Seoul Object Story
Chapter 97: The Pudding Factory (9)

As Reaper stomped the ground with its feet three times, fire erupted from the ditch around the vacant lot.

Wow! It was just like in one of those action movies! Did the gasoline that leaked from the smashed sports somehow find its way into the drain?

Or maybe it was Reaper’s super-duper awesome abilities that spread the gasoline so perfectly? Hmm, it was probably the latter. Reaper’s just that cool!

Intense heat spread all around us. The vacant lot where the Hungry Ghost offshoot and Reaper were fighting had turned into a blazing stadium. Haha, who needs a fancy stadium when you’ve got this, right?

Rumble-!

All of a sudden, the ground started shaking like crazy.

“Did the underground tunnel collapse? No way it would collapse from just that much impact, though, right?”

James looked all wide-eyed like he was seeing something out of the world.

“Hehe! Reaper can do anything! If it puts its mind to it, it might even be able to destroy the World!” I boasted, grinning ear to ear.

I couldn’t help but tell him about how cool Reaper was!

Bang-!

Suddenly, there was an explosion, and the ground where the Hungry Ghost offshoot stood caved in unnaturally.

It reminded me of the Songpa-gu incident with that massive sinkhole, except this time, it was a cute little sinkhole.

It was almost like a custom-made pit for the Hungry Ghost offshoot!

By the time the dust finally settled, the Hungry Ghost offshoot had already been sucked into the hole. Hehe, it’s finished!

Thud-! Thud-!

With a loud thud, a gigantic monster’s hand shot out from the edge of the sinkhole.

The poor little sinkhole just couldn’t keep the Hungry Ghost offshoot contained.

Pop-!

The sound of its body exploding echoed around us, and the hand that had been gripping the ground so tightly vanished with the sound.

Then, there was a loud crashing sound, like a thunderclap, echoing from below.

Looked like the Hungry Ghost offshoot had taken another dive to the bottom of the sinkhole.

Out of nowhere, a swarm of Golden Reapers appeared, ready to jump into the hole and go after the Hungry Ghost’s hand like they were on a mission.

Before I knew it, the Reaper was surrounded by the Golden Reapers.

Reaper gave the command to charge by stretching its hand forward, and the Golden Reapers rushed towards the sinkhole, leaping in one by one.

Every time a Golden Reaper jumped in, there was this satisfying pop! It was like they were popping a giant piece of bubble wrapper.

Pop-! Pop-! Pop-! Pop-!

Each jump was followed by the sound of a piece of the Hungry Ghost getting destroyed.

Kuuaaaaaggghhhh-!

The Hungry Ghost’s painful screams echoed from inside the sinkhole. The once confident beast now sounded terrified. It was kinda sad, but also, well, that’s what happens when you mess with the Reaper!

Boom-!

With a massive boom, the Hungry Ghost offshoot sprang out of the sinkhole. Poor thing looked so pitiful floating in the air, all tattered and torn.

It had holes shaped just like the Golden Reapers all over its body. It was like looking at a piece of paper that got attacked by a paper-punching machine.

But… Something was off about the way it was falling. Wasn’t it supposed to be going after the Reaper?

Shit…! The offshoot was aiming for us!! It was coming right for us, watching from the edge of the vacant lot.

Even though it was all beat up, it was still a massive thing that could squash us like bugs.

Why now? Why us?

“Avoid it!”

I turned around at the sudden shout and saw James running away, carrying the unconscious man on his back.

But… oh shit. It was already too late to dodge.

Because I remembered the time I fought the real Hungry Ghost in Songpa-gu, I tried to make a sinkhole. But, alas, it didn’t work!

Hmph. Why didn’t the real Hungry Ghost escape from the sinkhole back in Songpa-gu?

Was there a secret stash of candies underground or something?

When I reenacted our epic showdown, I realized I had definitely gotten way stronger.

Yay me! This level of combat and regeneration didn’t strain my firewood reserves like it used to. I was practically unstoppable! Well, almost.

Since my little experiment was over, I figured it was time to get serious.

I called upon the Golden Reapers, and they came rushing out from the Garden of the Golden Reaper in droves.

