An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 82

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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 81
Part 3. Why Are You Being So Cruel? (2)
I finally understood why the Blacksmith was wary of Shamanism.
A child who went mad practicing Shamanism.
A relationship between father and daughter.
Everything must feel lamentable and resentful, but if it were human cruelty, at least there would be someone to hate.
But it had to be Shamanism.
Wouldn’t one’s stomach turn just hearing the first syllable of Shamanism?
“Why are you thinking so much while eating?”
Clink.
Shin Jung-ah, sitting across from me, pushed a ceramic bowl of sashimi toward Kang Hyung-seok.
Kang Hyung-seok sighed once and picked up his chopsticks.
“Still, I’m grateful to be with you, Chief.”
Shin Jung-ah, who had been reaching for a piece of flounder belly, stopped her chopsticks abruptly.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, various things. Like the meal situation right now.”
“Ah.”
Shin Jung-ah nodded in understanding, put the flounder in her mouth, and looked at the menu.
It stated that orders required two or more people.
It was a sashimi restaurant in Gangneung’s coffee district.
With the sea spread out before us, the view was beyond question, and the comfort from the lighthouse and sea was remarkable, while the faint coffee scent mixed with the ocean breeze created an oddly pleasant feeling.
“You’re right—if I’d come alone, I wouldn’t have been able to order either.”
Shin Jung-ah nodded, her expression thoughtful.
“I found out the place next door is all Lodging. You should be able to sleep there, Chief.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll visit the Blacksmith’s Shop one more time.”
“What? I wondered why you didn’t order alcohol. Move during the day. During the day. The sun will set soon—where are you trying to go?”
Kang Hyung-seok shook his head with displeasure.
“We came here because of the Guardian Spirit. It feels wrong to return empty-handed.”
“I said move during the day…. Tsk.”
Shin Jung-ah looked at Kang Hyung-seok with a sour expression and rummaged through her pocket.
She pulled out a cigarette but didn’t light it, just placed it on the table.
“Anyway, nothing will go wrong, so sleep first. You can even just travel as you are.”
There was a seafood market nearby, and the sea.
It wasn’t peak season, so it wasn’t crowded—if you wanted to rest, you could rest as much as you wanted.
So it wasn’t a bad situation, yet Shin Jung-ah still looked displeased.
“Did you already forget nearly getting slashed by a sickle during the day? If you run into that man again at night, wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
“It won’t happen. No, it can’t happen.”
“What?”
Shin Jung-ah looked at Kang Hyung-seok with surprised eyes, and Kang Hyung-seok pointed to the cigarette on the table.
“Would you like to step outside and have a smoke?”
“No, uh, uh-huh.”
It was an offer difficult to refuse, so Shin Jung-ah promptly gathered her cigarettes and lighter.
“Brr.”
The sea breeze at dusk carried a chill to it.
Seeing Shin Jung-ah light her cigarette and rub both her forearms, I understood why.
“Are you cold? Smoke quickly and let’s go back inside.”
“Tell me first. What do I need to do so you won’t harbor resentment toward me?”
Kang Hyung-seok gazed at Shin Jung-ah for a moment, then laughed deeply.
“Why did you follow me out here, Director?”
“Hm?”
Shin Jung-ah raised one eyebrow and took a deep drag from her cigarette.
I occasionally noticed it—Shin Jung-ah had a talent for saying much with just her eyes.
“You’re the one who suggested smoking. What are you going on about?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Hm?”
Kang Hyung-seok opened his mouth, watching the glowing ember of the cigarette.
“The best thing is to listen to what someone desperately needs. Even if a dangerous situation arises, if I offer to help, they won’t be able to harm me.”
Tap.
Ash fell from Shin Jung-ah’s cigarette.
“How exactly would you help?”
“The Blacksmith’s son.”
The bond between parent and child runs deep and profound.
Parents can never turn away, and they will do anything for their children.
“He became that way while practicing Shamanism. If my thinking is correct, I believe I can help him sufficiently.”
“…You?”
“Yes. Only then will my own desperation be resolved.”
A Blacksmith who can forge sacred implements.
If I resolve his desperation, then like karma returning, the Blacksmith will resolve mine.
The world’s most fundamental principle.
Kang Hyung-seok resolved to believe in it.
***
Kang Hyung-seok drove back to the Village alone.
It was a night loud with the chirping of grasshoppers and crickets.
The moon felt unusually large tonight, and the sea breeze that blew in was biting cold.
Click.
Kang Hyung-seok pressed the power button on his phone to check the time, his lips pressing into a firm line.
‘I need to move.’
First, I had to check on the Shaman’s condition—the one who’d gone mad.
Only then could I know if this was something I could actually help with.
Kang Hyung-seok stepped out of the car and approached the Village with measured, quiet footfalls.
In the distance, a dog barked sharply, and the wind whistled past my ears.
Damn it, it felt like stepping straight into a horror film.
Crunch, crunch.
Yet I continued walking toward the Blacksmith’s Shop, thinking whether it really had to come to this.
Still, my hands and feet moved forward regardless.
“Whoosh!”
Near the Blacksmith’s Shop, Kang Hyung-seok exhaled sharply, then pressed his back against the stone wall and listened intently.
It was late, so I couldn’t sense any presence of people.
Assuming the Blacksmith was asleep, Kang Hyung-seok cautiously approached the Warehouse I’d seen during the day.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Like a metronome, the imprisoned Shaman was rhythmically banging his head against the wall.
But then a certain image formed in my mind’s eye.
Someone gripping the Shaman’s hair and slamming his head against the wall.
Was it an illusion created by the night?
Or was it an image sent by the Guardian Spirit?
