'Good grief.'
The moment Tae-woo stepped inside, he was startled all over again.
One entire wall of the department head's office was covered with weapons.
Rifles, sniper rifles, crescent-bladed polearms, spears, swords, throwing stars, and more.
Regardless of the era or type, it seemed there was at least one of every kind hanging there.
On the desk where the man apparently worked stood a nameplate engraved with the words 'Department Head Cha Jun-ho.'
"You're the founding chairman's grandson, right? Ah, I'll speak casually! You don't mind, do you?"
He pointed to the small reception table in the middle of the room, gesturing for Tae-woo to sit.
Once Tae-woo was seated, he sat across from him.
"The founding chairman. Ah, yes."
"Ah, he was such a good man. I joined the Cleanup Team back when he was still building the company, so I worked alongside him. And now, to think I'm meeting his grandson. It's quite moving, really."
"Ah, yes."
Tae-woo had no idea how to respond.
"So, have you done any exorcism work before?"
"Exorcism...? What do you mean?"
"You don't know what exorcism is? That's unbelievable. Have you read the Ghost Observation Record?"
"I have."
"What did you think?"
"To be frank, it seemed like... a fantasy novel. The contents were extremely unscientific and strange."
Considering that he could see ghosts himself, Tae-woo was hardly in a position to say such things. But now that matters had come this far, he felt he ought to answer honestly.
Department Head Cha Jun-ho nodded at his reply.
"Okay. Once you've been out in the field, you'll learn the practical side quickly enough. Being the chairman's grandson, you might finish in a month what takes other people six months of probation."
Cha Jun-ho gestured for him to stand.
Tae-woo could not quite make sense of what he had said.
He knew his grandfather had been the founding chairman, but the word 'exorcism' that Jun-ho had just used bothered him.
Cha Jun-ho suddenly stepped beside Tae-woo, slung an arm around his shoulders, and led him out of the office.
Before he knew it, Tae-woo found himself standing outside the department head's office, guided there by the man's arm.
"All right, everyone! Attention!"
Cha Jun-ho shouted in a booming voice.
Everyone who had been busy working turned to look at him and Tae-woo.
Suddenly embarrassed, Tae-woo offered an awkward smile and a small bow.
"This is Senior Associate Kim Tae-woo, who'll be joining our Gwihon Trading Cleanup Team starting today! Everyone, give him a round of applause!"
Everyone clapped.
But Tae-woo could tell from their eyes that they wanted the introductions to end quickly so they could get back to their work.
After all, he had felt the same way when he worked at Siren.
"If he doesn't know something, make sure you explain it to him. HR hasn't assigned him a specific probationary period, but he'll get used to things quickly, so put him straight onto practical training. Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim will be his mentor."
"Yes, understood."
Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim nodded.
"You're all busy, right? Introduce yourselves on your own time and get back to work. And Assistant Manager Yoon, prepare Senior Associate Kim for a solo field orientation and send him out immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Cha Jun-ho waved a hand and went back into his office alone.
Left by himself, Tae-woo stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do.
Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim beckoned him back to his desk.
He sat down cautiously and looked around at the other employees.
He could see people holding guns and swords as they talked or headed out on assignments.
"You can't see any ghosts here, can you?"
She asked with a smile.
Tae-woo's eyes widened as though he had suddenly realized something, and he looked around the room.
This was the first time he had ever been somewhere with so many people and not seen a single ghost.
No matter where he went or whom he was with, ghosts of all shapes and sizes had always been around him.
Yet here, he could not see a ghost anywhere.
It was a kind of 'cleanliness' he had never experienced in his entire life.
"No. I really can't see any."
Tae-woo answered without thinking. A moment later, he asked in astonishment,
"Wait a minute. Are you saying the things I've been seeing all this time really are ghosts?"
"Yes. Everyone here can see them."
"They're actually real?"
"Of course. But they wouldn't dare show themselves here. If they did, their heads would come straight off."
She added this with a smile.
