The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 63

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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 from Urban Legends Grow Obsessed — Episode 63
The staircase went deeper than he’d expected.
Woo Ju, descending ahead, felt the air grow heavier with each step, his brow furrowing.
There was definitely something here.
But what, exactly, he couldn’t yet discern.
What was this place for in the first place? Why had Tatarigami hidden here?
To answer those questions, there was nothing for it but to descend to the end.
Thump, thump.
As only his footsteps echoed through the silence, the staircase’s terminus finally came into view.
Woo Ju stepped onto the final stair, the Iron Pipe still gripped in his stance.
“Wait.”
Hwa Ryeon called him to a halt, then placed a Pipe in her mouth and exhaled slowly through it.
A pale mist flowed out and drifted into the basement space.
“What is that?”
Woo Ju asked quietly, and Hwa Ryeon answered simply.
“Just a quick check for danger. If there’s anything down there, the smoke will turn red.”
It seemed the Pipe’s capabilities were quite versatile.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen her use it before.
But then—
“Ah.”
Ray’s mouth fell open as she looked into the basement. Right after Hwa Ryeon finished speaking, the mist spreading below turned crimson.
A sign that something was there.
After exchanging glances, Hwa Ryeon gave a light wave of her hand.
The fog was drawn back into the Pipe.
They entered the interior after that.
The formation remained the same.
Woo Ju in front, Hwa Ryeon in the middle, Ray at the rear.
The basement was wider than anticipated.
A corridor stretched ahead, with several rooms branching off.
Moss grew in patches here and there, and a musty smell hung in the air—signs of long neglect.
“Hmm.”
Woo Ju rolled his eyes, surveying the interior.
The atmosphere felt as though something might burst out at any moment, yet nothing caught his eye.
That didn’t mean he dropped his guard, though.
This was when danger lurked deepest.
When the feeling of something present hung heavy, yet nothing was visible.
Then Hwa Ryeon spoke.
“There’s definitely something here.”
She said it while holding the Pipe in her mouth, scanning the surroundings.
“If only traces remained, the smoke wouldn’t have reacted like that.”
“Understood.”
Woo Ju nodded and moved deeper into the corridor.
As he was walking along the hallway—
He felt something and spun sharply. Then, following pure instinct, he acted.
Crash!
He immediately swung the Iron Pipe at the wall beside him.
While Hwa Ryeon barely reacted to the sudden move, Ray’s eyes went wide as she stared at the collapsed wall.
Understandably so.
She’d heard a brief explanation of the Iron Pipe’s power, but knowing something in theory and witnessing it were different things entirely.
Watching a person of ordinary build swing the Iron Pipe once, only to see a concrete wall crumble to dust—anyone would be startled.
“There!”
But there was no time to remain stunned.
Something lay beyond the collapsed wall.
At first glance, it looked like black smoke bundled together.
But looking closer, its form was distinctly familiar.
That shape he’d seen throughout the pursuit.
“Tatarigami!”
Ray called out its name in a sharp voice.
The thing trembled violently and rose up.
Woo Ju tightened his grip on the Iron Pipe.
The first thought that crossed Woo Ju’s mind upon seeing Tatarigami with his own eyes was: ‘ominous.’
It was different from fear or horror.
It was simply an instinct—boundless, inexplicable—that he shouldn’t draw near this thing, that something terrible would happen if he stayed close.
Given Tatarigami’s actual power, the instinct was likely sound. But that didn’t mean he could afford to retreat.
If he stepped back now, that ominousness would stop being mere intuition and become genuine catastrophe.
—Kyaaaaaaaagh!
Tatarigami shrieked and hurled itself at Woo Ju.
It was called a Disaster Deity or Spirit of Misfortune, but it bore none of a true god’s majesty.
It was merely a monster exuding boundless dread.
And so Woo Ju’s response was equally direct.
Whoooosh—!
He swung the iron pipe in a full arc straight at the charging creature.
The impact shattered Tatarigami’s form instantly, scattering it in all directions.
Yet Woo Ju did not celebrate.
The sensation in his fingertips told him everything—that blow alone wouldn’t be fatal.
At that moment, Ray called out.
“Keep attacking! Don’t let it leave this place!”
Then she began muttering something in Japanese.
It seemed she had a method.
‘Right—she said she could handle barriers and such.’
Woo Ju focused again, staring intently at the dispersed smoke. Meanwhile, Hwa Ryeon moved to assist him.
“Whoooosh—.”
As Hwa Ryeon drew the pipe from her lips again and exhaled, thick smoke poured forth and seeped into Tatarigami’s form.
—Kieeeech!
Tatarigami, which had been trying to slip away after taking a blow, let out a cry of agony and froze in place.
Whoosh!
Woo Ju swung the iron pipe down at it once more.
Tatarigami’s body scattered into smoke again.
At first glance, the damage seemed minimal, but that was far from the truth.
With each strike from the iron pipe, Tatarigami’s aura visibly weakened, and the smoke that comprised its body steadily diminished.
This was hardly strange—Woo Ju’s iron pipe had always been capable of striking down even ghosts.
It seemed they were on track to suppress it or obliterate it entirely.
But then.
Boom-boom-boom!
A deafening sound erupted, and the building shook violently.
Woo Ju didn’t move his head, only his eyes, scanning the surroundings for the source.
But nothing caught his attention.
Then Hwa Ryeon shouted.
“It’s using its power! It’s trying to escape!”
The moment he heard those words, understanding came.
Tatarigami had deployed its own strength—the power to summon catastrophe.
