An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 80

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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 79
Part 2. The Second Divine Object (3)
“If that’s what you’re asking for….”
“I have something I received from Geumjin Temple before.”
Chung-geum hesitated before finally speaking up.
“M-Master, that’s….”
“Bring it. I’ve thought this through.”
Chung-geum lowered her head and rose from her seat.
As she did, she began to gauge the room—but not Lee Geum-kyung. She was watching Kang Hyung-seok.
‘What’s going on?’
What exactly was Geumjin Temple, and what was Lee Geum-kyung about to give them?
Kang Hyung-seok looked at Lee Geum-kyung with a questioning expression, but she simply sipped her tea in silence.
Clink.
Moments later, Chung-geum returned with a box, placing it between them.
A square box wrapped in cotton cloth.
The faded color of the cloth suggested it was quite ancient.
What caught the eye most was the Chinese characters inscribed on the inner surface of the cloth.
Kang Hyung-seok traced the characters with his thumb, reading slowly before lifting his gaze.
“It’s a demon-repelling incantation.”
An incantation to drive away malevolent spirits.
Kang Hyung-seok had no idea what this could be, but Lee Geum-kyung simply gestured for him to unwrap it.
He began carefully untying the knots of the cotton cloth, his expression grave.
‘Paulownia wood? No, it’s birch.’
From the moment he saw the demon-repelling incantation, he’d suspected as much.
The box itself was made of birch wood, used to ward off spirits, which only deepened his curiosity about its contents.
Kang Hyung-seok glanced at Lee Geum-kyung once, then returned his gaze to the box.
Open it.
That was the unmistakable message in her eyes.
He swallowed dryly and carefully lifted the lid.
His tense expression eased.
“Do you know what it is?”
Kang Hyung-seok shook his head while looking at Lee Geum-kyung.
“I’m afraid my knowledge doesn’t extend to this.”
“It’s meteorite iron.”
At Lee Geum-kyung’s matter-of-fact answer, Kang Hyung-seok’s face went rigid.
Chung-geum, glimpsing it, already knew what this was—her eyes made that clear.
Bewildered, Kang Hyung-seok fixed his gaze on the black, rough-surfaced lump.
‘Meteorite iron….’
A meteorite.
To be precise, an iron mass from the cosmos—and at this size, it seemed like something worth anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of won.
Lee Geum-kyung demonstrated precisely that.
“At last, it seems to have found its master.”
A soft whisper.
Lee Geum-kyung ran her weathered hand—one marked by the unmistakable passage of years—across the yungyeol, and a faint smile crossed her lips.
“The head abbot of Geumjin Temple once told me to pass this along when a suitable successor appeared. After twenty long years, it has finally found its owner.”
“Master…”
“This is no ordinary yungyeol.”
Lee Geum-kyung fixed her gaze upon Kang Hyung-seok, her eyes gleaming with that distinctive luminescence unique to shamans.
“When it was discovered, it was embedded in a Korean ash tree, I’m told. A thing of positive energy layered upon positive energy—it will surely prove invaluable to you.”
Kang Hyung-seok found himself at a loss for words.
There exist several objects capable of driving away spirits.
Among them, the Korean ash tree is the most widely known, and the greatest of these is one struck by lightning.
This is because it is believed to contain the essence of heaven and the power of lightning itself.
Such is the nature of the Korean ash tree.
Then what of yungyeol, which could be called lightning itself?
“…It is too heavy. I am not worthy of possessing such an object.”
“Excessive humility. If not you, then who else would be fit to hold it?”
“Master.”
“I have thought of this since the day I performed the blessing ritual for you.”
Lee Geum-kyung gazed down at the yungyeol as if tracing through memories, and continued speaking.
“For this old woman to keep it would be far less valuable than for it to go to you and illuminate the world.”
Lee Geum-kyung, being human, had experienced moments when she wished to use this yungyeol.
Yet she had refrained.
Each time, she recalled her decision that Kang Hyung-seok was its true master.
“I feel unburdened. All things in this world have their season and their proper time, and now that moment has finally come for this yungyeol.”
Kang Hyung-seok held Lee Geum-kyung’s gaze in silence for a long moment.
The emotions contained within were profound and manifold.
Pride in him, confidence in his potential, and the hope that it would aid him as he walked the path of shamanism.
Kang Hyung-seok drew a deep breath through his nose and nodded gently.
“I will not disappoint you.”
“Of course you won’t.”
Lee Geum-kyung spoke with a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, and Kang Hyung-seok reached out toward the yungyeol.
Goosebumps erupted across his skin.
Though the object lay within the box, it radiated warmth as if he were grasping a human hand.
This was no ordinary thing.
It possessed a tremendous force.
Kang Hyung-seok lifted the yungyeol with a solemn expression, and in that instant, a strange sensation cascaded through him like a waterfall.
At the same time, my vision darkened.
My senses grew dull.
My body no longer felt like my own.
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes widened in alarm as he frantically searched for Lee Geum-kyung and Chung-geum, but they were nowhere to be found.
Clang-clang-clang-clang! Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh! Boom, boom-boom!
The sound of traditional Korean instruments—a melody he’d heard before.
That same sound from his dream echoed through the darkness.
Kang Hyung-seok felt the blood in his veins freeze as he stared into the darkness that had consumed everything around him.
Thump-thump-thump! Boom! Shrill-shrill-shrill-shrill! Clang-clang-clang! Ding!
Only the warmth of the Unseol in his hand assured him that this was reality.
“…Guardian Spirit.”
The Guardian Spirit emerged from the darkness.
Drenched in blood, just as before.
