Seoul Object Story

A tattooed woman was standing on the roof of a certain building which had a clear view of the park entrance. Groups of three association troops armed with assault rifles could be seen anywhere, guarding the entire park.

It was a different level of management from the usual. Normally, the association would only dispatch one or two staff members to the object site. They would also just repeat, ‘Do not enter.’ to anyone who came near.

Furthermore, the weapons they had equipped to prevent ordinary people from entering dangerous objects looked a bit ominous. The woman couldn’t help but wonder how dangerous that park must be for them to have such guards.

“Wow, this is the first time I’ve seen the association guarding so diligently.”

The younger sister, who was standing next to the woman, was amazed as if she had seen something new.

The woman who heard her voice frowned slightly and opened her mouth.

“As I said before, it could be extremely dangerous. Why don’t you wait at home?”

“I don’t want to.”

The younger sister firmly refused.

At her answer, the woman opened her mouth to say something more, but she closed it again, unable to say anything. There was nothing she could do. The woman felt awkward saying something harsh because her meeting with her younger sister had been special.

Even though her younger sister seemed fine, she was definitely not…

“Then, you should follow me closely. Listen to all of my instructions.”

“Okay.”

Looking at her younger sister who was smiling brightly, the woman grabbed her younger sister’s hand and slowly walked toward the park.

*********Inside the temporary Object Association camp set up in the park where a terrible terrorist attack once occurred, a member of the association limping with crutches was checking the documents again.

It was an association notice that all reserve personnel, including those on vacation, were to head to the park. That was why the researcher of the association who had been injured and on vacation due to the incident where the Golden Reaper appeared in the Object Association building was also dragged out.

They poured all the available personnel into securing the surrounding area. It’s really excessive because there were no casualties.

The association’s response this time was strange. They consistently ignored his suspicions of mental corruption within the association building, yet they deployed so many people to an incident where there were no casualties?

They also prohibited everyone from approaching the important Object. Only authorized personnel could approach the Object, so there was no way to know the current status of the investigation.

There was an investigation team that had arrived a few hours ago, but they still hadn’t give any update. Because of that, the association staff were frustrated with the current situation. All the capable people had either left or fired, so only the moderately incompetent people kept their positions.

The people who did their jobs properly were moved from one position to another, and the greedy people took high positions. He believed that if he silently kept their positions, the association would return to normal, but it wasn’t.

Now he knows. There was a force that was intentionally destroying the association. However, since he couldn’t figure out the reason or purpose, it was hard to guess who was doing such a thing.

[ This is Park A Block 2 Team. Starting the shift change. ]

[ Confirmed. ]

While thinking about this and that, a radio message came in, indicating that the shift change was starting.

The association staff recorded the radio message, cleared his thoughts, and started what he had to do.

*********The tattooed woman and her younger sister walked slowly, trying to hide the sound of their footsteps as much as possible. Even though Tthe Object Association’s strict security was difficult for ordinary people to get through, the woman was able to get through more easily than expected.

In the meantime, the younger sister squeezed her hand and whispered.

“Unnie, why didn’t you tell me about such a great thing?”

“Hmm?”

“Transparent powder? How could you keep such an interesting thing to yourself?”

The two of them were walking along the path inside the park, holding hands tightly, but their appearance was transparent and invisible to the human eye.

“It’s not a very useful powder. It’s only useful against those who do security work relying solely on their eyes like now.”

The woman continued, pointing to an Object loitering near the memorial statue.

“Look at that guardian, it’s staring right at us.”

On the place where the woman pointed, a white muscular stone statue was staring intently at them. It seemed as if it was completely unaffected by the thing that made them invisible.

“Ugh. It’s gross.”

The younger sister grumbled, saying that the statue’s muscles as well as the human ears on the side of its head were gross.

“The guardian you made was much cuter, Unnie”

The younger sister said as she patted the head of the colorful ogre the woman was holding in her arms. Because of that, the hard Hungry Ghost’s head made a cute ‘thump-thump’ sound.