At those words, Tae-woo recalled what he had read in the Ghost Observation Record.
"Um, don't tell me the people here are... hunting ghosts, like it says in the Ghost Observation Record? Really? Are you completely serious?"
"Yes. Completely serious."
Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim answered.
"Then when he mentioned exorcism earlier... You mean this company does the sort of work that shamans or exorcist priests do?"
Tae-woo waved his hands in disbelief.
For someone who had spent his entire life aspiring to an ordinary office job, the idea was absurd.
A seemingly ordinary trading company in the middle of Seoul hunted ghosts?
There had certainly been plenty of strange things about the place, but that did not mean he could readily believe it was a company full of ghost-hunting exorcists.
It was scientifically impossible!
"You'll understand once you experience it."
Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim scratched her cheek as she murmured the words.
Just then, the man sitting beside her abruptly joined the conversation.
He wore glasses and had a somewhat irritable-looking face, prominent cheekbones, and a thin frame. He looked like a very sensitive sort of person.
"Why waste time explaining it all? Just send him into the field like the department head said. Then he'll understand something, at least. You know the place, right? That school the new recruits from Team 1 went to not long ago. Try sending him there."
"Ah, yes. Understood, Manager."
Yoon Ye-rim answered the man and sat down.
She wrote something on a sticky note and handed it to Tae-woo.
"Once the sun goes down today, go to this address and film whatever is on the second floor."
Tae-woo accepted the sticky note almost reflexively.
It bore the address of an abandoned school in a mountain village on the outskirts of Gangwon Province.
"Senior Associate Kim, about that abandoned school. You don't need to come back to work until you've filmed whatever is on the second floor."
The manager sitting beside Yoon Ye-rim spoke as he typed something on his computer.
"Pardon? You want me to film this place?"
"That's right. That's what the training program for new recruits is all about, anyway."
"Uh... Yes, understood."
Tae-woo slipped the sticky note into his pocket and picked up the box containing the Ghost-Observing Blade.
"I'll be back, then."
After saying goodbye, he headed out of the building.
Assistant Manager Yoon Ye-rim watched him enter the elevator and descend before turning to the manager.
"Manager, isn't that abandoned school a bit dangerous for a new recruit to tackle alone? The other recruits went in groups of three or four, at least."
"Dangerous? He's the founding chairman's grandson. If he can't even handle that, he has no business being a senior associate or working at this company at all."
The manager's response was firm.
Nevertheless, Yoon Ye-rim still looked worried.
* * *
After leaving the company, Tae-woo stood outside for a moment, searching for a way to reach the address.
'I could go to the bus terminal and catch an express bus...'
While he was considering his options, a black midsize sedan pulled up in front of him.
It was his chauffeur, Lee Seung-hoon.
Seung-hoon stepped out of the driver's seat and immediately opened the rear door for him.
"Young Master, where are you going? I'll drive you."
At his words, Tae-woo tilted his head.
"Huh? Have you been waiting for me?"
"Yes. I was waiting for you to finish work. It looks as though you're heading out on an assignment, so please get in."
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
Once Tae-woo was inside, Seung-hoon returned to the driver's seat and immediately drove off.
"Do you know where we're going?"
Tae-woo asked from the back seat.
"No, I don't."
Seung-hoon looked at Tae-woo through the rearview mirror as he answered.
"Good grief."
Feeling vaguely uneasy and frightened, Tae-woo had little choice but to head to the place.
After driving for two straight hours, they arrived in front of the abandoned school.
With an eerie wind whipping around him, Tae-woo stood before the school gate and scratched his cheek.
His first test as a member of a trading company's 'Cleanup Team' was to film an abandoned school and return safely.
He could not make sense of it.
Even if this really was a company that cut down and hunted ghosts, just as the Ghost Observation Record described, he had no idea what the point of this exercise was.
'Do I really have to do this?'
