The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 108

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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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Chapter 108: Catastrophe-Class Relics Obsess Over Urban Legends
The moment someone mentioned a death, the faces around the room hardened instinctively.
Of course, the news of a death was tragic in itself, but there was another reason their expressions had grown so grave.
Until now, those afflicted with the strange illness had been in poor condition, certainly, but none had deteriorated to the point of immediate death.
Even the reports from just a few hours earlier had shown no such prognosis in any of the patients.
Yet a death had occurred in the meantime—which meant something had gone wrong.
“What happened?” Hwa Ryeon asked, her voice subdued.
The man gestured toward the side of the pavilion as he replied.
“Perhaps it would be better to discuss this over there, away from the village entrance?”
Hwa Ryeon nodded in agreement.
Even with hardly a soul moving about the village, standing openly at the entrance to discuss such a sensitive matter seemed unwise.
Besides, the man’s face had already gone deathly pale, as though he might collapse at any moment.
So the entire Investigation Team made their way to the pavilion nestled deeper within the village.
The pavilion appeared well-maintained, at least recently—clean and orderly—yet there was not a single person resting there.
Once they had settled in,
the Investigation Team member resumed his account.
“Thirty minutes ago. It happened thirty minutes ago.”
The man’s eyes drifted toward one side of the pavilion.
“The deceased was someone who first showed symptoms of the strange illness two days ago.”
“Two days ago?”
“Yes. Not the first to fall ill, nor the most recent. He occupied a position somewhere in between.”
“Ambiguous, then.”
Had the victim been either the first or the most recently afflicted, there might have been some significance to extract from that fact alone.
But this man occupied an awkwardly intermediate position.
“He was in his forties. He had some chronic conditions, but nothing that would have been fatal.”
Furthermore, there was nothing physically remarkable about him that would suggest complications.
“And his symptoms prior to death were not significantly different from those of the other patients.”
Hwa Ryeon listened carefully, then spoke slowly, as if turning something over in her mind.
“Any notable irregularities?”
“Everything else remained consistent right up until his death. But there was one thing—just one—that was different.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“A Star Has Descended.”
Hwa Ryeon’s brow tightened, and she repeated his words carefully.
“Not ‘a star is descending,’ but ‘A Star Has Descended’—is that correct?”
“Yes.”
No one in the pavilion mistook this for a simple matter of verb tense.
The difference between “descending” and “has descended” carried vastly different implications.
Especially when one considered that the person who spoke those words was the only one to have died, the distinction grew all the more meaningful.
Hwa Ryeon continued to turn the phrase over in her mind before pressing forward with another question.
“How much time passed between that statement and his death?”
“Approximately one minute.”
One minute was hardly any time at all—virtually instantaneous.
Hwa Ryeon asked several more questions, and only after hearing the full account did she begin what could be called a briefing.
“We have a strange illness spreading through the village, a death occurring just before our arrival, and certain notable characteristics to consider……”
She synthesized all the information gathered so far along with her own observations into a coherent summary.
Then she opened the discussion to her team.
Chung Woo, Chae Wol, and Woo Ju each shared their own impressions and thoughts based on what they’d heard.
After some thirty minutes of discussion,
“Let’s go.”
They rose from their seats. It was time to examine the scene itself.
The first place to investigate was naturally where the deceased had spent his final moments.
The location was not far from the pavilion—a house near the village entrance.
It was a typical rural dwelling.
An older house, the kind you’d expect to find in the countryside.
It was immediately obvious that the owner had neglected it recently.
Unlike apartments or homes in the city, rural houses—especially those deep in the mountains—show signs of neglect within just a few days.
Weeds had sprouted in the yard, and untended crops had begun to wilt.
“Pardon our intrusion,” Hwa Ryeon said.
She entered the house alongside the Investigation Team member who was acting as guide, with Woo Ju following closely behind.
‘Ordinary,’ Woo Ju thought.
Woo Ju stepped inside, his mind already working.
After hearing the earlier account, he’d half-expected the moment he crossed the threshold to feel something distinctly different—a shift in the air itself.
But the interior of the house was utterly ordinary.
Not just in appearance, either. There was no trace of malevolent aura, no sense of ill omen.
Just a normal home.
Yet as he ventured deeper inside, a subtle shift in the energy became apparent.
It wasn’t anything remotely spiritual.
Only the aura of death.
“Here. Forty-six years old. Kang Chul Joon.”
The investigator spoke in a subdued voice.
At the far end of the house, in what had likely been the master bedroom, a corpse lay arranged on a table.
A thin white cloth draped the body, and the investigator, gloved hands steady, carefully drew it back.
The face was now fully visible.
“Hmm.”
Woo Ju’s brow furrowed slightly.
When he’d heard the account, he’d pictured someone twisted in agony, their breath simply ceasing.
But the reality before him diverged sharply from that image.
‘Far too peaceful.’
The corpse’s face bore an expression of profound serenity—as if he’d achieved some longed-for conclusion.
There was no sign of struggle, no trace of suffering or pain.
Hwa Ryeon, too, seemed troubled by this detail. Her eyes remained fixed on the body as she asked, “When he departed, there was no pain?”
“Up until moments before, there was. But right after he spoke those words—that’s when his expression became peaceful all at once.”
And then, suddenly, he stopped breathing, the investigator continued.