A sickening stench of blood pierced his nostrils, and the sound of traditional instruments hammered against his ears and body from all directions.
Kang Hyung-seok stared wide-eyed at the Guardian Spirit, who held a Shaman’s Bell in one hand and a blade in the other.
“What is the meaning of this?”
The Guardian Spirit offered no answer.
Wrapped in black mist, its face obscured, it simply gazed upon Kang Hyung-seok.
“I have lived according to your will. I came here after receiving your revelation to find the Divine Blade.”
He waited for a response, but the Guardian Spirit remained silent, as always.
“Please, say something. I need to understand.”
In that moment, Kang Hyung-seok desperately sought an answer.
The blade in the Guardian Spirit’s hand was raised.
The moment he saw the crimson blood dripping from the blade’s edge, he lifted his head.
“…What?”
He was certain he had heard something.
“What did you just say? Please, speak again.”
He asked urgently, but the voice he’d heard moments before was gone.
Instead, the Guardian Spirit’s blade shifted slightly, pointing toward Kang Hyung-seok’s hand.
More precisely, toward the Unseol he held.
“Are you referring to this? Is that correct?”
Before his question was even finished, the Guardian Spirit reversed its grip on the blade.
The hilt.
Holding the blade inverted as if offering it, the Guardian Spirit stood in that posture for a moment before vanishing, just as before.
The mist dispersed.
His vision brightened, and the sound of the instruments faded away.
“…Seok.”
A faint voice grew steadily closer.
“Hyung-seok!”
Jolted awake by hands gripping his shoulders, he gasped for breath and looked around.
He was in Lee Geum-kyung’s Shamanic Temple.
“Teacher…?”
“Are you alright?”
Kang Hyung-seok swallowed hard and surveyed his surroundings once more.
Chung-geum stood with a water pitcher in hand, her expression startled, while Lee Geum-kyung gripped his shoulder, positioned directly before him.
It appeared Chung-geum had been about to splash water on him.
Clatter.
Kang Hyung-seok accepted the water pitcher in silence, drank deeply several times, then wiped his face clean.
“A possession occurred. A spirit possession.”
“A possession…?”
“Yes.”
Kang Hyung-seok asked Lee Geum-kyung if she hadn’t known, and she shook her rigid face from side to side.
“A great spirit is a great spirit indeed. To manifest without my knowledge.”
A sudden realization struck me.
What if it hadn’t been a dream at all, but a possession?
What if I could have received the Guardian Spirit’s direct message even without the Raven pecking at the Window?
Kang Hyung-seok’s expression grew grave as Lee Geum-kyung spoke in a low voice.
“What did the Guardian Spirit say to you?”
“The same as before. He spoke no words, but showed me the hilt of a sword.”
Two possessions.
One message.
The Guardian Spirit had always extended the sword’s hilt toward me.
“It seems he is instructing me to obtain a Shaman’s Sword.”
Kang Hyung-seok studied Lee Geum-kyung’s sealed lips.
Only she could determine whether the answer I had given was correct.
Waiting for Lee Geum-kyung’s words with a humble and reverent heart, she finally parted her lips.
“Your words appear to be correct.”
Chung-geum, whose gaze had briefly met Lee Geum-kyung’s, started in surprise.
Then she nodded with a thoughtful expression of agreement.
What came next was this.
“For him to manifest now, after remaining silent all this time, means your Guardian Spirit is telling you the time has come.”
A second sign.
The Shaman’s Sword forged from Untel would be no ordinary object.
It was a notification that the time had arrived, a message to take up the Shaman’s Sword.
“I shall introduce you to a skilled blacksmith. He once forged my own ritual implements and should be capable of working with Untel.”
Kang Hyung-seok’s eyes widened, and after a moment of bewilderment, he bowed his head.
“Thank you, Master.”
“Show it to me once it is complete.”
“Yes!”
Kang Hyung-seok answered with a smile.
***
“So that’s why you’re heading to Gangneung?”
The car hummed as it sped down the road.
Shin Jung-ah, sitting in the passenger seat, rested her chin on her hand as she spoke.
We were inside Kang Hyung-seok’s car, racing along the Highway.
“Yes. But are you really sure this is okay?”
“Honestly, for something like this, I’m all for it.”
Shin Jung-ah smiled as brightly as the waters off Gangneung’s coast, then rolled down the Window.
Though we hadn’t even arrived in Gangneung yet, the breeze that swept in seemed to carry the scent of the sea.
“Ah, what a relief. To be honest, I was really worried we’d get caught up in something strange this time.”
“Ha, surely nothing will happen.”
“Ha ha ha. Right?”
There’s an old saying: “Surely” is what kills a man.
Even so, I found myself thinking that perhaps this time things really would be fine.
I was heading to ask a blacksmith to forge a sacred blade from meteoric iron.
There was no sense that anything would go wrong, and even if it did, it didn’t feel like it would be anything serious.
“Did you try calling ahead?”
“Actually, I tried several times, but they didn’t pick up.”
If there was one thing that weighed on my mind, it was this.
Since I had the address, finding the place wouldn’t be a problem.
But the fact that the calls wouldn’t go through left an oddly unsettling feeling in my chest.
“Don’t worry about it. You said it’s been a long time since you last contacted the master anyway. They might have changed their phone number.”
“You think so?”
“Of course! My mother once lost her phone and lost all her contacts. Adults do that sort of thing all the time.”
I hoped that was all it was.
Kang Hyung-seok kept his lips curved upward as he focused on driving.
The car hummed onward.
We exited the Highway and drove toward the destination the navigation system indicated.
A second visit.
We were heading toward the blacksmith who would forge the sacred blade.

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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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