Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 1. The Special-Class Exorcist Doesn't Want to Be a Patriot Anymore

Inside the VIP lounge of Terminal 2 at Incheon International Airport.

I... Kang Do-jun, a male shaman, silently stared at the document envelope on the table.

The front of the envelope bore the official seal of Cheongwa, the secret presidential exorcism unit.

“Agent Kang Do-jun, all the documents you need are in here. I suppose this is the last courtesy the country can extend to you.”

Across from me sat Lee Seo-jin, Director of Cheongwa, legs crossed with his aides standing behind him.

A cold, detached face.

He spoke with his brow deeply furrowed.

“Courtesy?”

A heavy sigh escaped me.

Kang Do-jun, special-class exorcist of the Cheongwa Exorcism Unit.

Originally, I was just a male shaman running a neighborhood fortune-telling shop for wealthy clients... But after ghost gates opened across South Korea and anomalies began harming people, I took up exorcism in earnest.

Special-class exorcist.

I earned that prestigious title, one held by only three people in all of South Korea, and I was reasonably satisfied with this life.

At least, until that incident.

-Spirit! Spirit! I'm sorry. Because of me... because I was useless!

-It's all right... Is it not also a blessing that I can fulfill my purpose like this?

Three years ago, there was the incident known as the ‘Black Killing Curse,’ which sucked away all the vital energy around Inwangsan Mountain and nearly turned the entirety of Seoul into hell.

I sacrificed the guardian deity I had served all my life, the White Tiger Spirit, to destroy the great evil spirit Saeuni.

It had been an order from the state, and Lee Seo-jin, now the Director and once my junior partner, had begged me desperately to do it.

I fought with everything I had, and as a result, I lost my divine power.

No, to be precise, only the vessel that had once housed my god had grown abnormally vast before becoming completely empty.

“I sacrificed even my spirit to protect this country, and this is what I get?”

“And that's why we've spent the last three years managing that dangerous ‘empty vessel’ of yours, haven't we? Even with us looking after you... there are limits.”

“Managing me? More like you spent three years trying to figure out how to use me, and now that you can't, you're throwing me away.”

Those bastards had tried several times to make another spirit descend into my body, but it never worked.

I didn't know why, but every attempt triggered a violent rejection from my body.

Seo-jin pushed the papers toward me.

【Recommendation for Overseas Residence and Permanent Exile】

“You know this already. A vessel as enormous and empty as yours is the perfect prey for evil spirits. Your mere presence in Korea is practically the seed of a catastrophe. On top of that... there's the ‘ominous prophecy’ concerning you. As Director of Cheongwa, allowing you to remain would be dereliction of duty.”

“A prophecy, huh. Still, most people don't throw away their own senior like this.”

A bitter smile.

“Senior... this is a sacrifice for the country. It's also the last act of patriotism you can perform.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

I'd sacrificed my entire life for this country, and even now, at the very end, this was the shit they had to say to me.

And of all people, it had to come from Lee Seo-jin, the man I'd trusted enough to treat like my own little brother.

What a fucking joke.

Enough to make me hate the very country called South Korea.

“If that's how it is, why don't you just kill me while you're at it? Tie up every loose end.”

“We aren't idiots either. If we carelessly shattered a vast vessel like yours, this entire land could be engulfed by powerful resentment and curses. More importantly, weren't you born under the fate of the Heavenly Killing Star?”

“What am I, nuclear waste?”

“Something like that. Though compared to a nuke... you're far more dangerous.”

The Heavenly Killing Star.

One born with a sinister and ominous fate, too dangerous to kill, yet equally impossible to let run wild in Korea.

Someone they would rather see die in faraway America, leaving his curse on American soil before disappearing for good.

That was how troublesome Kang Do-jun was to everyone.

Do-jun shrugged.

“More importantly, you sure you bastards won't regret this? Me... I hold grudges pretty damn well.”

“Well, that was only when you still had the White Tiger Spirit at your side.”

“You ungrateful bastards. Get lost.”

Kang Do-jun raised his middle finger and stormed out of the lounge.

A bitter expression settled on Lee Seo-jin's face as he watched him leave, while Kang Do-jun's face brimmed with murderous intent.

***

20 hours later, in a secluded alley near LA's Koreatown.

Kang Do-jun's thoughts were a mess as he walked.

‘Haaaah, fucking bastards.’

A U.S. green card and a pitifully small resettlement allowance.

I'd spent more than a decade working as an exorcist, and now this was all I had left to show for it.

Frankly, it was fucking miserable.

