WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 56: Yurim Hotel Exorcism Ritual (3)

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The holy firebomb was incredibly effective.

Visible flames had always been the best way to drive off animals, so even the swarm of bugs couldn't easily cross the fire blazing right in front of them.

Crackle crackle!

Still, it only lasted for a moment.

They surged in like waves, and the ones behind kept pushing the others into the flames.

Even in a fifty percent gasoline mix, holy oil was still holy oil.

It was wiping out the swarm far more effectively than I'd expected.

"They're coming from the other side too!"

"Damn it! They broke through over there too!"

"The emergency stairs! Let's take the emergency stairs!"

I hurriedly opened the emergency exit. It was packed with bugs too.

Bang!

"Damn it."

"Hold the door shut!"

The emergency stairs were blocked too.

Then what was left?

【Devourrrrrr!!】

Thud!

Eight-Foot Sister was swinging Benkei's Iron Staff at the swarm.

Benkei's Iron Staff was a totem that radiated demon-subduing energy on its own. It was crushing bugs in droves with waves denser than the holy firebomb's, so it could hold out for a while, but it had its limits.

"Gari! Smash the elevator!"

Clack clack!

The moment I gave the order, Gari charged the elevator with its body.

Boom!

After a few headbutts, the elevator's metal doors shattered, revealing the empty shaft.

"Sis! We're jumping! Grab me and Pastor Go!"

【Devour!】

Eight-Foot Sister grabbed Pastor Go and me, then jumped. Gari opened its mouth wide inside the shaft.

Creeeak!

The bugs and rats chasing us poured into the shaft, only to meet Gari's mouth.

Was this what moths flying into flames looked like?

Countless bugs and rats clogged the shaft as they were swallowed into Gari's gaping mouth.

Thud!

Still holding us, Eight-Foot Sister dropped straight down to the basement. The writing on the wall showed that we'd reached Basement Level 1.

"The door!"

Eight-Foot Sister struck the elevator doors on Basement Level 1 with the iron staff.

Bang! Bang!

After a few blows, the metal doors opened. Once inside, I immediately took out a bottle of holy oil and generously sprinkled it across the elevator entrance, forming a barrier.

"Done! Gari!"

Hearing my voice, Gari dropped down.

Bugs and rats were tangled over Gari's body in a mountain-sized mass, but the moment they crossed the holy oil barrier...

Sizzle! Szzzzzzle!

The bugs crackled and popped like beans in a pan. The rats suffered the same fate, so I didn't think we had to worry about them crossing the holy oil barrier.

"Whew, I think we might actually survive now."

"There are too many..."

"Pastor Go?"

"Far too many. It's common for bugs and rats to run rampant on land inhabited by evil spirits, but... there are too many, and they're moving too uniformly."

As if something was controlling them.

Pastor Go added that last part quietly, and it gave me a lot to think about.

"Could this be more than an ordinary evil spirit?"

"Yes, I think it's something far more dangerous. I hope... I really hope it isn't..."

Pastor Go seemed to have an idea, muttering to himself. Just as he was about to speak...

"R-run!"

"They've come right up to us!"

Urgent footsteps, familiar voices, and that skin-crawling scritching sound came together.

Beyond the hallway, the three people we'd split up from were running toward us with a huge swarm of bugs and rats behind them.

"G-Gari Bodhisattva?"

"P-Pastor Go! Help us!"

The three shouted the moment they saw us.

With a sigh, we began generously sprinkling holy oil across the corridor.

"Ugh, they're no help at all."

"Tch."

Even Pastor Go clicked his tongue as the three crossed the line of holy oil we'd laid down.

The bugs and rats they'd brought with them...

Scritch scritch!

Squeak! Squeak!

Couldn't cross the barrier formed by the holy oil.

"Huff! Huff!"

"W-What is this?!"

The three stared in shock at the swarm stopping at the holy oil barrier.

"Y-You can really get this effect with holy oil alone?"

"This is ridiculous! None of the exorcists I've seen were anywhere near this good!"

"Is that what matters right now?"

Pastor Go walked over to them.

