༺ Black Butterfly (3) ༻
The Reaper, having lost interest in the ‘Luck Measuring Coin’, redirected its interest elsewhere and snooped around the car.
To the extent it interfered with the vehicle operation.
Fortunately, it soon lost interest in the car too and curled up in the back seat, drifting off to sleep.
But was it because it was my unlucky day?
A sudden variable disrupted my itinerary of a peaceful drive to the destination.
Someone was tailing me.
Whoever it was seemed to be making an effort to secretly follow me at a distance, but they were still amateurish at best.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a vehicle from the ‘Daily Object’.
I heard that it was a broadcasting company with ties to the Sehee Research Institute. However, that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
It seemed like they had seen my car leaving the Sehee Research Institute and thought there might be something to cover.
While I could easily shake off the amateurish stalker, they didn’t seem to be worth it.
Instead, I decided to just ignore them and continued driving towards the sinkhole victim camp.
I had no time to spare for foolish, third-rate reporters.
In the first place, I did not have enough time to solve this case.
***
As I tailed the detective’s car, the guy who’s oddly been making a name for himself lately, we arrived at the ‘Sinkhole Victims Camp’.
Seems like Mr. Detective, living the cushy life, can’t shake off this experienced reporter dogging his every move. You see, Yours truly has survived this cutthroat game for a good couple of years now.
Makes you wonder, maybe I should ditch this reporter gig and jump into the detective biz?
For a greenhorn like him to be getting all famous as the best, it’s like the field’s a blue ocean that’s still wide open, right?
Meanwhile, journalism’s become a damn red ocean, tough even for a pro like me.
These days, every Tom, Dick and Harry’s got a blog trying to snag clicks with the latest scandal about the Gray Reaper. Making the big bucks ain’t as simple as it used to be.
When times get tough, you gotta go for a ‘big hit’.
So there I was, tailing the detective’s car as he pulled out of the Sehee Research Institute, and bingo! Jackpot.
Turns out, that guy’s destination was the ‘victim camp’, that had been put under lockdown by the government for some flimsy ‘Object accident’ excuse.
Now that’s what I call high risk, high return.
I could just smell a juicy scoop when I saw the detective heading straight to a restricted area right after visiting the Sehee’s Research Institute.
***
The ‘victim camp’ I arrived with the detective was real weird.
Butterflies, butterflies, and more butterflies.
They were all over the damn place, like they owned it.
From the walls surrounding the ‘Songpa-gu Sinkhole Victims Camp’, you could see the camp filled with them.
The ground was crawling with them, and even the door frames were covered.
It was like a zombie movie, but instead of zombies there were butterflies, and it was horrifying.
But there was something I didn’t understand.
Why bother with this massive wall when there were ghostly butterflies flying around?
It was obvious those butterflies had spread all the way to Sehee Research Institute because of such a useless wall.
The detective seemed to have known about the existence of the ghostly butterfly, so shouldn’t he point out that this kind of wall was useless?
***
There wasn’t enough time.
The time limit was approximately 48 hours.
In 48 hours, the South Korean government planned to launch missile attacks and artillery bombardments on the camp and sinkhole, hoping to resolve the butterfly case.
They believed that everyone in the camp had died and saw this as a viable option.
Why the time limit you ask?
It was because of what Watson had told me.
According to it, if the missile attacks hit the sinkhole within 48 hours, the Hungry Ghost as well as countless other Objects that had fallen into it would come out.
Seoul, in its current state, lacked the capacity to handle such a situation.
I wanted to prevent the missile attacks, but there was simply no way a groundless claim would be accepted.
From the government’s perspective, there was nothing they could do.
As time passed, the number of people infected by the butterflies would only increase. If this continued even for just a week, a significant portion of the population would be infected.
For the government, it became a choice between falling to the butterfly infection which was certain, or falling victim to the attack of the Hungry Ghost, which was not fully certain.
In other words, they were trapped in a situation where time was of the essence.
The time I got after negotiating with the government was only 48 hours.
If the cause of the Butterfly incident was resolved within 48 hours, the missile attack would be called off.
This request proved to be the most difficult and time-sensitive task I had undertaken in my whole career as a detective.
Come to think of it, it was always like this.
Whenever I followed the information Watson gave me, incredibly difficult requests always awaited me.
Yet, it’s such a huge request that it’s hard to give up.
As I gazed at the ‘Watson’ gas lamp held tightly in my right hand, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a suspicious Object.
***
Word on the street was that the greenhorn detective was planning a little raid with his soldier buddies into the camp within the next twenty-four hours to look for something.
