The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 117

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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 Their Catastrophe-Class Relics — Episode 117
The moment Woo Ju glimpsed the scene below, his grip tightened reflexively around the iron pipe in his hand.
The fugitive was one floor down, and it was obvious he wouldn’t survive long enough to descend by escalator.
Crack!
Without hesitation, Woo Ju seized the railing and vaulted down to the floor below.
Thud!
As Woo Ju landed with a heavy impact, the staff members who’d been pursuing with their blades caught sight of him.
Of course, they didn’t pause in their movements.
So Woo Ju moved quickly to intercept them.
Only then did the staff members falter, turning their attention to him.
“My apologies, sir. Would you mind stepping aside for a moment?”
“What’s going on here?”
“We’ve detected an intruder and are currently handling the situation.”
“An intruder?”
Woo Ju glanced behind him.
The man who’d been fleeing in panic was trembling visibly, confused by Woo Ju’s sudden appearance and the staff’s reaction.
Blood still streamed from his body, and he’d clearly reached his physical limit.
Apparently, they’d been toying with him deliberately, inflicting small wounds rather than delivering a quick end.
Like a game.
“So you’re just hunting down intruders and killing them? Is that it?”
“That is correct.”
“But that person—I brought him with me.”
At those words, the smile vanished from the staff member’s face as he regarded Woo Ju.
“You brought him, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“That individual was not in possession of an invitation card.”
“So you can’t bring anyone you know? What a tedious system. Damn picky.”
Woo Ju paid no mind to the staff member’s reaction. Instead, he stepped forward and looked down at him while speaking.
“I didn’t know. No one briefed me on it. So just let him go.”
The staff member stared at Woo Ju for a moment, then his gaze shifted to the side.
Whereupon another staff member, also holding a blade, stepped forward and spoke.
“Understood, sir. We will guide that person to the exit so he may leave.”
“You’re not going to slit his throat on the way out, are you?”
“Of course not, sir. Since he is your acquaintance, even if there was an error in judgment, we could hardly impose such discourtesy upon you.”
And yet, as the staff member said all this, a blood-stained blade remained in his hand.
He spoke with a broad, beaming smile on his face.
It was an utterly grotesque sight.
Woo Ju regarded the staff member for a long moment before speaking.
“Fine. Let him out then.”
“Understood.”
The wounded man, trembling behind them, heard their exchange and turned to Woo Ju with a face caught between hope and fear.
“Really… really, I can leave?”
“Yes. Let’s head down together.”
To be safe, Woo Ju decided he would watch the man leave himself.
The staff member nodded without objection.
And so the staff member, the wounded man, and Woo Ju descended together to the 1st Floor Lobby.
True to his word, the staff member escorted him through the exit without any tricks or foul play.
Hmm.
Woo Ju watched the man disappear into the distance.
Whether he could actually reach the outside world through that exit remained a mystery even to Woo Ju.
After all, he himself had never used that exit before.
‘Still, these urban legends usually follow such rules quite strictly, so I can only hope it’s a legitimate exit.’
Especially since he would likely need to use that same exit to escape later.
Of course, there was a chance he might not be able to leave through the official exit either.
Hmm.
Regardless, after sending off the man who’d been fleeing,
when Woo Ju turned back around, the waiting staff member spoke.
“As for any additional personnel beyond this point, we find it difficult to apply such exceptions. We ask for your understanding.”
In short, it was a declaration that this kind of leniency would not happen again.
It seemed that even intimidation would be of no use.
It felt less like the will of the employee before me and more like the will of the Department Store itself.
‘I figured as much.’
No matter how I spin it, this place is inside a dangerous urban legend.
There’s no way it would apply exceptions so loosely.
“Understood. I’ll keep that in mind.”
With that, the employee withdrew.
Woo Ju climbed back up via the Escalator.
His exploration of the Department Store interior wasn’t finished yet.
And as he wandered through the Department Store, Woo Ju noticed one more thing.
‘The higher I go, the further from ordinary it becomes.’
He first discovered a strange shop on the sixth floor. And the further up he climbed, the higher the concentration of such shops became.
Particularly from the ninth floor onward, every letter on the signs was rendered as ■■■, completely illegible.
And there was one thing more.
‘There are other customers around.’
On the lower floors, he’d found no other customers besides himself, but higher up, he began spotting them one by one.
However, these customers were far from ordinary people.
Woo Ju watched a customer passing in the distance.
The creature was nearly three meters tall, looking as though someone had taken a single human and stretched them vertically, top to bottom.
When he’d approached to examine it more closely earlier, it had muttered endlessly—but in a language he couldn’t begin to understand.
The other customers were equally inhuman in appearance.
‘Given that they didn’t stop me on the way in, it doesn’t seem like they only accept non-human guests.’
Yet apart from himself, he hadn’t spotted a single human customer.
‘What determines who gets an Invitation Card?’
Woo Ju pondered this, recalling the card he carried.
One thing was certain: ordinary customers weren’t the target.
The lower floors were just for show. When I first arrived, there weren’t even employees stationed there, and I still haven’t spotted a single customer down there.
Meanwhile, the higher floors grew livelier, and customers increased steadily.
And the merchandise itself was nothing short of bizarre.
“Hmm.”
