Do-jun continued with a thin, crooked smile.
“That bastard who made you and your friends suffer. I'll make him taste the torments of hell.”
“Ahahahaha! Don't make me laugh. Adults always smile and say they'll help. But they never have. How are you going to show him hell? What am I supposed to see that would make me trust you?”
Annabelle burst into shrill laughter. Do-jun took an electronic cigarette from his coat, drew on it, and exhaled a puff of smoke.
“You've got the wrong idea. I'm not a good person. I'm closer to a villain. That's why I'm sure I can take revenge for you.”
“What?”
“The reason you're still here is that your grudge hasn't been settled, right? So… I'll help with that, then seal you away.”
Annabelle gave him a bitter smile.
“…Don't just talk. Do something, then. I'll decide after I see the result.”
“Fine.”
Do-jun immediately activated the Eye of Dispelling Evil and Revealing Truth.
Blue light shone from his eyes as he searched through the countless souls drifting in the air.
Among them, he spotted one particularly unpleasant soul steeped in both anxiety and greed.
“Bind!”
“Ggh!”
When he tore a talisman, blue chains shot out like snakes and snared the soul in midair.
Dragged down to the floor and given form, it was a grotesquely fat man: the former director of the orphanage.
“Don't you have anything to say to Annabelle, you bastard?”
“Anything to say? I died and became an evil spirit because of that bitch! That whore!”
When the director spat out his abuse, Annabelle gave a short, bitter laugh and looked at Do-jun.
His soul was bound to Annabelle by their bitter grudge, leaving Annabelle herself unable to affect him directly.
As he glared fiercely and spewed curses, Annabelle asked,
“How are you going to send someone like him to hell?”
“I can do it.”
Do-jun made the spirit jar in his lower abdomen resonate.
‘Elder, give me a hand.’
《Well…. I would rather not deal with that filthy, foul-smelling wretch.》
‘Please. Sometimes you have to eat an unappetizing appetizer before you get a proper meal.’
《…You had better keep that promise.》
‘Of course.’
At that moment, the energy in the spirit jar seethed to overflowing.
It was unspoken permission to borrow his power.
Do-jun immediately cast a spell.
“Ch'į́įdii Bii'í.”
It meant ‘Shadow of the Evil Spirit,’ a Navajo spell said to be used to curse an enemy to death.
He activated it with an immense amount of spiritual power.
“Uh… what?”
Dozens of apparitions appeared around the director.
They were all children from the orphanage.
Poor, pitiful children who had been abused or subjected to unspeakable acts.
Every one of them stood looking at the director, weeping tears of blood.
“Wh-what is this, children… all of a sudden?”
As the director squirmed in confusion, the children began to run forward.
One child carried a stone, another a kitchen knife, and another a mop.
And then….
“Ahahahahaha!”
“Aaaaaagh!”
Laughing, they beat the director mercilessly together.
They stabbed him, trampled him, and smashed his head with a stone.
‘Wh-what is this….’
Annabelle stared at them, dazed.
Then she heard a girl call out.
“Annabelle! Come here and play with us!”
“Julia?”
“Hurry up and come over.”
A girl with red hair in two pigtails.
She had always looked after timid Annabelle, like a real older sister.
At her call, Annabelle hesitated, then hurried over and joined the children.
“Aaaagh! Aaaaaagh!”
And the children trampled the director with innocent delight.
They stabbed and crushed him.
There was no sadness, fear, or anger, only pure enjoyment.
It was a grotesque scene, the children's laughter mingling with the director's screams.
Do-jun and Wakan Tanka stood quietly and watched for a long while.
How much time passed like that?
“Ahh, that was fun, wasn't it, Annabelle?”
“Yeah! It really was!”
“Ahahaha!”
Only then did the children stop beating him, apparently satisfied. The orphanage director lay there reduced to a pulpy mess, his body trembling.
Do-jun asked Annabelle,
“Satisfied?”
“Yeah!”
The instant Annabelle nodded, Do-jun extended his arm.
The face of a gigantic beast surged forward.
“S-save me… sa….”
CRUNCH—!
It chewed up and swallowed the director's body.
When silence returned, Do-jun tore a talisman and made something.
Then he walked over to the group of children and handed it to Annabelle.
“Here. Take it.”
“This is….”
“A bribe.”
It was a teddy bear.
The teddy bear Annabelle had wanted… but never had.
She hugged it tightly to her chest. Julia rested a hand on her shoulder and smiled, as if glad for her.
Annabelle asked, her eyes filling with tears,
“Did you just… help me?”
“I told you, I'm not helping you. It's a deal.”
At that moment, clear liquid began to drip from her eyes.
She did not say anything, but what she wanted to say… what she was feeling came through with painful clarity.
“…Thank you, mister.”
As she spoke, Do-jun's vision went black.
When he came to,
“I'm back.”
Kang Do-jun was back in the warehouse of occult objects.
He looked around.
“I-it's collapsing!”
“What in the world is going on?!”
The Annabelle dolls that had filled every corner toppled and began to disappear.
The countless souls trapped there surged and thrashed in every direction.
‘Enjoy your meal, Elder.’
Do-jun stretched out his arm and absorbed the souls.
Once things had settled down, Mad Hatter approached and asked,
“What exactly did you do?”
