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The City of Frost, true to its name, was trapped in the embrace of eternal winter.

Endlessly spread snowfields and sharp rocks surrounded the city, while snow fell from the sky as if time had frozen.

In this harsh environment, the ‘Coral-colored Girl’, a resident of Frost, was struggling to survive.

The Coral-colored Girl walked through the dim streets, her breath turning white in the cold air.

“Haah… Haah…”

Like everything in this city, even the girl’s breath seemed to become part of this cold world.

At that moment, her gaze fixed on a corner of the street.

There, a corpse hung from a long iron rod.

The frozen corpse looked as cold and stiff as a statue.

The blue-tinged skin and the expression frozen in fear tightened around the girl’s chest.

A sign was hanging from the corpse’s neck.

[Labour Quota Underachiever]

The girl turned her head away, but the sight was already deeply etched into her eyes.

If she looked away from the pale corpse, she could see the gigantic steam engines tirelessly working around the city, spewing out black smoke.

The colossal steam tower installed in the center of the city breathed life into the city, but that warmth belonged only to those living in the city’s heart.

For an ordinary worker like the Coral-colored Girl, it felt merely like a tower that bound and watched over her.

‘….’

In her small hand, she held a bundle of ‘Blue Coal’ she had painstakingly mined that day.

This mysterious mineral was Frost’s most important energy source and the lifeline of its residents.

“Citizens, let us thank our great Chairperson!”

The voice of the Propaganda Department echoed through the cold streets.

“Under the Chairperson’s wise leadership, we can overcome this harsh winter!”

The Coral-colored Girl, as if she didn’t want to make eye contact, quickly passed them by.

Even after passing the Propaganda Department, numerous propaganda posters were plastered all over the street.

[Let’s Work for a Better Future!]

[Our Labour Protects the City!]

The vibrant colors and vigorous lettering contrasted sharply with the girl’s bleak reality, creating a deeper sense of emptiness.

Finally, upon reaching home, the Coral-colored Girl opened the creaking door.

What she called ‘home’ was, in reality, just a cramped space converted from a discarded steam engine room.

Cold air seeped through the walls, and water droplets constantly dripped from the pipes in the ceiling.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Hearing the sound of droplets rhythmically tapping on the pipe, the Coral-colored Girl hurriedly placed the blue coal into a small heater.

The coal, emitting a blue glow as it burned, brought a faint warmth to the cold room.

Holding her growling stomach, she curled up on the tattered blanket.

With a sigh thinking about having to go to the mine again tomorrow, the Coral-colored Girl slowly drifted into sleep.

“I hope tomorrow will be a bit warmer…”

The night in Frost was cold and lonely, but the Coral-colored Girl slowly fell asleep, cradling a small glimmer of hope.

*

Deep inside Sehee Research Institute, the warm isolation room.

There, I was buried comfortably in a fluffy bed watching TV.

As the soft blanket wrapped around me, a smile naturally spread across my face.

‘It’s warm.’

Letting out a small sigh, I surrendered myself to the cozy warmth felt in this snug space.

Perhaps it was because I had just returned from a week of fun at the theme park, fully stocked with firewood.

I smiled slightly, recalling memories of the theme park.

There were ball pits filled with Golden Reapers instead of balls, and the dark ride reenacting my fight with a hungry ghost was quite fun in its own way.

‘Did I fight so spectacularly?’ I wondered.

I had been desperately running around, trying to trigger the conditions for a sinkhole in Songpa District, after all.

Besides the rides, I enjoyed various things inside the park.

The white hungry ghost circus was fun in its own right, but what stayed with me the most was the [Object Viewing Hall].

There was not a single barrier keeping the objects contained, yet all the objects were posed perfectly in isolation.

The Golden Reapers lounging in the corner of the Viewing Hall would look up and send out wills if an object dropped its pose.

‘Bad Object?’

Then, the objects had no choice but to straighten up in fear.

Seeing their thoroughness exceeded my expectations, I nodded at the Golden Reaper.

Just like that, the seemingly endless theme park tour with Yerin ended as Kim Jungrwi arrived.

If Kim Jungrwi hadn’t caught Yerin, I would probably still be having fun at the theme park today.

Hehe.

[Hello, this is Object News. We bring you noteworthy updates today.]

[Gray Reaper Theme Park has been successfully held for a week and is making headlines.]

The TV was mentioning the successful hosting of the Gray Reaper Theme Park.

[The newly opened Gray Reaper Theme Park is considered the first officially recorded successful object event in Korean history.]

[What’s noteworthy is that the 30-year-old jinx stating public object events always lead to major accidents has been broken this time.]

[As a result, many citizens feel our country’s object management capabilities have taken a leap forward.]

