WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 55: Yurim Hotel Exorcism Ritual (2)

──────

I'd worked alongside other exorcists a few times before.

The first time had been with Gagaram and Scholar Choi of Cheonghak.

Looking back, that had been an ideal team-up. Everyone handled their own work, and when someone had room to spare, they helped the others out.

The second time had been with Gagaram and Wolryeong Bodhisattva.

We'd joined forces on the spur of the moment, so there'd been no time to prepare, but their individual knowledge had been a huge help when I caught the dream demon.

The third time had been during the vampire incident, I guess.

It hadn't been intentional, but I'd worked with the Great Unification Church hunters. By the end, we'd actively helped each other out.

Then there had been Pastor Go and Dragon Maiden Bodhisattva.

Well, that one barely counted as a team-up. We'd set a trap and filmed a dinosaur massacre, but while searching for dragon nodes afterward, I'd realized just how much help Pastor Go could be.

Maybe it was because of their prior knowledge, but I could feel all of Gangnam Holy Temple Church actively trying to help me.

And this time...

Tok.

Tok.

Tok.

The sound of a moktak filled the silent hallway.

"Om Amoga Vairochana Mahamudra Mani Padma Jvala Pravartaya Hum."

With every short chant, the moktak's echoes grew louder in the corridor.

The area had been so quiet that not even a single sound could be heard, so the noise was enough to make my ears ache. Yet Venerable Hyeun showed no sign of stopping.

"Hey. I've already planted flying daggers there, you know? Don't stick talismans down where they'll overlap with my technique."

"Oh, come now. Do you really think one such dagger is enough? If you wanted to inscribe a barrier, you should've prepared proper talismans."

"Could you stop making the place smell like incense? The sandalwood stench is everywhere. How much did you burn on those talismans?"

Hadn't they come here as a team?

Why were they bickering like that?

It felt like a bunch of discordant sounds being forced together.

"What are all those things?"

"Venerable Hyeun is using the Mantra of Light. It's an esoteric Buddhist mantra that guides the dead onward and wards off disasters."

Oh, I see.

I'd seen a Diamond Sect monk at the Ghost Market, and I'd assumed monk exorcists generally just beat ghosts to death with their bulging muscles.

"Taoist Cheongmyeong is using a peachwood sword and talismans made with ash from burned sandalwood to cast door-sealing techniques."

"What about the daggers stuck over there?"

"The yang energy from flying daggers infused with lightning qi drives out sinister yin energy. Usually, you use a wooden sword made from a jujube tree struck by lightning, but those are hard to come by, so it seems Miss Yeonhwa recreated it with lightning rods."

The world of spiritual techniques sure was diverse.

Just as I was watching the three of them with interest, they seemed interested in us too. Their eyes kept drifting our way.

"Pastor Go, what are you two doing over there?"

"We're sprinkling holy oil."

"Holy oil? Isn't that just a basic enchanted artifact?"

Venerable Hyeun tilted his head in confusion, and Taoist Cheongmyeong took over.

"Is that all the two of you are doing?"

"Yeah, well... that's all."

"Hah..."

Taoist Cheongmyeong let out a sigh full of lament.

"Could it be that you're hiding too much of your hand, even in front of us? An exorcist from the noble Holy Temple Church and an expert with a Black Knot, doing something that looks like children's play..."

Taoist Cheongmyeong looked dissatisfied, but why should I care?

"Forget it. They want to hide their methods. Besides, what we've set up should be enough to stop a certain level of demon beast anyway."

No, seriously. This was enough.

"Miss Yeonhwa, you managed to prepare quite a number of flying daggers infused with lightning qi."

"It was worth getting soaked in the rain on moonlit nights and working myself half to death. My heart nearly stopped every time I thought I might get struck by lightning."

"This humble monk also suffered for a hundred days and nights to make this black moktak."

Venerable Hyeun, who had been chanting the Mantra of Light, joined in.

Judging by the strange waves spreading from the moktak resonating with his voice, it seemed to be an item with special power.

Then the three of them glanced at us again.

"......"

No, what else were we supposed to do?

All we had was cinnamon-scented holy oil loaded with supermarket cinnamon sticks.

Still, it had never failed us before.

