An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 318

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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 317
Part 1. May Loss and Pain Be Healed, May We Move Forward Without Hindrance or Obstruction (4)
There are moments when you find yourself hoping that what lies before your eyes is anything but reality.
Ko Jun-yeol was experiencing such a moment now.
Thud.
Hong Kyung-soo approached with a bluish wisp of cigarette smoke curling from his lips, and Ko Jun-yeol instinctively tried to back away, only to find the sea blocking his retreat.
“Who are you?”
Don’t come any closer.
Ko Jun-yeol’s voice emerged strangled and tight, as though his throat were being squeezed, while Hong Kyung-soo made no reply—instead, he began shaking the Shaman’s Bell hooked around his finger with small, deliberate movements.
It looked as though he were summoning spirits, as though he were performing sorcery, as though he were casting a curse.
Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle.
When Hong Kyung-soo finally ceased shaking the Shaman’s Bell, the sound stopped with it.
Then Hong Kyung-soo drew another long drag from his cigarette before exhaling the smoke like a sigh.
“My name is Ko Jun-yeol. I have two children.”
“…What?”
“The firstborn was a son—I had him removed while he was still in his mother’s womb. The daughter, I kept alive for later use.”
As words spilled from Hong Kyung-soo’s mouth—secrets that no one but the dead wife and the doctor who performed the procedure could have known—Ko Jun-yeol’s face drained of all color.
“W-who are you? What are you?”
“Have you never considered that the son’s spirit orchestrated all of this?”
“What…?”
“That this was doomed from the very beginning.”
Bewilderment and confusion spread across Ko Jun-yeol’s face as Hong Kyung-soo’s viper-like tongue coiled and twisted around his words.
“The one who approached you—he had backing.”
“…Backing?”
“A cunning creature’s puppet, that’s what he was. That creature used him to try to ensnare you as well.”
Ko Jun-yeol could not comprehend this.
He thought he understood whom Hong Kyung-soo was referring to.
There had been someone who approached him, who taught him the method of human sacrifice and persuaded him to commit it.
But that person had been unmistakably human, and his conviction on that point had not wavered.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. Don’t try to make sense of it. With your narrow vision, even if I spelled it out for you, you wouldn’t grasp it.”
Thud.
As Hong Kyung-soo closed the distance again, Ko Jun-yeol retreated one step further backward.
The weight of his seawater-soaked pant legs felt as though they were pulling him down.
Come to the sea, they seemed to say.
Your place is not on land.
It is here—in this dark, cold sea.
That is what it felt like.
“Well then.”
Hong Kyung-soo clicked his tongue softly and thrust his hand into his jacket.
Then he drew out a surgical knife.
The kidney blade stood with a cold, sharp edge, its surface reflecting light in an eerie, sinister gleam, and before Ko Jun-yeol could even react,
it pierced through.
Without hesitation or wavering, it carved across his throat.
“…Ugh!”
Crimson blood surged between the fingers Ko Jun-yeol pressed against his neck.
In that moment, a memory flickered through his mind.
Go Se-hee’s memory.
His daughter.
That daughter—the one he himself had wounded in the neck, pathetic as he was.
Surge! Surge!
The blood spurting out with each heartbeat was identical to that moment.
“Gasp! Choke!”
Ko Jun-yeol staggered backward, deeper into the sea, and his legs gave way beneath him as he collapsed.
The undulating waves seized him, pulling him down.
Splash!
Hong Kyung-soo, still holding the Shaman’s Bell, watched him sink, then rinsed the blood from the kidney blade in the seawater.
He meticulously wiped the saltwater from Ko Jun-yeol’s clothes with the blade, then tucked it back into his garment.
“There’s an old saying—when you seek to harm others, you need two coffins. I’ve filled that second one for you.”
Ko Jun-yeol nodded silently.
Then he retched several times.
He felt his strength draining away, his arms and legs growing heavy.
“Damn it all.”
Hong Kyung-soo turned away as if nothing had happened, gazing up at the indifferent sky.
“Cursed fate! Damn it!”
Ko Jun-yeol closed his eyes, unable even to comprehend why Hong Kyung-soo was so angry.
Then, pulled by the waves, he collapsed like a broken thing, and the sea claimed his blood first.
Whoosh, whoosh.
Around Ko Jun-yeol, drifting further toward the sea, there was nothing.
As if he had always been alone.
Like someone who, from birth, had never formed a single genuine bond.
***
Ding ding ding!
It was early Saturday morning.
Kang Hyung-seok, who had been sleeping as deeply as someone unconscious, groaned and reached out his hand.
Thud!
His phone tumbled from the bed with a loud crash, and the sudden jolt snapped me awake. I threw off the blanket and dove after the phone in one motion.
The device cost as much as a decent washing machine and refrigerator combined.
“Phew!”
Relieved to find the screen undamaged, I narrowed my eyes at the caller’s name still displayed on the screen.
“Yoon Sang?”
He wasn’t the type to call without warning.
‘His calls have been sparse lately.’
The last time he’d contacted me was during the grave wind incident.
More precisely, a viewer had reported what they thought was grave wind, and when I dug into the details, it revealed a tragedy entangled with bloodline issues that manifested like a malevolent spirit.