[Experts express strong concerns, stating that “Sehee Research Institute’s management capability was exceptionally outstanding.”]

[Many opinions suggested that since the Sehee Research Institute had already been welcoming public visits freely, the success of this theme park was a predictable outcome.]

I let out a small sigh while watching the news.

‘Come to think of it, the Sehee Research Institute really held an object festival properly.’

Thinking back to my days as a human made me feel quite new.

‘It seemed forever impossible due to objects getting increasingly powerful…’

Well, this theme park likely owed 90% of its success to the Golden Reapers, so it’s hard to consider it a human-hosted event.

‘No, wait, Sehee Research Institute is negative; I should see it as the Golden Reapers having done about 120%.’

Hehe.

After the news ended, I watched the commercial for ‘James Fried Chicken’ and dug even deeper into the fluffy bed.

*

Atop James Tower, towering on the outskirts of Songpa District.

On the top floor of the building, James sat in a chair gazing absently at the scenery of Seoul outside the window.

On top of his desk, the monitor displayed a report compiled from the reports sent by researchers.

James sighed deeply and scanned the report once more.

“Hmmm…”

The photos attached to the report vividly showed the devastated Western coast of the United States.

Once-bustling cities were now ruins, and peculiar blue spiderwebs were sporadically left among the buildings.

Matching the description of the ‘spiderweb’ mentioned by a survivor traveling with a Purple Reaper sent from Sehee Research Institute recently.

James leaned back in his chair and mumbled.

“Surely, objects hardly cause side effects at all.”

Many past events flickered through his memory.

They were memories of similar object incidents, like the Dobong-gu case, which had maintained an extremely low temperature for an extended period.

A typical case from the Object Research Institute was like a natural combustion phenomenon; a common occurrence.

It cleanly burnt only the victims while causing no spread among the surroundings.

Thus, the phenomena caused by objects had very limited impacts on the surrounding environment.

If it were spiderwebs that covered the Pacific region, countless side effects would have swept across the globe, forcing him to sit here in this chair so leisurely.

James finished the final check on the report, uploaded it to the server, and turned his attention to his desk to grab a late lunch.

Then, a wiggling hamburger caught his eye.

A hamburger with packaging slightly peeled away.

The Missing Golden Reaper.

Just by looking at it, it seemed the Golden Reaper had hidden itself within the hamburger.

The face of the Golden Reaper sparkled a golden glow peeking through the wrapping.

It looked as if the Golden Reaper was trying to surprise James with a grin.

James, upon seeing that, strongly gripped the hamburger to prevent the Golden Reaper from jumping out, opening his mouth wide as if to eat it.

‘Noooo!’

The Golden Reaper was flailing its arms, trying to escape from the hamburger.

‘Noooo!!!’

But it was nearly impossible for the Golden Reaper to escape due to its own strength.

James chuckled at the sight and released the Golden Reaper.

Seeing James’s expression, the Golden Reaper realized that the Attached Human had tricked it.

‘Oops! I was tricked!’

After the Golden Reaper removed the sauce from its body, slime-covered from ghosting, it giggled and hopped onto James’s head.

At that moment, James’s phone began to ring.

As soon as James answered the call, he started to prepare to go somewhere while holding the phone.

The voice from his phone was reporting that additional temperature drops had been observed in the polar regions.

Observing this, the Golden Reaper made a sad expression.

‘Noooo!!!’

*

The Red Reaper cut through the frozen sky, slowly flying, while below stretched an endless expanse of white snowfield.

Scattered conifers growing on the snowfield looked like black dots, with their branches weighed down, bending under the heavy burden of snow.

Whenever the wind blew, blizzards would rise from the branches, as if white fog was rising.

The Red Reaper was looking for signs of humans in this cold land.

‘No humans…’

However, contrary to expectations, there was hardly any trace of life here.

Only endless white wasteland lay below the snow.

The occasional signs of humans were nothing but ruins.

Skyscrapers buried in the snow looked like broken teeth of a monster.

A frozen river resembling blue veins.

Rusty cars buried in snow drifts.

‘Could it be because of the objects?’

Just as the Red Reaper was thinking that and about to give up on finding humans in this cold region,

In the middle of the snowfield, a massive city surrounded by sharp rocks revealed itself.

From the city, black smoke continued to rise into the sky, and that plume of smoke darkened the gray sky.

It looked like a giant black city resembling a massive machine.

Inside that black city, the figures of humans seemed to be moving incessantly like parts of a machine.

‘Humans!’

As the Red Reaper spotted the humans, it began to descend slowly near the city.

And thus, it held onto the hope that it would finally meet an Attached Human.