The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 73

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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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Urban Legends of Catastrophe-Class Relics — Episode 73
The operation in Busan wrapped up successfully.
The Hundred Ghosts Night Parade had vanished without a trace, and the man who’d been deeply involved with the Tatari Kami and the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade had disappeared as well.
The only regret was that they hadn’t captured the man alive, but Hwa Ryeon had said there was a way around that.
If his soul had been completely annihilated, there’d be no saving him, but apparently time had run short before they could go that far.
After the battle ended, it turned out what they’d actually been doing was capturing the man’s soul.
“Man, even after we left, things got pretty spectacular.”
Baek Ho, sitting in his chair, let out an admiring whistle the moment the story concluded.
A flicker of regret crossed his face. He was clearly thinking, ‘And I missed all the fun.’
“Hmm.”
Cheong Woo, by contrast, sitting across from him, looked distinctly uncomfortable.
And for good reason.
When they’d headed down to Busan, Woo Ju had deliberately kept Cheong Woo in the dark.
‘From what I heard on the way to Busan, there’d been some bad blood with the Japanese side.’
So they’d kept it entirely secret, but hearing about it now, late, clearly had put him out.
Still, Baek Ho paid no mind and continued with a grin.
“Things have been busy on this end too since we got back. Wouldn’t you know it, something strange showed up on Line 1.”
“Line 1?”
“Yeah. Apparently reports took longer because it’s the kind of place where you see every type of human imaginable.”
Baek Ho recounted the incidents that had occurred while Woo Ju and Hwa Ryeon were in Busan.
After hearing the whole story, Woo Ju spent some time talking, then glanced furtively to the side.
The team leader’s desk—Hwa Ryeon’s desk—sat empty as always.
Though they’d been back in Seoul for several days now, Hwa Ryeon had been absent from work the entire time.
And Woo Ju had learned the reason why.
‘That Artifact, they said the returns were as significant as its usefulness.’
She hadn’t gone into detail, but apparently after using it once, you needed quite a long recovery period.
Woo Ju simply hoped that Hwa Ryeon would recover well and return without any complications.
Chirp.
Just then, a sound came from his shoulder.
He turned his head and saw a round eye staring at him—it was the Insect Creature perched on his shoulder.
“Is it already feeding time? No, it can’t be.”
He checked his watch and found they still had well over an hour until the regular feeding time.
Yet here it was, whimpering about being hungry when it wasn’t even close to mealtime.
It had been days since Woo Ju summoned the creature, and one thing he’d never neglected was feeding it on schedule.
After all, it was written right in the Incantation—fail to feed it on time, and it would covet the master’s soul.
Woo Ju tapped the creature’s head a few times, then turned his attention back ahead.
“You said there was something there? Called it an Insect Creature, right?”
Baek Ho pointed at Woo Ju’s shoulder as he spoke.
“Yes, on my shoulder.”
“And it’ll eat pretty much anything, right?”
“Yes, so I’ve taken to carrying sliced bread around these days. Once I tried various things, that turned out to be the most convenient.”
He’d brought an entire loaf in his bag today.
It was barely the size of two finger joints, yet the creature could eat three or four times its own body mass.
At least it didn’t demand strange food, which was a mercy.
If it had wanted something like human souls or blood and flesh, it would’ve been a real problem.
“How many days do we have left now?”
As the conversation drew to a close, Cheong Woo asked a question. Woo Ju answered without hesitation.
“Two days left now.”
Ten days had seemed quite long at first, but eight days had already slipped by before he’d realized it.
In two more days, the Insect Creature would return to where it had come from.
Of course, he wasn’t about to let his guard down. They’d made it through eight days without incident; it’d be foolish indeed to slip up on a single feeding during the last two days and have his soul damaged for it.
“Well, just to be safe, take care.”
Cheong Woo said that and lapsed into silence again.
A brief quiet settled over the office. But it was familiar enough that there was nothing uncomfortable about it.
This was how the office normally felt anyway.
Sometimes they’d chat if there was something to discuss, and sometimes they’d each do their own work when there was something to do.
If nothing else happened, this is probably how they’d pass the rest of the day before heading home.
“I’m getting thirsty. Should I grab some coffee?”
“Let’s go together. What about you, Cheong Woo—what’ll you have?”
“Caramel Frappuccino for me.”
“Okay.”
Woo Ju headed to the cafeteria with Baek Ho. While waiting for their coffee order, Baek Ho spoke up.
“You said you got pulled into a game before, right?”
“Huh? Oh, yes, that’s right.”
Baek Ho was correct—Woo Ju had indeed been pulled into a game once.
It hadn’t been that long ago, but so much had happened in the meantime that it felt like ancient history.
“I heard some talk about another game recently.”
“Another game?”
“Yeah. What was it called? Something with a company setting.”
Baek Ho couldn’t quite recall the details and groaned, at which point Cheong Woo let out a heavy sigh and chimed in.
“The Uncanny Company. And it’s not a mobile game—it’s a computer game.”
“Oh? Well, isn’t it all the same anyway?”
At Baek Ho’s remark, Cheong Woo sighed once more. Then, dismissing his comment entirely, he turned to Woo Ju.
“Unlike what you experienced back then, this one doesn’t involve being pulled into the game itself.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. From what I’ve heard, strange phenomena occur in a specific area within the game. Players receive odd messages, or their characters move of their own accord.”
Woo Ju’s expression grew puzzled.
