The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 21

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

Calamity-Grade Relics from Urban Legends Obsess Over Them — Chapter 21
Rule #1 of Gwimun Street.
Don’t make a fuss.
To be precise, it meant don’t do anything that draws attention—speaking loudly was just the surface of it.
And judging by the way it held pride of place at the top, it was the most critical rule of all.
“What are you staring at, you bastard?”
“You dare look at me like that? Who do you think you are?”
Yet there were two people brazenly striding down Gwimun Street as if Rule #1 didn’t exist.
They were actually snarling back at the things watching them, as though they’d sold the rule for scrap.
But they didn’t want to be doing this.
Saebyeok felt the weight of countless gazes upon her.
To exaggerate only slightly, it seemed the entire street was looking her way.
What do you do in a situation like this? Saebyeok had no idea. In the first place, the rule was to run at even the smallest sign of trouble before it reached this point.
“Back off unless you want a real beating!”
So Saebyeok raised her voice even louder.
The milk was already spilled.
So she had to show strength, not weakness. At first she’d worried this wouldn’t work, but it actually was working, wasn’t it?
They all glared, but not a single one had made a move.
Ujoo, walking beside her, was acting just as hard as she was.
“Hehehehe.”
Cackle-cackle-cackle.
The way he dragged the steel pipe along the ground while laughing like a madman was so natural it barely seemed like an act at all.
He looked genuinely unhinged……
‘Surely not?’
Saebyeok shot him a suspicious glance.
But unfortunately, there was no way to confirm it right now. Show even the slightest opening, and the creatures surrounding them would pounce.
“Hehehehe.”
“Giggle-giggle.”
So she just laughed along.
Laughing like lunatics, the two of them managed to cross straight down the center of the street.
But the presence of the entities pressed deeper into the distance ahead.
When they finally reached the end, they had to turn and face the opposite direction.
Gulp.
Saebyeok swallowed hard without meaning to.
Gwimun Street was no longer a street at all.
Looking to the side, the tile roofs were fused together, as though hot metal had melted and run.
Broken doors hung half-shattered, their insides exposed.
Horrid, gruesome interiors.
The shapes wandering the street were equally grotesque.
“Guaaahhh—”
“Ah, it hurts—”
Some hung by their necks from the eaves, thrashing endlessly; others had their bodies fused to wooden pillars.
Their lower halves and left arms were buried inside the pillars, while only their faces and right upper bodies jutted out.
Blood tears streamed down those faces.
But such sights, however gruesome to behold, posed no direct threat.
The threat came from the same quarter as before—the things staring at Ujoo and Saebyeok.
Only these weren’t standing upside down like the ones they’d encountered before, nor were they laughing or dancing.
They were simply drenched in black.
Not just darkened—it was as if a void had opened in that very spot.
“About that, that thing—”
Before moving forward, Saebyeok whispered urgently to Ujoo.
He was still laughing like a madman, so she didn’t wait for an answer—she just pressed on.
“Strike it, cut it, use talismans—nothing works. It doesn’t die. It’s nothing like ordinary malevolent spirits. Even now, if we—”
“I see it.”
“What?”
“Over there.”
Ujoo raised the steel pipe and pointed to one side with it.
Saebyeok turned her head toward the spot and her eyes widened.
For a moment, weighed down by the street’s horrors and the presence of those entities, she’d missed it—but there were people there.
Among them were familiar faces.
People wearing yangban masks and Hahoe masks.
Saebyeok’s seniors, in fact—the very Agents who had gone missing.
What’s more, they had three civilians in tow.
But their condition looked far from good. They were pressed flat against the wall, their eyes glazed and vacant.
“These lunatics…!”
Just then, Ujoo’s voice cut through with alarm. He’d spotted something.
His gaze landed on one of the civilians—a woman with an elegant face dressed in elaborate traditional hanbok.
“Let’s go.”
“Right. Understood.”
Whatever connection that woman had to Ujoo, it didn’t matter now. There was no backing out anymore.
If they left those people as they were, the street would swallow them whole.
“Same way as before?”
“Yes. Just like before.”
They exchanged a look and began to move.
A low, rhythmic laugh echoed from Saebyeok.
Another laugh from Ujoo joined it.
Their gait was utterly fearless.
* * *
Eunha was wondering how things had come to this.
This morning, she’d come to Hanok Village early. She’d taken on a day job.
The job, in fact, was soliciting customers for a hanbok rental shop.
The pay was decent, and it wasn’t grueling work—which meant the competition for the position was fierce.
Once she started, it turned out to be easy enough.
She’d always been good with people, after all. All she had to do was wear the hanbok and hustle customers through the door.
“Hmm?”
But during her break, after a few hours of work, she spotted a small child lurking in the alley beside the shop.
At first she ignored it, but the child kept hovering around the alley mouth. Thinking perhaps they were lost, she walked over.
The child suddenly bolted.
Without thinking, Eunha gave chase. She dashed through several more alleys.
Then, without warning, everything around her darkened.
As if the sun had plummeted below the horizon all at once.
The very air of the street felt wrong. It was dingy somehow, and the passersby muttered strange things under their breath.
‘What is this?’
Eunha’s instincts screamed that this was no ordinary place.
So she moved carefully, trying to retrace her steps.
But it was useless.
The further she walked, the more grotesque the street became, and the “pedestrians” twisted into increasingly bizarre forms.
“Excuse me…!”
That was when she encountered a girl in school uniform—the first normal person she’d seen since entering the street. Eunha rushed toward her urgently.
She managed to learn a few things.
“I-I wandered in here too. But it’s okay. The Agents said they’d get us out.”
“Agents?”
“Yes! They went to find my friend right now, but they said they’re the ones who manage places like this street! Look! They’re coming now!”
