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A dark world where even the moonlight had vanished.

The pink girl was feeling quite excited.

One reason was the suddenly appeared mysterious building, but the other reason was the blue reaper that seemed to have dropped right out of the sky.

The pink girl, who had always been alone, not meeting anyone and aimlessly moving towards the sky’s veil.

The girl was always very lonely.

The only person she had met in her lifetime was an old man she called ‘grandfather.’

Moreover, that ‘grandfather’ had already passed away by the time she was able to properly perceive the world.

The blue reaper that appeared before her made her feel as if she had found a friend.

It was only the size of a palm, a ‘magical book,’ and even from a different species, but still.

“Let’s go!”

The pink girl grabbed the blue reaper and started running towards a convenience store.

[Um... I feel dizzy!]

The blue reaper’s eyes were spinning as if it were dizzy, but the pink girl just kept running with a bright expression.

A part of the convenience store that was sharply cut as if it had undergone a spatial cut.

The pink girl looked down at the fallen sign.

<24-hour convenience store. Seoul....>

The sign was cut off at the back, leaving the letters incomplete.

“This… Is this a text? None of the characters grandpa taught me were like this?”

The pink girl frowned and stared intently at the letters, thinking, ‘What, did I forget again?’ and simply walked into the convenience store.

Then she started wandering around the store with shining eyes as if she were having a great time.

“I learned this. Grandpa said it’s food.”

[Stop it!]

As she picked up a can she found while running around and tried to bite into it with her teeth, the blue reaper was horrified.

“Doesn’t this look a bit like a person?”

She giggled at the hole in the wall that projected a human shape.

Then she pinched some instant coffee powder with her fingers and took a little taste.

“Oh!”

“This is delicious. You should try some too.”

The pink girl, with a playful smile, shoved some coffee powder into the blue reaper’s mouth.

And then the blue reaper was startled by the bitter taste, widened its eyes, and collapsed to the side, losing consciousness.

In an instant, the blue reaper recovered, tears welling in its eyes, and began hitting the pink girl with a mallet.

Pong! Pong! Pong!

“Ow, it hurts! I’m sorry!”

The pink girl dodged the flying blue reaper, swinging the mallet and kept shouting, “I’m sorry!”

*

At the edge of Seoul, near Seoul Forest.

A place that always had few people due to low traffic was now bustling with various individuals gathering.

“It’s a non-lethal spatial loss.”

James, who was investigating at the request of the Korean Object Association, looked up at the scene of the incident.

A building that looked like it had been expertly carved with steel and concrete, the ground all rounded out.

Convenience store employees surrounded by investigators listening to their accounts.

And nearby, the lingering traces of the “convenience store employee shape” left behind on the wall.

All of it indicated the phenomenon of spatial loss that had recently started being revealed in academia.

“Something flashed, and then the entire building disappeared. The wall and only the counter behind me were left.”

The convenience store employee, seeming extremely flustered, rambled while explaining the situation at that time.

From his explanation, it was clear that the spatial loss phenomenon had indeed occurred.

The characteristics of the spatial loss phenomenon are twofold.

The first is the sharp cut marks like a spatial cut.

The second is that those entangled suffer no direct injuries.

James looked around the scene with a worried expression.

‘The frequency and scale of spatial losses are getting larger.’

‘However, a phenomenon where things are cut away completely is currently unmanageable with existing technology.’

‘I suppose I need to hurry the design of the spatial loss alarm system.’

Rustle.

At the sound coming from beneath him, James turned his head to look at the ground.

<…Forest Point. SEOUL FOREST LIFE 24/7>

There was a half-cut convenience store sign that appeared to have flown in from the scene of the incident.

At that moment, a golden reaper, several of whom were clinging to a James Research Institute employee, approached.

“Boss.”

The employee began reporting the strange phenomenon to James with a calm face.

The content was that mini reapers had started appearing at the entrance of Seoul Forest and that some anomalies seemed to be occurring in Seoul Forest.

When James heard that and turned his head toward the direction of Seoul Forest, he could see the golden reapers that had gathered thickly.

‘You’re not supposed to come in!’

‘It’s dangerous!’

The golden reapers, who had not been there just a moment ago, stood in a line as if blocking the path to Seoul Forest, flailing their arms.

