༺ Seoul Forest Story (5) ༻
The old man, his arms slowly elongating, seemed to think that this was the right time to strike. With astonishing speed, he suddenly stretched his arms towards us.
“You are careless!”
Grabbing hold of my ankles, the old man lifted me up and repeatedly slammed me into the floor.
Boom-!!
Boom-!!
The force behind each strike was so tremendous that the stone floor crumbled every time he slammed me, sending pieces of debris flying.
I could have easily escaped from his grasp by using my phantom form, but the old man’s comical facial expressions that changed which each slam were just too funny. So, I decided to just keep watching.
Initially, the old man’s expression seemed triumphant, as if he thought he had already won.
“Die! Die! Die!”
The old man continued to strike the floor with enough force to break it. Meanwhile, Sehee, who had watched all of it unfold, turned white and seemed to be lost about what to do.
“Enough! Stop! Stop! Die!”
Suddenly, the old man lifted me up with both of his hands before slamming me down again with all of his might. However, probably because he had realized something was wrong, the smile on his face had disappeared.
Surely, he must have realized by now that he couldn’t do anything to me physically? Didn’t he know that a lot of Objects were physically indestructible? Meanwhile, Sehee took out a notebook and scribbled something on it; she must have noticed that I was fine.
Maybe she was writing something like, ‘The Gray Reaper appears to be physically indestructible.’
After a few more attempts, the old man must have finally realized that there was no point in attacking me. With a sheepish smile, he gently lowered me to the floor, making sure to place my feet down first. On top of that, he also had the decency to gently brush off the stone dust that stuck to my body.
Once he had finished, he started crawling backwards, face-down on the floor, and headed towards the exit.
Once the distance between us had widened enough, the old man—wearing a servile expression and foolish grin—ran out of the basement at an astonishing speed.
In the end, the only change in the basement before and after the old man’s arrival was the messy, broken floor.
At that moment, Sehee rushed over to me, dusted me off, and started fussing over my well being.
“Reaper, you are even more durable than I thought! We haven’t done this kind of test before, so I had no idea.”
Private institutes usually only conducted safe experiments on the Objects under their care, as the institute would be held liable if any accidents were to occur from stimulating an Object of the highest risk level. Such dangerous experiments were typically performed only at national research institutes that were exempt from legal obligations.
“By the way, do we have to defeat that old man to get out of here? We might be able to do it if we have a gun, but I guess there’s no way to do it in the Seoul Forest…”
Sehee looked worried, probably thinking there was no way to get out of here.
But in my opinion, there was a very simple and clear solution.
All the problems would be solved if the monster man was killed.
If the condition of [Destruction of the source of sweet rice balls made of fire] was cleared, all the monster men would die.
And it seemed like the ‘source’ was the Steel Pig Statue in front of me. If the Object that the monster man hid in the basement and cherished was not the source, then what else could the source be?
The only problem was… the conditions for destroying that Steel Pig Statue.
[Indigestion]
Hmmmm. Just what kind of bullshit is this?
***
‘What on earth is this ‘Indigestion’ that even a statue can get?’
Leaving Sehee behind as she urged me to call for help, I walked around the pig statue and continued to think about this ‘Indigestion’.
The pig statue emitted a scorching heat while a woman’s ear-splitting scream continued to rung from its inside.
Though it was clear that the scream was coming from the statue’s stomach, when I opened the statue’s stomach to check, all I found were a pile of bones. There was no trace of a person inside. Yet, the piercing shrieks kept on coming. Just where were they coming from?
They were obviously coming from its stomach, but where exactly was it? I couldn’t figure it out at all.
Although I wasn’t able to discover the cause of the screams, I still succeeded in discovering the cause of the delicious smell that filled the basement.
It was a sphere made of pure fire inside the pig’s stomach.
Curiously, even though the sphere looked like fire itself, it wasn’t hot at all and could even be picked up by bare hands. It was a textbook example of an abnormal phenomenon caused by an Object.
