The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 71

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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 71
The wolf was enormous.
Its shoulder height alone towered well above any ordinary adult male, and its massive frame made it look less like a beast and more like a car hurtling straight at them.
Woo Ju assessed the situation in an instant and immediately swung his Iron Pipe.
Whoosh—!
But the Iron Pipe cut only empty air.
The wolf had leaped into the air just before impact.
It jumped so high that Woo Ju found himself marveling that something so massive could possibly achieve such elevation.
“Team lead!”
Watching the wolf descend toward Hwa Ryeon, Woo Ju called out a sharp warning.
But Hwa Ryeon merely gazed at it calmly, then brought her palms together with a sharp clap.
Whoooosh—!
A massive burst of flame erupted and engulfed the plummeting wolf.
—Yelp!
The wolf shrieked and twisted its body desperately as the fire descended upon it, then crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
The noise was deafening, making it easy to misjudge the actual damage—but the harm was minimal.
Barely the tips of its fur were singed. Given how long the flames had made contact, calling it “avoided much injury” hardly seemed accurate.
It appeared the fire itself had lacked real force from the start.
The wolf, belatedly realizing this, let out a growl and snarled with fury.
But the beast had forgotten something crucial in its rage over the sudden flames and the insult of their weakness.
That Woo Ju stood directly behind it.
Crack—!
The wolf’s body snapped forward like a missile with the thunderous blow.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Several trees splintered under the beast’s momentum in a display of raw violence.
“Wow.”
Even Hwa Ryeon, fully aware of Woo Ju’s strength, couldn’t help but breathe out in admiration.
She watched the direction the wolf had flown, then called to Woo Ju as he rushed after it.
“It’s over.”
“Already? That fast?”
“Yeah. Look there. Its body’s coming apart.”
True to her words, the wolf that had taken Woo Ju’s full force was disintegrating into dust from its extremities, scattering slowly into the air.
“Let’s go. Before it vanishes completely.”
Hwa Ryeon spoke to Woo Ju, who stood watching the creature fade.
Woo Ju nodded at once and moved forward again alongside Hwa Ryeon.
The wolf had been merely an obstacle in their path, not their target.
Hwa Ryeon conjured smoke again, and it streamed upward along the mountainside.
The two of them ran as if the mountainside were flat ground, ascending rapidly.
After running for some time like this,
the smoke vanished without a sound—whoosh.
Hwa Ryeon immediately raised her hand in a halt signal, and Woo Ju came to a stop as well.
Before them lay a small clearing.
Trees ringed it on all sides, and something sat in the center. As moonlight seeped through the clouds, its outline became visible.
It was an altar.
Upon the altar made of stacked stone sat something, and around it were carved characters packed densely together.
“It’s there.”
Hwa Ryeon gestured toward the altar. Woo Ju nodded in acknowledgment.
In truth, Woo Ju had already been watching something even before Hwa Ryeon spoke.
The mask granted him sight of what would normally remain invisible.
‘Desperate,’ he thought.
A man stood before the altar.
He stood urgently in front of it, chanting something as if being pursued by something unseen.
Had Hwa Ryeon not signaled him to stop, Woo Ju would have rushed at him immediately.
“There’s a man standing in front of the altar.”
“I see him too. But we can’t approach.”
Hwa Ryeon, having already spotted him, spoke in a measured tone.
“It’s obviously a trap. He’s hiding his true appearance and feigning urgency, waiting for us to come closer.”
Anyone skilled enough to find this place would have little difficulty spotting someone in hiding, so they had layered a second trap on top of the first.
As if responding to Hwa Ryeon’s words,
the man who had been chanting an Incantation slowly turned his head.
The tension that had gripped his face moments before had vanished without a trace.
That’s when the voice reached them.
Why?
A low, sinister voice.
Why, of all times, does a monstrosity like you have to appear now?
The Man’s gaze was fixed on Woo Ju.