I'd worked myself to the bone for Cheongwa, for South Korea, a country that barely had any decent exorcists of its own.

And this was how they threw me away.

‘I'll make you regret it.’

Another sigh escaped me.

No matter how I looked at it, it pissed me off.

I ground my teeth and swore revenge, but... how exactly?

If this had been the old me, I would've immediately found work as an exorcist in America.

Unlike Korea, which still refused to officially acknowledge the existence of anomalies, the United States openly recognized them and operated an exorcist licensing system built around its capitalist society.

I placed a hand over my lower abdomen and felt nothing but the tobangguri, the vessel within me, vast as the sea.

My vessel had been unusually large from birth.

But after pushing myself to the limit in the fierce battle against Saeuni at Inwangsan Mountain, it had grown even larger.

In other words...

‘I've become a cursed body that's perfect for evil spirits to latch onto.’

For now, I'd relied on other shamans to keep evil spirits away with talismans and ritual implements, but I didn't even have the money to hire anyone anymore.

I didn't know if there was anyone in America who could do that sort of thing either.

A body perfect for an evil spirit to possess and turn into an anomaly... It was basically the same as carrying a ticking time bomb inside me.

A hopeless situation in more ways than one.

‘This could be fun.’

And yet, if anything, my competitive spirit began to boil.

What if I clawed my way up from this absolute rock bottom? Someday, I wanted to make the bastards who abandoned me get down on their knees and beg for forgiveness.

That was simply the kind of bastard I was.

My life in Korea had been the same.

Born an orphan without a mother or father, yet rising all the way to the pinnacle of shamans.

I'd endured everything through sheer grit and spite and achieved it all, so there was no reason I couldn't do the same here in America.

Growl!

Ever since arriving in America, I'd barely eaten or slept properly because I was trying to save money.

A sudden wave of self-pity welled up.

‘Those fucking bastards. If they were going to throw me out, they could've at least given me a decent pile of cash.’

But wasting money was out of the question.

If I carelessly burned through the little ammunition I had left in my current situation, I'd be perfectly positioned to die alone on the street.

Accepting a new god into my tobangguri would require an enormous amount of money.

Once I regained my power, I'd become an exorcist, rake in a fortune, and climb to the top of America's exorcist world.

And once I had enough power.

‘On the darkest night of the Giyu Year, starting from that day, I'll reclaim everything I lost.’

Of course, there was something I had to do first.

‘First, I need to shake the eyes on me.’

Lee Seo-jin would definitely have someone watching me.

I had to disappear completely before that happened.

Only after securing enough strength to withstand their pressure could I begin making any real moves.

I was just about to lose Lee Seo-jin's surveillance as planned.

Step!

I stopped in front of an alley.

‘...What is this energy?’

A strange pulse seeped through the red brick walls behind an old motel.

It was completely unlike the vital energy of Korea, carrying instead the rough, scorching essence of the wilderness.

And mixed into it was an almost desperate yearning.

On top of that, my tobangguri began to tingle.

《Come... to me...》

It felt as though something inside was pulling at my vessel.

Keeping one hand on the talisman tucked inside my clothes in case anything happened, I cautiously approached the deeper end of the alley.

“Hm?”

Deeper inside, the stench of blood mixed with rotten, briny water stabbed at my nose.

An old woman lay collapsed where my gaze settled.

Dark brown skin, deep wrinkles, and ornaments covered in strange patterns.

‘Native American?’

A massive hole had been torn through her abdomen, and dark-red blood was gushing from around the wound.

Black energy shimmered over her skin... it was demonic corruption.

Someone must have attacked this old woman through some wicked means.

“...Are you all right?”

I slowly approached, shook her, and patted her cheek.

The old woman's hazy eyes turned toward Do-jun.

“Yá'át'ééh... shiyáázh...”

...What the hell is she saying?

I may have been fluent in English, but there was no way I could understand a Native American language.

All I could hear was the desperate vibration woven into every word.

“Nectar Purification.”

Damn it... As expected, it's not working.

I tried a healing art, but without divine power, there was no way mere human strength could cure demonic corruption this severe.

‘Should I call 911...’

I was hurriedly reaching into my pocket for my phone when—

Grab!

The old woman's withered hand shot out like lightning and seized Do-jun's wrist.

Strength impossible to believe from a dying old woman.

She shook her head and said.

“Doo-dah... Ni-zhóní...”

At that moment, my vision flashed white.

Whoooosh!

A desolate Arizona desert unfolded before my eyes.

‘This is...’

I saw her younger self standing alone beneath a massive raging storm.

