An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 95

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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 94
Part 7. The Tiger Calamity (3)
【Mass deaths at Poultry Farm… Cause Unknown, Anxiety Spreads Among Farmers.】
【Elderly Man Living Alone Found Dead in Home.】
【Successive Livestock Deaths.】
【Disease Control Authorities on Alert Over Infection Concerns.】
【Elderly Living Alone Face Increased Risk of Solitary Death… Urgent Countermeasures Needed.】
【Suspicious Deaths on the Rise… Authorities Claim ‘Nothing Unusual,’ Yet Anxiety Escalates.】
These were old newspaper headlines.
They covered incidents that had occurred in the surrounding area, and the dates preceded the appearance of the elephant statue.
As Kang Hyung-seok read through the articles on his phone, he could understand why the residents had been so uneasy.
‘Coincidence is repeating itself.’
These were unrelated incidents.
Yet just as repeated coincidence becomes inevitability, this region had experienced an abundance of strange occurrences.
The incidents ceased after the elephant statue appeared.
But now that the statue had been destroyed, it was possible to view these past events as recurring.
Professor Jang’s death might not be an ending, but a beginning.
I swallowed hard and pushed back my fatigue with a canned coffee I’d purchased from the Convenience Store.
‘This is absurd. In every way.’
No matter how I thought about it, this didn’t seem like a rational problem.
The best way to end the anxiety was to solve the case, and the surest method for that was to verify everything with my own eyes.
Vroom!
Kang Hyung-seok drove toward the Livestock Farm where the mass deaths had occurred.
After driving deep into the countryside, passing through two villages.
Upon reaching my destination, I checked my phone and stepped out of the car.
Crunch, crunch.
There appeared to be no nearby residences.
A chill settled over the place as if I’d arrived at a Haunted House, and though the sun hung in the sky, it was swallowed by gray clouds, leaving everything dim.
Creak.
Climbing over the wooden fence and entering the Livestock Farm, I slowly surveyed my surroundings.
The ground was thick with dust and fallen leaves, and naturally, there were no animals.
Well, there were remains.
But only the skeleton of a small creature, so it couldn’t be considered evidence of the farm’s former inhabitants.
Crunch, crunch.
As I ventured deeper, I suddenly felt a sense of wrongness and stopped. Then I slowly turned my head toward where I sensed a presence.
There stood a pillar of the Livestock Farm.
‘Claw marks…?’
Narrowing my brow, I approached the pillar, treading through fallen leaves and dust.
I hadn’t been mistaken.
Though they had faded with time, distinct claw marks—like those of a cat—remained clearly visible.
Right around Kang Hyung-seok’s eye level.
Scritch.
After scratching at the mark with his fingernail, he pulled out his phone.
Since this Livestock Farm originally housed pigs, marks at this height weren’t easy to come by.
Certain it was something he couldn’t ignore, he was about to photograph it as documentation when—
“Is someone there?”
A voice that sounded to be in his sixties came whipping from outside the Livestock Farm.
As Kang Hyung-seok lowered his phone and turned his head, he saw the silhouette of a person through the cracked, murky window.
“Hey, what are you doing in there?”
A person.
So Kang Hyung-seok sighed and shoved his phone into his pocket.
“Just passing through.”
“Don’t go in there. Come out. Now.”
Right—it was private property.
As Kang Hyung-seok emerged from the Livestock Farm with an awkward expression, a man in a fluorescent hiking outfit was frowning.
“Why’s a young person like you going in there? Leave. Do you know where you are?”
“I didn’t realize it was abandoned, so I just stepped in for a moment.”
“You’re not from around here, are you? That explains it. Go on, get out of here.”
“By the way, do you happen to know where the owner is?”
Strong wariness bloomed across the man’s face.
So Kang Hyung-seok made every effort to project the impression of a harmless person.
“An acquaintance of mine is thinking of moving to this area. I was just wondering if there was any way to contact the owner.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie.
After all, when Kim Jae-sik saw Professor Jang’s House, he’d grumbled about when he’d ever move to a place like that.
“The House Owner, well….”
“You don’t know?”
“No, well, that is. I’d tell them to move somewhere else.”
“This place is quiet and secluded. If you don’t know, I’ll check inside.”
Just as Kang Hyung-seok bowed his head to leave—
“He passed away. A long time ago.”
“Pardon?”
“He passed away, I’m telling you. So don’t go poking around here. Look somewhere else.”
Kang Hyung-seok exhaled a silent sigh through his slightly parted lips.
Just as he’d suspected.
And at that moment, the man pointed to the opposite side of the Livestock Farm with his hiking stick.
“See that tree over there? You’re young so you might not know, but that’s a Seonangdang—a Village Guardian Shrine. It’s not really a place to build a house.”
“…A Seonangdang?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Over there, that tree with all those things hanging from it.”
Kang Hyung-seok told the Hiker he understood, then immediately moved toward it at a near-run.
The Hiker’s bewildered stare burned into the back of his head—he clearly hadn’t expected such a reaction.
Yet Kang Hyung-seok’s mind remained firmly ensnared by the word Seonangdang.
‘Impossible. The Seonangdang was nearby all this time.’
A Seonangdang is no ordinary tree.
It is a sacred tree.
A shrine that protects the divine.
A marker proclaiming the god’s domain, a tree that prays for the village’s safety.
