༺ Central Research Institute (6) ༻
Currently, my eyes were witnessing the past.
It was a strange phenomenon, one that could be seen because this research institute was free from the shackles of time.
The scene depicted a piece of the past, from the time when the Central Research Institute had just been established.
A time when Objects were national secrets.
A time when civil servants collected Objects, researchers secretly studied them, and the media manipulated information.
It was a memory from 30 years ago, when the only ones who could obtain the information and conduct the research were the government researchers.
The woman said, “Director, please relax your face. The Objects clearly appeared on earth to grant a wish. They are gifts from a benevolent force, someone similar to a fairy, who wants to help humans. I believe that if we keep wishing and hoping, a happy world will definitely come true.”
She was not a researcher, an elite, or a civil servant.
She was just a woman who had become involved with Objects.
A woman who could still utter such ridiculous things, even when she was paralyzed from the waist down due to her encounter with a poltergeist.
“Even though I can’t ask you anymore, I will still ask.”
“Then why are the Objects so cruel?”
“Do you believe you would give the same answer as you did back then?”
The woman in the illusion smiled brightly.
“If Objects truly had the power to grant wishes, perhaps humanity’s wishes would be this ugly.”
I let go of the illusion of the woman inside the director’s office and waited for another illusion.
A scene from the future, which would take place in the director’s office.
The future that everyone at the institute looked forward to.
Even though I didn’t know when it would come, I knew that it would definitely arrive.
***
An uncomfortable confrontation with the yellow suited man.
Unlike the yellow suited man, I had no reason to be nervous, yet this atmosphere was extremely uncomfortable.
I released my phantom form and landed on the ground.
The man and the woman wore the same shocked expression on their faces when I suddenly appeared out of thin air, but their following reactions were quite different.
The man became more alert and nervous, while the woman gradually stopped being wary.
There were many who were scared shitless when they saw me, perhaps because of the scary rumors surrounding me. But there were also a few people who felt attracted to me and approached me for no apparent reason as soon as they saw me. It looked like the woman belong to the latter group.
The woman bent her knees and looked straight into my eyes. She then smiled brightly and approached me.
“????”
The man seemed seriously taken aback by the woman’s behavior. He wore an expression that seemed to say, ‘Why are you suddenly being so stupid and careless?’ But the woman paid no attention to the man, and just did her best to get my attention.
She crouched down, clapped her hands, and called out to me as if I were a strange wild animal. And, just as she wanted, I creeped closer towards her.
“Sunbae! It’s coming towards me!”
“…”
The woman spoke excitedly, while the man remained speechless. The woman was so focused that she was unable to even read the man’s mood.
Did she not have much to be happy about? I was only slowly approaching, but I could already feel the flame in my heart burning even brighter.
“Hmm, you remember that the Gray Reaper is an exceptionally dangerous Object, right?”
“…”
The woman slowly extended her trembling hand towards me. Her expression was so serious that it looked scary. It was so scary, in fact, that if a wild animal were in the same situation as me, it would probably flee in an instant.
I grew annoyed by the slow movement of her hand. At the same time, I also felt bad for her as she was shaking from nervousness. So, I just reached out and snatched her hand.
“Waaaaah!”
The woman let out a sudden scream. She was startled and tried to pull her hand away from me. But before I knew it, she was holding my hand tightly and wouldn’t let go.
“I’m holding its hand!”
“It’s so tiny!”
“And doesn’t it smell nice?”
Before I knew it, the woman was pulling me, cradling me in her arms, and simply admiring me.
Well, she’s a bit noisy. But since she would become the firewood for my flames, I guess I should endure it and consider it as payment for my meal.
***
My head was throbbing.
Why? Because my junior was talking nonsense!
“Sir! Let’s take this one to the detective agency and hide it! Doesn’t it look harmless?”
The junior exclaimed, raising the Gray Reaper’s hand and bobbing it.
Watching my junior pay no heed to the terrifying rumors about the Gray Reaper, I couldn’t help but wonder if she really was my junior.
Of course, I also changed my mind a little.
Although it appeared extremely dangerous when observed through the monocle, I felt like the Gray Reaper was really not dangerous.
The drawback of my monocle was that it only revealed a small portion of an Object’s abilities. So maybe the Reaper had some other abilities that offset those hideous abilities.
In the end, my initial judgment was correct.
I’m talking about my hypothesis that most incidents involving the Gray Reaper were nothing but misunderstandings.
“Okay, okay, it’s up to you whether we take the Reaper or not. But, shouldn’t we focus on escaping first before deciding on that?”
“Ah! I see. We have to escape first!”
“The first condition for our successful escape is to last three days. Fortunately, the situation has improved considerably. It will be easier than we anticipated.”
“Huh? Why is our situation suddenly getting better? Nothing much has changed,”my junior asked with a puzzled expression.
