episode_0015

A car accident happened to Ayoung’s parents.

I couldn’t think it was an ordinary accident. Ayoung’s parents were on their way to get a spirit jar to seal the ghost. There was no way the severed head ghost would leave them alone. They must have tried to somehow interfere and prevent him from receiving the new liquor jar.

“… … Hmm.”

Tears flowed down Ayoung’s cheeks. Now the next target of the severed head ghost was Ayoung.

Sarah spoke to Ayoung, who was crying.

“It’s okay. We’ll solve it.”

“Really… ?”

“I am the daughter of a shaman. I know how to exorcise ghosts. In the past, there was a ghost disturbance in our class, and Jinwoo and I solved it.”

Ayoung, who was shedding tears, looked at me and Sarah. Of course, our class president, Ayoung, knew about the ghost disturbance that occurred at the beginning of the semester. The ghost of a girl who died 10 years ago was making a fuss.

“You mean that strange thing that happened in the classroom at that time? I thought somehow the strange things had stopped… .”

“That’s right. We exterminated the girl’s ghost. So from now on, I want you to follow what I tell you.”

“Okay! I’ll do whatever you tell me!”

Ayoung wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and bowed her head towards me.

“Jinwoo… ! I’m sorry for lying to you and not contacting you until now. I’m really sorry for hiding things about my uncle.”

I received an apology from Ayoung.

About the things I kept quiet about and hid about household chores.

“I will forgive you, so raise your head.”

To be honest, I was angry that I lied. Still, it wasn’t something worth blaming Ayoung for. The problem was the parents who told their daughter to keep her mouth shut.

“First, let’s take Ayoung to Hyehwadang. Because the shrine in our house is a place where evil spirits cannot enter.”

Hyehwadang (惠化堂).

It was the name given to Sarah’s house, the party’s house. I heard that evil spirits cannot easily enter a shrine, which is a space for worshiping spirits. This means that Sarah’s house is the perfect place to protect Ayoung.

We took Ayoung to Hyehwadang. A shaman’s house engraved with the character 卍, which means a good omen. When I entered the house, Sarah’s parents were nowhere to be seen again today.

“Sera, where have your parents gone?”

“You left the house empty because you were busy. There are a lot of people calling my parents from all over.”

“It’s hard to see your parents’ faces… .”

We were the only ones in the house. But there was no need to worry. We had Sarah, the daughter of a shaman. Se-ra took A-young to the shrine and told her not to come out.

“Do not come out of the shrine until the exorcism is over. Even if someone calls from outside, just ignore them. No one is coming to my house today.”

“Ah, okay.”

Sera tightly closed the door to the shrine where Ayoung was.

I asked Sarah something I was curious about.

“How are you going to exorcise the severed head ghost? Are you going to drive them out by biting away ghosts like last time and make them become Buddha by offering offerings?”

“The situation is different this time. The object we saw last time was still someone worth trying to talk to. But the severed head ghost has already committed murder in his lifetime.”

“Did you say that you murdered your parents and committed suicide?”

“Yes, you are a suicidal person. Moreover, he is a ghost who has been imprisoned in the Shinju Complex for a long time and is extremely resentful of him. Trying to talk to him peacefully is the same as talking to a wild beast.”

Is it a wild beast? The situation was definitely different from when the girl ghost was consecrated to Buddhahood. There was no way that a severed-headed ghost who had already committed murder would calmly attain Buddhahood. He wouldn’t stop until Ayoung ate his entire family.

“Then?”

“Not by attaining Buddhahood, but by force. You said there was a corpse’s hair in the wine jar. I need to burn my hair. There is a severed head ghost.”

You have to burn your hair.

I touched the silver-plated Zippo lighter in my pocket. The time has finally come to use the Zippo lighter that my father gave me as a gift. It was worth carrying around with me all the time.

“Jinwoo, do you have a Zippo lighter?”

“Of course. I always carry it with me.”

“Good! I’ll bring the items needed for the exorcism, so please wait.”

Sarah went to Hyehwadang’s warehouse.

After a while, I couldn’t help but be surprised when I saw what Sarah had brought.

It was two swords.

“It’s a new knife, right?”

It’s not like an ordinary kitchen knife used when biting a ghost. The blade was curved like a scimitar, and a tassel made of red thread was attached to the end of the hilt. It was a new knife used by shamans during exorcism.

Sarah explained what a knife was.

“This is a military sword among new swords. The martial arts sword contains the dignity of the gods. It means that you have the power to cut down ghosts.”

Gunungkal was a new sword used to serve the general god.

Sarah handed me a sword. Because it was reduced to the size of a knife, I was able to accept the Gunwoong knife without difficulty.

“You can kill ghosts with this? Are you saying that if you stab it with a sword, the ghost will die?”

“They are already dead, but they will not die again. You can only temporarily deter actions by giving them a spiritual shock. To get rid of evil spirits, you have to burn the source of power.”

I remembered the last time I faced a ghost with a kitchen knife. At that time, even if I swung a kitchen knife, it would only pass by the spirit body in vain, but if I swung a military knife, it would be a different story.

━━Sereung

I pulled the sword out of the scabbard.

