Park Seo-ah was moving busily in her private office, the Deputy Director's room.

The final check before the business trip.

The Golden Reaper was watching Park Seo-ah move busily with sparkling eyes full of curiosity.

The newly born Golden Reaper found everything in this space fascinating.

It was completely different from Gray Reaper's isolation room, and had a very different atmosphere from the golden garden where it lived.

The spacious window let in sunlight and showed a view full of grass and trees. 

The sunshine poured down, warmly enveloping its body.

Although the Golden Reaper couldn't read, it clearly felt the emotion that Seo-ah treasured the various plaques and citations.

Everything was fascinating - the neatly maintained, glossy wooden desk and computer, the organized folders of documents, the stylish lamp, framed landscapes, and more.

In fact, the Golden Reaper could return to the Golden Reaper garden whenever it wanted, but chose to stay in this space a little longer.

There were many things here that the Golden Reaper liked.

It liked the refrigerator that always had delicious food. 

It liked the magnet that was gently supporting it.

But most of all, it liked the human.

It really liked Park Seo-ah, who always sent warm feelings.

"I'm going on a business trip. You have to stay here, okay?"

Seo-ah, who had taken out a lot of candy onto the table where the Golden Reaper was, said something the Golden Reaper couldn't understand.

Although it couldn't comprehend the words, it could sense the emotion.

It knew those words meant a rather long farewell.

The Golden Reaper, floating on the magnet, used ghostification to secretly follow Seo-ah the moment she closed the door and left.

Hop hop.

The Golden Reaper happily laughed and jumped around near Park Seo-ah.

The moment Park Seo-ah got into the car, it secretly slipped inside and undid its ghostification.

Hiding in the shadows, the Golden Reaper giggled, amused by something.

While Seo-ah was busy driving, the Golden Reaper opened the zipper of a bag on the passenger seat and hid inside.

Curled up hiding in the bag, the Golden Reaper thought,

I must always be with my beloved human!

*** 

Reaper (MC) POV:

---

In the cozy isolation room with soft music playing on the TV, I was lying on the bed, enjoying a rest.

Hop hop.

The Golden Reaper was using my belly as a trampoline, laughing and jumping merrily.

Laughing joyfully, it fell onto my belly in all sorts of poses, then bounced back up.

It looked just like me, yet was a different being.

Golden Reaper.

Suddenly I became curious. 

I can't see my own destruction condition, but what is the Golden Reaper's?

When I tried to check the Golden Reaper's destruction condition, it got startled and returned to the Golden Reaper garden.

The Golden Reaper's destruction condition was simple,

<Destroy the Golden Reaper Garden>

Did it lose its duration limit when the Golden Reaper garden was created?

Thinking about the Golden Reapers' activity times lately, it did seem like they could return whenever they wanted...

I had already checked the destruction condition for the Golden Reaper garden.

<Destroy the Gray Reaper>

It seemed I didn't need to worry too much about the Golden Reaper dying.

At least it would be safe until I died.

In a way, if I was safe, you could say the Golden Reapers were even tougher than me.

tap tap~

When I summoned the Golden Reaper again, it got furiously angry and kept punching me with its tiny fists.

As I was playing along, receiving Golden Reaper punches with my palm, Yerin suddenly rushed into the isolation room, panting with a startled expression.

Bam!

Yerin closed the isolation room door so violently that a metallic sound rang out from the door.

What on earth was going on?

As I was tilting my head in confusion, the more sensitive Golden Reaper seemed to sense something and stopped punching, standing up and staring intently beyond the door.

"Reaper, a crazy penguin appeared! It's like, chewing through even metal! And there are so, so many of them now."

Yerin, drenched in sweat and panting, was rambling on about something, but as soon as I heard the word 'penguin', I had an idea of what it could be.

The dancing penguins!

It was a type of Object being that harbored malice towards humans. Had that thing appeared?

Puck-!

A penguin's beak pierced through the steel wall of the isolation room.

"Kyaa! Reaper!"

Yerin jumped in fright and rushed over to hug me tightly.

The penguin's beak started sawing, making a screeching, grating sound.

Kkeek. Kkeek.

