An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 310

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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 309
Part 6. Aah, Aah (3)
Creak.
After finishing his meal and leaving the Rental House, Kang Hyung-seok gazed out at the Village sprawling before him.
Behind him, he could hear Shin Jung-ah and Lee Geum-kyung conversing.
Lee Geum-kyung’s voice was soft, but Shin Jung-ah’s sharp tone cut through the door.
Tonight was the night.
When the sun above faded and the moon rose high over the Sea, the human sacrifice would commence.
To prevent it, to stop the Dragon King from being replaced by a foreign deity, Lee Geum-kyung had entrusted Shin Jung-ah with a grave responsibility as well.
“Sigh.”
Kang Hyung-seok couldn’t remain idle either and began walking aimlessly.
With each step, his body felt oddly heavy, as though sinking into the ground.
He knew the Village People could bring harm. He knew their misguided beliefs blinded their eyes.
But what was truly right? What was truly correct?
Step, step.
As Kang Hyung-seok gazed at the endless Sea and the Village beyond it, he pulled out his phone.
It was an unconscious gesture, but instead of putting it away, he stared at the display for a while.
“Sigh!”
Knowing it was shameless, he decided to make one request anyway.
With that resolve, Kang Hyung-seok found Shin Yoseph in his contacts and began walking along the Village Outskirts.
Brrring.
(Why.)
“Let’s talk.”
(Now you’re not even asking if it’s possible.)
Kang Hyung-seok rubbed his forehead and exhaled heavily.
“Can you talk?”
(Yeah. I’m resting right now. At home. Why?)
“I need a favor. It’s urgent, so I need you to handle it quickly.”
(…What is it this time?)
A clinking sound rang out.
It sounded like ice cubes striking against a transparent glass—as if he were having a drink.
“There’s a human sacrifice about to happen in a distant place. I’ll give you the Village name, so look up the information right away.”
(What? A human sacrifice?)
The end of his voice rose as if he’d heard an unpleasant joke.
But this wasn’t something they joked about.
Especially not in a situation like this. Kang Hyung-seok glanced around carefully and continued speaking cautiously.
“I know it sounds absurd, but I’m certain. Time is running out. The sacrifice seems to begin after midnight tonight, but I don’t even know where the victim is.”
(What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into? Hey, where are you?)
“Around Namhae. Even if you leave now, you’ll be late. And you’re drinking—you can’t drive.”
(Damn it.)
“Let me start with the location.”
Kang Hyung-seok opened his phone, checked the address using the map application, and relayed it.
(Wait a moment….)
“Why?”
(Why does that address feel familiar? Let me think.)
An unexpected response.
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes narrowed, and bustling sounds came through the phone.
The sound of doors opening and closing, fingers tapping on a keyboard.
Then Shin Yoseph’s voice flowed through.
(That’s right. It’s a place I investigated a few years ago.)
“…What?”
Before Kang Hyung-seok could even ask if he was certain, Shin Yoseph clicked his tongue.
(I found out about it while pursuing a Demon. There was a suspicious incident there a few years back. When I checked it directly, there were no traces of the Demon.)
“A suspicious incident? What kind?”
(Three young girls drowned in the Sea, and one went missing. There.)
Three had already died?
As if drenched in ice water, Kang Hyung-seok felt a chill run through him and slowly turned his gaze toward the Sea.
(The name of the missing child should be… here somewhere. Wait. Ah, I found it.)
My mind felt numb, and Shin Yoseph’s words weren’t registering properly.
Still, I desperately tried to hold onto my focus, and just as I managed to regain my senses, my phone rang.
(I just sent the materials through messenger. Check them.)
The materials were clearly urgent.
Yet my hand didn’t move easily—a premonition that the situation was spiraling in an ominous direction.
Kang Hyung-seok exhaled a heavy sigh, puffing out his cheeks, and opened the messenger to check the file Shin Yoseph had sent.
(Go Se-hee. She’s the daughter of a Village resident, and she was ten when she went missing. If she’s alive, she’d be sixteen now.)
A few lines from a newspaper article.
A color photograph—apparently from Shin Yoseph’s separate investigation.
And a family photo.
Kang Hyung-seok clenched his teeth.
Everything seemed to click into place in my mind all at once.
‘This is too much.’
Ko Jun-yeol.
Surely it’s not what I’m thinking?
The crying of the young girl I heard at Golmaekki Shrine—it couldn’t be his daughter, could it?
Kang Hyung-seok clenched his teeth and rubbed the photograph on his phone.
Go Se-hee, standing beside the young Ko Jun-yeol, seemed so happy—she was smiling brightly in the family photo alongside her grandmother, the Hereditary Shaman.
***
Clank! Clang! Screech!
The sound of thick chains being released made Go Se-hee lift her head.
The interior resembled a beast’s cage, yet she wore a white mourning dress as pure as freshly fallen snow.
More child than young woman.
An age where she could attend school with friends, stop by a street food vendor on the way home to order blood sausage and tteokbokki, and laugh heartily without anything seeming amiss.
Clang.
Yet as her father entered through the opened door, Go Se-hee’s face bore none of the vitality easily found in her peers.
Instead, her eyes held the hollow gaze of an elderly person waiting for death upon a sickbed.