Oddly enough, as soon as anyone in the basement laid their eyes on it, their eyes rolled over and an insatiable desire to consume it welled up in them. Even Sehee, who was always calm and collected, fell silent, a hint of madness flickering in her eyes.
Some of the captives started swearing at me, asking me to hand the ball over to them, but there was no reason for me to do so. It was obvious that eating it would turn them into monsters.
Eating something that was made to look delicious by an Object? That was no different from trying to kill yourself.
By the way… Indigestion, Indigestion, Indigestion.
No matter how many times I repeated the word in my mind, there seemed to be only one course of action.
I had to go inside the pig’s stomach.
Since an Object at the level of the pig statue could hardly pose a threat to me, I didn’t think there would be any problems. Rather, wouldn’t an Object entering the pig’s stomach be enough to cause indigestion?
I really didn’t want to put my body inside a statue that only had a pile of bones in it, but there seemed to be no other option.
The Steel Pig Statue was quite large and the length of the pig’s stomach was greater than my height, so it wasn’t that difficult for me to enter it.
As I stepped inside, weaving around the bones, an eerie sound reverberated as soon as I closed the door.
The screams that echoed from time to time grew louder, while an unidentified viscous liquid began to seep from the walls of the pig statue. Simultaneously, flames rose from all directions and the temperature inside began to rise mercilessly.
‘Oh?’
At that moment, the inner wall of the pig statue got further and further away. Or, rather, the internal space began expanding gradually. The iron and steel inner walls turned into red flesh while the interior became a grotesque, humid space like the inside of intestines.
Then, before me, appeared a woman with her skin melting away. Her hair had already burned off and her skin slowly dissolved like melting rubber, making her look utterly hideous.
That person whose skin had melted was being held and restrained by charred skeletons.
Only then did I realize she was the source of the screams. Screaming in agonizing pain, the woman writhed and struggled, but her attempts were futile. The charred skeletons tightly grasped her limbs, holding her captive.
“You too…”
As I felt a burning heat on my wrist, I saw a scorched skeleton, as black as charcoal, tightly gripping my wrist.
“Diediediediedie.”
Suddenly, skeletons appeared from all directions, radiating heat as they grabbed various parts of my body.
“You will also burn with us!”
“You too!”
Even though I was not affected by it, I could feel the heat growing stronger. Unending malice surrounded me, as if cursing me to burn to death.
The infinitely escalating heat suddenly subsided.
The skeletons that had been assaulting me crumbled into ashes, scattering into the air. Meanwhile, the walls inside the pig statue’s stomach —that looked like internal organs—caught on fire and began to burn.
A loud, earth-shaking noise echoed through the air—the sound of the pig’s neck being cut. And before I knew it, I was back inside the steel statue.
***
The basement I returned to could only be described as a mess. The inner walls of the steel statue were stained red and had already begun to melt. Through the cracks, I could see the basement filled with smoke and flames.
By the time I emerged from inside the pig statue, it had already melted into liquid. And judging from the fact that I no longer saw any hint from my skill, it seemed to have melted from indigestion.
Seeing that all the prison bars were smashed, it appeared that Sehee had successfully led an escape, despite the dangerous situation in the basement.
As I hurried out of the basement, the first sight that greeted me on the ground floor was a burning house with monster men struggling everywhere.
The monster men writhed on the floor in agony, flames spewing from their mouths and eyes. The problem was that those very same flames were also burning down the house.
“I-I can’t die like this!”
Suddenly, the old man, standing over five meters tall, rose from the burning house and shouted.
“I don’t want to die! I’ve survived so much! I’ve held on for so long!”
The old man, who had been wrecking his own house, screamed as he saw the fleeing people.
“I. I will not die alone!”
Though the dying old man lacked the extraordinary agility from before, he still moved with considerable speed. It was enough to catch some captives exhausted from the thick smoke and scorching heat.
However, his last attempt was thwarted by the interference of the imprisoned monster men.
“Youdare!Youdare!Howdareyou!”
The spider-like monster men, with their elongated limbs, continued to fight, biting and entangling each other until they were reduced to ashes.
The fight continued until morning, and I continued to watch, remaining a silent observer.
