Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Chapter 3. Who Exactly Is Inside Me?

The next day, I immediately got to work on my next job.

I didn't want to waste money and time in this cheap motel...

《Child... I am hungry.》

And my new spirit's whining was gradually becoming more frequent.

Apparently, the soul of Slender Man he'd devoured not long ago hadn't been enough to satisfy him.

‘I'll perform exorcisms, earn money, find myself a place to live... And feed the spirit while I'm at it.’

I opened the old laptop I'd bought from a nearby antique shop.

Tap-tap-tap! Clack!

My fingers moved across the keyboard with practiced ease.

I plunged into the middle layers of the dark web, an abyss no ordinary browser could ever reach.

I bypassed complex encryption protocols and bounced through three virtual IPs.

A red eye symbol appeared on the screen, followed shortly by a site with a bizarre interface.

The black market of American exorcists, the ‘Underworld Board.’

‘It's not like I can just walk into an exorcist agency or association and expect them to welcome an unlicensed Asian.’

It was a place where mysterious experts gathered to carry out dangerous assignments for minimal commission.

In other words, it suited my current situation perfectly.

Ever since I began planning revenge against Cheongwa and Lee Seo-jin, the bastards who stabbed me in the back, I'd assumed it would take at least a year before I could start taking jobs here.

That timetable had just been shortened dramatically.

I browsed the mission list and applied to bid on several jobs.

But...

“Hmm. No one biting because I have no track record?”

Most of the available requests went to accounts with established records.

All that remained were poorly paid jobs or annoying errands involving minor spirits.

Those wouldn't even cover my motel bill.

Just as Do-jun reached the bottom of the page, a listing with a skull icon against a black background caught his eye at the very bottom of the board.

───────

【Location: Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital District, Outskirts of Brooklyn】

【Details: Dozens of suicides have continuously occurred here. An evil spirit is suspected to be present. The client requests an exorcism for personal reasons.】

【Reward: $100,000】

【Special Notes: Four contractors have disappeared or suffered mental breakdowns over the past three months. The request has been accepted more than five times, but every exorcism ended in failure. Extreme caution advised.】

───────

One hundred thousand dollars.

About one hundred fifty million won. Not bad pay.

But the reason it was still sitting on the list was obvious.

‘Five people have taken the job, and all of them failed.’

In cases like this, there were usually two possibilities.

Either it was simply that dangerous, or there was something about the request that wasn't being disclosed.

And that made it even better.

‘If I play this right, I can steer things exactly where I want them.’

The corner of my lips curled upward as I immediately hit the ‘Accept’ button.

Then...

【User ‘JustDie’ has sent you a message.】

【JustDie:...You. Are you seriously taking this job?】

A message arrived almost immediately.

***

On the outskirts of Brooklyn, the psychiatric hospital visible beyond the rusted iron fence looked like the entrance to hell itself.

Waverly Hills, Brooklyn Branch.

After shutting down in the 1950s following an unsavory incident, the place had become the final destination for homeless people, drug offenders, and those dreaming of ‘suicide.’

Bizarre graffiti covered every wall, while tattered curtains billowed through broken windows like ropes from which someone had hanged themselves.

“Are you the client?”

Do-jun asked as he stepped out of the car.

A hooded man emerged from the darkness, waving his smartphone as he approached.

“...You're here. You're the Asian?”

“Why? Is that a problem?”

“No. As long as you can perform an exorcism, I don't care who you are.”

“Then you can leave it to me.”

His username was ‘JustDie.’

He introduced himself as Jack and launched into a somewhat clichéd story about how he'd once streamed paranormal content here with a friend... His friend had died, and he'd hired Do-jun because he wanted revenge.

There was something faintly fraudulent about him.

Exactly the feeling I'd been expecting.

“Revenge? Against a ghost?”

“Why? Is there something wrong with that?”

“Nine times out of ten, people who go charging around this business looking for revenge end up dying like dogs. I wouldn't exactly recommend it.”

“So... you can't do it?”

“No. If you're paying, I'll do it.”

I answered as I pulled my mask higher over my face.

I didn't care if they filmed me, but letting my face get exposed and giving the Cheongwa bastards a trail to follow would be annoying.

“Then shut up and follow me... You'll get your money.”

“Yes, sir!”

The moment we entered the building, the sharp odor of mold and some unidentified stench stabbed at my nose.

Jack fastened a bodycam to his chest and began loading both hands with various devices.

‘Hmm... Yeah, looks like I was one hundred percent right.’

You're making it way too obvious, asshole.

Ignoring my stare, Jack enthusiastically began talking.

“All right, viewers. No—this is for the record. Current EMF reading, 1.2. Still quiet for now. Let's spread some salt and move on.”

Beep-beep, beep.

Jack shone a UV light around, scattered salt across the floor, and waved a frequency meter through the air.

I watched the spectacle with disdain before casually asking.

“Why are you using those things? Are they toys?”

“...I told you. This place... has an evil spirit.”