“It’s because…the Gray Reaper is in our hands.”
“?”
Seeing my junior’s innocent expression, my head throbbed once again.
“You know why the lab isn’t releasing the Hungry Ghost right away, right?”
“Yes! Isn’t it because if a high-quality human resource like a researcher were to be killed by the Hungry Ghost, the Central Research Institute will suffer a great loss?”
“Then why aren’t they evacuating the researchers, and releasing the Hungry Ghost right away? Why the delay?”
The junior answered with an incredulous expression.
“They can’t do that. If they did, the Gray Reaper would escape along with the researchers. The reason they are unleashing the Hungry Ghost in the first place was The Gray Reaper. Don’t you know that?”
Sporting an indignant expression, I hit my junior’s head with my cane.
“You are right. That means we have an advantage. As long as they don’t know where the Gray Reaper is, they can’t let the researchers go.”
“Huh? But the Gray Reaper has a history of escaping the containment room. Why did they assume it can’t escape the institute as well?”
“Well, I don’t really know why they made that assumption. Still, isn’t the fact that the Gray Reaper is here a proof in itself? If it had the capability, I doubt it would want to stay in such a boring and ugly place like this for a long time.”
Looking at the attitude of the Reaper who was constantly looking around, it looked like it had a tendency to leave wherever it lost interest in something. But since it was still in this institute, that must mean that it couldn’t escape through the outer wall of the Institute. I deduced so.
“Ah.”
Now that I thought about it, a significant issue still remained.
“Huh? Did you call me?”
“Your role has become very important. You can play with Reaper well, right?”
The remaining problem was to attract the attention of the Gray Reaper, who could escape by turning into its phantom form, in order to keep it with them.
***
It had already been three days since I met the detective man and the woman.
Thanks to the detective and his assistant who worked hard to keep me from getting bored, my time with them was more enjoyable than I expected.
If it hadn’t been for their effort, I would have run away using my phantom form even after hearing the story about the Hungry Ghost out of boredom.
What was surprisingly interesting were the stories told by the man.
Although there was some exaggeration, the stories he told about his experiences as a detective were quite interesting.
However, the flame in my chest didn’t respond at all to his stories. I guess the detective man neither likes nor dislikes me.
On the other hand, the woman, who treated me like a doll and played with me, though not very fun, stimulated my flame quite a bit.
“It’s almost three days now.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
Over the past three days, they had faced numerous hardships aside from playing with me.
The women, being employees of the research institute, had to go to work from time to time.
Meanwhile, the man had been very busy avoiding the periodic patrols, erasing traces, and evading the surveillance cameras.
It was really fortunate that the woman was a staff member who had access to food and water.
If they had to steal food and water regularly, they would have suffered several times more than now.
The woman stood next to the detective, her arms full of data, while the man checked the time on his pocket watch.
After a moment, he put his hand on the woman’s shoulder and tapped the ground twice with his cane.
However, despite the man’s puzzled expression, nothing happened when he struck the floor again.
“It doesn’t work.”
“Huh? Then what should we do?”
I wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, but it seemed like their plan had failed.
***
Three days had passed. Even though my junior seemed to be having fun without thinking about anything, it had been a pretty tough schedule. Fortunately, the Reaper showed interest in my stories.
Once we successfully escape, the request would be fulfilled.
My junior stood next to me, holding a stack of materials in her arms. I placed my hand on her shoulder and tapped the floor twice with my cane. The destination was the detective agency!
“It doesn’t work.”
“Huh? Then what should we do?”
I tried again and again, but the teleportation Object did not transport me to my desired location. I hadn’t ever heard about an Object malfunctioning, so was there something interfering with it?
Don’t tell me? I looked back at the Gray Reaper, but it was still watching us while munching on snacks with its cheeks puffing out like a hamster.
“There’s a problem with the Object. It’s time for plan B.”
“Wow! You even have a plan B?”
“Nope. We’ll have to come up with one now.”
I lit my pipe and chanted earnestly.
“Watson, did you find anything here?”
“Watson, did you find anything here?”
“Watson, did you find anything here?”
The smoke that rose from the pipe was crimson, like the light from Watson’s gas lamp.
Before I knew it, I had Watson’s gas lamp in my hands.
“Eeek, are you going to use that? Now I know why I feel uneasy…”
I brushed aside the concern of my junior which she always expressed aside and asked Watson a question.
“Watson, my teleportation is blocked. Do you know what’s causing it?”
[Director’s Office]
The smoke transformed into blood-like writing, spelling out an answer..
Hmm, there is an object in the director’s room that blocks teleportation? Seems like I need to go there and take a look.
With a practiced motion, I turned off the gas lamp. For some reason, I thought I heard a giggle as soon as I finished.