Woo Ju absorbed this, his thoughts turning inward.
‘What could it mean.’
A man wracked with the Strange Illness, writhing in torment, yet when the moment came for him to depart, his face bore only tranquility.
And the only words he left behind: A Star Has Descended.
He understood that much was significant, but its true nature remained shrouded.
‘No connection to the shrine’s deity, far as I can tell.’
The god worshipped in this village bore no relation to stars.
And the village’s own history contained no record of such an occurrence.
Yet Hwa Ryeon remained convinced the shrine and this incident were inextricably linked.
‘Too few leads.’
There simply weren’t enough clues to construct anything resembling a coherent hypothesis.
So Woo Ju remained where he stood, waiting in silence. After all, his true field of expertise lay elsewhere.
“For now, I don’t believe there’s anything more to be gained here. We should speak with the others.”
Hwa Ryeon’s voice carried the tone of someone drawing a conclusion.
“Understood,” Woo Ju replied.
The investigator carefully drew the cloth back over the body, then straightened from his bent posture.
They left the house and made their way toward where the other patients were being kept.
Those afflicted with the Strange Illness displayed symptoms matching the report precisely.
Unexplained chills and fever. Auditory and visual hallucinations.
The latter varied somewhat from person to person, yet there was one element they all spoke of consistently.
That a star was descending.
But whenever asked what exactly this “star” was, none of them could provide a coherent answer.
Their expressions suggested they themselves had no idea why they spoke of such things.
After completing a full circuit of the village,
Hwa Ryeon remarked, “There’s no obvious common thread among those afflicted.”
She spoke as if summarizing her findings.
Woo Ju nodded in agreement.
Had there been some shared characteristic, it would have stood out. But finding any connection between them proved difficult.
‘Appears entirely random,’ he thought.
Gender, age, everything else—all of it different.
There was only one element they shared in common.
They were all village residents.
It might sound obvious, but closer examination revealed it was not.
Among those living in the village were several outsiders who’d stayed for nearly six months or more.
Four in total—laborers who’d come to help with the harvest.
All four remained perfectly healthy.
‘So mere duration of residence doesn’t determine susceptibility to the Strange Illness.’
Well, given that the sample size is so small, it’s possible this is just coincidence.
Still, with so few clues, it was worth paying attention to.
“There’s no point in exploring the village any further.”
“I agree.”
Chung Woo nodded at Hwa Ryeon’s words.
There was no use in scrutinizing the villagers more closely. With time and prolonged observation, they might uncover more, but that wasn’t why they were here.
Woo Ju added his own thought.
“We’re going to examine that, aren’t we?”
Hwa Ryeon nodded in response.
After all, the deity venerated in this village held the most critical position in the entire matter.
There were certainly discrepancies between what was happening in the village now and the original legends surrounding that deity, but they couldn’t afford to overlook that place.
“Let’s go.”
With that, the four of them informed the Investigation Team member and headed toward the Shrine.
The Shrine was situated behind the village, requiring roughly ten minutes of climbing a steep path.
As they ascended the mountain trail, no one spoke.
Only the crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the soft whistle of wind could be heard.
“We’re here.”
It was the Investigation Team member leading the way who broke the silence.
He pointed with his hand to an old wooden structure standing solitary among the trees.
“That’s it.”
Though it wasn’t particularly large and appeared quite aged, traces of careful maintenance were evident.
“It’s been well maintained.”
“Yes. It seems to have been tended carefully even recently.”
One theory had initially suggested the strange illness might stem from the deity growing angry due to neglect and waning interest.
But standing here in person, that didn’t seem to be the case.
To Woo Ju’s eye, the Shrine was immaculately kept.
Various offerings were visible before it as well.
“Though admittedly, since the strange illness broke out, there’s been less maintenance and some neglect.
“Still, these offerings look like they were left quite recently.”
“Ah yes, they were left recently. After the strange illness erupted, some villagers began bringing offerings, believing the deity was angry.”
That was a natural reaction, if anything.
This village had been sustained by its reliance on this deity.
As he listened to this account, Woo Ju gazed intently at the Shrine.
Right up until they arrived at the entrance, Woo Ju had sensed no aura.
But now that he stood before the Shrine itself, he could faintly detect something.
Some kind of different “trace,” one might say.
‘It doesn’t feel like a deity, though.’
He’d thought of something like a Tatarigarni at the mention of a deity, but this felt different from that.
If anything, this was more like…
‘The feeling of a deity that has already departed?’
In other words, only the residue remained—the lingering trace of where the deity had dwelt.
“Hmm. That’s possible. I’m not sensing anything either.”
When he shared this with Hwa Ryeon, she agreed.
The others nodded as well.
But then.
Chae Wol, who had been examining the Shrine carefully, spoke up.
“This Shrine. There are traces of something else having invaded it.”
At that, everyone turned to look at Chae Wol, and Hwa Ryeon asked her.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Hwa Ryeon chose her words carefully before continuing.
“Something attacked the deity that was dwelling in this Shrine.”
Immediately after those words.
A desolate wind blew in from nowhere.
To be continued in the next chapter ▶
Calamities from Urban Legends: A Catastrophe-Class Relic’s Obsession
Author
Isegyesa Jang
Publisher
Kim Seok Hwan, Choi Se Ra
Publisher
Grae Publishing
Contact Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
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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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