The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 81

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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 and Catastrophe-Class Relics Obsessed — Chapter 81
“A desire to disappear?”
Woo Ju turned the phrase over in his mind, repeating it back. It was an expression that felt almost within reach, yet somehow remained just out of grasp.
“Yes. To be honest, I don’t know the exact details. It was just a rumor I heard.”
She lifted one finger as she spoke.
“If you don’t want to go home. If you want to leave. If you want to vanish somewhere, anywhere at all. If you walk while harboring such a desire.”
That fingertip pointed toward the ground.
“You arrive at this street.”
“I see.”
Woo Ju nodded slowly. Then, as if something had just occurred to him, he opened his mouth.
“But I’ve never had such thoughts. So why did I come here?”
“Well, I… I’m not sure. I only know the rumor myself.”
“Ah. That makes sense, then.”
Come to think of it, she was just an ordinary person. There was no reason to expect her to know much.
“Hmm.”
Woo Ju stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Still, he’d obtained important information. In urban legends, what mattered most was the core nature of the thing.
This street’s essence was that it drew in those who wished to disappear.
Of course, since he’d only heard this from a single ordinary person so far, he couldn’t be certain yet.
“Come on, then. Let’s go.”
“Pardon? Where to?”
“You’re not planning to stay here, are you?”
Woo Ju said this while fixing his gaze on her.
She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head.
“No, no. I want to leave.”
“Then let’s find the exit.”
With those words, Woo Ju took the lead, and she followed after him.
As Woo Ju walked ahead, a thought crossed his mind.
‘Strangely enough, we’re communicating just fine.’
This was Japan. And Woo Ju didn’t speak Japanese. His knowledge extended only to the most basic phrases useful for tourism.
Yet now the conversation was flowing with complete naturalness.
“You’re not Korean, are you?”
“Huh? Oh, no.”
She wasn’t even Korean, for that matter.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Yuki. My name is Yuki.”
“I’m Woo Ju.”
“Woo Ju? Are you Korean?”
“Yes.”
“Your Japanese is incredible!”
It seemed she’d simply assumed Woo Ju spoke Japanese very well.
‘Is this also a property of this street?’
If it weren’t some sudden awakening to Japanese, allowing him to naturally hear and speak it without struggle, then it had to be.
For now, Woo Ju brushed off her bewildered gaze with a simple denial, then began examining the street in earnest.
And soon he noticed something.
“There are an awful lot of entertainment venues here.”
The street had an unusual concentration of shops related to amusement and leisure.
Arcades, karaoke bars, taverns, and the like.
Yet ordinary shops of the kind he’d normally expect to see were nowhere to be found.
“Oh, that.”
Yuki nodded and spoke.
“Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Almost everything’s like that. Except for restaurants, it’s all entertainment? When you look closer, there are quite a lot of people inside them.”
Looking into the shop interiors at her words, he could see she was right—there was no shortage of customers.
In fact, far more people occupied the shops than walked the street itself.
“But there’s something strange about their expressions.”
Woo Ju peered into one of the shops as he spoke.
Those inside were certainly doing things that should have been enjoyable and fun.
Singing, dancing, playing arcade games, drinking.
And yet they weren’t smiling.
Just like the people walking the street.
He simply stood there with an expressionless face, swaying slightly.
Not joyful so much as listless, even painfully so.
“Not all of them were like this from the start,” Yuki said, her face darkening.
Yuki spoke with a darkened expression.
“See that person over there? He opened his eyes here around the same time I did.”
“So what happened to him?”
“I don’t know. At first, he could talk fine and everything, but at some point he stopped responding even when I spoke to him. After that, he just kept wandering back and forth like that.”
Was there some strange power inherent to The Street itself? If so, why was Yuki beside him perfectly fine?
Was it a matter of individual differences? Or did some specific action have an effect?
Woo Ju pondered these questions as he continued surveying The Street with Yuki.
“As you can see, there’s no exit in sight. When you reach the end like this, you just return to where you started.”
Yet despite walking from one end of The Street to the other, no exit appeared.
By the time Woo Ju felt he’d walked for quite a while, he found himself back at the very spot where he’d first arrived.
“Hmm.”
Woo Ju stroked his chin again, thinking hard.
He’d learned plenty compared to when he first arrived, but he still had no sense of how to escape.
And the biggest mystery remained: why had he come here in the first place?
‘I really wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, was I?’
He tried to search his mind to see if he’d harbored any such thoughts, but the answer remained no.
The only thing he’d been thinking about outside was what would taste good to eat.
‘Or maybe they just kidnap anyone at random?’
Woo Ju scratched his cheek.
There were too few clues to arrive at any clear answer. And he couldn’t even be sure those clues were correct.
“Hm.”
After deliberating at length, Woo Ju reached a simple conclusion.
‘Why am I even thinking about this?’
Wracking his brains like this had never been Woo Ju’s style.
There was a natural fit for each person, wasn’t there?
“Yuki?”
“Yes?”
“When you stopped me earlier, you said they’d swarm over here, didn’t you?”
“Oh! Yes.”
