Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work - Chapter 367
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story, I Still Have to Go to Work Episode 367
“Ooh.”
Lee Seong-hae raised his head.
Raindrops were falling on his nose.
Before he knew it, dark clouds had gathered in the sky and rain was pouring down with a pitter-patter.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes.”
And beside her was someone running to find their destination.
It was Go Young-eun.
-Oh, I’ll follow Sanyang.
Lee Seong-hae had decided to help this employee and left the resort to come out to Segwang Special City.
And in Go Young-eun’s anxious hands, the map she received from the mascot was tightly gripped and spread open.
“….”
She had already come quite a distance.
Almost crossing the entire city, she ran into the residential area and continued walking.
Without rest, she kept looking at the map while walking along the street….
Then suddenly stopped in her tracks.
“….”
In front of them stood a house.
A somewhat old detached house in this area scheduled for redevelopment.
Navy blue roof, red brick walls.
Go Young-eun stood there blankly, looking at it with trembling eyes.
With the familiarity her body remembered.
With the intimacy that remained even though her knowledge had disappeared.
She recognized it.
The house.
A person came running out from inside.
Someone she knew.
Family.
“Young-eun!!”
“…Mom,”
Go Young-eun tightly embraced her family member who kept repeating ‘Oh my goodness, what is this, oh my goodness.’ And she experienced relief and surging emotions throughout her entire body.
‘Oh.’
Lee Seong-hae watched this warmly without any disturbance.
He couldn’t understand that thrilling sensation, but it seemed like a good thing….
Then he suddenly raised his head.
“….”
The rain had stopped.
And a strange vibration began to be felt faintly from the walls and floor.
“…!”
Go Young-eun quickly turned her head from her family’s embrace.
Someone familiar with supernatural phenomena and darkness keenly noticed the abnormal symptoms.
“Deputy Manager, just now….”
“Oh.”
“…Was that from the direction of City Hall?”
The direction the others went.
Where Kim Sol-eum was.
“Hmm. Just a moment.”
Lee Seong-hae took out a small telescope-shaped item and checked ahead.
Far in the distance, the Segwang City Hall Building that couldn’t be seen properly due to the dark clouds and hazy visibility.
“There seems to be something on the rooftop. Hmm….”
“….”
Under the dark sky, Go Young-eun caught her breath.
Would they be safe?
…Even though she had already set her priorities, piercing moral judgment, anguish, and internal conflict rose up, and she finally asked through gritted teeth.
“What kind of situation does it look like?”
“Umm….”
Lee Seong-hae didn’t notice her conflicted psychology at all, but he could clearly describe what he saw.
So he answered with a confident voice.
“It looks like a festival!”
I raised my head.
Sound echoed above the sky.
Listen!
The voice of the lead chanter.
Behind it, clear percussion sounds rang out in rising intensity.
Chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang-chang…
Between the sounds of kkwaenggwari and bells filled with syncopation and ornamental sounds, the heavy sound of a gong resonated.
Woong-
I looked at the face of Hae-geum Agent holding the gong.
Those firm eyes.
The massive gong in her hands.
“Heaven and earth spirits ring out in satisfaction.”
‘Kwang-cheol Chasing’ is a ritual that becomes the prototype of rain ceremonies.
And if there’s a format similarly observed in primitive rain ceremonies of all cultures in the world… it’s earnestly crying out to the high one who governs rain.
It’s natural.
Since they’re asking for rain.
They try to negotiate, to please the other party.
But.
“Cry and wail!”
Kwang-cheol chasing is different.
This is an attempt to drive away natural disasters symbolized by drought.
Exorcism, banishment.
Not negotiating with the opponent, but the act of driving them away.
“Get out of here!”
One of the traditionally oldest exorcism rituals.
However, there is another unique aspect.
This is not something that some capable superstitious authority conducts alone in solemn ceremony.
A crowd.
People living together gathering to create a commotion.
That is exactly the Kwang-cheol chase.
Ooooooooooo!
