Chapter 14
Exorcist.
It's a job you hear about often, but very few people have actually met an exorcist. Part of that is because there aren't that many people talking about evil spirits and the like, but when something occult happens, people usually look for a shaman, not an exorcist.
But what if the shaman you visited confidently declared that you were absolutely going to die? What if even a supposedly gifted shaman couldn't offer a proper solution? Who should you turn to then?
“Me.”
Seo-ah said.
“I'm a fairly famous exorcist around here. I've even caught evil spirits that shamans gave up on.”
“Should you even be famous? The Bureau would be keeping a close eye on you.”
“The Bureau lets exorcists slide too. It's occult territory, not Mysticism, to begin with. As long as you don't openly advertise that you're a mage, there's no problem. If they suspected every exorcist, the gifted shamans would have been wiped out long ago.”
It made sense. Ian nodded.
A Busan evening as the sun was setting.
The two of them walked down the street and went into a café. It was the meeting place where the exorcism client was waiting.
A staff member gave them the usual customer-service greeting, and Seo-ah checked her phone as she headed up to the second floor. Ian followed her.
Maybe because it was evening, the café had an awkwardly large number of people. Still, the second floor was fairly quiet. Only a few college students were sitting there, tapping away on laptops.
As soon as Seo-ah reached the second floor, she looked around, spotted a man trembling especially badly, and sat down across from him. Ian cautiously took a seat beside her.
The man flinched at their sudden appearance. Then, after confirming that the two of them were human, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Mr. Lee Hyun-do? You're the one, right?”
Seo-ah asked.
Lee Hyun-do nodded with a haggard face.
“Yes, yes. That's me.”
“I'll get straight to the point. You sent a message saying you went into an abandoned house and seem to have gotten a ghost attached to you. Could you tell me the details?”
“Ah, understood.”
The man's story was this.
The most famous haunted house and abandoned building in Busan. He'd heard rumors that an evil spirit came out of the house standing alone in the mountains, so he went there with friends to post about it online.
At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Like any other haunted house, there were drawings on the walls and strange writing everywhere. The only thing on the floor was trash,
But the moment they opened a closet in the house, everything changed.
“The writing and drawings carved into the walls started moving, r-right in real time. And then a woman's figure appeared, c-clear as day.”
That was clearly an abnormal phenomenon.
Ian thought as he downed the coffee he'd ordered.
“At first I thought it was just a prank. B-but my friends who came with me froze like stones the moment they saw the picture that appeared out of nowhere. And... and they started clawing at their own faces, screaming that they had to become like that picture.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“I-I ended up having no choice but to get the two of them out of the house. But the next day, one of my friends died. T-the cause of death was said to be suicide.”
Seo-ah nodded calmly. It was the reaction of someone who had already expected it.
“That day my friend died, the ghost appeared in my dream. It was the woman drawn on the walls of the haunted house. The ghost stared at me from above the bed and threw my friend's head at me. A 1 was carved into my friend's forehead.”
“A sacrifice.”
“Y-yes?”
“I said sacrifice. That evil spirit is killing you and your friends to grow its power. Since it's connected to evil spirits, it's only natural.”
Seo-ah said as she sipped her coffee. The man's face went slack.
“Th-then...!”
“There's a number 3 written on your forehead. Looks like you'll be the third to die. How many people went into the haunted house with you?”
“F-four in total, including me...”
“Hah. Four people, of all things.”
Seo-ah let out a snort of laughter.
“You've met every condition there is. Two men and two women went into the haunted house, right?”
“...! How did you...!”
“Exactly how many days ago did your friend die?”
Seo-ah neatly ignored Hyun-do's question. After a brief hesitation, he answered.
“...Six days ago.”
“By tomorrow, another one will die. I heard everything I needed.”
Clink.
Seo-ah set down the black coffee cup she had been drinking from and leaned her upper body slightly forward. The man who met her sharp gaze flinched.
“So? What do you want? To drive out the evil spirit? Or to be freed from the curse?”
“...C-can you do both?”
“If you kill the evil spirit, the curse will be lifted too.”
“Th-then please exorcise it.”
“The fee is six million won. Please make the transfer.”
Seo-ah said with a smile. The man swallowed hard and immediately wired a hefty sum into Seo-ah's bank account.
The transfer was completed.
Seo-ah poked Ian in the side with a finger and stood up.
“Thank you. The exorcism will be finished before tonight is over, so don't worry and get some sleep.”
“I-is it really over just like that?”
“Yes. Then we'll be going. Come back if you ever have another problem like this.”
Seo-ah left the café after saying that. Ian followed behind her.
He took a sip of the coffee he'd brought along and opened his mouth to speak.
“Six million won isn't as much as I expected. I heard most shamans can rake in at least ten million from a ritual.”
“My net profit is higher. I don't have anything to prepare.”
Seo-ah let out a little laugh and called a taxi.
That was true.
The costs of a gut ceremony start with fruit and pile on all kinds of other expenses. You need people too, and you have to rent a ritual hall.
By contrast, Seo-ah needed none of that. As long as she had her body, she could summon and kill evil spirits and anything else.
Not only was the efficiency absurdly high, the net profit was too. No wonder she made exorcism her profession. If she could pull in at least six million won per job, it made sense that she'd set up her workshop the way she did.
