The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 107

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Urban Legends and Catastrophe-Class Relics — Chapter 107
A gentle vertigo, a sensation of weightlessness, and flashes of light flickering across his vision.
After these sensations passed through him in succession, Woo Ju felt solid ground beneath his feet.
“Ugh.”
“Ow!”
Groans echoed from various points around him at the same moment.
Woo Ju reflexively tightened his grip on the iron pipe in his hand and surveyed his surroundings.
A familiar street came into view, lined with people standing in place.
Some faces were entirely new to him, though the familiar ones outnumbered them.
People he’d seen earlier at the karaoke bar.
They seemed to be experiencing the vertigo more acutely than Woo Ju had, swaying unsteadily in all directions before their senses cleared and they glanced around in shock.
It made sense—waking up suddenly in the middle of a street.
‘At least that’s fortunate.’
Back in that other place, even if people had scattered across different locations, they awakened in the same spot.
It seemed trivial, but it was actually quite significant.
It made cleanup far easier.
Otherwise, having to track down people scattered all over the place would be tedious.
Though truthfully, it wasn’t really Woo Ju’s concern as a member of the Field Response Team.
The follow-up procedures were another department’s responsibility.
“Please come this way.”
And those procedures were executed swiftly.
Before long, people in dark suits approached and began guiding Woo Ju and the others who had awakened to one side.
Woo Ju followed his guide, scanning the surroundings again, and soon spotted Baek Ho and Yeon Woo walking together off to one side, then continued forward.
As they moved a bit further, a natural divide formed—civilians shifted toward one direction while Woo Ju, Baek Ho, and Yeon Woo were directed the opposite way.
A short distance beyond that point, a small tent came into view.
“Thank you for your hard work. Please rest here, and then proceed to the examination room.”
As they entered the tent, the staff member who had guided Woo Ju and the others bowed politely and withdrew.
“You alright, Woo Ju?”
“No injuries anywhere?”
Woo Ju nodded and then posed his question with a grave expression.
“I’m fine, thank you. But did you both happen to see something near the end?”
“Huh? What?”
“What do you mean?”
The other two exchanged puzzled looks and asked for clarification.
From their reaction alone, Woo Ju could tell they hadn’t seen what he had.
Otherwise, they too would have nodded with serious expressions.
Woo Ju held up the fiber fragment he’d been gripping in one hand.
“As we were returning, I saw something. I tore this off of it.”
Baek Ho, seeing this, took on a grave expression as well.
“Was it a person?”
“That’s unclear. I only saw a silhouette.”
The silhouette had resembled a human form, but that alone wasn’t enough to determine whether it actually was a person or something similar.
“For now, we should have that analyzed separately. Wait a moment.”
Baek Ho called back the staff member who had just left and said something to them, after which additional personnel quickly arrived.
They gathered around Woo Ju and examined the fiber fragment in his hand, then carefully collected it and carried it away.
What followed was a succession of examinations.
Not every deployment resulted in such thorough testing, though basic examinations were standard.
But when visiting somewhere as otherworldly as this, the intensity of those examinations increased considerably.
And so Woo Ju underwent over six hours of examination before finally being released.
“Back?”
When Woo Ju returned to the office after the examinations, Baek Ho and Yeon Woo were already there.
Woo Ju nodded wearily and asked the question.
“When did you finish?”
“An hour ago!”
“Me too. You must’ve had more to examine.”
“I suppose so.”
It made sense that Woo Ju would have more to examine, given his prolonged and intense contact with that “giant.”
Since it related to his own safety as well, Woo Ju had no complaints—just fatigue.
As he sat down in his chair and checked the time, he realized quitting time had long since passed.
Baek Ho noticed Woo Ju’s glance and smiled as he spoke.
“Don’t worry. They said I had two days off.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Even if it wasn’t long, it was pretty intense.”
That much was true.
The Inspection Bureau was never stingy when it came to compensation or vacation time.
Though if an incident suddenly broke out, they’d call you in even while on leave.
‘Actually, I’m not sure I even need a break.’
If anything, just coming in a little later would be enough.
Of course, she had no intention of saying that out loud. People would think she was obsessed with work.
“So that fiber fragment analysis still isn’t back yet?”
Woo Ju nodded at Baek Ho’s question.
“On the surface, they’re saying it’s just an ordinary fiber fragment. But they’re running a Precision Analysis on it anyway, trying to find something.”
“They should. It’s the only lead we got this time. Damn, I thought there’d be something left in that building.”
The original mission was to investigate what had happened in the past and obtain clues about those behind it.
But they’d come up empty on both fronts.
The first part never happened because she was suddenly dragged onto that street, and all that came from the second was the fiber fragment Woo Ju had torn off and brought back.
Baek Ho had been hoping to find traces inside the building where the passage was installed, but it seemed they’d come up with nothing there either.
“What about the investigation into the people involved? Seems like there’s no good reason to delay that.”
“They already went. Look—the office is empty.”
“Ah.”
