Seoul Object Story

Deep within the Free City Alliance, at the hideout where Qing and her companions stayed.

After finishing a mission, Qing often sat on the windowsill, gazing outside.

The air in the Free City Alliance was heavily polluted, making it difficult for ordinary people to breathe, but strangely, the pollution barely obstructed the view.

Should it be called transparent pollutants? Anyway, the fact that the pollution wasn’t visible to the eye made it feel even more annoying.

Air that ‘looked’ clear and clean, like streets after rain.

But if an ordinary person carelessly inhaled that seemingly clean air, their lungs would be damaged, causing them to cough up blood.

Moreover, its transparency seemed to correlate with high permeability, allowing intense, skin-damaging ultraviolet rays to beat down.

Today too, Qing sat on the windowsill, her designated spot, looking out the window.

Can’t see anything.

But today, the pollution was particularly severe, blurring the view to the point where the streets were barely visible.

Days like this happened occasionally.

Days when the pollution was so bad that even people with Object lungs avoided going out.

Even on days like this, the areas controlled by the Families were said to be free of air pollution. How on earth did they manage that?

Various questions surfaced and faded in Qing’s mind.

“Qing, isn’t that uncomfortable? How about installing a proper treatment system in the office?”

The woman, sitting on the sofa watching TV, gestured a mask shape near her mouth as she spoke.

“Mm… It’s fine. Need to save money.”

The equipment the woman mentioned was probably a system that created positive pressure to prevent external pollution from entering.

Even though they had earned quite a lot of money from the Family mission this time, it was an excessive luxury.

Qing shook her head, refusing, then trudged over to the TV area.

Usually, she spent time looking out the window, but since she couldn’t see outside, there was no choice.

Qing sat down on the sofa with the woman and started watching TV.

Actually, Qing didn’t particularly like the TV in this neighborhood.

Perhaps because the Free City Alliance kept shoving Objects into their bodies, their minds had become strange, and the TV had become strange too.

Extremely lewd, or extremely cruel.

At least one of the two.

Taking a simple advertisement as an example, there was a home shopping channel that showed scenes of removing internal organs and replacing them with Objects as if it were an engine swap for a car.

The show hosts, covered in blood and dyed red all over, would flash pearly white teeth and smile. The shock Qing received when she first saw that bizarre scene was still deeply etched in her mind.

Even the lines and poses were memorable.

Holding a beating heart next to her face, smiling brightly, she had shouted, [Order now!].

Ugh, gives me the creeps.

Just as Qing braced herself to overcome her disgust and watch TV after a long time, the sound of the door opening was heard, and the large man began to enter the office.

“I’m back.”

The man entering the office was carrying a lot of luggage using his four large hands.

And as the door closed automatically with a Kwang-!, the impact caused a can of grasshoppers on the shelf to roll off, land on a ladle, spin around, and launch like a slingshot projectile.

It looked just like a baseball shot from a pitching machine.

“Ugh.”

Qing let out a small scream as the can hit her head.

The man put down the luggage and laughed.

“Haha. Qing, you’ve got bad luck lately. Shouldn’t you make a ‘talisman’ with yellow paper or something?”

Qing rubbed the spot where the can hit her head and retorted.

“No way. That occult crap.”

During this, feeling someone staring intently while snickering, she turned her head, but no one was there.

Only the furball was visible.

Could it be?

When Qing caught the furball floating leisurely and met its gaze, she saw pupils rolling around within the Orange Reaper’s closed eyes.

“It was you!”

At that moment, Qing realized, connecting the series of bizarre misfortunes, fortunes, and magic-like phenomena.

“You little prankster.”

Qing, half grateful, half annoyed, began to knead the Orange Reaper’s cheeks vigorously.

Around the time the Orange Reaper’s cheeks became puffy, Qing’s mobile phone flashed, signaling an incoming message.

?

She just finished a mission, so there shouldn’t be anyone contacting her?

Qing tilted her head and picked up her mobile phone.