23 – Changgui #3

When the EMF meter reached level 5, it meant that spirits appeared around us. This meant that the person standing outside the annex now was not the lady of the bed and breakfast, but something completely different.

“…Do you see the light coming on?”

“It looks good. I guess the machine wasn’t fake.”

“It’s not a waste of money.”

The EMF meter I purchased for 100,000 won seemed to be a genuine product. Sarah and I looked at the EMF meter, which glowed with five lights. Since I confirmed that the pitch-black silhouette standing outside the door was Yeongga, I was able to prepare in advance.

We quietly took out the military knives and flashlights from our duffel bags. I put chunks of rock salt in my pocket. Unlike fine powdered salt, chunks of rock salt were consumables that were easy to throw away.

“Let’s go out.”

Preparations are complete.

We went outside the outbuilding. I kicked open the door and illuminated the yard with my flashlight. It’s 3 a.M. In thick darkness. As we illuminated our path with a flashlight, we could clearly see what was standing in the yard.

It was a young woman with a terrible appearance. What had happened to her was that her body was torn off in various places, exposing her bony bones and blood-covered body. Even her neck was torn off, so the woman couldn’t lift her head properly and was bobbing around.

“The mountains are not dangerous. The mountains are not dangerous. The mountains are not dangerous.”

Strangely enough, the same voice as the lady at the bed and breakfast came out of the woman’s mouth. Just by hearing her voice, she could not help but be deceived into thinking it was the same person. However, the lady at the guest house and that young family were completely different.

I could guess what happened.

“Is that imitating someone else’s voice?”

“Yes. There are spiritual songs in the world that have the power to imitate voices. It is rare to find a spiritual song that can imitate so perfectly.”

After hearing what I said, Sarah nodded her head. Among the countless ghost stories floating around the world, there were many about spirits imitating sounds. Stories of spiritualists who deceive people by imitating other people’s voices. This is what we are experiencing now.

“The mountain is not dangerous.”

Successful in revealing the identity. At some point, the woman bobbing her neck stopped imitating the voice of the bed and breakfast lady.

━━Heeheeheehee!

The woman laughed her mouth off and then she lunged at us. The woman’s torn neck was making a sound. At that moment, Sarah threw her rock salt towards her woman. A tightly packed lump of rock salt hit the woman’s head.

━━Boom!

A mysterious thing happened.

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The moment the rock salt collided with Yeongga, it shattered into pieces as if it had actually collided. Hard pieces of salt flew everywhere. The woman who was running furiously towards us disappeared without a sound on the spot.

It was successful in stopping Youngga’s actions.

“Rock salt lumps work well! They have better stopping power than just sprinkling salt.”

“Good thing you brought it.”

Whether in the East or the West, salt was used to drive out unclean spirits. Moreover, since the rock salt was gathered into lumps that were easy to throw, the power was bound to increase. It was my first time using rock salt, but the power was quite satisfactory.

I couldn’t let down my guard yet. A sword or a lump of rock salt can only stop Youngga’s actions. I clearly remembered that a lost spirit could reappear.

━━Hee hee hee!

The woman bobbing her neck appeared again near the outbuilding. The woman, bobbing her neck, pounced on Sarah, who was holding her lump of rock salt. I cut off the woman’s wrist with a military knife.

Poof! The woman’s severed hand flew into the air. Sarah and I swung our swords at the woman at the same time. Since this was not my first time dealing with a spirit family, I was able to deal with it skillfully. The situation was much better than when I had to deal with the severed head ghost in my apartment the other day.

Because both Sarah and I have grown physically.

“Keep pushing!”

A woman who was cut with a military knife and hit by a lump of rock salt disappeared and reappeared endlessly. The woman, bobbing her neck, slowly retreated behind her.

Have we learned that no harm can come to us? At some point, the woman shaking her neck disappeared from the yard of the guesthouse. Since she last disappeared, she has stopped attacking us.

“I think he ran away?”

“Let’s chase the spirit first. If you’re lucky, you might find something that needs to be burned.”

We decided to chase down the woman who ran away. It would have been easy to chase down one frightened spirit. She planned to keep pursuing it and burn the soulful object.

However, after opening the front door of the guest house and going out.

We soon had no choice but to give up our plan to chase down the head-bobbing woman.

I ended up seeing what was going on in the town in the middle of the night, illuminated by a flashlight.

“…Is there anything else?!”

“It wasn’t just one guy.”

Dark Mugok Village.

On the main street of the village, young people I had never seen before were walking around. Like the woman with her neck shaking that I saw earlier, they were all spirits whose bodies had been horribly mutilated. I quickly counted the number of spirits by eye.

A whopping 10 people.

I discovered as many as ten spirits just by looking at them.

“Crazy…!”

