An Office Worker Is Good At Exorcism - Chapter 99

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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 98
Part 2. The Mountain That Bears the Tiger Spirit’s Essence (1)
There exists a term: Tiger Attack.
It was the most fearsome and lethal calamity to befall the Korean peninsula, and Tiger Attacks showed no mercy to time, place, or person.
Thus, Tiger Attacks were sometimes regarded not as incidents, but as catastrophes.
How desperate must our ancestors have been to believe that those destined to suffer a Tiger Attack were marked from birth, and that the curse spread like plague to those nearby?
Our forebears would not even marry into the families of those who had suffered a Tiger Attack.
Kang Hyung-seok drove with a composed expression, yet his mind churned with countless thoughts.
Though it was late afternoon, the weather had turned so foul that darkness pressed down like pitch.
Whoooosh!
“Hey, hyung, the weather’s terrible. Do we really have to do this today?”
The relentless downpour showed no sign of letting up.
Yoon Sang’s voice came weakly, but I could not bring myself to nod in agreement.
A possessed Tiger Spirit, having claimed Professor Jang Jun, now hunted Kim Jae-sik.
“We have to handle this today. No exceptions.”
We could not afford to delay.
If we did, calamity would descend upon this region just as it had before the elephant statue was erected.
The news alone reported over a dozen victims.
When livestock were added to the count, hundreds of lives had been claimed.
“…Yes.”
Yoon Sang, sensing the weight of the moment, swallowed hard and replied. I checked the navigation for our remaining travel time.
We would arrive soon.
Yet I had never intended to stop at Banyasa Temple.
Vroom.
I parked the car at a considerable distance from the temple entrance, and Yoon Sang’s gaze found me, tinged with confusion.
I unfastened my seatbelt, and in the car’s interior, where the overhead light between the driver and passenger seats cast an amber glow, I spoke.
“You search the temple. I’m heading into the mountain.”
Yoon Sang’s face stiffened as he was unfastening his own seatbelt.
“What? You’re going into the mountain, hyung?”
“The temple will be safer.”
“No, wait. Hold on, hyung.”
Click.
I opened the car door, umbrella in hand, and moved to the trunk. There, I began stuffing a bag full of plums I had packed, and throughout, Yoon Sang’s gaze remained fixed upon me.
“Hyung! You were planning to go into the mountain at this hour? In this rain…”
“I have something to rely on.”
A sacred blade and the Shaman’s Bell.
I possessed two divine artifacts.
Besides, if Yoon Sang were to be bewitched or caught in danger in the mountain, that would only complicate matters further.
Thud!
I closed the trunk and approached the passenger side, opening my mouth to speak.
“If anything comes up, contact me right away. Start by searching the Mountain Spirit Shrine.”
“Yes, hyung.”
Kang Hyung-seok shouldered his bag and turned toward the Mountain.
As the car pulled away, Yoon Sang stepped out and sent me a worried glance.
Even without looking, I could feel the prickling sensation at the back of my head.
Whoooosh—!
The rain fell with relentless fury.
Kang Hyung-seok gripped his umbrella firmly as he strode toward the Mountain.
Near the Temple, there were no lights to pierce the darkness, and soon absolute blackness enveloped me.
Once completely separated from Yoon Sang, I began climbing the Mountain, now swallowed by night.
Squelch!
The earth, heavy with rain, was slippery, and the mingled scents of rain and mud assaulted my nostrils. A hiking trail existed, but it was not meant for me.
Slip.
I ducked under the rope and ventured into pathless terrain, shielding myself from the rain with my umbrella as I climbed.
This was the rear slope of Banyasa Temple.
A mountain bearing a stone cairn shaped like a Tiger with its tail raised high.
A mountain said to harbor the essence of the Tiger Spirit.
As I ventured deep into that mountain, an unease settled over me.
‘A mountain at night….’
The mountain by day and the mountain by night were entirely different entities.
Saturated with yin energy, they emanated an aura that even those with little spiritual sensitivity found repellent.
Creak, screech.
An otherworldly sound seized my attention completely.
I turned my gaze toward it and saw a spirit—its body charred black, its jaw missing—watching me while shoving earth down its throat.
Judging by its clothing, it was a Victim Spirit from the Joseon era or even earlier.
Saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it, saw it.
The Victim Spirit’s thoughts seeped into my mind, and it began crawling toward me with alarming speed.
Ding!
But the Victim Spirit’s movement halted the moment the Shaman’s Bell in my bag rang out.
The Shaman’s Bell—a sacred object that wards off malevolent forces.
The frozen Victim Spirit watched me with wide, glaring eyes, and I resumed my ascent.
Throughout my climb, the Victim Spirit’s gaze remained fixed upon me.
I continued to see such Victim Spirits the entire way up the Mountain.
As I ventured deeper and deeper into the darkness, I abandoned my umbrella.
Then I tucked the exorcism blade into my pocket and proceeded forward with only the Shaman’s Bell and a lantern in hand.
Into the Mountain, where rain fell with cruel, suffocating blackness.
***
Whoooosh!
Yoon Sang, draped in a raincoat, crept cautiously forward while surveying the illuminated Banyasa Temple.
He’d nearly been spotted twice already.
But this wasn’t Yoon Sang’s first rodeo.
He’d evaded local residents and security guards countless times to infiltrate haunted houses, and that hard-won experience was proving invaluable now.
‘Ah, so that’s why hyung sent me to the temple.’
Yoon Sang moved with practiced stealth, easily justifying his own assumptions.
Kang Hyung-seok had tasked him with locating and documenting the Mountain Spirit Shrine.
