Seoul Object Story
Chapter 104: The Cruise Ship (5)

I sat on top of the deck’s railing under the bright moonlight, my feet swinging as I looked at the Sehee Research Insitute employees who all dozed off. They looked so peaceful and cute, like little dolls.

What should I do with them?

Since an Object put them to sleep, they wouldn’t wake up on their own if I just left them there.

Hmm, should I move them to the Garden of Golden Reapers? Or maybe leave them to the Golden Reapers while I go look for the Blue Witch? But that will ruin Sehee’s fun travel plans… I don’t want to spoil the fun…

As I thought hard about my options, an idea popped into my mind. Oh! The Blue Reaper that I summoned just a while ago!

Didn’t it have a mysterious power that looked like magic? Maybe it could wake them up?

I summoned the Blue Reaper to my palm, and it appeared, looking quite startled. It quickly pushed its hat to its head, and wrote something in the air.

Following those words, the Blue Reaper gradually blurred until it became completely transparent.

But well, since it existed because of me, I could easily tell where it was. Its magic was useless against me, heehee.

Feeling more at ease now that it was invisible, the Blue Reaper adjusted its hat properly and stood on my palm.

Now that I think about it, this little guy was wearing its own clothes—small shoes, a one-piece dress, and a big hat.

Hmph, it looked uncomfortable… Maybe I should make it go naked like me later.

But first things first, we had to deal with the sleeping people.

Break the weird curse that made the people on this ship fall asleep and wake them up.

The Blue Reaper took a look on the deck and nodded, understanding my command. It jumped off my palm, created a broom made of water, and began flying around the cruise ship.

Water droplets shaped like characters exploded and fell on people like a gentle drizzle. The Golden Reapers watched the sparkling drizzle with curious eyes, jumping up and down in delight.

“…”

But no one woke up.

I had thought the situation would be easily resolved, but the Blue Reaper’s magic didn’t seem to work.

As expected, as an inferior version of the original, it wasn’t able to lift the curse left by the original, huh?

The Blue Reaper stood on my palm, looked around, push its hat deep into its head, and conveyed its feelings to me.

It looked so heartbroken, so I comforted it by patting the top of its hat.

The Golden Reapers gathered around, hugging it tightly and assuring it that it was a okay.

Overwhelmed by their attention, the Blue Reaper fled to the Garden of The Golden Reapers.

And so, Sehee’s fun party unfortunately had to end today.

Considering the giant skeleton that appeared in the Red Moon Desert, the Blue Moon Lake must also be just as dangerous.

Therefore, I decided to evacuate the employees of Sehee Research Institute to the Garden of the Golden Reapers.

I invited the entire cruise ship to the Garden. It floated on a sea of hot chocolate before returning, was  This was the birth of a giant passenger ship floating on a sea of hot chocolate.

I moved the sleeping people onto the sea of hot chocolate before returning to the lake.

Now, I just have to quickly look for something called the ‘Blue Witch’s Mirror’.

In the desolate Sehee Research Institute, where most people had gone out to play, some unfortunate security staff were left behind to manage the remaining Objects.

Normally, they would be killing time by watching movies or dramas on their phone, but today, the employees weren’t doing anything. They just sat there, looking very depressed.

An employee suddenly spoke up, while staring blankly at the CCTV.

“Ah, the lake… I wanted to go there too… What a shame…”

“Me too man… Can’t we just quit and go play at the lake or something?” the senior staff chimed in while stretching.

If you look at the blank expression on their face, they looked almost like zombies.

“Maybe it’s because I couldn’t go to the lake, but I feel strangely tired and unmotivated. I even find movies these days to be boring.”

“Huh? Me too! I feel like that too! For some reason, I feel like this will continue on and on until I see the lake.”

Looking at the empty pudding bowls, he replied with an even gloomier expression.

“Actually, I don’t think it would be this hard if it weren’t for the night shift. In times like this, I would just be chuffed to bits seeing the Golden Reapers being all jolly and sweet after I fed them some pudding… Why do the Golden Reapers need to sleep at night?! Can’t they just play with me…”

“Hmm, I don’t know… Sometimes they wander around at night, but I’m not sure. Maybe the researchers would know?”

In the Sehee Reserach Insttitute’s security office, time continued to pass without any major incidents.

At 6 a.m., as the sky began to turn a soft blue, the staff for the next shift started to arrive. After completing the brief handover and returning to their accommodation, the staff member was greeted by a messy room.

A mountain of trash, dirty dishes piling up in the sink, and clothes scattered haphazardly on the floor.

He knew he had to clean sooner or later, but he just didn’t have the motivation.

Ha… Cleaning my ass…

He decided to eat the packed lunch he bought at the convenience store, then lie down and go to sleep.

With that in mind, the staff member threw his clothes to the floor, went into the bathroom, and took a shower.

“Huh? What the…?”

When the staff member came out of the shower, dragging along his tired body, a strange scene greeted him.

The mountain of trash had disappeared. The dirty dishes piling up in the sink were neatly washed and organized. The clothes on the floor were also neatly folded and arranged on the desk.

