Seoul Object Story
Chapter 289: Doll Expo (7)

Oh Muryong’s mansion in central Seoul had turned into a scene of carnage.

Like the Association Dolls running amok and turning all of Seoul into chaos, the mansion’s interior was a complete mess.

Most furniture was destroyed, and every door was smashed.

The dolls inside the mansion wandered with glowing red eyes.

People remaining in the mansion either lay dead or roamed like zombies, contaminated.

But Oh Muryong, the root cause of all this chaos, wore a smile of ecstasy in his secret laboratory.

The lab, which usually boasted a clean and sophisticated atmosphere, was now covered in red liquid reminiscent of blood.

In the center of the reddened lab, a tank filled with red liquid.

Until just moments ago, a doll modeled after Oh Muryong’s dead granddaughter had been lying in it, but now there wasn’t even a trace of the doll.

Then, the red liquid in the tank began to boil.

“Finally!”

Oh Muryong shouted in ecstasy watching this.

He who had ground up everything to resurrect his granddaughter, finally sensed that his granddaughter had revived.

Something surged up from the liquid that had devoured his granddaughter’s corpse, numerous granddaughter clones, and even the doll that had almost perfectly replicated his granddaughter.

It was a grotesque sphere that looked like hundreds of his granddaughter’s faces merged together.

The faces on the sphere’s surface showed all kinds of expressions - ecstasy, despair, sadness, pain - and blood tears flowed from every face.

And between those faces, the granddaughter’s small limbs protruded, tangled together.

Though made from his granddaughter, it looked far removed from human form.

Truly, a monster had been born.

But Oh Muryong saw differently.

He couldn’t hide his joy, shouting “Finally! Finally you’ve returned!”

To the already insane Oh Muryong, his granddaughter had perfectly revived.

Having lost normal judgment, he saw the monster he created as his granddaughter.

It was undeniable evidence of madness.

Sehee Research Institute, after the party ended.

Yerin left the still noisy backyard and moved to the quiet courtyard.

In that courtyard, she saw Golden Reapers who had set down their water-made spears and helmets, lying spread-eagled on the soft marshmallow ground to rest.

Some resting Golden Reapers were leaving the courtyard, seemingly trading shifts with Golden Reapers coming in to rest.

The Golden Reapers walked out thump thump with proud expressions, wearing cute helmets and holding long spears.

To Yerin, the courtyard now looked like a break room for Golden Reapers on guard duty.

It made her smile a little, feeling like the Golden Reapers had requisitioned the courtyard for military use.

Smiling softly, Yerin approached a resting Golden Reaper nearby and began poking its plump belly.

As she spent time like this, she soon felt something strange.

“The courtyard has gotten smaller.”

The courtyard, which usually felt spacious due to its connection with the mini Reaper garden, had somehow shrunk.

“Strange… This never happened before.”

Yerin muttered.

She looked around with a serious expression.

The connection between the courtyard and mini Reaper garden being cut off!

The severed connection with the mini Reaper garden clearly meant something serious had happened.

Anxiously, Yerin turned on the courtyard TV and flipped through channels.

But there seemed to be no stations broadcasting properly.

She began searching for people doing personal broadcasts on her phone, and finally found one showing the current situation.

In the screen, a man muttered in a small voice from a dark room:

“Look down there. Those are dolls.”

His camera showed bloody janitor dolls making creaking sounds as they wandered, and huge construction dolls destroying buildings.

The man pulled the curtain back and whispered:

“I was saving money thinking it’d be better to buy a good doll later than a cheap one now, but I almost made a big mistake.”

He went on to entertainingly tell stories about how he felt sad not having a doll, and how those sad experiences helped him survive.

Click. Click. Click.

Suddenly, clicking sounds came from the door.

“Bachelor in 405. Open the door.”

The man dropped his broadcasting phone in surprise but picked it up again, looking relieved after hearing the voice.

“Phew, it’s the landlady. Almost had a heart attack.”

He told his viewers:

“I’ll turn off the broadcast for now and start again later.”

And the screen went dark.

So it was a doll problem after all.

Watching the broadcast, Yerin was convinced it was a doll problem.

Having always felt uneasy around dolls, it felt like something bound to happen had happened.

Then she suddenly began worrying about Reaper.

“I wonder if Reaper is okay?”

To Yerin, an ominous atmosphere seemed to envelop all of Seoul, starting from the mini Reaper garden.

Though she tried to shake off her anxiety by poking the soft belly of the lying Golden Reaper, the unease in a corner of her mind wouldn’t easily dissipate.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

The blonde girl and Red Reaper walked through Seoul’s streets, filled with the dolls’ eerie sounds.

I must end this myself.

She thought she herself should conclude the story of Grandfather Oh Muryong and the numerous clones.

So she had set out alone, leaving behind even the Black Agent who wanted to follow.

