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The exhibition hall was completely sealed off by the military.

Officially, it was to prevent objects from escaping to the outside, but in reality, it seemed the opposite—more like they wanted to conceal the inside from the outside.

“No, why on earth are you trying to stop drone filming?”

A reporter raised his voice in protest from a barricaded checkpoint.

“It’s for military operation security. Please step back.”

“What kind of nonsense….”

The protesting reporter was ultimately seized by soldiers and helplessly dragged away.

Some reporters disregarded the soldiers and sent up drones, but they were quickly shot down.

After that, drone jamming devices were installed, and security became extremely tight.

Friendly reporters directed the narrative, claiming it was to prevent any damage caused by provoking the objects.

However, to other reporters, the target of the soldiers’ surveillance appeared to be the internal objects rather than the outside gaze.

*

I gave up on waking the man chased by the giant gray reaper from his nightmare.

Every time he saw me, he nearly choked, and no matter how long I kept him alive, the nightmare showed no signs of ending.

After that, I roamed through numerous dreams.

Dreams filled with swarming hungry ghosts, and dreams of unfamiliar objects chasing after me, and so on.

Everyone seemed to have dreams where they were chased by something.

The problem was that those types of pursuits never seemed to end, no matter how long one ran.

Waking a person from a nightmare didn’t seem easy, but I had no idea it would be this difficult.

This time, I left behind a woman being chased by a herd of water deer and entered a new dream.

The newly entered dream was exceedingly intricate.

While most dreams had blurry corners, this one was vividly established as a world.

Just as I was wandering around the dream out of curiosity, I heard a familiar voice.

“Reaper, wait a moment!”

This time, the dream featured a familiar character as its backdrop.

It was none other than Yerin Oh.

In the delicately depicted exhibition hall, Yerin was calling out for me with a loud voice.

She was fervently chasing a gray reaper that looked just like me in the dream.

And the dream reaper was darting away, trying to evade Yerin.

‘?’

Why is this a nightmare?

Aren’t they having a great time?

Yerin even looked quite pleased!

“Reaper! Come here and let’s take a picture! I brought water deer pajamas!”

In Yerin’s hand was a piece of children’s pajamas.

Wait, when did she prepare that outfit?

The only bizarre aspect of this otherwise very realistic dream was the golden tree that appeared to be ten times larger than life.

The increasingly bright golden tree became significant.

Perhaps due to Yerin’s impressive imagination, this exhibition hall was represented with utmost accuracy.

Except for that enlarged tree, of course.

And the meaning of this enormous golden tree was something I could grasp quickly.

This was the reason the dream was a nightmare.

As the brightening golden tree reached a luminosity akin to emitting surface waves, it shot out a beam.

A beam attack targeted at Yerin.

In that moment, the intensity of the beam attack made me flinch.

However, the beam I thought was aimed at Yerin was actually not directed at her.

Instead, it was aimed at the water deer pajamas she was holding.

“No!!!”

The water deer pajamas wrapped in flames slowly burned away.

It was a very slow fire.

It took about thirty minutes to fully incinerate a single piece of pajamas.

However, that slow-burning fire was a curse.

A curse designed to make one wallow in despair and sadness for a long time.

Yerin tried every possible means to extinguish the fire, but it wouldn’t go out, like the hellfire described in novels.

Even when submerged in water, it continued to burn.

“No!” “No!!” “No!!!”

Ultimately, facing nothing but the ashes of the water deer pajamas, Yerin burst into tears.

At the same time, the world began to rewind.

Back to the moment when Yerin was joyfully pursuing the dream reaper.

*

I was anxiously pacing inside the surveillance post of the exhibition hall.

The orders from above were clear.

Increase the scale of damage from this incident.

It didn’t matter if all the humans in the exhibition hall were wiped out.

To execute that secret directive, I chose to stall for time with all sorts of excuses.

Stalling would naturally increase the damage, but then an anomaly occurred.

The complete annihilation of objects capable of harming humans.

The higher-ups were expecting greater casualties and more controversies, yet a serious issue had arisen.

Everything went awry thanks to the sudden appearance of the golden reaper.

Seeing the golden reaper move, I thought, “Finally, some casualties are happening,” but the outcome was the complete opposite.

Now, it was impossible to achieve the upper management’s directives just by buying time.