Watching the Hungry Ghost laughing while waving its short limbs, the younger sister stroked its soft surface.

“Unnie’s Hungry Ghost is cute. The Hungry Ghost in Sehee Research Institute is gloomy for some reason while that muscular Hungry Ghost looks disgusting.”

While mumbling that, the younger sister stood in front of the pitch-black hole with her older sister. The stone statues that were standing as if guarding the underground hole moved away when the sisters approached.

However, the stone statues that moved away lowered their heads and stared at them with wide eyes.

The younger sister felt a little intimidated because they were so close and their wide-open eyes were disgusting. The younger sister tried hard to look away and ignore it, but when their eyes met by chance,

Snicker-!

The stone statue smiled, revealing strange and disgusting teeth.

The startled younger sister covered her mouth with her hand and screamed inwardly.

If her sister hadn’t told her not to make loud noises, she would have screamed really loudly.

“U-Unnie Those guys are weird.”

The younger sister, who was so surprised that her eyes filled with tears, called out to her sister urgently.

The woman, who was checking if the entrance was safe, looked toward the stone statues at the urgent voice, but the stone statues just stared at the sisters as if nothing had happened.

However, the woman didn’t just ignore her sister’s words.

“What was weird?”

“I-It had disgusting human-like teeth, and there were a lot of them…”

“!”

As soon as she heard her sister’s stammering explanation, the woman hugged her sister and jumped into the hole.

At the same time that the textured darkness enveloped the sisters’ bodies, an eerie sound could be heard from above.

Tak-!

It was the sound of teeth hitting each other as if it had failed to bite something.

*********Even though the Golden Reapers had cheered in the sunlight from the sky, in the end, I still couldn’t shoot a beam.

Ugh…

When I asked them how they did it, the Golden Reapers just sent a strange will and laughed brightly.

Sun!

Mom!

Beam!

I don’t get it.

Just how could they shoot beams?

While I was struggling with the Golden Reaper’s hint, which was harder than the killing conditions of the Hungry Ghost, the Cloud Whale arrived at my destination.

I could definitely feel the presence of the object.

When I looked down from above the Cloud Whale, an entrance covered in endless darkness was gaping open toward the sky. I jumped down toward the entrance together with the mini reapers.

The Golden Reapers were enjoying falling through the clouds, swinging their arms and legs in the air as if they were swimming. Since we were falling from such a high sky, we were able to enter the entrance at incredible speed.

As we passed through the darkness and descended onto the solid ground, a dark cave without any light welcomed us. It wasn’t too uncomfortable because the only light we had was the light that was shooting out from my eyes, but the Blue Reaper quickly resolved the situation.

< Please defeat the darkness with starlight. >

At the same time as the characters made of water in the air broke apart, a fine mist of water began to stick to our bodies, emitting a faint light like a nebula in space. The water particles, shining softly like starlight, began to light up the surroundings.

Thanks to that, we started walking through the cave.

Plop-! Plop-!

When I walked ahead, the mini reapers followed me excitedly, waving their arms and legs in the same pose as me. It was a bit funny because they looked like baby ducks.

And when we reached the end of the cave, a strangely shaped city welcomed us. The city, immersed in darkness, was a haphazard mix of familiar and unfamiliar appearances.

It was the image of Yongsan-gu that I had in my memory as well as the unfamiliar image of a city made of white marble.

I walked around the city with the mini reapers. There were all kinds of buildings, like the snack shop I used to eat at as a child.

Only the buildings that remained in my memories were in the city in front of me. It was a sight that seemed as if someone had recreated something directly from my memories. It was a sight that I couldn’t see even if I went to Yongsan-gu now.

Mom, are you okay?

The Golden Reaper sitting on my shoulder patted my cheek and asked worriedly.

I’m okay.

I conveyed my will to the Golden Reaper and slowly walked through the street.

Plop-! Plop-!

While I was slowly walking down memory lane, I saw something white looking at us from afar. It was a stone statue that strangely resembled the Hungry Ghost.

The stone statue was looking at us from a certain distance, staring at us with an unpleasant expression.