Shuffle, shuffle.
Ko Jun-yeol approached her and lifted the blanket to shake out the dust.
Sunlight tilted toward the west illuminated the scattered dust, and Go Se-hee’s clouded, unfocused eyes turned toward Ko Jun-yeol.
There were no words.
There could be none.
“Ahhhhh.”
It was because of the scar that ran across her throat.
On the day he confined his daughter to this place, fearing she would be exposed to the outside world as she howled like a beast for three days and nights, he had severed her vocal cords—the mark of that deed.
Ko Jun-yeol stopped his hands but did not look at his own daughter.
Instead, he washed the rice bowl placed on the floor with water from a plastic bottle and spoke.
“Tonight’s the night.”
“…Ahhh.”
“I’m sorry, Se-hee.”
“Ahhh.”
Ko Jun-yeol knew she was calling him “Dad.”
That damnable paternal love he wished to forget dredged up the guilt he had buried deep within his heart.
But he could only turn away.
He had come too far to stop now.
“I’ve told you before. It’s unavoidable.”
“Ahhh.”
“I offered other children. But you know it didn’t work.”
He had already tried everything he could do.
He had made sacrifices without his mother’s knowledge, but the hateful sea wanted only Go Se-hee.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But there’s nothing I can do about it. We’ve come this far.”
“Ahhh…”
Ko Jun-yeol could not bear to look at his daughter, pressing his clenched fist against the corner of his eye.
“The god is angered. Now there’s no way without you.”
“Uhhh, ahhhhhhh.”
Go Se-hee began to weep.
Yet Ko Jun-yeol gnashed his teeth like a malevolent spirit, desperately turning away from the gaze and heart that yearned toward his daughter.
“The matter has slipped from my hands. And since it is for a great cause, do not think too poorly of me.”
Ko Jun-yeol himself knew his words carried no conviction.
I understood intellectually that the livelihoods and lives of everyone in the Village were at stake, yet my heart couldn’t truly grasp the weight of it.
In the end, it was a choice between the lives of strangers and my daughter’s life.
And yet I couldn’t stop—because now I was no longer capable of stopping.
The Village People, their faith pinned entirely on Ko Jun-yeol and the enraged Sea.
Even if I fled, the Village People would report Ko Jun-yeol’s actions, leaving only destruction waiting for me.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Hnnnngh, hnnnngh.”
“It won’t hurt. It really won’t hurt.”
As if trying to convince myself, I muttered these words while rising with the rice bowl in hand.
Even as I did, I felt Go Se-hee’s gaze following me, yet I didn’t turn to look back.
“When the moon rises, the men will come. Until then, keep your body and mind pure.”
“Hnnnngh! Hnnnnnngh!”
What expression did my daughter wear as she wailed like a beast?
I lacked the courage to meet her eyes, so I quietly stepped outside the house.
Clank, clank, metallic thud!
Then I wrapped a chain around the door and crouched down.
The musty-smelling rice bowl trembled before me, clattering as it fell, and I buried my face in my palms, exhaling hot breath.
***
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
I rushed toward the Village.
My heavy coat fluttered and pulled at my body, while the cold air stabbed sharply into my lungs.
From breathing in the frigid air so rapidly, a metallic taste of blood rose in my nostrils.
Yet I couldn’t stop running.
‘Where is it? Where has he hidden her?’
My heart raced with urgency.
Was it because I had seen Go Se-hee’s face?
Or was it because I had learned there were more victims sacrificed in this Village?
Though I knew drawing the Village People’s attention would do me no good, I hurried through the Village, peering into every desolate and sparsely populated corner to examine what lay within.
The fear of being reported didn’t frighten me.
But the fear that the Village had become so empty—that no one walked its streets—terrified me.
They were all complicit.
The entire Village was concealing Go Se-hee’s existence, just as it had done for years past, and I felt this truth penetrate deep into my skin.
‘Insane bastards!’
There had been moments when our eyes met through windows as I peered inside.
But the moment they recognized me as an outsider, they turned away, and my breath came in suffocating gasps.
There was no guilt in their eyes.
Metallic clang!
As I ran past the houses, I tried to wrench open the door of what appeared to be a Freezer Warehouse.
But the door was firmly sealed, and through the window, I could see only wooden pallets inside.
Even as I did this, time continued its relentless march forward.
The sun continued its inexorable descent toward the western horizon.
“Hah, hah! Hah!”
Kang Hyung-seok gazed out at the Sea, his breathing ragged and labored.
There were still far too many places left unsearched, and the sight of those distant Islands in the distance felt like a noose tightening around his throat.
Everything felt tinged with resentment.
It was as though the entire world was telling him that this time, he would not be able to resolve it.
“Whoosh!”
Kang Hyung-seok squeezed his eyes shut and forced his heavy legs to move once more.
I knew it was impossible to search through the entire Village and all the Islands within the time remaining, yet I could not bring myself to stop.
I had to prevent it. I had to stop it.
I had to prevent the human sacrifice at all costs.
Clinging to this singular purpose, I began to drag my wavering feet forward.
Above me, the sun sank lower, scattering its crimson glow across the sky, while the moon rose slowly, its light deepening into a soft golden hue.

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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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