Bang, bang, bang.

A sound like air bursting erupted from the spotlight.

The spotlight illuminated the entire abandoned building.

It was a thorough perimeter, as if they were guarding against something.

Hoo, hoo, hoo.

An owl, hooting ominously, fled the light with a pitiful cry.

"A mysterious vehicle has been spotted near the target building! Don’t let your guard down!"

Men in blue uniforms started organizing the scene efficiently.

A man in a black suit stood in front of the mysterious vehicle, listening to a report.

"It seems… this might be one of our vehicles."

The agent in the black suit sighed deeply, as if annoyed.

"It seems we weren’t notified that another team would be coming here."

His tone suggested he had some idea of what was going on.

"The hood is still warm, so it doesn’t seem like it arrived long ago. Let’s proceed with caution."

The agent removed his hand from the hood and spoke.

"Even if it’s one of our vehicles, we can’t afford to be careless. Please gather all relevant information about the vehicle owner and submit it. I’ll handle the report to the higher-ups."

The agent in the black suit, speaking in a formal tone, then headed towards the abandoned building, where the bright light was concentrated.

As the agent approached the building, a blonde girl stepped in front of him.

"Mister!"

"Miss, you’ve come."

The girl, holding a notebook and pen identical to the ones the black-suited agent was using, spoke with a slightly sulky expression.

"Mister, why did you leave me behind again?"

The agent had secretly gone on this mission because he didn’t want to bring the girl to such a dangerous site, but he couldn’t escape her.

Most likely, her bodyguards and secretaries, who stood like a protective screen around her, had somehow managed it.

The girl, who looked about elementary school age, was the granddaughter of the president of the 'National Object Management Association.'

Although her grandfather was under investigation for corruption, his power hadn’t completely vanished.

The agent in the black suit, resigned, decided to let her tag along.

The agent in the black suit inspected the traces on the wall, then opened his notebook and jotted down a few words.

The girl, seeing this, opened her own notebook and scribbled something down before dashing off to pick up a piece of concrete.

"Mister! Isn’t this investigation wrong? This place looks too old to have been a research facility just a week ago."

The blonde girl spoke with a worried expression.

The agent pointed to various spots in the lobby with his finger as he explained.

"Miss, from here to there, you can see traces of where desks used to be. These are very recent. It’ll be more visible in daylight."

The agent moved forward while making simple notes and sketches, simultaneously giving instructions to the surrounding staff.

The girl watched him and then mimicked his actions, scribbling in her notebook as she followed.

While the agent and the girl continued their investigation, they came across a man sprawled on the floor.

"Ah! This must be the person who drove the vehicle outside!"

The blonde girl exclaimed confidently, placing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest.

"That’s a strong possibility. Although there are no items to identify him, I think I’ve seen this face before. We crossed paths once at the temporary headquarters in Korea."

The agent agreed with the girl’s statement, making her giggle with delight.

The agent then instructed a staff member in a blue uniform.

"Tie him up securely and keep a close watch. We’ll have a lot of questions for him."

The agent then resumed his steady march forward.

The abandoned building, which had exuded an eerie atmosphere, had much of that mood dissipated by the presence of so many people and their flashlights.

The men, who were meticulously searching every room, finally arrived at a place that seemed particularly suspicious.

It was an area filled with charred remains.

The blonde girl, with a troubled expression, asked:

"Mister… are these… human bodies?"

Her face had turned pale.

"The atmosphere is so creepy; they must be human bodies, right? Who could have done something so horrible?"

Despite her usual pretense of being an adult, the girl seemed not to have developed a tolerance for such scenes.

Seeing this, the agent in the black suit quietly approached and gently patted her on the head.

The girl smiled sheepishly, her complexion visibly improving.

"This clearly seems to be the work of an Object."

The agent concluded that it was an Object’s doing.

The girl tilted her head in confusion.

"Huh? An Object? But there’s nothing here."

"These are bodies that were instantly killed by extremely high temperatures. There are no signs they were moved, and no traces left around them. Only an Object could do something like this."

"Thinking about it that way, it does seem like an Object."

"Let’s all withdraw. We’ll prepare thoroughly for an Object and re-enter during daylight. Proceeding as we are now is too dangerous."

