The Golden Reaper in the garden’s Deep Place.
In the most secretive and darkest corner of the garden untouched by Attached Humans’ footsteps.
There, a clandestine meeting among the Golden Reapers was underway.
It was a conference regarding the last remaining ninja pudding.
Uncommonly serious-faced Golden Reapers.
Dof-dof.
Hop-hop!
Tori-tori.
The Golden Reapers jumped around here and there, appealing and adjusting their opinions.
They collided with each other, expressing how much they needed pudding.
Actions incomprehensible to humans, filled with cute hand and leg gestures.
But to the Golden Reapers, it was an intensely serious meeting.
And finally, the result came out.
The Golden Reaper permitted to use pudding hopped joyfully.
The Golden Reaper recognized as needing pudding the most left with everyone’s blessings, carrying the pudding.
Heading toward the backyard of Sehee Research Institute, bearing a pudding much larger than themselves.
There, the Gray Reaper had set up a passage connected to the garden.
The face of the Golden Reaper transporting the large pudding was brimming with smiles.
“Hmm, hhuhm.”
James was fiddling with the control room entrance while humming softly under his breath.
“Mr. James, please be quieter. What if we get caught like this?”
Behind him, the interpreter, looking uneasy, whispered while nudging James.
James casually glanced around and said,
“In such a noisy place, making a little sound won’t get us caught. You’re worrying too much.”
As James said, this area was filled with the constant noise of machines running alongside the unpleasant warning sounds signaling an emergency.
Still, the interpreter remained anxious, scanning the ominous factory.
Escaping immediately would’ve been better, yet they were venturing deeper into the factory.
It felt like performing a trick by sticking one’s head into an alligator’s mouth.
The anxious interpreter poked James, who was busy working, and asked,
“Mr. James, isn’t there no reason for us to come this deep instead of escaping from the factory? We could have been outside by now!”
“Reason for coming here? Of course there is. If we go out like this, we’ll definitely get caught by the cute bear. We’re much slower than the bear. The bear must be moving, expecting us to escape.”
While peeling off the panel attached to the control room entrance, James continued,
“Besides, this isn’t a normal object incident. If we don’t act smartly and pull ourselves together, we’ll die instantly.”
“What? This situation isn’t an accident?”
“I thought it was an accident at first, but…”
James tapped on his smartwatch and continued,
“Is there an object that jams communications? And precisely timed when we entered?”
“Isn’t it just because the signal doesn’t reach here since it’s in a remote location?”
“If that were true, we wouldn’t have received the call so late when the object first took over.”
Not an accident but terrorism.
Moreover, terrorism aimed at killing.
Hearing this, the interpreter started panicking,
“Why in the world? Who would do such a thing? Especially in our country, known as an object-free nation… Terrorism using objects?”
“Patriotism is good, but there’s something I need to correct.”
James turned to the interpreter with a serious look.
“When I judge it, Korea is the most dangerous country in the world.”
“What? But I’ve heard about China’s giant flying jellyfish and America’s fire-breathing wild boar destroying entire cities. At least Korea has none of those objects and is safe, right?”
“That’s the peculiar point about Korea. Even when catastrophic objects appear—like Dobong-gu’s Ice Throne, theme parks, or even this desert—they naturally get suppressed or disappear when left alone.”
The electronic door emitted a cheerful mechanical sound, then the entrance to the factory control room opened.
“Ah, finally open. Well, let me explain why Korea is so dangerous another time. First, we need to analyze this scene.”
The sight inside was horrifying.
All the employees who worked in the control room were dead, turned into corpses.
The interpreter turned away from the ghastly scene, tightly shutting their eyes.
“Hmm, come here and take a look.”
“No way! Absolutely not. I already passed out once today seeing the steel bear crush someone. Are you asking me to see more?”
“Seeing might be better, but if you don’t want to, there’s nothing I can do.”
At James’s words, the interpreter slightly opened their eyes and looked toward the bodies.
“Eeeek.”