Though the blonde girl walked with a serious expression, the Red Reaper on her shoulder seemed purely happy.

The Red Reaper grinned, feeling like it was out playing with big sister after a long time.

Since waking from her long sleep, the blonde girl naturally knew where the other ‘granddaughters’ were.

It could be because she had been perfectly reborn as a mini Reaper garden being, or because something had happened to the granddaughter.

Moreover, she could vaguely feel their emotions too.

It felt like some connection had formed between the numerous granddaughters, just as mini Reapers were connected to each other.

Sadness and pain and resentment.

Their pain-filled screams seemed to keep reaching her.

Crash!

As she walked endlessly toward grandfather’s mansion, a large shadow revealed its outline as a nearby building collapsed.

As a large construction doll slowly revealed itself, the Red Reaper raised weapons made of flame in both hands and projected its will.

Revolution!

The blonde girl slightly frowned seeing the burning sickle and hammer raised by the Red Reaper.

You learned strange things while I was asleep.

Thinking this, the blonde girl extended her right hand toward the construction doll.

Whoosh.

With the sound of something catching fire, her hand began to turn red.

Like the Red Reaper’s skin.

And her hair, which had been glittering gold, turned red like her crimson eyes.

Burn!

Sending a wish in her heart, the girl flicked her hand making a snap sound.

At that moment, bright red flames erupted across the construction doll’s entire body.

Desert flames.

The red moon’s flames that never extinguish as long as firewood remains, even when nothing is left to burn.

The burning red construction doll instantly melted into molten metal, as if touched by an Agwi’s white flames.

Thump thump.

The blonde girl passed by without even glancing at the doll, as if she had already dealt with it.

Simultaneously, the girl’s completely reddened body began returning to its original color.

The Red Reaper watched this with an extremely surprised expression, mouth wide open.

When the girl’s body returned to its original color, the Red Reaper jumped up and down making a fuss.

So strong!

And the Red Reaper began evangelizing its weapons to the blonde girl.

Revolution!

It whispered that fighting with burning sickle and hammer would make her a true revolutionary warrior.

But the blonde girl, who knew the meaning of the red sickle and hammer, only smiled slightly.

And she asked a question tinged with anger toward whoever taught such strange things to the innocent Red Reaper.

So who taught you about these revolutionary weapons?

Mother!

I see.

Ah… Gray Reaper can’t be helped.

Like the boundary between clear sky and rain clouds, the rain of Golden Reapers falling from the sky also drew a boundary.

Golden Reaper downpour spreading across Seoul centered on Sehee Research Institute, like a monsoon front.

I ran while watching the Golden Reapers running busily here and there.

Thump thump thump thump.

The destination was the center drawing in the Color Universe.

I thought only the expo site was in chaos, but coming outside, even greater chaos had descended across all of Seoul.

Corpses killed by doll attacks could be seen here and there.

And each time they saw such corpses, the Golden Reapers shed small tears while ignoring them and moving on.

Intense sadness flowed around such Golden Reapers.

It seemed like a chain of sadness - too sad to not mourn, but becoming sadder because there was no time to mourn.

Tododo. Tododo.

Golden Reapers were often seen moving back and forth between dolls with urgent steps like mine.

With endlessly regenerating dolls being so numerous and Golden Reapers being ridiculously few in comparison, this situation arose.

Running wildly to headbutt the heart of a doll trying to revive!

Then without rest, running to headbutt another doll!

Each Golden Reaper seemed to handle at least 10 dolls.

Moreover, when they found survivors, they even called cloud meat to secure them safely.

And other mini Reapers were occasionally visible too.

Black Reapers combined into giant Black Reapers and devoured dolls.

The Black Reapers’ sturdy stomachs made excellent doll prisons.

Orange Reapers commanded cloud meat to accommodate humans, while Blue Reapers went around treating injured humans.

Everyone looked extremely busy.

While running at high speed watching the mini Reapers’ struggles in ghost form, an ominous cocoon-like thing began to appear in the sky.

A red cocoon that looked like a hideous inflammation.

Ah, this is bad.

And seeing the cocoon, I immediately realized it was one of the Color Universe’s foreign gods.

The cocoon, which had been throbbing and pulsing wildly, stopped pulsing and began rotting purple, then split open with a rip and started spewing rotten blood.

Boom.

Something huge fell to the ground mixed in that blood.

That thing, clumped like a purple mass, began extending dozens of purple arms toward the sky like a butterfly hatching from a chrysalis.

Purple arms thin and long like water striders’.

In the center of those countless arms was a ribcage without a scrap of flesh and one grotesquely shaped face.

A face inverted like an upside-down hanging human face.

The red blood covering its entire body dried up as if time was accelerated, and the dried blood became a thin membrane that fluttered.

And that purple foreign god opened its mouth and shouted.

It was an ominous vibration that shook space but made no sound.