“Nothing much. The kid was crying, so I cheered her up.”
“You… cheered her up?”
Do-jun waved him off.
“Enough of that. Call in the people outside. We've got plenty to squeeze out of that rich kid, haven't we?”
***
A little later, in a corridor inside the castle.
“You really sealed her? Annabelle?”
George Goldwyn asked, fixing Mad Hatter, who walked ahead of him, with a suspicious glare.
“We certainly did. See for yourself.”
“If you are lying, you will pay with your lives. You have not forgotten what family I belong to, have you?”
Even as he followed, George gestured as though he could not believe it.
He had already sent more than ten teams of exorcists in there, but not one had come out alive.
After a moment, Mad Hatter pushed open the heavy iron door.
“Wh-what is this….?”
The warehouse looked as though it had been bombed.
Expensive occult collectibles had been reduced to powder, and the Asian exorcist stood in the middle of the wreckage.
Just then,
“Here. Catch.”
Kang Do-jun casually tossed George the Annabelle doll, which had a red talisman stuck to its forehead.
“Don't take that talisman off. Unless you want to die.”
“…You sealed Annabelle?”
“As you can see.”
George showed the doll to the exorcists beside him. They inspected it and nodded.
“She has been sealed.”
He really… did it?
George's eyes gleamed.
He had not expected an Asian exorcist with no pedigree to manage it for a moment.
‘Nice.’
He was overjoyed.
The destroyed objects were a painful loss, but compared with Annabelle's value, all of them were as good as trash.
Now that it was over, though, another thought occurred to him.
He had found an excuse to save money.
His lips twisted into an angry scowl.
“You bastard! How could you smash all my collectibles? Do you know how much they cost? At this point… I should be collecting payment from you, not paying you!”
“What are you talking about? Those objects were under Annabelle's influence. We had no choice but to destroy them!”
Dormouse cried out indignantly, but George snorted.
“Shut the fuck up. I've heard your excuses, you incompetent losers. I told you to seal Annabelle. I never told you to destroy the warehouse.”
Then Kang Do-jun asked,
“So what do you want to do?”
“What?”
“Those cheap objects got smashed. What exactly do you want?”
George Goldwyn pretended to think for a moment before speaking.
“Haaa…. I am a generous man, so I will forgive you. Let us settle this by reducing your payment to one million dollars.”
“That's absurd.”
The Tea Party members trembled with anger.
Anyone could see George was making an unreasonable demand.
Kang Do-jun, who had been watching silently, spoke.
“Do you want me to kill you?”
“What? What did you just say to me….?”
“I asked if you want to die, you mudskipper bastard.”
Do-jun stepped closer as he spoke.
“That's it. Pay four million dollars.”
“What? What is this crazy yellow bastard saying? Did you not hear me? One million dollars is already more than generous!”
Do-jun stopped right in front of George, let out a sharp sigh, and said,
“I clearly told you that you'd have to pay more if we sealed her. And you hid the fact that this evil spirit could deploy a ‘Domain.’ We nearly died because of that.”
“…….”
For a moment, George and the exorcists beside him flinched.
An upper-tier evil spirit capable of creating a Domain of its own.
It was true that he had concealed that information because no one would have accepted the job otherwise.
George replied,
“I-is that not something an exorcist should handle on his own?”
“I handled it. That's why I'm asking for fair compensation.”
The problem was that this lunatic Asian exorcist had no intention of backing down either.
As he kept approaching George,
“Wh-what are you doing? Take him down!”
“Yes, sir!”
The exorcists who had come along as guards drew their weapons and charged Do-jun.
They poured holy power into their bodies, plainly intent on fighting in earnest.
But then,
CRACK—!
“Ggh!”
THUD—! THUD, THUD—!
“Aaaaagh!”
Do-jun darted between them, driving his fists and feet into their jaws and stomachs.
There was nothing flashy about his hand-to-hand technique, just swift, simple movements.
But that alone was enough.
In less than ten seconds, all the guards lay on the floor, curled like shrimp.
“Wh-what is this….?”
George stumbled backward in shock, but there was nowhere to run.
Kang Do-jun closed the distance in an instant, tripped George, and threw a punch.
“Urgh!”
It was no ordinary blow.
Spiritual power flowed through his fist and hacked straight into George's nervous system.
George's face contorted with pain unlike anything he had ever felt, and blood streamed from his nose.
“Pay up. Now.”
“Y-you bastard! Do you know what family I belong to? How dare you… Aaaaagh!”
“Really? You'd be better off paying.”
Kang Do-jun placed a hand on George's stomach and poured spiritual power into him.
Each time he did, George screamed.
An ordinary human body was taking in the intense spiritual power that came from Wakan Tanka, and the pain was excruciating.
How long did the torture go on?
George shed tears and snot, even wet himself, and lay licking the floor before he finally reached out his hand in submission.
“I-I'll pay! I'll pay it all, so please spare me!”
“The price went up. Five million dollars. Late interest.”
“F-five million dollars? But that's….”
“If you don't like it, we can keep going.”
The Tea Party members watching the scene swallowed, their mouths dry.
‘…I'm glad he's on our side.’
‘What on earth did he used to do?’
Kang Do-jun, calmly torturing the heir to a wealthy family before their eyes, was several times more terrifying than the Annabelle they had faced moments ago.