Exorcism Specialist Company: Ghost Soul Trading - Chapter 44

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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 44

The Blood Crimson Blade pierced deep into the Controller Ghost’s neck.
I felt the vivid sensation of the blade sinking into the ghost’s flesh.

Crrrk, crrrk, crrrk—

The Controller Ghost’s mouth twitched as if trying to speak to me, but no coherent words emerged.
“What are you trying to say!”
I gripped the Blood Crimson Blade tightly and slashed it sideways with all my strength.
The Controller Ghost’s neck was nearly severed, tilting to the side and dangling precariously.
Without hesitation, I pulled my body back and severed the ghost’s remaining neck with the Ghost Slayer Blade in my other hand.
Shhhhwooosh—
The dangling head flew to the side and dissolved into black smoke.
Simultaneously, the Controller Ghost’s body began to dissolve like dominoes falling in slow motion.
Crackle, crackle, crackle—
The surrounding landscape began to fracture like shattered glass.
Crash—
With a thunderous sound, everything visible around us vanished.
And what appeared was the Shooting Range where I had been with my companions moments before.
Ye-rim and Moon So-ryeong stood with vacant eyes, staring straight ahead, while the Soldier Ghosts in the range had turned their heads 180 degrees, their gazes fixed on me.
Though only the whites of their eyes were visible without pupils, I could distinctly feel their attention directed toward me.
“Manager Lee! Manager Kim!”
I rushed toward them and shouted.
But both remained silent, as if trapped in a hallucination.
Then it happened.
“Hah!”
Moon So-ryeong shook her head vigorously and took a step back.
Her vacant expression suddenly shifted, indicating she had successfully escaped the hallucination.
She looked between me and Ye-rim urgently.
“What? Kim, you didn’t fall into the hallucination?”
“Ah, no. I did, but I came out of it.”
“How?”
“Grandfather scolded me to snap out of it….”
As I answered, I realized something crucial.
Grandfather had awakened me from the hallucination!
“But what exactly is this—”
“—It’s a hallucination. I don’t know what rank that Controller Ghost is, but it cast an illusion on us. If we can’t break free, we’ll lose our minds.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Why so many questions? Haven’t you heard of people possessed by ghosts, driven mad by seeing them? That’s what happens!”
Moon So-ryeong snapped sharply.
“Then we need to wake Manager Yoon quickly!”
“We can’t just wake him carelessly! If we interrupt him while he’s trapped in the hallucination, it could make things worse. We have to eliminate that Controller Ghost.”
Moon So-ryeong glanced around nervously.
“I already eliminated him.”
“Where? Inside the hallucination?”
As she questioned me, I recalled what had just happened.
If the yard in front of the hermitage where Grandfather was had been a hallucination, then slaying the Controller Ghost must have also been within that illusion.
When I didn’t answer, she furrowed her brow and looked up at the Control Officer Watchtower.
The Controller Ghost still stood there, solid and unmoved.
Drip—
That was when it happened.
Tears began streaming down Ye-rim’s vacant eyes.
Moon So-ryeong’s gaze sharpened as she witnessed this.
“We need to capture that Controller Ghost quickly. Manager Yoon is beginning to sink deeper into the hallucination.”
Crying while seeing hallucinations meant one thing.
She was becoming completely consumed by the phenomena within the illusion, her emotions spiraling out of control.
“Grab that thing!”
Moon So-ryeong drew her bowstring taut as she spoke.
I immediately readied myself to charge forward with my Guichal Blade.
Twang—
At the same moment, an arrow flew.
I also lunged toward the Control Officer Watchtower.
Thunk—
The arrow struck the Controller Ghost’s head once more, but again it didn’t vanish.
As I charged at it, I remained wary in case black smoke would billow from all directions like before and trap me in another hallucination—but this time was different.
The ghosts in the shooting range had somehow shifted into a “front sight” stance, standing rigidly like mannequins as they stared at me.
I hadn’t seen the moment they changed position.
It was from this point onward.
Every time I turned my gaze toward the watchtower, the Soldier Ghosts took another step forward.
Soon they appeared directly in front of me, attempting to block my path.
“Get out of the way!”
I swung my Guichal Blade with all my strength.
That was the moment.

