An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 346

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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 346
Part 4. Its End Is Human (3)
How could this be happening?
Was I truly witnessing reality?
“Father! Faaather!”
The man’s cry, torn raw with overwhelming joy, sounded distant—so unreal that it felt like a dream.
Kim San’s corpse emanated something profoundly supernatural.
Clack.
First his fingers moved, then his wrist. His chest rose and fell as though he were breathing, then stilled.
His neck twisted, and Kim San’s eyes—those acorn-like, bulging orbs—fixed upon the two of them.
Thud!
The man, freed from Kang Hyung-seok’s loosened restraints, prostrated himself before Kim San’s corpse.
“Father, Father! Faaather!”
Deep joy and reverence.
Emotions utterly opposed to what Kang Hyung-seok felt.
“Rise! Please rise and show this land that our divine Father has returned!”
The man’s cry echoed through the desolate mountain, and beneath the faint sunlight filtering through the clouds, Kim San’s corpse began to move slowly.
Crackle.
His knees bent, and Kim San rose to his feet.
From his grotesquely gaping mouth, maggots writhed and spilled forth, and a stench so vile it pierced like an awl stabbed deep into the nostrils.
Kang Hyung-seok stared at Kim San with a slack expression.
“…How?”
Even Kim San had never truly believed in resurrection while alive.
It had merely been a tool—a device to control his only believer, to use him like a limb until the very moment of his own death.
Yet that Kim San was moving.
-Ahhhhh.
Kim San’s jaw clattered, and a hoarse voice spread through the mountain.
“Yes! Yes! I am here. Speak, I beg you!”
Whoooosh!
The mountain wails in the wind.
Leaves rotted throughout the winter flipped over, branches bent and snapped, and the wind shrieked like dying birds, wailing across the mountain.
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes narrowed with caution as he watched Kim San, whose maggot-infested, decaying body shuffled forward one step at a time.
Madness emanated from him.
“Uhhhhgh! Ugh!”
The man wept as though a miracle had occurred, yet all of this—every bit of it—was madness.
Kim San’s resurrection, the deaths that had followed, even the man’s weeping.
Not a single thing was free from madness.
-Why, whyyyy, whyyyy.
At Kim San’s drawn-out voice, the man’s tear-soaked pupils trembled.
“Yes?”
—Why did you summon me?
What had Kim San’s son been hoping for?
What had he yearned and dreamed of that his face bore such an expression?
The bewildered son trembled, his face stiffening as his hands shook.
“What… yes? Father, you…”
His reaction screamed incomprehension.
Kim San had commanded the resurrection, and the son had merely followed faithfully.
Yet Kim San, now moving again, offered no praise to the son.
So profoundly irrational and bewildering was this that the son could only blink his eyes violently, unable to utter a single word.
Thud.
Kim San’s hand fell upon the son’s shoulder.
An unnamed insect that had burrowed through the back of his hand transferred to the son, soon crawling across his clothing in every direction.
To Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes, it appeared deeply significant.
‘…Surely not.’
Kim San, who had not believed in resurrection.
The son, who had wished to resurrect him.
A cult and fanaticism.
Misguided faith, corrupted deeds.
Thud!
Kang Hyung-seok instinctively reached out and seized Kim San’s wrist.
Decayed flesh crumbled in his grip, and only when his fingers touched the hard bone did they cease their penetration.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
As Kim San’s hand convulsed, the son shrieked and lunged forward.
Yet Kim San’s voice held him fast.
—You’re cold, aren’t you.
The son’s pupils turned toward Kim San.
“Cover your ears!”
Kang Hyung-seok cried out urgently, but the son remained motionless, staring at Kim San.
“Heavenly Father.”
He merely gazed blankly at Kim San.
His reaction—as though he had become a different person from moments before—felt familiar.
Enthralled.
It was already too late.
Whoosh.
Kim San’s other hand rose to the son’s shoulder, and his acorn-embedded eyes turned toward Kang Hyung-seok.
His rotted jaw trembled, yet Kang Hyung-seok perceived it clearly.
Kim San was smiling.
Smiling as he had when he believed resurrection was nothing but a lie.
—I’ll give you my body.
This was Kim San’s true purpose.
The dead must be released.
That is why funerals exist, why coffins are sealed, why bodies are cremated.
But Kim San’s son exhumed him from his coffin and attempted to resurrect him.
That act had bound Kim San to this earth.
-This gathering is, so very, coooold.
Would Kim San’s spirit, bound to this land, desire resurrection in a rotting corpse?
Or would it crave a body with warm blood flowing through it?
Clang!
The Shaman’s Bell rang out.
In the same instant, Kang Hyung-seok drew his ritual blade, stripped it from its sheath as though scattering it across the ground, and drove it into Kim San’s neck.
The scream I had anticipated from Kim San’s son never came.
He merely stared at Kim San with hollow eyes.
-Giiiive it, to meeeee.
Perhaps it was because the ritual blade was embedded there.
Kim San’s voice had grown more drawn out, yet it did not cease.
Clang-clang-clang!
“By the vow of the Palmun Scripture, the north is governed by the year of the rat—the guardian of the eastern gate, the keeper of the rest gate is summoned forth: the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth heavenly stems!”
Kang Hyung-seok chanted the Palmun Scripture in rapid succession.
It was the sutra for binding spirits that would not yield.
