Seoul Object Story
Chapter 268: Free City Alliance (1)

Deep within the Free City Alliance, in a dilapidated building off the beaten path.

Inside the building, old and worn, looking like it might collapse at any moment, a silver-haired girl sat perched on the windowsill, gazing at the scenery outside.

The haphazardly extended building looked unstable, as if it could collapse at any time, and the narrow alleys, barely wide enough for one person to pass, were tangled like a maze.

Moreover, the walls of those alleys were chaotically covered with colorful graffiti.

If it were night, the dizzyingly bright neon signs would further fuel this chaos.

The scenery of the ‘Free City Alliance’, untouched by government control, was always like this.

A landscape some call freedom, but others might call license.

The silver-haired girl gazed endlessly at such scenery.

A large man approached the girl and spoke to her.

“Qing, why don’t you try some of this too?”

The silver-haired girl, called ‘Qing’, replied instantly without even turning her head.

“Absolutely not.”

The man, approaching Qing with a plate, swallowed the caterpillar on the plate with a glum expression at her answer.

“It’s delicious though…”

It was a fist-sized caterpillar, entirely black with red and green stripes.

The bug, shimmering like metal, had a horrifying appearance, looking poisonous at first glance.

People born and raised in the Free City Alliance might be used to it, but for Qing, who had entered this city very recently, it was food with visuals she absolutely didn’t want to eat.

In fact, the repulsive appearance of the food was a secondary issue.

Towards the large man who sat back down and started inhaling caterpillars, a large woman holding a cigarette smiled and said:

“That has poison in it. Qing can’t eat it.”

That was right.

The biggest problem was the toxicity.

Somehow, most foods sold in this city contained poison, making them dangerous for ordinary people to eat.

When Qing first sneaked into this city, she almost died from eating the wrong food.

No, if she hadn’t met her companions here, she would have surely died.

Qing slowly sucked on a tube containing liquid made from ground beans and thought.

This city is truly crazy.

Looking no further than her companions proved it.

The woman smoking a cigarette looked well over 2 meters tall.

The heavy man constantly eating caterpillars had two pairs of arms.

A city of madmen who cut off their own limbs without hesitation for need.

A city of madness where they graft still-unknown Objects onto their bodies without any hesitation.

A greedy city filled with stimulating and harmful water and food, and people replacing their internal organs with Objects to digest them.

And a city filled with polluted air that felt like it was tearing out one’s lungs.

Qing looked at the pollutants dyeing the sky yellow and put her mask back on.

Still, Qing understood that this city couldn’t help it.

Due to China’s blockade, supplies couldn’t enter through proper routes.

And without support from the mainland, this ‘Free City Alliance’ couldn’t properly sustain itself.

The land was extremely small, and there were too many people.

Eventually, they had no choice but to utilize Objects that seemed to defy physical laws.

Hoping I can leave this city someday.

The silver-haired girl made a small wish unlikely to come true and gazed endlessly beyond the sky.

A Gray Reaper was walking around the Mini Reaper Garden’s marshmallow plains.

In the Gray Reaper’s arms was the ghost cat.

The ghost cat, finding the Gray Reaper’s embrace comfortable, meowed with a very satisfied expression.

Meow.

The ghost cat comfortably entrusted its body to the Gray Reaper.

Swish swish.

The Gray Reaper’s gentle hand stroked the ghost cat’s back.

Meow.

Perhaps the Gray Reaper had a bad memory, as it usually didn’t pay any attention as if it had forgotten.

It was a bit suspicious that it suddenly approached familiarly, but due to the continuous skinship and snack offensive, the ghost cat’s wariness had almost disappeared.

During this, the Gray Reaper suddenly conveyed its will as if it had just remembered.

Want to go eat tonkatsu?

?

It’s a super delicious food, you’ll like it too.

The place they arrived at was a building perched atop a giant jelly pig.

The building, bustling with numerous mini Reapers, didn’t feel like a restaurant at all.

Meow.

Though it meowed softly, sensing something was wrong, the Gray Reaper smiled gently and conveyed its will.

Just a little further.

And the Gray Reaper led the ghost cat into a room dyed entirely black.

A black color that looked very sturdy and exuded a strange pressure.

And sometimes yellow eyes would blink on that black wall.

Clank.