Kang Hyung-seok felt his footsteps grow inexplicably heavy as he stood directly before the Warehouse door.
“Can you hear me?”
Thud, thud, thud.
“I hope you will listen to my voice.”
Thud, thud, thud.
Kang Hyung-seok swallowed hard and continued speaking in a low, grave tone.
“Who are you?”
That was when it happened.
The sound stopped.
“Why would you turn away from this one’s suffering?”
Kang Hyung-seok was not speaking to the Shaman.
I was speaking to the Shaman’s Guardian Spirit.
A Guardian Spirit protects the Shaman who serves it.
Yet this Shaman’s Guardian Spirit had not protected him—instead, it had abandoned him to madness.
“Has this Shaman committed such grave sins as to deserve divine punishment? Or is there a reason you had no choice but to turn away?”
Kang Hyung-seok continued speaking while staring at the door.
“This is not right. If you haven’t lost your power, then you should protect your Shaman.”
Kang Hyung-seok knew.
How dangerous this action was.
A mere human was questioning a god’s conduct.
He knew this was the kind of behavior that deserved divine punishment, yet he trusted that his Guardian Spirit would protect him.
And it was something he desperately needed to say.
We are the same kind of Shamans.
That person’s circumstances could be the same as mine.
“If you can hear my voice, please respond.”
It was immediately after this.
“UUUAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
A scream erupted as if limbs were being torn apart.
Thud!
A dark head slammed against the semi-transparent glass window.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Gaaaaaah! Aaaahhh! Kieeeeeee!”
The Shaman began violently smashing his head against the glass, his body convulsing as if wracked with agony.
Kang Hyung-seok’s lips twisted.
‘I felt something just now.’
An enormous presence.
The entity he believed to be a god was inflicting terrible pain upon the Shaman as if mocking Kang Hyung-seok.
This was unprecedented.
He had never even heard of a Guardian Spirit that mocked and tormented a Shaman.
“What is the reason? Why are you acting so cruelly!”
He shouted at the god in frustration, but all that returned was a gaze from beyond the opaque glass window.
The Shaman rubbed his forehead against the glass, his large eyes fixed upon Kang Hyung-seok with an intense stare.
Kang Hyung-seok’s face trembled, then he suddenly turned his head toward the light that had switched on.
“Who the hell is that!”
The sleep-laden voice was unmistakably the Blacksmith’s.
Kang Hyung-seok held his breath.
Despite knowing it shouldn’t be possible, his breath froze white as the depths of winter.
There is a god here. In this place.
A god without virtue, watching through the Shaman’s eyes—before such a presence, Kang Hyung-seok turned his body.
‘Damn it.’
He fled outside to avoid the Blacksmith, but a gaze pierced his back like an awl.
The desperate gaze of the Shaman seeking help, and the malevolent gaze of the god watching him.
***
Huff! Huff! Huff!
Kang Hyung-seok, having slipped away to the village’s outskirts, caught his breath with his hands planted on both knees.
The path was dark as if he’d pulled a blanket over his head.
He wished there were streetlights, and there were some, but their heads were bent and their bulbs shattered.
In the pitch-black void without light, Kang Hyung-seok steadied his breathing and rubbed his parched lips with the back of his hand.
‘I’m going crazy. Really.’
A Guardian Spirit tormenting a Shaman.
Yet Heo-ju, the Shaman who received the Malevolent Spirit, was not the one.
Judging by the energy, it was a proper deity.
That made it even more incomprehensible.
“It’s cruel. Incomprehensibly so.”
His swollen thoughts spilled from his lips and filled his mind.
Yet there was hope.
“There’s a way.”
If the illness arose from a deity, it could be cured through that deity.
‘I must separate the deity from the Shaman.’
The effect would manifest immediately, and this possibility would become the Blacksmith’s hope.
Kang Hyung-seok sucked in his lips and turned toward the direction of the Blacksmith’s Shop.
‘I should have said something.’
No, wait.
If I’d spoken there, the deity would have heard.
Shaking his head, Kang Hyung-seok suddenly lifted his gaze and stared fiercely into the darkness.
“Who’s there?”
He sensed a presence.
His senses sharpened by what he’d just endured, Kang Hyung-seok glared into the darkness as if to tear it apart and opened his mouth.
“Stop lurking and come out.”
A rustling sound echoed.
As Kang Hyung-seok stared into the darkness, his neck hairs standing on end, a figure emerged from the far end of the Alley with his head bowed low and awkwardly.
Not a ghost—a person.
A young man who, on this late night, wore a baseball cap pressed firmly down on his head.
“What are you doing? Take off the cap.”
Kang Hyung-seok pressed forward with his words, and the man removed the baseball cap that had been covering his face.
“…What?”
Bewilderment struck him hard.
He recognized the face from somewhere, but the other reason was that the man’s gaze made no sense to him.
Eyes like reuniting with a close friend after a long time.
Not the gaze one would receive from a stranger.
“You… you’re that person from before, aren’t you? Right?”
With features so distinct they’d be hard to forget, how could he have forgotten this man?
As Kang Hyung-seok searched his memory for whether he’d met this person before, the man thumped his chest and revealed his name.
“Hey, hyung! You don’t remember me? Seriously?”
“Who are you?”
“Come on! Hyung, it’s me. It’s me! Yoon Sang. BJ Yoon Sang! Heaven and earth know how much I’ve missed you.”
Chirp, chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp-chirp.
The grass insects sang out loudly.
Kang Hyung-seok looked at Yoon Sang with eyes that conveyed complete bewilderment.
Yet Yoon Sang’s face was radiant with such joy at reuniting with Kang Hyung-seok that he seemed ready to burst.

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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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