Believing that there was an Object capable of causing harm, the agent immediately ordered a retreat.

There was no need to take unnecessary risks.

The agent turned and started walking out of the building.

I hung upside down from the chandelier in the abandoned building, watching the blonde girl.

She was an intriguing child.

Though she acted nonchalantly, there was a certain elegance to her.

She appeared young, yet she had a bold side, and the words she used were quite mature.

I wondered if this was what modern aristocrats, raised with a good education, were like.

In truth, I had come to this building just to confirm whether the visitors were allied with the zombie creators and planned to leave quickly. But the girl caught my eye, so I continued observing.

From what I had seen while following the girl, it seemed there was no need to worry about tracking down the criminals.

I didn’t know who they were, but they were far more competent than I had expected.

To think there were such capable people in Korea!

Clap, clap, clap.

I clapped silently, in my ghostly form where no one could hear me.

I decided to leave the rest to them and head back to Sehee Research Institute to rest.

In the middle of the day, with the sun high in the sky, a heavily armed team of staff members rushed to the basement.

The agent in the black suit stood with his arms crossed, waiting for their call.

"All clear!"

Only after hearing those words did the agent uncross his arms and slowly descend the dark stairs with the girl.

The basement of the abandoned building appeared to have been used as a laboratory, with various experiment records scattered all over the place.

"Mister, it seems they didn’t even bother to destroy the experiment records. It looks like they left them on the floor on purpose."

The girl, curious, was darting around when she picked up a piece of paper from the floor and commented.

"These experiment logs alone would be enough to sentence them to a long term in prison, but they didn’t destroy them and just left them scattered around…"

The agent also picked up a piece of paper and examined it as he spoke.

"It certainly doesn’t seem like they were trying to hide the information. That leaves us with two possibilities. Either they are absolutely confident they won’t get caught, or they’ve committed acts far worse than what’s documented here."

The blonde girl looked horrified.

"Could there be anything worse than this? Kidnapping, confinement. Extracting people’s eyes while they’re alive. Replacing their organs with crudely made Objects. Just reading this makes my head spin."

The girl shook her head vigorously, as if trying to forget the horrifying information she had just learned.

Passing through the corridor littered with papers, the agent and the blonde girl arrived at a large room.

It was an enormous room.

Hangers, like those used to hang pork, were installed along the sides of the room, and the center of the room was filled with pools of spilled blood.

And in the middle of that pool of blood lay a man’s head, dead, with his tongue sticking out.

The agent, seeing this, quietly approached the girl from behind and covered her eyes.

"Ah! Is there something here again?"

The blonde girl grumbled, but she didn’t resist.

Perhaps she had seen something she shouldn’t have in a similar situation before.

"This man is someone wanted in Korea."

The agent, recognizing the man’s head on the floor, quickly deduced his identity.

"Miss, you might remember him from my office. He’s the middle-aged man who set up a fake research facility and kidnapped a lot of people."

The girl nodded.

"Oh, the man wanted for the Golden Horn case? I remember!"

The agent snapped his notebook shut, signaling the end of the investigation.

"We’ve recovered most of the Golden Horns that were confirmed to be leaked, so our primary task is done."

The agent spoke while looking at the numerous Golden Hearts scattered around the room.

"Now we need to find out who was behind all of this."

The man who seemed to know something about this incident ultimately wasn’t of any help.

"I’m telling you, there was a ghost!"

Whenever asked about what happened in the building, he kept going on about a ghost.

His statements were disjointed, and he hadn’t seen much clearly, so it wasn’t even clear what kind of Object it might have been.

Moreover, by the time the investigation team arrived, there was no trace of the Object left.

Even when asked why he was there, he couldn’t provide much useful information.

This man was more like a day laborer, dragged there because of his debts.

In other words, he knew nothing.

There was no point in continuing the interrogation.

The agent in the black suit stood up, holding the dozing girl in his arms.

As he left the interrogation room, he opened his notebook.

There was a simple drawing on the top of the page.

It was the only trace that seemed to have any evidentiary value.

When the man was found, there had been a distinct mark on his clothes.

Two neatly stamped footprints, as small as those of a baby.