An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 89
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 88
Part 5. The Great Elder Arrives! (3)
I summoned the Great Goblin.
But time was running out.
I had to return to Park Sang-chul as quickly as possible.
Click! Growwwl!
With Shin Jung-ah in the passenger seat and Yoon Sang in the back, I immediately started the engine and began driving through the night.
Vrooooom!
Tearing through the darkness without hesitation, I focused on watching the road ahead.
The remote mountain road had no streetlights, making it dark as the ocean depths.
Relying only on the headlights’ glow, I drove the car toward the village where Park Sang-chul waited, giving it my all.
Bump!
Even as the car soared over a speed bump, Yoon Sang showed no sign of waking.
‘Is this the Goblin’s doing as well?’
I became aware of Shin Jung-ah sitting in the passenger seat.
Disheveled hair.
Fingers reeking of pork blood.
Red bean paste caked beneath the fingernails like dirt.
Though she appeared at first glance like a madwoman or lunatic, her expression was solemn and her eyes held profound depth.
“Would it be appropriate to address you as ‘Elder’?”
The Goblin inhabiting Shin Jung-ah’s body answered with an expressionless face.
“Call me as you please, Kim.”
Unlike Shin Jung-ah, the voice scraped against the vocal cords.
The sensation was peculiar.
Shamans draw near to the divine, and by accepting a Guardian Spirit, they step into the Shaman’s domain—yet who could have predicted I’d be driving with a Goblin in my passenger seat?
I exhaled a breath heavy with tension and opened my mouth.
“I apologize for making a request immediately upon receiving your aid.”
The Goblin understood courtesy.
Treat it with respect, and it would offer fitting recompense in return.
There was only one reward I sought.
“There is a father and daughter suffering at the hands of a Malevolent Goblin. I ask that you subdue that Goblin and save the innocent father and daughter from their torment.”
My voice was grave enough to weigh down the air inside the car.
Then the Goblin spoke words I did not expect.
“There is no need for such formality. I knew your Guardian Spirit when he still lived, so you, the vessel that holds him, are no different from my old friend.”
Thump!
The car shook as violently as my heart as it crossed another speed bump.
“…You knew my Guardian Spirit?”
“Did you not know?”
“He never told me his name or showed me his face.”
“Puhahahaha!”
A burst of hearty laughter erupted from Shin Jung-ah—something the usual her would never do.
“Who was that person?”
“She’s watching me. Don’t speak of it.”
At that moment, Kang Hyung-seok felt the gaze as well.
He was certain that someone inside the car was observing him.
It wasn’t an eerie or unsettling sensation.
It was a warm gaze, as if impressed by how far he had come.
“Your Guardian Spirit will speak of it directly one day. Until then, think of me as a great deity.”
Kang Hyung-seok smiled bitterly and turned his head to the side.
“I cannot fathom how great you truly are.”
“Even as a human, I was one who approached divinity.”
The Goblin’s eyes crinkled with amusement, as if he would say no more.
Kang Hyung-seok smiled in kind.
“It’s strange—everyone speaks only of that.”
“Is there nothing else you wish to know?”
His tone suggested he would answer any other question.
Kang Hyung-seok kept his gaze forward with a slight smile, then gradually let it fade.
“What is the true nature of that Goblin?”
I was curious about its origins.
No grave exists without a story.
No Goblin exists without substance.
Ancient objects, or old things stained with blood, are said to become Goblins.
What could its true nature be to transform into a Goblin that torments people?
What history could have made it into such a demonic creature?
“Long ago, when a great famine struck this land, many died—common folk named Kim.”
The Goblin’s calm voice drew Kang Hyung-seok’s attention as he seemed to search his memory.
“Corpses could be seen everywhere. Plague spread widely, and dogs and rats that fed on the dead only spread the sickness further.”
The Goblin appeared to be speaking of the Great Famine of Gyeongsin.
The years of Gyeongseul (1670) and Sinhai (1671).
A great calamity that engulfed the entire nation for two years.
I knew only that record-breaking crop failures and plagues had caused countless deaths from starvation and disease.
