The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 114
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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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Catastrophe-Class Relics in Urban Legend – Episode 114
Woo Ju observed his opponent.
He’d thought the man completely unhinged, yet for now he seemed lucid enough to hold a conversation.
“Where are the others?”
So Woo Ju posed the question while slowly closing the distance between them.
He moved with utmost caution, but the man seemed indifferent to such things, his voice hollow and distant.
“I have failed.”
The words had nothing to do with Woo Ju’s question.
“I thought I could handle it. I thought I was strong enough to control it.”
“Control what?”
“Power.”
As the man spoke, his body tilted forward slightly.
Then something that had been hidden came into view.
A crystal emitting a deep indigo light—concealed until now by the man’s body.
“He told me he would grant me power. That I had the capacity to wield it. I should never have listened. No one was ever meant to bear strength like this.”
Woo Ju’s brow furrowed as he listened.
The man’s eyes, sharp when Woo Ju first arrived, were growing increasingly unfocused.
“I… I can… I thought I could, I should have been able to, but I cannot.”
Just as expected, his words began to fragment and collapse.
As though he were struggling to construct even the simplest sentence.
Woo Ju tightened his grip on the iron pipe and lowered his stance.
When the man had moved before, the crystal had surged violently, warping the space around them.
Which meant it could happen again.
So if the signs appeared, he would rush forward and destroy that crystal without hesitation.
But instead of spiraling immediately, the man looked back at Woo Ju and spoke.
“That power. If only I had that power!”
At the same moment, the man’s eyes blazed with fierce covetousness and hunger.
Woo Ju caught the shift in that gaze instantly and reflexively pushed off the ground, sprinting forward.
And almost simultaneously, the man’s hand stretched toward him.
Whoooooosh!
As Woo Ju bolted toward his opponent, the landscape around him warped and twisted.
The entire space contorting at the man’s gesture.
Snap!
But Woo Ju didn’t slow—he pressed harder still.
The ground suddenly tilted beneath him, walls materialized from nowhere, yet none of it could stop his advance.
Crash!
When a wall appeared before him, he shattered it with the iron pipe; when the ground buckled, he drove power through his thighs and vaulted over it.
In this way, Woo Ju tore through the warped space again and again.
The distortions grew more violent with each step, yet his speed toward the man only increased—it never faltered.
His adaptation outpaced the warping itself.
Tap—
And at last, Woo Ju reached the man, still gripping a protruding wall piece.
In the center of space twisted beyond recognition, the man floated weightless with the crystal beside him.
Woo Ju expected the man to strike with renewed fury, his eyes burning with covetousness, launching a relentless barrage.
“Why?”
Instead, the man looked at Woo Ju with eyes full of inexplicable despair, then simply collapsed forward.
“……?”
Woo Ju, who had meant to strike him down and be done with it, hesitated and stared.
But the moment passed. He raised the iron pipe again, this time to shatter the crystal.
Then the crystal flashed with light once more.
Woo Ju braced himself, wondering if the same chaos would erupt, but this time was different.
This time, he felt the crystal’s will clearly.
Take me, it seemed to say.
Claim me as your own.
This is what it was telling him.
Woo Ju hesitated again, his eyes fixed on the crystal.
He didn’t know its true power, but at a glance, this was no ordinary object.
And it wanted him to be its master.
So Woo Ju moved toward the crystal, drawing slowly closer.
Booooooom—!
Without hesitation, he swung the iron pipe down and smashed the crystal.
But one thing was certain.
The man had been reduced to that state because of this crystal.
And there was the added fact that it had been given to him by someone whose identity was unknown.
Woo Ju had no desire whatsoever to hold such a thing.
Hummmmm—!
The iron pipe itself vibrated with satisfaction, pleased by his decisive action.
Woo Ju lifted the iron pipe again and brought it down.
Craaash!
Crack—!
The crystal fractured.
It continued to send its will to him relentlessly.
Take me, it urged.
But Woo Ju’s assault did not cease.
Craaaaaash!
On the third swing of the iron pipe, the crystal finally shattered into countless fragments.
Whoooooosh!
At the same moment, Woo Ju felt the sensation again—the one he’d experienced moments before.
A feeling of his body lifting slightly off the ground. And light flooding his vision.
He wondered if the crystal had unleashed some power again, but when his vision cleared, he found the landscape reassuringly ordinary.
He could see the interior of the cave as it had been when they first entered.
“Woo Ju!”
At nearly the same moment, a voice called from one side, and he turned to see Chae Wol running toward him.
Chae Wol’s appearance had changed dramatically from when they’d started.
She looked as though she’d endured days of hardship.
“Sigh.”
Almost simultaneously, Hwa Ryeon emerged from the opposite direction, and finally Chung Woo materialized suddenly from thin air.
They all kept their distance from one another, stopping at a safe remove.
“Let’s verify our identities first.”
It was Woo Ju who cut through the tension with those words.
At that, they all produced something as if they’d been waiting for the question—items that would prove their existence.
And only after examining them carefully could they all confirm each other’s identity.
“It looks like someone’s dealt with him already.”
It was Hwa Ryeon who spoke next.
As she said this, she pointed to a spot where the fallen man and the shattered fragments of the crystal lay.
“Ugh—.”
The man was still conscious, his breath coming in pained groans.
