Deep within the Sehee Institute, the lead doll isolation room.
[Hello.]
A strange voice echoed from sowhere.
It was coming from inside the lead doll, directed at .
Could it be that the lead doll had a sense of self?
I had heard the lead doll speak with a yearning voice before, but I thought it was rely a phenonon caused by its desires, without any true self-awareness.
But this ti, sothing felt different.
[Hello.]
[Hello.]
[Hello.]
[Hello.]
When I didn’t respond, the voice from inside the lead doll continued to repeat "hello" endlessly.
It was a chanical voice, devoid of emotion, but each ti it spoke, it seed to lose a little more strength.
If left unchecked, it seed like it would continue indefinitely, so I sent a will toward the lead doll.
‘Hello.’
At that, the endless repetition of "hello" ceased, and silence began to fill the lead doll’s interior.
It was hard to imagine that just monts ago, this doll had been sending out constant waves of willpower.
What was this? Did it simply want its greeting acknowledged?
I asked again, puzzled.
‘Who are you?’
‘Are you the self of the lead doll?’
But this ti, the previously loud voice made no response.
‘...’
Had it fallen asleep?
Thinking about it, repeating the word "hello" so many tis seed like it would be exhausting.
With the lead doll silent, I turned my gaze outward.
Nearby, the White Gobies were still gathered, but they no longer looked as happy as before. Instead, they watched the lead doll and with wary expressions.
The White Gobies seed uncertain whether to focus on the lead doll or .
One of the more cautious Gobies had hidden behind a table from a distance, observing the situation.
I grabbed one and took a bite.
Ehehe.
At that, the White Gobies scattered in all directions, fleeing.
Though they didn’t send out any willpower, their expressions and actions spoke volus.
If I were to translate it, it would probably be sothing like, ‘Eek, it’s the Gray Reaper!’
Hehe.
Just as I was about to chase after the fleeing Gobies, a familiar willpower echoed in my mind.
‘Mom! We found it!’
It was a call from the Mini Grim Reapers I had sent to search for the evil gas lamps across the world.
I returned to the body of the Gray Reaper and teleported toward the Mini Grim Reaper calling .
As I left the isolation room, I thought I heard a faint voice behind .
[Goodbye.]
The place I arrived at after teleporting was a village surrounded by rocky mountains, with a beautiful scenic view.
But upon closer inspection, the road leading out of the village was blocked by a collapse, and the village had beco a complete ruin.
There, a Blue Grim Reaper, who looked slightly upset, was waiting for .
‘Why are you so upset?’
When I asked, the Blue Grim Reaper pointed at the village with a little finger and wove strings of text in the air.
Of course.
The place was filled with the sll of gas lamps and rotting corpses.
I rubbed the Blue Grim Reaper’s brow to ease its frown and said, “Don’t look so sour.”
Thud thud.
I walked with the Blue Grim Reaper toward the village, where a blood-written ssage was at the entrance.
Written in blood, and with a foreboding ssage, it was an ineffective warning.
After all, the warning wasn’t in human language, but in object language.
If an ordinary human had reached this village, they wouldn’t have been able to read the writing.
It appeared that the human who wrote the warning had forgotten their original language due to ntal contamination.
It was a good thing for , though.
I could read object language.
If it were in English or sothing, I wouldn’t have been able to read it.
I passed the ominous blood-written ssage and slowly entered the village.
Inside the village, the air was thick with the scent of gas lamps and the presence of evil objects.
At the front, I saw objects devouring corpses.
They were twisted human-like objects, dried and warped, like the creatures from Seoul Forest.
The difference was that, unlike the Seoul Forest monsters, these creatures were decayed and slled foul.
As I slowly walked closer to the monsters, my footsteps blended with the sounds of their chewing.
At that mont, the monsters stopped gnawing on the corpses and turned toward .
Their mouths, stained with bright red blood.
Clawed, sharp, and elongated fingers.
Flesh and bones, decayed and dried, remaining as their bodies.
And among the monsters, I could see the corpses.
These terrifying monsters, whose forms I couldn’t even recognize, were feeding on the disfigured bodies.
And then, they rushed toward and the Blue Grim Reaper.
The Blue Grim Reaper, startled, wove more text into the air.