Shouting at the top of their lungs, they beat the drums with great spirit.
The golden disc-shaped kkwaenggwari vibrates and trembles like a hummingbird’s wingbeats.
After raising arms high as if to reach the sky, Agent Hae-geum who struck the gong takes the lead and strides boldly across the rooftop.
As the dragon coils around clouds in the sky, the agent leaps across the rooftop.
Running.
Are you trying to chase away drought!
Then you must ride the mountain ridges and make loud noises to confuse Kwang-cheol.
If there are no mountains here.
This massive building shall be the mountain.
Ooooooooooo!
They leap and play on the rooftop.
Like a traditional folk performance.
The performing feet move back and forth over the rooftop’s railings, ladders, and water tanks, tracing the contours of all the terrain features on the rooftop.
There’s no sign of the precariousness that might make them fall below at any moment. Vigorous and spirited quick steps.
And following the leader holding the gong, those with instruments and those clapping create a harmony that sounds like discord
Ooooooooooo!
The massive gong sound as if tearing the sky.
The kkwaenggwari sound.
The bell sound.
Clapping.
All those intense explosive sounds create highs and lows forming a harmonious commotion that shoots up to the sky above the rooftop.
Chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang chang…
At that sound, the dragon made of waterways resonates its scales and interior.
Ripples spread over the waterways, moving more vividly as if awakening.
…Well, this is something.
Massive eyes look down below the rooftop through thick clouds, but intense and chaotic sound waves bounce off, metallically obscuring the view again.
The disaster’s rumbling waves of displeasure are canceled out by the noise.
I realize.
All this sacred noise serves the dual purpose of exclusion and expulsion toward the target to be driven away, and protecting the minds of those conducting the ritual.
“Don’t stay there!”
It doesn’t stop.
There is no set rhythm. This primordial ritual, where such details weren’t standardized, naturally leaves the choice of rhythm to the crowd.
Naturally, the most familiar rhythms harmonize with each other.
Gutgeori.
The sky becomes distorted.
“Come on, let’s go, let’s go!”
I opened a water bottle. Following alongside Agent Choi, I sprinkle it.
The agent shakes the bells as if dancing, quickly getting the water I scatter onto the bells like performing a trick.
And Section Chief Lee Ja-heon hung bells at the end of a steel railing he had torn from the rooftop, using it as a pole.
When Kwang-cheol becomes confused and turns his head around
Splash water on his nose.
This is a procedure derived from the tradition that Kwang-cheol with water in his nose can no longer breathe fire.
Here, fire is naturally symbolic, and its meaning is…
‘Making it so Kwang-cheol can no longer bring disaster to this land.’
This was interpreted as the motion of shaking water droplets toward the sky.
But here, since that strange disaster is actually visible in the sky…
“Let’s go!”
People head toward the mountain peak.
To conduct the ritual from the closest place.
Above the rooftop entrance.
Up to the penthouse.
They leap up as if filled with spirit.
Following footsteps and the explosive sounds of percussion instruments resonate through the sky.
Oooooooooooo!
A strange certainty.
The sensation felt at the end of the ritual.
It tingles.
‘It’s working.’
The pleasure of knowing the exact answer when solving a problem, the sense of achievement just before taking a step when running alone first toward the finish line, the anticipation when turning the corner of an alley just before arriving home!
The intense premonition of the ritual conductor and participants envelops me.
This will succeed.
And I certainly wasn’t the only one who felt that.
Block the disaster
Make it fall flat!
Don’t let it sit on the mountain ridge
Make it get up and run away!
I feel the movements and footsteps of the people around me fitting together to an eerily perfect degree.
A kind of trance state.
It seems like afterimages remain from the movements of every being on the rooftop.
All the golden movements of percussion instruments and the trajectories of water droplets falling from clapping hands and bells draw lines like patterns.
The dragon rides those lines and undulates in the sky.
Everyone intuitively knows that all of this is heading toward completion.
However, what that means is….
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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