That such a Seonangdang existed nearby, yet a calamity had befallen the Livestock Farm—it was incomprehensible.
‘Did the god turn away in anger at the farm’s construction? Is it the farm that has brought misfortune upon this village?’
How desperately I wished it were so.
If that were the case, a ritual to appease the god might resolve everything.
But the moment I discovered the Seonangdang, I realized my hope was in vain.
Whiiiiish.
A wind laden with moisture blew, as though rain were about to fall.
Colorful cloth strips hung from the branches fluttered in the breeze, while the pile of stones accumulated at the roots lay deathly still.
Kang Hyung-seok’s face crumbled into hollow despair.
For there was something on the tree trunk that should not have been there.
An IV stand.
An empty IV bag hung from a plastic cord, the kind used on dying or diseased trees.
‘The god has departed.’
There is no god left to protect this village.
As I gazed upon the hollow Seonangdang, a strange mark caught my eye.
“Damn it. Really.”
Kang Hyung-seok spat out a curse and strode toward the Seonangdang, running his palm across the rough bark.
Old though it was, the mark remained vivid.
The same mark that appeared on the Livestock Farm’s pillars.
Deep claw marks from some massive beast were etched grotesquely across the Seonangdang’s trunk, as if severing its neck.
Tracing the marks with my fingers, I looked up at the tree’s crown.
Against the murky sky, the Seonangdang’s branches were skeletal and bare.
Blackened by time, they bore none of the sanctity a Seonangdang should possess.
Instead, an eerie unease and dread had taken their place.
Kang Hyung-seok stared up at the Seonangdang for a long while, then twisted his lips.
Now I understood clearly.
The god had not abandoned this place.
“…It was not Changgwi.”
Deicide had occurred.
Something impossible, even for a malevolent spirit as fierce as Changgwi.
Kang Hyung-seok turned his head sharply.
Mountains—the kind seen anywhere in South Korea—filled his vision in every direction.
The tiger dwelling in the mountain is called the Mountain Lord.
Those killed by the tiger become Changgwi, and the mountain cradling the tiger rose up to encircle them.
“…The tiger killed the god.”
The Tiger Spirit that should have been pinned beneath the elephant statue.
It was roaming this village.
Damn it.
Kang Hyung-seok muttered the curse under his breath as he pulled out his car keys and began running urgently.
***
It was early morning.
The sun had risen, but with the curtains drawn and the sun trapped behind clouds, the motel room was as dark as the dead of night.
Perhaps the psychological shock had been too much.
Kim Jae-sik lay in bed, sleeping deeply like a corpse, long past his usual waking time.
Maybe he simply didn’t want to wake.
It was far too difficult to accept that Professor Jang Jun, someone so close to him, had died.
It was then.
“…Kim… Pro…fessor.”
A voice barely holding together, as though it might break at any moment.
Kim Jae-sik’s eyelids twitched, but he did not wake, and the voice continued.
“…It’s me. Open the… door… please.”
Kim Jae-sik forced his bleary eyes open.
Having just woken from sleep, his mind was not yet fully present.
So he felt no unease at hearing a voice from outside the window, nor at the fact that the voice was not unfamiliar to him.
“Kim… Professor.”
“Ugh, uhhh.”
“Open the… door.”
Kim Jae-sik rose from the bed in a half-dreaming state.
Then, with arms and legs strangely heavy, he fully stood and shuffled zombie-like toward the window.
“Professor Jang, what’s wrong?”
“Open the… window.”
Behind the light-blocking curtain, the voice was Professor Jang Jun’s. Having forgotten that he was dead, Kim Jae-sik reached for the curtain.
And the moment he slowly drew it back,
“Aaaaaaahhhhh!”
He screamed and stumbled backward.
Falling hard on his buttocks, his eyes were wide open as if they might burst from their sockets.
Sleep had completely fled, yet he could not be certain whether what lay before his eyes was reality or nightmare.
“Kim… Professor.”
Professor Jang Jun was at the window.
Only his face suspended in the air, blood streaming from eye sockets devoid of eyes, clinging to something pitch black.
“Open the… window… please.”
Professor Jang Jun had no jaw.
So the voice was being produced by something else connected to him.
Kim Jae-sik’s eyes slowly lifted upward toward it.
It hovered directly above Jang Jun.
Golden eyes blazing with an ancient, primal intelligence, its face a grotesque patchwork of fur and shadow, teeth like daggers bared in a rictus grin.
The creature clung to Jang Jun’s chin, its form warped and distorted like something torn from a folk painting, yet Kim Jae-sik recognized it instantly.
“A… a Tiger Spirit.”
In traditional Korean folk art, magpies and tigers often appeared together in the same composition.
The massive creature pressed against the window pane looked exactly like the tiger from those ancient paintings, its gaze fixed upon Kim Jae-sik with predatory intent.
“Kim… Professor, open the door…”
The words came from Jang Jun’s mouth, though the creature’s jaw moved with them.
When Kim Jae-sik made no move to respond, the thing released a low, guttural growl, and something grotesque unfurled from beneath its arm.
A human arm, slick with blood.
Screech, screech.
Kim Jae-sik’s breathing came in ragged gasps as he watched the claws rake across the window frame.
Even as he watched, the bloodied hand crept forward with deliberate, inexorable slowness toward the window latch.

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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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