Needles made of water shot through the monsters at arrow-like speed, but the monsters didn’t care and kept charging.
Leaving the startled Blue Grim Reaper behind, I tore through the monsters’ space.
The monsters, as they were running, broke apart into pieces, rolling on the floor like decayed, shattered bones.
As I watched them, I felt slightly perplexed.
‘They seem too weak for their appearance...’
Before I could fully think it over, the decaying bodies scattered on the ground began to swell unnaturally.
Gurgle.
The swelling bodies resembled bread rising, or perhaps mold spores growing larger.
Watching the objects swell, I suddenly felt hungry.
‘I’m hungry...’
I absentmindedly rubbed my stomach.
The Blue Grim Reaper also wore an unusually hungry expression.
The bloated bodies of the objects were emitting a powerful ntal contamination that triggered an overwhelming hunger.
Could this ntal contamination be trying to get us to eat those disgusting, swollen bodies?
The thought alone made feel like I would vomit, so I spread golden-burning firewood and set the entire scene ablaze, burning everything without leaving a trace.
The monsters were weak, but the ntal contamination they carried was imnse.
They seed like objects that would be extrely harmful to humans if left unchecked.
‘I should handle them carefully.’
With that thought, I entered the nearest house by opening the door.
The house appeared to have been unused for a long ti, with a fine layer of dust covering everything.
Inside was a corpse, also covered in dust, like the house itself.
The Blue Grim Reaper shed a sad tear as it gazed at the corpse.
Though not sobbing like the Golden Grim Reaper, it had an expression that made want to cry just from seeing it.
On the table next to the corpse was a journal, which caught my attention.
It was written in object text that I could read.
At first, the journal seed written in so unknown language similar to English, but at so point, it switched to object language.
The journal started with a happy note about the children eating well.
It then progressed with concerns about the children suddenly starting to thin.
Soon, the writer described how one of their arms wasn’t responding and began to wither away.
As the journal continued, the entries beca more fragnted.
The last entry read:
I looked again at the corpse lying under the journal on the table.
Its arms were still intact, with sharp claws, but the rest of its body had been eaten, making it almost unrecognizable.
‘...’
I placed the grieving Blue Grim Reaper on my head and began ticulously eliminating the remaining monsters in the village.
As I approached the center of the village, the scent of gas lamps grew stronger.
The presence of the objects also intensified.
On the walls of the houses where monsters erged, blood-written words could be seen here and there.
Finally, when I reached the largest building in the village, a swarm of monsters rushed at .
Unlike the objects in the village that still vaguely resembled humans, these ones were even more twisted.
They had four arms.
Multiple heads.
Wings.
They had strayed far from human form.
I wiped them out without leaving a trace.
As I entered the building, a large lobby welcod .
In the center, a large, swollen mass of flesh resembling cancerous growth awaited .
The face on the mass looked at and spoke.
[You ca. Are you hungry?]
Then, the voice spoke again, this ti sorrowfully.
[My son, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.]
[We should never have made a contract with an object.]
Tears stread down, and the voice was full of regret.
The tearful eyes were filled with twisted flesh, making it impossible to see clearly.
‘...’
I looked at the pitiful mass of flesh and squeezed my hands together.
Then, I gave the foolish human who made the contract with the object their final end.
As my hands t, the space quickly twisted and collapsed into black dots.
When the black dots vanished, the huge mass of flesh was gone without a trace.
All that remained was the regret and sorrow of one man.
I then traced the presence of the mastermind behind all of this, entering deeper into the building.
There, in a small room deep inside, I found the lamp I had been looking for.
‘A truly harmful, truly dangerous object.’
I looked down at the antique lamp, then dropped firewood from my palm toward it.
As the golden fla touched it, the antique lamp slowly darkened and began to scatter.
It seed as if the lamp was showing just how harmful it truly was, as its brass-like patterns slowly turned to pitch-black powder.
After so ti, the lamp turned completely into dust and scattered away.
Next to where the lamp had been, there was a journal.
I wondered if the journal belonged to the village chief.
It was a journal from the isolated village where communication and roads were blocked.
The story inside was about a parent who made a contract with the Lamp Man to feed their starving child.
It was a lamp that could feed its own flesh to the child.
I read the journal in its entirety and then burned it with firewood.
‘...’
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