Jack tried to brush it off, but I could see it clearly.

His hands were far too practiced with the equipment, and the way he handled the camera angles was remarkably natural.

Beepbeepbeepbeep!

The moment we entered the intensive care floor after passing through the corridor, Jack's EMF meter began screaming like crazy.

Red lights flashed through the dark hallway, creating an eerie atmosphere.

“It's here... It's close! Here! There's an evil spirit here!”

Jack excitedly took the lead.

At the end of the hallway stood a VIP intensive care room sealed behind a heavy iron door. Do-jun stopped and spoke.

“Wait. Stop.”

“Why? Getting cold feet now?”

“There's an extremely vicious spirit behind that door. You probably shouldn't come with me.”

At that moment, Jack's frightened expression twisted into a grotesque grin as though it had never existed.

Like... the face of a serial killer.

“I already know that, asshole!”

Bam!

Jack violently shoved him in the back.

Do-jun stumbled into the room, and the iron door slammed shut behind him.

“Go on, then! Show me how good you are at exorcisms! Ahaha! Ahahahaha!”

The click of a lock sounded from outside.

Without panicking, I looked around.

State-of-the-art high-definition CCTV cameras had been installed in every corner.

Jack had probably put them there.

“Knew it.”

I smirked and looked ahead.

At the center of the room floated an evil spirit resembling an enormous lump of flesh, dozens of souls crushed and fused together into one.

Countless eyes rolled grotesquely in different directions, and from between its rotting flesh came voices.

《I want to die...》

《Please kill me!》

《You too... will become one with ussss...》

The cries of vengeful souls poured out like a waterfall.

The culprit behind this suicide zone.

An evil spirit that seduced people into taking their own lives, then absorbed their souls and grew bloated from them.

It wasn't difficult to determine what it was.

‘A Legion.’

Legion.

In Korea, they were known as collective spirits—beings formed when entities filled with negative emotions or vengeful souls fused together and amplified their power.

The Rat Kings often found in Western urban legends, along with things recently mentioned on Reddit like Crawling Flesh or The Flash, were all varieties of Legion.

With that much malice and power, killing a few people would be effortless.

‘So basically, you dragged me here as an offering to that evil spirit.’

You've got some nerve, you piece-of-shit streamer.

I let out a heavy sigh and pulled a talisman from inside my clothes.

Then...

Fwap-fwap-fwap!

I threw them, sticking one onto each of the installed CCTV cameras.

《Screeeech! Kreeeeeee!》

Just as the evil spirit's body stretched out and lunged toward me.

I rolled aside, evaded it, formed a hand seal, and pressed my palm against the floor.

“Bind!”

Blue chains erupted from the ground and tightly constricted the evil spirit's body.

The spirit thrashed and screamed, but I paid it little attention as I spoke toward my tobangguri.

“Elder, dinner is served.”

《...Thank... you.》

Then...

The phantom of an enormous beast with flowing blue fur appeared behind me.

The spirit's manifested claws seized the evil spirit's torso in a single motion.

“Elder, since I've served you your meal, could I ask one favor in return?”

《What... is it?》

A wide grin spread across my lips as I spoke.

***

“Damn it! Hey, why isn't this working?!”

Jack hammered furiously at the monitors.

Inside the VIP room of the abandoned Brooklyn psychiatric hospital, all four high-definition infrared cameras he'd spent tens of thousands of dollars installing had simultaneously gone dead.

Nothing filled the screens except crackling static and an unpleasant silence.

The live chat for his dark-web stream had already descended into chaos.

───────

[Blood_Fan]: Hey, are you fucking kidding me? I paid to get in here, so why am I staring at a black screen?

[Snuff_Master]: You said we'd get to watch that Asian bastard kill himself. You fucking scammer!

[Hell_Gate]: Jack, if you don't refund me, I'll track your location and bury you myself.

───────

“Just wait! Wait a damn minute, you assholes! Don't leave!”

Jack screamed as he snapped open his collapsible baton.

His eyes were bloodshot crimson.

‘Fuck! This has gone wrong.’

Jack, real name Smith Wither.

At heart, he was a murderer masquerading as a streamer.

He used the evil spirit in the suicide zone to lure people in, then broadcast snuff footage of them panicking and taking their own lives on the dark web, earning enormous amounts of Bitcoin.

This exorcist was merely his latest sacrifice.

“Damn it, that Asian bastard... Did he actually succeed in the exorcism? No one's ever managed that before.”

Jack checked the GoPro attached to his chest.

If the main CCTV system was dead, he'd have to go inside himself and at least film the ‘corpse.’

That was the only way to calm down these ravenous viewers demanding refunds.

Click.

Jack unbolted the tightly locked iron door and stepped into the room.

“Hey! You in there? If you're dead, at least answer me...”

The room was quiet.

No, it was far too clean.

There wasn't even a trace of the Asian man Jack had shoved inside.

“Where'd you go? Where the hell are you hiding, you yellow bastard!”

Jack frantically looked around and shouted.

