The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 33

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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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Disaster-Class Artifacts from Urban Legends Obsess Over Him — Episode 33
Red blood split open as if it were the Red Sea.
Then, as though a giant pane of glass had been struck down the middle with a hammer, cracks spiderwebbed outward in all directions.
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-crack-!
The fourth floor, drenched in blood, collapsed and fell away below.
Simultaneously, the sticky entrails and chunks of flesh clinging to the walls and ceiling scattered in all directions, and through the gaps, something became visible.
Something wrong.
[ERROR : UNKNOWN]
[ERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERRORERROR]
Crack, crackle-.
Soon those distortions warped and contorted, sparks erupting, the surrounding space bending and warping inward.
That distortion reached toward Woo Ju as well, but never once did it touch him.
It dared not approach Woo Ju, standing there with a steel pipe in his grip.
[ERROR]
[Exception handling attempted]
[Failed]
[Environment rollback attempted]
[Failed]
[……]
And so the endless, desperate attempts at recovery failed in turn.
Crackle-.
Noise began bleeding into every direction.
The world came crashing down.
Woo Ju felt the ground beneath his feet suddenly give way.
Every color and sound blurred together.
Light and darkness inverted.
And Woo Ju—lost consciousness.
Meanwhile.
At the moment the world was collapsing.
There was one person thrashing about in desperation.
“How—how could this happen? It was perfect. Why did this happen?”
Inside a sprawling office space.
Someone wearing a white mask was shouting frantically while staring at screens covered in error messages.
He desperately tried to contain them, but erasing the errors proved impossible.
In a last resort, he even hurled a curse at the one who had attempted to destroy the world, but that only multiplied the errors further.
Finally, he slammed the table with a loud bang and shouted.
“Damn it! It was perfect! It was perfect!”
No one else remained in the vicinity.
No one wanted to sink with a failure.
This project was finished.
The carefully constructed creepypasta had collapsed entirely, and everyone trapped within it had been violently ejected outside.
As a result, casualties numbered zero.
Considering the resources poured into this, the losses were catastrophic. The company could not avoid consequences.
But he did not know.
That there was never any need to worry about such consequences in the first place.
[ERROR……]
He had overlooked two crucial facts.
That creepypastas cannot be easily controlled.
And that when a curse fails, its backlash invariably returns to the one who cast it.
As a result.
Crack, crack-.
When cracks suddenly began forming on the monitor, he failed to react in time.
Splash-splash-splash-splash-splash-!
“Gah!”
In an instant, blood came pouring out and engulfed him.
The man came to his senses too late and tried to do something, but the blood constrained his entire body in seconds.
The man, subjected to the very curse he had unleashed, writhed in agony within it, struggling desperately.
Gurgle-gurgle-.
Bubbles rose and fell within the blood. And the man gradually dissolved, until at last he merged completely with the blood itself.
Splash-.
Thus, having achieved its purpose, the blood spilled to the floor as though nothing had happened.
As a result, the empty office held nothing but a broken monitor and blood enough for a single person.
Yet even that would be cleaned away by tomorrow afternoon.
* * *
When he opened his eyes.
Woo Ju found himself back in his studio apartment.
More precisely, he was lying on his bed, and a steel pipe was clenched firmly in his hand.
“You beauty.”
Woo Ju smiled and ran his fingers along the steel pipe.
Though he’d received help from other things inside, there was still no artifact quite like the steel pipe.
But soon Woo Ju tore his gaze from the steel pipe and looked at his smartphone.
“Hm.”
He’d thought maybe some game screen would be displayed, but it wasn’t.
Precisely speaking, the game no longer existed on the smartphone. It wasn’t deleted.
Nowhere could he find any information related to the game.
As if everything connected to the game had been erased.
Woo Ju scratched his chin and reported to Hwa Ryeon.
Hwa Ryeon expressed surprise at what mess he’d gotten himself into this time, but after hearing the story, she said she’d request an investigation right away.
He heard the results the next day after coming to work.
“We’re still investigating, but it looks like everyone connected to that game came back safely.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Starting yesterday, an enormous number of missing persons suddenly began returning home.”
The number far exceeded the people Woo Ju had rescued and taken to the office.
“It seems like when the creepypasta itself collapsed, everyone trapped inside was able to escape safely. Death inside isn’t actual death, after all.”
