An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 47

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 46
Part 7. Beast’s Fur (3)
“Ugh! Ugh-ugh-ugh!”
The man was clearly terrified of me.
A Shaman whose shoes had fallen off.
That was the true nature of the man I had discerned.
“You can see it, can’t you?”
When I asked quietly, the man nodded with difficulty, his face drained of all color.
His gaze remained fixed behind me.
He was looking at the Guardian Spirit.
A general deity clad in black armor across his entire form, possessing immense power.
Even with his shoes fallen off, the man had recognized he was no ordinary spirit—his eyes held the wild terror of someone about to lose his mind from fear of me.
Ding-ding!
I shook the Shaman’s Bell to purify the surroundings and calm my mind, then closed and opened my eyes.
As the Guardian Spirit receded and the aura he had been emanating faded, the man remained drenched in terror.
“Why did you do this? Why did you summon such a person?”
Even as I spoke in a measured tone, the man couldn’t manage an answer.
“You, of all people, should have known better. Don’t you realize how many people suffered great harm because you summoned that person?”
“I-I didn’t know. I really didn’t.”
The man lowered his head and let out a loud sob.
“That person—I never dreamed in my wildest imagination that person was like that. I swear it.”
“Sigh…”
I exhaled through my slightly parted lips.
From what he was saying, it seemed this man knew the circumstances.
“How could you not know what kind of liquor that was? You have spiritual sight—you should have been able to see it.”
“Th-the liquor was something I distributed when I truly had nothing! That person himself was nothing!”
The man pressed his palms together and pointed his fingertips toward me.
Then he rubbed his palms together frantically.
“I really didn’t know. If I had known, how could I have—how could I possibly have known that person would do such things?”
“You need to tell me the truth.”
When I spoke in a low voice, the man’s shoulders flinched.
“Was your relationship with that person truly nothing more than what you’ve said?”
The man’s face, still fixed on the ground, turned ashen.
Beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead and fell away, and his hands gripping the earth trembled noticeably.
“Are you truly telling me you have no connection to that person?”
The man opened his mouth, then breathed heavily without speaking.
And at that moment,
Ding-ding!
The Shaman’s Bell suddenly rang out.
At the same time, I felt a faint vertigo wash over me.
An image began to form before him as he pressed his forehead.
“Brother.”
A man around the same age as Kang Hyung-seok.
“What? What’s the matter?”
And a Middle-aged Man engaged in conversation with that man.
It was that man prostrating himself before Kang Hyung-seok.
“Brother, I heard you used to be a Shaman. Do you still work in that field?”
“Ah, when was that? But who told you about that?”
“Everyone knows. There’s no one who doesn’t know.”
“Really?”
“That’s why I’m asking. It’s our work site. Do you happen to see anyone with weak vital energy?”
“Why would you….”
“If there’s someone with weak vitality, I want to give them some medicinal liquor.”
“Hey! If you have something like that, you should give it to me.”
“You can’t have it, brother.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re healthy, brother. Anyway, you can’t have it.”
“Ah, you punk.”
Kang Hyung-seok looked around.
The season was different from now.
Then this wasn’t a recent event.
‘When exactly was this?’
The moment doubt arose, the surroundings shifted again.
“Hey, you bastard! You, what was that? What was that liquor! You crazy son of a bitch!”
“What? What do you mean?”
“That liquor! You insane fool, where did you get something like that!”
“Come on, don’t worry about it. It’s medicinal liquor. Medicinal liquor.”
“Crazy bastard! You deserve to die for this!”
“Come on, really! Are you going to let this go?”
“You madman! So that’s why you asked me to identify someone with weak vital energy? Huh!”
“Ah! Brother, is it because I didn’t take care of something?”
“What, what?”
“Keep this. I’m telling you to keep it.”
A wallet emerged from the man’s pocket.
And banknotes came out from the wallet.
The bills, folded in half, were handed to the Middle-aged Man.
“Brother, think of this as a consultation fee.”
“…What?”
“You used to be a Shaman before, after all. Even if you can’t do it now, I’ll treat you with that respect.”
“You crazy…!”
“Brother, you’re doing this with your own skills anyway. So there won’t be any repercussions, and it’s not a bad thing for you either. Right?”
I stared blankly at the Middle-aged Man holding the money.
‘Don’t do it.’
The thought surfaced unbidden.
Yet what lay before my eyes was neither reality nor the present moment.
So even as I could feel the man’s wavering resolve as vividly as if grasping it in my hand, I couldn’t stop him.
As my brow furrowed, the man exhaled a heavy, silent sigh.
“…I understand.”
“Thank you, brother.”
With that, all the images vanished.
The surroundings became the Courtyard of a dark, dilapidated house, and the Middle-aged Man lay prostrate before me.
I looked down at him and opened my mouth.
“…You already knew.”
Because the Shaman had done what he should never have done.
Because he had done what no person should ever do.
I could no longer regard the man trembling and quaking before me as I once had.
“You knew it was money you shouldn’t accept, a request you shouldn’t grant. You knew all of it.”
“Ah… ah!”
The man’s body shook as his forehead nearly touched the ground in his bow.
Tears pooled in his wide-open eyes.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”
The man offered no lies or excuses.
He knew all too well, having spent his life in Shamanism, that such things meant nothing to one who had received a great divine spirit.
“I’m truly sorry. Sob! Sob!”
“Where is that person?”
The man clamped his mouth shut and twisted his body as if swimming through the earth.
Then his shoulders and back heaved as he wept silently.
“Tell me. That way your sin might become lighter.”
“Sob! Sob! Sob!”
It was shallow pride.
The root cause of why this man had done what he should never have done.
He was a Shaman who had lost all his spiritual power, yet he boasted of his days as a Shaman even while doing difficult labor.