"You three said you were checking somewhere else first, yet you made it here quite nicely. I suppose you tried to take care of the source in the basement first so you could claim the hotel for yourselves."

"Th-That's..."

Nobody had believed their lie, but they had separated us with it so the three of them could take everything for themselves.

We had no reason to be friendly toward them.

Even so...

"You three need to make a choice."

"W-What do you mean?"

"Leave the hotel. You can still escape now."

Pastor Go glanced at me.

"Did you sense something?"

"..."

A goddamn rotten stench.

I couldn't say that, so I put it more gently.

"The basement was the right answer. This isn't some ordinary thing."

Gari and Eight-Foot Sister could protect Pastor Go and me.

As long as the two of them were here, we'd somehow deal with it.

Still, they weren't invincible. They couldn't cover everything.

They only had one body each, so protecting two or more people wouldn't be easy.

"If you leave now, I'll give you holy oil and firebombs. That should get you up at least one floor and out of here."

"..."

The three hesitated at my offer.

"I-I'll go back!"

Yeonhwa was the first to decide. She took the bottle of holy oil I handed her and chose to run.

"Th-This humble monk will retreat as well. This is beyond my abilities."

Hyeun was the same.

Lastly, Taoist Cheongmyeong...

"I... will stay."

"T-Taoist Cheongmyeong."

Hyeun looked as though he wanted to stop them, but Taoist Cheongmyeong shook it off and stepped forward.

"I'm a professional exorcist. I'll see the job I accepted through to the end!"

"Is that so?"

I hadn't known they were so serious about their profession.

They didn't want to retreat, and I couldn't force them. It was their choice to make.

The other two took the holy oil and firebombs, bowed once, and turned away.

"Then let's head inside. The source should be beyond here."

Pastor Go seemed to have given up on persuading Taoist Cheongmyeong.

With one more companion in tow, we soon arrived at the place where the source was hiding.

"A sauna..."

"The downfall of Yurim Hotel began when its hot spring water became contaminated."

Then was the cause of all this hiding in the sauna?

We'd find out soon enough.

Even as we approached the sauna, we didn't stop sprinkling holy oil.

We formed barriers wherever bugs and rats could slip through, filling every crack and gap with holy oil.

It wouldn't block everything, but it would limit their paths.

We soon reached the sauna.

First, we checked the women's bath and found nothing.

"Should we check the men's bath?"

"Y-Yeah."

Taoist Cheongmyeong had become much more obedient. Instead of simply following us like before, they now seemed to be relying on us.

We soon spotted a protective straw rope stretched across the entrance to the men's sauna.

"Th-This is..."

"Traces of an apotropaic ritual."

"To stop whatever's inside from coming out?"

Something was definitely inside the sauna.

Pastor Go peered through the opaque sauna door, which was even secured with a lock.

Then...

"Gah!"

Pastor Go stepped back as if he'd seen something.

"W-What is it? What did you see?"

"There's... a person inside."

"A person?!"

Someone was in there? How?

This hotel had been sealed off for years. The Great Unification Church had bought it a year ago and kept it closed ever since, so it couldn't be someone who'd gotten lost.

"A person inside the sauna..."

The sauna was full of cloudy steam.

There were only two things we could tell.

The baths were filled with water hot enough to create that much steam, and there was a human silhouette deeper inside.

"What do we do?"

Taoist Cheongmyeong looked to us for an answer. It seemed fear had finally brought them back to their senses.

"I don't think whatever is inside is ordinary. This protective straw rope... a highly skilled ritualist must have used major magic to seal it, so that the thing inside couldn't escape."

"Then it must be that powerful?"

"Yes, it would be better to make thorough preparations and return..."

That was when it happened.

The protective straw rope suddenly caught fire, and the glass door opened by itself.

"W-What the hell?!"

The moment the door opened, it felt like my breathing stopped.

The stench was horrific.

It was so unbearable that I wanted to throw up immediately.

It hadn't been this bad even when Demon Decarabia was summoned. There was only one explanation.

"A demon! It's a demon!"

"What? A demon?!"

At that moment, the space before us rippled.

When I came to my senses, we were inside the sauna.

"...?!"

Everyone was too stunned to speak.