Whether it was an earthquake or something else, he couldn’t say, but in that instant when the tremor scattered his focus—
Tatarigami lunged without hesitation toward a fissure in the wall.
It meant to exploit the properties of its smoke-formed body, squeezing through the narrow gap to escape.
Shiiiiine—!
But the very next moment, a brilliant light erupted and spread throughout the space.
—Kieeeech!
Simultaneously, Tatarigami shrieked in anguish as it was knocked back from the fissure.
“Barrier complete!”
Ray had finally finished constructing the barrier.
Woo Ju’s lips curved upward at those words. That meant he no longer had to worry about the thing escaping.
Tap!
He pushed off from the ground and rushed toward Tatarigami, which still writhed before him, swinging the iron pipe.
Whoosh! Bang, crash—!
After a series of thunderous impacts—
“Hm. It’s over.”
Tatarigami had become what Tatarigami truly was.
The smoke that had once filled nearly the entire room had dispersed almost entirely, leaving only a handful, and even that lay motionless.
Ray had sealed it away.
Yet none of them looked pleased.
“Anyway, it does seem weaker than I expected.”
Hwa Ryeon clicked her tongue as she spoke.
Ray also voiced her disappointment.
“It appears we had more time on our hands than anticipated.”
The reason they spoke this way was simple.
The Tatarigami they’d captured was not its true body.
This was something mentioned in the initial briefing—Tatarigami could create clones, but only under specific conditions.
It wasn’t as though the creature could churn them out casually and effortlessly.
It could create only one clone at a time.
Moreover, even that took considerable time and consumed a significant amount of energy.
“It used its head, after all.”
Woo Ju slung the iron pipe across his shoulder as he spoke, and Hwa Ryeon nodded in agreement.
“That’s right.”
The fact that it had taken the trouble to create a clone while being pursued meant it had intended to deceive them from the start.
One might think they shouldn’t waste time here then, but naturally they weren’t simply standing idle.
“Still, we weren’t left empty-handed.”
Hwa Ryeon spoke while holding the sealed remains of the Tatarigami.
Had this group lacked any particular ability, they would have merely squandered time and effort apprehending the clone.
But Hwa Ryeon was here.
She who had already tracked the creature this far using only the traces it left behind and a single small scale.
With the clone’s remains now in her hands, the possibilities for what they could accomplish were boundless.
Sssssss—
First, Hwa Ryeon burned the remains completely, creating a wisp of smoke.
The smoke took on a form far more distinct than before.
“Let’s pursue and continue as we go.”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
Hwa Ryeon followed in pursuit, drew several items from her bag, packed them into a pipe, and burned those as well, adding the smoke to the Tatarigami’s form.
As a result, the shape of the Tatarigami began to glow with a distinctly ominous crimson hue.
That was, simply put, a curse.
A curse directed at the Tatarigami’s true body.
“Wherever it’s hiding and whatever it’s plotting, this will cause it considerable pain.”
Hwa Ryeon explained this for Ray’s benefit as well, quickening her pace.
As they traced the smoke out of the basement, Woo Ju recalled the facts he’d learned immediately after the battle ended.
First, this basement was not completely abandoned.
Several traces remained in the place where Tatarigami had dwelt.
They were unmistakably signs of human activity.
When Hwa Ryeon saw them, she had said this:
There might be a “person” helping Tatarigami escape.
That suggested many things.
Setting aside the question of who and why someone would aid Tatarigami, the creature had only crossed from Japan to Korea a few days ago.
Furthermore, after arriving, it had barely rested and continued moving constantly. In other words, there hadn’t been time for an accomplice to appear.
‘If there was an accomplice, it would more likely have been present from Japan.’
Particularly Ray, upon hearing this, had worn an expression suggesting she was thinking deeply about it.
But for now, capturing Tatarigami took priority over dwelling on that question.
After escaping the basement, the smoke in Tatarigami’s form headed toward the back mountain of the hospital, exactly as expected.
They pursued it while simultaneously radioing the personnel at the hospital.
“No response.”
But that location wasn’t answering at all.
Hwa Ryeon’s brow furrowed.
In a situation like this, going unanswered without reason wasn’t typical. Things didn’t seem to be going smoothly over there either.
But they couldn’t divert resources to support them now.
All they could do was hope the others were safe.
“It should be around here.”
Not long after, they too reached their destination.
But there was a small problem.
The moment they arrived, Ray gestured for everyone to stop and pointed ahead.
“A barrier is in place.”
“A barrier?”
“Yes.”
When I looked ahead after hearing that, I noticed the world’s saturation seemed to fade slightly from the front onward.
The difference was subtle enough that I didn’t catch it immediately.
Ray bit her lip as she spoke.
“It looks like there’s definitely someone assisting. It’s a fairly sophisticated Barrier.”
“Is it dangerous if we just go in?”
“Very dangerous. And it would take at least two hours to dismantle it.”
Two hours in a situation like this was an eternity.
Hwa Ryeon paused to think, then looked at Woo Ju.
The moment Woo Ju caught her gaze, he understood the meaning behind it.
“Then let’s just break it.”
“What? No, a Barrier like this can’t be destroyed by brute force alone, and the backlash would——”
Ray tried to stop him, explaining the detailed mechanics of the Barrier.
Whoooosh!
But before she could finish, Woo Ju’s Iron Pipe cut through the empty air first.
Crash!
At the same moment the sound of shattering glass rang out, the ominous energy hovering ahead vanished as if it had been washed away.
Ray stood there, her mouth hanging open.
Continued in the next chapter ▶
Disaster-Class Relics from Urban Legends Obsess Over
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publishing House
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Published
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 liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes precious manuscripts from writers.

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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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