Seoul Object Story

Deep within the Free City Alliance, in the pitch-black darkness.

A place where Object prosthetics, having lost their hosts, gathered.

Creatures resembling spiders woven from fingers flowed through intricate passages deliberately bored throughout the city.

At the terminus of these passages lay a vast, cylindrical Object tank.

Its area was immense, rivaling that of the Alliance city itself.

Though deep, its sheer breadth made it feel like a pancake.

And its ‘rank’ was as high as its size, nearly comparable to ‘the Moon’.

Inside the tank, fingers—distinctly inhuman, elongated, multi-jointed—writhed like earthworms.

Scattered within the fingers were transparent cyst-like structures, and inside them, human fetus-like things squirmed.

This grotesque sight was the fate of the prosthetics that entered the tank.

Around the tank, wills unattainable by human ears constantly leaked out.

Should have seized the chance…

I will become a legend of the City Alliance.

Can’t die yet.

From regrets like the laments of the dead…

Humans, must eat humans.

Still hear the voice, need to eat more. More!

To the mad ramblings of Scavengers.

Occasionally, brilliantly shining golden lumps would fall into the tank.

Each time, the finger-worms swarmed towards the gold like schools of fish drawn to bait, or like parasites burrowing into a host’s muscle, devouring it.

The worms coveted the gold, filled with joy, benevolence, and warmth they lacked, but it was not something that could ever satisfy them.

Within the tank, one distinctly large and elongated finger-worm coiled, occupying the entire space.

These fingers had a horrific appearance, as if fused with wires made of gleaming gold and dull metal.

A monitor was attached to each of these giant finger-worms, flashing red light and conveying messages.

[Attack Failed.]

[Attack Failed.]

[Attack Failed.]

The monitors’ red light flashed intensely, like an alarm.

It seemed to propagate a shocking truth.

The light shone clearly even in the darkness, making the space feel even more sinister and ominous.

The messages on the monitors continued to change.

[New Strategy Required.]

Sometimes it looked like a conversation, other times like common human soliloquy or thought.

[Target Acquisition Difficulty Upgraded to Special-Grade.]

The light of the messages gradually turned into a viscous red.

[Formulating Strategy Befitting Target.]

With the message about formulating a strategy, the monitors began to fill with an incomprehensible string of characters.