A familiar scene appeared.

No, it was a scene I never wanted to see again.

Pale moonlight streaming down.

An inexplicable chill that I couldn't shake off.

Darkness with a will of its own, so thick you couldn't see an inch ahead.

It was the hellish Seoul Forest from my memories.

It's cold.

I shouldn't be able to feel the cold, yet it was unbearably cold.

In the dark forest at midnight, I was standing in the rain, soaking wet.

Even though it was raining, a mysterious full moon was visible in the sky.

Even without lungs, it felt like I was out of breath.

I dug the ground endlessly with my bare hands.

My soft gray skin was torn and crushed from digging and scraping against the stones.

My hands were covered in wounds.

Yellow flames flowed from the wounds on my hands like blood.

I wished for the life of an Object, but this wasn't the life I had hoped for.

Ever since I opened my eyes in the forest, I had always felt like I was teetering on the edge of death.

My bare feet, too, were covered in wounds.

The soft soles of my feet were easily torn and pierced in the forest.

Even an ordinary branch could easily pierce through my feet.

I opened my mouth.

In my frustration, I opened my mouth as if to scream like I did when I was human, but no sound came out.

If I could just shout out loud, maybe I would feel a bit better...

I kept digging the ground, but there was no end in sight.

I was digging to kill the mole that would die in the moonlight, just as it had slept, relentlessly digging to where the mole lay.

To survive in this harsh forest.

I kept digging into the ground.

My hands and feet, softer than a human's, became ragged each time they struck the hard ground.

My senses, more sensitive than a human's, made me writhe in pain from even the lightest of wounds on my skin.

I couldn't even cry out loud like a human.

The biting cold refused to fade away.

This dark night seemed like it would never end.

No matter how much I dug, I couldn't see the end of the ground where the mole lay sleeping.

As I continued to dig, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.

What exactly am I doing right now?

This painful scene was something I had already experienced before.

It was from before I had stumbled into the forest, before I had gone to the Sehee Research Institute.

It was during the time when I had been killing Objects desperately to survive.

Now, I should be enjoying a happy life at the research institute...

What I was seeing now was the memory of the day I had endlessly dug the ground to kill the sleeping mole.

The memory of chasing the mole for days and nights, digging into the ground.

If my memory was correct, this was a memory of victory.

It was the day when I finally reaped the reward of my long struggle to kill the mole.

The night when the full moon shone brightly, when the moonlight was visible despite the rain.

The memory of the day when I dug into the mole's lair and exposed it to the deadly moonlight.

The memory of the moment when the mole burned in the moonlight, turning to ash, and I finally obtained the power of ghostification I had so long desired.

It was a painful memory, but I remembered it clearly because it marked a moment of success.

If the genre of Seoul Forest before I obtained ghostification was an irresistible horror thriller, after I obtained it, the forest turned into a blockbuster where the protagonist had a chance to win.

As I realized this, the world around me began to distort.

Ah, so it was just a dream.

I could feel the pulsating rhythm of the golden tree beneath this false Seoul Forest.

As the world shattered, I awoke from my sleep.

When I woke up, what I saw before me was a golden reaper punch.

Thud, thud.

The golden reaper, with a worried expression, was punching my cheek.

Was it trying to wake me up?

As soon as the golden reaper saw that I had opened my eyes, it stopped punching and clung to my cheek.

I got up and looked around at the golden tree, noticing that nothing had changed.

Ah, so waking up from sleep doesn't count as a human awakening.

It seems that the condition can only be met when a real human wakes up.

Quite a bit of time had passed while I was asleep.

It would be troublesome if a whole day passed like this...

The time was approaching when the ephemeral golden reaper would disappear.

Even if I created another golden reaper, there was no guarantee it would act exactly the same as now.

It was hard to predict what it was thinking, it didn't speak, and I couldn't control it, so it was difficult to make any assumptions.

I checked the destruction condition again, touching the golden tree to see if anything had changed.

"A human must overcome the tree's nightmare."

It remained the same.

However, there was a change.

The destruction condition hadn't changed, but I could now sense other things from the pulsation of the tree.

Now, it felt like I could invade someone else's dreams.

