My Girlfriend Is a Shaman

35 – Heoju #4

The sashimi knife swung by the stranger was blocked by the martial arts knife I swung. Although it was only for a moment, a struggle of strength took place with swords clashing with swords.

There was no decision. Neither I nor the gunman showed any signs of losing power.

The one who took out the knife first was the gunman. The assailant stepped back and swung his knife diagonally at me. The sashimi knife narrowly grazed my chest. Although it was agile, it was clearly an attack that could be avoided.

A gap was revealed.

I didn’t miss the opportunity and cut the gunman’s arm. The sharp military knife tore the gunman’s coat and cut his flesh. Although I succeeded in delivering the blow, I could not feel at ease. Even though the gunman was cut with a knife, he showed no sign of pain at all.

“…….”

It wasn’t all about not feeling pain. The bleeding stopped on the gunman’s arm, which was dripping blood. New flesh sprouted from his arm, where the cut still remained. I couldn’t believe it even when I saw it with my own eyes.

‘You recovered right away, right?’

I remembered a story I heard from class leader Do Seung-hoon. The story goes that the gunman was fine even after being hit with multiple .38 Caliber bullets. Certainly, if he didn’t have that level of resilience, he couldn’t have survived being shot. I grabbed my sword and tensed.

It was the moment when I recovered from my wounds.

The attacker’s attack has become more active. The gunman swung his sashimi knife at me at random. It was a movement that ignored defense and evasion. Inside the narrow hallway, I had no choice but to step back little by little. I focused on avoiding the sashimi knife and looked for an opportunity.

Even if I cut down a stranger, if the wound was only moderate, I would recover quickly.

If we were both cut by a knife, I would be the only one out of the two.

What was fortunate was that this was Hyehwadang, which I was familiar with. This long hallway was equipped with household fire extinguishers. It was behind me. I couldn’t take my eyes off the gunman, but I could roughly guess the location of the fire extinguisher.

It was the moment I arrived near the fire extinguisher. The gunman tried to attack me with a knife raised. The gunman’s movements were loud. I reached out and threw the fire extinguisher behind me at the gunman.

━━Swish!

A 3KG fire extinguisher filled with powder.

The fire extinguisher flew in a parabola and hit the assailant’s abdomen. The fire extinguisher that collided with the gunman flew into the air. Unfortunately, the powder didn’t explode, but that was enough. The assailant’s back was bent due to the impact of being hit with a fire extinguisher.

I ran forward and stabbed the assailant in the mask with my sword. If it were a traditional wooden mask, it could be split with enough force.

It was the moment when the tip of the knife was about to touch the mask.

“Ugh.”

It wasn’t my voice.

For the first time, a deep, low-pitched voice came from the stranger. The gunman raised his arm and blocked his masked face. The military knife I stabbed was thrown away by the assailant’s forearm.

It was a strange thing. The gunman, who had been swinging his knife like crazy without defending himself, took action to block the attack. If I had the power to recover from my wounds, it would have been right to rush in and die together in this situation.

But the gunman blocked the attack with his forearm. It seemed like he was wary of damaging his mask. The blood that had been flowing from his forearm gradually stopped. The gunman took a step back. I spoke to the first person who spoke out.

“Are you sick of that mask? Can’t it be ruined?”

“…….”

“You suddenly made a noise that surprised me. Please say something.”

Of course, there was no answer. However, just because they were taking precautions, it was clear that they were serious.

Spiritual objects were the link between spirit mediums and ghosts. If the spirit object was destroyed, the medium lost all power. It was clear that the strange object possessed by the gunman was a traditional mask worn on his face. There was a reason why he always wore a mask.

Instead of answering, the gunman swung a sashimi knife. The stranger’s movements became more cautious than before. I was looking for an opportunity while blocking the sashimi knife with my martial arts knife.

The fight was taking longer than expected.

Some time had passed.

━━Squeak

The bathroom door opened and Sarah came out dressed. While the gunman and I were fighting, Sarah quickly came from a nearby room holding a martial arts knife. I told Sarah what the strange monster was.

“Sera! Aim for the mask! I’m sick of the mask on my face!”

“How did you know?”

“Fighting!”

Sarah and I swung our swords at the assailant. Because Sera came at the right time, the attack became easier than before. The two of us cornered the gunman. As he constantly swung his sword, the gunman’s body repeatedly suffered scars and then recovered. Although his body was recovered, the coat the gunman was wearing was torn in several places.

━━Tuk

The pocket of the coat was torn.

Something in my pocket fell to the floor of the hallway.

‘What is it?’

The gunman’s belongings fell. However, it was impossible to properly confirm what it was. The lights in the hallway were off so it was difficult to see the floor clearly.

The belongings fell, but the gunman didn’t seem to notice. He was concentrating on blocking and dodging the swords we were swinging at Tal. Eventually, the gunman who was retreating reached the end of the hallway.

He thought he would step back.

However, something unexpected happened.

The gunman threw his body toward the window of the hallway next to him. He threw his whole body, broke the window and ran outside. The sound of breaking glass rang out and glass fragments flew everywhere.

“Ugh!”

“Be careful!”

