In the most secret and darkest corner of the Garden of Golden Reapers, where humans could never reach, a clandestine meeting was taking place among the Golden Reapers.
This meeting revolved around the last available ninja pudding.
The Golden Reapers, usually playful and carefree, wore unusually serious expressions.
The Golden Reapers bustled about, expressing and compromising their opinions.
They bumped into each other to convey how desperately they each needed the remaining pudding.
Cute hand and foot gestures, incomprehensible to humans, punctuated their discussions.
But for the Golden Reapers, this was a very serious meeting.
In the end, a decision was made.
The Golden Reaper chosen to receive the pudding jumped up and down in elation.
This lucky Reaper, deemed the one in greatest need of the pudding, left with it and the blessing of all the others.
It carried the pudding, which was much larger than itself, to the backyard of Sehee Research Institute.
After all, the Gray Reaper had created a passageway connecting the backyard to the garden.
The face of the Golden Reaper carrying the large pudding was full of smiles.
James was fiddling with the entrance to the factory control room, humming a low tune as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Mr. James, please be quiet. What are you going to do if we get caught?” the interpreter nudged James, his voice a nervous whisper, eyes darting around anxiously.
However, James just smirked, looking around with an air of calm that bordered on arrogance.
“There’s no way we’ll get caught just from making noise in a noisy place . You worry way too much. Don’t worry, chill.”
As James pointed out, the area around them was full of the incessant clamor of machinery. On top of that, an unpleasant alarm blared loudly, almost drowning out their conversation.
But still, the interpreter felt a knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach as he scanned the factory’s ominous surroundings. Forget about escaping right away, they had gone even deeper into the belly of the beast.
He felt like they were performing a dangerous act of sticking their heads into a crocodile’s mouth.
The interpreter, still anxious, prodded James, who was busy with something at the entrance.
“Mr. James, is there any reason we’ve come this deep into the factory instead of escaping? If we’d just left, we’d already be outside!”
“Why are we here? Of course, there’s a reason. If we just leave, we’ll definitely get caught by that cute teddy bear. We’re much slower than it is, and it’s probably heading toward the exit, thinking we’re trying to escape.”
James explained as he tore off an entire panel attached to the entrance to the control room. “Besides, this isn’t just an ordinary Object-related accident. If we don’t stay sharp, we’ll be dead before we know it.”
“Huh? This isn’t an accident?”
“I thought it was an accident at first too,” James said, tapping his smartwatch.
“No Object with signal-jamming abilities exists. Plus, the timing coincided perfectly with our arrival.”
“Wasn’t it because the factory is in a remote area?”
“If that were true, the factory wouldn’t have contacted the authorities so quickly when it was first occupied by Objects.”
Not an accident, but a terrorist attack.
The interpreter started to panic upon hearing it was a terrorist attack aiming to kill people.
“But why? Who would do something ? And in an Object-free country like ours… Why commit terrorism using Objects?”
“It’s good to be patriotic, but I need to correct you,” James said, turning to the interpreter with a serious face. “In my opinion, Korea is the most dangerous country in the world.”
“Huh? What do you mean? I heard in China, a giant flying jellyfish destroyed a city. In the United States, a fire-breathing giant wild boar did the same. At least in Korea, there are no such Objects, so isn’t our nation the safest place on Earth?”
“That’s what’s so interesting about Korea~! The Ice Throne in Dobong-gu, the theme park, the desert that appeared recently… Even when Objects that could cause great destruction appear, they either get suppressed or disappear on their own.”
A cheerful mechanical sound indicated the electronic door, and the entrance to the factory control room finally opened.
“Ah, it’s finally open. Well, I’ll explain how dangerous Korea is some other time. First, I need to analyze this site.”
When the door opened, the devastation revealed was gruesome, to say the least. All the employees in the management office were dead.
The interpreter immediately squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look at the sight.
“Hmm, come here. Let’s take a look.”
“Wha? No! I will not do that. I already fainted once seeing that steel teddy bear crush people. And you want me to see something gory again?”
“It’d be better if you saw it, but if you don’t want to, then very well. There’s nothing I can do, after all.”
At James’ words, the interpreter reluctantly opened his eyes slightly and looked towards the corpses.
“Uoogh!” And there it was, front and center, a bunch of headless corpses covered in blood strewn everywhere. “Why did you ask me to see that?!”
“Hmm? Can’t you feel anything even after looking at it?”
In James’s mind, the corpses in the management office were clear evidence. Evidence of human intervention.