Eunha looked where the student pointed. Several figures in dark suits wearing masks were walking toward them.
They were escorting another student, who looked pallid and drained.
Soon the masked figures explained to Eunha that they were civil servants, and that if she simply followed their instructions, she’d leave without incident.
“However, we still need to find one more person first.”
“I-I’m sorry. We got separated by accident.”
It seemed the three students had entered together before scattering in different directions.
The Agents fell silent for a moment, then spoke as though they had no choice.
“We’ll move together for now. It isn’t safe to stay in one place here.”
“…Understood.”
There was no other option anyway.
So Eunha decided to follow them.
But she quickly came to regret that decision.
The street grew more and more horrifying with each step. She could hear the Agents speaking in grave, tense tones.
Eunha sensed something could go wrong at any moment.
“Friend! There!”
And her instinct proved right.
The moment they found the missing student, one of them let out a loud shout without thinking.
The student jumped in alarm and belatedly clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was already too late.
The black entities surrounding them had already taken notice.
“Damn it!”
“Block them, now!”
The agents responded immediately.
They pulled out strange rods and talismans, beginning to fend off the creatures.
But they alone weren’t enough. There were far too many of the black entities.
“Hah!”
So Eunha stepped forward as well.
She picked up a rod one of the agents had dropped and began swinging it.
Remarkably, Eunha wielded it with surprising skill.
After all, she was a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo, third-degree in Kendo, and practiced various martial arts as hobbies.
Of course, simply being good with her body didn’t mean she could match the agents’ power.
Thwack, crack!
Yet astonishingly, the rod in Eunha’s hands carried real force.
If not quite equal to the agents’, it was enough to at least stall the black entities momentarily.
But the glimmer of hope was brief.
Gradually, they began to lose ground.
There were simply too many creatures bearing down on them.
“Everyone, over here!”
In the end, the agents made a decision.
They abandoned their resistance and gathered everyone against the wall, then began retrieving an orb and talismans, chanting an incantation.
Eunha didn’t know it, but this was the agents’ last resort.
An object that existed solely to endure.
If rescue arrived in time, they could survive. But if it didn’t…….
At least they could meet death peacefully. That was the nature of this thing.
“Everyone, hold on. Think hopeful thoughts. Rescue will definitely come.”
With the agents’ final words, the incantation activated and they were locked in time.
And so time passed.
One hour. Two hours. Three hours…….
Within the activated incantation, everything felt hazy. Like being in a dream.
Past memories drifted through her mind. Today’s events replayed in her head again and again.
And in some of those memories were recollections of her brother.
Her brother, who’d come home bragging about landing a good job out of nowhere.
Her brother, who’d cockily told her to dance if she wanted allowance money. For the record, she’d danced. Five hundred thousand won was too much to pass up.
‘That idiot……. Will he be happy when I’m gone…….’
She recalled how he’d always grumbled that he wished she’d disappear.
Maybe he’d laugh freely then?
She just hoped he would. Hoped he wouldn’t cry. That Mom and Dad wouldn’t. That even the stupid idiot wouldn’t, even if he couldn’t laugh—she just hoped he wouldn’t be too devastated.
And so Eunha sank deeper and deeper.
So deep that she could barely hold onto her thoughts anymore.
But then, at some moment.
Boom-crash-crash-crash!
Her mind suddenly began to clear.
Bang, bang, crash-crash-crash!
She heard something.
Crash!
The sound of something being smashed to pieces. And with tremendous enthusiasm at that.
“Hehehehehehe!”
And oddly, she heard the sound of someone laughing in a distinctly unpleasant way.
As hearing returned, her vision began to follow. The blurred world gradually sharpened, and she could see something.
First, there was someone right in front of her. Desperately doing something.
Though Eunha didn’t know it, that person was Saebyeok.
Fighting desperately to wake them before they melted away entirely.
“Perish!”
Crash-crash-crash-crash!
Eunha’s gaze shifted forward. There was the source of all that noise.
A man in traditional Korean clothing, wearing a mask of some unsettling design on his face, wielding a steel pipe in his hand.
Boom!
The steel pipe he swung sent a black entity rocketing forward like a cannonball, sweeping through the others in its path.
It was a sight so unbelievably exhilarating, so refreshingly cathartic, that it felt almost unreal.
‘Am I dreaming?’
The officials were clearly struggling as though in a horror film. Yet this strangely dressed man was single-handedly filming an action movie.
Crash!
Those terrifying creatures being struck and sent flying was equally surreal.
Almost like something out of a hero’s tale.
“Hehehehe, steel pipe, you like this too, right? I like it!”
Actually, he just seemed like a madman.
Right when that thought crossed her mind.
“Haaack!”
A rough intake of breath sounded from right beside her. Simultaneously, Eunha felt stale air flowing in through her nose and mouth.
The force that had bound her body vanished.
Then.
Crash!
The figure who had swept away all the shadow beings surrounding them with the steel pipe came trudging over, step by heavy step.
For just a moment, eyes gleaming through the mask’s slits met Eunha’s.
They were oddly reassuring eyes. He spoke.
“Let’s go. Home.”
There was something almost cool about it.
Thinking this, Eunha blinked.
Had she known the identity of the masked man, her viscera would have twisted so violently that she would have fled into the mountains to undertake a vow of silence.
“Yes!”
But Eunha knew nothing.
She didn’t know that the masked man was looking at her thinking, ‘What’s with that pathetic expression again?’ and ‘Didn’t that punk say she was going to work a part-time job? What’s she doing in a place like this?’
Sometimes it’s a blessing to know nothing at all.
Continued in the next episode ▶
How Calamity-Grade Relics from Urban Legends Become Obsessed
Author
Lee Segyesa-jang
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publishing
Contact Email
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and copying are prohibited. Violation of this notice may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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