Sarah and I stepped back and avoided the glass shards. It was only because of that monster that he was able to throw himself and break the window. The gunman who rolled around the yard of Hyehwadang was bleeding because his entire body was pierced by glass. It only took a moment for the assailant’s bleeding to stop.

“Let’s chase after him!”

We opened another window in the hallway and went outside. When we arrived at the yard of Hyehwadang, the gunman was already standing near the fence. He seemed intent on running away.

It’s a fairly high wall, so you can aim at its back when trying to climb it. That was the moment I thought so.

Suddenly, a voice came out from the stranger’s mouth.

“Teoju.”

The stranger just said one word, but something strange happened.

Lights flickered on the Hyehwadang building behind us. Before I ran into the gunman earlier, I turned on the light in the living room. The light there was blinking.

The blinking lights at Hyehwadang went out.

Our surroundings became completely dark.

“…Is there a sudden power outage?”

“The power outage didn’t just happen. That man summoned a ghost.”

Sera said while looking at the strange man standing there. I have also experienced a sudden power outage. When I was in elementary school, I witnessed a ghost with a severed head. At that time, there was a power outage in the apartment I was living in.

The power outage could be considered a sign of a ghost appearing.

It means that a ghost has now appeared in Hyehwadang.

Something stirred behind the back of the strange man who was standing there. The thing that wriggled like a shadow revealed its long body behind the assailant. First it was a human-sized head, then a long body, and finally a thick tail.

“Ah…!”

We ended up seeing the appearance of a ghost.

It wasn’t a person.

‘Snake’

The ghost that appeared at Hyehwadang took the form of a large snake. With a body length of up to 6 meters, the snake was as big as a human. To be precise, it was the spirit of an animal.

“It’s a snake!”

“That’s Lord Teoju. He was serving the soul of a snake, not the soul of a dead person.”

“I didn’t know there would be a snake.”

“Well, there are mediums who worship the snake god.”

A snake called Teojunim.

I, too, have heard the term “Teoju.”

In Korean folk religion, Teoju were spirits who protected the foundation of the family. In the distant past, they were spirits that were worshiped in every home, and among them, there was even a serpent-shaped Teoju.

‘You want me to open that?’

I felt puzzled.

I didn’t understand if the snake’s soul told me to open it.

Teoju was originally like a guardian spirit that protected people’s lives and property.

Why does the lord go around killing people?

“Sera! When you say Taoju, isn’t it like a guardian spirit?”

“It was like that in the old days. But these days, there are very few people who believe in local beliefs. Aren’t they angry because people don’t respect them? Snake gods are cunning and can’t be trusted.”

Has the land become corrupted as the number of people who worship serpents as spirits has decreased? After listening to Sarah’s words, it was certainly plausible.

There was no time to talk in more detail. A large snake with its head held high crawled towards us. Looking at its size, it was not a snake but an anaconda.

“It’s coming!”

Sarah and I stepped back, holding our swords. The moment I saw the large snake crawling on the floor, I felt an instinctive feeling of disgust.

The snake tried to entangle us with its long body, which was up to 6 meters long. I stabbed the snake in the head with a sword. An ordinary snake would have died, but the opponent was a snake spirit. The snake disappeared without a sound and then reappeared, targeting us again.

“Gunwoong’s knife works!”

Fortunately, I was able to sufficiently stop the serpent’s actions with the martial arts knife.

Every time the snake raised its head and tried to bite, we swung our swords and cut it.

As I was dealing with the serpent, I thought of the people who were killed by the monster. Among the corpses, there were some who met strange deaths with their bodies crushed. The weapon that crushed those people to death was this snake. He used his body as a noose to strangle people.

The soul was not visible to ordinary people. It was visible only to people with inspiration like me and Sarah. If that serpent’s spirit attacked, ordinary people would have no choice but to die without knowing anything.

━━ Swish

The masked man had already climbed over the fence.

After a while, the snake that was fighting with us at Hyehwadang also disappeared.

Both of them ran away from Hyehwadang.

We went outside and looked around the residential area, but we couldn’t find the gunman.

“Oh, he ran away.”

“It’s a shame. If I had known it was a snake, I would have prepared a spell in advance.”

“What spell?”

“There is a spell to kill snakes.”

In the end, we lost the gunman and returned to Hyehwadang.

I regretted that Sera could not use her magic next to me. But just because she missed the goon didn’t mean she was missing any loot. I remembered the object that had fallen in the hallway of Hyehwadang earlier.

“Still, we must have gained something, right? During the fight in the hallway earlier, something fell out of the killer’s clothes.”

“Oh, that? What was it?”

“I didn’t look closely either.”

Sera also remembered the item the gunman dropped in the hallway.

After leaving, we returned to the hallway of Hyehwadang and looked around the interior. When the serpent disappeared, the lights in Hyehwadang came on properly. When I turned on the lights and searched, I was able to quickly find the item the assailant had dropped.

“Oh.”

Sarah and I were surprised to find the gunman’s belongings.

The gunman’s belongings that fell were his wallet.

There was a thick bundle of bills in my wallet.

“Hey, the murderer paid for the meal and left.”

“That’s right.”

Of course, it wasn’t just money.

Because the wallet also contained an ID card.

It was the gunman’s identification card.

An ID card with our name and resident registration number was placed in our hands.