In her hands was a staff fashioned from the skull of an enormous wolf.

Huge, grotesque evil spirits that looked as if they'd crawled straight out of hell surrounded her, but when she chanted an incantation and slammed down her staff, the earth trembled and sacred flames burned the spirits away.

She had been a great medium who had protected this vast land.

Flash!

When I returned to reality, tears were pooled in the old woman's eyes.

Squeezing out the last of her strength, she pressed her palm against Do-jun's chest, precisely where his empty vessel lay.

“Na-nee-tin... shé'ee'ahane'...”

We couldn't understand each other's words, but Do-jun instinctively understood.

My god... Please take the divinity that has protected this land into your vessel.

“But my vessel... won't even accept an ordinary god.”

But the old woman stared at him with solemn eyes, as if telling him that wasn't the case.

He swallowed.

He had no idea what kind of god she served.

But the instincts of a man who had spent his entire life among spirits were telling him something.

Accepting her offer was the right choice.

And...

《Accept... me...》

Someone's voice sounded faintly in his ear.

“...All right. Let's at least give it a try.”

The instant he answered, brilliant golden energy erupted from the old woman's body.

Ruuuumble!

“Huuup!”

His enormous vessel, empty ever since the White Tiger Spirit left him, filled in an instant, creating pressure so intense it felt ready to burst.

A hot, majestic, untamed divinity of the wilderness, utterly unlike the vital energy of Korea, surged through his veins.

If it had been an ordinary god, it would've wandered around this space, failed to adapt, and been expelled.

But this was the exact opposite.

‘What the hell is this?’

He gritted his teeth and endured.

Using the principles of Qimen Dunjia, he guided the flow of energy... breathing steadily to help it settle properly into his vessel.

How long had he struggled with it?

By the time his body was drenched in sweat.

“Ahéhee' (Thank you).”

The old woman offered one final brief word of thanks and smiled faintly.

Rustle.

Her body soon crumbled into a handful of ash and scattered into the night wind.

“...You've done well, senior.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head where he stood.

The bare minimum of respect for a senior who had walked the same path.

Afterward, he calmly examined his body.

At the very center of his tobangguri, he encountered an enormous, scorching presence.

‘Spirit dwelling within me... who are you?’

A majestic resonance answered the question directed inward.

【I am merely a spirit, Nilch'i. A spirit with no name, one who remembers nothing at all.】

That was all.

He could discern neither the spirit's true name nor the nature of its power.

As he was now, Do-jun couldn't even perceive its form.

‘...Looks like I'm about to start serving an American spirit I'd never expected in my life.’

***

Sitting cross-legged on the bed of a cheap motel, he sweated profusely.

“Gnnnnngh...”

His entire body trembled as he squeezed out every ounce of strength, but there was little response.

He was trying to uncover the identity of the spirit now dwelling within his body.

But the only thing it occasionally said was...

《I am hungry...》

Nothing resembling meaningful communication, only constant complaints about being hungry.

...Just what the hell is this spirit?

He let out a heavy sigh and scratched his head.

“This is okay... right?”

It clearly wasn't an evil spirit, which was why he'd accepted it into his body, but somehow they couldn't even hold a conversation...

How many meaningless hours had he spent wrestling with this?

“Aaaaaaaagh!”

“Huh?

A scream came from outside.

He hurriedly opened the window. Police tape had been stretched around a motel on the opposite block, and heavily armed officers were controlling the entrance.

Among them were people wearing black priestly robes and specialized protective gear.

Most likely exorcists.

“Everyone, get back!”

“Ghost Fall detected! Exorcist team, prepare for deployment!”

The radio blared loudly.

His brow furrowed instinctively.

Ghost Fall, the American term for a manifestation event in which evil spirits gained physical force in the real world.

“Oho...”

He stroked his chin and peered beyond them.

Then...

Shiver!

Every hair on his body stood on end as he sensed a wicked presence from beyond.

‘That thing... seems pretty damn strong.’

His curiosity was piqued.

Just then.

“It's Slender Man!”

“Damn it! S-Slender Man!”

Shouts rang out from the people nearby, and his brow creased.

‘Slender Man... isn't that a pretty famous anomaly?’

The Catastrophe-Class Exorcist Is Too Strong in America

Author

: Gisigami

Production Date

: September 15, 2026

Publisher

: ACES Media Co., Ltd.

Editor

: ACES Media Editorial Team

Address

: 12F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Email

: acesmedia9@gmail.com

※ This work was published by ACES Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,

and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.

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UCI

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