Chapter 240

High up in the blue sky, a white hungry ghost was crying pitifully.

“Heheeng…”

Its cries were filled with deep sorrow.

Just a little while ago, it had been lying in a hospital bed, peacefully living its daily life!

But the peace that the white hungry ghost gained after the gray reaper left didn’t last long.

Because it wasn’t peace obtained through its own strength, it was easily broken.

On the other hand, the orange reapers, perhaps due to their large grudge bags, had been growing increasingly mischievous lately.

While searching for someone to prank, they spotted the ghost and immediately marked it as their target.

Even though the orange reapers usually disliked sticking together, this time four of them gathered to start tormenting the ghost.

After stuffing its belly full of sweet hot chocolate, they used their ability to fly freely through the sky and each grabbed one of the ghost’s short legs, lifting it into the air.

Their destination was the Black Sugar Desert.

The black sugar desert—an area the orange reapers absolutely despised!

Though other mini reapers quite liked the place, the orange reapers hated how the sugar crystals kept seeping into their cotton-like forms in the Black Sugar Desert.

So the orange reapers conspired to play a prank on the mini reapers who were playing there.

And as they floated leisurely above the Black Sugar Desert, they were searching for their next victims.

Upon spotting some mini reapers building sandcastles, the orange reapers immediately tapped the ghost’s belly.

“Hiing.”

The ghost, crying softly at the orange reapers’ command, opened its mouth wide, and the hot chocolate inside poured out like a waterfall.

The sweet hot chocolate bombarded the mini reapers who were busy building sandcastles.

It was a scene reminiscent of a battlefield under artillery fire.

The painstakingly constructed sandcastles crumbled and collapsed in an instant.

‘!!!’

A golden reaper, who had been building a massive castle, looked utterly distraught, as if his own home had been destroyed.

A blue reaper wearing a golden reaper doll outfit, secretly crafting a small and delicate sandcastle among the golden reapers, shed tears.

The sandcastle of the red reaper, who was smaller than the other mini reapers and adored by the gray reaper, also collapsed under the weight of the hot chocolate. It was a beautiful sandcastle, hardened like glass made from melted sugar, but it couldn’t withstand the heavy assault.

Only the tallest tower remained, now resembling an upside-down icicle, though even that had melted significantly and no longer deserved to be called a tower.

Seeing this, the orange reapers laughed gleefully, like the gray reaper would.

However, when some golden reapers drew their swords of light and began chasing them, the orange reapers quickly fled, ascending to higher altitudes.

The white hungry ghost, now useless, was abandoned.

The fallen ghost landed on the melted tower, its belly pierced, transforming into something resembling a skewer.

“Hiing hiing.”

The ghost, unable to find happiness, cried sadly.

Toward this pitiful ghost, a yellow reaper slowly approached.

The yellow reaper grinned eerily and asked the ghost if it needed a disguise outfit to avoid pranks.

Despite having its belly pierced, the ghost cried loudly in agreement.

“Jjii!”

It was a big cry filled with emotion of consent.

***

Yerin was petting the strange golden reaper’s hair, which felt somehow off.

Looking directly at it didn’t feel weird, but once she looked away, she got the feeling that something was strange about the golden reaper.

Lately, the strange golden reaper had been frequently appearing around Sehee Research Institute.

Yerin closed her eyes tightly and thought hard.

When looking directly, it felt completely normal, too much like a golden reaper, so she closed her eyes.

Thinking with her eyes closed, strange points started to surface.

The golden reaper didn’t seem to emit the usual golden light.

That’s strange.

Walking on all fours felt different from the golden reaper’s usual behavior.

Definitely not its normal posture.

The golden reaper seemed to make a ‘jjii’-like strange sound.

Golden reapers don’t usually make any sounds, right?

Clearly strange!

Then Yerin opened her eyes again.

In front of her, the golden reaper lay happily on the floor.

The odd feeling disappeared as soon as she opened her eyes.

Yerin smiled as she gently stroked the soft hair of the golden reaper.

Maybe the confusion earlier was because she had just woken up from a nap in the isolation room without the gray reaper.

The strange golden reaper basked in Yerin’s care, gracefully stood up, and let out a cute cry.

“Jji.”

***

[The broken moon. Repeated past. Twisted ending.]

I was listening to incomprehensible sounds by pressing my ear against a crab shell.

Although the words lacked context or hints, the more I listened, the more things started to come to mind.

[The Snowfield Moon.]

This environment seemed perfect for the appearance of the purple moon shining over the snowfield.

Thinking about the “snowfield moon,” I shifted my gaze from the empty snowy field to the sky.