Claaaaaang—

With the clang of metal, the Ghost Blade’s strike was deflected.
The Soldier Ghost had blocked it with the rifle held in a ready stance.
In that instant, I could immediately discern what rifle the ghosts were wielding.
It was a Mosin-Nagant rifle used by North Korean forces during the Korean War.
Of course, the wood was split and the barrel was rusted, but its form was unmistakably recognizable.

Crunch, crunch, crunch—

The Soldier Ghost ground its teeth loudly right in front of me, producing a grotesquely unsettling sound.
The nauseating noise echoed through the air.
“Move!”
My only thought was to extract Ye-rim from this hallucination quickly.
I swiftly twisted my body and swung my blade in a different direction.
Thwack—
The ghost that had blocked the Ghost Blade was slashed across its opposite flank and dissipated entirely.
The other ghosts surged forward, attempting to block my path.
Yet strangely, though all the ghosts appeared before me in the blink of an eye, their legs never moved at all.
They glided forward like rigid mannequins, their bodies stiff and motionless as they approached.
“I said move—!”
I lowered my stance deeply, then exploded forward with all the strength I could muster into my legs.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—
The Soldier Ghosts surrounding me were all cleaved apart simultaneously.
Even the ghosts that had attempted to block the Ghost Blade with their rifles were bisected and dissipated together.
Whoooooosh—
Black smoke engulfed my surroundings in an instant.
Moon So-ryeong frowned once more as I vanished from her sight.
But this time, that darkness did not last long.
Before the black smoke could even disperse into the air, I burst upward through it.
Whoosh—!
As I leaped, the black smoke traced a path behind me like a comet’s tail.
With the Ghost Blade gripped firmly in both hands, I thrust the blade toward the Controller Ghost.
“Hyaaaaaah!”
I released a powerful battle cry.
Simultaneously, I swung the blade with all my might.