From what she heard, not long after the incident broke, personnel from another Field Response Team had been deployed.
She’d thought the office was just empty because it was past work hours, but that wasn’t it.
“Alright, enough chatting. Let’s head home now. Go get some proper rest so we can come back and work hard tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
“Yes!”
Since everyone had just returned from the field and endured a long examination, Woo Ju also nodded and rose from her seat.
As she was preparing to leave, Woo Ju noticed a document still sitting on her desk.
The Human Disappearance Street case.
The resolution had been unsatisfying in many ways, but not every job wraps up neatly.
Hm.
Woo Ju quickly turned her attention from the document and left the office with the others.
* * *
After the short vacation ended.
Woo Ju was driving somewhere, and Hwa Ryeon sat beside her.
“We’ve finished coordinating with the site, team lead.”
Right.
Chung Woo and Chae Wol were seated in the back.
The four of them together were heading to a site in Northern Gyeonggi. They were providing support.
Woo Ju looked out at the passing scenery.
This was her first time providing support to this area.
From what she’d heard, Northern Gyeonggi was relatively well-staffed.
Apparently they’d deployed sufficient personnel there from long ago because there was quite a “sinister something” there.
But this time, something had happened that the existing personnel couldn’t handle alone.
“We’ll brief you again once we reach the site.”
Hwa Ryeon spoke in an even tone, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“The incident happened in a village in the mountainous area of Northern Gyeonggi.”
The others listened attentively to her words.
“Originally, that village was a Close Monitoring Target. There’s a faith that’s been passed down through generations in the village, and the object of that faith was somewhat… precarious.”
“Precarious” here suggested two things.
That the object of the faith was a real, existing entity. And that it possessed the nature of an urban legend.
‘In other words, not urgent enough to deal with immediately, but there’s a latent risk, however slight. That’s what it means, I suppose.’
Woo Ju, now reasonably well-informed, thought this to herself while continuing to listen to Hwa Ryeon’s account.
“But a week ago, a strange illness suddenly began breaking out there. A strange illness that brings chills and fever, along with hallucinations and auditory illusions all at once.”
Hwa Ryeon paused there, shifting her gaze for a moment.
A fairly tall mountain stood in that direction.
Today’s destination was somewhere in that mountain.
“And now, a week later, about half the villagers are reporting the same symptoms.”
For half the village to be affected in just a week—that was an incredible rate of spread.
The village wasn’t particularly large to begin with, so it amounted to just over ten people, but even accounting for that, it was remarkable.
“And on top of that, all those afflicted with the strange illness share one thing they all say in common.”
Hwa Ryeon spoke.
“The stars are descending.”
In that moment, cold air seeped through the slightly open window.
Woo Ju felt the chill brush his skin and frowned slightly, turning his gaze toward the mountains ahead.
The landscape had a desolate quality to it.
* * *
The Inspection Bureau’s Field Response Team was granted leave quite frequently.
Sometimes they had more days off than work days within a single month.
Yet few people envied the Field Response Team for it.
Not even now.
“Ugh, these mountains are rough terrain.”
“Tell me about it. The atmosphere would be pretty eerie if we came at night.”
Who would want to venture into a village where some unidentified strange illness was spreading and resolve the problem?
This required a certain degree of sense of mission, and beyond that, a certain level of ability as well.
“Get ready to disembark.”
As they exchanged these words, Hwa Ryeon gradually began to slow the vehicle.
They had entered the village entrance.
The village they’d found this time was nestled halfway up a mountain.
For a place in such remote mountains, it was quite sizeable.
It could be considered an unusual case in its own right.
Rural villages were continuously losing population, and places with inconvenient terrain and poor accessibility like this experienced an even steeper rate of decline.
When he voiced this thought, Hwa Ryeon replied in a measured tone.
“In the old days, the population here must have been nearly three times what it is now.”
“That much?”
“The deity that settled here was quite famous for being efficacious.”
“I see.”
That made sense. A history like that would be the only thing that would draw people to such an inhospitable place.
“We’re here.”
The vehicle came to a complete stop.
Rather than driving deep into the village, Hwa Ryeon parked near the entrance and gestured for everyone to get out.
Once they had all exited, Hwa Ryeon looked toward the village and spoke.
“It’s quiet.”
The village was indeed eerily silent.
Despite it still being afternoon.
Hwa Ryeon gazed at the village for a moment, then pulled out her phone and made a call to someone.
After several rings, someone picked up, and Hwa Ryeon spoke a few words to them.
Then, five minutes later, someone came running hastily from within the village.
“You’ve arrived.”
The man who came running had a pallid complexion.
Woo Ju had seen him a few times within the Inspection Bureau, and if his memory served, he was certainly with the Investigation Team.
The man looked at Hwa Ryeon and the others in turn, then spoke in a low voice.
“The first fatality just occurred.”
Continued in next chapter ▶
Urban Legends of Catastrophe-Class Relics and Their Obsessions
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publisher House
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
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※ Pentagram welcomes your precious manuscripts.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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