When a James-affiliated researcher attempted to pass the golden reapers, they desperately blocked the way by butting into him or pulling on his pants.

No matter how much the golden reapers butted in, it only came off as cute, and tugging on the pants hem didn’t pose any real interference.

But the golden reapers’ desperate attempts effectively prevented people from advancing.

“Alright, alright. I won’t go in.”

“What, you want to eat pudding together?”

The cute golden reapers blocking the way and causing mental pollution was quite effective.

As James watched the golden reapers and people tangle and tussle, his secretary hurriedly approached and handed him a new piece of information.

It appeared to be a video shot by a James Research Institute employee.

The employee, seeming to have approached not just near Seoul Forest but all the way to the border outpost, was filming while completely covered in golden reapers.

‘You can’t go!’

In the video, the golden reapers were mercilessly hindering the employee’s progress by pulling on their eyelids, patting their heads, and biting their cheeks.

The employee was so overwhelmed by the golden reapers in his mouth that he couldn’t say a word and simply flicked a coin toward the direction of Seoul Forest.

‘!!!!’

The coin that spin-flied in the video couldn’t progress more than a certain amount and disappeared as if it was consumed in mid-air.

That was a phenomenon that was quite familiar to James.

‘The sunlight and dust aren’t connecting cleanly.’

‘The space is strange. It looks like the spatial distortion of the indigo tree in James City.’

As soon as James recognized that fact, he gave an order to his secretary.

“This isn’t good. Contact the Object Association and request that the blockade around Seoul Forest be reinforced more than usual.”

“I guess just the ‘golden reapers’ who cannot harm humans won’t be enough.”

With that, James instructed the preparations for an additional investigation of Seoul Forest.

*

Deep inside Sehee Research Institute, in a comfortable isolation room.

Om nom nom.

I was lying on the bed, slowly eating snacks.

On the TV, a segment about the recent occurrences of spatial loss was playing.

[At around 4:30 AM today, another incident of spatial loss occurred near Seoul Forest.]

[It has been confirmed that an entire convenience store building has disappeared due to this incident.]

[According to eyewitness testimonies, the building vanished in an instant as if it had evaporated.]

[The Seoul Object Association has immediately dispatched to the scene and is controlling the surrounding area while investigating further damage.]

[Fortunately, although a part-time worker got swept up in this incident, there were no casualties reported.]

[Experts have pointed out that while the spatial loss phenomenon does not directly harm the human body, there are grave concerns for secondary damages due to building collapses or falls….]

On the TV screen, they were showing footage near the scene of the incident, where various mini reapers were seen bustling around.

For some reason, I felt like the mini reapers had decreased in number; had they all gone there?

As I took my eyes off the TV and looked at my bed, the number of mini reapers had clearly diminished.

On my bed, there were only a few mini reapers playing with a ghost reaper.

A ghost reaper covered in a white cloth was wandering around, poking at the golden reapers.

‘Waaah!’

When the golden reaper was stabbed by that sword, it would dramatically fall over or giggle as if being tickled.

The sword that the ghost reaper used to poke the golden reaper looked a bit different from the one that would poke me.

When I asked what it was, they said it was called ‘grief’….

Does that mean a knife of affection?

‘They seem to be having more fun with the golden reapers than I thought.’

Thinking that, I turned my gaze away from the mini reapers and started watching the TV again.

On the TV screen, blue reapers were seen flying across the sky.

*

The pink girl woke up in the messy convenience store from playing yesterday.

A fluffy blob of water wrapped her in a hug.

A blue reaper wearing a hat pulled down tight was sleeping beside her.

And the sky was faintly brightening.

‘Yesterday wasn’t a dream.’

Yesterday was so full of fun things that it felt like a long dream.

To confirm that this wasn’t a dream, the girl poked at the blue reaper’s cheek.

Haum.

As she kept poking near its mouth, the blue reaper bit her finger in its sleep.

The blue reaper’s tongue moved a little, causing a ticklish sensation.

At that moment, as the pink girl smiled and delightedly watched the blue reaper, a giant shadow began to loom in the sky.

It was the shadow of a giant spider slowly passing over the heavenly veil.

‘A spider that has devoured the sun.’

The pink girl looked up at that shadow and recalled the name her grandfather had taught her.