“The afflicted and the dead were driven into a cave far from the village. Among them was a Kim who made masks—he was thrown into that cave alive.”
“…That person became the Goblin?”
A Goblin is the transformation of an ancient object.
Therefore, I had never heard of a human becoming a Goblin.
“They bound the hands and feet of those still breathing so they could not escape the cave.”
“….”
“That cloth became the Goblin.”
Now all my questions were answered.
A face like a mask.
A demonic nature.
A propensity to torment others.
“Had it not become a Goblin, it would have become something else.”
A cloth steeped in the resentment of a patient who had been abandoned by people and died among corpses.
Had it not been a Goblin, wouldn’t it have become something far more terrible?
It was a Goblin with such circumstances, yet I felt no pity for it.
“I have one more request.”
Kang Hyung-seok turned the steering wheel along the curved road and continued in a heavy voice.
“Please destroy that Goblin.”
That Goblin should not exist.
Even if sealed, it would eventually break free someday, and when that happens, the innocent will suffer once more.
“So Kim asks a Goblin to destroy a Goblin.”
Kang Hyung-seok glanced briefly at the Goblin’s profile and nodded without hesitation.
“Yes.”
Goblins are capricious.
Thus, even a Goblin that had agreed to help Kang Hyung-seok could pose a threat.
Yet his answer held no wavering, and for that reason, the Goblin was pleased.
“Then make haste, Kim.”
The Goblin, who had been watching Kang Hyung-seok, shifted his gaze to the darkened road ahead.
“The one who suffered kneels before the one who caused the suffering. He must be saved.”
Kang Hyung-seok pressed his lips firmly together and gripped the steering wheel with force.
Then he pressed the accelerator harder still.
Toward the village where Park Sang-chul was.
Vroooom!
It is said that a Shaman is one who connects the human and the divine.
To connect Park Sang-chul and the Goblin, I drove the car with all my might.
By then, the moon had emerged from the clouds, illuminating my path with its gentle glow as if blessing my journey.
***
Creeeeeak.
The warehouse door, sealed shut, swung open.
The sacred rope that had barred it lay coiled on the dirt floor, and Park Sang-chul crouched motionless.
“Ah… ah.”
Along with the stale, suffocating stench that had accumulated inside, the contents of the warehouse revealed themselves.
His daughter and the Goblin.
The Goblin possessing his daughter.
The way it stared down at Park Sang-chul with bloodshot eyes was utterly inhuman.
The intense madness characteristic of possession clung to it—something wearing a human form, yet unmistakably other.
That was what tormented and terrified Park Sang-chul most.
Crackle.
Park Sang-chul dropped to his knees and pressed both palms together toward the Goblin.
“Spare her. Please spare her.”
Trembling and weeping, he bowed his head and rubbed his palms together desperately.
Blood poured from the wounds the sacred rope had carved into his skin, but he had no room to feel the pain.
“I was wrong. I have committed sins worthy of death, so please, I beg you, spare my daughter!”
Park Sang-chul cried out, his voice laden with sorrow and desperation.
Yet the Goblin remained still, and the silence that enveloped everything began to suffocate him.
“Three years of suffering should be enough. If there is a price to be paid, I will pay it—I will bear it all! Please, release my daughter!”
Park Sang-chul rubbed his hands frantically, tears and mucus streaming from his mouth, nose, and eyes.
He knew he was a pitiful sight.
Yet he could not stop his pleading.
For a child, a parent will do anything.
“If you want my hands, I will give them! My feet as well! My eyes! My very life—I will surrender it all!”
Park Sang-chul, his voice strangled from his throat, curled his body inward.
“…Please, let my daughter go.”
It was a whisper, barely audible.
Yet it carried more sincerity than every word he had ever spoken in his life.
“Uuuughhhh! Aaaaah! Please!”
As Park Sang-chul wailed in despair at the Goblin’s silence, its lips moved.
“This life.”
Park Sang-chul’s head snapped up, his eyes meeting the Goblin’s.
It stared at him with eyes blazing like fire, pointing toward something.
The rusted sickle.
The very sickle that had threatened Kang Hyung-seok.
“Do not end this with words.”