‘Maybe I should try being an exorcist too.’
A thought that suddenly came to him. But Ian shook his head inwardly.
For exorcism work, Ian had absolutely no talent as a shaman.
Even if he had a means of catching evil spirits, he wouldn't be able to find the ones that intentionally hid themselves. Since he couldn't drag them in by the hair like Seo-ah, the amount he earned wouldn't be anywhere near as impressive as hers.
‘For now, let me check the request from a place called Cartel and then consider it.’
While he was thinking, the taxi Seo-ah had called arrived. The taxi soon sped off toward its destination.
As expected of a Busan taxi, it got them near the haunted house far earlier than the estimated arrival time. The two of them paid the fare, climbed the mountain, and stood right in front of the haunted house.
The haunted house was already collapsing. A tiny brick house so small it was hard to even call it a house. It was strange that a place like that still existed in this day and age, but as long as it existed, there was no room for doubt. Ian took the grimoire in hand and softly flipped through its pages.
“I'll handle the exorcism. It seems like a fairly strong evil spirit, so I'll put it in a glass bottle.”
“Oh, really?”
At her next words, Ian closed the grimoire.
“Is there anything I can help with?”
“Nope. You can just watch.”
“In that case, sure.”
Ian put the grimoire back in his bag and followed Seo-ah, who was walking ahead, into the haunted house.
“…….”
The moment they crossed the threshold, a cold chill swept across his entire body. A coldness ordinary people couldn't feel, perceptible only to those sensitive to Mysticism.
It seemed the story about an evil spirit was true after all. Ian let out a low groan and watched Seo-ah's back as she strode toward the master bedroom.
As if she were used to this sort of thing, she showed no particular reaction and stood in the center of the master bedroom.
The walls were packed with the drawings Hyun-do had mentioned.
But it wasn't the face of an ordinary woman; it was the grinning face of a woman twisted and crumpled out of shape. The area around it was red as if painted with blood. The large number 1 written on the ceiling had a slash through it.
It wasn't hard to infer the meaning. It must mean they'd already caught and killed the first victim.
Seo-ah casually swept her gaze over the master bedroom and muttered in a low voice.
“It's a stronger evil spirit than I thought.”
“Then is exorcism impossible?”
“If it were an occult-style exorcism, then yes.”
Seo-ah smiled and pulled a container of bone powder from inside her coat.
“But I'm a mage.”
Click.
The container opened. Seo-ah reached in, grabbed a fistful of finely ground bone powder, and threw it onto the floor.
With a whoosh, the bone powder was scattered like salt. In the dark, blood-red room, the particles glittered like starlight.
“You, evil spirit that devours humans.”
Seo-ah began chanting an incantation. Ian took a step back, and the guardian spirit that always stood behind her pulled the knife embedded in its forehead and took it in hand. The guardian spirit's blood splattered onto the bone powder scattered on the floor.
At that moment, the bone powder gathered together and began drawing a circle on the floor. Seo-ah stared at the circle with cold eyes and reached her hand out to the side.
“I myself call you forth, so cast off your shadow and show your form.”
The guardian spirit lightly cut Seo-ah's arm. As the blood dropped onto the circle, the spinning bone powder all stopped at once and began converging toward the center of the circle. A moment later, something was pulled up from beneath it.
[Aaaagh!!]
The evil spirit, its hair snagged in the bone powder, slowly emerged head first. Seo-ah skillfully stopped the bleeding and threw a glance at the guardian spirit.
The guardian spirit nodded and swung the knife in its hand.
Slash!
With a vicious sound, one of the evil spirit's arms flew through the air. The spirit widened its eyes and screamed at Seo-ah, glaring at her.
[You child of humans! So you've truly gone mad with wanting to die! Fine! I shall personally curse you!!]
Seo-ah gave no response and put her hand into her coat pocket.
Slash!
The knife moved once more. One of the evil spirit's legs flew off.
[Aaaagh! Why! Why can't my body move! No, how are you handling me like this in the first place! I'll kill you! I'll tear you apart and kill you!]
Slash!
[Stop! Stop cutting me! Are you truly not afraid of what the future holds? You little wench, know your place!]
Slash! Crrrk!!
[Can we at least talk first, please? We haven't even said a word yet, so why are you cutting off our limbs first? Hic!]
With all its limbs gone, the evil spirit collapsed onto the floor and burst into tears.
Only then did Seo-ah approach the evil spirit and crouch down.
“You've folded already?”
[Y-yes?]
She didn't answer. Seo-ah immediately opened the lid of the fairly large glass bottle she had tucked at her waist and pressed the opening to the evil spirit's head.
“Get in.”
[W-what, suddenly what, o-oh, ooh?! Oooohk! Hooohk!]
Before the evil spirit could even finish speaking, its body melted into a limp mass and was sucked into the glass bottle. After confirming the swirling form of the evil spirit inside the bottle, Seo-ah smiled with satisfaction and closed the lid.
Then she turned around with a satisfied look and walked over to Ian.
“Exorcism's over. Let's go back.”
“...Yeah.”
Ian followed her with a bitter smile.
The exorcism ritual had ended much faster than expected.
The two of them hung around at a nearby café for a bit to enjoy a little downtime, then returned to the workshop.