“Yellow? Sir... that's racist.”

The voice came from above.

Before Jack could even raise his head, transparent strands of light poured down through the air like snakes.

“W-What the hell is this! Ugh!”

‘Spirit-Binding Rope,’ an application of spirit descent techniques.

Ropes imitating the power of a serpent spirit wrapped tightly around Jack's entire body.

In an instant, Jack was slammed to the floor like an insect caught in a spiderweb.

“What the hell are you doing?! Untie me right now! I'll call the cops!”

“The cops? A guy who livestreams murder on the dark web wants to call the police?”

“What?”

Do-jun leisurely stepped out of the darkness.

The eyes beyond his mask were cold and still.

He grabbed the struggling Jack by the hair and pulled him upright, then took out a talisman covered in blood-red writing.

“W-Why the hell are you doing this to me?! I'm your client... Huh?”

“You really don't know? Then I guess I'll have to refresh your memory.”

Do-jun slapped the talisman onto Jack's forehead.

Fwoosh!

The moment it ignited, Jack's eyes rolled backward.

-Save me, Jack! Please open the door!

-Aaaaagh! My eyes! I can't see!

The final moments of the people he'd lured here and murdered tore through Jack's mind like a panorama.

The screams of innocent victims. Jack foamed at the mouth and writhed beneath the noise echoing inside his skull.

“How many people died because of that garbage stream of yours? You piece of trash.”

“G-Ghhh... P-Please spare me...”

Tears streamed down Jack's face.

Do-jun lightly slapped his cheek and spoke in an icy voice.

“Hand over everything you owe me. The hundred thousand dollars you promised. Otherwise, you die by my hand.”

A chilling blue light seeped from Do-jun's eyes, making his body resemble some horrifying evil spirit.

It was merely an illusion, but more than enough to terrify Jack.

“H-Hiiiiiik! I'll pay! I'll give you everything! Just get that thing away from me!”

Jack pulled a tablet from inside his clothes with trembling hands.

His finger shook as he pressed the payment authorization button.

Beep.

A notification appeared on Do-jun's phone confirming the transfer to his Bitcoin wallet.

One hundred thousand dollars—and actually a bit more, with plenty added to cover the fees.

“Payment confirmed. Thank you for your business, sir.”

Do-jun turned away without hesitation and headed for the door.

“Hey! You have to untie me before you leave! Untie me!”

“All I promised was that ‘I wouldn't kill you.’ I never said I'd let you go.”

“What? Hey! Heeeey!”

Leaving Jack's curses behind him, Do-jun walked out of the room.

Click.

The bolt slid into place once more, and his voice came through from the other side.

“Oh, and... have a good time with your friends.”

“What?”

Inside the room.

Cold air began swirling around Jack as he screamed while bound.

From the cracks between the floor tiles, from the ventilation ducts in the ceiling, black shadows slowly seeped out.

As the shadows took on translucent forms, despair flooded Jack's face.

They were the victims who had died by his hand.

***

On the way out of the abandoned psychiatric hospital, the night air still carried a foul tang, but my steps were as light as feathers.

A red ember glowed at the tip of the cigarette between my lips.

“Hooo.”

The smoke I exhaled slowly dispersed into Brooklyn's humid night air.

That was when it happened.

A desperate scream powerful enough to make the entire old building behind me tremble tore apart the silence of the night.

“Aaaaaaaaaagh! Please! Save me! Please!”

It was Jack's voice—the man who had tried to offer me as a sacrifice moments ago.

The resentment of those spirits must have been incredibly deep, because what I could hear from behind sounded rather serious.

I let out a bitter sigh and spoke.

“May you all finally find peace.”

I pulled out my phone and checked the transaction history one more time.

One hundred thousand dollars in crypto.

Combined with the cash I'd earned earlier, I wouldn't have to worry about going hungry for quite a while.

Besides...

‘Looks like the spirit was satisfied with the offering too.’

I patted my lower abdomen and felt the presence of the spirit sleeping contentedly after gorging itself on the evil spirit.

I'd killed two birds with one stone.

‘America's actually starting to grow on me.’

This was still work in a gray area, but it felt like I was earning money dozens of times faster than when I'd worked as a shaman in Korea.

Just barely, I was beginning to wonder whether being exiled might actually have been a blessing.

‘They should be showing up about now...’

I whistled as I walked slowly onward.

Then a voice emerged from the darkness.

“Hold it.”

“Hmm?”

I turned my head to see three shadows stretching across the path in front of Do-jun.

Men dressed from head to toe in black priestly robes and tactical vests without a single gap exposed.

And on top of that, their bodies radiated that distinctive Christian divine energy.

I tossed the cigarette from my mouth onto the ground and crushed it underfoot.

“And what brings a bunch of exorcists all the way out here?”

Looks like the suckers who'll help me with my plan have finally arrived.

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.

This e-book is a copyrighted work protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or redistribution may result in legal liability.

UCI

: G720:N+A129-20260914068