Ten years! Ten years of preparation, and you come crawling out of nowhere!
“Out of nowhere? I was living a perfectly ordinary life, thank you very much.”
Woo Ju’s words twisted the Man’s face further.
Apparently deciding that prolonging the conversation would be pointless, he raised one hand.
Wheeeeee—
Wind began to blow from all directions.
It was so violent he could barely keep his eyes open.
Whoooosh—!
Seeing this, Hwa Ryeon exhaled a stream of smoke as though she’d been waiting for just this moment.
As the smoke spread in all directions, the wind suddenly weakened. And in the gaps where the wind had eased, the creatures revealed themselves.
Grrrrr—
Keeeeee—
Shriek, screech, shriek-shriek, shriek.
They all had grotesque forms, but what struck him most was that he recognized none of them.
Even after joining the Inspection Bureau and accumulating considerable knowledge of monstrosities and urban legends, he had never seen these before.
“Never seen them before.”
When Woo Ju heard Hwa Ryeon’s words, he realized that his own ignorance was only natural.
If she—someone who seemed to have memorized every monstrosity and legend verbatim—didn’t know them, there was no way he could.
“Think he created them?”
“It’s possible.”
It wasn’t common for humans to create monstrosities.
But it wasn’t impossible either. Monstrosities, by their nature, often originated from humans.
“Or maybe he twisted something that already existed, or found something forgotten. Either way.”
Hwa Ryeon drew deeply on the pipe smoke as she spoke.
“You can handle this, right? The way he’s bolting, it looks like he’s cut and running.”
“Of course.”
The Man had already vanished without a trace.
One might think he was hiding among the creatures, ready to strike alongside them. The Man probably intended to create exactly that impression.
But Hwa Ryeon wasn’t fooled by such a shallow trick.
He was using the creatures to buy himself time while he made his escape.
That, of course, was not something she could allow.
Whoooosh—
Hwa Ryeon immediately exhaled smoke and gave chase after the Man.
Woo Ju watched her dash away, then picked up the iron pipe and advanced toward the creatures, their eyes gleaming with malice.
Naturally, the creatures didn’t stand idly by as Hwa Ryeon moved to leave.
They immediately lunged after her.
“Not so fast!”
Crack—!
But Woo Ju had no intention of letting them chase Hwa Ryeon.
Launching himself from the ground, he shot forward like an arrow and brought the pipe down hard on the back of the trailing creature’s head.
Crack!
With a thunderous sound, one creature slammed into the earth.
The blow had clearly caught it by surprise; the thing shuddered once and went limp.
Gaaahhh—!
Grrrr—!
At the same moment, the creatures that had been pursuing Hwa Ryeon showed their guard and wheeled toward Woo Ju.
Despite watching one of their number fall in a single strike, they showed no sign of fear.
“Now that’s more like it.”
Woo Ju’s mouth curved upward.
If the creatures had panicked and scattered in all directions, it would have been a headache to deal with.
Fortunately, they shrieked and charged straight at him.
Raaaaaghh—!
Woo Ju swung directly at the first one to rush at him.
As it flew backward and crashed into a tree, that much felt familiar—but instead of collapsing, it pushed itself up and staggered back to its feet.
The creature seemed remarkably sturdy.
—Krraaahhh!
—Kieeeeeek!
And in that opening, two more monstrosities came crashing down from both sides simultaneously.
The momentum was genuinely menacing. But Woo Ju responded with ease once again.
He swung the Iron Pipe in a wide arc.
Considering the difference in mass between them, it looked like suicide.
—Kwang!
But the actual result was different.
This time too, the ones sent flying weren’t Woo Ju—it was the two that had charged him.
It was astounding just from appearances, but anyone examining the situation closely would have found it remarkable in an entirely different way.
All three creatures that had attacked weren’t relying on brute size alone—each possessed distinct, specialized abilities.
