Chapter 332

All is finished at the Tower at the End.

When the spider turned to powder from my “Gray Reaper Beam,” the Black Reapers clinging all over me started wriggling around.

“I won!”

“Mommy wins!”

At first, they basked in the joy of victory, squirming happily.

After a little while, the Black Reapers began to transform from their gooey liquid state into Mini Reaper forms.

It was like black Reaper heads were popping out on shiny surfaces.

And the emotions they exuded shifted from celebrating victory to rejoicing about meeting me.

“Mommy’s warm.”

“Mommy’s nice.”

Especially the ones clinging to me nibbled playfully with sharp teeth or licked me.

I grabbed one of the Black Reapers gnawing on my cheek.

“Uwaang!”

The Black Reaper panicked and flailed around.

“What punishment should I give these biting Black Reapers?”

As I thought this, the struggling Black Reaper suddenly calmed down, gave a silly laugh, and looked up at me.

“Mommy’s kind!”

After a long moment of doing nothing, the Black Reaper hugged my finger and sent its thoughts.

So cute.

And it even let me shoot that “Gray Reaper Beam.”

“…”

But still, it bit me, so I’ll just have to munch on its head!

Hehe.

I immediately shoved the Black Reaper’s head into my mouth.

“Aaahh!”

“Mommy ate you!”

The other Black Reapers were startled and started running away.

“Ack!”

“It’s collapsing!”

Even the Black Reapers maintaining the form of a giant collapsed and fled, causing the Giant Doll Outfit to crumble rapidly.

Boing. Boing.

The soft sounds of Black Reapers hitting the ground.

And I fell onto the squishy Black Reapers too.

Lying there on the soft Black Reapers, gazing at the sky, I saw a halo slowly flickering in the heavens.

As I reached out toward the halo, it quickly rushed into my grasp.

As if I were its rightful owner.

I held the halo and examined it carefully.

“This is the fabled halo of commands.”

Thinking of all the pranks I could do with this, I giggled mischievously.

Spinning the halo on my finger, lost in imagination, I noticed a bright light emerging from the distant black horizon.

It was the sun.

At first, faint beams cut through the darkness, then gradually intense golden rays illuminated the ruins.

As the sun’s warm light embraced the desolate landscape, tiny flowers bloomed all at once among the broken stones and scattered pipes.

Yellow, purple, white, pink – flowers of many colors adorned the drab ruins like constellations replacing vanished stars.

Whenever the wind blew, the small flowers swayed together as if dancing, creating ripples of life across the ruins.

“Not bad.”

Even someone who usually doesn’t bother with flowers like me couldn’t help but stare at this scenery.

The Black Reapers seemed uninterested in the sparkling morning sunlight but watched the hard-won blossoms curiously.

Cluck cluck.

Some even poked the dew-covered petals gently as they observed.

“Flowers bloomed…”

The pink-haired girl who had seemed intimidated among the Black Reapers now cradled the Blue Reaper and murmured while looking down at the flowers.

Watching the blue Reaper smile softly up at her, a thought occurred to me.

“Ah, I miss Yerin.”

Creeeek. CREEEEK.

Suddenly, a loud noise echoed from the massive structure beneath my feet, like a rooster crowing at dawn.

It sounded dangerously close to collapsing.

Probably due to battling the spider and tearing through space.

Well, since this structure can withstand rampaging objects without breaking, it won’t fall immediately, but I decided it was time to bid farewell to this world and return to Yerin.

“Alright everyone, gather ’round! Let’s go home!”

As I projected my will, the Mini Reapers waddled over to me.

The pink girl approached reluctantly, her finger intertwined with the Blue Reaper’s.

Feeling the distant connection to Earth, I began pulling gently.

And in the next moment, I leaped through space with the Mini Reapers and their Attached Human.

***

With the Gray Reaper gone, warm sunlight bathed the Tower at the End.

The “Tower at the End,” which had endured for ages, began to erode.

The city made of pipes crumbled into dust.

The roads where Academy students strolled, the large shops, the grand Academy buildings – all disappeared gradually.

The towering layer connecting towers also disintegrated.