As the door closed with a heavy sound, the atmosphere of the ordinary room began to harden.

Like a prison.

Meow!

Sensing the ominous atmosphere, it tried to escape using its ghost form, but the ghost cat’s limbs were already held by Golden Reapers.

!

The ghost cat hastily turned its head to look towards the Gray Reaper, but the Gray Reaper with the gentle smile was gone.

Hehe.

There was only a gray cat with a mischievous and wicked expression.

Meow!

You tricked me!

It struggled, shouting with a feeling of injustice, but couldn’t break free from the Golden Reapers’ firm grip.

The cat, fixed onto a table with its limbs held down like a pitiful cat on an operating table.

The Gray Reaper with a wicked expression, approaching with both hands full of firewood.

It’s okay. It’ll be over soon.

The moment the Gray Reaper’s firewood burned the cat.

Meooowwwwww!

The cat’s cry of injustice echoed through the jelly pig hospital.

In front of a small grave made in the mini Reaper garden.

I stood there, looking down at the grave.

Unfortunately, the cat’s ritual had failed.

It died.

Its rank as an Object was too low, so it died.

I observed a moment of silence in front of the ghost cat’s grave.

This ghost cat wasn’t supposed to die so quickly…

Meow!

Above my head, a very angry cat was hitting my head repeatedly, telling me not to talk nonsense.

It was the new ghost cat, its body made with Halo, its soul summoned by the blue giant.

But it had died once and come back, and even its body was different.

Is this cat really the same cat as before?

But the ghost cat, hearing my philosophical question, started hitting the top of my head even faster, telling me not to talk nonsense.

After the cat that had hit me repeatedly returned to Sehee Research Institute, I started wandering the mini Reaper garden to relieve my boredom.

As I walked around the vast snowfield like that, I discovered Golden Reapers sprawled all over the ground.

Is something wrong?

I grabbed the hand of one sprawled Golden Reaper and lifted it; it hung limp without any strength.

When shaken left and right, it flopped loosely, without any power.

Somehow, the limp Golden Reaper had a squishy, pleasant texture that made me want to keep touching it.

After fiddling with it for a while, I asked what was wrong.

The Golden Reaper opened its eyes hazily like someone starving to death and conveyed its will.

Adventure…

Though the will was a bit hard to hear, after listening carefully, I could understand the cause.

The cause was the end of a fun adventure.

It was because the Orange Reaper’s lie was revealed, proving that the ‘legendary pudding’ didn’t exist.

The Golden Reapers had been setting out on a journey to find ‘pudding’ with truly joyful hearts.

Like ‘archaeologists discovering treasure’ in a movie, they were children enjoying an adventure.

But their destination had vanished.

It’s okay. It’s okay.

I slowly stroked such a Golden Reaper and gathered the other sprawled Golden Reapers too.

Then, the Golden Reapers projected their will, saying ‘Kind Mother!’, and clung to me tightly.

Perhaps because there were quite a lot of Golden Reapers who enjoyed adventuring, I instantly became a Golden Reaper cocoon.

Within that soft cocoon, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

The Golden Reapers seem to like me as they used to.

At this rate, shouldn’t I end Kind Mother Week?

Hehe.

In my vision filled with Golden Reapers, through the gaps between them, a structure built on the snowfield caught my eye.

It was an ice palace made by Golden Reapers piling up snow.

A truly elaborate and beautiful palace.

Somehow, it felt like the end of Kind Mother Week was approaching.

The Orange Reaper, flying hidden among the cloud meat, managed to arrive at a very interesting place.

It was a city ruled by harmful Objects despite being full of people.

Truly a harmful city!

The humans in this city lived by replacing their bodies with Objects.

People with numerous spider-like eyes on their faces.

People with three pairs of arms and three faces.

People with large blades attached to their backs.

Those humans foolishly seemed unaware that the Objects replacing their bodies were filled with ‘malice towards humans’.

A city overflowing with malice towards humans, filled with the disgusting smell of harmful Objects.

A city full of humans who had become close to Objects, with no proper humans left.

It was a city that ordinary mini Reapers would never want to enter.

In such a city, there was a girl sparkling like a star.

A pure human, not swept away by her surroundings.

The moment the Orange Reaper saw that girl, it somehow became a little curious.

It was a small curiosity:

How does that girl live in this city?