-chul let out a scream that tore from his throat as Changgwi rolled its eyes wildly, studying Kang Hyung-seok.
“S-save me! K-Kang! That thing—it’s come inside!”
Changgwi began to approach with sluggish movements.
Wind rushed in like a typhoon.
As my clothes and hair whipped about, I slowly opened my mouth.
“I understand.”
I reached out with a face of resolve.
As I grasped the shaman’s bell, a mystical tone spread through the surroundings.
The first time in my life holding a shaman’s bell.
Yet it felt so familiar, as though we had always been one.
At the same time, a strange sensation came over me.
A guardian spirit of the body.
A general spirit whose name I did not know.
It was descending upon me.
Wa-ra-ra-rang, wa-ra-ra-ra-rang.
The shaman’s bell shook violently, and Noh Su-chul, collapsed on the ground, looked up at me with startled eyes.
He could not say what it was, but Kang Hyung-seok seemed no longer the person he had known.
“Kang… Kang Hyung-seok…?”
A shaman.
A human who had accepted the divine.
That was the image that Kang Hyung-seok, holding the bell, now emanated.
Wa-ra-ra-ra-rang!
I shook the bell loudly and turned my gaze toward Changgwi.
The creature that had threatened me bristled its fur.
I felt my mouth open of its own accord.
“Heavenly Sacred General, Earthly Sacred General, Five-Direction Sacred Generals, Great General Spirit.”
The Jade Pivot Scripture.
It was one of the incantations I had memorized to resist spirits.
I didn’t understand its meaning, and it had shown little effect before, but now things were different.
I could comprehend its full significance, and it was manifesting its power.
Warang! Warang!
United with my household god, I fixed my gaze upon Changgwi, who curled back his lips and bared his teeth.
The fur along his spine bristled and his claws extended, yet he did not dare to lunge.
“Sinhu Dae-gil Daejang-shin Dobang Cheong-je Daejang-shin Nambang Jeok-je Daejang-shin Seowol Jik-sa Il Jik-sa Taeyang Seong-gun Tae-um Seong-gun.”
Warang! Warang!
Instead, Changgwi faltered and gradually retreated.
“Mihoe Jik Jakcheon Jin-dong Shin-geum San-hwi Jik-yo Sa-pung Hwa-shin Geum-ho.
The Jade Pivot Scripture was undoubtedly taking effect.
It instilled fear in Changgwi and peace in me.
“Namjujak Pi Guseol Bok-hyeon Mupa Jilbyeong Shin-haeng Gwishin Man-man Gilwol Sok-geo Cheonri.”
Now I was no longer afraid of Changgwi.
As I chanted the Jade Pivot Scripture, driving the spirit back, I shook the bell as though striking it downward.
Waralalarang!
“Om Geup-geup Yeoryul-ryeong Sabaha!”
The bell rang out like thunder, and a numinous energy rippled outward.
Sssssss.
Changgwi glared at me while backing away, dissolving into the mist.
At the same time, the oppressive and ominous aura that had gripped the surroundings rapidly dissipated.
“Uh, uh-uh-uh, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh.”
Noh Su-chul, collapsed on the ground, looked up at me with a face streaked with tears.
His eyes asked if it was finally over.
I gazed at the mist where Changgwi had vanished and answered with parched lips.
“I don’t know either.”
But one thing seemed certain—Changgwi had retreated for now.
***
Beyond the guardrail, I watched as Noh Su-chul climbed over.
Was this really Noh Su-chul?
His face had gone deathly pale—so much so that he barely resembled himself—and he followed silently behind me, eyes fixed on the ground.
“Sigh…”
I exhaled wearily and turned toward the car.
The hour was deep in the night, and the mist that had hung so unnaturally thick was dissolving into the moonlight like sugar in water.
Step, step.
I was exhausted.
Utterly drained.
So much so that I wondered if everything had been nothing but illusion.
Yet the shaman’s bell clutched in my hand proved otherwise.
As I drew closer to the car, my gaze fell upon the corpse lying on the damp asphalt.
“It was just a young deer.”
Why had I seen it as Changgwi?
This certainly confirmed that I had been bewitched.
I dragged the deer’s body to the edge of the road and offered a brief prayer.
Click.
Then I opened the passenger door, and Noh Su-chul flinched in terror, shielding his face.
His trembling eyes made it abundantly clear he feared me.
“Get in.”
I spoke calmly in return, climbed into the driver’s seat, waited for Noh Su-chul to board, then started the engine.
Vroom.
The car drove into the mist as if nothing had happened.
Noh Su-chul remained pressed against the passenger window, staring blankly ahead like a man whose soul had fled.
Relief at being alive?
No—he seemed to have suffered a profound shock.
He had been hunted by something terrible.
That was not something easily forgotten.
Rumble.
In the quiet car, I lifted the hand that had gripped the shaman’s bell.
It was an unconscious gesture, but my brow furrowed in an instant.
Three marks that had not been there before now gleamed on my palm, radiating a potent spiritual force.

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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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