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Jump jump.

I dashed out with a lively gait.

Jump jump.

It was a short journey to find the body that produces mechanical zombies.

Since I needed to cover quite a distance, I was hopping along in ghost form.

If only those ghost hunters weren’t chasing me from afar, it would have been better.

Upon spotting me in my ghosting state, the ghost hunters’ eyes went wild, and they dashed after me like crazy.

There seemed to be other ghost objects they were chasing, but they only followed me for some strange reason.

Fortunately, I was far faster, so there seemed to be no worry about being caught.

Just give up quickly and go after some other ghost object already!

“Gahhh!”

The shout of an annoyed ghost hunter echoed through the forest.

*

A bit of time passed since I completely shook off the ghost hunters.

Now quite far from Seoul, I felt the climate and vegetation changing little by little.

Those annoying ghost-hunting objects were no longer in sight.

In the somewhat bleak forest, I took down a slowly approaching zombie.

I lunged forward and pierced the zombie’s heart.

After dealing with several zombies, I became adept at it.

When handling zombies, it turned out that there was no need to pull out the heart.

Simply destroying the heart was enough to break the object’s combination.

What happens when the combination breaks? They lose their regeneration ability and get dismantled at the Steel Tower.

Having traveled quite the distance, I found that I had taken down a fair number of zombies.

Did I kill around 30?

I had thought the body that creates zombies would be near the Steel Tower, but that was a huge misconception.

It had been a while since I thought, “Surely the body must be around here.”

Where the heck are they sending these things from?

At this rate, I might end up crossing the old North Korean border.

*

“Unnie Sehee, then I’ll go down first!”

Yerin exclaimed and dashed down the stairs.

Since the Dobong-gu incident, the institute had been in a somewhat chaotic atmosphere.

Most of the employees who went out to observe under the signal of the ‘Cute Puppy’ got caught up in the Dobong-gu incident.

Was it a mistake to temporarily take charge of the ‘Cute Puppy’ for the expansion of the institute?

Fortunately, those caught up in the Dobong-gu incident managed to return safely thanks to the efforts of Kim Jungrwi and a few others.

Looking down from the rooftop, I noticed Yerin swinging her fists energetically, leading the employees somewhere.

Just a moment ago, she had been up on the roof with me, but with her upbeat spirit, she was definitely the number one in the institute.

The area around the institute was much busier than before.

It was a dense cluster of institutes on the outskirts of Seoul, and many had come to seek refuge in this well-equipped region that wasn’t far from Seoul.

Was it perhaps the optimal location to be away from Seoul Forest while having sufficient infrastructure?

“Phew…”

I sighed in frustration.

The Reaper still hadn’t returned.

The Ice Throne in Dobong-gu had completely melted away.

All the Ice Soldiers had turned to dust.

An even bigger problem, the anomaly at the Steel Tower, which had plunged all of Seoul into fear and shock, also ceased.

Unlike the Dobong-gu Ice Throne, where the contributor was revealed, the pulsating activity of the Steel Tower ended for no apparent reason.

Of course, I didn’t know why it started.

I didn’t know why such a thing began and why it suddenly ended.

Because of that, the people in Seoul had to live with the fear that such terrifying events could occur at any moment.

Yerin, who hoped for the Reaper’s return, joked that the Reaper dealt with the Dobong-gu incident and the Steel Tower issue.

She said that if he wasn’t back yet, it must be because he had something to do, and as soon as he finished, he would rush back to us.

I genuinely hoped so too.

It feels somewhat lonely without the Reaper around, after all.

*

In the pitch-black midnight, a group of men arrived in front of a building that looked like a haunted house.

“Ugh.”

The bald man with a grumpy expression sighed.

The bald man felt frustrated with the current situation, as he had to investigate a place where hardly anyone passed by.

The bald man, who was previously affiliated with the Central Research Institute, was now working under the ‘Temporary Object Management Organization’.

The command given to the bald man was simple.

Use any means necessary to resolve the Golden Horn incident faster than anyone else.

The bald man thought this incident was absolutely unsolvable.

How on earth could you track down traces of someone kidnapped and pulled all the way to China?

If it were a safe world before the objects appeared, it would be another story, but even in Korea, where security was decent, in these times, people frequently ended up as corpses in remote areas?

