The Gray Reaper, having lost interest in the "Luck Measuring Coin," redirected his curiosity elsewhere, wandering around the car and poking into various things.

It was to the point where it started interfering with driving.

Fortunately, the Reaper quickly lost interest in the car as well and curled up on the backseat, quietly falling asleep.

But perhaps because it wasn’t a particularly lucky day, an unexpected complication arose in what should have been a simple drive to our destination.

We were being followed.

Though the tailing vehicle was trying to keep a discreet distance, it was clearly the work of an amateur.

When I checked on our pursuer, it turned out to be a vehicle from “Daily Object,” a media outlet known to be heavily involved with Sehee Research Institute, though they’d had no dealings with me.

It seemed they’d spotted my car leaving the institute and decided to follow, hoping to catch something newsworthy.

I could easily shake off such amateur surveillance with a little effort, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble.

Rather than bothering with evasion, I decided to ignore them and head directly to the sinkhole evacuee camp.

I had no time to waste on foolish third-rate reporters.

I barely had enough time to focus on the task at hand.

Following the detective’s car, which had gained some notoriety recently, led me to the “Sinkhole Evacuee Camp.”

As expected, a detective who’s lived comfortably couldn’t shake off a seasoned reporter like me, with two years of experience surviving in the field.

Maybe I should quit journalism and become a detective instead? If someone like that could be known as the number one detective, the field must be a serious blue ocean.

In contrast, journalism was a clear red ocean, even for someone as skilled as me.

These days, it was hard to make money with so many media outlets cashing in on the Gray Reaper’s popularity.

What I needed was a “big scoop.”

Chasing after the detective’s car, which had left Sehee Research Institute, was a jackpot move.

The destination turned out to be the evacuee camp, which was under restricted access due to suspicions of an “Object incident.”

This place was a perfect match for a high-risk, high-return story.

A detective from Sehee Research Institute entering a restricted area? The scent of an exclusive was strong.

Arriving at the evacuee camp with the detective, the scene that greeted me was anything but pleasant.

Butterflies. Butterflies everywhere.

Looking down at the camp from the barrier that encircled it, it was filled with butterflies.

Butterflies on the ground, butterflies on the doorframes.

The sheer number of butterflies reminded me of midges clinging to a convenience store in the middle of summer—lively and horrifying.

But there was something I couldn’t understand.

Why build such a tall physical wall when ghostly butterflies were flying around?

It was clear that this useless barrier was why the butterflies had spread all the way to Sehee Research Institute.

The detective seemed aware of the ghostly butterflies, so shouldn’t he be pointing out how pointless this wall was?

Time was running out.

The time limit was about 48 hours.

In 48 hours, the Korean government planned to launch missile strikes and shell the camp and the sinkhole to resolve the butterfly crisis.

The government believed everyone in the camp was already dead and intended to proceed with the attack.

Why was this a time limit?

Because of what Watson had told me.

He said that if the missile strike hit the sinkhole, Agu and numerous other Objects would emerge.

And right now, Seoul didn’t have the means to defend against them.

I wanted to stop the missile strike, but there was no way they would accept such a claim without solid evidence.

But the government’s hands were tied.

With each passing moment, the number of people infected by the butterflies was growing exponentially, and if they didn’t act within a week, the number of infected would skyrocket.

From the government’s perspective, they had to choose between a guaranteed disaster from the butterfly infection and a possible, though uncertain, invasion by Agu.

In other words, the government had no time to waste.

The time I had negotiated with the government was 48 hours.

If I could destroy the source of the butterfly outbreak within 48 hours, the missile strike would be called off.

This was the most difficult and time-sensitive case I had ever taken on as a detective.

Come to think of it, it had always been like this.

Following the leads Watson provided always led to incredibly challenging cases.

And they were always massive cases that were hard to give up on.

As I looked at the gas lamp “Watson” in my right hand, I couldn’t help but think it was indeed a suspicious Object.

The blue ocean detective planned to enter the camp with soldiers about 24 hours later, searching for something.

How did I find this out?

There’s nothing money can’t buy.

Every reporter in this red ocean knows that.

So, I had only one thing to do.

I needed to infiltrate the camp ahead of time and find whatever the detective was looking for.