"Come now, let's hurry. There are over a hundred guest rooms, so it will take time to inspect them all."

Yurim Hotel had a total of 130 guest rooms.

We searched them one by one, looking for the evil spirit's location.

Yet wherever we went, there was only the stale smell of mold. There was no sign of an evil spirit anywhere.

The only unusual thing was the excessive number of cockroaches and rats.

The three people following us seemed to be getting tired too.

"Are we sure there's really an evil spirit here?"

"We've searched this much and haven't found even a trace... Hmm."

"Could it be suppressed by our spiritual force? Even a powerful evil spirit must tuck its tail before an even greater force."

Pastor Go objected to Taoist Cheongmyeong's conclusion.

"Then it doesn't explain why the Great Unification Church couldn't solve this for nearly a year. There's definitely a very powerful evil spirit here."

"Isn't the Great Unification Church just a ragtag group without a single proper exorcist? Some have spirituality, but they follow nonsense doctrine, so they can't even use their abilities properly."

"Exactly. They may be one of the Five Great Lineages, but they're nothing more than an oversized group of mercenaries running around with guns."

It didn't sound entirely wrong, but weren't they underestimating the Great Unification Church a little too much?

If they were one of the Five Great Lineages, they had to have plenty of resources.

Just then, Pastor Go glanced at me as if asking for my opinion.

"What do you think? Can you feel the evil spirit's presence?"

Pastor Go put it vaguely. It seemed like he was trying to hide the fact that I had an innate spiritual scent.

"It got fainter the higher we went. I think we need to head down."

"Hmm? It seems Gari Bodhisattva has strong intuition."

"Something like that."

"If the Black Knot says so..."

For just a moment, the three of them seemed to exchange looks.

"We'll check Building A. You two can handle Building B."

"All of a sudden?"

"Haha, we simply happened to be walking the same path."

What was that about?

We hadn't planned to stay together anyway, so we split up.

"Ahh..."

"What's wrong, Pastor Go?"

"I'm just thinking they aren't the sort to do things honorably."

"???"

Seeing my confused expression, Pastor Go gestured for me to put my ear to the floor.

A rapid thumping echoed in my ear.

Thump thump thump thump.

"Oh."

"The moment you said the presence was weaker upstairs, they started heading straight down. They must be planning to banish the evil spirit first."

"But we aren't even sure."

"They don't want to share a prize as big as Yurim Hotel with us."

Then what were we supposed to do? Should we chase after them now?

"Should we head down too?"

"No. The more urgent something is, the more you should take the long way around. In a building this large, it's important to secure things thoroughly."

"Then let's sprinkle more holy oil."

Only then did I pull the icebox full of holy oil from inside Gari's mouth.

I'd only been sprinkling it little by little because I couldn't take it out openly in front of the other three. Now there was no reason to hold back.

"We've got plenty of time. We should do this properly."

When you dealt with dangerous things, looking for shortcuts was how you got yourself killed.

I checked every room and set up holy oil barriers at the entrances, securing all the way to Building A, where they'd gone.

As expected, Building A had no defenses set up at all.

People really were easy to read.

After sprinkling holy oil on every floor up to the top and heading back down...

"Huh?"

Around the eighth floor, where we'd parted ways with them, I felt something off.

"Yohan, what's wrong?"

"The smell got stronger."

"But we just passed through here."

Exactly.

There'd been nothing strange when we'd come through before, so what was this smell that had suddenly appeared?

It wasn't overwhelmingly strong, but it was definitely the stench of an evil spirit...

Scritch scritch.

A strange sound came from beyond the dark corridor.

Scritch scritch scritch scritch.

It wasn't loud, exactly. The sound was dense, repeated at an alarming rate.

"Yohan..."

Pastor Go seemed to notice it too and became cautious.

The sound was coming from everywhere.

In other words, it came from every guest room along the hallway.

"It's inside the rooms!"

Scritch scritch scritch scritch!

Scritch scritch scritch scritch!

The noise grew louder. It carried an intense force, as if something was about to burst through the doors.

"We put barriers on every guest room for exactly this situation, right? They won't break through easily, will they?!"

Just as he said, the guest room doors held firm even as sounds like violent pounding rang out from inside.

That was...