The blade illuminated by the moonlight radiated sharp light.

In addition to the gunungkal, Sarah handed me mugwort rolled up like a battery.

“This is unclean mugwort?”

“Yes.”

It’s unfair.

It was also called false mugwort.

It was a shamanic item used to drive away unclean energy.

“When burning the hair of a corpse, burn wormwood as well. Only then can you truly exorcise evil spirits.”

I took the mugwort and nodded.

We left Hyehwadang with a bag containing a military knife, mugwort, and a flashlight.

*

1 o’clock in the morning.

It was about time Sarah and I arrived at the apartment. It was time for everyone to go to bed, so most of the lights in the apartment were turned off. Unlike usual, the apartment felt eerie and eerie, like an abandoned house.

We took the stairs to the third floor.

Room 302.

I walked down the hallway and arrived in front of Ayoung’s house. Ayoung’s house, where all the family had left, was ridiculously quiet.

“Open.”

“Be careful.”

There must be a severed head ghost in this house right now. I nervously pressed the door lock code. Before leaving Hyehwadang, I heard the house password from Ayoung.

━━Kkieeeeik!

As I turned the handle, the front door opened with an ominous sound. We entered the house with our shoes on. The interior of room 302 was dark with the lights off. The outlines of the furniture at first glance looked like monsters.

“The light does not turn on.”

I pressed the switch near the front door, but the fluorescent light did not turn on. Room 302, where we arrived, had a power outage. Sarah and I took out flashlights from our bags. I put the rolled up mugwort in my pocket along with a Zippo lighter.

“Is there no one inside? It’s so quiet.”

“Well… .”

We were looking inside the house with a flashlight.

A loud sound suddenly rang out from behind me.

━━Boom

The front door that was open when I came in was slammed shut. The door closed without anyone touching it. I quickly went back and tried the door handle, but the front door wouldn’t open.

“The door won’t open!”

“Trying to open it is in vain. Because it’s a ghost’s prank.”

As soon as I heard Sarah’s words, my whole body became cold. We were trapped in this house because the door wouldn’t open. The severed head ghost was definitely in this house. I returned to Sarah’s side and looked around again.

Spacious living room.

Kitchen and bathroom.

Several rooms connected to the living room.

There was no need to tour the entire house.

We thought we knew where the severed head ghost was hiding.

“Where is Shinju Complex?”

“It’s the master bedroom! It was over there.”

He raised his finger and pointed to the main room of the house. This is where the broken Shinju complex was located. The door to the master bedroom was tightly closed. We illuminated the door with the light of our flashlight.

The door to the master bedroom slowly opened.

A man’s head popped out through the crack in the door.

The man with his hair falling down looked at us and started laughing from ear to ear.

━━Ihihihihi! Hehehehe!

It was a severed head ghost. Unlike when I saw it in the dark management room, I could now clearly see the ghost. Because we were shining our flashlights on him.

A head floating in the air with only its neck hanging down.

Her long flowing hair wriggled like a snake.

An evil spirit trying to kill a family has revealed itself to us.

━━Hee hee hee!

At some point, the laughter stopped.

The door opened wide and a severed head ghost flew into the living room. The speed was faster than I expected, so much so that I was embarrassed. It was clever that it didn’t attack us right away. It was flying around the living room, making our vision dizzy.

The flashlight’s light couldn’t catch up with him.

It was the moment when the head floating in the air melted into the darkness.

In the blink of an eye, a severed head ghost rushed towards me.

“Qu… !”

I quickly jumped to the side and dodged the ghost’s head. However, the moment I thought I had dodged it, the wriggling ghost’s hair reached out towards me like a snake. It’s not a speed you can avoid just by looking at it.

The ghost’s hair tried to grab my neck.

I swung the sword at my hair.

At that moment, something amazing happened.

The ghost’s hair was cut off cleanly with a sword. Sarah’s words were true. It felt different from when I dealt with a ghost with a kitchen knife. The sensation of cutting off hair was felt heavily in the hand holding the hilt of the sword.

“I cut it! I cut it!”

The sword of Gunung truly had the power to cut down ghosts. The severed head ghost stretched out its hair again, but I swung my sword and cut it off. It was when I was fighting a severed head ghost in the dark.

━━Wheeik!

Sera appeared from behind the severed head ghost.

Sera returned the sword and stabbed it into the top of the ghost’s head.

The severed head ghost with the military sword stuck in it disappeared like a ghost.

A knife was inserted into the top of the head, so any living thing deserved to die. It was a scene that would not be strange to think that a ghost had been defeated if you saw it with your own eyes.

I urgently asked Sarah.

“Did you defeat the ghost?”

“You haven’t defeated it, but it will appear again.”

As Sarah answered, she illuminated the living room with a flashlight.

Something mysterious happened.

In front of the door of the master bedroom, the severed-headed ghost that had just disappeared with a knife stuck in the top of its head reappeared.

The hair I had cut off and the top of my head that had been split by Sarah were still intact.

The severed head ghost did not die.

It was as if I had been resurrected.

Sera opened her mouth while aiming her sword at the ghost that had reappeared.

“Don’t forget that what we are hunting are ghosts. They are the dead who will not die even if you kill them.”