The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 42

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

Catastrophe-Class Artifacts from Urban Legends Show Obsession — Episode 42
Baekho had only come down during his lunch break while on duty.
So Baekho returned to work, while Ujoo spent the time playing and resting in the room with Happy.
The next day.
As soon as Ujoo arrived at work, he headed to the Development Team with Baekho.
“Hello.”
“Ah, welcome!”
The Development Team’s leader greeted him with a bright smile. Baekho, for his part, didn’t acknowledge it and spoke directly to Ujoo.
“There’s an artifact you really need to see!”
“Me?”
“That’s right!”
As the team leader spoke, he produced a book.
A brilliantly colored picture book, the sort young children would look at.
Ujoo’s face filled with question marks at the sight of the colorful picture book.
It seemed far too random.
“What is this?”
Baekho, equally curious, pointed at the picture book and asked.
The Development Team leader, Tae-eul, smiled and spoke.
“You remember the names Lowendel and Yozef, don’t you?”
“Eh? Ah, yes.”
Ujoo nodded immediately.
Those two names were impossible to forget.
Why was Ujoo eating and sleeping at the company when he had a perfectly good home?
Because someone was targeting him.
And the two leading suspects were precisely those two.
The Master Lowendel from England and the mad librarian Yozef from Germany.
There had originally been three suspects, but Hwa-ryeon had said Tengu from Japan didn’t seem to be the one.
Tae-eul spoke while holding something like a long pipe to his mouth.
“For now… we’re not certain yet, but those above think Lowendel’s side is more likely.”
“Lowendel?”
“Yes. The style seems to match his approach more closely.”
After explaining that much, Tae-eul tapped the picture book and continued.
“This book was created specifically to counter that Master Lowendel.”
“Ah, so you manufactured it directly.”
“That’s right. We made it with some help from the elders. The effect is quite simple.”
Tae-eul held up the picture book and spoke.
“We’ll use this to investigate the traces of curses left on your body. Ah, the leather jacket — that’s the one from back then, right?”
“Yes, that’s it!”
Before coming in today, there had been instructions to wear the leather jacket he’d had on during the attack.
Of course, even without those instructions, he would have worn it.
He was certain this wasn’t an ordinary leather jacket.
Wasn’t it the jacket that had protected him from both gunfire and a curse?
For some reason, it felt like the steel pipe liked it too.
“With this, we can catch the finer traces that existing equipment can’t detect. We made it specifically to target Lowendel, after all.”
Tae-eul then opened the picture book.
“Instead, you’ll experience some strange illusions.”
“Strange illusions?”
“Yes. You won’t actually come to any harm, so don’t worry. Now, look here.”
Ujoo followed Tae-eul’s directions and looked at the spot he indicated in the picture book.
There, in handwriting that was deliberately crooked, was written text.
One day, a deer approached the woodcutter and spoke!
The moment Ujoo read that sentence, his vision suddenly warped and his body felt itself lift.
At the same time, Ujoo instinctively understood that he could resist it.
But if he did, nothing would happen.
Ujoo didn’t resist and surrendered his body to that sensation.
Whoosh—!
His body lifted and was sucked away into somewhere.
It was only after some time that Ujoo realized his feet had touched solid ground.
And when he opened his eyes, he faced a bewildering sight.
“What?”
He found himself in a forest he’d never seen before.
Yet something about the landscape felt oddly familiar.
On one side, a small spring bubbled softly. On the other, a massive boulder and a pine tree stood sentinel.
It was exactly the scene from the Picture Book.
Rustle-rustle!
The moment that realization struck him, he heard the grass stirring in the distance ahead.
He tensed instinctively and looked toward the sound.
Snap!
A deer bounded from the tall grass. What came next was the true shock.
“Woodcutter! Woodcutter!”
The deer that had bolted forward opened its mouth and spoke directly to him.
‘Am I the woodcutter?’
Ujoo glanced down at his own clothes. There it was—just like in the Picture Book, he wore a shabby old-fashioned hanbok.
The deer, indifferent to his bewilderment, pressed on.
“There’s a monster chasing me! Please hide me!”
“A monster?”
Ujoo lifted his head again at those words.
It struck him only now: this situation mirrored a story he’d read as a child.
‘The Woodcutter and the Fairy.’
Help a deer fleeing a hunter, and the deer repays you by revealing where the fairies descend from heaven.…
“Yes! A terrible monster! Please, I’m begging you!”
But this version diverged from the tale.
A monster was chasing it instead of a hunter.
Ujoo hesitated a moment, then pointed to a patch of thick grass and spoke.
“Go on, hide over there for now.”
“Thank you!”
The deer didn’t protest, and immediately dove into the grassy spot he’d indicated.
Despite its considerable bulk, it disappeared behind the vegetation with startling completeness.
Ujoo watched it vanish with an unsettled expression and thought carefully.
‘So I’ve stepped inside the Picture Book?’
It certainly seemed that way.
Hadn’t Tae-eul mentioned it? That using the Picture Book would make him see illusions.
Though this illusion was proving far more substantial than he’d anticipated.
‘But if that’s the case, why did Baekho come along with me?’
Shouldn’t he have managed this alone?
As these questions circled through Ujoo’s mind—
Boom, boom, boom!
A distant sound shook the earth.
‘The monster.’
Ujoo’s thoughts snapped to the creature the deer had warned him about.
If a monster attacked, he’d need some means of defense.
So he checked himself again. Ragged hanbok. Straw sandals. And an axe.
‘An axe?’
Ujoo lifted the axe.