One attacked the mind itself, another froze the body with killing cold, a third wielded strength far beyond its apparent form. Abilities like that.
Yet Woo Ju absorbed every single one of those attacks through sheer physicality and raw power, crushing them in the process.
—Kee, keeeek.
—Kieeeeeek!
Only then did the remaining monstrosities show signs of fear.
That creatures meant to inspire terror in humans would themselves feel terror meant they’d lost even their slim chance at victory.
But what could they do?
“Come on. Hurry up.”
Standing before them was simply an opponent they could never hope to match.
Woo Ju charged at them again.
* * *
Hwa Ryeon ran through the mountainside like she was flying, tracking the smoke trail that drifted ahead of her.
The smoke was moving fast.
Which meant the man was running at considerable speed.
An ordinary person would struggle to maintain this pace on such terrain.
She’d never believed him to be normal, but given the composition of abilities he wielded, it seemed unlikely his physical prowess alone could account for this.
He must possess some kind of means for escape.
—Whoooooosh.
Hwa Ryeon replenished the smoke periodically, and each time she did, searing heat blossomed throughout her body.
This was precisely why she rarely used the Pipe, despite its remarkable versatility and countless applications.
The Pipe burned its user along with everything else.
She had to employ Artifacts that dulled the pain and maintained her body’s condition just to mitigate the side effects.
Even then the backlash never fully disappeared—one use meant at least a week of intensive treatment in the recovery ward afterward.
Since she’d left treatment early this time, she’d likely need nearly two weeks of care.
The fierce burning was already wrapping around her body.
“Whoooooosh.”
Yet Hwa Ryeon paid it no mind.
What mattered was handling the task at hand properly.
In a situation where a newcomer had essentially prepared everything and she merely needed to set down the spoon, she couldn’t afford to appear weak.
—Ssshhhhhhh.
Then the smoke trail ahead scattered in all directions. The meaning was unmistakable.
The target was somewhere nearby.
Hwa Ryeon drew on the Pipe with all her remaining strength.
She kindled flame using her body as kindling, then released it outward.
—Whoooooosh!
This time, instead of smoke, blazing fire spread in all directions.
Strangely, the flames didn’t consume the surrounding grass or trees—they swept across the area like something alive.
—What cheap tricks!
The man appeared from empty air at that very moment.
He emerged with something of a shout, but he was clearly driven out by the heat against his will.
—Sabek! Juhan! Dae-yul!
Yet regardless, his response was swift.
He hurled Talismans from his hand while chanting something rapidly, and the flames targeting him began to fade.
Moreover, one of the Talismans shot forward like a bullet, aimed directly at Hwa Ryeon.
—Clang!
But Hwa Ryeon swung the Pipe in her hand and flicked the Talisman away with ease.
Though wood and paper had collided, the sound that rang out was like metal striking metal—a bonus of sorts.
The two faced each other, measuring, watching, waiting.
It was only a single clash, but it made one thing abundantly clear: neither of them was weak.
Yet if they were evenly matched, the advantage tilted toward Hwa Ryeon. She was not alone, after all.
The man understood this, and so he prepared to unleash his final card.
To dispatch Hwa Ryeon quickly and slip away before that monster of a man could arrive……
Crash—!
“Damn! So close!”
The moment that thought crossed his mind, an Iron Pipe came hurtling through the space where he had stood and embedded itself in the ground.
The man thought a cannon had just been fired at him.
Had his reaction been even a fraction slower, his body would have been pulverized.
Cold sweat beading on his brow, the man turned toward the direction from which the voice had come.
There stood a figure holding a monstrosity’s head in his hand.
“I have arrived.”
Of course, it was Woo Ju.
To be continued in the next episode ▶
Urban Legend of Catastrophe-Class Relics’ Obsession
Author
Lee Se-gye
Published by
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Publisher
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction or copying is strictly prohibited. Violators may be subject to criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram welcomes submissions of 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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