The unpleasant sound of steel being scraped and torn apart echoed inside the isolation room.

"Uh... what do we do, Reaper?"

I could sense Yerin's immense emotion from the flame in me.

Yerin was extremely panicked and scared.

As I was savoring the growing sensation of the flame, the Golden Reaper on my shoulder suddenly got angry and slapped my cheek before leaving the isolation room.

Did it scold me for enjoying this?

Getting hit while eating is the worst!

For some reason, the Golden Reaper didn't seem to enjoy Yerin's flustered fear, but rather found it unpleasant.

Had it devolved to only be able to consume positive emotions?

When I followed the Golden Reaper out of the isolation room, the Research Institute's hallway was in chaos.

Thick steel barricades had been lowered densely along the hallway for containment, but the screeching of penguins gnawing through those barricades was deafening.

The hallway was littered with penguin corpses.

Just how many penguins were there?

This number seemed like enough for every employee to have been given 10 copies of the 'Dancing Penguin Photo'.

Thanks to the Golden Reaper's hard work, I couldn't see any living penguins in my line of sight.

As I walked down the Research Institute hallway, I saw the security team blocking the path and fighting in front of the conference room.

"Block them!" 

"Don't let them bite the shields! Don't just stand there!"

Armed with special alloy shields and heavy, sturdy batons, they kept swinging at the penguins, but it didn't seem very effective.

I used ghostification to lightly approach and crush the heads of the penguins in front of the conference room.

Once all the penguins were dead and the situation in front of the conference room stabilized, the Golden Reaper that had killed all the other penguins in the Research Institute returned.

It sat on my shoulder and stared at me intently.

Seeming to want praise, I stroked its head with my finger.

Good job.

The Sehee Research Institute is a precious place, after all.

By the way, I heard the 'Dancing Penguin Photo' was extremely popular and sold a lot of copies everywhere...

It seems there will be quite a lot of damage, I wonder if it'll be okay?

But they said they mostly sold the photos through 'Daily Object', didn't they?

This incident might just put them out of business completely.

***

Seo-ah POV:

---

Halfway up Kkachisan, I wiped the sweat from my brow and looked down at the base of the mountain.

Small buildings and roads, the warm sunlight beating down.

The refreshing breeze blew, cooling my body nicely.

Why on earth did they build the Research Institute up on a mountain?

Even if it's just a hill-like mountain, it's so inconvenient.

And perhaps because it had been a while since I climbed a mountain, ever since coming up Kkachisan, there was a strange scent of sunlight lingering.

It wasn't that the sunlight was particularly strong or anything.

More than the scent of the sun itself, it smelled like sand that had been thoroughly heated by the sun.

But did sand even have a scent?

Looking up, there was still quite a way left to go.

"Haahh, it's tiring moving around after so long."

Someone gently wiped the sweat dripping down my forehead.

The hand was too small to be of much help... A small hand?

Looking beside me, the Golden Reaper was perched on my shoulder.

I was startled and quickly put the Reaper into my bag, looking down.

Among the documents, wallet, and phone inside the bag, I could see the Reaper grinning happily.

Had it followed me all the way here?

What a headache.

The Golden Reaper had an oblivious expression as it hugged the car keys to its body, rolling around in the bag. 

Well, it's not like you did anything wrong.

I reached into the bag and gently stroked the Golden Reaper's head.

"Here, I'll give you some candy. But don't come out of the bag, okay? Even if you get bored."

Whether it understood or not, the Golden Reaper started slowly eating the hard candy it was holding.

The conference hasn't even started yet, but I already feel tired.

Should I just go back to the Sehee Research Institute?

***

??? POV:

---

On the opposite side of the mountain from where the Kkachisan Research Institute was located, something strange was happening halfway up the sparsely populated slope.

The ground started bubbling and boiling.

Red sand spouted from the ground like boiling water, forming bubbles as it erupted from the earth.

And an eerie shadow began to appear.

There was clearly nothing there, nothing to cast a shadow in the sunlight, and yet a shadow manifested.

The shapes of the shadows varied.

Some were geometric, cube-like forms. 

Others had human-like limbs.

And some were indescribable amorphous blobs.

In the sky, a faint reddish moon seemed to be visible.