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As everyone fell silent and went quiet, the ringtone of a cellphone was the only thing making a fuss.

“Uh… what should we do?”

“Answer it. We can’t just ignore it, right?”

Gulp.

The factory employee, trembling and swallowing hard.

It’s just a phone call; do they really need to be this scared?

The factory employee squeezed their eyes shut, trying to answer the call, but their shaking hands and closed eyes made it impossible to succeed.

Hiding in the shadow of the employee with their eyes closed, I released my ghosting and pressed down on the employee’s finger, sliding.

“Uwaah!”

The factory employee jumped in shock and tossed the phone to the floor.

Still scared out of their wits, they rubbed their finger and looked around nervously.

Hehe, even if you look all around, you can’t see me because I’m already ghosted!

[A loud noise just happened; is something the matter?]

A voice sounded from the phone on the floor.

Ignoring the frightened employee, another factory worker answered the call.

“No, it’s the boss.”

[Oh? I’m in the middle of escaping, and I think I can be out in about a day.]

“Ah… so the objects in the factory haven’t been dealt with yet?”

[Yeah, I failed at re-isolating them. Luckily, that bear can’t get into tight spaces because it’s too big, so it’s crawling on the ceiling right now. I should be able to get out in about a day; let’s talk more when I return.]

“So, you don’t need help right now?”

[Actually, it’s better if it doesn’t come and cause a commotion. We can talk about the next re-isolation schedule after I get back.]

“Understood, boss!”

As the call ended, the previously tense atmosphere relaxed completely.

“It seems like the boss is right this time, doesn’t it?”

“It was the boss’s phone number and voice, so it must be him.”

“No, the previous call was weird too. It had strange sounds from Block B.”

“But, was there space in the ceiling?”

“Who knows? Who’s going to climb up there to check?”

However, the employees’ mood was subtle.

It felt difficult to be purely happy that the boss was alive since the previous call was so strange.

A weird call that came from the boss’s voice and phone number.

I came to seize some pudding, and suddenly it felt like a mystery drama was unfolding.

*

In the garden of the Golden Reaper that occupied the backyard of the Sehee Research Institute, the Golden Reaper peeked out.

The Golden Reaper was carrying pudding on its back.

Though already aware that the creator wasn’t nearby, it didn’t slack off in checking the surroundings.

If it gets found out, it could lose the last remaining pudding, so caution was essential!

The creator could disguise their location whenever they pleased, so there was no room for complacency.

Complacent companions?

They had all lost their pudding.

Even if they sorrowed over the loss, pudding wouldn’t come back.

I couldn’t let it be taken away from the poor Attached Human who hadn’t tasted even a single bit of delicious pudding.

A large door stood before me.

The massive door separating the backyard and the institute’s interior.

Normally, I could have leaped over it in an instant using ghosting, but that was impossible right now.

I had to move the pudding.

As footsteps approached, the Golden Reaper hurriedly hid.

I couldn’t be discovered by humans.

If I didn’t give pudding to a human, they would feel sad.

If a human was sad, it would hurt my heart.

Hiding in the nearby shadow, I waited for the moment the door would open, then quietly slipped through.

Now I needed to reach the Attached Human without getting caught in a building full of humans!

The Golden Reaper steeled itself with determination.

*

The situation at the Pudding Factory was getting chaotic.

Ah, I’m dizzy.

As I returned to the vehicle, the Gray Reaper suddenly popped up from the empty back seat.

Ah, so they were following me around using ghosting, huh?

I picked up the Reaper from the back seat and placed them on my lap, hugging them.

Since I carried them so often, they naturally relaxed and leaned into me.

“Reaper, what in the world is going on? It feels like something serious is happening, but I can’t figure it out.”

Holding the soft and warm Reaper in the midst of chaos calmed my mind.

The expression of the Gray Reaper reflected in the rearview mirror was blank.

It seemed as if they were just a stuffed bear with no thoughts at all.

“There were two phone calls from the boss; which one is real? Or are both fake?”

No matter how much I pondered, I just couldn’t figure it out.

I decided to heal by petting the Reaper until something came to mind.

*

Yerin’s feelings were complex, like a tangled ball of yarn.

It was quite a simple problem, but I seemed to be overcomplicating my thoughts.

As I lay back against the seat in the back, Yerin didn’t follow suit but was fiddling with my feet.

This was something Yerin often did when I laid down; was she giving me a massage?

It probably wouldn’t be very effective, though.

The two calls during this incident contained completely opposite messages.

The first call was, “Gather as many people as possible and come save us!”

The second call was, “Wait for me until I escape!”

If the first call was fake, then it was likely done to lure many people in, similar to what an object that seduces humans would do.

If the second call was fake, it would mean that they didn’t want people to come in.

Thus, a calling that seems human while actually repelling them would be a difficult thing for an object to pull off, indicating that a human likely made that call.

