NOVEL WEB The old man who had been slowly extending his arms suddenly stretched them out at an incredible speed, as if he thought this was enough.
"You let your guard down!"
The old man who had grabbed my ankles started to lift me up and slam me down onto the floor.
Boom, boom.
With each slam, the stone floor caved in and fragments scattered around. I could easily escape using my ghostly ability, but I was watching, amused by the constantly changing expressions on the old man's face.
At first, the old man's expression was one of triumphant satisfaction.
"Die! Die! Die!"
The old man kept slamming me without a break, as if trying to pierce through the floor. Seeing this, Sehee's face turned pale as she didn't know what to do.
"Now! Stop! Just die!"
The old man then started to lift me up with both hands and slam me down with all his might. Realizing something was off, the old man's expression of laughter disappeared.
Shouldn't he have realized by now that physical attacks are useless against an Object like me? Sehee seemed to have noticed I was unharmed, and started scribbling in her notebook, probably writing something like 'The Gray Reaper appears to be physically indestructible.'
After a few more slams, the old man seemed to realize it was meaningless, and gently placed me back on the floor, dusting off the debris on my body. Then, he crawled backwards towards the exit.
With a servile expression, the old man retreated at an incredible speed, and the only thing that had changed was the now-ruined floor.
Sehee rushed over and started fussing, brushing off the dust.
"Wow, Reaper, you are tougher than I thought. I've never tested this kind of thing before."
Private research institutes usually only conduct safe tests, as they could be held responsible if an incident occurred with a top-tier Object. Such dangerous experiments are often only done at the National Central Research Institute with special authorization.
"Anyway, do we have to defeat that old man to get out of here? Without a gun, I don't think we have any way to deal with him in the Seoul forest..."
Sehee seemed worried about how to get out of here.
In my opinion, the solution was simple and clear - kill the monster. If I [Destroy the source of the fire-made mochi] all the monster will die.
And the 'source' seemed to be the steel pig statue in front of me. If the monster has hidden it in the basement and fiercely guards the cherished Object, what else could be the origin?
The problem is the condition for destroying the pig statue
[Indigestion]
Uhmmm, what kind of nonsense is this?
***
Leaving Sehee, who was asking me to call for help, I circled around the pig statue, trying to figure out what kind of 'indigestion' a statue could have.
The pig statue was constantly emitting intense heat, and a woman's piercing scream could be heard from inside it. The scream was coming from the statue's belly, but when I opened it, there was only a pile of bones, with no source for the scream.
I couldn't find the origin of the scream, but I did discover the source of the delicious smell filling the basement - a pure sphere of fire inside the pig statue's belly.
I could pick it up with my hands, and it wasn't even hot. Its appearance was that of pure fire, which was quite fascinating. It could be considered a sample of the abnormal phenomena caused by an Object.
Even at a glance, the ball of fire looked suspicious, but everyone who saw it seemed to have their eyes drawn to it, wanting to put it in their mouths. Even the usually composed Sehee became taciturn and had a hint of madness in her eyes when I was holding the ball of fire.
Some of the people trapped in the prison were cursing and telling me to hand it over, but there was no reason to give it to them since it was obvious that eating it would almost certainly turn them into a monster.
Eating something that an Object makes look delicious? That's the same as saying you want to die.
Indigestion... Indigestion....
No matter how much I repeated it in my head, there seemed to be only one way.
To go inside the pig's belly.
Since I don't think a mere pig statue-level Object can harm me, there shouldn't be any major problems. In fact, I thought that Object going inside the pig's belly might be the cause of the indigestion.
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The problem is that I'm reluctant to put my body into the pile of bones inside the statue, but with no other options, I have no choice.
The steel pig statue was quite large, and the vertical height of the pig's belly was taller than my height, so it wasn't too difficult to enter.
After carefully avoiding the bones and entering, I closed the door, and a dull sound and an ominous noise echoed.
The intermittent screams grew louder and louder, and an indistinct viscous liquid began to flow down the walls of the pig statue. And from within the pig statue, flames erupted from all sides, relentlessly raising the internal temperature.
'Oh?'
And the inner walls of the pig statue began to move farther away. No, the interior space was expanding. The steel inner walls had turned into a red skin, and the space that had been like the interior of a statue had now become a grotesque, humid and sloshing space like real innards.
And then a person whose skin was melting approached my face. Their hair was already completely burned off, and their skin was slowly melting off like rubber, a horrifying sight.
The charred skeletal limbs of the person whose skin was melting were grasping and restraining me.
And then I realized. Ah, that person is the source of the scream. The woman screaming in agony was twisting her body, trying to escape, but it was a futile struggle due to the skeletal hands grasping her limbs.
"You too..."
I felt a searing heat on my wrist, and a charred skeletal hand was tightly gripping it.
"Die, die, die, die."
Suddenly, skeletons appearing from all sides began to grab onto various parts of my body, emitting heat.
"You'll burn too!"
"You too!"
As I was unaffected by the heat, the heat felt all around me began to intensify. It was as if there was an endless malice, demanding that I too must burn and die.
The intensifying heat was starting to reach its limit.
The skeletal hands grasping me crumbled into ashes and began to scatter, and the viscera-like inner walls caught fire and started burning.
And then a tremendous sound of a pig being slaughtered was heard, and I was back to the basement.
***
The basement was a mess. The blood-red inner walls of the steel statue had already begun to melt, and the basement visible through the cracks was a scene of smoke and flames.
Jumping down from the pig statue, I saw that it had already melted into a liquid. With no more clues visible, it seems the pig statue had melted due to indigestion.
Seeing the dangerous situation in the basement, Sehee took the lead in breaking down the prison bars to start the escape.
Rushing out of the basement, the scene that greeted us was that of a burning house and the thrashing figures of deranged individuals all around.
The deranged individuals, spewing flames from their mouths and eyes, were simply writhing in agony on the ground. The problem was that the flames were setting the house on fire.
"I-I cannot die like this!"
A towering old man, over 5 meters tall, suddenly sprang up from the burning house and shouted.
"I don't want to die! After all I've been through! After all I've endured!"
The old man screamed as his house burned to the ground, he saw people fleeing, and he yelped.
"I won't die alone!"
The old man's agility was not as sharp as before, but his speed was still considerable.
Exhausted by the thick smoke and intense heat, the people were even more unable to escape his speed.
However, the old man's final attempt was blocked by the interference of other deranged individuals who were trapped in the house.
"How dare you! How dare you!"
The long-limbed, spider-like deranged individuals continued to bite and entangle each other, not stopping the fight until they were completely reduced to ashes.
The fight continued until morning, and I kept watching the scene.