An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 358

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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 358
Part 1. Whose Doing Is This (1)
Vrroooom.
Inside the moving car, Kang Hyung-seok pressed his abdomen.
My insides still throbbed with a dull ache, but it wasn’t unbearable.
Vrroooom.
A highway devoid of people or vehicles.
Only darkness and torrential rain existed, and the car’s engine sound resembled a spacecraft, creating the sensation of being sucked into a profound abyss.
“Tae Sang Wol Hwang Cheon Saeng A Hwang Ji Jae A Il Wol Jo A Sung Sin Yeong A Je Seon Geo A.”
Kang Hyung-seok exhaled the Taeul Bosin Gyeong like breath while watching raindrops assault the headlights.
“Sa Myeong Bu A Tae Eul Rim A Og Sin Jo A Sam Hwang Bo A O Je U A Dong Jin Hyang A Nam Geuk U A Seo Suk Bu A.”
As I continued, my hand moved to my chest, where my heart pounded.
“Buk Du Bae A Jung Ang Ho A Geum Dong Si A Og Nyeo Jong A Yug Gap Jin A Yug Jeong Jin A Cheon Mun Gae A Ji Ho Tong A.”
The surrounding landscape and the emotions seeping into my heart aligned with perfect precision.
What lay beyond this darkness, in the mountains and forests ahead?
Murmuring the Taeul Bosin Gyeong, I recalled the revelation from my Guardian Spirit.
The revelation’s final image was fire and a face within a wall.
Was it abstract?
Or was it literal?
Either way, it was deeply embedded in this land, hidden like a face that had lurked in a dark coal mine.
Zzzzzing!
It was then that a suddenly ringing phone captured my attention.
I slowed the car and pulled out my phone to see Yoon Sang calling.
Click.
“Hello?”
I switched to speaker mode and set the phone on the passenger seat, and soon Yoon Sang’s voice filled the car interior.
(Hyung-nim, I apologize for being late. Is everything all right?)
Everything was not all right.
But if I told him everything as it was, it would only multiply the number of people worrying, so I calmly said no.
(Ah… is that so?)
Yet Yoon Sang seemed to sense something, his voice tinged with concern, and soon he continued hesitantly.
(Actually, I tried to gather reports, but since that area has such a small population, I didn’t find anything particularly notable.)
“I see…?”
(Yes. That’s why my separate investigation took longer.)
I unconsciously checked my wristwatch.
Even though the display mounted on the right side of the steering wheel also showed the time.
(It’s a bit disorganized, but if I were to mention what stands out… um.)
Yoon Sang’s voice continued after the sound of a mouse clicking several times.
(There are more mines than expected, and bizarre incidents have occurred at ten-year intervals.)
“I see…?”
(You knew about it too, hyung?)
“That’s partly why I came.”
(Ah, then you must know about this as well.)
“Know about what?”
My brow furrowed the moment after.
(The timing matches up. The coal industry entered its decline.)
My eyes narrowed as Yoon Sang continued his explanation matter-of-factly.
(I looked into it, and apparently the sixties and seventies were the peak years. Then starting in the eighties, it began being replaced by oil and LNG. By the nineties, it had completely collapsed.)
I raised three fingers from the hand gripping the steering wheel.
We’re in the twenties now.
Each finger folded down represented a decade.
As the coal industry crumbled, this place had become sparsely populated—we were approaching that era.
(Hyung?)
When I fell silent, Yoon Sang grew concerned and spoke up.
“It’s nothing. Really.”
My breathing had grown strangely labored, so I clutched my chest.
“Thank you. I think I understand something now.”
(Huh? What? This?)
“Yeah.”
A city like a school in the dead of night.
A place where many people once existed, then vanished.
Like the collapsed coal industry, a place where throngs of people had abandoned their presence.
‘Now I understood why it appeared.’
People are yang energy.
When a place once filled with people suddenly empties, the void left behind is as profound as the yang energy that once occupied it.
That’s why a school at midnight instinctively feels eerie and ominous just by observing it.
This phenomenon had occurred on a city-wide scale.
(Oh, oh… I’m glad I could help!)
“Yoon Sang.”
(Yes!)
Yoon Sang answered briskly, and I moistened my parched lips with my tongue before speaking.
“Can you search for abandoned mines? Not the famous ones—focus on remote areas.”
(Huh? Abandoned mines?)
“Just places that look like they’d make good broadcast material to you.”
When I clarified, Yoon Sang immediately responded with an “Ah!”
(I’ll look into it. But could you tell me the reason?)
That’s when it happened.
Something pitch-black suddenly appeared at the far end of the road illuminated by the headlights.
Screech! Eeeeeek!
I slammed on the brakes, and the car lurched to a stop as my body pitched forward from the impact.
Startled, Kang Hyung-seok stared at the Roe Deer standing directly ahead of him.
The Roe Deer’s pupils gleamed crimson in the headlight’s glare as it gazed silently at Kang Hyung-seok.
(Hey, hyung! What was that just now?)
Yoon Sang’s voice crackled from the phone that had fallen to the passenger floor, and Kang Hyung-seok met the Roe Deer’s gaze without speaking.
Shhhhhh.
The rain continued to pour relentlessly, yet the Roe Deer refused to budge.
(Hyung? Hyung? A, an accident? Huh? Hyung!)
Damn.
Kang Hyung-seok muttered silently with only his lips before opening his mouth, never breaking eye contact with the Roe Deer.
“It’s because of the Demon.”
The Roe Deer shook its head and exhaled a ragged breath through its nostrils.
“I’m trying to stop that Demon.”
Kang Hyung-seok spoke as though addressing the Roe Deer, though his words were meant for Yoon Sang.
(Ah, a Demon?)
“That’s right.”
Gulp.