But for now, he couldn’t find anything more beyond what he’d already observed.
Knowing such a space existed and investigating it was worthwhile, but it felt distant from any kind of “solution.”
After a moment’s deliberation, Woo Ju recalled one critical fact he needed to determine.
Specifically: through what path did those classified as Intruders enter this place?
“I have a question.”
So Woo Ju immediately grabbed a passing employee.
“Yes. How may I help?”
“How do the Intruders get in here?”
The employee hesitated, then finally spoke after a long pause.
“I’m afraid I don’t know that route. Wouldn’t the Intruders themselves know better?”
“But whenever Intruders show up, you hunt them down with enthusiasm. You’re not just abducting random people and bringing them in, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
The employee spoke firmly.
“Regardless of how we process them, Intruders are nothing more than entities that obstruct operations. We have no understanding of the method by which they infiltrate.”
It could have been a lie.
But somehow, it didn’t sound like one.
Woo Ju dismissed the employee and paused to think.
‘Maybe the Intruders’ arrival here is independent of the Department Store’s will?’
He felt the need to investigate that angle further.
With that thought, Woo Ju began prowling through the Department Store interior.
For now, he’d examine every location that gave him even the slightest suspicion.
—Ahhhhhhhhh!
—Ahhhhhhhhh!
And in the process, he witnessed several bizarre and horrifying merchandise items.
A human-shaped decoration screaming endlessly.
Furniture crafted from grotesquely twisted human bodies. And something so appalling it defied description.
The merchandise on the tenth-floor level and above was nothing but tasteless nightmares.
Yet customers were far more abundant on those floors.
Watching them joyfully browse such items—and actually purchase them—as they moved about, he could feel without doubt that this was no ordinary Department Store.
‘Yet I’m receiving no attention whatsoever. That’s strange.’
The atmosphere seemed ready to grab him at any moment and strip his skin for merchandise, yet neither employees nor customers showed him the slightest interest.
Something felt deeply wrong.
Woo Ju scratched his chin but didn’t stop; he kept moving, wandering through the space.
He’d been drifting through the Department Store for quite some time.
By the time he was picking his way between unpleasant merchandise and beginning to feel the weight of fatigue,
—we will soon begin the Department Store’s signature attraction: Intruder Hunt. All interested customers, please proceed to the 1st Floor Lobby.
A store announcement suddenly blared through the speakers.
At those words, Woo Ju lifted his gaze from where he’d been searching, his attention caught.
—I repeat: we will soon begin the Intruder Hunt—
It was an announcement he couldn’t ignore.
Woo Ju stopped his search immediately and headed straight for the first floor. As he made his way down, he could see customers scattered across the upper levels descending below.
They looked far removed from ordinary humans, making it difficult to discern their exact expressions.
But one thing was certain: anticipation hung over all of them.
By the time he arrived at the 1st Floor Lobby, the sight was nothing short of remarkable.
The display stands that had ringed the Lobby were gone without a trace—cleared away somewhere—and the space was now filled with countless customers.
‘Where were they all scattered before?’
He’d seen other customers while wandering through several floors, but the number gathered here now exceeded that by many times over.
And still more were arriving, trickling in one after another.
But what caught his attention most was the center of the Lobby.
Hadn’t the announcement said they would begin the “Intruder Hunt”?
In the center, those intruders were gathered.
‘People.’
The intruders’ true identity was simply people.
He checked their Status with a glance just to be sure, but found nothing unusual about them.
They were ordinary people, plain and simple.
People with wounds scattered across their bodies, their faces twisted with fear.
And employees stood around them, keeping watch.
—in a moment, we will begin the Intruder Hunt. The customer who successfully hunts the most intruders will receive a special prize, so please participate enthusiastically.
Among the employees was the one who’d guided Woo Ju earlier, and he was now speaking loudly to the customers with a smile, delivering his spiel.
In other words: they would soon release people to run for their lives, and then have the customers hunt them down.
Woo Ju watched the scene with an expressionless face.
Up until now, he’d been keeping as quiet as possible since arriving.
His priority was to explore the Department Store thoroughly and figure out how to deal with this situation.
After wandering around for a while, he’d searched for the corridors through which the intruders entered.
But he hadn’t found any real clues yet, and before him stood helpless people gathered together.
“Hmm.”
Woo Ju recalled something.
Something Hwa Ryeon had said to him before she was deployed here.
‘Don’t overthink it alone—do what you normally do.’
That was exactly the advice this situation called for.
Long deliberation and hesitation weren’t choices that suited him.
Woo Ju picked up an Iron Pipe. Then he spoke to the employee, who was enthusiastically explaining the rules.
“I’d rather do something different.”
—Excuse me? What do you mean?
“I want to beat all of you down and take those people with me.”
The employee stared at Woo Ju for a moment before responding.
—Violence and harassment against staff are not permitted.
“And if I want to anyway?”
—Appropriate sanctions will be applied.
“Works for me.”
Woo Ju smiled darkly as he spoke.
“Try to stop me.”
Then he immediately pushed off the ground.
Continued in the next chapter ▶
The Obsession of Catastrophe-Class Relics from Urban Legends
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiry Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reprinting and reproduction are prohibited. Violations may result in criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram eagerly awaits 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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