Only the places where we'd sprinkled holy oil.

Bang!

A guest room door broke open.

Things flooded into the corridor in an instant, and when I looked closer, they were living creatures.

Spiders. Ants. Cockroaches and rats.

Black swarms poured out until they filled the entire hallway!

"Good grief...!"

Bugs and rats came flooding in from every direction.

They climbed over and crashed into each other, but they all charged straight at us.

"Argh! You bastards! You said you set up barriers! You said they wouldn't break through!!"

Terrified, I cursed the absent trio.

The places we'd sprinkled holy oil still hadn't been breached, but every barrier those three had set up had broken, letting the swarm rush through.

Scritch scritch scritch scritch!!

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!!

My skin crawled.

The disgusting things filled not only the hallway but also the walls and ceiling as they rushed at us.

"Holy oil! Holy oil!"

Pastor Go and I grabbed bottles of holy oil and swung them around like windmills.

We had to cover the floor, walls, and ceiling evenly.

"I-It's stopping them!"

The bugs couldn't cross easily. The problem was how densely packed they were.

We hadn't carefully covered every inch. We'd just wildly flung the oil around, so there were gaps everywhere.

Some of the bugs were already trying to force their way through those openings.

"Gari!"

Clack!

Gari opened its mouth. It seemed to know what I wanted.

What came out next was a bottle with toilet paper stuffed into its neck.

"Y-Yohan! What's that?!"

"A Molotov cocktail with fifty percent gasoline mixed in!"

"That can be made into holy oil?!"

"It doesn't work as well, but it somehow gets the job done!"

I quickly handed Pastor Go two Molotov cocktails, then lit another one I'd taken out.

"Fire in the hole!!"

Crash!

The burning Molotov cocktail shattered, and flames spread in an instant.

The fire blocked the bugs more completely than holy oil, without any gaps.

"This is holy flame! Hallelujah!!"

"Don't just call anything holy! That's blasphemy!!"

At that moment, the look Pastor Go gave me added arsonist to his growing list of suspicions.

* * *

Elsewhere, the three of them could barely believe the swarms of bugs closing in from all directions.

"Aaaah! W-Why are there so many?!"

"Hurry! If they swarm us, we're finished!"

"Damn it! Damn it all!!"

Startled by the bugs suddenly bursting through the doors, the three of them ran blindly.

"Tch! This won't end if we keep going like this! This humble monk will stop them first!"

"W-What are you going to do?!"

"Om Amoga Vairochana Mahamudra Mani Padma Jvala Pravartaya Hum!!"

Hyeun chanted the Mantra of Light and rolled the prayer beads through his fingers.

Clatter, clatter.

His eyes flew open at the sound of the beads rolling, and he thrust his palm toward the hallway.

"Hup!"

Boom!

A wave burst from his palm and swept through the corridor.

Pop pop pop!

The swarm of bugs exploded.

The Diamond Sect's secret technique, the Demon-Subduing Palm, had manifested.

"A-As expected of an expert with a Red Knot."

"What's so impressive about it?! It's nowhere near enough!"

That was right. It wasn't nearly enough.

That Demon-Subduing Palm had likely wiped out hundreds of bugs, but that was all.

There had to be tens of thousands filling the hallway.

"Urgh! Those lowly demon beasts only have numbers on their side!"

Apparently deciding it was impossible to kill them one by one, Hyeun immediately started retreating.

"W-What is happening? They're just bugs and rats! We laid out barriers so thoroughly, how did they break through them?!"

Yeonhwa had gone pale.

She couldn't believe even the flying daggers containing natural lightning qi had been breached by mere insects.

"That isn't what matters right now!" Taoist Cheongmyeong shouted urgently.

"Something is strengthening them! That thing must be the evil spirit in this hotel!"

"A-An evil spirit having this much power..."

It was unbelievable.

Completely unbelievable.

What kind of powerful entity would it take to make mere insects cross barriers raised by experts with Red Knots?

The reality that they had to flee from bugs and rats was impossible to accept, but then Taoist Cheongmyeong noticed the tightly shut doors.

'Could it be...'

Doors with no flying daggers or talismans attached.

Only the doors steeped in the strong scent of cinnamon remained firmly shut.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried