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After the day’s schedule came to an end, the graduation ceremony for the brown-haired girl began.

It was a graduation ceremony so informal and straightforward that it was hard to believe it was a farewell for someone dedicated to protecting humanity.

‘Something’s off.’

From the perspective of the girl, who was beginning to feel uneasy about the ‘facility’, it was indeed a suspicious graduation ceremony.

The fact that students were being graduated one by one without a set schedule, and that the ceremony was this simple, felt questionable.

‘It’s absurd, really. Why didn’t I feel something was wrong before? And why am I only realizing that now?’

As the silver-haired girl pondered this, she raised her head to follow the gazes of the other trainees.

Lo and behold, she spotted the brown-haired girl walking overhead on a bridge-like walkway.

When their eyes met, the brown-haired girl waved and smiled at her.

With a look that seemed to say, ‘You can do it,’ the silver-haired girl found her resolve strengthening once again.

‘I will definitely save you.’

At that moment, vague illusions began to overlap with reality.

‘What?’

What is this?

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a vision depicting scenes she had seen in her dreams.

Like afterimages of a fast-moving object, translucent figures lined up with a one-second interval between them.

Illusions from ten seconds in the past to ten seconds in the future.

Turning her gaze, she observed the silver-haired girl from her dream stealthily making her way along the walkway.

Crouching low, avoiding attention, she moved carefully.

‘She has to hurry. There’s no time.’

She needed to be much faster than those illusions to save the brown-haired girl.

The girl wished to enter the corridor as quickly as possible, but it was impossible.

She had to avoid being seen by others.

Perhaps because the girl in the dream was also moving as fast as possible, she couldn’t seem to overtake her at all.

‘Faster, even faster.’

Gritting her teeth, the girl rushed through the corridor, stepping into the twisted and unpleasant hallway.

It was dark and had a nauseating smell of blood.

As the scent filled her nostrils, the silver-haired girl’s heart raced even more.

Now that she didn’t have to worry about others watching, she began to use her acceleration ability to run.

But it was just running at the same pace as the illusions, in the same posture.

‘I need to run faster!’

But suddenly gaining strength wasn’t something that could just happen.

At this rate…

The image of the brown-haired girl pouring out blood and guts flickered before her eyes.

‘No. That can’t happen.’

‘Please, just a bit faster.’

The girl gritted her teeth, but it was no different for the illusions.

‘No. No. No.’

As her anxiety filled her chest, a voice echoed in her ears.

[Human! Eat the fruit!]

It was a small voice, but it had a strangely familiar and persuasive quality.

In a fit of desperation, the girl grabbed the fruit and swallowed it whole.

At that moment, her head throbbed as if it were on fire, and she felt something sprouting from it.

‘??!’

The sudden intense pain made the silver-haired girl reach up towards her head despite the urgency of the situation.

As she ran, she checked to find something soft and wiggly sprouting from her head.

Just as the startled girl was about to tear it off…

[Human, run!]

The voice rang out once more.

Suddenly regaining her composure, the girl tightened her resolve and resumed running.

And then, time accelerated to a speed ten times faster than before.

‘My abilities have grown stronger!’

‘At this speed!’

The girl overtook the illusions in an instant and began to dart forward.

*

The Deputy Director’s Office of Sehee Research Institute was filled with warm sunlight pouring in through the large skylight.

With just a glance, she could see the mini reapers joyfully frolicking in the courtyard through the massive window, but Seoah was frowning slightly as she stared at her computer.

Seoah was reviewing a report about the unusual behavior of the mini reapers near the Pacific Ocean.

The report included a photograph of mini reapers of various colors staring blankly at the sea.

The golden reaper, cheering while facing the sea, reflected the sunlight of the early morning.

The black reaper posing as if holding a telescope with their hands, facing the sea.

The purple reaper hiding, back to the sea, in the long shadow cast by the low angle of the sun.

The red reaper, sprawled across a human’s head, gazed languidly at the sunrise.

There were truly a lot of photographs included.

“Too many pointless photos.”

There were so many that Seoah casually muttered under her breath.

It was confusing whether this was a report or a mini reaper photo album!

So, as she checked the front page of the report, the name she expected was there.

[Author: Sehee Research Institute Researcher, Yerin Oh.]

How did she gather such a large quantity of photos without even going on a business trip to Japan?

She seemed competent, yet her meaningless points were quintessentially Yerin.

The more she looked at the report, the more she felt a headache creeping in, so Seoah let out a deep sigh and took her eyes off the monitor.

At that moment, she noticed a golden reaper bouncing in through the ‘mini reaper exclusive door’ attached to the Deputy Director’s office.

The golden reaper was cheerfully smiling while carrying a huge loaf of bread as it bounced towards her.

And it placed the bread with a ‘thud’ onto the guest table.

Once the golden reaper found a spot on the guest table, the sprout reaper, perched on Seoah’s shoulder, jumped down to the golden reaper.

They both dashed over, hugged tightly, and pinched each other’s cheeks.

Then they faced each other and giggled.

Was this some sort of greeting among mini reapers?

As the cute greeting came to an end, the golden reaper began hopping in place while looking at Seoah.

‘Let’s eat bread together!’

With a gesture that seemed to urge her to come quickly and eat the bread, Seoah nodded slightly and stood up from her chair, making her way to the table where the bread was placed.

“Alright, let’s take a break for a moment.”

As she sat on the sofa, the delightful aroma of freshly baked bread filled the air.

The fragrant smell of the nicely baked bread and its pleasing appearance.

It could easily be mistaken for something sold in a proper bakery.

‘It looks like store-bought bread, but it definitely can’t be something sold.’

Having eaten the bread that the golden reaper brought about once a month, Seoah knew the truth about that bread.

It was sweet enough to believe it was just sugar molded into the shape of bread.

To be honest, it was overly sweet, and not a flavor she particularly liked, but she had no choice.

If she didn’t eat this incredibly sweet bread, the golden reaper would cry so much that it would be heartbreaking, so there was no alternative.

It was somewhat strange, though, that the golden reaper hardly ever forced humans to do things, except when warning them of danger.

What kind of bread was it, anyway?

Was not eating it linked to some dangerous situation?

With an easy heart, Seoah pondered such thoughts and took small bites of the bread.

*

In the Mini Reaper Garden, Marshmallow Plains.

Mini reapers began to swarm to the Marshmallow Plains.

At the center stood the 1st Sword of the Golden Reaper and the Hungry Ghost Reaper.

‘Who will win, I wonder?’

I was munching on popcorn as I watched the scene from the closest seat.

However, the mini reapers gathered around looked a bit puzzled as to why this was happening.

‘Why are they fighting?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘A pudding betting match?’

The sudden start of this duel was a compatibility test between special mini reapers and halos.

Thinking they should test the kids who had free time first, rather than gathering everyone since some might be busy…

‘Anyone with free time, come to where I am.’

As I called them over, both the 1st Sword of the Golden Reaper and the Hungry Ghost Reaper arrived simultaneously.

As soon as I saw them both, a burning curiosity ignited in my mind.

‘Who would win if they fought?’

Both were masters of swordsmanship and unique compared to other mini reapers, making it hard to predict.

The Hungry Ghost Reaper displayed immense power from the start!

The 1st Sword learned swordsmanship from the Hungry Ghost Reaper yet opened a new realm!

It seemed that just enough mini reapers had gathered, so I clapped my hands to signal the beginning of the match.

As the Hungry Ghost Reaper swung their sword, ghostly flames in the shape of a hungry spirit soared through the air like petals caught in the wind.

‘Oh!’

Such a fierce technique emerged right from the start that it could obliterate my physically immune body in an instant.

I focused on how the 1st Sword would respond.

It seemed like they lacked the AOE skills.

To clear all those flames, it looked like they would have to move extremely diligently.

But the 1st Sword’s response was different from my expectations.

They raised their sword slowly and declared softly.

‘Void Slash.’

With that, as they swung their sword, black voids appeared along the sword’s path and began to devour the ghostly flames.

And after a moment, the signature ghostly flames of the Hungry Ghost Reaper were neutralized.

Upon witnessing this, the Hungry Ghost Reaper transformed their hand back to its original shape and let out a small sound.

“Kyu.”

It sounded as if to say, ‘I’ve lost.’

At that, the watching mini reapers erupted in excitement.

‘That’s amazing!’

‘So strong!’

They clapped, jumped, rolled around, and the scene turned into utter chaos.

I was quietly observing the mini reapers enjoying themselves yet felt quite excited inside.

‘If the 1st Sword becomes just a bit stronger, wouldn’t they be able to beat that external being?’

It was truly a perfect automatic hunt!

I should treat the 1st Sword well moving forward.

‘Grow strong!’

Hehe.

*

In a dimly lit corridor filled with the scent of blood.

The girl was running at a speed never seen before.

‘At this rate!’

And then the silver-haired girl spotted a door at the end of the corridor.

The large door she had seen in her dreams time and again.

The door where the brown-haired girl always lay dead in a horrific state.

The silver-haired girl was a little scared to look beyond that door, but she gritted her teeth and charged ahead.

As she entered, two things were immediately visible.

A man who looked ready to stab the brown-haired girl in the neck.

And her friend, who was still alive, not yet dead!

The moment the silver-haired girl saw this, she leaped without a second thought and kicked the man.

A horrifying cracking sound echoed, but the silver-haired girl couldn’t afford to pay attention as she dashed towards the brown-haired girl.

“Are you okay?”

The silver-haired girl asked with a worried expression, and the brown-haired girl, whose face was pale, stiffened and replied.

“What are you doing here? This is a violation of regulations. They probably haven’t discovered anything yet, hurry back.”

Hearing that, the silver-haired girl shook her head in frustration.

“Are you out of your mind? You were almost killed just a moment ago!”

But the brown-haired girl opened her mouth with a determined expression.

“Still, we must follow the regulations. Do you want to become a traitor to humanity?”

“Even after going through all of this, you’re still saying that? The facility is deceiving us!”

Then the brown-haired girl muttered in confusion.

“The facility deceived us? The facility wouldn’t do that… then right now….”

At that moment, the corpse of the man with a broken neck began to rise slowly.

“Look…! Look behind you!”

“!!!!”

As the brown-haired girl warned about the man, the silver-haired girl was shocked and backed away.

Creak crack.

The man tried to turn his broken neck back into place as if to adjust it, but turning it the opposite way caused his head to simply snap off.

“Ah, damn.”

Then, curses spilled from the severed head of the man lying on the floor.

A head that could talk?

It felt like a scene from a horror film.

And just as the man began to curse, his body started to swell.

He began to transform into a twisted monster, a skin tone that bore no resemblance to humanity.

[Dare.]

[You filthy livestock.]

As the monstrous figure opened its mouth, a deep sulfurous stench wafted out.