Without any hesitation, a bunch of them zoomed towards the Hungry Ghost offshoot—it was super harmful to humans, after all—and chopped off its arms.

I then reached out towards the sinkhole and commanded the army of Golden Reapers—That naughty Object over there is harmful to humans! Go get it!

Plop-! Plop-!

Hop-! Hop-! Hop-!

The Golden Reapers hopped and plopped their way to the sinkhole, moving at their own pace, and without a moment’s hesitation, they leaped right in.

Pop-! Popop-!

The irregular popping sounds were like music to my ears. Hmm~~

As expected, the Golden Reapers were extremely efficient fuel-wise—hardly any firewood was needed to resurrect them ever since the Garden of Golden Reapers came into existence.

Meanwhile, I could feel the Hungry Ghost offshoot getting slower and slower with its regeneration.

Ha! I thought it would just, you know, die quietly. But nooooo, it had to make one last, desperate move. Ugh, why are they always like this?

For some reason, it decided to launch an attack in Yerin’s direction.

Hahahahahahahaa!!! Foolish Ghost, it seems like you don’t know! Did you think I was foolish enough to let Yerin be in danger?!

I stretched my hands out and summoned the Garden of Golden Reapers into reality.

As I spread the garden with all my might, just like magic, the boring old factory disappeared, replaced by a land of comfy beds, a sea of warm, gooey hot chocolate, and a paradise of cookies and pudding. Mmm, delicious!

“Huh? It suddenly became the Golden Reaper’s house?” Yerin exclaimed in a startled voice.

Rumble-!

The confused Hungry Ghost offshoot landed in a completely different spot than where Yerin was.

The sudden change in scenery must have thrown it off its game. It still seemed confused as to why its attack missed. Hehehe!

But, oh no, it wasn’t giving up yet! It charged at Yerin again.

“WAAAAAH!”

The Reaper spread its arms, and suddenly, the whole landscape around us transformed into the Golden Reaper’s house.

“How can an Object do something like this? What do I even call this? Space displacement? Space superimposition?” James muttered, from his expression he seemed to be extremely worried about something.

Grrrrrrrr-!

The Hungry Ghost offshoot wasn’t giving up, even with all this strange phenomenon going on. It just kept coming at us, like, totally unfazed.

I was kind of impressed by the persistence of the Hungry Ghost offshoot, but also kind of freaked out.

Then, something even more surprising happened! Reaper stomped its foot, and the space between us and the rushing Object crumpled up and formed a wall. Whoa!!

When Reapers stretched its hands out and pressed its palms together, the space where the Hungry Ghost stood began curling into a circle.

It was like watching it get sucked into a tear in space and then get stretched and distorted as if it was trapped in a fish-eye lens.

And then, Reaper clasped both hands tightly, and bam! The whole spherical space that was separated from the rest of the garden just disappeared into thin air.

Moments later, Reaper turned back to us, looking as calm as a cucumber.

“This… this is like the work of God,” James muttered, his face now a mix of awe and… was that despair? Oh no, not that dejected look again!

“Reaper, are you okay?” I called out, a little worried now. Reaper looked as calm and expressionless as usual, but there was something… off. Maybe tired?

Without thinking twice, I dashed over and wrapped my arms around Reaper in a big hug. Hugs always make things better! There were so many times when Reaper felt better after a good squeeze from me, so I hoped it would work this time too.

Sure enough, when I looked down at Reaper’s face, it seemed to perk up a bit.

I probably won’t ever forget what happened today. Yes, I know, it sounds cliche, but seriously, this was something else.

I’d always been pretty convinced that one day America—and, by extension, humanity—would catch up with the Objects and eventually conquer them.

But after what I saw today? Yeah, let’s just say my rock-solid confidence took a little wobble.

Will humanity be able to reproduce this phenomenon?

The good news, if you could even call it that, was that pulling off this kind of a phenomenon seemed tough even for the Gray Reaper.

Even though the Gray Reaper’s face was pretty much a constant poker face, I could tell that it was exhausted.

The unknown space that had covered the real world, disappeared like a bubble, just as suddenly as it had appeared.

“Now that the last obstacle blocking our path has disappeared, why don’t we go and reclaim the factory?” I said with my trademark bright voice and smile.

