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In the isolation room, Yerin was observing the Golden Reapers as the Gray Reaper had suddenly floated away.

The subject of her observation was a giant Golden Reaper that walked on four legs and could make sounds.

“It’s grown.”

And that enormous Golden Reaper had multiplied from one to two.

Beside it, the distinctly smaller Golden Reapers were waddling around.

Perhaps because Yerin was giving so much attention to the large Golden Reapers, the other Golden Reapers began to crawl on all fours like the big one.

They approached Yerin, clinging to her and starting to nuzzle her face.

“It’s ticklish. I’ll give you snacks, so stop.”

Their antics were somehow pet-like, making it both cute and ticklish, causing Yerin to chuckle a bit.

Nom nom.

Cradling each Golden Reaper in her arms, she fed them one snack at a time.

After feeding most of the Golden Reapers gathered in the isolation room, only the newly formed giant Golden Reaper remained.

The two large Golden Reapers sat side by side like good friends, lying on their bellies on the floor like cats, relaxing.

Yerin tried to lift one of them to hold it in her arms.

“It’s so heavy!”

It was so much heavier than she expected for something that felt as light as a feather, that she couldn’t lift it properly and dropped it on the floor.

Thud.

As the giant Golden Reaper hit the ground, it made a noise like a metal chunk falling.

“Meow!”

The giant Golden Reaper let out a sorrowful cry as if it felt wronged.

This is weird.

Something was off, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Just as she was about to examine the Golden Reaper closely, a shocking story started flowing from the TV.

[Breaking news just in. The Gray Reaper, an object of high concern under Korean jurisdiction, has been discovered in Russia!]

Reaper!

In that instant, Yerin set aside her doubts about the strange Golden Reaper and focused on the TV featuring the Gray Reaper.

*

As soon as I entered the alley after hearing a suspicious noise, I found the ninjas who had kidnapped Yerin from another world and the girl with blue hair being chased by them.

The blue girl seemed familiar, perhaps because she often appeared in my dreams, and even had a corpse stored away.

However, unlike the blue girl I’d seen in my dreams, she looked quite young.

“Just as I thought.”

And that blue girl was not human like the corpse I had seen but an object.

“Seems like the ninjas who kidnapped Yerin are the bad guys, and the blue girl I’ve seen in my dreams is probably the good one?”

I didn’t know why the girl was being chased or why the ninjas were pursuing her, but I quickly determined who I needed to help and used my ability.

Two claps.

And then three pitter-pats of a little foot cloud.

At that moment, all sorts of unreasonable situations began to strike the ninjas, as the ground beneath them crumbled, and walls fell apart.

Normally, I would twist fate with a logically sound flow, but right now, my firewood was twice as much as Yerin’s!

I managed to resolve the minor cause-and-effect issues by piling up a bunch of firewood.

Truly the Grim Reaper guiding death!

Bam bam.

As I sorted out the situation and approached slowly, I could see the blue girl with a pretty tense expression.

Yes, there she was, the blue girl.

A girl that looked just like my physical body, the “Gray Reaper.”

A girl who kept popping up in my dreams.

Right now, I felt my heart racing with anticipation for the situation.

So many questions filled my mind.

What is the “Gray Reaper”?

What on earth are you trying to achieve?

But it seemed unlikely I would get a proper answer.

After all, that blue girl was merely a character from my dreams, and there seemed to be quite an age gap between us.

Still, I felt a bit excited.

However, just as I was about to open my mouth towards the blue girl, the world began to shatter around us.

Everything in the world started to be sucked towards the purple moon.

It began with clouds filling the sky.

As if it were flowing from somewhere distant to closer to me.

The clouds and snowfields far away were collapsing closer and closer to me.

In the face of this sudden event, I tried to look around, but the blue girl suddenly started staring at me.

She approached slowly, her gaze fixed on me, and began to hold my cheeks, massaging them.

And somehow, with a beaming smile, the blue girl began rubbing her cheeks against mine.

“!”

I was so startled by this sudden turn of events that I was forced to freeze in place.

*

She was certainly human, but the little one coming towards me seemed more inhuman than anyone else.

And though she was clearly a magical book, the blue girl felt closer to being human than anyone else.

“What on earth is that girl?”

Vast amounts of energy were transforming into golden flames and scattering from her eyes.

The power contained within her easily surpassed what a city could support, lighter than the purple moon.

As the girl drew close and lifted her head, our eyes met.