The always pristine pipe surfaces became rough, quickly rusted, and crumbled.

Everything at the Tower at the End shattered.

No trace remained of the fields, the empty village, or the small village the Pink Girl had left behind. All vanished.

Every remnant turned to rust, staining the wind red as it scattered.

In the final moments, the Tower at the End slowly sank into the evolution liquid.

And left not a single trace behind.

As if nothing had ever been there.

***

The Sun-Eating Spider was dreaming peacefully for the first time in an incredibly long while.

There was no ceaseless burning pain, no creaking body aches.

This dream the spider was having was very, very old.

From before the Master had started building the tower, even older than the broken eye’s memories.

“Hey, take a look at this. I made you a colleague to work with.”

The brown-haired Master with perfectly baked bread-like hair appeared before the spider’s eyes.

In the dream, the Master was shoving a massive grimoire in front of the giant spider.

“Cute, right?”

The grimoire in the dream contained a wrinkly, flying mole creature.

“This one will help us with things we can’t do through ghosting.”

The Master was always smiling.

Even as evolution liquid spread, making food scarce and eventually uninhabitable…

“Let’s build a giant tower where everyone in the kingdom can live!”

“Someday, everything will be resolved. That’s what alchemy does – turns impossibilities into possibilities!”

That’s how the Master always smiled.

The dream ended with the last scene of staring at the ugly face of the giant mole.

Blink blink.

When the dream ended, the Sun-Eating Spider opened its eyes.

“Am I alive?”

But it soon realized it wasn’t.

Reduced size.

Soft body.

Shortened eight legs.

The spider had died and been reborn as something completely different.

***

Mini Reaper Garden, Sea of Hot Chocolate.

A beautiful transparent structure was forming above this sea, glowing translucently.

“Transparent slide!”

A playground made of non-melting sugar crystals like gemstones.

Atop this sugar structure, a Bread Spider as large as the White Hungry Ghost was spewing sugar threads from its mouth.

This Bread Spider was enjoying immense popularity in the Mini Reaper Garden without the Gray Reaper present.

“Amazing!”

The Golden Reapers watched this spectacle, smiling brightly.

Some Golden Reapers even ran up to the Bread Spider and got covered in sugar chunks.

Other Mini Reapers were also enjoying great popularity.

Only the Blue Reaper, having lost its companion, waited anxiously for the Gray Reaper’s return with a worried expression.

The White Hungry Ghost gazed at the giant structure with an aggrieved look.

“Jjiiing!”

The White Hungry Ghost was slowly roasting over a campfire, tied with ropes.

The Red Reaper who had been roasting the White Hungry Ghost had long since abandoned it for the sugar structure.

Thus forgotten, the White Hungry Ghost had turned completely black from over-roasting.

“Jjiing jjiing!”

Realizing the disparity in treatment between itself and the Bread Spider, the White Hungry Ghost let out even more pitiful cries.

***

Tubang tubang.

Tubang.

A Golden Reaper walking somewhere suddenly turned back.

But there was nobody behind the Golden Reaper.

“?”

As the Golden Reaper tilted its head in confusion and started walking forward again, a Black Reaper popped out from the shadows.

And began walking in sync with the Golden Reaper’s steps.

Tubang tubang.

Tubang tubang.

Curious about where quite a few Golden Reapers disappeared to every morning, the Black Reaper was secretly following them.

“Whatever could it be?”

The Black Reaper carefully followed the Golden Reapers, slipping between shadows.

Arriving at what appeared to be an ordinary apartment entrance.

“Nothing special.”

Though the Black Reaper inspected the entrance carefully, there was nothing remarkable about it.

Just as it was about to seep through the cracks in liquid form, the door suddenly opened.

Peeep!

Despite its stealthy movements, the Black Reaper let out a “peeep” sound upon seeing who opened the door.

“Mommy?”

A lead doll with golden eyes stepped out, tubang tubang, followed by Golden Reapers who looked equally surprised.

“What do we do?”

“This is bad!”

“Mommy’s Attached Human will scold us!”

The direction the lead doll walked after stepping outside was toward Sehee Research Institute.