I had bled heavily in front of Yoon Sang that day.
After that, he seemed to be subtly avoiding contact, but now it appeared he’d finally recovered from the shock.
Click.
“Hey, Yoon Sang.”
“Hello, hyung!”
Yoon Sang greeted me with the cheerful enthusiasm of a dog welcoming a long-absent visitor.
“How have you been? How’s your health? You’re doing well these days, right?”
“One question at a time. But what’s this about?”
“Just a check-in call, you know? Hehe.”
I unconsciously glanced down at my wrist, noticed the absence of my watch, and checked the time on my phone instead.
Saturday, 9 a.m.
“At this hour?”
“Um, well, ahem.”
“Just be honest. What’s going on?”
“Well, the thing is… would it be possible to see you for a moment?”
There was definitely something up.
I exhaled deeply and opened my mouth.
“What is it?”
“Hehe, actually I just have something I wanted to ask you about. And I wanted to see your face too, hyung!”
I laughed heartily and nodded.
“Fine. You’re not the type to make strange requests anyway.”
“Of course not! Who do you think I am, hyung?”
“Where should we meet?”
“I’ll come to you! Where would be convenient for you, hyung?”
“Then… wait a moment.”
I checked a map on my phone and mentioned the name of a nearby cafe.
“Got it! I’ll head over right away! Take your time getting ready, hyung!”
“Tell me when you’re leaving. When you’re leaving.”
(I’m leaving right now.)
“Ugh, seriously.”
Kang Hyung-seok ended the call appropriately and began preparing to go out.
Then he hurried out of the Rental House and headed toward a nearby Cafe.
The door swung open.
“Oh, hyung.”
Yoon Sang, who was sitting at a long table by the window overlooking the Road right beside the door, greeted him warmly, and Kang Hyung-seok pointed to an empty table and told him to sit there first.
Even for a franchise Cafe, one menu per person seemed like basic courtesy, so Kang Hyung-seok ordered a coffee with milk and returned to the round table where Yoon Sang was sitting.
“What’s going on? At this hour?”
“The golden holiday is coming up soon.”
“Is it…?”
When Kang Hyung-seok checked the calendar, it was indeed true that a long holiday was starting next week.
“And?”
“Well, uh, hehe.”
“Be honest. We’re already face to face.”
As Kang Hyung-seok took a sip of coffee with a bitter smile, Yoon Sang swallowed hard and opened his mouth.
“Could you… appear on my broadcast just once?”
“Ah, like last time?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
Since his only memory was of his voice appearing on Yoon Sang’s broadcast, one of Kang Hyung-seok’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Your voice would appear, but the camera would be rolling on-site. It’s live.”
“What?”
“Of course, the camera will absolutely never point at you! If possible, you could even communicate through written messages without speaking. If that’s inconvenient, I’ll apply a voice filter to the entire broadcast to distort it.”
“…Sigh.”
Kang Hyung-seok rubbed his face.
It was a more burdensome proposal than expected.
Still, the fact that he would apply a voice filter to the entire broadcast meant that Kang Hyung-seok was broadcast content that was needed that much.
“Hyuuung.”
“Let’s hear it. What kind of broadcast are you trying to do?”
“Ah, well, you see…”
Suddenly Yoon Sang’s gaze shifted to the side.
It was clearly an evasive look, so even as Kang Hyung-seok drank his coffee, he had to cast a skeptical glance.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m just leaving.”
“That’s… ah, I’ll just be honest with you.”
Yoon Sang bowed his head so deeply that the top of his head was visible.
“I’m trying to do a Haunted House experience again, and there are so many viewers looking for you that…”
“…A Haunted House?”
“You know, the thing I used to do often.”
“Ah.”
The place where I first met Yoon Sang was the Osan Abandoned Warehouse, notorious for its haunting.
He had been an internet broadcaster running a horror broadcast, conducting haunted house experiences, but had gone quiet after getting to know Kang Hyung-seok. It seemed there were viewers who missed that content.
“It’s not like a haunted house that even Shamans avoid, you know? Just come by and make some noise with the Shaman’s Bell, and if possible, recite some sutras—we can distort that to make it sound more authentic and immersive.”
“That’s enough?”
At that moment, Yoon Sang’s face hardened visibly.
“Of course. Do you know how shocked I was when you got hurt back then?”
I gazed into Yoon Sang’s eyes, then exhaled slowly and nodded in small, deliberate movements.
The expression on his face then remains vivid even now.
He had been consumed with fear, struck by such profound shock that he could neither move forward nor backward.
“Your safety comes first. I have no intention of building my broadcast on the back of your blood.”
“I understand. I understand.”
“So… you’re really going to help me?”
I set down my coffee cup and spoke without inflection.
“Once the distortion program is ready, let me know. I’ll listen to it and decide then.”
“Really? You mean it?”
“If anything seems lacking or off to me, we call the whole thing off.”
“Of c-course! Thank you so much, hyung!”
His voice was so loud that several people nearby gave him disapproving looks.
“Lower your voice. Please.”
Since we were at a cafe near my house, I spoke with genuine sincerity, and Yoon Sang clamped his hand over his mouth while nodding frantically.
His eyes glistened with tears—whatever had moved him so deeply was evident.

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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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