We finally went through the crushed metal door, and I finally reunited with the pudding production Object which had been stolen by that pesky subspecies of the Hungry Ghost.

“It will be quite the hassle to get the production back up and running,” I noted, eyeing the mess. The pudding production Object was in rough shape—like, really rough.

The place was trashed. A lot of the production facilities were smashed to bits, and let’s not even talk about the rabbit dolls.

Those poor things—arguably, the most important aspect—were either destroyed or had made a run for it.

At this rate, it looked like getting the factory back to normal would take a while.

In the deepest part of the factory, which the Hungry Ghost offshoot used to guard, I found something totally different from what I had imagined.

“Is this the Object that makes the puddings? I heard it was a pudding production factory, so I thought it’d be like a huge, bustling facility or something…”

The Object in front of me looked more like a playhouse toy than a factory.

It was a cute little kitchen with a cute countertop and tiny cooking utensils, which were big enough for the rabbit doll that attacked us.

Compared to the wrecked and broken surroundings, this mini kitchen was in pretty good shape.

“Looks like everything’s fine. So why’s it hard to get the production on track?”

“It’s actually quite difficult,” James explained. “We don’t have the most important part—the rabbit dolls. It takes a while to make them, so getting everything back to normal will take some time. Sorry, you came all the here just for the pudding.” He looked genuinely apologetic. Maybe he’s actually a good guy?

Reaper, who had been quietly listening to our conversation, suddenly skipped forward and stood in front of the mini kitchen.

Don’t tell me, did Reaper want to try it out itself? That’s so cuuute! But isn’t it too small for even the Reaper to enter though…?

But then Reaper opened its hand, and out popped the super cute, Golden Reapers!

With skillful movements, the Golden Reapers, hopped into the mini kitchen and took their positions like they belonged there.

“Huh? Are they all substitutes for the rabbit dolls?” James asked, looking all confused.

I was pretty surprised too. Still, Reaper is seriously amazing! It is so versatile!

Maybe from hearing our murmurs, the Reaper looked back at us with a smug expression as if boldly saying ‘Of course, I can do it. It’s no big deal.’

“Well then, let’s give it a try,” James said, placing his precious book on top of an apparatus. Suddenly, a golden flame rose from the book and the mini kitchen was lit up.

And then a cute little cooking process started.

Each Reaper had its assigned task, all of them working in perfect harmony. The strange thing was, to my eyes the time inside the mini kitchen seemed to pass ten times faster than on the outside.

Well, maybe it’s just my imagination!

In no time, the cooking process was finished and the pudding was ready to eat. From there, the pudding got wrapped in a bubble and made to float towards the chimney attached to the mini kitchen.

“Woah! The puddings were made so quickly!!”

“Well… Time is actually moving faster inside that kitchen. So once we get the factory up and running and all the remaining mini kitchens are operational again, the puddings will come out much, much faster than this.”

I watched the pudding bubble float up, picturing the Reaper’s cute and happy face when eating the pudding. But when I turned my head to look at Reaper, it seemed to be… dissatisfied.

Oh no! Why’s it so upset this time?

After what seemed to be much contemplation, the Reaper walked over to James, picked up his book artifact, and tossed it back to him with a little huff.

Then with a determined, very serious look, Reaper placed its hand on the apparatus where the book used to be. Golden flames erupted from Reaper’s body and were instantly sucked into the apparatus.

“Huh? Huh?” I blinked in confusion, trying to understand when 1% of what was happening.

The mini kitchen sped up, accelerating little by little.

10x speed. 100x speed. 1,000x speed. 10,000x speed.

The time was accelerated so much that the Golden Reapers’ movements didn’t even leave any afterimages.

Even though James was shouting ‘stop’ at the top of his voice, the situation was already far out of control.

Bubbles filled with pudding were being shot out of the chimney like cannonballs. A barrage of pudding bubbles attacked the factory!!

Boom-!

The pudding barrage was so intense, that it blew the factory’s ceiling open, and pudding bubbles scattered everywhere, raining down like a desert shower.

Oh wow, the whole world was full of pudding now.

But… what do I do? I don’t wanna get scolded by Seoah unnie!!