An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 325

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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 324
Part 4. If What We Do Is Truly Right (1)
Crunch, crunch.
As I climbed the uphill path, I stopped several times.
I’d encountered Village People along the way, and Yoon Sang trailing behind me, gasping for breath as if he might collapse at any moment, was a major reason for the pauses.
“Huff, huff! Sorry, gasp!”
“Take it slowly.”
“I’m sorry, hyung, huff! Sir!”
I shook my head silently and looked up toward the top of the hill.
Moon Village.
It’s not common these days, and seeing it fills me with a certain sadness.
Buildings stamped out like cookie cutters sprawled across the landscape, their outer walls defaced with crude white and red graffiti.
Warnings about dogs, sexual scrawls—that sort of thing.
And if I turned my gaze slightly, towering apartment complexes stretched endlessly beyond, creating the saddest contrast in the world.
This was such a place.
A place where people had died away.
“Phew!”
Yoon Sang breathed heavily, and I extended my hand to him.
“Take it.”
“Yes, hyung.”
“The sun will set soon.”
I wanted to reach our destination before the surroundings became completely dark.
Yoon Sang nodded, his eyes apologetic, and grasped my hand. I pulled him along as we climbed the uphill path.
Meow!
A cat’s cry echoed from somewhere.
Whether it was a warning or something else, I couldn’t tell, but I kept my gaze fixed only on the shabby houses lining both sides of the path.
Most were abandoned.
There were occasionally signs of habitation, but I couldn’t be certain if the occupants were actual House Owners.
Tap, tap.
Despite the possibility of encountering homeless people or wanted criminals, I had to examine each house carefully as I walked.
Wrang, wrang.
The gentle ringing of the Shaman’s Bell gave me confidence that I was drawing closer to my destination.
“Huff! Huff!”
Yoon Sang puffed his cheeks like he was mountain climbing and hurried after me, while wind blowing from high in the sky swept the clouds along.
The surroundings darkened rapidly.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
About forty minutes into wandering through the Village, I stopped in front of a house on the Village Outskirts.
Even in this lonely, desolate Village, it was an Old House set apart on the outskirts.
Wrang!
I tilted my head toward the door, shaking the Shaman’s Bell.
It was at that moment.
“Who are you?”
A voice from beside them captured both his and Yoon Sang’s attention.
A hunched back and a cane gripped in weathered hands.
Sparse, yellowed teeth.
The man appeared to be around eighty years old, though he might have been younger, and he stared at them with eyes that had turned a milky white.
“No one lives in that house anymore.”
The Old Man’s brow furrowed.
His suspicion and wariness were unmistakable, so Yoon Sang cast a helpless glance, and Kang Hyung-seok opened his mouth while studying the Old Man.
“I’ve come on a matter of business.”
“What business?”
“It’s not unrelated to what happened here.”
Yoon Sang’s eyes widened in alarm, but Kang Hyung-seok continued speaking in an even tone.
“There is unfinished business that brought me here, so please don’t concern yourself.”
A suffocating silence fell between them.
Yoon Sang swallowed hard with an expression of ‘what do I do now,’ while Kang Hyung-seok stood motionless, watching the Old Man who didn’t budge.
A divine presence had just come and gone.
It had shown him this was the right path, and the words had flowed through Kang Hyung-seok’s lips.
“…Ahhh.”
The Old Man exhaled audibly and tucked his cane under his arm.
Then he brought his palms together and offered a respectful bow to Kang Hyung-seok.
Yoon Sang was silently astonished by this response filled with reverence and awe, and the Old Man turned away.
Tap, tap, tap.
As the Old Man limped away with his cane, Yoon Sang caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Hyung-seok, what was that? Did you know him?”
“No.”
“What? But the way you spoke was as if…”
Kang Hyung-seok shook his head while watching the Old Man disappear into a dilapidated house in the distance.
“It seems the divine exists even in a place like this.”
Yoon Sang’s brow furrowed deeper.
But there was nothing to be done.
I didn’t know.
There are moments when the divine comes and goes for everyone, and there are also moments when it approaches in unexpected forms.
That Old Man is the village guardian deity of this place.
However, his power had weakened, so he didn’t immediately recognize Kang Hyung-seok, and he was unable to prevent the murder that occurred in this village.
‘Rest assured.’
I have come to finish what you could not.
Kang Hyung-seok shifted his gaze to the door and reached his hand toward the doorknob.
Clang!
Nothing about this ever proceeds smoothly.
Kang Hyung-seok surveyed the surroundings and led Yoon Sang toward the back of the Rental House.
As they moved, he tested every Window they encountered, but none opened—the aluminum frames had warped too severely.
“What do we do?”
It was the moment Yoon Sang peered back toward the Road in frustration.
Kang Hyung-seok removed his outer coat and bent his elbow against the Window.
“Huh?”
Before Yoon Sang could even speak, he swung his elbow down hard, striking the glass with his coat.
Crack!
The thick winter garment muffled the sound of shattering glass, and Kang Hyung-seok used his elbow several more times to clear the jagged shards embedded in the frame.
“I’ll open the door from inside.”
He climbed through the Window and opened the Entrance door.
Screeeeak!
The heavily rusted hinges groaned open, and the moment Yoon Sang stepped inside, Kang Hyung-seok firmly shut the door and engaged the lock.
Click.
He pressed the light switch on the wall, but the electricity was cut—nothing illuminated.
In a strange way, I was relieved.
It had only just occurred to me that lights being on in a house where someone had died would look suspicious.