“So that creature was lying to us after all?”
“Must have been. What power does a creepypasta have to bring dead people back to life?”
Of course, if that creepypasta had remained intact, those who’d died inside would never have returned to the outside world.
The creepypasta would have held them captive.
“Simply put, you saved all those people.”
Hwa Ryeon laughed softly and patted Woo Ju’s shoulder, then delivered the good news.
“This case wasn’t handled during work hours, but there’s still going to be a bounty. It’s something the investigation team has been looking into recently.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. The Response Team’s been draining the bounty budget lately—the financial side’s been groaning about it.”
Which just meant we’re doing our job well, Hwa Ryeon finished with a smile, pointing at the computer.
“So now you need to write the report, right?”
“Oh… Yes, of course.”
Naturally, writing a report was essential to receive the bounty.
Woo Ju walked to the computer and began writing the report immediately.
Fortunately, for the rest of the day there were no callouts or significant incidents—only paperwork.
Time passed quickly, and four weeks had gone by since the creepypasta game incident.
Those four weeks were remarkably peaceful.
There were only two callouts, and both turned out to be simple exorcisms.
It ended at the level of Chae Wol, who responded alongside him, performing a Chondo Gut Ritual—Woo Ju didn’t even need to step in.
As those peaceful days continued, one afternoon Baek Ho spoke up while doing paperwork.
“Something feels off about things being this peaceful.”
“I know what you mean.”
Woo Ju agreed from beside him.
Especially since joining, he’d found himself caught up in something major every few days—he could relate completely.
Then Hwa Ryeon, who was sitting at her desk, clicked her tongue and spoke.
“Odd? This is how things are supposed to be normally.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you when we wrapped things up at the Chuncheon branch? Cases like that only happen once every one or two years.”
“Well, that’s true enough.”
Baek Ho, who’d raised the subject initially, went along with it. Then, as if remembering something, he asked Hwa Ryeon.
“Speaking of which, what happened with the personnel increase?”
“I was actually planning to mention it today. It’s pretty much settled. The announcement should come this week, maybe sooner.”
“Oh, we’re getting more staff?”
“Yeah. From what I hear, they’re setting up a second team and running a provisional third team.”
“A second team I understand, but do we have the personnel to actually run a third team?”
“People from other branches, personnel from headquarters working with us, retirees, those on temporary leave—they’re pooling everyone together.”
“Wow. Things are going to be pretty chaotic for a while, aren’t they?”
“Probably. Still, we’ll make sure to pick solid people for each team’s leadership and deputy positions. They’ll figure it out.”
Hwa Ryeon paused there, thinking for a moment before continuing carefully.
“And there’s this… I should’ve mentioned it during the announcement, but it looks like we’re going to be hiring a lot of contract workers.”
“Temporary staff?”
“Yes. We’ll lower the test difficulty slightly to bring on more people, and depending on how they perform, we can assign them directly to the Response Team.”
Baek Ho furrowed his brow as he asked the question.
“Isn’t that pushing it too hard? There are ways to filter out those with ulterior motives, but the selection exam was designed to have that difficulty for a reason.”
“That’s exactly why they’re contract workers. And we have no choice.”
Hwa Ryeon tapped her desk as she spoke.
“From what I hear, it seems like our country isn’t the only one facing this situation.”
“Other countries are experiencing this too?”
“Yes. Japan right next door, then China, Europe, and the United States. Apparently, the higher-ups have already been exchanging enormous amounts of information.”
She exhaled softly and continued.
“In essence, the speculation I mentioned before seems to have been correct.”
Once every few decades, there are periods when creepypastas and supernatural entities run rampant.
Sometimes they end quickly, and sometimes they persist for years.
That was what Hwa Ryeon was referring to.
“The sudden surge in artifact movement… thinking about it now, it seems like that was a warning sign.”
As she said this, Hwa Ryeon looked at Woo Ju.
“Woo Ju, from now on, if you pick up anything unusual, you have to tell me right away.”
“Yes.”
By now, Woo Ju had naturally come to fully understand his own unique constitution, so he simply nodded.
“Well then, let’s end the chitchat here. Don’t let your guard down just because things have been quiet lately. This is exactly when danger strikes.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Got it.”
After wrapping up the conversation, Woo Ju threw himself back into his paperwork.