“There’s no helping it.”

Right, there’s no choice in the matter.

“Select a few tight-lipped soldiers, and we’ll directly enter the exhibition hall. If we kill them with swords, we can claim it was the objects’ doing.”

Now, it was time to tackle this directly.

“Since the targets are only the sleeping people, it’s a simple task. We’ll finish quickly and get out.”

In the deep of night, I headed toward the exhibition hall while avoiding people’s sights as much as possible.

I infiltrated the sealed exhibition hall with a small number of soldiers.

The exhibition hall was surrounded by high walls.

After setting up makeshift ropes to descend, I explained the operation.

The mission was simple: kill as many people as possible and regroup here in thirty minutes, then return.

“We’ll gather here thirty minutes from now.”

There was something that blocked the path of the soldiers as they scattered to complete their respective missions.

It was the golden reaper.

The numerous golden reapers had dwindled to just one remaining.

The golden reaper, with a hand on its hip, glared at us.

Having seen it brutally slaughtering objects not long ago, I could feel the soldiers’ bodies go rigid.

“Scatter immediately! Ignore it and proceed with the mission!”

It was an entirely unknown new object, yet the hope clung to the fact that it had not attacked any humans.

Even if the golden reaper did attack humans, we had no other choice.

Failing to carry out the upper management’s orders would lead to death anyway.

As the soldiers scattered, the golden reaper disappeared from its spot.

And the soldiers didn’t even move forward and collapsed dead on the spot.

The cause of death was a hole pierced through their chests.

As I watched the scene, blood surged up into my mouth.

Before me, soaked in blood was the golden reaper, looking down at me with a disgusted glare.

That disdainful gaze was the last scene I would see before I died.

*

Yerin’s nightmare.

I’m not sure if this should be considered a nightmare, but since she feels it as such, it is a nightmare.

Yerin’s nightmare was related to me.

Being related to me, I figured it might be easier to resolve than I thought.

First, I stepped forward into Yerin’s view, who was chasing the dream reaper in a flurry.

“Wow! Reaper.”

Upon spotting me drawing near, Yerin beamed and hugged me tightly.

With a happy smile, Yerin proudly pulled something out.

“Ta-da, water deer pajamas! Aren’t they cute?”

She held the water deer pajamas up against my body as she continued.

“Let’s wear this and take a picture! We’re at the exhibition hall, so we should leave at least one photo!”

From the moment I saw the pajamas, I had a feeling this would happen.

Though it would be uncomfortable enough that I wouldn’t normally wear it, I decided to compromise this time to defeat the nightmare.

As it was a dream, the weather muscled through into a bright, sunny day.

A ghost cat suddenly appeared in midair and landed in my arms.

In the sky, cloud fish and cloud whales floated about.

On the green lawn, flowers bloomed vibrantly.

I stood wearing the water deer pajamas, holding the cat in my arms against that dreamlike backdrop.

Click.

“Wow! Look at this!”

Yerin squeaked with joy upon seeing the picture of us captured in the photo.

Bouncing around in excitement, Yerin slowly started to droop and then turned to me, saying,

“This is a dream, right?”

‘There’s no way anything this happy could happen. The reaper dresses up for me….’ Yerin mumbled.

“The reaper putting on clothes for no reason, that’s impossible. This is a dream!”

Yerin shook her head vigorously, then shouted out loud.

With Yerin’s shout, the world crumbled apart.

*

I opened my eyes next to the golden tree.

Upon resolving Yerin’s nightmare, I awakened.

The golden tree had lost its powers and its form transformed away from resembling a tree.

Now, it looked more like a giant golden block.

When I tapped the tree, a heavy sound rang out, causing it to collapse in a pile.

Now that I think about it, the golden reaper was nowhere to be seen.

Though the golden reaper was ephemeral, it should still have a few hours left before disappearing completely, right?

Not only had the reaper attached to me vanished, but most of the golden reapers within the exhibition hall had also disappeared.

Where on earth did they go?

As I headed toward the only place where I sensed the presence of a golden reaper, a horrific scene welcomed me.

The golden reaper leaning against the corner as if waiting for something saw me and stood up, waving its hand.

With a bright smile.

As if saying, “See you again,” it waved goodbye.

Thus, the last remaining golden reaper transformed into flames and vanished.