In an underground clearing, resembling an old mine tunnel, wooden pillars were embedded in the walls, and the dim light of occasional incandescent bulbs barely illuminated the damp, dark space.

There was no visible entrance or exit, and many people were sprawled across the floor.

These were the people who had been kidnapped near the Rocky Mountains.

As the incandescent bulbs flickered ominously, the underground clearing, which had been silent and still, began to stir with life.

The people, who had been lying unconscious on the ground, slowly began to regain their senses.

Confused and disoriented, they didn’t know where they were.

Some asked, “Where is this place?”

Others shouted, “Please, let us out!”

One person, who had come to join the cult of the Eye, asked in confusion, “Where am I?”

As the crowd began to talk all at once, the clearing quickly grew noisy and chaotic.

Amid the murmurs of the newly awakened people, a man appeared on a raised platform that had been set up on one side of the clearing.

He was a middle-aged man with an elegant beard, dressed in ornate robes.

His clothes were a striking mix of white and black, heavily adorned with gold.

“The body is the prison of the soul. Only through suffering can you escape that prison.”

With the sudden booming voice of the man in the fancy robes, the crowd’s attention was drawn to him.

“The leader?”

The man was someone the gathered people were familiar with.

He was the leader of the Eye Cult.

At that moment, a man stood up and shouted at the cult leader.

“Is this all your doing? Let us out!”

The man yelled angrily, demanding answers.

The cult leader, with a solemn expression, began repeating his strange words as he slowly approached the shouting man.

“The body is the prison of the soul. Only through suffering can you escape that prison.”

And then, standing before the man, the cult leader swung his fist.

It looked like a light punch, but the outcome was anything but light.

A bloodcurdling scream filled the clearing, and the noisy space fell silent in an instant.

The man who had been punched had his body swell up as if his bones had shattered. He lay sprawled on the ground, drenched in cold sweat, groaning in pain.

In the now silent clearing, the only sound was the man’s painful groans, echoing faintly.

The crowd sensed that something was very wrong.

In normal circumstances, people would have been shouting and panicking, but the eerie atmosphere surrounding the cult leader suppressed their reactions.

The fact that they had been kidnapped into this suspicious clearing and the strange, unsettling presence of the cult leader kept them quiet.

The cult leader approached the fallen man and gripped his broken bones tightly.

“Aaaagh!”

The man’s agonized scream echoed in the background as the cult leader spoke in a grave tone.

“Ah, how unfortunate. You still cannot shed the devil’s skin and remain trapped in delusion!”

Then, the cult leader began beating the man mercilessly with his fists.

With each punch, the sickening sound of bones shattering echoed through the clearing.

The man, now unconscious and limp, stopped making any sounds, as if he had died.

After delivering the beating, the cult leader dramatically spread his arms wide, a sorrowful expression on his face.

“Why?! Why can’t you understand my sincerity?!”

The man in the ornate robes suddenly yelled, as if suffering from some sort of madness.

One moment, he was sobbing pitifully, and the next, he was screaming in anger.

He laughed joyfully one second, only to turn his gaze away with a sorrowful expression in the next.

His tone shifted unpredictably, his emotions changing with each expression.

Just as he raised his fist to strike the man again—

Bang.

A deafening sound reverberated through the enclosed space.

The cult leader collapsed to the ground.

A bullet had hit him squarely in the head, blowing it apart.

“Hah, haha…”

The woman who had fired the gun let out a dry laugh, trembling as she gripped the gun tightly with a hardened expression.

Behind her, a large shadow loomed.

“This is truly a sad event.”

The cult leader, now with a sorrowful expression, suddenly reappeared and spoke in a somber tone.

“!”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

In the shocking sight of a man who had seemingly come back from the dead, the woman fired several more rounds from her pistol.

The newly appeared cult leader, bleeding heavily from his abdomen, collapsed to the floor.

“What the hell is going on?”

The woman, her face filled with panic, looked around frantically, but there were now two corpses.

There were two bodies of the cult leader.

The people, who had been frozen in shock, realized the situation was dire and tried to find a way out of the clearing, but there was no visible passage or exit.

At that moment, a heavy voice echoed through the space.

“This is truly a sad event.”

“This is truly a sad event.”

“This is truly a sad event.”

Suddenly, multiple cult leaders with clenched fists appeared among the crowd, all repeating the same phrase.

“Oh, god of the Eye, forgive me.”

With that, the cult leaders began indiscriminately attacking the people in the clearing.

In the security office of Se-hee's research facility, the Blue Reaper was hiding, wearing a sorrowful expression.

Of course, the security staff were aware of the Reaper’s presence, but it looked so sad that they chose to pretend not to notice.

‘My attachment human has disappeared.’

The Reaper couldn't find its human anywhere—not in his one-room apartment, not at his workplace, nowhere.

<Has my attachment human come to hate me?>

The Blue Reaper floated text in the air, but its magic offered no answers.

With a teary-eyed, trembling face, the Blue Reaper waited endlessly for its attachment human to return.

