Seoul Object Story
Chapter 273: Free City Alliance (6)

A man ran, breathless.

“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. It must have been them!”

Most of his comrades, who had followed the leader out, had scattered in panic.

It all started when the boss’s Object, perfectly fine for two years, suddenly malfunctioned.

Tripping over a stone and getting impaled through the eye by rebar sticking out from crumbling concrete?

Plausible.

The cracked concrete floor suddenly collapsing, swallowing a comrade whole?

Plausible.

A comrade with a habit of tapping his grenade pouch having the safety pin just fall out, causing an explosion?

Plausible.

Slipping on the oily rainwater and falling from a rooftop?

Plausible.

But all these things happening simultaneously? Absolutely not normal.

Something unknown was moving among them.

Then someone screamed in terror.

“It’s a curse! A ghost’s curse!”

Some, seized by fear, began to flee madly.

Curse? Ghost? Ridiculous.

The man struggled to keep his wits.

He believed the ones their leader had been trying to catch were behind it.

Fortunately, some comrades who hadn’t lost their cool remained by his side.

Faces taut with tension, they pursued the escaped prey.

“Wait!”

The comrade in the lead suddenly halted everyone.

“Something’s there. Something white, stained crimson!”

For a moment, something white and bloodstained, like a ghost, flickered past the alley entrance.

“Aaargh!”

One comrade shrieked in terror.

“It’s a ghost! A ghost appeared!”

Consumed by fear, he fired wildly into the alley.

As bullets vanished into the alley’s darkness, the sound of crumbling concrete mingled with an ominous vibration.

“Damn it.”

The man scanned his surroundings.

Old, precarious buildings loomed threateningly, looking ready to collapse at any moment.

“Stop it! Please, stop!”

The man rushed towards his madness-stricken comrade and snatched the gun away.

But it was already too late.

The vibrations started by the bullets intensified, until finally, part of the building completely collapsed.

CRASH!

Dust and debris filled the air.

Miraculously, the man survived, uncrushed. His comrades were not so lucky.

They met gruesome ends, buried under the collapsed building debris.

The man tumbled, bones broken, skin torn, as if hit by a car.

Rolling out of the alley’s darkness, he saw the prey they had been chasing.

“Hah… Hah… Did I survive?”

The man gasped for breath, celebrating his survival, but unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet.

From the darkness of the collapsed building, a white mass stained with blood slowly approached.

It was the figure of a death-bringing reaper.

“H… Help me…”

The man struggled to turn his head, reaching out towards the prey he had been chasing.

But at that moment, a giant steel structure fell from the sky.

“Ah.”

Seeing it, the man sensed death and closed his eyes.

Free City Alliance outskirts, Scavenger territory.

For some reason, the Scavengers seemed to have stopped their pursuit, but Qing’s group still proceeded cautiously through the alleys.

On Qing’s head rested the unidentified furball.

The furball had flattened itself slightly, as if insisting it was a hat.

“Are you sure that thing is okay?”

The woman with the sniper rifle slung over her shoulder asked Qing, her expression uneasy.

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

Qing lifted the furball from her head and hugged it tightly.

Tapping the small hands and feet protruding from the furball, Qing smiled contentedly.

The woman looked at her dubiously, as if observing someone mentally contaminated.

Treating such an ominous Object, which had even been stained with blood, so familiarly?

The woman quickened her pace, walking alongside the man leading the way.

(Still haven’t found it?)

The woman whispered, close to the man.

(Do you think I’m as good with machines as ‘Qing’? I’m looking, so wait.)

The man was tapping on a tiny smartphone, completely mismatched with his large hands, trying to find information about the Object clinging to Qing.

Finding the information was proving more difficult than expected.

Connecting to Chinese networks from the Free City Alliance was difficult, and connecting to overseas networks from China was also challenging.

(Ah, found it!)

After painstakingly navigating various detours and scouring the internet, the man finally found information about the unidentified Object.

<Name: Orange Reaper.>

<Grade: Expected to be Special-Grade, like other derivatives of the Gray Reaper.>

<Derivative Object of the Special-Grade Object, Gray Reaper.>

<No known abilities other than flight and control over cloud meat.>

Seeing the information displayed on the screen, the woman was so startled she almost shouted.

(Special-Grade? Special-Grade?)

Objects suitable for hunting and modification into prosthetics appeared quite frequently around the Free City Alliance, but strangely, Special-Grade Objects had never appeared, making it even more shocking.

(Special-Grade… According to the mercenary manual, ‘Special-Grade’ is impossible to deal with…)

(Well, that’s the grade assigned in Korea, so their system might be different from ours. Still, we should watch it carefully without provoking it.)

(Right.)

While the man and woman whispered, looking at Qing, the group arrived before a massive wall.

“The security wall. Just gotta cross this, and the mission is complete!”

Qing looked up at the security wall with a somewhat happy expression, clearly exhausted.

The ‘Giant Mother Golem’ creation ended with embedding sparkling starlight into it.

That ‘Giant Mother Golem’ became a massive structure decorating the marshmallow plains.

It seemed the Blue Reapers intended to use it in a way where it could be summoned when called.

<Mother Golem!>

<Real Mother Golem!>

Perhaps because a golem as large and radiant as the giant mother was created, the Blue Reapers looked extremely happy.

And I became happy too.

For some reason, the Golden Reapers had given me a vacation.

So, after a long time, I could return to my containment room and rest comfortably.

Mother vacation!

Vacation!

Except for the fact that I always had to be with Golden Reapers during vacation, it wasn’t much different from usual.

Golden Reapers clung everywhere, from my antennae to my fingers, toes, and even between strands of hair.