Hwa Ryeon confirmed the sight and spoke again.
“First, let’s clean this up.”
Woo Ju nodded at her words.
Shortly after.
Woo Ju and the others shared their experiences to piece together what had happened.
Everything they’d endured after the light flashed from the crystal had been remarkably similar.
After the light faded, they’d realized they were scattered. Then they’d wandered through a twisted space, searching for each other.
But what came after differed slightly for each of them.
Woo Ju had seen Stone Statues approaching as if they were allies, but Chae Wol said dozens of them had chased her.
Chung Woo had witnessed a vision of the past, and while Hwa Ryeon didn’t elaborate, she’d encountered some kind of horrifying illusion.
And it was only Woo Ju who had advanced to the next stage.
“…So after I destroyed the crystal, we ended up in this situation.”
As Woo Ju finished laying out his account, Hwa Ryeon nodded and spoke.
“So you essentially handled all of it this time.”
“What? No, that’s not—”
“It is. We were just stumbling around.”
“I agree. I’d say this operation was at least seventy percent your achievement, Officer Woo Ju.”
Chung Woo chimed in from beside them, and the two of them quickly reached the conclusion that the report should reflect exactly that.
Woo Ju insisted it was thanks to all of them working together, but his words fell on deaf ears.
“These things need to be recorded accurately.”
“Honestly, I think things would’ve played out the same way if you’d been here alone.”
After Chung Woo spoke, Hwa Ryeon said the same and then stroked her chin thoughtfully.
“We’ll need to rethink our personnel allocation for the next operation……”
Woo Ju realized that any further words would fall on deaf ears, so he simply closed his mouth.
In any case, that discussion ended there, and the conversation shifted toward cleanup procedures.
“I hear the investigation team members are already awake and on their way here.”
“The branch agents on standby nearby should arrive within ten minutes.”
On the way here, support had been requested from the branch office, and it seemed they were finally arriving.
There was no use blaming them.
They too had personnel deployed on other operations. The people being sent now were likely scraped together from what little they had.
“We’ll take this one in for interrogation, and that Crystal will need to be isolated for the time being.”
The Crystal appeared to be a relic of some kind of power, but for now it was scheduled to be confined to the Underground Isolation Chamber.
Based on Woo Ju’s testimony, there was a high probability it was an extremely dangerous object.
Ring-ring.
Just as they finished their conversation, Hwa Ryeon’s phone rang.
She answered, informing them that the investigation team and branch personnel had arrived.
Not long after, people began to arrive.
A long and exhausting day was finally coming to an end.
* * *
The middle-aged man transported to the Inspection Bureau was in terrible condition.
His mind was shattered to the point where proper conversation was impossible.
He had already reached his limit when speaking with Woo Ju.
But the Inspection Bureau had managed to extract very useful information from the man.
“The incidents connected to the Stone Statue from before. He was the one who caused them.”
“Is that so?”
Woo Ju asked while looking at Hwa Ryeon.
She nodded and replied.
“Not exactly—he didn’t commit everything through his own power. Looks like he used certain objects to orchestrate the situations.”
“Objects, you mean.”
“Right. As you’d know from that conversation, someone gave him those special items.”
The man had said that the Crystal was handed to him by someone.
He’d thought he could handle it sufficiently, but he couldn’t—that’s what he’d said.
“And we also obtained information about who was behind it.”
“What was that?”
“It doesn’t look like there’s just one person behind this.”
At that, Woo Ju made a puzzled expression, and Hwa Ryeon spoke again.
“There seems to be a specific organization. One targeting the Inspection Bureau.”
“An organization?”
“Yes.”
Hwa Ryeon crossed her arms with a complicated expression.
She said that not very many facts had been uncovered yet.
What they’d learned was, as she’d just said, that they weren’t a single person but multiple operatives—and that they’d planned several terror attacks targeting the Inspection Bureau.
The man they’d captured this time had been acting as a minion, the executor of those plans.
“Once we uncover more on this front, we’ll share it. You’ve been targeted several times yourself, after all.”
“Understood.”
It was regrettable that they hadn’t managed to uproot the organization entirely, but still, this much was no small achievement.
At least it wasn’t like last time, when they’d only torn away a scrap of fabric and left it at that.
‘Come to think of it, I wonder if that man was connected to that organization too.’
The Inspection Bureau was probably already considering that angle as well.
Woo Ju thought as much to himself and turned his gaze forward again……then turned his head back to speak.
“But this time—I’m going alone, correct?”
“That’s right.”
Hwa Ryeon answered without hesitation.
“If anyone else goes, they’ll only hold you back. So they’ll be deployed through different channels.”
“I see.”
“You have the Invitation Card, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Woo Ju said so and pulled something from his chest.
It was an elegant Invitation Card with gold foil trim.
To be fair, it was nothing like an ordinary invitation.
Woo Ju had received it just two days ago.
The day right after he’d returned from the operation.
“Check it occasionally. We don’t know when the date will be marked.”
“Understood.”
Woo Ju nodded and unfolded the invitation card to examine its contents.
It read as follows.
[A special experience befitting a special guest. We invite you to the ■■ Department Store]
To be continued in the next episode ▶
Catastrophe-Class Relics from Urban Legends Fixate
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is a copyrighted work protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and copying are prohibited, and violations may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes submissions of original manuscripts from authors.
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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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