Whoooosh—
Clang— Clang—
Whoooosh—

It was a tremendous sword strike.
As I swung the blade in a wide horizontal arc, the sword energy erupted from the tip of the blade itself, severing the steel reinforcing bars that supported the Control Officer Watchtower’s roof.
Sparks scattered violently as the slate roof tilted to one side.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
The Controller Ghost’s head, struck directly by the blade, was cleaved clean in half.
Precisely from the right ear to the left ear, split evenly across the nose and cheekbones.
Whoooooosh—
Like a pressure cooker lid flying off, the Controller Ghost’s head shot sideways through the air.
The remaining body of the ghost turned black in an instant.
Crackle-crackle-crackle—
Then, like a balloon filled with black smoke bursting, the Controller Ghost’s body ruptured in multiple places, spewing black smoke everywhere.
Whoooooosh—
Soon it dissipated completely, and the black smoke scattered into the air.
Thud—
I landed on the ground and braced myself with my hands to absorb the impact.
Crash—
The slate roof of the Control Officer Watchtower then fell behind me.
Moon So-ryeong blinked her astonished eyes silently as she watched.
She had thought that with spiritual perception and exorcism abilities alone, even without a Ghost Radar or Ghost Perception Gauge, there would be plenty of room for growth—but now she wondered if that assessment might have been mistaken.
Kim Tae-woo.
Just by wielding that Ghost Perception Gauge, he might already be the strongest.
Thump—
But before that thought could linger, Ye-rim’s legs gave out and she collapsed.
“Manager!”
“Yoon Manager!”
Kim Tae-woo and Moon So-ryeong rushed toward her simultaneously, calling her name.
“Sob—sob sob—”
Ye-rim lay collapsed on the ground, sobbing.
“Yoon Manager! Snap out of it!”
“Manager, are you alright?”
The two approached her side and helped her up.
“Seung-hun, I saw Seung-hun. But he was suffering so much.”
She clutched Moon So-ryeong’s arm and wept sorrowfully.
“Yoon Seung-hun? Your brother? Your brother is already dead. We even performed the ascension ritual for him. What you saw was a hallucination. A soul that has ascended cannot return. You know that well.”
Moon So-ryeong held Ye-rim and spoke to her.
“Sob—sob sob—sob sob—”
Whether Ye-rim heard Moon So-ryeong’s words or not, she simply continued to weep bitterly.
“Snap out of it! Yoon Manager!”
Moon So-ryeong cried out even more loudly.
But Ye-rim remained limp, having completely lost her will.
“Is it because of the hallucination?”
Kim Tae-woo asked.
“The Controller Ghost trapped us in a hallucination. Ghosts of rank 2 and above exploit the weakest part of a person’s psyche to attack. It looks like Kim Manager managed to escape on his own. With my experience, hallucinations don’t really affect me, but Yoon Seung-hun—”
Moon So-ryeong gazed at the slumped Ye-rim and shook her head.
It didn’t seem like Ye-rim would recover quickly.
The fact that her younger brother’s name had come from Ye-rim’s lips meant that regardless of what she’d witnessed, her brother had appeared in the hallucination.
Her younger brother had taken his own life after being enthralled by a Deception Ghost, and since Guihon Trading had even held a memorial service for him, Moon So-ryeong understood perfectly what the deceased brother meant to Ye-rim.
As expected, Ye-rim couldn’t even get up after seeing the hallucination, which meant her mental state had completely shattered.
“We’ll probably need to pull Yoon Seung-hun out of here.”
“How do we pull her out from here right now?”
“We need to withdraw from this field first.”
“Withdraw? After coming all this way? It feels like we’ve already covered half of it.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Well, that’s—”
“Someone needs to help Yoon Seung-hun down the mountain. Can you do it, Kim Manager?”
“If I need to, then I will.”
“Do you think it’s easy to descend a mountain path where ghosts could jump out at any moment while supporting someone? And if I help Yoon Seung-hun down, you’d be left alone. What exactly would you do by yourself from here on? Don’t you remember the scale of the ghosts we’ve encountered so far? Things will only get worse from here, not easier.”
“I understand.”
“So what can we do? We need to withdraw for now. Either Yoon Seung-hun recovers her strength and we come back, or we return with Director Bang or Vice-Chief Cha.”
Moon So-ryeong spoke calmly.
But Kim Tae-woo was reluctant about withdrawing from here.
“Get up. We’re withdrawing.”
Moon So-ryeong helped Ye-rim to her feet.
And she began walking back the way they came.
But Kim Tae-woo remained standing in place, quietly watching Moon So-ryeong.
“What are you doing?”
She asked, furrowing her brow.
“I’ll continue forward.”
At Kim Tae-woo’s words, Moon So-ryeong shot back sharply.
“Kim Manager. I know you can handle a Mute Ghost alone and escape hallucinations by yourself. I know you can chew through most ghosts. But going alone is too dangerous. You never know how or when a ghost might appear. Do you still not understand why the Training Team moves in pairs whenever possible?”
She fired back quickly.
But no matter what she said, Kim Tae-woo’s resolve was already set.
“I understand what you’re saying. But if we retreat now, won’t other ghosts just occupy the spots where we’ve eliminated them? The situation will be exactly the same next time we come.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there. Shouldn’t we take care of Yoon Seung-hun first?!”
“I’ll clear the remaining areas. Please head down to the car first with the director and manager.”
Kim Tae-woo gripped the exorcism sword as he spoke.
Moon So-ryeong realized she wouldn’t be able to convince Kim Tae-woo no matter what.

Exorcism Specialist Company Guihon Trading Chapter 44

Published by
Chau Lens
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yoon Tae-ri
Cover
Lee Chi

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260318158.0044

ⓒ2026, Chau Lens

※ This e-book is a copyrighted work protected under the Copyright Law of the Republic of Korea.
No part or all of this work may be reprocessed in any form without permission from the author and publisher.

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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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