Fortunately, that day was also uneventful until quitting time.
“I’m heading out now.”
“Oh, good work.”
Woo Ju took the elevator down with the others and made his way toward the bus stop.
But on the way to catch the bus, something caught his eye—a shop he didn’t remember seeing before.
It was a small clothing store.
‘Was there a shop like this here?’
He paused to think about it, but the truth was, he’d never paid much attention to the shops along his usual route to the bus stop.
This time, it had just happened to catch his eye by pure chance.
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll grab some clothes.”
He hadn’t been planning to buy anything in particular, but now that he’d noticed the place, curiosity stirred.
He’d been earning good money lately but hadn’t spent much of it.
At most, he’d only been splurging on the occasional expensive food delivery.
‘Why not.’
After deliberating, Woo Ju decided to step into the clothing store.
The shop was just as ordinary as it had looked from outside.
“Welcome.”
The clerk greeting him seemed unmotivated, but that at least allowed him to browse quietly on his own.
Woo Ju wandered slowly through the interior and picked out a few items that caught his fancy.
But just as he was finishing his selection, the clerk suddenly approached him.
“How about this one?”
“Pardon?”
“I think it would really suit you.”
The clerk held up a leather jacket.
It was a fairly plain black leather jacket, with the only notable detail being a subtly embossed lion motif on the collar.
“If you buy it now, I can give you a seventy percent discount.”
“Seventy percent?”
He hadn’t been interested at first, but that offer piqued his curiosity.
“Just try it on. Here, I think it’ll go great with that t-shirt you picked.”
“Well, maybe?”
Woo Ju nodded and followed the clerk’s suggestion, changing into the t-shirt the clerk had selected, along with a pair of pants, then pulling the leather jacket over the top.
When he stepped back out, the clerk clapped his hands together.
“It looks amazing on you! Really, the fit is just perfect!”
“R-really?”
“Yes! Absolutely! If you buy the Leather Jacket with those other pieces, I’ll give you an additional ten percent off everything else.”
Woo Ju felt his resistance crumbling by the second.
Moreover, when he heard the price, the discounts had been applied so generously that it wasn’t nearly as expensive as he’d expected.
‘Well, I’ve made decent money.’
In the end, Woo Ju decided to buy what he was wearing as-is.
“Excellent choice!”
The clerk said so with a smile and removed the tags right there on the spot.
And so Woo Ju paid and walked out as if under a spell.
‘Did I just impulse buy?’
Once outside, the thought crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it — he’d earned a lot; a purchase like this was hardly extravagant.
Honestly, considering what he’d made since getting hired, he could’ve dressed himself head to toe in luxury brands without breaking stride.
And so Woo Ju boarded the bus in his new outfit, in good spirits.
A short while later.
After getting off near his apartment, Woo Ju walked slowly toward home.
But as he passed through a somewhat dark alleyway, he noticed a figure standing ahead of him.
It was a man whose complexion was unnaturally pale, and he muttered something ceaselessly—something about him felt distinctly ominous.
Woo Ju pressed himself to one side of the alley, trying to pass him by.
Then.
A swift motion.
The man pulled something from his coat.
Woo Ju’s eyes widened at the sight.
It was a gun.
Upon seeing it, Woo Ju blinked, momentarily unable to comprehend the situation.
Had he encountered a Supernatural Entity, he would have reacted instantly; but for someone to draw a gun—not a blade—in an alleyway was entirely beyond his expectations.
In that moment of hesitation.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The muzzle aimed at Woo Ju’s chest erupted in fire.
The bullets, fired from no great distance, struck his chest in rapid succession.
Woo Ju staggered backward and collapsed.
“That’s—that’s mine. It’s mine.”
The man muttered ceaselessly as he approached Woo Ju.
But when he’d drawn close enough, a crack of confusion finally appeared on his face.
“What—”
The Leather Jacket that Woo Ju wore bore not a single hole. And the moment that realization struck him.
He saw, at the edge of his vision, something that defied belief: a Steel Pipe flying through the air of its own accord.
Crunch!
Then came a violent impact, and his vision went dark.
That was the man’s final memory.
To be continued ▶
Urban Legends and the Obsession of Disaster-Class Artifacts
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publishers
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 protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violators may face criminal and civil penalties.
※ 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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