And there it was.

A faint purple moon floated, looking as if it could break apart at any moment.

It was so blurry that ordinary human eyes wouldn’t have been able to see it, and its presence was almost imperceptible to my senses.

It looked nothing like the moon I had seen in Dobong-gu.

The purple moon in my memory fiercely scattered shadows of amusing shapes, causing mental chaos.

But the current moon didn’t emit even enough purple light to penetrate matter, let alone be visible to the human eye.

‘This has died too.’

The moon, like the purple crab shell, was already dead.

To be precise, it wasn’t exactly dead, but describing it as “already dead” seemed appropriate.

Alive but stopped, yet having lost all power, teetering on the brink of collapse.

‘…’

As I stared at the moon for a long time, dreams began to trickle out vaguely.

An endless loop of dreams played back at high speed.

Dreams akin to the fleeting visions one sees at the boundary between life and death.

It was an unending nightmare from which one couldn’t wake up on their own.

Strangely, gazing at this moon made me feel despondent, so I quickly checked the destruction conditions.

[The dream reaches a proper conclusion.]

Do I need to manipulate the dream?

Fortunately, I had the ability to freely enter and exit dreams, and experience in destroying objects by manipulating dreams.

‘This will be easy!’

With a confident smile, I used the power of the golden tree to dive into the dream of the snowfield moon.

The moment I entered the dream, I felt as if I brushed past a brightly glowing ring of light.

***

The instant I entered the dream, waves of excruciating pain washed over my entire body.

“Haah…!”

An involuntary groan escaped my lips.

Although I regained the ability to breathe upon entering the dream, I had no time to focus on that.

It hurts!

What is this?

It felt different from using a halo.

There was no sensation of my body shattering, but it was an oddly unbearable pain.

Moreover, the ability to see everything through my skin was gone.

To assess the situation, I slowly opened my eyes, which had clenched shut from the pain.

Before me, in the mirror, reflected the grotesque figure of a burned human.

No hair, horribly twisted and damaged skin—this human form.

I was lying down in a room completely surrounded by mirrors, as if being forced to observe this figure.

It appeared that instead of my gray reaper form, I had entered the dream in some human body.

“Huuuuh.”

Trying to speak, only a wind-like sound escaped my lips.

It wasn’t because I had forgotten how to talk from disuse.

My tongue had been cut off.

At the sight of this, certain figures came to mind.

The ninjas of Gyeongyangsan!

Full-body burns and severed tongues.

These were characteristics of the ninjas I had seen on Gyeongyangsan.

But there was a difference between the body I had possessed and those ninjas.

The ninjas covered their entire bodies with plain black cloth, whereas the clothing on this body looked luxurious at a glance.

Actually, it wasn’t that I had put on these clothes—it looked like they had been forcibly dressed onto me.

After all, both my wrists and ankles were pierced with iron stakes.

Why had such a thing been done?

Right before my eyes, a ninja emerged by opening the mirror in front of me and handed me a note.

[Mistress, did you cough? It’s morning prayer time.]

The moment I read the note, I felt my body stiffen.

It was as if my body remembered fear.

Simultaneously, flames erupted from the floor, starting to burn my body.

“Huuuhh.”

Air involuntarily escaped my lungs.

This was a situation where an ordinary human would die instantly, but strangely, this body refused to die.

Why?

Hardly fearing, I immediately sensed an enormous amount of firewood in my heart.

Almost twice as much as Yerin’s.

This firewood was weakly affecting the human body, keeping it alive but not letting it die.

Of course, this wasn’t a blessing—it was a curse.

It meant eternal suffering.

***

‘Kkkkeeehhh.’

The moment the “morning prayer time” ended, I was pulling out the firmly embedded iron stakes from my wrists and ankles.

All the while, I suppressed my groans to ensure the ninja outside didn’t notice.

Why can I move despite my whole body being burned, tendons severed, and stakes driven through me?

It’s because I’m a pro at handling firewood.

Even with a human body, if there’s this much firewood, you can pull off a miracle or two.

Crack. Crack.

Once all the stakes were removed, my body felt lighter, as if reborn.

I began spreading the firewood in my chest throughout my body to heal all the wounds, starting with the burns, tendons, and finally the tongue.

Looking down at my pale, soft-looking palms, I chuckled softly.

“Haha. It really works.”

Listening to the unfamiliar voice near my ear, I clenched my fists.

And raising my head to look into the mirror, I froze like stone.

‘?’

A ‘Yerin’, around ten years old, dressed in lavish attire, was reflected in the mirror.

‘???’