Then he met someone who treated him as a Shaman.
That was the cause of this man’s fall.
“Fellow practitioner.”
So he felt his vision darken at these words from my lips.
It was how Shamans called one another.
He too had been a Shaman.
A Shaman who should have helped people had instead become complicit in harming them.
In that moment, hearing the word “fellow practitioner,” he understood it all.
“If you take pride in Dong-gwan being a Shaman, then tell me. Where is that person now?”
“Kgh—ughhhh!”
The man spilled out a cry of agony and clawed at the earth.
Then he opened his mouth wide to gasp for breath, and after a long moment, he forced out words through his constricted throat.
“…The Mountain. He must be on the Mountain now.”
“The Mountain?”
The man nodded, his forehead pressed against the ground.
“Yes… He said he was brewing liquor at the Ancestral Mountain.”
The Ancestral Mountain was land inherited from his ancestors.
The notion of brewing a potion to harm people on such sacred ground sounded like madness.
Yet this was a man who deliberately inflicted calamity upon others.
There had to be a reason, but I realized he was capable of such deranged acts.
“What is the name of the Mountain?”
“I heard it called Cheongdeok Mountain.”
Kang Hyung-seok opened a map and searched for the Mountain’s name.
It was one of countless ordinary mountains with poor accessibility, shunned even by hikers.
“Um, am I… am I safe now?”
The man who had confessed everything asked in a voice choked with tears, and Kang Hyung-seok shifted his gaze from his phone to him.
“I’ve told you everything I know. I’d like to give you his contact information, but he changes his number constantly and always calls me first, so I don’t even have that.”
Kang Hyung-seok fell silent for a moment.
Then he looked down at the man and slipped his phone into his pocket.
“Dong-gwan, you know as well as I do. What happens when we commit sin.”
Even stripped of power, a Shaman remains a Shaman.
This Shaman had participated in harming humans.
That punishment would not be light.
“Ah, ah.”
Just then, the man suddenly panicked and brought his hand to his face.
At the same moment, his vision changed.
“Ah, ah! Ahhhhh!”
The world visible through his right eye was being swallowed by darkness.
The panicked man rubbed and blinked his eyes, but once lost, his vision did not return.
Blindness in one eye.
This was the punishment the man had received.
“Ahhh, ahhhhh! No, no! No!”
Seized by terror, the man flailed and blinked his eyes frantically.
Watching him, Kang Hyung-seok spoke in a low voice.
“There will be no further punishment.”
Though the divine had taken his sight, it would not take his life.
“Aaaahhh! Aaaahhhhh!”
Looking down at the screaming man, Kang Hyung-seok turned away.
Clang!
Even after stepping outside the Entrance, the man’s screams and sobs continued unabated. Kang Hyung-seok walked away with a heavy heart, his back to the door.
Ding!
A message arrived at precisely that moment, causing his phone to chime.
It was from his Uncle, and the message contained nothing but two unfamiliar addresses.
Still, from the way the numbers ended—indicating room numbers—he could tell they were Hospital Rooms.
Ding!
“Yes, Uncle.”
(Hyung-seok! Did you see the message? The admissions are all done.)
“Understood. I’ll contact the Shamans I know.”
(Thanks. Thank you! And did you find out anything on your end?)
Kang Hyung-seok deliberately refrained from looking back and opened his mouth to speak.
“Yes. They told me everything.”
(Phew!)
Perhaps it was because his voice had been so measured.
From that weighty sigh, he could sense that his Uncle understood what conversation had taken place.
“I’ll call you again later. It’s late—you should get some rest.”
(Yes, that’s right.)
“Please tell my parents not to worry about me.”
(Okay, I will. And I’m sorry!)
“Yes. I’ll head inside now.”
Kang Hyung-seok ended the call and searched his contacts for Chung-geum, then dialed her number.
Ring, ring, ring.
(Hello?)
“I apologize for calling so late. This is Kang Hyung-seok.”
(Oh, yes! No, not at all, sir.)
“If you don’t mind, would you be available to talk for a moment? There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
(Um….)
“Are you perhaps busy?”
(No. I’ve finished with urgent matters. It’s fine.)
Kang Hyung-seok looked up at the sky as he asked whether there was a Shaman who could go to the addresses his Uncle had sent right now.
There hung the moon.
It was a waxing crescent, tilted to one side as if watching over someone.
***
Screech! Screech!
Deep in the mountain.
In the darkness where he couldn’t see even an inch ahead, the man swung a club down against the sack.
Each time, the anguished cries of a beast tore through the air, and the sack hanging from the tree swayed as if dancing.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
Breathing heavily, the man set the club at his feet and pulled out a small plastic bottle to drink water.
Neither guilt nor caution could be detected in his expression or movements.
“Phew, whew!”
It was simply natural and mundane, as if he were performing some everyday task.
After finishing the water, he looked at the sack from which faint whimpers escaped and picked up the club again.
That was when it happened.
Flap-flap-flap!
A Raven landed on the tree branch where the sack hung.
Caw! Caw!
The Raven looked down at the man, and the man looked up at it.
He swung the club threateningly, but the Raven didn’t flap its wings once.
It simply observed, looking down at him.
“Damn thing. Cursed bird.”
Muttering, he slung the club over his shoulder and brought it down hard against the sack.
Something crunched, and the man struck the sack repeatedly before finally setting the club down.
Rustle, rustle.
The man untied the mouth of the sack and opened it wide.
Five kittens.
One large cat.
Two snakes.
One dog and one raccoon.
Their heads were crushed or their chests caved in, blood pouring from their bodies.
Knot!
He tied the mouth shut again and began walking in the opposite direction from the tree.
Crimson blood seeping from the dragging sack soaked the earth.
Like the trail a snail leaves behind, dark red bloodstains followed in his wake.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————