Seoul Object Story
Chapter 240: Broken Moon (2)

On top of the high blue sky, a White Hungry Ghost was crying sadly.

“Kyuuuhihing.”

That cry was filled with deep sadness.

Just a short while ago, it was lying in the hospital bed, enjoying a peaceful daily life!

However, the peace that the White Hungry Ghost gained when the Gray Reaper left didn’t last long. Since it wasn’t peace that he had achieved with its own strength, that peace was bound to be easily broken.

Lately, the Orange Reapers had grown increasingly mischievous. While wandering around looking for someone to prank, it found the White Hungry Ghost and immediately targeted it. The Orange Reapers usually hated hanging out together, but this time, four of them gathered together and began to harass the White Hungry Ghost.

After stuffing a lot of sweet hot chocolate into White Hungry Ghost’s stomach, they used their ability to fly freely in the sky to grab White Hungry Ghost’s short legs one by one and pull them up into the air.

The destination was the Black Sugar Desert.

The Black Sugar Desert that the Orange Reaper really hated!

The other Mini Reapers liked the place quite a bit, but the Orange Reapers hated the Black Sugar Desert because sugar crystals kept digging into their cotton balls.

The Orange Reapers got together and decided to play a prank on the Mini Reapers who were playing in the Black Sugar Desert. They were floating around above the Black Sugar Desert, looking for their prank target.

Then, when the Orange Reapers found the Mini Reapers building a sand castle, they immediately patted White Hungry Ghost’s stomach.

“Kyuhing.”

The White Hungry Ghost cried softly at the Orange Reapers’ instruction and opened its mouth wide. Then, the hot chocolate that was in his stomach poured out like a waterfall.

The sweet hot chocolate bombardment hit the Mini Reapers who were building sand castles.

It was a scene reminiscent of a battlefield bombardment.

The sand castles they had painstakingly built collapsed and crumbled in an instant.

‘!!!’

The Golden Reaper, who had been building a castle on an unusual scale, felt resentful as if their own house had collapsed.

The Blue Reaper, who was wearing the Golden Reaper doll costume and secretly making its own small and delicate sand castle among the Golden Reapers, shed tears.

The sand castle of the Red Reaper, who was red and a little shorter than the other Mini Reapers and was loved by the Gray Reaper, also collapsed due the hot chocolate.

The sand castle was beautiful and shining like melted sugar and hardened glass, but it couldn’t hold up when the heavy hot chocolate poured down.

Only the highest spire sparkled like an overturned icicle, but even the melted considerably, so it couldn’t be called a spire anymore.

The Orange Reapers saw that and laughed happily like the Gray Reaper. However, when several Golden Reapers drew their swords of light and started chasing them, the Orange Reapers started to run away in a hurry, increasing their altitude.

Of course, they left the White Hungry Ghost who had already outlived its usefulness behind.

The fallen White Hungry Ghost fell onto the melted spire and it pierced its stomach, turning into a skewer.

“Kyuhinghing.”

The White Hungry Ghost, who could not be happy, cried sadly.

Then, the Yellow Reaper slowly approached the poor White Hungry Ghost.

The Yellow Reaper smiled gloomily and asked it,

Don’t you need a doll costume to avoid pranks?

The White Hungry Ghost cried loudly even though its stomach was pierced.

“Kyu!”

It was an answer full of agreement.

*********

Yerin was stroking the hair of a strange Golden Reaper. It wasn’t strange when she looked at it, but when she looked away, she felt like something was strange.

The strange Golden Reaper had been appearing at Sehee Research Institute a lot lately.

Yerin closed her eyes tightly and thought deeply. When she looked at it, she didn’t find it really strange, the feeling of it being the Golden Reaper was so strong that she closed her eyes.

As she closed her eyes and thought about it, strange things started to come to mind. Even though it was the Golden Reaper, it didn’t seem to have any golden light flowing out of its body.

It was strange.

The strange Golden Reaper was also walking on all fours, which was different from how it usually was.

Golden Reaper definitely didn’t walk on all fours.

Moreover, the strange Golden Reaper seemed to make a strange ‘Kyu’ sound.

The Golden Reaper didn’t seem to make any sound, though?

It’s definitely strange!

Then, Yerin opened her eyes again.

The Golden Reaper in front of her was still lying on the floor with a happy expression.

The strange feeling disappeared as soon as she opened her eyes.

Yerin smiled again, stroking the Golden Reaper’s soft hair.

The reason she was confused for a moment was probably because she had just woken up from a nap in the containment room without the Gray Reaper.

The strange Golden Reaper enjoyed Yerin’s care, raised its body elegantly, and let out a cute cry.

“Kyu.”

*********

[ Broken moon. Repeated past. Twisted ending. ]

I kept listening to the Hermit Crab’s words, which were difficult to understand.

It was a word without any hints or context, but as I kept listening, things started to come to mind little by little.

