Seoul Object Story

Deep within the Free City Alliance, in a dilapidated building off the beaten path.

Inside the building, old and worn, looking like it might collapse at any moment, a silver-haired girl sat perched on the windowsill, gazing at the scenery outside.

The haphazardly extended building looked unstable, as if it could collapse at any time, and the narrow alleys, barely wide enough for one person to pass, were tangled like a maze.

Moreover, the walls of those alleys were chaotically covered with colorful graffiti.

If it were night, the dizzyingly bright neon signs would further fuel this chaos.

The scenery of the ‘Free City Alliance’, untouched by government control, was always like this.

A landscape some call freedom, but others might call license.

The silver-haired girl gazed endlessly at such scenery.

A large man approached the girl and spoke to her.

“Qing, why don’t you try some of this too?”

The silver-haired girl, called ‘Qing’, replied instantly without even turning her head.

“Absolutely not.”

The man, approaching Qing with a plate, swallowed the caterpillar on the plate with a glum expression at her answer.

“It’s delicious though…”

It was a fist-sized caterpillar, entirely black with red and green stripes.

The bug, shimmering like metal, had a horrifying appearance, looking poisonous at first glance.

People born and raised in the Free City Alliance might be used to it, but for Qing, who had entered this city very recently, it was food with visuals she absolutely didn’t want to eat.

In fact, the repulsive appearance of the food was a secondary issue.

Towards the large man who sat back down and started inhaling caterpillars, a large woman holding a cigarette smiled and said:

“That has poison in it. Qing can’t eat it.”

That was right.

The biggest problem was the toxicity.

Somehow, most foods sold in this city contained poison, making them dangerous for ordinary people to eat.

When Qing first sneaked into this city, she almost died from eating the wrong food.

No, if she hadn’t met her companions here, she would have surely died.

Qing slowly sucked on a tube containing liquid made from ground beans and thought.

This city is truly crazy.

Looking no further than her companions proved it.

The woman smoking a cigarette looked well over 2 meters tall.

The heavy man constantly eating caterpillars had two pairs of arms.

A city of madmen who cut off their own limbs without hesitation for need.

A city of madness where they graft still-unknown Objects onto their bodies without any hesitation.

A greedy city filled with stimulating and harmful water and food, and people replacing their internal organs with Objects to digest them.

And a city filled with polluted air that felt like it was tearing out one’s lungs.

Qing looked at the pollutants dyeing the sky yellow and put her mask back on.

Still, Qing understood that this city couldn’t help it.

Due to China’s blockade, supplies couldn’t enter through proper routes.

And without support from the mainland, this ‘Free City Alliance’ couldn’t properly sustain itself.

The land was extremely small, and there were too many people.

Eventually, they had no choice but to utilize Objects that seemed to defy physical laws.

Hoping I can leave this city someday.

The silver-haired girl made a small wish unlikely to come true and gazed endlessly beyond the sky.