Ugh, so cumbersome.

If Golden Reapers weren’t soft like cushions, it would have been incredibly uncomfortable, but because they were soft, it was tolerable.

I sank my back into the soft bed and covered myself with the soft, warm Golden Reapers instead of a blanket.

And after a long time, I turned on the TV and started watching the news.

[Hello. We bring you breaking news.]

[In cooperation with Chinese public security, the gang smuggling Golden Horns has been apprehended. The arrested suspects were in a shocking state, their entire bodies modified with Objects.]

[This signifies a breach in the blockade of the Free City Alliance, which was meant to prevent Object-modified individuals from ever leaving.]

[In response, the Chinese government has declared a state of emergency and urgently dispatched Association experts to the vicinity of the Free City Alliance to thoroughly re-examine the blockade system.]

[Chinese authorities have stated they will continue to deal strictly with illegal smuggling and Object modification. We will continue to bring you the latest updates as they come in.]

[This has been a breaking news report.]

Gold bars made from melted Golden Horns were shown on the news screen.

Unlike ordinary gold, it was a lump of gold with a warm color, as if containing the sun.

Comparing it to the back of the head of a Golden Reaper watching TV with me, the golden color was certainly similar.

Turning my head, I saw the Golden Reapers watching TV blankly with innocent expressions, not understanding the content at all.

Waving their golden antennae gently without knowing what it was about.

Shouldn’t the eldest ones study a bit?

Thinking this, I poked a Golden Reaper’s antenna.

The Golden Reaper lightly bit my finger and giggled.

Well, since it’s cute.

Is studying unnecessary?

Free City Alliance, outskirts of the ‘Wei Family’ territory.

Qing and her group, having passed through the security wall as large as a giant building, were arguing quietly at the location where they were to deliver the requested items, waiting for the recipient.

“Qing, think again. Something about this mission feels off.”

The woman clung to Qing, saying the mission itself was suspicious and they should give up.

Abandon the mission, take the goods back to the broker who gave them the job.

Indeed, there were quite a few strange things about this mission.

The Scavengers tracking them down, somehow knowing their location.

The unexpectedly large number of attackers.

The appearance of the Scavenger leader, ‘Tank’.

And finally, the Scavengers disappearing abruptly.

But Qing slowly shook her head, stubbornly refusing.

“This is a request from the ‘Wei Family’, one of the three families ruling the Alliance. If we give up, it’ll be hard to get mercenary work.”

“That’s true, but…”

“Besides, if the cargo is valuable enough for the leader of a regional Scavenger group to come after it, abandoning it might cause even bigger problems.”

And Qing muttered softly with a serious face.

(And I need to take on ‘Family missions’ to earn a lot of money. There’s something I absolutely must do.)

Her voice was too low for even the woman standing nearby to hear, but the Orange Reaper perched on Qing’s head like a hat could hear it.

I’ll grant it for you. That wish.

The Orange Reaper vowed, projecting a will its attached human couldn’t hear.

Step step.

Just as the woman was about to argue for reconsideration, the sound of neat footsteps began to approach.

The man tensed, his expression hardening.

“Damn, these Family types give me the creeps every time I see them.”

The person from the Family looked ‘like’ they were wearing a neat gray suit.

The problem was that the clothes and body were seamlessly connected.

An appearance like half-rotten mackerel cut into hexagons and stitched together haphazardly.

An appearance where skin and clothes stuck together like a statue ‘shaped like a person wearing clothes’.

And eyes completely filled with black pupils, lacking whites, like an alien’s.

It was an appearance difficult to get used to.

“You’ve brought the goods.”

At the words of the recipient from the Family, the man placed the bag he was carrying down in front.

The recipient took the bag, holding it for a moment as if gauging its weight.

Soon, he nodded and opened his mouth.

“Good work. Once the goods are confirmed, the promised amount will be deposited. You may leave.”

The recipient’s tone was stiff and businesslike.

Like a programmed machine, his voice lacked any emotional inflection.

His gaze towards the group was indifferent and cold.

And just like that, the conversation ended.

Qing and her group, as if accustomed to this, began to leave the place without another word.

The Orange Reaper, disguised as a strange furball head ornament, remained tense, its eyes fixed on the ‘Recipient’.

Harmful Object!

The Scavengers, cobbled together from Objects, were human.

But this Recipient was extremely harmful, and a 100% pure Object that had never been human.

Silence descended upon the clearing after Qing’s group left.

In that silence, the Recipient meticulously confirmed that no one was around.

Then, undoing the heavy seal made with a special structure, he opened the backpack.

A brilliant golden light shimmered in the clearing.

The contents of the backpack were cubes of processed Golden Horns smuggled from Korea.

A flicker of relief crossed his face as he slung the backpack back onto his shoulder, but it quickly returned to an expressionless mask.

He scanned the surroundings, his gaze wary, but only silence greeted him.

Only then did he seem to relax, beginning to mutter softly to himself.

The Recipient’s unfocused eyes seemed to gaze into the empty space beyond, as if looking past the physical realm.

“It seems the Scavengers caught the scent… but the goods arrived safely.”

After a brief pause, he added with force in his voice.

“Yes.”

Surveying the area once more, a subtle smile played on the Recipient’s lips.

His eyes sparkled, like someone who had obtained something precious.

“And confirmation will be needed, but…”

The Recipient caressed the backpack and continued slowly.

“I have found a pure human suitable for the great cause.”

His voice held both anticipation and caution.

Gripping the backpack tightly, he nodded once more, then began to walk away with large strides.

Through the dust motes glittering in the sunlight, the Recipient’s figure grew increasingly distant.