< Snowfield Moon. >

The environment here seemed perfect for the purple Snowfield Moon to appear.

As I thought of the ‘Snowfield Moon’, I took my eyes off the empty snowfield and looked up at the sky.

And there it was, a faint purple moon that looked like it would break at any moment was floating. It was so dim that it could not be seen by ordinary human eyes. Moreover, it had lost its presence to the point that I could not feel it with my senses.

It was completely different from the moon I had seen in Dobong-gu.

The purple moon in my memory had caused intense mind corruption and created shadows of interesting shapes. However, the current moon was not emitting purple light that could pass through matter, and it was not even emitting light that could be seen by human eyes.

Seems like that thing is dead too.

The moon was already dead, like the Hermit Crab. To be exact, it wasn’t dead, but it’s ‘already dead’.

It was alive but stopped, it also had already lost all its strength and seemed like its existence would collapse at any moment.

…

I stared at the moon for a long time, and a faint dream began to flow into me. A dream that repeated endlessly at an incredible speed.

It was a dream like a kaleidoscope that I saw at the border of life and death. It was a nightmare that I could not wake up from.

Strangely, just looking at the moon made me feel depressed, so I quickly checked its killing condition.

< The dream ends properly. >

Should I manipulate the dream?

Fortunately, I had the ability to freely enter and exit dreams, and I had experience in manipulating dreams to destroy Objects.

This time it will be easy!

I smiled confidently and used the power of the Golden Tree to delve into the dream of the Snowfield Moon.

The moment I fell into the dream, I felt as if I was passing through a bright Halo.

*********

As soon as I entered the dream, a burning pain surged through my entire body.

“Haa…!”

A groan escaped my lips.

As soon as I entered the dream, I was able to breathe, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to it.

It hurts!

What the heck?

It felt a little different than when I used Halo.

There was no shock that made my body feel like it was going to break, but it was strangely painful to endure.

Moreover, my vision that made me able to see anywhere through my skin had disappeared.

I slowly opened my eyes, which were closed because of the pain, to grasp the situation.

Then, a human figure with burns reflected in the mirror in front of me.

Of course, there was no hair, and the human’s skin was horribly twisted and damaged.

I was lying down in a room with mirrors on all sides, as if I was being asked to view the figure directly.

It seemed that I had entered the dream not as the Gray Reaper, but as a human.

“Heuuuu.”

I tried to open my mouth to speak, but the words did not formed and only the sound of the wind escaped.

It wasn’t because I didn’t speak much that I forgot how to speak.

It was because my tongue was cut off.

As soon as I confirmed that, there were some guys that came to mind.

The ninjas of the Gyeyang Mountain!

Burns all over the body and a cut tongue.

Those were the characteristics of the ninjas I had seen at Gyeyang Mountain.

However, the body I possessed was different from the ninjas. The ninjas were wrapped tightly in a plain black cloth, but the clothes this body was wearing looked luxurious at first glance.

A gorgeous combination of black and white.

In fact, these clothes weren’t worn, but looked like they were put on.

That would make sense, since this body’s wrists and ankles were pierced with iron stakes.

Why on earth did they do this?

A ninja opened the mirror in front of me and came in.

And he handed me a note.

[Saint, have you coughed? It’s time for morning prayer.]

The moment I saw the note, I felt my body stiffen.

It seemed as if my body remembered the fear.

At the same time, flames rose from the floor and started burning my body.

“Ugh.”

The air leaked out of my lungs on its own.

It would not have been strange for a normal human to die right away because of the flame, but strangely, this body continued to regenerate and did not die.

Just why?

As soon as I had that question, I felt a huge amount of firewood in my heart.

It was almost twice as much as the firewood inside Yerin.

The firewood was working on humans, albeit weakly, and it was restoring my body to a level where it would not die.

Of course, it was not a blessing, but a curse.

It meant that I would suffer forever.

*********

Keuuuuuk.

As soon as the ‘morning prayer time’ ended, I pulled the iron stakes firmly embedded in my wrists and ankles out.

I suppressed my groans as much as possible so that the ninja outside wouldn’t notice.

My whole body was burned, all my muscles were cut, and there’s even the iron stakes, so why could I move?

It was because I was a pro at handling firewood.

Even a human body could perform a miracle or two with this much firewood.

Clank-! Clank-!

When I pulled out all the stakes, my body felt lighter and I felt like I was alive again.

Then I spread the firewood in my chest all over my body and started to heal the wounds all over my body.

Starting with the burns, my muscles, and even my tongue.

Then, I looked down at my white, soft-looking palms and laughed quietly.

“Ha-haha. It really works.”

I clenched my palms as I heard an unfamiliar voice in my ear.

Then I looked up and looked at the mirror, and I froze.

‘?’

Reflected on the mirror, ‘Yerin’ who looked to be about 10 years old than the Yerin who I often see was reflected in the mirror, wearing a fancy outfit.

‘???’

***

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