How did I get wind of it?
Well, when you’ve got enough cash, there’s nothing you can’t get done.
It was a fact that all of us experienced reporters know.
So, naturally, there was only one thing to do.
I had to sneak my butt into that camp and find whatever the detective was looking for.
Sure, I had no clue what the item might be, but one thing was crystal clear—it would definitely make the headlines.
And if for some reason I didn’t manage to find it, it’s no big deal.
I’d simply lie low, tail the detective once more, and snatch it when the opportunity presented itself.
But here’s the thing that really grinds my gears: why bother sending in a squad of soldiers to search a place that was under lockdown?
My reporter senses were practically screaming at me.
***
It was a breeze sneaking into that camp for that scoop.
Why? Because the soldiers were too busy playing gatekeeper, only focusing on people who came in, not who slipped out.
Once inside, I could sense something was off.
The place was not just asleep, it was dead silent.
And trust me, that was damn weird.
No one in the camp was sleeping at this late hour.
Now, you might think, ‘Oh, that’s not too strange.’
But here’s the kicker: the people inside the camp were just staring blankly at him.
And believe me, there was no intelligence behind their eyes. It was creepy as hell.
If I had to compare it with something… They looked like the eyes of a shark.
Unpleasant, emotionless, blank eyes.
As I walked around, the weight of the place started to crush me, shoulders drooping, my strength draining faster than a leaky faucet.
What was this pain in the ass in the middle of the night?
Cough-! Cough-!
As I was skulking about, trying to sniff out anything fishy, I heard it. A hacking cough echoing in the eerie silence.
Following the sound, I stumbled upon a container house, the door wide open like an invitation.
Inside, I found a boy lying down.
The boy had sunken eyes, dark circles, and a face that screamed exhaustion.
“Ah, haha. Are you a normal human, Ahjussi?”
The boy smiled faintly, while coughing blood.
“Ahjussi, this is a nightmare, right? When will I wake up from this dream?”
What the hell was this kid on about?
Just as I was about to give him a piece of my mind, the boy started coughing blood like crazy.
“W-what the…”
Before my very eyes, the boy spit out his guts, becoming nothing but a dried up husk.
He-heok!
I couldn’t breathe, frozen in horror at the horribly gruesome sight in front of me.
Panic set in, my limbs turning cold.
After a moment of catching my breath, I couldn’t help but scream again.
“Aaaahhh”
The blood splattered on the floor crawled back into the boy’s body, before his body swelled up once more. That was the last straw; I bolted out of there without a second glance.
“This is crazy. Absolutely insane. What the hell is going on? Why put this place in lockdown?”
“I have to expose this madness! What happened to the public’s right to know?”
“I need to warn the world about this danger!!!”
The camp, quiet and peaceful on the surface, was in fact a living nightmare.
It was like a scene from a horror game.
Those eerie gazes seemed to follow me everywhere I went.
And it was only now that I realized that those blank eyed residents were gradually surrounding me.
This is messed up!
Now, I wasn’t even sure if these people were human.
In the end, I couldn’t shake off the mob slowly closing in on me from all sides.
Before I could even reach the hole I snuck in through, I was paralyzed.
As if on a crowded train, they all stuck close to me and stared at me with that same blank gaze.
Then, a man stepped forward, gripping my shoulder with bone-crushing force.
“What… What the hell do you think you’re doing? Assaulting a member of the press is a serious offence!!”
But no one answered, just eerie smiles all around.
Kekekeke-!
They dragged me along, laughing like maniacs.
“You’re making a mistake! I’m a renowned reporter for the Daily Object!”
I tried to use my reputation to wiggle out of the crisis, but it was no use.
Rather, it only made things weirder.
These people weren’t just desperate criminals, they were something fundamentally different.
As my thoughts reached that point, I became sure.
These guys weren’t human.
Their expressions didn’t seem human.
Their expressions were extremely strange.
It was difficult to express in words, but if I had to, I would describe it as an ever-changing dance of circles.
It was beyond my comprehension.
All of a sudden, blood gushed out from my mouth like a busted dam.
“No, nononono!”
That kid’s face flashed in my mind.
I desperately tried to stop the bleeding.
But it was useless.
My limbs gave out, my body collapsing like a sack of potatoes.
As the cold of death embraced me, my vision faded to black.
In the corner of my eye, I swear I saw the ‘Gray Reaper’.
“Sa…save me.”
But those thoughts wouldn’t ever become words, lost in the sea of blood and darkness.