“The rat and ox are governed by the year of the rat, the eastern gate’s guardian, the keeper of the rest gate is summoned—close the gate and seal the formation with the character for rest to lock the gate vertically!”
Clang-clang!
I had to contain it.
I could not allow Kim San’s spirit dwelling in the corpse to transfer to Kim San’s son.
Kang Hyung-seok looked at Kim San’s son with desperate intensity, but from his already-bewitched lips, clear saliva was dripping.
“The tiger and eastern direction are governed by the year of the tiger—the guardian of the eastern gate, the keeper of the life gate is summoned forth: the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth—the rat and ox are positioned to the left!”
-I will giiiiive it to youuuuu.
Kim San’s slow voice.
Kang Hyung-seok’s rapid chanting.
These tangled together.
The listener was Kim San’s son, and Kang Hyung-seok, eyes wide with intensity, glared at him while clamping his mouth shut with the hand that held the ritual blade.
But soon I realized.
That Kim San’s son’s head was beginning to move.
Thud!
I abandoned all the ritual implements and covered both his ears, though I knew the gesture was futile.
A spirit’s invitation is always accepted by the heart.
“The tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, and goat are positioned to the left—the rat and ox seize the year of the tiger!”
Kang Hyung-seok shook Kim San’s son’s head violently, but the bewitched one gave no response.
Rustle.
A worm crawled from the back of Kim San’s hand, traversed his fingers, and transferred to Kim San’s son’s body.
Kang Hyung-seok squeezed his eyes shut, and immediately after, Kim San’s corpse collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Immediately after, Kang Hyung-seok withdrew from the man’s body and gathered his ritual implements.
Both their gazes remained fixed on the man.
Whoooooosh!
The wind that blew was bitterly cold.
Winter had passed and the temperature was moderate, so there should have been no visible breath, yet Kang Hyung-seok’s exhale crystallized white in the air.
The man remained unresponsive, his head still bowed, but Kang Hyung-seok’s spiritual sight revealed the truth.
Kim San’s spirit had taken the place of the man’s soul.
Kim San’s resurrection had been completed in the form the man desired least of all.
A resurrection where he could neither celebrate nor rejoice, for his very flesh had been stolen.
Possession.
“Kim San.”
Kang Hyung-seok murmured the name, calling out to the man, and slowly the man lifted his head.
Those hollow eyes somehow reminded me of the acorn that had been lodged in Kim San’s eye socket.
Then the man closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the shadow in his pupils had vanished.
Crrrack.
The man’s lips stretched upward in a long, grotesque tear.
It was an unnatural and eerie smile, as if laughing through a borrowed face.
Now it was certain.
The man had been robbed of his body.
Kim San had claimed the man’s flesh.
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes twitched beneath their lids like a pulsing heartbeat as he rose, gripping the ritual dagger and Shaman’s Bell.
“I shall recite the Taeul Sangbo incantation—you must withdraw.”
It was a sacred chant used to expel malevolent spirits and demons.
Looking upon the man who, through false belief, had mistaken a human for a god, Kang Hyung-seok opened his mouth.
“Cheonji Sesin Taeul Sangbo Chugeom Gudeuk Baksoe Gansin Jubul Sagui Ji Boya Chugeom Gamhaeng Bulneung Dangji Jwageo Cheolchu.”
Whoooosh.
As an ominous wind stirred the trees, Kim San reached down and picked up the sickle that lay on the ground.
***
Whoooosh.
The painting of the White Horse General and my ritual robes fluttered in the rushing wind.
The time had passed noon, and thick beads of sweat dotted Chung-geum’s forehead.
I had been dancing and channeling the divine for hours now, conducting the ritual ceremony.
Though my body approached its physical limits, Chung-geum’s eyes had not lost their intensity.
A true god.
A genuine divine presence dwelled within her body, proceeding through the ritual ceremony alongside her.
“General.”
Chung-geum murmured in a fractured voice, extending the moon-shaped sword.
“What is lacking? Why does this cling so stubbornly and refuse to break?”
Her voice was small enough that only she could hear it.
Therefore, no answer came.
Whoooooosh—!
The encroaching wind shook my ritual robes, and Chung-geum lifted her exhausted, sweat-drenched face to gaze upon the building.
Her expression grew increasingly rigid, transforming into something fierce and menacing.
Much like the General Spirit I served.
Like a general facing an enemy.
Like a god confronting a Malevolent Spirit.
“Heyeeeee—!”
A powerful command shook the Ritual Ceremony Ground violently, and when even the Executives and Musicians trembled, their hands quivering as they turned their gaze toward her, Chung-geum cried out again.
“Heyeeeeeee—!”
It sounded like a human’s desperate plea to the divine.
Chung-geum continued to cry out many times after that.
Her calls were long and frequent enough to paint sorrow across the Musicians’ faces.
Then it happened.
Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter!
The flag and the pole bearing the hanging painting, erected for the ritual, swayed in the wind.
Unlike the other poles standing firm, this one wavered as though it might snap at any moment, and soon it toppled, pointing in a single direction.
The Old Building.
The building that devours people.
The building where Kim San had hidden the bottomless jar.
Flutter, flutter.
Even fallen to the ground, the swaying painting on the pole captured Chung-geum’s gaze completely.
More precisely, it was the painting of the White Horse General attached to the pole that did so.
Chung-geum gazed silently at the White Horse General, then shifted her gaze toward the building. Gripping the moon-shaped sword, I began to walk toward the building.

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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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