The Calamity-Class Artifacts in Ghost Stories Are Obsessed with Me - Chapter 97

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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 Obsessed with Him — Episode 97
About thirty minutes later.
Chae Wol returned from the clinic.
She reported that fortunately there was nothing seriously wrong with her body, and she only needed to rest thoroughly and recover her strength.
“Thank you so much for your help.”
“Not at all. I was interested in the case, so I just went along.”
Chae Wol smiled as she spoke.
Still, Woo Ju expressed his gratitude to her and told her to let him know if she ever needed any help, then they left together.
‘Wait, this isn’t leaving work.’
He kept thinking it was a workday, when in fact he was just someone who’d worked on a day off.
‘Hmm. Now that I think about it that way, I really do seem out of my mind.’
Woo Ju chuckled to himself and walked slowly toward home. As he went, he recalled the story Chae Wol had told him.
It was about a hotel.
‘There’s a rumor the investigation team recently picked up. Apparently, a strange hotel sometimes appears in Gangwon Province.’
‘A strange hotel?’
‘Yeah. From a distance, you can clearly see a proper hotel, but when you get close, it disappears.’
If that were all, it would simply be strange, but the important part came next.
‘The problem is that last week, someone inside that hotel sent out a distress signal.’
A distress signal had been dispatched from inside that hotel, which vanishes like a mirage the moment you draw near.
It was natural enough, but the fact that this was the first distress signal didn’t mean this person was the first to enter that hotel.
Usually, those sending distress signals to the Inspection Bureau are mostly people connected to it.
In other words, it was possible that countless ordinary missing persons had already vanished there before.
‘So there’s talk about spreading the method of sending distress signals more actively.’
It was still under discussion.
After all, it meant revealing the existence of the Inspection Bureau to some extent.
But looking at how things had been developing lately, there was a high chance the matter would pass.
Even for someone like Woo Ju, who’d only recently started the job, the recent increase in incidents was cause for concern.
In any case, after returning from his vacation, Woo Ju would be deployed to that hotel right away alongside Chung Woo.
‘Until then, I really should just rest and do nothing.’
With that thought, Woo Ju finished his walk.
Not long after, he arrived home.
But when he opened the door and stepped inside without thinking, he was startled by the state of his apartment.
“Huh?”
The reason for his shock was simple.
His home was in complete disarray.
Books that should have been on the shelf lay scattered across the living room floor, and sofa cushions were strewn about here and there.
On top of that, the kitchen chair was knocked over entirely.
“What is this?”
Woo Ju’s face twisted in bewilderment as his hand instinctively reached into empty space.
His palm encountered something solid yet cool.
‘Was there a break-in?’
That was his first thought.
Because there’d be no reason for the apartment to be this way otherwise.
At first, Woo Ju carefully scanned the interior of the apartment. But no one was left inside.
Only then did he lock the door and begin examining the apartment more thoroughly.
“Hmm.”
After surveying the entire place, he confirmed that nothing was missing.
There was no cash hidden inside, but there were valuable electronics, and they all remained in place untouched.
However, one thing caught his attention.
‘It definitely wasn’t here before.’
The position of the doll.
The doll had been inside the display case in the living room.
He’d considered just leaving it in its box, sealed back up in the corner, but decided to display it on one side since he’d bought it anyway.
By the way, when Baek Ho and Chung Woo had visited last time, they’d been shocked to see it and asked why he’d decorated with that thing of all places.
But now the doll was outside the display case. Specifically, it was lying in front of it.
‘Surely not.’
A possibility occurred to Woo Ju.
Could it be that the doll was the one responsible for this mess?
If an ordinary person had thought such a thing, it would have been delusion, but Woo Ju was no ordinary person, and he knew the history of this doll.
This doll was no ordinary doll.
“The seal looks perfectly intact.”
Yet the doll’s seal was maintaining itself without any apparent damage.
If what the shop clerk and Hwa Ryeon said was true, then as long as this seal held, the doll was nothing more than an ordinary doll.
Which meant such an act should have been impossible in the first place.
“Hmmm. What on earth?”
Woo Ju turned the puzzle over in his mind again and again, but finding no answer, he scratched his head in frustration.
He wished he’d installed a home security camera, but unfortunately he hadn’t.
In the end, Woo Ju thought of another approach.
‘I should contact the building management office.’
That was exactly what he decided to do.
Even if there was no CCTV inside his apartment, there would be cameras in the Elevator, Corridor, and other common areas.
So Woo Ju contacted the management office right away.
-Signs of intrusion, you say? Please hold for a moment. I’ll send someone over immediately.
The moment he called, the office staff responded in a grave voice and promised to dispatch someone at once.
And indeed, before even ten minutes had passed, three employees appeared.
All of them were dressed in suits and had sturdy, well-built frames.
According to what Woo Ju had heard from Hwa Ryeon before, the workers at this building’s management office were also employees of an affiliated company of the Inspection Bureau.
Moreover, they were said to be composed of particularly talented individuals.
That made sense, given that most of the residents in this building were either Inspection Bureau employees or their close relatives.
As such, this building received considerable attention and care.
“Hmm. It does appear that someone broke in.”
After asking Woo Ju’s permission and examining the interior, the employee spoke with a serious expression.
“We’ll start by reviewing all the footage from the Elevator, Staircase, and Corridor.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you so much.”
“Do you need a separate place to stay during the investigation?”
“Pardon? No, that’s not necessary.”