That thought crossed his mind. But when he considered that his grandfather had been the founding chairman of a company with 750 billion won in annual revenue, and that the company would pass into his hands once he had gained practical experience, he could hardly bring himself to give up.
Besides, his spirit sight already made it difficult for him to hold down a job anywhere else.
"Oh, whatever. I'll just go in, film the place quickly, and get out."
He opened the camera app on his phone and took the Ghost-Observing Blade in one hand.
He did not know whether it could actually cut ghosts, but he felt that he needed at least that much confidence to summon his courage.
"Phew."
He took a deep breath, passed through the open school gate, and entered the playground, which was overgrown with weeds.
WHOOOOOSH— WHOOOOOSH—
A fierce wind swept across the grounds.
Tae-woo narrowed his eyes and kept moving forward as he looked around.
"I can see ghosts too, you know. I've dealt with just about every kind of ghost there is, you bastards. Come on, then. Show yourselves if you dare."
He was only pretending to be tough as he spoke.
CRUNCH— CRUNCH— CRUNCH—
His footsteps sounded unnaturally loud.
It was the sound of his shoes crushing the weeds.
"......"
It felt as though a ghost could leap out at him from anywhere.
For an instant, the faces of all the ghosts that had frightened him in the past flashed through his mind like a series of scenes from his life.
If the ghosts here decided to torment him the same way, Tae-woo was bound to get a terrible fright again.
The one saving grace was that he was holding the Ghost-Observing Blade, which was supposedly capable of cutting ghosts.
He did not believe in its powers at all, but he kept walking, clinging to the hope that it really could cut them down.
CRUNCH— CRUNCH— CRUNCH— SQUELCH—
As he continued walking forward—
He stepped on something strange.
Startled, Tae-woo looked down.
"Gasp!"
What he saw was a ghost's head lying on the ground, staring straight up at him.
Its skin was deathly white, and its pupils were no bigger than peanuts.
Where the bridge of its nose should have been, there were only two gaping nostrils.
As it stared at Tae-woo, the ghost rapidly clicked its teeth together.
At the same time, red capillaries spread swiftly across the whites of its eyes, and it began to weep tears of blood.
GRAB—
Suddenly, a pale white arm shot out of the ground and seized Tae-woo's ankle.
Cockroaches and centipedes swarmed out along with the arm and burrowed into his trouser legs.
SKITTER, SKITTER, SKITTER—
Tae-woo recoiled in horror at the grotesque sensation.
"Aaaagh!"
Without even thinking to stab the ghost with his sword, he turned and fled as fast as he could.
And so his first attempt ended with nothing more than his having made it onto the school grounds.
* * *
Back home, Tae-woo entered his room, trying to calm his pounding heart.
Seung-hoon followed him inside, clasped his hands politely in front of him, and asked,
"I heard you have spirit sight, just like our founding chairman. You've been seeing ghosts since childhood. Were you really that frightened?"
He had not followed Tae-woo into the school, but he seemed to know perfectly well why he had run away.
"You can see ghosts all your life and still never get used to them. That's easy for you to say."
Tae-woo waved a dismissive hand as he replied.
"Perhaps you'll find your answer if you learn to use the Ghost-Observing Blade properly. While he was alive, the founding chairman always trained with the Ghost-Observing Blade and the Blood-Counting Dagger."
"He trained with them?"
Tae-woo stared at the Ghost-Observing Blade.
Then he slowly picked up the sword.
WHOOOOOSH—
Along with its substantial weight, he felt a strange tingling sensation spread from his fingertips, traveling along the nerves throughout his body.
A peculiar fighting spirit welled up within him, and he found himself wanting to swing the sword properly.
"Is there somewhere with a bit of open space?"
"There's a small gymnasium in the backyard where the chairman used to exercise. Please follow me."
Guided by Seung-hoon, Tae-woo carried the Ghost-Observing Blade into the backyard.
There stood various pieces of exercise equipment and wooden training dummies used for martial arts practice.
Tae-woo stood in the middle of them and swung his sword.