Yuki glanced cautiously around before lowering her voice.
“The most dangerous thing on this Street is those guys.”
“What kind of guys?”
“They appear suddenly if anyone makes even a little commotion. And they’re all smiling.”
“Smiling?”
“Yes. People in white shirts and black pants with their hair swept back—they appear smiling and just drag people away. And those who are dragged away…”
“What happens to them?”
“They become just like those guys.”
At that point, Yuki’s expression had gone pale.
As if merely recalling that memory filled her with dread.
But Woo Ju’s expression, listening to this account, was perfectly calm.
More than calm—he was already entertaining thoughts that would have horrified Yuki.
“Well then, let’s meet them.”
“What?”
“Ah, you should stay back, Yuki. It could be dangerous for you. I’ll call you once things settle down.”
With that, Woo Ju hefted the Iron Pipe onto his shoulder.
After all, what mattered was that they appeared whenever someone made a commotion—didn’t it?
Normal conversation might be impossible, but if he dealt with those guys, he might glean some clue from it.
‘Or maybe I could even break through to the exit before that.’
Woo Ju headed toward the Wall he’d seen earlier, not giving Yuki—who was alarmed—a chance to stop him.
This time, he swung the Iron Pipe without hesitation.
Crash!
Part of the Wall crumbled with a deafening sound.
As always, it looked as though a battering ram had smashed through and lodged itself there.
Yuki stood frozen, watching the sight, then stumbled backward.
It was a kind of learned fear.
Even a small commotion brought them. But with a disturbance this loud?
They would absolutely come.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
But Woo Ju simply struck the Wall in measured rhythm, as if conducting a demolition.
Indifferent to whatever might come.
Yet the Wall proved unexpectedly stubborn.
Had it been an ordinary Wall, it would have crumbled beyond recognition by the second swing—but this one held with surprising tenacity.
Still, it was only a matter of time before it gave way.
Crash!
On the seventh swing of the Iron Pipe, the Wall came down with a roar.
In that same moment, Woo Ju saw it.
An endless expanse of Black Darkness.
Footsteps—slow, deliberate.
They came immediately after.
Woo Ju turned instinctively, and now he could see firsthand everything Yuki had described.
‘Exactly as she said.’
White shirts, black trousers, and smiles bright enough to turn the stomach.
But what disturbed him more was their number.
Dozens of figures—all wearing identical clothing, all bearing the same unsettling grin—walked toward him.
“Is something troubling you?”
“Let’s talk. Come with us.”
They addressed him as they drew closer, each uttering their words in turn.
Their voices were flat and hollow, like machinery grinding out sound.
Woo Ju watched them approach and adjusted his grip on the Iron Pipe.
Before seeing this himself, he’d hesitated after hearing Yuki’s account.
Hadn’t she said as much?
That people dragged away by them had reappeared shortly after, wearing the same face.
So he’d wondered if they were brainwashing or controlling people somehow.
‘Only shells remain.’
But seeing them now, his assumption shifted.
These weren’t human anymore. They were merely husks wearing human skin.
Already completely consumed by this Street.
Even the Inspection Bureau had no method to restore them.
They were as good as dead.
Woo Ju offered them silent respect and raised the Iron Pipe.
He was curious about that dark space beyond the Wall, but first he’d need to deal with these things.
Thud!
Woo Ju planted his feet and surged forward.
Boom!
A deafening crash erupted.
In the collision that followed, Woo Ju learned several things.
First: their bodies bore little resemblance to ordinary human flesh.
They were far more durable, with strength that transcended the baseline of humanity.
It explained why ordinary people couldn’t resist.
But despite surpassing human capability, they posed no real threat to Woo Ju.
What threatened him was their sheer number.
He couldn’t guess how many people they’d consumed, but there were easily hundreds of them.
Crash!
Even when rendered immobile, they writhed forward, trying to reach him regardless.
As if pain meant nothing—as if they existed only to pursue their target with blind purpose.
And one more thing.
Hum—
With each one he dispatched, Pandora’s Box began to vibrate more intensely.
At first, he didn’t understand what it meant. Midway through, he grasped it.
‘It’s tracking the resonance.’
By eliminating these extensions of the Street, he was absorbing their essence, analyzing it, and tracing it back to its source.
So it wasn’t merely a seal—the relic had far more utility than he’d anticipated.
Boom!
Woo Ju turned in the direction Pandora’s Box indicated and carved a path forward.
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
“Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop.”
Their response shifted abruptly.
Until that moment, they’d merely been reaching toward him, trying to seize him—but now they changed direction, and a fierce hostility took hold of them instead.
As if they meant to block him from going that way.
Bang! Bang!
Of course, that didn’t stop Woo Ju.
They were swept aside by his momentum, and before long he reached the place the box had indicated.
“Is that it.”
There, sitting alone, was a small Jizou Bodhisattva Statue.
Continues in the next episode ▶
Urban Legends’ Obsession with Catastrophe-Class Relics
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Contact Email
[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 violations may result in criminal and civil liability.
※ Pentagram awaits your precious manuscript.

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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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