As he did, he felt strength spreading through his body.
“Ah.”
It was only an axe in appearance. In truth, it was the Steel Pipe he always carried.
Ujoo felt his mind settle at that fact.
With this Steel Pipe in hand, there was nothing he couldn’t face.
Boom!
Moments later, ‘it’ emerged from the tall grass.
Ujoo now perfectly understood why the deer had called it a monster.
Slither-slither.
Its body was an amorphous, writhing mass, with tentacle-like appendages sprouting from every direction.
No question about it—a monster pure and simple.
Yet when it saw Ujoo, it didn’t immediately attack. Instead, it halted where it stood and fixed him with its gaze.
“Grrrrr?”
It emitted a strange, guttural sound.
It should have been incomprehensible—and yet somehow, Ujoo grasped its meaning.
The monster was asking him: ‘Where did the deer go?’ Just like in The Woodcutter and the Fairy.
“I think it went that way.”
So Ujoo reflexively pointed in one direction.
It was entirely the wrong way.
The deer was hiding in the grass just beside him.
—Croak.
But instead of doubting Ujoo’s words, the creature simply nodded and crawled off in that direction.
Only after the creature had completely vanished.
—Thank you! Woodcutter!
The deer burst from the grass and bowed in gratitude.
—Really, truly thank you! In return, I’ll share something important with you!
“Um, sure.”
Was it about to tell him the fairy’s location, just like in the old tale?
While he was thinking that, the deer spoke.
—If you go straight that way, you’ll find a jar!
“A jar?”
But the deer had brought up a jar instead of what he expected.
—Yes! A very, very important jar! You must go see it!
Ujoo naturally raised his objection, but instead of explaining further, the deer simply said that much and bounded away toward somewhere else.
Ujoo stared blankly at its departing figure before a realization struck him.
‘Why did I think that was a deer?’
Just as the creature he’d seen before wasn’t shaped like a hunter,
this “deer” was actually nothing like a deer at all. Its form was deeply strange, profoundly wrong…….
“Mm.”
Ujoo hesitated for a moment, then shook his head slightly as a dull ache bloomed behind his eyes.
That wasn’t what mattered right now.
‘The jar.’
At first it had sounded absurd. Why would a jar suddenly appear out of nowhere?
Yet strangely, as time passed, he felt an increasing urge to find it and look inside.
Somehow he felt as though he were forgetting something crucial.
Ujoo didn’t ignore that instinct—he moved forward.
He had only walked in the direction the deer indicated for a short while
when he thought, ‘Is that it?’
Soon a clearing came into view, and there in the middle of it stood a jar.
“Hm.”
The moment he spotted it, Ujoo’s brow furrowed. A sudden wave of déjà vu washed over him.
Sometime ago……. He felt sure he’d seen it before.
Ujoo adjusted his grip on the steel pipe and slowly approached.
The closer he drew to the jar, the stronger the sense of familiarity became.
Certainly, he had seen it before.
‘When?’
But he couldn’t recall exactly when.
His brow had grown deeply furrowed without him noticing. Something hovered at the edge of his consciousness, just beyond reach.
One step. Another step.
He drew steadily closer to the jar.
And then, at last, he reached it.
“Ah.”
Suddenly a scene flashed through his mind.
A person bound. Black smoke spilling from his mouth. Screams. Shrieks.
A memory not long past surfaced like a faded recollection.
Ujoo slowly leaned forward and peered inside the jar.
Within it lay a darkness as deep and fathomless as an abyss.
Yet Ujoo could see through that darkness into what lay within.
Something was hidden there.
Radiating sallow, golden eyes.
And it saw him.
—You remember now.
The thing grinned, its mouth stretching impossibly wide.
—You remember. You’ve remembered. How quick you are, quick!
It shrieked with delight. Happy, yearning, thrilled, enraged.
A voice tangled with countless emotions shook Ujoo to his core.
-There’s no helping it! A bit early, but!
And at some point, it tried to crawl out of the jar, reaching its hand toward Ujoo.
After seeing that much, Ujoo held back no longer.
Crash!
He raised his hand and brought the axe down on the jar in one motion.
Smash!
With a sound like a bomb detonating, the jar shattered into countless pieces and scattered in all directions.
-This isn’t a dream! It’s not a dream! How did it get here?
Yet what lay inside the jar still seemed perfectly intact. Or perhaps, in some way, it even looked relieved.
As Ujoo gazed upon the creature, a final memory surfaced.
He had definitely seen that jar before.
The day he’d interrogated the person who had attacked him—that jar sitting on the windowsill. That was the very same one.
‘I’d completely forgotten about it since then.’
Ujoo was certain he’d found the jar unusual when he first saw it.
But immediately after, the jar’s existence slipped from his mind. He hadn’t even mentioned it to anyone, and no one else had noticed it at all.
As if the jar itself had ceased to exist.
Yet the jar hadn’t vanished. It had simply settled silently within him.
-Waa waa waa waa waa waa waa waa waa!
The cry of an infant echoed from somewhere.
-Buzz, buzz, buzz.
Simultaneously, the wailing of dozens of insects rang out. And the sound of something being crushed.
Countless sounds clawed their way into his ears in a chaotic assault.
At the same time, yellow eyes fixed upon him.
Ujoo heard it all, saw it all, and exhaled.
“Whoosh.”
And he picked up the Steel Pipe.
To be continued in the next episode ▶
Catastrophe-Class Artifacts from Urban Legends Grow Obsessed
Author
Isegyesa
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publications
Inquiries
[email protected]
Published
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution are prohibited, and violators may face criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscripts.

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