Seoul Object Story
Chapter 271: Free City Alliance (4)

Deep within the Free City Alliance.

Even compared to ordinary cities, the Free City Alliance was quite alien, but there was one place that exuded an even more alien atmosphere.

Buildings collapsed, leaving only gaunt skeletal pillars.

Makeshift structures cobbled together onto those pillars using scrap materials.

Drums filled with various corpses and waste, burning.

And a place full of monstrous humans who had completely shed their human form.

It was the gathering place of the Scavengers.

In a place where the smell of blood, burning plastic, and rusted metal mingled, there was one spot where the smell of blood was particularly strong.

It was a place where people were hung up on hooks like meat in a slaughterhouse.

In that place reeking particularly strongly of blood, a man who was once a mercenary in the Free City Alliance was cutting off a person’s arm in the Scavenger den’s slaughterhouse.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

The man fought back the urge to vomit and slowly continued sawing.

I can’t help it either. I can’t help it either!

In reality, the man had few options.

He had developed psychosis.

He knew that most mercenaries who had numerous Objects implanted would die from psychosis.

But he believed he was a special existence, not belonging to the majority.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t special.

At some point, his vision turned red, and a voice descended from the sky.

An absurd voice saying [Kill humans].

It was a typical symptom of the psychosis ‘Red Eye’.

There were only a few outcomes for mercenaries who developed psychosis due to Object overuse.

Eventually going mad and being killed after massacring people.

Committing suicide before going mad from the red voice.

Resorting to cannibalism and degenerating into a Scavenger.

Only about three paths remained.

Strangely, after eating human flesh, the psychosis completely disappeared for a while.

As if it was fine as long as one killed humans.

And the man chose to survive.

He joined the Scavengers to eat human flesh.

As he absentmindedly sawed the arm, lost in thought, his senior shouted at him.

“Hey hey hey, don’t kill him! We need to sell the prosthetic arm, so you can’t kill him.”

Turning his gaze, he saw the person being butchered convulsing and foaming at the mouth, looking like they would die at any moment.

But before anything could be done, the convulsions stopped, and the man’s body began to twist bizarrely.

Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of bones shattering as Objects went berserk.

“Ah, damn it!”

The senior threw the saw he was holding onto the floor.

Thwack!

With the sound of tearing leather, the Object prosthetic arm that tore out of the man’s body had already lost its prosthetic form.

The prosthetic, transformed into a hideous spider monster, quickly crawled away somewhere.

“Hah, ruined.”

The Scavenger senior slumped down carelessly onto a nearby table and lit a cigarette.

Just as the man was about to sit down nearby too, the sound of heavy footsteps began to echo.

Thud. Thud.

Footsteps that sounded like they belonged to something weighing several hundred kilos.

A silhouette that looked closer to a robot or tank than a human.

Its weight and appearance matched its moniker, ‘Tank’.

The man, the leader of this Scavenger group, shouted loudly.

“Everyone listen!”

And the words that followed were simple.

The comrades who went to kill the mercenaries and seize the cargo are dead.

So those who want revenge, follow me.

The leader’s words were lengthy, but summarized, it was a simple story.

But it was dangerous and unappealing.

Seeing the Scavengers’ expressions, the leader grinned.

“By the way, I heard there’s a ‘pure human’ among those mercenaries.”

The moment they heard those words, all the Scavengers, including the man, stood up.

Pure human!

Pure humans were extremely rare beings in the Free City Alliance.

Moreover, rumors circulated that their flesh not only suppressed the ever-worsening psychosis but also increased one’s capacity, allowing for more Objects to be grafted.

And what followed were the Scavengers’ cheers, fervor, and madness.

All the Scavengers began grabbing their weapons and moving out for revenge.

Mini Reaper Garden deep within, Golden Reaper Grand Council Hall.

Perhaps influenced by the Gray Reaper’s Kind Mom Week, a meeting was being held there on the theme ‘Mom is kind’.

Mom shared pudding with me!

Mom brushed my hair!

Mom petted me for no reason at all!

It had become less of a meeting and more of a place to boast about being treated kindly by Mom.

During this, the Purple Reaper with the black eyepatch, participating as a special guest, projected its will.

When we were in trouble, Mom led everyone from the garden and came!

Amazing!

Beloved sibling!

The Golden Reapers were startled and began clapping.

And numerous moments when Mom had saved them began to flow out.

Mom is amazing.

Though she couldn’t properly distinguish between the mini Reapers and seemed uninterested in them.

Strangely, the Gray Reaper always appeared whenever a mini Reaper was in crisis.

Mom is kind!

And the Mom is kind! vote began.

The Golden Reapers, sitting in a circle, stood up one by one clockwise, smiling brightly.

Kind!

Kind!

Kind!

And they raised one hand like children at a crosswalk, projecting their will.

“Kyuhinghing.”

A white Hungry Ghost, secretly hiding in the council hall, stood up with difficulty on its two legs and projected an opposing will, but was dragged away by the Golden Reapers guarding the hall.

The punishment for snacks participating in the meeting without guest status was the Red Reaper grilling sentence.