Normally, this would be a shocking situation, but staff member whose mind was corrupted by the blue moon, felt strangely calm.

What the…? Did a raccoon suddenly appear or something?

The air in the room felt particularly moist, ah it must be because it was clean

The deep night, with the full moon shinin brightly, passed before I even realized it, and then the morning arrived, making the sky all bright and cheerful.

The sun cast its golden rays over the tranquil lake, brightening everything around.

The rippling lake water turned the light into wavy shapes, creating a truly unique atmosphere.

For some reason, it reminded me of wandering through the red desert.

Maybe it’s because sand dunes and waves kind of look alike? Well, it’s just sand turning into water, so that’s probably the why.

Plop-! Plop-!

I walked across the lake’s with my Phantom Form, just letting my feet wherever without any particular direction in mind.

Since the ‘Blue Witch’ seemed to target humans, it should mainly be where humans usually are.

But the results were disastrous.

There were so many boats floating on the lake, but they had all lost their owners and were just drifting aimlessly.

Isn’t this too much? Who on earth made this place a tourist destination?

My search started in the morning and went on until late at night when the full moon rose again.

I didn’t find the Blue Witch or any living humans.

Blue Witch… Just where is it?

Then, suddenly, a strong stench began to rise from the lake’s surface.

Ah!

I stopped wandering aimlessly, picked a direction, and walked straight towards the ‘stench’.

These days, bad smells usually meant trouble, so it was worth checking out.

And luckily, I was right again.

The closer I got to the stench, the thicker the fog became, and the more I heard a commotion.

The curse from that old woman I fought before filled the air.

After walking through the fog, I arrived at the shore of the lake.

There, I lots of unpleasant things tangled together, biting and cursing each other.

Monsters like those old women who saw humans as toys and killed them while playing.

And twisted monsters made by combining Objects and humans, like the ones I saw in the desert.

Two types of monsters that were harmful to humans, killing each other.

Plop-! Plop-!

I walked slowly between the two groups.

As I got closer, something noticeable happened between the two fighting groups.

“Gray Reaper?”

“Why is the Gray Reaper here?”

Their eyes were full of confusion and anxiety.

When I confirmed their killing conditions with my ‘Eyes’, the phenomenon sped up.

The monsters my ‘Eyes’ caught were startled and looked at where I was.

The noisy shore of the lake became quieter and quieter.

The old women spitting curses and the monsters leaking black slime stopped and focused on me.

Their killing conditions were all ordinary and simple.

Destroying the heart, depleting the regenerative ability, destroying the brain, and so on…

On the contrary, the monsters that looked like old woman had more complicated conditions because I had to bury them in the ground.

There were no high-class or special Objects here.

The‘Blue Witch’isn’t here, huh?

Rustle-! Rustle-!

It got so quiet that the sound of my small feet walking on gravel could be heard from far away.

At that moment, my footsteps became the only sound on the noisy shore of the lake.

Late in the evening, the night-watch staff entered the security room.

The staff member, who usually looked exhausted, seemed much better today.

Before, he couldn’t sleep well because he was consumed by thoughts of wanting to go to Yangcheon-gu Lake, but tonight, he had slept soundly.

“Hey, I think I have a snail bride in my house. When I came out of the shower, the place was completely cleaned up.”

“Huh? It happened to you too, Sunbae? It happened to me as well.”

“Maybe because the house is clean, I’m sleeping really well. I feel like I’ve had the best sleep in a long time.”

The senior staff, who was stretching his arms and legs around in a somewhat refreshed mood, noticed his junior staring intently at something.

It was a screen showing a mess of a one-room apartment, as if it had been ransacked by a thief.

Is that a pet cam? Why is he paying so much attention to it?

“What are you looking at?”

“I wanted to find out what that snail bride’s identity was. So, I deliberately made a mess of the room before leaving.”

“Will it really show up?”

When the pet cam started showing something small and blue, everyone, regardless of their hierarchy, began to focus on the screen.

Each time a blue light flashed, the messy room started to return to its original appearance.

“I can’t see it clearly because the picture quality is bad.”

“I know right? The snail bride is much smaller than I expected.”

The blue Object that cleaned the room in an instant stood in front of the pet cam, looking around the room with a proud expression.

“Reaper? Does a Blue Reaper also exist?”

“No? This is my first time seeing it too… Is it a subspecies of the Golden Reaper?”

The Blue Reaper, who was looking around the room, found the pet cam and tilted its head in curiosity. Then, it started observing it by pressing its face into the lens.

Then, it tilted its head with a puzzled expression, as if it couldn’t figure out what it was before dispersing like fog and disappearing from the room.

“I never thought the snail bride was a Blue Reaper.”

“Wow, all Reapers are so cute.”

While the senior and the junior staff were talking about the Reaper, the Blue Reaper entered the security room and was startled when it saw the screen showing the one-room apartment it had just been in.

To think the humans were watching me!!!

The Blue Reaper pushed its hat down and ran away to the Garden of the Golden Reapers.