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The sleepy cat sitting on the moss-covered wall blinked its heavy eyes.

Perhaps it was because it had been wandering around all day, but the cat kept yawning without rest, yet its two eyes scanned the surroundings, searching for a new adventure.

However, the temporary camp seemed peaceful on the outside, contrary to its notorious reputation.

Dew clung to the wild grass, forming glimmering droplets, with butterflies flitting above.

“Wow, a cat!”

And the fake children running around in the grassy field.

Surrounded by the children expressing their goodwill, the cat seemed quite annoyed, as if it was used to such attention.

Well, since the ghost cat is a pretty white one, it must have received a lot of attention like that before.

But does it realize that the kids surrounding it with their goodwill are holding things like forks?

Even if they swung those forks down, they wouldn’t be able to harm a cat that can ghost itself, but it seemed like it was about time for me to step in.

I stood on the wall, released my ghosting, and hugged the cat.

Meow!

The cat jumped in surprise and scolded me for coming.

‘I just thought it looked fun, so I came to see.’

Meow.

The tired cat seemed relatively uninterested, meowing and then curling up in my arms.

A calm reaction from the cat.

On the other hand, the reactions of the fake children were intense.

They quickly distanced themselves and looked at me with fearful expressions.

Slowly, slowly, they backed away, glancing at me.

Then, when they saw I wasn’t paying them any mind, they dispersed and hid into every nook and cranny of the alley.

Meow.

‘What’s up with that? Why did they suddenly run away? Is something wrong?’

I strolled around the camp, cradling the cat.

Merchants stacked high with goods at the stalls, calling for customers.

The butcher sat at the butcher counter, watching TV.

Children jumping rope in a group.

Elderly men gazing at the Go board and giving advice.

A moment of peaceful daily life.

The cat didn’t notice, but here, the fake humans were actually quite fearful of me despite pretending otherwise.

Strange, why is that?

Meow.

Bored? Doesn’t seem like a dangerous place worthy of being on TV.

‘It certainly doesn’t seem like a place filled with the “dangerous” and “violent” people TV talks about.’

Meow.

Was TV exaggerating too much?

TV is always like that, isn’t it?

Meow…

The cat seemed tired of the peaceful camp and closed its eyes to take a nap.

*

A basement surrounded by concrete walls soaked in blood.

In the dimly lit basement, a red-stained chair sat alone, contrasting with the darkness.

On the chair was a headless corpse bound with rough ropes.

The neckless body was covered in various wounds, and the spots where the ropes were tied were filled with bruises from struggling.

Underneath the chair, a pool of blood reflected a faint light, emitting a sinister glow.

In that pool of blood lay rusty saws, pliers, and hammers—all tools used for torture, carelessly discarded.

Looking at the crushed body on the chair, the director spoke.

“Oh, how unfortunate. ‘Nameless’ has appeared.”

The man from the association suffered, endured, and then ultimately called the director’s name before dying in comfort.

“Now that I think about it, there’s no way to verify a name this way. Just calling it ‘nameless’ means I can’t be sure if it was truly my name.”

Hehe, letting out a creepy chuckle, the director left the basement where the association man’s corpse lay.

Still remaining in the isolation room was only the tragically dead man’s body.

*

On the large monitor in the deputy director’s office, the CCTV footage from the lounge was playing.

The screen was filled with the Golden Reaper.

It was slowly nibbling on a snack it held in its arms.

“Ah, it’s cute.”

Seoah, who looked slightly flustered, was flipping through her notebook, writing down a lot.

[Analysis Report on the Golden Reaper.]
[Characteristics of the Golden Reaper - Lacks knowledge. Loves humanity. Primal Reaper.]
[Comparative analysis of differences from the Gray Reaper.]

It was a report that I had thought I absolutely needed to analyze someday.

The Golden Reaper would suddenly appear and then quickly vanish, making it hard to analyze.

I had given up on obtaining data, but now I had caught that data.

A video recording of the Golden Reaper that had been maintained for over 48 hours!

The one clear feature visible in that video was this:

It absolutely does not want to part from humans!