‘!’

The moment our eyes locked, it felt like I had been struck by lightning.

The blue girl couldn’t contain herself and hugged the girl, so close to her preferences.

In that moment, a sense of relief began to fill my chest.

There’s no way such a cute child could be a bad one.

But it was as if I had to part from this child at that very moment, as the world began to collapse.

Uneasy about the situation, the blue girl looked up at the sky, still holding the small girl in her arms.

The visible layer of this collapsing world strongly displayed the traces of illusion-type alchemy.

“This alchemy pattern is too intricate for me, a genius alchemist, to properly interpret.”

The blue girl watched in awe as the world was crumbling away.

Could this illusion have indeed been created by a genius?

It was alchemy that bore similarities to the spells she herself used.

In that moment, the girl realized.

“This is a spell my future self created.”

“All of this is fake yet real. A dream but reality.”

And she understood what this spell wished for.

“To achieve the rightful ending.”

Whoever’s dream was this, how could it stitch time together?

The blue girl pondered as she looked up at the purple moon.

“It should at least be a dream the moon weaves… But it can’t be.”

With a small smile, the blue girl, the only outsider in this dream, whispered softly to the girl in her embrace.

Leaving a hint for achieving the rightful ending.

“For the rightful ending, we need a master.”

Although the air was vanishing due to the collapse of the world.

Despite the chaos caused by the collapsing noise.

The blue girl continued to whisper, hoping her words would reach.

*

After everything in the world shattered and fell into darkness, I was able to open my eyes again.

My whole body ached as if it were on fire, and I was at the beginning of a dream where stakes were driven into my limbs.

As I healed my wounds with firewood, I organized the hints I had acquired.

The condition for the purple moon’s destruction was, “The dream reaches a rightful conclusion.”

And the hint from the blue girl was, “We need a master.”

It seemed that this dream had a predetermined content and ending, which would be cleared by fulfilling it.

This dream felt like a looping storyline that kept repeating until it was cleared properly.

Then, should I start by looking for the “master” the blue girl mentioned?

*

In the increasingly darkening cuts of the city, I was panting heavily.

“Huff, huff.”

It had been so long since I’d breathed like this that taking a proper deep breath felt difficult.

Ugh, I’m dizzy.

Around me, black shells of hermit crabs were scattered, charred by golden flames.

I’d repeated this world ten times, yet I still couldn’t find that “master.”

Instead, I only discovered black hermit crabs disguised as humans.

These black hermit crabs were clearly beings obstructing the “rightful ending.”

Moreover, the number of these black hermit crabs was increasing with each passing round.

The ones transformed into armored guards obstructed the escape of the blue girl’s group.

The ones disguised as ninjas had begun to constantly monitor my room.

So ever since the eighth round, I had to break my way out by smashing them all.

“This is bad. There’s no more time.”

Muttering as I looked at the increasingly darkening sky, I realized.

This world was collapsing.

Perhaps this couldn’t be repeated forever.

The purple moon in the sky had been darkening and crumbling further with each repeat.

It felt like the repeating dream could stop at any moment.

And for some reason, I sensed that if I didn’t reach the ending of this dream, a massive problem would arise.

Just imagining it sent chills down my spine.

Ignoring the delightful smell of meat skewers, I stepped into the dark alley.

I moved cautiously as if searching for a lost child, walking carefully, step by step.

And at the end, I discovered a man who looked just like the leader of the Eye of the Gaze cult alongside the blue girl.

He looked significantly younger than the leader I had seen, but his muscular build was identical.

“I found you.”

Finally smiling with the expression of someone who had just found what they had been looking for, I muttered quietly.

*

Deep within the city of the purple moon.

“Um.”

There, the blue girl’s master felt a strange sensation.

Though there were no apparent problems, there was a growing sense of unease that something major was about to happen.

Could it be because the blue girl, who had left to infiltrate the cult, had returned suddenly?

No matter how much he thought about it, it was an inexplicable anxiety.

“Weren’t you supposed to infiltrate the cult today?”

To dispel that uneasiness, he turned and spoke to the blue girl.

Hoping that nothing was wrong.

“Ah! Tomorrow….”

But perhaps his intuition was right.

Just as the blue girl was about to respond with a joy-filled answer.

The space began to crumple violently, and the blue girl was instantly turned into meat paste.

“No!!!”

The master reached out towards the blood scattering in all directions, but a human that had burst wouldn’t come back.