Camera in hand, recording as he went, Yoon Sang swept the beam across the surroundings in search of the Mountain Spirit Shrine.
“Huff, huff.”
The rain made his breathing ragged, and the footage trembled—which was actually perfect.
The raw, visceral quality would be fantastic for broadcast later.
Having thoroughly explored the temple’s interior, he boldly ventured outward.
The Mountain Spirit Shrine was a structure influenced by Buddhist architecture.
Yet since it was dedicated to the mountain spirit rather than Buddha, the possibility of it standing outside the temple grounds couldn’t be dismissed.
Whoooosh! Splash, splash.
With poor drainage soaking the cuffs of his pants, Yoon Sang pressed deeper into increasingly remote territory.
‘Mountain Spirit Shrine, Mountain Spirit Shrine.’
Even if it was hidden away, it might still occupy a conspicuous location.
With that thought, Yoon Sang widened his eyes and ventured further down the darkening path, determined not to miss it.
After walking for some time, he sensed something wrong.
Whoooosh.
Only the sound of rain reached his ears.
Though the temple wasn’t far, no other sounds carried to him—no insects, no birds, nothing.
This was dangerous.
‘They said never to enter a house without insects…’
Wandering through haunted houses had taught me certain truths.
Places devoid of insects were dangerous.
The toxic and malevolent energy was so potent that even insects couldn’t survive there.
Indeed, the truly haunted locations he’d explored were always unnaturally barren of life.
A place where nothing should exist.
This was exactly such a location.
Gulp.
Swallowing hard, he proceeded with deliberate, measured steps far slower than before.
Though Kang Hyung-seok had asked this of him, the desire to capture compelling footage for broadcast also drove him forward.
After walking further still.
Click.
Now sufficiently distant from the temple, Yoon Sang retrieved a lantern from his bag and shone it toward a shadowy mass barely visible in the distance.
Rain-soaked branches and leaves hung limp and drooping.
Raindrops fell like cascading tears.
And a structure that appeared to have been built a very long time ago.
It was a Mountain Shrine, roughly two meters in height and about one meter across.
“I… I found it. I found it.”
Speaking so his voice would be captured on his phone, he trembled as he walked toward the Mountain Shrine.
And then he saw it.
The door of the Mountain Shrine was open.
Through the gap, a black, skeletal hand protruded.
A mummified hand, drained of all vitality and vigor, was illuminated by the lantern’s glow.
“Uh…”
He made an involuntary sound, his lips trembling violently.
It wasn’t because of the hand in the Mountain Shrine.
A chilling presence sliced through the air like a dagger, grazing across his cheek.
Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter.
His upper and lower teeth clacked together as Yoon Sang slowly turned his head.
And there, in the undergrowth, he saw a face watching him.
“…What?”
It was clearly a human head, but its position was far too low.
The head was positioned where knees should be, but what he couldn’t comprehend most was that person’s expression.
A cheerfully smiling mouth and crinkled eyes.
And eyes that gleamed with an unsettling sheen.
Rustle.
The face began drawing closer as it pushed through the undergrowth.
Raindrops dripped from the long body and the mottled, striped fur.
Splash, splash.
As the beast’s paws splashed through the water pooled on the ground, Yoon Sang felt his mind go white with terror.
Changgwi.
A spirit with the body of a tiger was approaching, staring directly at Yoon Sang.
***
With each step forward, the lantern’s light wavered and danced.
Each flicker revealed light-reflecting streams and trees drenched in moisture.
As Kang Hyung-seok ventured deeper, an overwhelming sense of wrongness gripped him.
‘Is this truly reality?’
The aura surrounding him was so unsettling it invited doubt.
No presence of living things could be felt.
Even the Victim Spirits that had crowded the mountain were nowhere to be seen.
This was a mountain that harbored the Tiger Spirit’s essence.
The deeper into the Deep Mountain he ventured, the heavier the aura became, repelling all who dared approach.
Thud.
And so Kang Hyung-seok moved toward that very aura.
Come forth. Appear. You must.
The powerful, dangerous aura that barred his passage spoke to him in those very words.
Ting, tink, ting.
As he walked, Kang Hyung-seok held the Shaman’s Bell before him, raindrops pattering against it. Then, ringing the bell, he shifted his other hand toward his chest where the spirit blade rested.
‘The Tiger Spirit is the Mountain Lord.’
Waarang! Warang!
‘The Mountain Lord is a king, and keeps nothing by its side that is not its own.’
Waaraang! Waaraang!
‘Such a being calls to me.’
Waaraang! Waaraaaaang!
‘The Mountain Lord desires me.’
It seeks to claim me.
It shakes its massive head, crushes my spine with thunderous forelimbs, and tears at my throat with sickle-like claws.
Because it calls to me, I understand its intent.
Waaraang! Waaraang!
Kang Hyung-seok shook the Shaman’s Bell, sending droplets scattering in all directions, and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Come forth.”
You are not the only one who can call.
I too can summon you.
“I have come here—now show yourself.”
Waaraang!
“Come out!”
The moment Kang Hyung-seok’s cry echoed across the silent forest.
The wind ceased.
Rain continued its gentle patter, yet the air’s movement froze as though he had entered a sealed chamber.
Whoooosh.
His breath crystallized white before him, and his skin prickled as if pricked by countless thorns.
And then, pale white faces began to emerge from the darkness.
Changgwi—a dozen or more of them appeared.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
The Changgwi approached with measured footsteps, then halted before Kang Hyung-seok and parted to either side, clearing a path.
As if beckoning me forward.
Observing the motionless Changgwi, I advanced with the Shaman’s Bell leading the way.
I moved forward to meet the Tiger Spirit that awaited at the end of this passage.

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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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