“Ugh…”
Yoon Sang pinched his nose and swallowed back the rising nausea.
It was an Old House, and a place where someone had died.
The stench of death doesn’t fade easily, and this house still reeked of that putrid odor, deeply embedded in every corner.
Wrang!
Shaking the Shaman’s Bell, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled deliberately and opened his mouth.
“By the King of Death’s escort, humans live seventy years in joy, and women eighty in pleasure.”
Holding the Shaman’s Bell in both hands, I continued the Rite for the Departed.
“In flowery forms and playful lives, a hundred years of new existence, the light of glass and shadow—one hundred sinners, thirty debts are original sins.”
Reciting the Rite for the Departed to honor the spirit of the deceased was necessary because what I sensed here was more than just the odor of death.
“The spirit ascends to heaven, the ghost descends below—your journey is sorrowful, and where you go is unavoidable fate.”
Having achieved spiritual possession, the aura Kang Hyung-seok emanated was distinctly different from before.
Yoon Sang didn’t dare even think of raising his camera, watching Kang Hyung-seok intently, when something like a heat shimmer flickered briefly in the darkness deeper within the house.
Wrang.
At the same moment, the Shaman’s Bell chimed.
“Have you come?”
As Kang Hyung-seok gazed into the darkness and brought his palms together in reverence, Yoon Sang trembled and looked toward the same spot.
But he saw nothing.
For Kang Hyung-seok, however, it was perfectly clear.
Squelch.
Bloodstained feet walking across the floor.
Five of them.
Drenched in blood like a Victim Spirit who had met with an accident, though this appeared to be a spirit beaten to death.
Kang Hyung-seok gazed at them and sighed silently.
An entire family.
A married couple, their son and his wife, and a granddaughter.
Uuuugh.
Ahhhh, oooooh.
Waaaagh, aaaagh.
The Victim Spirits wept, blood pouring from their mouths in great gushes.
Clang!
Shaking the Shaman’s Bell to comfort them, Kang Hyung-seok spoke in a grave voice.
“I address the departed Kim Joo-seok.”
The Victim Spirit with streaks of gray in his hair looked at Kang Hyung-seok.
“I address his wife.”
This time, a Victim Spirit of similar age to Kim Joo-seok turned his gaze toward Kang Hyung-seok, and
“I address his son and wife, and his granddaughter.”
The younger spirits among them fixed their attention upon Kang Hyung-seok.
And there, before Yoon Sang’s watchful eyes, he stood among the spirits in the darkness and spoke to them in a solemn voice.
“This Shaman is prepared to listen. Tell me what you have endured.”
Kang Hyung-seok waited for the Victim Spirits to speak.
Yet as though something had sealed their mouths, they could only weep and sob.
‘What is this.’
Why would they not speak?
Kang Hyung-seok observed the pitiful forms of the Victim Spirits and began to speak in a slow, measured cadence.
“The curse that befell this household is neither an ordinary curse nor a curse of mourning.”
At this, the Victim Spirits ceased their weeping.
“It is neither a curse of stagnation nor a curse of six calamities, neither a curse of karma nor a curse of months or days.”
The Victim Spirits watched Kang Hyung-seok with gazes sharp as thorns.
The air shifted so subtly that even Yoon Sang, who possessed neither spiritual sight nor clairvoyance, could sense it.
The stench grew more pungent, and the wind entering through the broken window wailed with an eerie sound, resonating throughout the cramped dwelling.
“It is a curse hurled by one human against another. That curse, like an arrow, has shattered this family to pieces—how could such resentment be light?”
Shhhhheeek!
A wind sharp as a blade swept through the entire house, causing the garments of both Kang Hyung-seok and Yoon Sang to flutter.
Thud-thud-thud!
Even the firmly locked door trembled, and Kang Hyung-seok continued, his eyes upon the Victim Spirits.
“So speak.”
Thud-thud!
“Tell me who approached you, who it was that made you this way.”
The Vengeful Spirit at the Abandoned School emanated a sensation similar to the Shaman Spirit.
Yet it was not the Shaman Spirit, and despite not being a Shaman, it had performed a ritual of dark magic.
Who was this entity?
With what purpose had it approached this family, and for what reason had it hurled this curse?
Wrang, wrang, wrang!
As Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell to break the silence, the wind ceased as if it had been a lie, and the noise echoing through the house vanished.
And then,
A hollow, rasping sound.
The Victim Spirit Kim Joo-seok began to walk forward.
A sudden, piercing cold swept over them, and Yoon Sang instinctively retreated, wrapping his arms around himself, while Kang Hyung-seok’s gaze fixed upon Kim Joo-seok.
Kim Joo-seok then grasped both of Kang Hyung-seok’s shoulders and drew his face close.
A stench of blood assaulted his nostrils, but more overwhelming than that was the intensity burning in Kim Joo-seok’s eyes.
A hollow, rasping sound.
Kim Joo-seok opened his mouth wide and began to emit a hoarse, grating voice.
-Song… Hyung…
Someone’s name.
The murky voice stretched and prolonged, making it difficult to discern, but Kang Hyung-seok concentrated his hearing with utmost intensity.
-Song… Hyung… Doo. Oooo. Dooo…
Song Hyung-woo?
No.
Song Hyung-doo.
“Is it him? The person who approached you—it was Song Hyung-doo, wasn’t it?”
The moment Kang Hyung-seok spoke those words in rapid succession without thinking,
the darkness before his eyes began to fade, and the surroundings gradually transformed.
The Victim Spirit’s memories were pouring into his mind.

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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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