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Gentle fog lay thickly spread.

Beyond it, a hazy metal wall was faintly visible.

The base of the steel tower, whose circumference was unimaginable, was covered in a soft mist.

The open lot where the steel tower soared felt filled with a solemn tranquility.

Faint fog, a gigantic tower filling the view, and a serene stillness that felt almost sacred.

All these elements combined made the open lot of the steel tower feel like a place detached from reality.

A colossal object, impossible to compare with buildings, that seemed more befitting of a mountain.

The steel tower.

No matter how many times I looked at it, its scale was one that offered no answers.

The open lot as spacious as the tower emanated only silence, strangely, objects nearby didn’t seem to want to approach the steel tower at all, making it very quiet.

I approached the steel tower and placed my hand on its surface, which resembled a giant wall.

A cool touch.

On the pristine surface of the tower, devoid of dust, it felt like some pulsating power was undulating.

The destruction condition of the steel tower was exactly as I had confirmed before.

[Nostalgia]

Is it read as ‘nostalgia’?

Where did this English come from all of a sudden?

Among the objects I checked the destruction conditions for, only the steel tower had them written in English.

Actually, at first, it wasn’t even English.

Was it Russian? Or some strange and unfamiliar script I didn’t know?

However, after staying around the steel tower and checking the conditions daily, it seemed to have changed.

But still, it hadn’t changed to Korean.

Why English?

With such a conditional statement, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Korean, English, Russian, or alien language; they’re all equally useless.

[Nostalgia].

A longing for one’s hometown.

Or a yearning for the past.

No matter how much I thought about it, it was a condition that gave me no hints on what to do.

If I made the steel tower nostalgic, would that clear it?

Or does the steel tower have a hometown, and I need to take it there?

Even when living in Seoul Forest, it was a condition I had no way of understanding, and I still don’t know.

I had hoped that after a long time, the phrase would change or that a new idea would pop up.

It was a condition that was more frustrating than outright guesswork like a hungry ghost.

In fact, it felt like a solvable problem, but it made me feel like it was my own stupidity that prevented me from solving it.

*

I was slowly climbing up the smooth wall of the steel tower.

The slope was nearly vertical, making it physically impossible to climb, but using ghosting made it easy to walk up the wall.

The giant mole, which had been the master of my ghosting skills a year ago, seemed to fly through the sky, yet I strangely couldn’t do the same.

Thinking about it logically, if I could stand on the ground at a point where I could pass through a wall, shouldn’t I also be able to stand on air?

I wish someone could lecture me on these subtle object abilities.

There was a reason I was leisurely climbing the steel tower while Seoul was in ruins.

It was because there was something odd I had found since a year ago.

It looked bizarre at a glance, so if something strange happened at the steel tower, it was the first thing that came to mind.

Since I was the only one who had been to the steel tower, wasn’t it a secret known only to me?

For humans, getting this far is hard, and strangely, objects didn’t want to approach the steel tower.

What I found peculiar was that the scenery visible from high up on the steel tower was entirely different from what I had expected.

Not simply, “Wow, it’s high!” but the visible scenery became something other than Earth altogether.

*

Standing on the suddenly raised part of the steel tower, my hair billowed in the wind blowing from the front.

Looking around, it was clear that a truly unusual landscape greeted me.

The view from the top of the steel tower was definitely not Korea.

The coastline that should have been visible from afar and the ruined North Korea were nowhere to be seen.

In fact, it wasn’t even Earth.

What caught my eye first was seven moons.

The seven moons flaunted their distinct rainbow-like colors assertively.

Unlike the colorful moons, the ground was stained a sickly black.

‘Hmm.’

However, the landscape didn’t seem greatly different from what I had seen a year ago.

If it was related to a pulsing change, then this scenery should also show more intense changes.

The huge moon in the sky seemed like I could reach it with an outstretched hand, but surely I couldn’t possibly touch it from here.

