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The gray reaper left San Francisco, and as if the nighttime commotion was a lie, a peaceful morning began to dawn.

Between the shadows cast by the collapsed buildings, golden sunlight seeped in.

The massive black reaper that had surrounded the reporter was slowly losing its form.

As if a gigantic puzzle was disassembling, that huge body crumbled into pieces.

And those pieces transformed into countless black reapers, pouring down onto the ground.

In an instant, the reporter found herself shedding the shell of a black reaper and returning to her human form, standing amidst the ruins of the city.

The black reapers stared up at her from between the debris.

Looking at the black reapers surrounding her, the reporter intuited one obvious fact.

‘They’re about to leave.’

She could clearly sense that from the gazes of the black reapers.

After staring at the reporter for a while, one of the black reapers stepped forward with a wistful expression.

Tododo.

Then, with the sound of small paws scurrying, it dashed towards the reporter and jumped into her arms.

The black reaper rubbed its face against the reporter’s cheek as if to say a final goodbye.

After jumping down to the ground, it began to walk toward the passage that the gray reaper had passed through.

‘Take care!’

Just before crossing the passage, the black reaper turned its head to look at the reporter and waved its hand.

“Goodbye!”

The reporter felt a bit sad, but she waved back with a smile.

Ttubang ttubang.

The reporter watched the black reaper crossing the passage with a hint of regret.

Was that the beginning?

At that moment, all the black reapers around her suddenly rushed toward her.

And as if marking their territory, one by one, the black reapers rubbed their cheeks against the reporter.

‘Take care!’

‘Stay healthy!’

‘I’ll come visit sometimes!’

‘Hehe.’

Then, one by one, they crossed the passage.

They looked regretful, yet the black reapers seemed to bid farewell with expressions filled with joy, as if they were certain of their reunion.

“They’re gone.”

As so many black reapers vanished, a sense of emptiness surrounded her.

Beeep!

In that moment, a refreshing sound echoed from her shoulder.

‘It’s okay!’

‘We’re here.’

The black reapers were bursting out of the reporter’s body.

They were the black reapers replacing her damaged main organs, like her heart.

“Right, you guys are here.”

The reporter gathered the black reapers into her embrace.

From the moment she opened her eyes in the landfill, they had been together.

The benefactors who had saved her from certain death.

The reporter smiled gently as she patted the heads of the black reapers.

The black reapers beamed with satisfaction, enjoying her touch.

Then the reporter sighed, stretched her legs out on the flat cement, and muttered.

“By the way, what am I going to eat now? My workplace has collapsed along with the building, and the city has turned into a complete mess.”

The black reapers tilted their heads at her words.

‘It’s okay!’

‘We’re here!’

Hearing their whispers, the reporter thought for a moment before smiling and agreeing.

“That’s… definitely true. With you guys around, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Looking up at the blue sky, she recalled the incident.

It had started as a simple corruption investigation but had turned into something beyond her control.

‘Really, it was a scale of chaos that humans can hardly bear.’

The reporter turned her head to look at the black reapers.

The black reapers were wiggling around, trying to mimic the reporter’s posture.

‘The black reapers, whom people think are beneficial and cute, hold secrets unknown to the world.’

The dreams the black reapers had shown were far from ordinary.

What exactly had these children gone through to find themselves before us?

Perhaps that’s why the occasional actions of the black reapers seemed to carry traces of sadness.

‘I hope someday I’ll be able to uncover the past of the black reapers…’

While the reporter was pondering such thoughts, she began to hear the sounds of propellers and vehicle engines in the distance.

It was the sound of vehicles and helicopters from the Object Association and broadcasting station coming to investigate the situation in San Francisco.

‘Before I knew it, people have made it this far. If they catch sight of me, it’ll certainly get troublesome.’

The reporter muttered softly, glancing up at the sky from the shadows.

“Let’s go!”

At that, the black reapers enveloped her, transforming into the shape of a black reaper.

Now resembling a human-sized black reaper, the reporter evaded the gazes of the people and left the scene of the incident.

Thus, the adventure of the black reaper and the red-haired reporter came to an end, and daily life began anew.

*

Mini Reaper Garden, Golden Reaper Conference Hall.

I had come to the conference hall to check out the sad faces of the golden reapers.

With the increase in the number of black reapers, the sorrow of the golden reapers must have also risen.

Hehe.

Though the golden reapers had the highest numbers, they seemed too busy having fun, resulting in a surprisingly low conference attendance rate.

In contrast, the black reapers had an unusually high conference attendance rate.

Considering that the black reapers had personalities similar to the golden reapers, it was a curious phenomenon.

The black reaper was merely a more subdued version of the golden reaper.

However, the Golden Reaper Conference was unfolding differently than I had anticipated.

[The snacks for the Golden Reaper Conference have been selected as the soft cookies from the Sehee Research Institute!]

From the podium, the voice of the blue idol reaper echoing the voting results reached my ears.

‘What on earth…’

The soft cookies favored by the golden reapers had been chosen.

‘Hooray!’