I had a feeling that I could enter someone else's dream by following the rhythm flowing through the tree.

Was this phenomenon a result of overcoming the nightmare once?

I patted the golden reaper on my cheek.

It was a sign not to worry, even if I collapsed again.

After tapping the golden reaper's head a few times, I entrusted myself to the pulsation of the tree once more.

Zzz

Clumsy buildings created by a lack of imagination.

A poorly depicted outer city, as if it had been left unfinished.

Everything was haphazardly constructed, except for the man who was running frantically, his expression one of utter desperation.

This must be the dream of that man who was currently running away in fear.

The man was running for his life, overwhelmed with terror, trying to escape from the monster that was chasing him and destroying the city.

"Graaaah!"

The monster roaring as it demolished buildings was...

A giant gray reaper.

No, what on earth does this man think I am?

The giant gray reaper looked slightly different from me, which made me even more uncomfortable.

The man, who was running desperately, was hit by the flames spewed from the giant gray reaper's mouth and turned to ash, dying on the spot.

And then this crude world started to rewind again.

The collapsed buildings returned to their original positions, and the burnt vehicles and street trees were restored.

Finally, the man, who had fallen on the asphalt, reappeared in the air, and the world began to move forward once again.

"Argh! Help me!"

The man screamed as he saw the silhouette of the giant gray reaper looming beyond the buildings.

And then he started running away from the giant gray reaper again.

The giant gray reaper spewed fire as it chased after the man, and, inevitably, the man either got trampled or burned to death.

So, how can I make this man overcome this dream?

Should I help him survive?

I planned to run alongside him and help him survive.

As the man, drenched in cold sweat, appeared out of thin air, I ran up to him and waved my hand.

But the man's reaction was different from what I expected.

"Gah, Gr... Gray Reaper!"

But as soon as the man saw me, he clutched his heart and collapsed on the spot.

When I got closer, I saw that the man, his face pale with fear, was already dead.

Another heart attack?

Why does everyone keep dying the moment they see me?

As the man's heart stopped, the city in the dream began to rewind again.

This Object is proving to be more difficult than I thought...

Hop, hop.

The golden reaper was playing, jumping up and down on the belly of the sleeping gray reaper.

As the golden reaper joyfully hopped around, it suddenly looked up at the sky.

Then, with a regretful expression, it turned to look at the gray reaper before resolutely walking off somewhere.

It was the second golden wave.

The golden reapers gathered at the outskirts of the expo grounds.

The Objects had fled there, trying to escape from the golden reapers.

The golden reapers and the Objects hostile to humans stood facing each other.

The golden reapers wore serious expressions, as if preparing for war.

The Objects seemed to sense the ominous atmosphere from the golden reapers, and the air grew tense.

Without anyone giving a signal, both sides simultaneously charged at each other.

The first to disappear were the Objects without physical immunity.

They were swept away by the wave of golden reapers and vanished first.

Next to fall were the Objects with physical immunity but no regenerative abilities.

They had physical immunity, but their destruction conditions were no different from those of ordinary objects, machines, or living beings.

The golden reapers willingly sacrificed themselves to destroy the bodies of these physically immune Objects.

Of course, the much smaller golden reapers died the moment they made contact.

Countless golden reapers perished, leaving behind only a handful of flames.

As even the Objects with physical immunity disappeared, only a handful of hostile Objects remained.

These were the Objects that couldn't be killed by any conventional means.

The golden reapers, who lacked the "Eyes," couldn't kill these Objects.

Only such Objects remained.

However, the golden reapers did have the same "fuel" as the gray reaper.

Although in very small amounts, they had the "fuel" for the "Eyes."

The remaining golden reapers charged in unison.

The Objects they collided with lost volume equivalent to the size of the golden reapers.

The damage that didn't meet the conditions for death should have naturally healed.

However, in the spot where the golden reapers perished, a tiny ember of wood remained.

A very small golden flame.

While that flame couldn't kill them, it prevented them from recovering.

In other words, the golden reapers fought by burning their own bodies.

They fought until all the hostile Objects were immobilized, and until every golden reaper vanished into flames without a trace.