However, he soon realized that his thinking was incorrect.

A certain agent, also belonging to the ‘Temporary Object Management Organization’, had found out the whereabouts of the Golden Horn.

And the bald man arrived early at this location to snatch away that agent’s credit.

His order was to ‘resolve this incident faster than anyone else,’ after all.

With a dissatisfied expression, the bald man nodded and commanded his subordinates to enter the building.

The hoot of an owl eerily echoed.

According to the records left by the agent, signs of the Golden Horn smuggling had been severed in this sinister research institute.

Thanks to this, it was now late at night, and here he was, stepping foot into such a creepy abandoned building.

The bald man picked up a piece of crumbled concrete and mumbled.

“So this used to be an institute just a few days ago? Am I really in the right place?”

According to records, the dilapidated building before him had been operating normally until just a few days ago.

But looking at the current state, it resembled a haunted house that was likely to have ghosts.

Crunch.

The sound of hard glass crunching underfoot felt thunderous in the quiet abandoned building.

In that terrifying atmosphere, strange noises suddenly began to rise.

A muffled woman’s voice crying and the sound of fingernails scraping against the wall.

The men glanced around in fright, but there was no source for the noise to be found anywhere.

Despite wanting to run away due to fear, they barely held onto their sanity.

If they fled now, their reality would become even more terrifying.

Swallowing hard, they moved deeper into the abandoned building.

Amidst the woman’s crying and the creepy sounds of flesh being crushed at the fingertips.

“Ugh!”

One of the advancing men suddenly gasped as he was startled by blood streaming down from the wall.

[It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Send me home. Send me home. Send me.]

[It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Send me home. Send me home.]

[It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Send me home. Send me home.]

Meaningful phrases were inscribed upon the wall in blood.

The bald man, startled, kicked the fallen employee and ordered them to move forward quickly.

“It’s probably some type of object. From the looks of it, they’re only good for scaring people. Move ahead!”

A mindset that could only emerge because his boss was more brutal than such vague terror.

After all, shouldn’t you at least pretend to be dead if you don’t want to die?

The men reached the stairs leading down to the basement, which was filled with ominous signs.

Charred corpses lay in blackened remains.

And a small voice continued muttering in their ears.

Even the entrance to the staircase could not be illuminated, no matter how bright the light.

That abyss-like staircase looked like the entrance to hell.

The terrified staff couldn’t advance any further.

“What a bunch of foolish men. I’ll go ahead, so just follow.”

The bald man, mocking the frightened men, descended the staircase without hesitation.

As he began to lead the way down the stairs, flames suddenly shot up before his eyes.

“Gahhh!”

Someone was choking the bald man’s neck.

The bald man found himself dangling in midair.

There was no one in front of him!

Gasping and unable to breathe, he had no choice but to flail his limbs uselessly.

The flames that consumed his entire body began to incinerate him completely.

The men cautiously following the bald man were dumbfounded by the scene and turned to flee.

The bald man’s screams, which had been echoing, soon ceased.

The wretched wailing stopped in the abandoned building, leaving only a familiar, unsettling silence.

*

“Huh…”

This surely doesn’t seem like Korea.

I feel like I crossed a few rivers, perhaps even one as big as the Yalu River?

Considering that remnants of modern things like concrete and asphalt remain in such a hideous state, it seems I extended beyond the range of the Steel Tower.

Fortunately, I found the location of the body sending out zombies.

It was an abandoned concrete building right before my eyes.

Since the building itself wasn’t an object, the body must be inside.

As I stood in front of the building, an ominous hoot of an owl rang out.

Standing in front of the abandoned building at the dark midnight gave me a distinct shiver.

There was no hint of life in the building.

As I stepped cautiously on the broken glass, a bizarre sound emerged nearby.

Turning my head, I saw a ghost scratching at the wall with a pained expression.

‘!’

Wow, I’ve seen a ghost for the first time.

One of the things I had most anticipated after becoming able to see spirits was witnessing a ghost.

Is it true that when a human dies, they become a ghost?

I definitely want to confirm that story.

But disappointingly, there was no ghost.

At least until this moment, I hadn’t seen one.

But a ghost! Why only here?

Leaving the sobbing ghost scratching the wall behind, I moved forward.

‘Will I be able to see other ghosts?’

I ventured forward with such anticipation.