The three management office workers had died from gunshot wounds. Yet, the Objects currently occupying the factory couldn’t use guns or shoot bullets in any other way.
“They were all shot to death, but the Objects currently occupying the factory can’t shoot.”
Terrorism using guns, that too in a country like Korea, where gun laws were still as merciless as ever. Laws that weren’t loosened even though many people got regularly killed by Objects.
James’ expression turned grave as his thoughts reached that point.
Telling me to hide, “Reaper, I’m going to go and listen to their stories, so you need to hide properly, okay?” Yerin pushed me into her car and went alone to the place where the factory officials were gathered.
Of course, I left the car in my phantom form and watched what Yerin was up to.
It seemed to be quite a serious situation, and the officials’ faces weren’t looking too good. But Yerin, wow, she was surprisingly good at digging up information.
She mentioned that the Sehee Research Institute was preparing to help with their re-containment effort, saying they needed the pudding produced at the factory.
Oooohh!! She’s weaving truth and lies together so seamlessly.
Now that I think about it, Yerin’s really good at lying. Did she learn it from playing hooky?
“Wow, so the containment breach only happened once a month?”
“That’s right. Because of that, our Songdo research institute even received a commendation for being an excellent research institute last year, but this year, it will be difficult…”
The researcher from the Songdo Research Institute, who was managing the Objects currently occupying the factory, let out a heavy sigh with a depressed look on his face.
Yerin, having chatted with the researcher for quite a while, bowed and walked away. She then clung to the factory staff and struck up a conversation with them.
“Really? After calling a private Object retrieval company, the factory owner still went in himself? Isn’t that very dangerous?”
“I tried my best, but no matter how much I tried to stop him, he didn’t listen. He’s probably being so reckless because he’s a foreigner. Tch, so reckless.”
“So you still haven’t been able to contact this person whom you call the ‘Owner’?”
“Ah, yes. Even now, our youngest is still continuously calling him. But he doesn’t pick up. I guess he’s…”
The man, who appeared to be a factory employee, pretended to slit his throat with his hands, suggesting the owner was dead.
“Ah, thank you for letting me know in detail!”
“It seems like it’s already too late to go look for the owner. So, if you’re going to send containment teams to help us, please prepare them well!”
Finishing her conversation with the factory employee, Yerin jotted down several things in her notebook.
< The Object currently occupying the factory is a teddy bear-shaped robot. >
< The containment breach only happened once every month. >
< Since it’s an Object that moves very slowly, it was quickly re-contained. >
< But now it has become very agile and threatening. >
< The factory owner is currently trapped inside the factory. It’s unknown whether he’s dead or alive. >
While Yerin was organizing data in her notebook, the phone suddenly rang.
An employee who appeared to be from the factory held up the cell phone, making a fuss.
“Oh? Uh um! It’s the owner!”
“Huh? What are you doing not picking it up right away?”
The employee, looking slightly embarrassed, switched the call to loudspeaker mode and answered.
[ Ah ah, can you hear me? ]
“Yes! We can hear you, boss. Glad to hear you’re safe.”
[ Yes, yes, I am safe. It took a long time to contact you because there were a lot of jammers in the factory. My current location is Block B, in the small office above the milling machine. ]
[ Since there are quite a few more Objects here that need to be disposed of other than the bear, a lot of Object retrieval teams will be needed. A lot. I’ll take care of everything no matter the cost, so call as many as you can.]
The call which seemed like it would continue, was suddenly cut off with an unnatural sound, leaving only noise. The facial expressions of the factory employees who received the call from their owner weren’t very positive as well.
“That’s not the owner, is it?”
“An imposter? Who’s playing a prank? Huh?”
“Could it be that it’s one of those lure-type Objects?”
Yerin approached the distressed factory worker and asked why they thought that the caller wasn’t the owner.
“The boss, whom you had no news about, all of a sudden turned out to be alive. He even told you about his current location and also suggested a solution, but no one seems to be responding well. Why is that?”
“Well, it’s because there’s no B block in our factory. And since it’s a pudding factory, we don’t have milling machines.”
“Oh, now that I think about it, a milling machine cuts iron, right? So I guess it was an impersonator.”
“Or maybe it’s an Object that lures people…”
The factory worker seemed a little scared, maybe thinking the Object was trying to tempt them.
Then the phone suddenly started ringing again.
“Huh? It’s the owner again.”
All the chaotic chatter instantly fell silent. In the silence, only the sound of the cell phone rang loudly.