Bloodied, with heads exploded, the corpses lay there.
“Why are you making me look at this?”
“Don’t you feel anything by looking at this?”
To James, the corpses in the control room were clear evidence.
Evidence of human intervention.
Three control room staff members died from gunshot wounds.
The objects currently occupying the factory don’t shoot guns.
Yerin pushed me into the car and told me to hide.
“Reaper, I’m going to listen to some stories. You have to hide properly, alright?”
Then she went alone to where the factory staff had gathered.
Of course, I also came out of the vehicle using ghosting and observed Yerin’s performance.
Given the seriousness of the situation, the expressions of the staff weren’t good, but Yerin was surprisingly skillful at extracting information.
She claimed things like they were preparing for re-isolation at Sehee Research Institute, or that the decision was made because they needed the pudding produced in this factory.
Mixing truths and lies freely while conversing.
Now that I think about it, Yerin tells lies pretty well.
Did she hone her skills by lying?
“Woah, so the quarantine failure only happened once a month?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Because of that, our Songdo Research Institute even received an award for excellence last year, but this year seems tough.”
A researcher from Songdo Research Institute, responsible for managing the current object occupying the factory, sighed deeply and looked gloomy.
After chatting for a while with the Songdo Researcher, Yerin moved on to talk to the factory staff.
“Really? So the owner himself went inside with a private object recovery company despite the danger?”
“Ah, really, no matter how much we tried to dissuade him, he just went ahead blindly because he’s foreign. Blindly.”
“So there’s still no contact with this owner person?”
“Now, the youngest keeps calling from the corner, but there’s no answer. Probably… well, this is it, isn’t it?”
The man, who appeared to be a factory employee, mimed cutting his neck to suggest the owner might be dead.
“Ah, thank you for your kind information!”
“Since rescuing the owner seems unlikely now, send the isolation team from Sehee Research Institute with thorough preparation!”
After finishing her conversation with the factory employee, Yerin was jotting down notes in her notebook.
<The object currently occupying the factory is a robotic bear.>
<There was a quarantine failure roughly once a month, and it escaped.>
<However, due to its slow movement, it was always quickly re-quarantined.>
<But now it's become incredibly agile and threatening.>
<The factory owner is trapped inside the factory, status unknown.>
While Yerin was organizing data in her notebook, a phone suddenly rang.
An employee who seemed to belong to the factory raised their cellphone and made a fuss.
“Eh? Eh! This is the boss!”
“Don’t just ignore it!”
Looking slightly flustered, the employee switched to speakerphone and answered.
[Uh, can you hear me?]
“Ah, yes. Boss, you’re alive!”
[Yeah, barely. It took a while to make contact because there’s a jammer installed in the factory. My current location is the small office above the milling machine in Block B.]
“Huh? Block B?”
[There are many objects to deal with here besides the bear, so we’ll need a lot of object recovery teams. Whatever the cost, I’ll cover it, so bring as many as possible.]
Pwoooong.
The ongoing call was interrupted by an unnatural sound, leaving only noise behind.
However, the expressions of the factory employees, who had been waiting anxiously for the boss’s call, weren’t good.
“Isn’t that the boss?”
“An impersonator? Is someone playing a prank?”
“Could it be a seductive object?”
Yerin approached the confused factory employee and asked the reason.
“The boss, who we hadn’t heard from, is alive, gave his current location, and even suggested a solution, yet everyone seems unhappy. Why is that?”
“Well, our factory doesn’t have a Block B. And since it’s a pudding factory, we don’t have milling machines either.”
“Ah, now that you mention it, a milling machine is a device that shaves metal. So, it seems the conclusion is that it’s an impersonator.”
“Or maybe the object is luring people.”
The factory employee looked a bit scared, possibly fearing that the object was enticing them.
Just then, the phone rang again.
“Eh? It’s the boss again.”
People who had been chattering aimlessly fell silent.
In the quiet, only the loud ringing of the cellphone could be heard.