It wasn’t a matter of physical distance; it felt like something beyond physicality stood between the steel tower and the landscape.

Even knowing it was out of reach, I couldn’t help but bounce with excitement upon seeing such a massive moon.

Bouncing, bouncing.

It was the jump I always had to make once I climbed the steel tower before going down.

*

As I landed with a thud on the open lot from the dizzyingly high steel tower, the atmosphere of the lot had transformed.

What changed? I wondered, and then realized the solemn tranquility had vanished.

Creak, creak.

The once quiet open lot was filled with a small sound of metal clashing, creating a dissonance.

Beyond the fog, it echoed continuously.

Creak, creak.

Through the hazy fog, a human figure faintly appeared.

A human staggering and making metal sounds as it walked.

Emerging from the fog barrier, a human hand suddenly shot out.

A bizarre, twisted blue hand was exuding the stench of decaying corpses.

The silhouette beyond the fog was clearly human-shaped.

Yet it was a human that had machines stuck here and there.

Those machines, influenced by the steel tower, were scattering into dust, yet simultaneously regenerating at a similar speed.

Object? Machine?

Looking closely, that human was definitely an object.

The destruction condition was [Destruction of the Main Body].

It seemed to have an infinite regeneration type until the main body was destroyed.

With that regenerative power, it endured the destruction of the steel tower’s civilization.

The fully revealed object-human’s form beyond the fog wasn’t a complete human.

It resembled the size of a human, had a human silhouette, and moved like a human, yet it couldn’t be called human.

A face twisted in agony. Blood that had long turned black and hardened. Rotten eyes.

It was merely a corpse walking with the help of mechanical devices.

The ominous machine zombie ignored me and continued walking away.

Continuing towards the steel tower.

When the machine zombie reached the steel tower, it wiped the pain off its face, twisting into a grotesque smile.

Spreading its arms wide, it embraced the steel tower, unleashing horrifying waves that spread in all directions with a fierce vibration.

Thump.

Thump.

It was the pulsing of the steel tower.

The zombie was torn to dust by the pulsing but the pulse itself didn’t stop and continued repeatedly.

I had discovered the source of the pulse!

I had witnessed the moment of the pulse’s occurrence.

*

Seeing the periodic pulses, it seemed that those zombies were being sent from somewhere regularly.

Sure enough, as I moved north where the zombies had come from, another machine zombie was walking from afar.

If I stop this zombie from reaching the steel tower, I could halt the pulsing of the steel tower.

But how?

It was a being that could endure the civilization destruction of the steel tower, and even if I broke its limbs, it would quickly regenerate.

Should I just track the zombies to the end and wait for the main body to be destroyed to end this situation? Just when I thought that, something felt odd.

It was the uneasiness I felt since the first time I saw this zombie.

The machine zombie didn’t feel quite right to be called an object.

It felt like each part was dancing separately.

Upon closer inspection, while this object seemed like one overall object, it was actually a collection of separately distinct objects.

Skin, heart, bones, and internal organs.

All were different types of objects.

When I pulled out the heart, which appeared to be the core, a heart made of gold and veins came out at once.

Then, the destruction condition, [Destruction of the Main Body] vanished.

The machine zombie, which had lost its infinite regeneration ability until the main body was destroyed, quickly turned to dust.

What remained where the zombie was left were human blood and flesh, bones, and the internal organs of unidentified animals.

The intricately crafted golden heart and the sturdy metal skeleton made of tough alloys turned to dust and disappeared.

Was it an object made by combining several objects?

If so, did a person create it?

It was a type of object I had never seen before.

It seemed that separate dancing objects had been woven together by the golden heart to form one. However, I had never heard of such technology being developed.

And that combination object seemed to trigger the pulsing of the steel tower?

Could it be that this pulsing incident of the steel tower was instigated by someone?

The need to search for the main body of the machine zombie grew even stronger.