Chapter 133: James' City (1)

Seeing the Golden Reaper's unexpected reaction, I quickly jumped up and scooped it out of the sea of hot chocolate.

The little guy was curled up in my palm, eyes squeezed shut, clutching that bead like it was the most important thing in the world.

It had already fallen asleep, and a tear slipped out—it was as if it was having a sad dream or something.

Honestly, I just wanted to spread that silly letter around and watch the Golden Reapers play the cursed chain letter game. I never thought it would actually believe it...

I held the Golden Reaper in my hand, running the situation over in my head.

How am I going to fix this mess?

This was way more of a headache than dealing with the Hungry Ghost.

Solution number one:

1. Pretend I fixed the curse by getting rid of the marble.

Pros: The Golden Reaper would be happy. No one gets hurt, and everything’s all sunshine and rainbows.

Cons: If it figures out the truth, I’m in big trouble. Who knows how mad the Golden Reaper would get?

This was the suggestion from the neutral Reaper in my mind, a nice, easy route to a happy ending for everyone. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bad idea.

Fooling the Golden Reaper, who’s super sensitive to emotions, wasn’t going to be easy. If it were that simple, I’d probably still be accidentally summoning them in black slime.

Solution number two:

2.Apologize properly and face the consequences head-on.

The good Reaper suggested this one. You know, do the right thing because it’s the right thing. If you mess up, you apologize. Easy enough.

There was a solution number three from the evil Reaper, but I tossed that idea out right away. It was a high-risk low-return plan that wouldn’t make anyone happy, plus it could cause a lot of problems if things went south.

So, I decided to go with solution number two. I tried to gently pull the marble out of the Golden Reaper's arms, but it held on so tight I thought it might never let go.

Eventually, the Golden Reaper woke up, saw me, and clung to the bead even harder, its little body shaking like it was scared of losing it.

I sighed, gave up on taking the orb, and just patted the Golden Reaper's head instead.

So... You see... I made that bead. I’m sorry! Actually, I made that bead. I’m sorry.

The Golden Reaper's eyes flew open, and it stared up at me in shock. When I destroyed the bead and made a new one, the tears started all over again.

I hugged the Golden Reaper close and stroked its head slowly.

It was just a prank, okay? Your beloved humans won’t die. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.

I kept stroking its head until it finally stopped crying.

*******The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the office window, casting long, lazy shadows over the pile of papers on my desk.

Ugh, I could feel the fatigue creeping up on me—probably because I’d been stuck in the same stiff position for ages.

Since Kim Jungrwi sunbae and Seoah unnie were super busy, all the simple, boring paperwork had landed on my plate.

“Uggggghhh.”

I stretched my arms over my head, letting out a little groan as I felt that oh-so-satisfying pull in my muscles. Ahhh, much better!

There were just too many things to prep for the ‘Sehee Research Institute’s trip to the United States’ that James just had to suggest out of the blue.

I had to submit all these documents to the Korea Object Association and the American Object Association about transferring an Object from one country to another.

And don’t even get me started on the mountain of forms, applications, and whatever else we needed just to get ourselves to the U.S.

But guess what? I’d finally submitted every single document that had been driving me crazy until, like, ten minutes ago.

“It’s finally over!”

I leaned back in my chair, feeling totally satisfied now that I was free from the never-ending nightmare of paperwork.

Seriously, the Korea Object Association had so many document requests that it felt like they were multiplying every time I finished one.

Of course, once I get all the responses to the documents I sent, there’ll be more work waiting for me, but that’s tomorrow Yerin’s problem, not today Yerin’s.

Right now, it’s finally time to chill!

My heart, which had been totally drained from all that work, started to perk up at the thought of going to see the Reaper. Yay, finally!

An empty airport, wrapped in silence.

The only sounds were Yerin’s shoes and my bare feet tapping against the cold floor.

But honestly, if they were going to go to all this trouble, wouldn’t a military airport have been cooler?

Well, I’m not exactly an expert, so I figured there must be some reason behind it and just shrugged it off.

Still, using a civilian airport like this made it feel like we were on some kind of secret mission. Pretty fun, if you ask me.

Hiihihi!

And then, there they were—James and his group, waiting for us right in the middle of the airport hall.

We’re finally heading to America!

*******James City, a massive new metropolis sprawled across the eastern part of the United States.

As the name suggests, it was a colossal city built and bankrolled by none other than James himself.

At the airport on the outskirts of the city, preparations to welcome the Sehee Institute group arriving from Korea were in full swing.

While I was overseeing the early morning hustle at James Airport, something weird caught my eye.

“What on earth is that?”

Beyond the tall buildings, I spotted a cylindrical pillar with a bunch of holes.

Now, that’s not something you see every day. In fact, it wasn’t there at all yesterday!

How could such a massive structure just pop up overnight?

“But... Team leader... there’s nothing there...?”

To make things even stranger, my subordinates acted like they couldn’t see the pillar at all.

Okay, so either I was losing it, or they were.

And honestly, there was no way it was me, so clearly, everyone else had lost their minds.

Ignoring their puzzled looks, I slowly made my way toward the pillar.

“A phenomenon that appears to be the work of an Object with mind corruption abilities, has been discovered. Request to dispatch a response team!”

I could hear someone calling for a response team from afar.

Ha! Without even realizing their minds were corrupted, they went ahead and called for backup themselves.

Now, what’s the protocol when something like this happens again?

Oh, right—I should record everything.

“I see a strange structure. It’s white, shaped like a giant pillar with lots of holes.”

“Since no one but me can see it, it looks like everyone else’s minds have been corrupted by the Object.”

“I’m moving in to confirm the identity of the pillar.”

Sure, it’s usually a bad idea to approach an Object recklessly, but hey, this is an emergency. What else am I supposed to do?

After passing a ton of security checkpoints, we finally arrived at the Object’s location.

But guess what? The huge pillar was gone. Instead, all we saw was a large barrier and a gate.

The reason James City exists—a massive barrier enclosing the entire area that had turned into an Object and couldn’t be reversed.

It was one of those places you couldn’t just waltz into unless you had administrator-level clearance.

But, as soon as I saw the barrier in front of me, a sudden revelation hit me like a ton of bricks.

Open the gate.

In that instant, everything I had drilled into my head to gain administrator-level authority came rushing back.

If you are conscious and feel the need to open the gate, press the red button.

So, I did just that—pressed the red button—and then, just like that, everything went black.