The sound of Yoon Sang swallowing hard came through the line, followed by his voice once more.
(Understood, hyung. I’ll search for it. I’ll find it as fast as I can! You have to be safe, hyung! Really!)
Kang Hyung-seok nodded while watching the Roe Deer.
The moment Yoon Sang’s call ended, the Roe Deer began to move.
Had it only been his imagination—that moment when its lips twisted like a human’s and it clicked its tongue?
As Kang Hyung-seok watched the Roe Deer disappear into the brush beside the road, he noticed something that made his blood run cold: the creature had six legs.
“…Haaaa.”
His fingers gripping the steering wheel turned white with tension.
His heart trembled, and his mouth had gone completely dry.
Swish, swish, swish.
No matter how much the wipers moved, the water droplets clinging to the windshield felt like watching eyes, and the darkness surrounding him seemed to possess a tangible form.
It’s close.
The Demon feels far too close.
Crunch.
Kang Hyung-seok gripped the steering wheel with crushing force, his lips pressed firmly together as he lifted his gaze.
‘No. There is hope.’
Everything is resistance.
The corpse, the obstacles blocking me and Shin Yoseph, the interference coming our way, the Possessed Person that Shin Yoseph is facing—all of it.
It’s all resistance.
And something with absolute superiority doesn’t resist.
There’s no need to.
Crunch! Whiiiine!
Kang Hyung-seok slammed the accelerator, and the car shot forward.
He tore his gaze from the encroaching darkness and fixed it on the display screen.
The forest drew closer with every second the car accelerated, rushing toward me as swiftly as the vehicle itself.
Whirrrrr!
Pushing the speed even further, I reached the forest—my destination—in no time.
Thump!
I stepped out of the car, threw on my raincoat, and began to run.
Cruelly, the hour was the Hour of the Rat, and the moon had vanished behind dark clouds.
Still, with a lantern in hand—that faint glimmer of hope—I raced through the forest, illuminating my path ahead.
Squelch!
Moisture-laden soil, moss, and stone blocked my way forward.
Yet I pressed on through the forest, breathing hard and fast.
My mind held only one thought: I had to venture deeper.
“Huff! Huff!”
After running for some time, I reached a forest so isolated it seemed cut off from the world, and I looked around.
Only the thick, distinctive scent of rain-soaked forest was clear; everything else lay hidden in darkness, invisible to my eyes.
Clink.
I set the lantern on the ground and swallowed the rainwater trickling across my lips along with my saliva.
Then I raised the Shaman’s Bell.
Rain streaked the bell, drenching it, but I shook my wrist.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
As the bell’s sound spread outward, I felt the air around me shift, however slightly.
I was purging the unclean.
“I apologize for lacking proper preparations and etiquette.”
I gazed through the rain and the bell’s sound into the darkness beyond, and I spoke.
“I could not construct an Altar, nor prepare offerings. I beg your forgiveness.”
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
The sky tore open with a sound like the Mountain Spirit’s wrath, and blue light washed over me.
“Yet Mountain Spirit, I beseech you—aid me. I act to bar the unclean, the evil, the corrupt. Grant me your strength.”
For a brief moment, I felt countless gazes upon me.
They were not from mountain beasts.
Certainly not from the Mountain Spirit itself.
A mountain in the dead of night—and the Hour of the Rat at that.
These were the gazes of Victim Spirits gathered in a space saturated with yin energy.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
I shook the Shaman’s Bell even more forcefully.
“This is not your place.”
I warned the seething Malevolent Spirits in a low voice, continuing to shake the bell.
It was an act to drive away the unclean and the corrupt, and simultaneously, a summons to call forth the divine.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
A great bolt of lightning split the mountain with a deafening crack.
I lowered the hand holding the Shaman’s Bell and gazed into the darkness, beginning a long, drawn-out incantation.
“Zhi-xin, gui-ming, zheng-li, gong-yang.”
Namu Dongak Daelyeong Changgwang Samyeong Jinggun.
Namyak Gyeonghwa Jaguang Jusaeng Jinggun.
Seoyak Sowon Yobaek Daemyeong Jinggun.
Bugyak Ulmi Dongyeon Bugeuk Jinggun.
Jungyak Hwangwon Daegwang Sajin Jinggun.
Wa-ra-rang!
“Ulul Cheongsong-ri Chungchung Baekseok-gan Soyosung Seongmo-sin Amban Bogul-sim Manhak Cheonbong-jeong Bodeok Dae Jinggun.”
Kang Hyung-seok, petitioning the Mountain Spirit for his wish, removed the hood that had covered his head.
Cold raindrops cooled his heated scalp, trickling down his face.
“Namu Manduk Goseung Seong-gae Hanjeok Jiryeong Jisung Konryun Daegye Tongjae Manguk Sanwang Sinwi Iksung Bodeok Jinggun Yeongbo Cheonjon.”
Kang Hyung-seok repeated the same passage two more times.
Though he had nothing to offer and nothing prepared, he substituted his earnest plea in their stead.
His desperation was palpable.
Even now, Shin Yoseph was confronting the Possessed Person, and the Demon was somewhere, watching for an opportunity to break through to the surface.
As a Shaman, all he could do was commune with the divine, and so Kang Hyung-seok fervently hoped the Mountain Spirit would answer his call.
Wa-ra-ra-rang!
Having finished the entire incantation, Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell vigorously.
Then, with eyes gleaming with divine presence, he gazed quietly at a single point in the distance.
That was when it happened.
Kwa-rur-rur-rung!
Thunder roared as the entire Mountain flashed with azure light.
And Kang Hyung-seok saw it.
A dark silhouette advancing toward him from between the distant trees.
The figure, possessing an unnaturally towering height, moved slowly toward him through the torrential downpour.

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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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