“In that case, we’ll call a cleaning service right away. Would you like to rest in the Cafeteria while we work?”
He added that they would also conduct a preliminary investigation before the cleaning to check for any remaining evidence.
“Yes, I think I’ll wait somewhere else then. There are some dangerous items in the apartment.”
Woo Ju was clearly concerned about the doll, and the employee acknowledged his words.
While Woo Ju sat in a corner of the apartment, the staff moved through the space investigating with serious faces before finally withdrawing.
After they left and before the cleaning service arrived, Woo Ju stared down at the doll and murmured to himself.
“You didn’t do this, did you? But then… who did?”
Could it really have been just a simple burglary?
Yet that didn’t sit right with him either.
‘Security here is as tight as it gets.’
His previous studio apartment, and even most luxury high-rises, didn’t have security this rigorous.
Just getting inside the building was difficult to begin with, and the Elevator could only be used by residents.
That’s why even deliveries had to be picked up on the first floor.
And if he ever brought a guest over, they’d conduct a simple ID check.
Woo Ju mulled over these thoughts for a while, then decided to wait for the investigation results.
There simply weren’t enough clues yet.
An hour later.
Workers from the cleaning service came and thoroughly cleaned the apartment, restoring it to its original state.
And the investigation results came back.
“First, during the time you were away, no one approached your apartment.”
“No one at all?”
“That’s correct. We’ve confirmed it by checking the Elevator, Staircase, Corridor, and even the exterior of the building.”
The employee pulled out his phone with a grave expression and showed him several video clips.
CCTV footage, to be precise.
It appeared to be playing at several times normal speed, and indeed, there was not a single frame showing a person near Woo Ju’s apartment.
“Of course, we also verified that the CCTV recordings had not been tampered with.”
They’d even investigated the possibility that someone might have altered the footage, so there was nothing more to say.
If this had been an ordinary employee, it might have ended there.
But this was a building owned by the Inspection Bureau, and the man before him was an Inspection Bureau employee.
“Which is why we suspect this might be a supernatural phenomenon.”
So it was only natural that he would reach such a conclusion.
“We did perform thorough Exorcism work last time, but given that supernatural phenomena occur frequently in this building, a Poltergeist seems most likely based on the scene.”
Poltergeist was a term Woo Ju was already familiar with.
He’d learned it in the Inspection Bureau’s foundational training.
A poltergeist, fundamentally, is a blanket term for physical phenomena — objects moving or noises occurring — caused by an imperceptible agent.
“So I’d suggest we proceed with a simple exorcism today, if you’re amenable.”
“Understood.”
In truth, Woo Ju could have handled a minor ghost without difficulty, but he agreed to it anyway.
There was no point holding back his strength.
After all, hadn’t he exerted himself considerably outside today?
Having accepted the employee’s suggestion,
Woo Ju stepped out of the house while the exorcism work proceeded.
He needed to pick up Happy, whom he’d left in someone’s care.
“Thank you so much!”
“Not at all. She’s been perfectly well-behaved.”
The place where he’d left Happy was Chung Woo’s house.
This wasn’t the first time Woo Ju had entrusted Happy to Chung Woo.
It was the third time, in fact.
The reason he’d left Happy with Chung Woo—and no one else—so many times was simple.
Woof!
Pant, pant!
Chung Woo was a dog lover.
Following the sound, Woo Ju caught sight of a pristine white Maltese and a medium-sized Spitz inside.
Chung Woo naturally bent down to pet the dogs that approached him, speaking as he did.
“Feel free to leave her anytime.”
His usual demeanor was taciturn, but the warmth in his eyes when he looked at the dogs was unmistakable.
Woo Ju thanked him and was about to leave when
something suddenly occurred to him, and he asked Chung Woo a question.
“If a doll were sealed perfectly, it wouldn’t be able to move, would it?”
Chung Woo’s expression grew puzzled at the unexpected question.
“Has something happened?”
Woo Ju hesitated, then recounted to him what had occurred at his house that day.
Chung Woo listened intently, his face grave, and after hearing it all, he spoke.
“Hmm. Would it be all right if I took a look?”
“What? I’ve already cleaned up the house.”
“I mean the doll.”
“Oh! The doll. I’d be grateful, but are you sure I’m not imposing on your rest?”
“It’s fine. I have a personal curiosity about this anyway.”
“Then, thank you.”
So it was that Chung Woo naturally joined him.
Woo Ju picked up Happy and returned home with Chung Woo.
It wasn’t far, so they arrived quickly, and since the exorcism expert hadn’t yet arrived, the house interior remained quiet.
Pant, pant!
Woo Ju set down an excited Happy and turned to Chung Woo.
“It’s over there.”
“You said this was outside when you found it?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
Chung Woo carefully withdrew a pair of gloves, pulled them on, and lifted the doll. He examined it carefully for some time before finally speaking.
“There are traces here—someone has touched this.”
To be continued ▶
How Catastrophe-Class Relics from Urban Legends Become Obsessed
Author
Lee Se-gye
Publisher
Kim Seok-hwan, Choi Se-ra
Published by
Grae Publishing
Inquiry email
[email protected]
Publication date
May 26, 2026
UCI
G720:N+A327-20260410110
※ This e-book is protected under copyright law. Unauthorized reproduction and duplication are prohibited, and violation of these restrictions may result in both criminal and civil legal liability.
※ Pentagram is awaiting 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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