Seeing the pitiful Blue Reaper, the security staff began to talk among themselves.

“The Blue Reaper’s been sitting there all day. What do you think happened?”

“I have a guess, but I’m not sure. It’s only been a day so far.”

The junior staff, feeling bad for the sad Reaper, pressed the senior employee for more information.

“If you have any idea what’s going on, please tell me. The Blue Reaper is so upset—we need to do something.”

“Well, I can’t tell them apart like the Golden Reapers, but I’ve heard that the human this particular Blue Reaper was following has gone missing.”

“I thought he was on sick leave. Is he really missing?”

The rotating shifts of the five-team, four-division security group meant that it wasn’t a major operational issue, but the security team knew some details.

“Yeah, apparently his younger sibling got involved with that cult that’s been popping up around Gangdong-gu, and he went to rescue them. He hasn’t been seen since.”

“Oh, so that’s why Assistant Director Seo-ah’s been running around so much lately, coordinating with the association.”

The Blue Reaper, even in its sadness, picked up on the conversation with a flicker of interest.

It didn’t understand their words, but like the Golden Reapers, it could sense emotions and glean some information.

‘Attachment human went east. Disappeared. Danger?’

Though the details weren’t clear, the Blue Reaper had learned something about its missing attachment human.

‘I must save them!’

With a look of urgency, the Blue Reaper rushed back to the Mini Reaper garden to prepare.

Inside the isolation room, a large pot was bubbling on its own.

It was an oversized pot that Yerin had prepared.

Soft towels were wrapped around the rim of the pot, and water was gently sloshing inside.

Tiny wooden ladles floated around like miniature boats in the water.

“All set!” Yerin chirped.

She tied a small towel into a makeshift sheep-head towel hat and placed it on the Golden Reaper’s head.

The Golden Reaper raised both arms in triumph—“Yay!”—and joyfully jumped into the pot.

It was an onsen, specially made for the Mini Reapers.

The Golden Reaper had seen hot springs on TV and begged for one, so this makeshift onsen had been created.

When Se-hee saw the pot, she declared, “That’s it! We need a hot spring underground!”—and promptly disappeared, leaving only confusion behind.

Meanwhile, the Golden and Black Reapers splashed around happily in the giant pot.

The Red Reaper lay in the middle, floating lazily with a blissful expression.

The Orange Reaper, reclining peacefully on the side, held the tiny Sprout Reaper in its arms, who had fallen asleep with soft, steady breaths.

The Orange Reaper’s long white hair fanned out in the water, showcasing just how luxurious and abundant its hair really was.

Occasionally, the Red Reaper would blow out little bursts of flame to reheat the water, which threatened to cool down.

Oddly enough, the Blue Reaper was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed like the Blue Reapers had gathered somewhere, maybe having one of their regular talks about their attachment humans again?

As I watched the Golden Reaper gleefully swim around the warm water, it tugged on my finger, urging me to join them.

“I’m not small enough to fit in the pot,” I said, making the Golden Reaper pout as it sulked back to the Black Reaper’s side with a splash.

Turning my gaze away from the pot and back to the TV, the cult story was still dominating the airwaves.

Yerin was also watching the screen with a serious expression.

“That cult’s been keeping Seo-ah unnie really busy. Because of that, my workload has increased too,” Yerin said with a sigh, resting her head on top of mine.

Taking advantage of her distraction, I tossed some dried shiitake mushrooms into the pot, which I had prepared earlier.

The Mini Reapers looked at the floating mushrooms with puzzled expressions, as if to say, “What is this?”

As a savory aroma began wafting from the pot, it started to look like an actual Mini Reaper stew.

Heh heh.

Meanwhile, the cult symbol kept flashing across the TV screen—an eye with five pupils inside it.

For some reason, it was bothering me.

Rachel moved stealthily through the underbrush.

Slowly, so she wouldn’t be spotted by the nearby patrolling police officers.

Her parents’ village had been completely sealed off.

Every road leading in was blocked by police, but having grown up in this village, Rachel knew how to take a detour through the dense pine forest and sneak closer to the village’s edge.

“This must be serious,” she muttered worriedly from her perch in a tree, looking down at the village.

The roads were all blocked off by police, and inside the village, she could see many people in association uniforms moving around.

But there were no villagers in sight.

Feeling uneasy, Rachel slowly stroked the Golden Reaper. In turn, the Reaper, sensing her worry, gently patted her cheek in comfort.

Then, with a confident gesture, the Golden Reaper raised both arms, as if to say, “Trust me!” and dashed off toward the village.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

Rachel whispered after it, but the Golden Reaper was already charging toward the association members.

And thus, chaos ensued.

As the Golden Reaper darted around the village, emitting a bright light, the association members went into a frenzy.

Some tried to keep up their investigation, others ran after the Reaper, and still others frantically contacted their superiors.

In the midst of this chaos, Rachel spotted a chance to slip into the village.

‘Thank you, Golden Reaper!’

With a silent word of thanks, Rachel disappeared into the shadows of the village.