The Goblin, borrowing his daughter’s mouth, commanded her father to die.
Park Sang-chul looked at the Goblin with trembling features.
Then, his resolve hardening, he rose unsteadily to his feet.
His daughter’s life and his own.
There was no need to deliberate which mattered more.
Crack.
Park Sang-chul gazed desperately at the Goblin and brought the blade to his neck.
He tried to move the sickle in a sawing motion, but the Goblin shook his head.
“Don’t go easy.”
As angry as I am.
Until that rage cools in blood.
The Goblin commanded Park Sang-chul to die slowly.
Even as Park Sang-chul gasped for breath, he met the Goblin’s gaze and moved the sickle to his knee.
“Please, just let my daughter go!”
Park Sang-chul raised the sickle high and brought it down on his knee without hesitation.
Crack! Squelch!
“Aahhhhh!”
In an instant, blood soaked through his pants and stained the ground crimson.
Yet Park Sang-chul wrenched the sickle from the bone with tremendous effort and raised it again to strike his other knee.
It was then.
Screeeech!
The sound of brakes pierced the silence from beyond the courtyard.
In that moment, Park Sang-chul’s head turned, and the Goblin looked in the same direction.
Click.
A car door opened twice.
And then Kang Hyung-seok and Shin Jung-ah stood before the courtyard.
“Professor Park Sang-chul!”
At Kang Hyung-seok’s voice, Park Sang-chul collapsed to the ground.
Strangely, the moment he saw Kang Hyung-seok, his strength drained away—he couldn’t move a single finger.
“Don’t move! It’s all over!”
Park Sang-chul lifted his ashen face to look at Kang Hyung-seok, and Kang Hyung-seok pointed with his hand at Shin Jung-ah.
“I’ve brought the Great Goblin! Now, now everything will be fine! For you, Professor Park Sang-chul, and for your daughter!”
Park Sang-chul did not understand his words.
Yet he could sense that the end of this calamity was drawing near.
He drew a deep breath, then squeezed out the last of his strength and cried out.
“Please save our daughter! Dharma Master!”
Park Sang-chul’s words reached the Goblin as well.
Kang Hyung-seok saw the Goblin dwelling within Shin Jung-ah, and the Goblin walked toward the daughter with an expressionless face.
Whoooosh!
Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell.
“The north is governed by the central year; summon the Humuun Bureau Chief who guards the east gate. With the Jap, Byeong, Mu, Gyeong, and Im years, the central year is positioned to the left, and summon the Humuun Bureau Chief who guards the east gate. Close the gate and establish the formation; seal the gate with the Hyu character.”
As I chanted the sutra, it felt different from before.
The Guardian Spirit had sunk deeper into me, and the incantation I uttered carried far greater power.
“The axis of the human east is governed by the central year; summon the Saengmun Bureau Chief who guards the east gate. With the Eul, Chuk, Jeong, Chuk, Gi, and Chuk years, the central year is positioned to the left.”
Waralang! Waralang! Waralang!
Kang Hyung-seok approached the Goblin while shaking the Shaman’s Bell.
The Goblin tormenting the Shaman glared at Kang Hyung-seok with bloodshot eyes.
“You wretched human, how dare you….”
The Goblin bared its fangs savagely but could not flee.
It could not break the possession.
“Summon the guardian of the eight gates, close the door and establish the formation, seal it with the vertical character.”
It was because of the Eight Gates Scripture that Kang Hyung-seok was chanting.
A sacred scripture that imprisons all that is evil.
Having seized the Goblin, Kang Hyung-seok continued to purify the surroundings with the Shaman’s Bell and infused his energy into the Great Goblin.
‘This is my role.’
To bridge the divine and the human, to offer prayers.
To stop the innocent from suffering.
Waralang!
Kang Hyung-seok looked at Park Sang-chul’s face and clenched his teeth so hard his lips grew thin.
Then he lifted his gaze and watched as the Great Goblin reached toward the Malevolent Goblin.
The Great Goblin’s hands, spread like a net,
covered the jaw.
The face of the Shaman possessed by the Malevolent Goblin was engulfed.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————