Even when eating, it lurks near humans or tries to hold onto them.

When resting, it rolls around on a human’s palm.

If it’s bored, it crawls up the clothes and sticks to the face.

The Golden Reaper and the Gray Reaper have many similarities, but surprisingly, there also seem to be quite a few differences.

First, the Gray Reaper liked any video medium.

Especially, it often got distracted while the news was playing, but oddly, it disliked it if something other than the news was on.

On the other hand, the Golden Reaper has no interest at all in video media.

Even when a person appeared in a video, it showed no interest whatsoever.

It seemed to say that unless it was a real human, it was meaningless.

Its attitude toward humans was slightly different too.

While both liked humans, the Gray Reaper preferred to act disinterested and be alone, while the Golden Reaper expressed interest intuitively.

Still, the principles behind their actions seemed to be similar.

On the surface, the Golden Reaper may appear more foolish than the Gray Reaper, but that seemed to stem from a lack of experience.

Is the Gray Reaper actually older than it looks?

Just looking at how unclear its activities were before being isolated in the Sehee Research Institute supports that probability.

So the conclusion was this:

[There is no difference in the principles of behavior between the Gray Reaper and the Golden Reaper.]
[The Golden Reaper is rather closer to a baby Gray Reaper with less experience.]
[Continuing the analysis on the Golden Reaper will help better understand the Gray Reaper, which is an object of extreme risk, so do not neglect the analysis on the Golden Reaper!]

*

The camp’s inhabitants, who had been suspicious of our sudden appearance, melted away when we introduced ourselves as friends who were here to visit thanks to the client’s guidance.

The client’s fake younger brother bombarded questions, and the client was flustered.

The client had requested help saying that something seemed off, but I still didn’t grasp what was strange.

“Sis, why did you suddenly leave yesterday?”

“Um, I don’t know?”

The client, apparently well-regarded, was greeted warmly by everyone passing by as they joined the open lot.

In the shabby lot in front of the building, people were gradually gathering, but it was a bit odd that no one mentioned the client’s name.

That’s strange… should I ask about it?

“It seems you’ve been close friends for a long time, huh?”

I spoke to the butcher, who had known the client since childhood.

“Ah, yeah. We are close. I’ve seen her since she was little! Especially, even if our camp is a bit cramped and uncomfortable, it’s nice that we rely on each other and help one another.”

As he talked about his memories with the client, it retraced back to when she was a baby.

“Yuri! Come here. This guy doesn’t believe my stories at all!”

Listening to the story, I naturally got to hear the client’s name.

But wait, Yuri?

I thought the client’s name was Sua…

Still looking unwell, the client approached the butcher’s call and simply smiled.

“Hey, wasn’t the client’s name Sua?”

“It was Sua.”

“Then what’s going on right now?”

“What’s going on is a headache due to objects involved.”

It was clear that something was wrong, but I had no idea what the issue was.

It seemed like we hadn’t been at the camp for long, yet the sun was slowly beginning to set towards the horizon.

They were preparing a simple welcome ceremony for the client, but looking at the preparations, they seemed to be gearing up for quite the grand festival.

In the center of the open lot, a campfire stacked high with logs was blazing.

Around the fire, a grill was set up, starting to grill marinated meat skewers, vegetables, and sausages.

People swarmed around the client, creating a joyful atmosphere.

“Hey, doesn’t something seem suspicious?”

Junior No.1 asked while skewering eight chicken skewers on his fingers.

“What seems suspicious?”

“The client feels suspicious. No matter how you look at it, the camp doesn’t seem clearly wrong, right?”

“So?”

“Since the camp looks fine, why is the client saying the camp is strange? Then could it be the client who is the crazy one? Is that why they came to request finding their perfectly fine brother?”

While munching on the chicken skewers with a confident look, Junior No.1 declared.

“What do you think of my reasoning? This time it’s perfect, right?”

“It sounds plausible, but my gut feels that the camp is weirder.”

Fidgeting with the revolver in my pocket, I fell deep into thought.