At first glance, it looked quite similar to the Hungry Ghost, so I wanted to take a closer look. I slowly approached it to see what it looked like, but the stone statue kept getting further away and ran away as I got closer.

Was it trying to keep a certain distance?

I used my phantom form and time acceleration to catch up with it in an instant, and I was able to see it right in front of my nose. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a stone statue that had been made with really bad taste.

White skin like the Hungry Ghost.

Muscles that were realistic yet disgusting.

An insignificant head like the Hungry Ghost.

And a human ear attached to it which was like the icing on the cake.

For some reason, when I summoned the Hungry Ghost and compared it directly to the stone statue, I didn’t feel like they were very similar.

By the way, the statue smelled of blood.

Even though there wasn’t a single trace of blood on it, it had a strong scent of blood, as if it had just dismembered a human.

Bad Object!

The mini reapers surrounded it with fierce expressions and glared at it. They probably wanted to kill the bad Object, right?

While I was at it, I decided to solve a question that suddenly occurred to me.

Could a marshmallow Hungry Ghost defeat a stone statue that looked as hard as a rock?

I summoned a large white Hungry Ghost and ordered it to attack the stone statue.

Then the white Hungry Ghost slowly began to advance toward the stone statue with its characteristically aggrieved expression. The mini reapers clapped their hands and formed a circle around it, creating a makeshift colosseum.

Unlike the peaceful-looking Hungry Ghost, the stone statue with the Hungry Ghost face was twisted with anger, deeply wrinkled.

Before long, the statue kicked the ground and jumped up.

Thud-! Thud-! Thud-!

Every time the statue’s fist hit the Hungry Ghost, a heavy impact sound spread through the air. However, the statue’s fist only made the Hungry Ghost’s plump jawline vibrate.

The marshmallow Hungry Ghost effectively absorbed the shock with its unexpected elasticity.

The Hungry Ghost, who was looking down at the stone statue attacking it, jumped up as if it didn’t need to watch any longer and slammed into the statue.

It was quite impressive to see the giant Hungry Ghost blow the statue away.

Hungry Ghost headbutt!

The Golden Reapers were especially enjoying it, slapping the air with their jab everytime the two things clashed. Then, the white Hungry Ghost opened its mouth wide and started spewing out mini hungry ghosts from it.

The mini Hungry Ghosts that rolled around diligently moved their small limbs and rushed at the fallen stone statue. The mini Hungry Ghost that stuck to it continuously continued to stick to it no matter how much it was thrashing around, and they began to bite the hard stone statue’s skin.

The stone statue’s stone-like skin cracked and was crushed like human skin by the mini Hungry Ghosts’’ attacks.

The fight ended easier than I expected.

Kieek-!

The stone statue, bitten by the toothless Hungry Ghosts, struggled with a painful expression on its face.

It was really surprising that the mini marshmallow Hungry Ghost could bite the stone statue. But what was even more surprising was the stone statue’s appearance

When its neck suddenly stretched, I was startled because it was so gross.

And when its dense human teeth inside its mouth, I was really surprised.

That’s not Hungry Ghost!

It was such a disgusting visual that I almost accidentally ‘Squeezed’ the air to erase it.

I looked back to see if the mini reapers were surprised as I calmed my startled firewood down, but I saw no particular reaction.

The Hungry Ghost is strong!

The mini reapers seemed to have no preference for appearance and were simply cheering on the Hungry Ghost.

*********In a room where faint light was streaming down from the ceiling, there was a huge bed. Beside the bed, there was a small table filled with small, round, white beads.

The small beads had cute limbs, short tails, and antennae sticking out from it.

They were craftworks that looked like white Hungry Ghost.

Out of nowhere, one of them gradually cracked and broke.

Even though it looked like a treasure since each craftwords had its own soft cushion, the girl lying on the bed was not moving at all.

The girl who had blue hair was covered with a blanket as if someone had covered her, and dust was all over her body. She was just lying there peacefully, not breathing, as if she was dead.