The vote, participated in by the Golden Reapers and the special guest Purple Reaper, was unanimous in favor.

“Kyuhinghinghing.”

Only the mournful cry of the Hungry Ghost remained in the quiet council hall after the vote ended.

!

As the meeting concluded, Orange Reapers began flying into the hall in droves, carrying large Hungry Ghosts.

The Golden Reapers tilted their heads at the appearance of their mischievous younger siblings, but the news delivered by the Orange Reapers was enough to shock them.

The ice palace is under attack by Mom!

Startled, the Golden Reapers began entering the white Hungry Ghost’s belly, following the Orange Reapers’ guidance.

“Kyuhihihihi.”

And the white Hungry Ghost, puffed up as if its belly would burst, let out a joyful laugh.

In the vast snowfield located in the mini Reaper garden.

I was still caught by the Golden Reapers, unable to return to the containment room.

Sniff sniff.

As punishment, I was mobilized to build the ice palace together with the Golden Reapers.

Mom!

When a Golden Reaper called, I would walk towards it carrying an ice brick.

And the Golden Reaper receiving the brick would smile brightly, Thank you, Mom!.

Even though they were rebuilding the palace that had been completely destroyed once, the Golden Reapers looked truly happy.

Strangely, they looked happier than when they first built it.

Isn’t it usually annoying and boring to do something you’ve already done?

Golden Reapers are hard to understand.

Mom!

Mom!

Mom!

Golden Reapers were calling me from all directions.

Place this brick, carve this decoration, pack this snow.

Even though the Golden Reapers were much more dexterous than me, they insisted on borrowing my hands.

Do they want to torment me that much?

I’ll go in order, so wait.

As I carved a pillar together with a Golden Reaper, the Golden Reaper grinned happily.

Roughly petting the Golden Reaper smiling and staring at me, I was vowing revenge.

The day the ice palace construction ends.

I will catch all the Orange Reapers, tie them up, and play fire mouse with them.

And the Hungry Ghost, I will make skewers and sell them off as eternally burning torches.

I grinned, baring my teeth fiercely.

Inside a narrow, enclosed concrete room.

“Gasp!”

Qing startled awake, frantically touching her face as she sat up.

A calm male voice reached her.

“You’re awake. Qing, you used ‘Dice’, right? Thank you.”

Seeing the face of the man who had finally regained consciousness after nearly dying, Qing smiled slightly with relief.

“By the way, what’s that furball? It seemed harmless so I left it, but do you know something about it?”

And the man pointed with his chin to the fluffy furball clinging to Qing’s stomach.

Furball?

Qing looked down at her stomach with a puzzled expression, and a furball with an orange face looked up at her.

The moment their eyes met, it felt like lightning struck Qing’s mind.

And as if entranced, Qing slowly lifted the furball.

She didn’t know why, but this Object felt strangely familiar.

It felt like a fated companion she could never part with.

Moreover, it was warm and fluffy, and felt nice to touch.

And Qing, as if it were her own cherished doll, silently hugged the Orange Reaper in her arms.

At that moment, the woman standing by the window, looking outside, spoke in a quiet voice.

“It looks like we need to start moving. This area is crawling with Scavengers. Seems like escaping towards the security wall is the only option.”

And the woman added…

What on earth is this cargo that so many Scavengers are after it?

“Alright. Let’s go quickly. It gets harder the later we are, right?”

But just as Qing said that and stood up, the sound of heavy footsteps began to echo.

Thud. Thud.

And at that moment, cloud meat began to fly in through the window cracks, filling the room.

?

It was even more puzzling because cloud meat was rarely seen in the Free City Alliance.

The heavy sound and the suddenly appearing cloud meat.

The man, extremely tense, scanned the surroundings, his expression hardening.

“Something’s not right.”

At that moment, the cloud meat flew in and charged towards Qing and her companions.

“!”

The man blocked with his shield, but the heavy impact sent everyone rolling on the floor.

It was an impact too heavy to imagine coming from fish made of light clouds.

Just as the man, having gotten up from the floor, was about to counterattack the cloud meat with his shotgun.

A red beam erased the spot where the group had originally been.

A flash so bright it seemed blinding.

And the subsequent scorching heat storm that felt like it would cook the skin.

Pillars melting, glowing red.

Concrete melted like lava, leaving holes.

!!!

If the cloud meat hadn’t pushed them away, they would have melted just like that concrete.

The shield the man carried was sturdy enough to block even sniper rifle shots, but it wouldn’t have lasted even a moment against such a beam.

Huu. Huu.

Qing, startled by the sudden turn of events, gasped for breath and turned her head towards the direction the beam came from.

Then, beyond the hole blasted in the wall, a vicious-looking Scavenger was looking at the group.

“Ah, there you are. Almost blew you away without even getting a taste.”

It was a monster with almost no human traces left, its place taken by a haphazard patchwork of twisted metal and Objects.

Seeing this, the man muttered in a bleak voice.

“The famous ‘Tank’ himself came to greet us.”

Feeling a suffocating despair in the situation, Qing lifted the furball in her arms and hugged it tightly.