When I thought about the hidden spirits, I couldn’t predict how many more there were. I can’t tell if this is a village where people live or a village where ghosts live. The spirits began to approach us as we came out.

“This is too many numbers!”

“Jinwoo, we have to step back first! We can’t deal with them one by one right now!”

What if there was only one spiritual song?

It was foolish to deal with multiple spirits at the same time. They are immortals who will not die even if you kill them, but fighting them without knowing what they are inside will only make them dangerous.

We hurriedly entered the guesthouse’s annex and locked the door. The spirits chasing us loomed outside the door in pitch black form. The door began to rattle menacingly.

━━Heeheeheehee!

━━Let’s go to the mountains! Let’s go to the mountains!

If he had come to Mugok Village bare-body, he would have been killed without a move by the spirits.

However, we had shamanic supplies prepared in advance when we left Seoul.

Sarah and I took out five flags from our duffel bag.

There were five flags, each with red, blue, green, yellow, and white fabric.

‘Obangi’

It was a flag containing the power of the five directions to drive out evil spirits. When just holding the Five Banners, the effect of exorcism was minimal. Only when flags of appropriate colors were placed in the five directions could the power to drive out miscellaneous spirits be demonstrated.

━━Thump thump thump!

A strong knock on the door rang from outside. Several palms clung to the door covered with window paper. Perhaps because the number of spirits was large, their strength was no joke. Within just a few seconds, the door almost fell off.

“Raise the flag!”

At the moment when the door was about to be smashed, we scattered the five flags in five directions. When the flags spread out on the floor were aligned in the appropriate positions, the five flags showed their power properly.

The spirits standing outside could no longer touch the door.

The black palms that were clinging to the window paper fell off one by one.

“Okay, that’s it…!”

“Whew.”

If it had been even a little slower, a group of spirits would have entered the annex.

We breathed a sigh of relief in the room where we had laid out the five flags.

“Sera! If you do this, you can hold out until the sun rises, right?”

“It’s enough. If you spray the Five Banners, you can last for about two hours.”

Of course, installing the Five Banners did not mean that it was forever safe.

If held on for too long, the flag that had been tainted by corruption could lose its strength.

The current time is 3 am.

Until dawn, the Five Banners will be able to prevent the invasion of evil spirits.

We waited for daylight in the room of the annex. In the darkness, the spirits kept circling around the outhouse where we were. My EMF meter was emitting a constant flashing signal. Sarah and I spent the night with our eyes open, preparing for any possible danger.

Time finally passed and it was 5 am.

The morning sun rose and warm light streamed in through the window. It was a light like hope.

*

The morning dawned.

There was something I learned while walking around with Sarah. Spirits could not move freely while the sun was up. You can think of this as greatly reducing the scope in which spirits can operate.

At most, I was able to walk around objects with souls. It is dangerous to be around a haunted object, but if there is no such thing around, it is safe during the day.

It was when the sun rose.

The spirits hovering outside the outbuilding disappeared without a trace the moment sunlight poured in. I no longer heard strange laughter or saw pitch-black shapes.

“I think it’s safe for now.”

“It seems like everything has returned to where it came from. At least there are no unclean objects around here.”

We went outside and looked around the village for a while. Unlike when it was night, there were no spirits wandering around the village. At least they said there were no unclean things in this village. Only then were we able to return to the annex and rest in peace.

“Let’s eat breakfast first.”

I was quite hungry after dealing with the spirits at night. We grabbed some crackers and protein bars from our duffel bags and had a quick breakfast. Of course, I brought emergency food with me in preparation for climbing the mountain.

When I filled my stomach with something sweet, my head started spinning.

A questionable thing slowly appeared in my head. When I thought of the spiritual songs I witnessed in the village in the middle of the night, questions naturally came to mind.

‘It’s strange.’

What was strange was none other than the village of Mugok where we arrived. In this village, there were spirits that attacked people in the middle of the night. As soon as they saw us, the spirits rushed at us like a flock of anglerfish.

“…No matter how much I think about it, it’s still strange.”

Then….

How on earth are the residents of Mugok Village still alive?

The village should have been devastated a long time ago because of the spirits attacking people. It was natural for the threatened residents to move out as a group and for the village itself to disappear. But something strange was happening.

Mugok Village looked fine on the outside.

There were many residents living in the village. There was even a resident who ran a bed and breakfast for travelers. In this place, there are spiritists who attack people at night.

“Sera.”

I told Sarah what came into my head.

“How can people live in this village? There are ghosts wandering around every night, so how can there be residents? It’s so strange that there is even a bed and breakfast.”

It was right then.

Sera slowly opened her mouth.

“…People can live.”

Sera’s next words were quite shocking even to me.

“What if everyone lives while possessed by ghosts?”

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