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Deep Inside Sehee Research Institute, Lead Doll Isolation Room.

[Hello.]

A strange voice echoes from somewhere.

Inside the Lead Doll, a voice directed toward me is heard.

Could it be that the Lead Doll has a self-awareness?

I had previously heard the Lead Doll speaking through magic, but I thought it was merely a phenomenon swept up in desire without any self.

However, this time felt different.

[Hello.]

[Hello.]

[Hello.]

[Hello.]

When I didn’t respond, the voice within the Lead Doll endlessly repeated [Hello.].

It was a mechanical voice devoid of emotion, but it seemed to lose strength with each utterance.

I felt it would continue endlessly if left alone, so I sent my will to the Lead Doll.

‘Hello.’

As a result, the incessant echo of [Hello.] stopped, and silence and calm began to fill the inside of the Lead Doll.

It was hard to imagine that just a moment ago, it was sending wishes without pause.

What’s this? Did it just want to be greeted?

I wondered and asked again.

‘Who are you?’

‘Are you the self of the Lead Doll?’

But this time, the noisy entity didn’t respond when I spoke.

‘….’

Could it be that it has fallen asleep?

Upon reflection, repeating the word “hello” must have been quite exhausting.

As the Lead Doll fell silent, I turned my gaze outside.

Still, White Hungry Ghosts were swarming near the Lead Doll.

However, their expressions were no longer cheerful but cautious as they stared at the Lead Doll and me.

The White Hungry Ghosts seemed uncertain whether it was the Lead Doll or me.

One particularly sharp-eyed ghost kept its distance and hid behind a table, observing the situation.

I grabbed one of them and took a bite.

Kyu-hing-hing.

At that, the White Hungry Ghosts began to scatter in all directions, fleeing.

They didn’t send magic, but just by their expressions and actions, I could almost hear their words.

If translated into words, it would probably be something like, ‘Eek! It’s the Gray Reaper!’

Hehe.

Just as I was about to chase the fleeing ghosts, a familiar will echoed in my head.

‘Mom! I found it!’

It was the call of the Mini Reaper, who had sent me to search for the wicked Gas Lamp throughout the world.

I returned to the body of the Gray Reaper and teleported toward the Mini Reaper calling me.

The moment I left the isolation room, I felt a faint voice behind me.

[Goodbye.]

*

The place I arrived at after teleporting was a beautiful village seemingly surrounded by rocky mountains.

However, upon closer inspection, the road leading out of the village was blocked due to a collapse, and the village had become completely in ruins.

There, a Blue Reaper, appearing slightly angry, was waiting.

‘Why are you so mad?’

When I asked that, the Blue Reaper pointed at the village with its little pinky and wove strings in the air.

[There are lots of dead humans.]

That makes sense.

This place was filled with the stench of Gas Lamps and the rotting smell of corpses.

I told the Blue Reaper not to frown so much and rubbed its furrowed brow to smooth it out.

Tubang-tubang.

As I walked towards the village with the Blue Reaper, I noticed a message written in blood at the entrance.

[Do not enter under any circumstances.]

Although it was ominous being written in blood, it was just a meaningless warning.

After all, the warning was written in the language of objects, not human language.

If an ordinary human had arrived in this village, they wouldn’t have been able to read the writing.

It appeared to be a warning written by a human, but they seemed to have forgotten their original language due to mental pollution.

Which was fortunate for me.

I could read the language of objects.

If it had been something like English, I wouldn’t have been able to read it.

I passed by the ominous phrase written in blood and slowly entered the village.

Inside the village was filled with the smell of Gas Lamps and the presence of wicked objects.

And directly ahead, objects were seen devouring corpses.

Objects in the form of dried and twisted human shapes like monsters in Seoul Forest.

However, unlike the monsters of Seoul Forest, they were rotting and exuding a foul odor.

As I slowly walked closer to the monsters, my footsteps began to blend in with the sounds of the monsters.

Then, those monsters stopped tearing at the corpses and turned their heads toward me.

With lips stained bright red with blood.

Sharp and elongated claws like blades.

Flesh that had rotted away, leaving only sinew and bones intact.

And corpses visible among the monsters.

The horrifying creatures were devouring corpses that were beyond recognition.

And they charged toward me and the Blue Reaper.

<100 needles made of water!>

At that, the Blue Reaper was startled and woven strings in the air.

With the speed of arrows, the needles made of water pierced through the monsters, but the monsters disregarded that shock and charged right ahead.

Leaving the startled Blue Reaper behind, I tore through the space of the monsters violently.

The corpses were shattered into chunks and rolled on the ground.

As I looked at those monsters, I felt somewhat puzzled.

‘They feel weaker than they should…’

Just as I thought that, the dismembered corpses scattered across the ground began to puff up making strange sounds.

Gurgle.

Seeing the corpses of objects swelling up like bread or expanding like mold spores made me suddenly hungry.

‘I’m hungry…’

Suddenly feeling hunger, I began to rub my stomach gently.

[I'm hungry.]

Even the Blue Reaper wore an unusually hungry expression.

From the swollen corpses of the objects flowed powerful mental pollution that stimulated endless hunger.

Could this mental pollution be trying to make us eat that disgusting clump of mold?

Just imagining that scene made me feel like throwing up, so I sprinkled fiery firewood onto them to burn them all away without a trace.

Their fighting power was weak, but the mental pollution was tremendous.

These creatures appeared to be harmful objects for humans if left unchecked.

‘It’s best to handle this carefully.’

Thinking that, I opened the door to the nearest house and entered.

The indoors, which had not been used for a long time, was covered in a dusty haze.

Inside, there was a corpse, also buried under dust, like the house.

The Blue Reaper looked at that corpse and shed tears with a sad expression.

It didn’t cry as much as the Golden Reaper, but just by looking at it, I felt like I wanted to cry too.

On the table near the corpse lay a diary, and the writing in the diary caught my attention.

It was written in the object language that I could read.

Checking it, the beginning resembled a mysterious language similar to English, but at some point, it had been written in the object language.

[Today, I got a lot of meat.]

[It must have been hard to get food since the road is blocked, but where did it come from? ]

[I didn’t eat much, but I was glad that the children could eat their fill.]

Starting from the content of being happy that the children could eat their fill.

The diary expressed concern that the children who had eaten a lot of meat suddenly began to wither.

Gradually, it detailed how one of the child’s arms ceased to respond and started to shrivel.

After that, it often mentioned that the children exhibited strange behaviors.

And the diary’s content began to fragment increasingly.

In the end, there was a lingering question written down.

[What in the world was the meat we received back then? What part of which animal was it? ]

I glanced again at the corpse lying beneath the table where the diary was placed.

Only the arm, twisted like a monster with sharp claws, remained intact, while the rest of the body had been completely devoured to the point of being unrecognizable.

‘….’

I placed the sad Blue Reaper on my head and began to methodically eliminate the monsters inside the village.

The further I progressed toward the center of the village, the stronger the smell of Gas Lamps became.

And the presence of objects grew stronger too.

On the walls of the houses where monsters emerged, blood-written messages were sporadically visible.

[I'm hungry.]

[Meat!]

And finally, upon arriving at the largest building in the village, a great number of monsters charged.

Unlike the objects of the village that still maintained human forms, these appeared even more twisted.

Having four arms.

Multiple heads.

Having wings and various other distorted appearances.

‘I wiped them out without a trace.’

After finishing off the monsters and entering the building, a spacious lobby welcomed me.

In the center, a huge mass of flesh swelled up like a cancer cell, and a face attached to that mass turned toward me, speaking.

[You’ve come. Aren’t you hungry?]

After murmuring to me in a welcoming voice, it suddenly spoke.

[My son, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.]

[I should not have made a contract with an object.]

Tears streamed down as it expressed regret with a sorrowful voice.

Its tear-filled eyes appeared to swell with deformed flesh, as if it couldn’t see ahead.

‘….’

I gazed at that pitiful mass of flesh and clasped my hands together.

And I brought an end to the foolish human who had made a contract with the object.

As I brought my hands together, space warped rapidly, gathering into a black dot.

And the moment the black dot vanished, the huge mass of flesh disappeared without a trace.

Only the regret and sorrow of a man remained, clinging to the space.

Then, I traced the presence of this entire debacle’s origin deeper into the building.

In a small room deep inside, lay the lamp I had aimed for.

‘It was harmful, truly harmful object.’

I looked down at the antique lamp and dropped firewood from my palm onto it.

As the golden flames caught on, the antique lamp slowly turned black and began to disintegrate.

As if to show how harmful it truly was, the brass patterns of the antique lamp were transforming into pitch-black powder.

As time passed, the lamp turned entirely into dust and scattered.

Next to where the lamp had been, there lay a diary.

Was the owner of that diary the village chief or something?

It was a diary documenting events that occurred in an isolated village where communications and roads had been cut off.

To feed his starving son, a story of making a contract with the Man of the Lamp.

Like a parent’s heart wanting to feed their child even a part of their own flesh.

It was a lamp that could let him feed his own flesh to his child.

After reading the entire diary, I burned it to ash with firewood.

‘….’