None of us had entered the sauna.

Yet when we came to our senses, we'd been moved inside.

As if space itself had dragged us in.

"Lord God our Father, Father who grants peace to our souls. Give us the strength to overcome hardship, guide our path, and protect us from the enemy's iron chariots."

Pastor Go gripped his rosary and began reciting a prayer.

It was a form of spiritual defense.

Once everyone understood his intent, they began reciting words of protection in their own ways.

"That's enough. I don't want to hear it."

Boom!

At that moment, the sauna water shot upward as if it were about to explode.

Pastor Go stopped praying from the sudden blast, and the talisman Taoist Cheongmyeong held while reciting an incantation was soaked through.

I immediately shouted.

"Gari!"

Eat it.

Just like always, eat that evil thing.

...

There was no movement.

Gari, my reliable ally every time, didn't move. I turned my head.

"Gari?"

Clack...

Gari wasn't moving.

Why wasn't Gari, my ever-reliable ally and helper, moving?

"An angel cannot kill a good soul. As a judge, Gari punishes only souls deserving judgment."

The man in the bath spoke unbelievable words.

It smelled this awful, and that was a good soul?

"Yohan! It's a person possessed by a demon! That demon is inside that person's body!"

"...!"

Right. I understood now.

A person possessed by a demon.

The person's soul itself was clean and pure, so Gari couldn't kill an innocent person just to defeat the demon.

At least, that was not an option for an angel.

"Then what do we do?!"

"We have to perform an exorcism! We need to drive the demon out of that person's body!"

Pastor Go hurriedly took out a bottle of holy water.

It was holy water I'd given him, so its effect would be certain.

"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command you! Demon, what is your name?!"

He demanded the demon's name.

The man in the bath only looked bored as he reached a hand into the red water.

Squeak! Squeak!

He pulled out a soaking-wet rat from the bath. The rat coughed up water as if it hadn't been able to breathe for a long time, then the man immediately bit into it.

Rip!

Blood poured from the rat as it was torn apart along with its ribs.

That had to be why the bath was red.

Screee! Squeak! Screee!

The rat trembled and screamed.

The man chewed it alive to fill his stomach.

It was a horrifying, grotesque sight.

The demon inside the man, practically the source of all this, twisted its lips into a smile.

"Shepherd. Do you think you're the first to ask my name? Ritualists, spell chanters, mantra reciters. All of them failed. What makes you think you can do what they could not?"

"Shut up, you wicked bastard! Stop tormenting an innocent soul and come out at once!"

"Oh, you have spirit. But Jincheol, Go Jincheol, do you truly think you can do what Pastor Kim Gwang-o did?"

"...!"

Pastor Go flinched.

It mentioned Pastor Kim?

Did it know Pastor Kim?

No, that wasn't it.

It knew Pastor Go's name too. The demon itself must have meddled with us and read our memories however it pleased.

"You? You're an ordinary man who doesn't even come close to Pastor Kim Gwang-o, the one who drove out twelve demons that were about to descend upon this land. Jincheol, have you ever truly faced evil and won?"

"Th-That..."

The demon pressured Pastor Go by invoking Pastor Kim.

Then something came back to me.

「What should I do if I ever encounter a demon?」

「Are you curious, Yohan?」

「Yes. You can encounter demons while you're living, right?」

「Normally, that wouldn't happen... but should I call this early education?」

Pastor Kim had once answered my innocent question in children's ministry.

「If you encounter a demon, don't let it overwhelm you from the start. A demon will pressure you, Yohan, as though it knows everything. With the tongue of a crafty serpent. So don't let it overpower you.」

「How do I stop it from overpowering me?」

「Simple.」

Pastor Kim grinned.

"Jincheol! Why do you think you weren't proclaimed Park Taejin's successor? An ordinary man so lacking, how could you ever lead the Holy Temple Church..."

「Beat them. Just don't beat them to death.」

"Shut up, demon!!"

I charged the demon and threw a Holy Punch.

The time-honored exorcism technique personally endorsed by Pastor Kim.

The beating rite.

(Next chapter, an illustration of Gari's true form will be revealed.)

Footnotes:

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