Even though I didn’t know what it was, it was sure to be something newsworthy.

And even if I couldn’t find it, I could just hide and follow the detective again to catch the scoop later.

Using soldiers to search a place no one can enter or leave due to the lockdown?

My journalistic instincts were screaming.

Sneaking into the camp to find the scoop wasn’t difficult.

The soldiers’ focus was solely on preventing people from leaving the camp, not on stopping anyone from entering.

Once inside, the atmosphere in the camp was anything but normal.

The camp was quiet, but not asleep.

That was the strange part.

Despite the late hour, no one in the camp was sleeping.

Well, that might be understandable.

But the fact that they were just standing around, staring blankly, was the real problem.

There was no sense of intelligence in their eyes, and their expressions were unsettling.

If I had to describe it... it was like looking into a shark’s eyes.

There was almost no emotion, just a cold, empty stare.

The longer I wandered through the camp, the more my shoulders drooped, and the more energy I lost.

What a miserable experience in the middle of the night.

Cough, cough.

As I was searching for anything unusual, I heard coughing.

Looking in the direction of the sound, I saw a container house with its door wide open.

Inside the container where the coughing came from, there was a boy lying down, with no lights on in the room.

He had sunken eyes, dark circles, and a weary expression—he looked utterly exhausted.

“Oh, haha. You’re normal, huh?”

The boy faintly smiled and continued speaking between blood-stained coughs.

“Mister, this is a nightmare, right? When do you think I’ll wake up from this dream?”

The boy’s words were so nonsensical that I couldn’t make sense of them.

I was about to ask, Kid, what the heck are you talking about? when the boy suddenly started vomiting blood furiously.

“What the—what is this?!”

The boy, who seemed determined to expel everything from his body, was soon reduced to nothing but shriveled skin.

Gasp, gasp.

The horrific sight made it hard to breathe.

I was so shocked that my hands and feet went cold.

As I caught my breath, I couldn’t help but scream again.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

The blood that had spilled onto the floor began to re-enter the boy’s body, causing him to swell back up. I couldn’t take it anymore and bolted out of there.

“This is insane. Insane! What the hell is this? Is this the reason the government locked this place down?”

“Then why didn’t they tell us? What about the public’s right to know?”

“They should have warned us about how dangerous this place is!!!”

The camp, which had seemed calm and peaceful at first glance, now felt like a scene from a horror game.

Sticky, clinging gazes followed me wherever I went.

And it was only now that I realized—they were surrounding me.

I was scared.

I wasn’t even sure if the people in this camp were still human.

Slowly, from far away, they began closing in on me, and I had no way out.

Before I could even reach the gap I had used to enter, I found myself surrounded, unable to move.

Like being on a packed train, they encircled me tightly, staring at me intently.

A man in front of me slowly approached and grabbed my shoulder painfully tight.

“Wh-what are you doing? You know this is considered assault, right?”

But no one answered; they just laughed.

Heh, heh, heh.

With strange, suppressed laughter, they started dragging me away roughly.

“You’re making a big mistake! I’m the lead reporter for Daily Object!”

I tried to use my reputation to get out of the situation, but it was useless.

Instead, a bizarre atmosphere filled the air.

It wasn’t like they were desperate criminals with nothing to lose; it was something more fundamentally different.

As my thoughts reached that point, I began to feel certain.

These people weren’t human.

Now that I looked closely, their expressions weren’t human either.

Their faces were twisted into strange, indescribable expressions.

It was hard to put into words, but if I had to describe it, it was like their faces were spinning in circles.

I had no idea how someone could even make such an expression.

At that moment, blood started gushing from my mouth like a broken faucet.

No matter how hard I tried to stop it, it wouldn’t stop.

“No, no, no, no, no!”

The image of that shriveled boy flashed through my mind.

I tried to stop the blood from gushing out, but it just kept pouring out relentlessly.

My limbs grew weak, and slowly, like an empty shell, I collapsed to the ground.

Coldness spread through my body as my vision began to darken.

In the corner of my fading sight, I thought I saw the figure of the Gray Reaper.

"Sa... save me."

But those words never fully formed; they scattered and dissolved into nothing.