‘Hehe.’

The golden reapers began to devour the cookies with looks of utter happiness.

‘By the way, the number of black reapers seems to have decreased a bit?’

There had been a massive influx of black reapers into the Mini Reaper Garden, yet now their numbers seemed to be dwindling.

It was quite strange.

Could it be that the golden reapers had stirred a few of the black reapers into their scheme to win the voting?

As I was slowly counting the black reapers with my eyes, I locked eyes with a golden reaper munching on a cookie.

It was a golden reaper who had almost finished off a huge cookie.

When the golden reaper met my gaze, it tilted its head, then split a small cookie ball in half.

One half went into its mouth, and the other half was offered to me.

‘Mom, eat too!’

The willingness of the golden reaper, filled with joyful emotions, reached me.

They didn’t share when eating hard cookies, but now they offered me a soft one.

‘You know what they say, “The pantry is generous,” right?’

Or maybe they just wouldn’t share something they disliked?

Well, if it were me, I wouldn’t have given it away, whether it tasted good or bad.

‘It’s too small for me to eat.’

Conveying that thought, I tied back the golden reaper’s hair and covered its eyes to blind it.

‘Eek!’

The golden reaper struggled to free its hair, which had been trapped by the space-grabbing tie.

‘I should go find the black reapers.’

I stood up from my seat and began to wander around the Mini Reaper Garden in search of the black reapers.

How long had I been wandering around, tumbling here and there?

I finally spotted a bunch of black reapers gathering in a corner of the Marshmallow Plains.

So many that it felt like all the black reapers from the Mini Reaper Garden had gathered together!

‘Aah!’

‘No way!’

The black reapers were engaged in a fighting match, and even though they were all black reapers, one-sided dynamics frequently unfolded.

‘All black reapers must have had similar levels of fighting skills, right?’

It felt like the black reapers’ fighting skills had been honed through long hours of team training.

However, the fighting skills of the newly added black reapers seemed superior.

‘How fascinating…’

Since I’m not confident in physical activities, both seemed to fight well from my perspective, but the results always favored the newly added black reapers!

‘Eek!’

At that moment, one black reaper was flung away and rolled right in front of me.

I tickled the belly of the sprawled-out black reaper on the ground and asked.

‘Why is there such a gap in skills?’

The black reaper, seemingly ticklish, struggled to push my finger away but eventually gave up and melted like slime.

The black reaper, now slime, stuck to my hand like a glove.

And it sent me a reply to my question.

‘I’ve fought for much longer!’

‘I’ve fought against the enemy of humanity!’

The black reaper that responded sparkled its yellow eyes atop the glove.

Though it was hard to understand, the summary was simple.

It meant the children in the Unchanging Sphere had little opportunity to fight!

Even the black reapers who were indoor workers had been better fighters than golden reapers, so what on earth had the black giant been doing?

As I pondered that, I glanced over at the Unchanging Sphere visible in the corner of the Mini Reaper Garden.

*

In a small room of the research institute in the Time Gap.

There, the yellow detective had his head cradled in his arms, lost in deep thought.

“I’m finished. Completely finished.”

Now fully immersed in the realm of supernatural powers, the detective’s instincts were sending him intense warnings.

It was no longer just feelings; everything was expressed in colors representing gains and losses, crises, and breakthroughs.

The gap research institute where the detective stayed had turned red, symbolizing danger.

The detective muttered as he gazed at the now utterly silent Watson.

“I thought I could stop Watson from coming this far….”

Just as his instincts suggested, upon reaching the gap research institute, the light of the Watson lamp had gone out.

However, recently a small spark began to glow at the center of Watson.

Now, this place was no longer safe.

“….”

From then on, the detective’s bizarre preparations commenced.

In the auditorium of the gap research institute, a lightning bolt made of firewood shot up towards the ceiling.

“I’m calling for the gray reaper and sending the power out. Boom towards the sky!”

‘Mommaaaaaaa!!!’

Having taken the golden horn reaper with him, the detective was putting it through some strange training.

The juniors thought it was strange but, given that the detective often engaged in outrageous antics, they accepted it.

That dubious training was an experience the juniors couldn’t escape.

He made Junior No. 1 practice swinging a hammer quickly and accurately.

And Junior No. 3, who had no knowledge of fighting, was taught how to shoot a gun, making it seem like someone might be chasing the detective; he appeared frantic.

Even when they asked what was going on, the detective merely said, “The master of the lamp is coming.”

‘The master of the lamp?’

With longer horns than before, topped with tennis balls, Junior No. 2 looked at the detective with a serious expression.

“Will we be alright?”

When Junior No. 2 asked with a worried look, someone observing the detective’s antics nearby responded.

“That man may look like that, but he’s in the realm of objects, so his actions surely have meaning.”

The person who replied had once been the director of the Central Research Institute.

He was observing the detective while scribbling earnestly in his notebook, all while wearing a Mental Pollution Prevention Helmet.

‘It’s okay!’

And the golden horn reaper gently patted the cheek of Junior No. 2, who wore a worried expression.