“Isn’t that just a bug?”
Strange as it might be, glitches like that happened in other games all the time, didn’t they?
Understanding his reaction, Cheong Woo nodded thoughtfully before continuing.
“Of course, if it had ended there, the Inspection Bureau wouldn’t have taken notice. The problem came after.”
Cheong Woo spoke in an even tone.
“At first, the anomalies were confined to the game itself, but apparently they started bleeding into reality.”
“Into reality…?”
“People’s bodies moving of their own accord, encounters with monsters from the game. More than a few people have experienced things like that.”
“Hmm.”
If that was the case, this was definitely not an ordinary matter.
“For now, the investigation team is looking into it. There’s no word on what they’ve found yet, but if the case gets referred to our team, I’ll let you know in advance.”
“Understood.”
Since there was nothing for him to act on immediately, Woo Ju filed the information away and nodded.
That day passed without any other incidents.
Having no work to do, Woo Ju left early and returned home to rest.
But the next day, when he arrived at the office, the atmosphere felt strange.
There was a palpable tension in the air.
“Has something happened?”
Woo Ju lowered his voice and asked Chae Wol.
She answered in an equally hushed tone.
“You know they expanded the Field Response Team, right?”
“Oh! Yes, I’ve heard about that.”
The Field Response Team originally consisted of just one unit.
But for a while now, there had been talk of adding another team.
With the recent surge in incidents, it was judged that a single team couldn’t handle all the cases across Seoul and the surrounding areas.
So two weeks ago, Field Response Team 2 was formed.
Woo Ju had even exchanged greetings with that team once.
The team lead was someone originally from the Northern Gyeonggi branch, and the members were a mix of transferred personnel from the branch and new hires.
Though it was a new team, he’d heard it was composed of highly experienced people.
“Apparently they failed on this operation, and now an entire district has been put under lockdown.”
“An entire district?”
Woo Ju’s eyes widened in surprise.
When they spoke of a district, they meant one of the arbitrary divisions the Inspection Bureau had established across the region—and the scope of each was considerable.
“Yes. I heard that while the damage itself isn’t severe yet, it could potentially cause significant harm, so they immediately initiated lockdown procedures.”
Lockdown wasn’t the absolute last resort, but it was far from a measure taken lightly.
Since Woo Ju had joined, he’d never once heard of lockdown procedures being executed.
That spoke volumes about how seriously upper management was taking this situation.
“For now, the sub-team lead should be here soon to brief us on the details.”
At Chae Wol’s words, Woo Ju nodded.
Since Chae Wol had likely only heard fragments herself, the detailed answers would come once the sub-team lead, Ryu Seon Dam, arrived.
About five minutes passed as they waited.
The office door opened, and Ryu Seon Dam finally appeared.
“Good morning, everyone.”
His voice was grave, stripped of any greeting’s warmth.
“You may have heard, but K District has entered a full lockdown.”
Ryu Seon Dam didn’t waste time—he went straight to the point.
“Currently, Field Response Team 2 has about half its personnel back. The other half remains trapped inside the lockdown zone.”
“They chose to stay behind?”
“No. They couldn’t get out.”
He answered Cheong Woo’s question with firm certainty.
Not absent—unable to leave. That distinction alone told him this situation was far graver than it first appeared.
Seon Dam continued.
“We’re still gathering intelligence on conditions inside, but the area where our personnel are located is essentially a dead zone for information collection.”
“Surely the entire lockdown zone isn’t like that?”
“Correct. Ninety-nine percent of the lockdown zone is perfectly safe. It’s the remaining one percent that’s the problem.”
With that, Seon Dam unfolded a map.
It displayed the entirety of K District.
“The problem zone is here—the area surrounding Areum Park.”
He emphasized the name Areum Park as he continued his explanation.
“The affected area has essentially undergone an Otherworld Transformation.”
At the mention of Otherworld Transformation, every face in the room hardened.
And with good reason.
Otherworld Transformation meant, simply put, that the area had shifted into an environment fundamentally different from Earth.
Such environments weren’t inherently hostile to humans—in fact, most cases caused no problems whatsoever.
But if a serious threat had emerged, especially one severe enough to warrant a full-scale lockdown of the surrounding area, the situation was decidedly different.
“What kind of danger are we talking about?”
“First, it causes severe psychological damage. About half of the Field Response Team 2 personnel who escaped are currently in isolation units.”
Vivid hallucinations, auditory phantoms, phantom pain—the works.
The worst affected claimed that their reflection in mirrors had transformed into something grotesque and monstrous, and they were terrified out of their minds.
“The severity seems to vary with mental fortitude, but among the affected staff are ten-year veterans of the Inspection Bureau.”
The longer he spoke, the worse the situation sounded.
Not ordinary civilians, but seasoned operatives of the Inspection Bureau—and they’d been broken by this.
“How many are going in?”
Yet no one in the room flinched or retreated in fear.
Seon Dam answered Cheong Woo’s question plainly.
“The entire Field Response Team 1, excluding the team leader, will be deployed. Personnel selected from the Northern Gyeonggi branch will also move with us.”
Having said that, Seon Dam fell silent for a moment before speaking again.
“Our objective is the complete cessation of the anomalous phenomenon and recovery of the Artifact.”
To be continued ▶
Urban legends and the fixation of Catastrophe-Class Relics
Author
Yi Se-gye-sa-jang
Publishers
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiries
[email protected]
Publication Date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
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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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