Whether the culprit was a human or an object changed which call one should believe.

Haa.

Even though I wasn’t tired, I still felt like yawning.

In the past, I thought it was probably just remnants of habits from my human days.

But seeing the Golden Reaper occasionally do it made me think that perhaps there’s another reason for yawning.

Or maybe they had been originally designed to mimic humans.

A sudden wave of sleepiness washed over me.

Fidgeting.

I felt like if I got any more massages, I would fall asleep, so I shook off Yerin’s hand.

At the very least, I needed to resolve the pudding situation and then have a rest.

For pudding’s sake!

*

Just a moment ago, my smartwatch had been working fine, but now only noise came through.

“Oh no. It got cut off.”

James, who had been talking on the smartwatch, said.

“Why? Why did you make that call in that way?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“The content of the call! You said we might die if help doesn’t come right now!”

Bang bang.

From outside the management room, something was crashing.

The sound of metal bending and breaking mercilessly.

“W-what is that?”

“They figured out that we had succeeded in contacting through the management room. The teddy bear is wrecking the management room. So the sounds are coming from the management room of Building 2, right?”

James spoke calmly, unlike the panicked interpreter.

“Now it’s certain; if help doesn’t come, we’ll die. The teddy bear will eventually come to this management room, so…”

“It’s the end.”

The interpreter said gloomily, clutching their head.

The steel bear was systematically destroying the management rooms.

Though the sound of destruction was still distant, it would eventually reach us.

Thump thump.

To the interpreter, the heavy footsteps echoing from afar felt eerily similar to a predator from a movie.

“You don’t need to be so anxious.”

James continued with an easy expression.

“According to my trajectory prediction, it’ll take that cute teddy bear about 15 hours to reach this management room. We still have plenty of time. Why not take a good nap on the bed here in the management room?”

“So if help doesn’t arrive within 15 hours, we’ll die, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But why did you make that call in that way? Block B? Milling machine? What do those mean? Why not just say Building 7, 2nd floor management room…?”

The interpreter, collapsing down to the floor and mumbling as if in anguish.

And James looked at the interpreter with a pitying expression, shaking his head.

“Looks like your head isn’t that bright. Didn’t I mention? This incident has human involvement.”

“?”

James provided additional explanation to the interpreter, who looked up.

“Of course, if I just gave our exact location, that teddy bear would definitely come to crack our heads open before any help arrives, right?”

“So using Block B and the milling machine, can people find us?”

“Of course. Factory staff would be able to find us for sure while terrorists would be clueless about those hints.”

The interpreter looked back at James, their face somehow filled with hope.

“Since terrorists aren’t stupid, they’ll probably look for an old blueprint of the factory with those ambiguous hints.”

“Is that so?”

“But that old factory blueprint wouldn’t include Block B or the milling machine. The terrorists will give up trying. Instead of using reasoning like a teddy bear, they would choose another means.”

“So?”

“There’s a hidden story here. There’s a twin factory that looks exactly like this one in Busan. If someone compares the blueprints of that twin factory with our current factory, they would be able to pinpoint our location in no time.”

“Who would notice that!”

The interpreter, forgetting that a murderous teddy bear was roaming around, shouted.

Just a moment ago, filled with hope, the interpreter now slumped back down, their expression defeated.

“It’s all over now…”

*

I gave up on thinking.

Was it necessary to know which of the first or second call was true?

Did I even need to know what Block B or the milling machine were?

Why should I be troubled by that?

I just needed to get in there and pluck the head off the steel bear object.

That bear wasn’t even a part of the pudding factory, right?

As I finished my thoughts and got up from my seat, Yerin responded.

“Are you going to enter the factory? Then I’ll go with you!”

Yerin cheerfully smiled and followed me.

Together with Yerin, I stealthily made my way toward the factory entrance.

Thanks to the boss’s call, there were hardly any people on guard.

“It feels oddly fun. It’s just like playing hide and seek when I was little.”

Since Yerin looked like she was enjoying it, I found myself a bit happy as well.

We stepped into the factory entrance, moving between shadows.

Once inside, the cracked and broken parking lot and headless corpses welcomed us.

“Reaper, there’s a corpse. Looking at the outfit, it might be the object retrieval guy that the boss brought.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

As Yerin’s voice echoed in the parking lot, heavy footsteps began to approach.

A tense Yerin gripped my hand tightly.

Beyond the parking lot, through the large open entrance, red lights appeared.

Two points of light glowed red, like the eyes of a beast visible in the darkness.

Thump. Thump.

With the heavy footsteps, objects began to reveal their shape amidst the darkness.

It was the appearance of the steel bear object.

And as it made eye contact with me, the bear slowly begun to.

Thump. Thump.

Slowly starting to fade back into the darkness.