Fog crawled through the streets of Grimoir, swallowing every trace of light until the city felt like a silent maze. The cold cut deep enough to make even sober men shiver.
A neon bar sign flickered weakly in the distance. Laughter burst from inside before the door swung open and a man stumbled out, clutching a half-empty bottle of red wine.
"Urgh… damn… can't even feel my face…" he slurred, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
The AMER bottle hanging from his belt clinked softly as he staggered down the sidewalk.
"Too damn foggy tonight…"
But the fog wasn't what made him uneasy.
'Hi… hi hi…'
His steps stopped instantly.
The sound echoed faintly through the street.
He glanced around, squinting into the haze, but saw nothing except empty pavement drowned in pale fog.
Then,
*TANG!
A loud metallic crash rang from across the street.
He flinched.
The noise had come from a rusty trash bin sitting in the corner of a narrow alley, lit only by a flickering street lamp.
The man quickly emptied the rest of his drink.
"Get home… shower… sleep… yeah… heh…"
Muttering to himself, he cautiously approached the alley.
He grabbed the trash bin lid and tried to lift it.
It wouldn't budge.
"Huh?"
He pulled harder.
Still stuck.
"Fu*k… why's this thing so heavy?!"
Breathing heavily, he leaned closer and finally noticed something dangling from inside.
Hair.
Long black hair.
Wet, tangled, yet strangely neat at the same time, as if it were still attached to something hidden beneath the lid.
His drunken haze faded little by little.
And then the trash bin slowly opened on its own.
The rusty hinges screeched sharply through the alley.
The lid rose effortlessly now, as though it had never been heavy to begin with.
A woman's head emerged from the darkness inside.
The man's eyes widened.
He fell backward in panic.
The head stared directly at him with an unnaturally wide grin stretched across its face.
"A A GHOST?! HAAAH!!"
Scrambling to his feet, he turned and bolted toward the alley exit.
But the moment he reached the other side, he froze.
Someone was already standing there.
A woman with braided hair leaned casually against the wall, cigarette glowing faintly between her fingers. She wore a black vest, a distro cap, and enough firearms to make her look more military than police. An assault rifle rested loosely over her shoulder.
The drunk man immediately raised both hands.
"H-hey! Please! Help me! There's a ghost in there!"
Instead of answering, the woman simply stepped aside.
Two men rushed forward from behind her.
*Dugh!
The drunk man slammed face-first into the pavement.
"Akgh! What the hell?!"
Before he could react, they pinned his arms down and restrained him with brutal efficiency.
They didn't look like Grimoir police.
Not even close.
Their gear was strange, almost industrial, and some of them wore suspicious mechanical gloves fitted with metal plating and glowing seams.
"What the hell?! Let me go!" the man shouted.
A small drone hovered toward him, flooding his face with blinding white light as it scanned his body from head to toe.
"Scanning victim. Merge rate: 0%. No signs of infection detected. No UF particles present on the body."
The two men holding him immediately checked the data projected across the lenses of their glasses, exchanging information with cold efficiency. It felt less like a medical inspection and more like some kind of field procedure.
From further back, a young woman stepped out of the fog.
Unlike the others, she looked calm. A translucent hologram floated above the device in her hand as she studied the scan results.
"He's just drunk," she said. "More importantly, there's no sign of possession."
The braided woman barely reacted. Her eyes remained fixed on the dumpster at the end of the alley.
Or rather, on the thing inside it.
"That's not what I care about, Nimi."
She dropped her cigarette and crushed it beneath her boot.
Nimi glanced at the hologram again.
"Astral Entity Level 2.1. Human head-type manifestation. Single target. UF density at 0.2%. No Hollow Portal detected. Effective range: eight meters. Lightweight firearms recommended."
"Got it."
The woman slung her rifle behind her back before pulling out a pistol fitted with a suppressor.
*BANG!
Even suppressed, the gunshot exploded through the alley with a sharp metallic echo. The bullet tore toward the floating head and struck the dumpster behind it instead.
The entity slowly turned toward her.
Through the earpieces worn by the strange group came a distorted groan.
'You stupid humans… You think something like that can hurt me?'
"Orders are orders," the woman replied flatly. "Even scraps are worth collecting. Udin, bag it."
"Roger."
One of the men immediately stepped forward and prepared the device hanging from his waist.
At first glance, it looked like two oversized spray cans connected by wires. But the faint electric hum coming from it made it clear the tool was anything but ordinary.
"Extractor ready," Udin said.
Meanwhile, the woman pulled a tiny object from her vest pocket.
A glowing red chip.
Without hesitation, she inserted it into a slot beneath the pistol.
"The conditions remain stable," Nimi reported calmly. "Permission to fire granted, Ms. Lisa."
"For centuries, humanity evolved just to create toys like this. Pathetic," Lisa mumbled.
She raised the pistol. Then,
*BANG!
Another shot rang out.
This time, the bullet wasn't ordinary. A burst of incandescent sparks wrapped around the 9mm round as it tore through the fog.
The impact was immediate.
The floating head jerked violently before crashing into the alley wall. Nearby trash cans and loose debris exploded outward with a deafening clang.
To ordinary people, it would have looked like the environment itself had suddenly gone berserk.
But the drunken man saw it clearly. The bullet had actually hit the ghost. It made no sense.
"Target hit!" one of the men shouted.
Udin immediately activated the extractor device and rushed forward. But halfway there, he froze.
The severed head slowly lifted itself back into the air. Its grin had vanished. Now it stared at them with pure hatred.
"Huh?! It's still alive?!" Udin panicked.
A smoking hole had formed in the creature's forehead. But instead of blood pouring out, its body began to unravel.
Glowing particles peeled away from the floating head like burning dust scattered into the wind. Little by little, the entity lost its shape.
'Impossible… T-this is impossible… Who are you people?! How can humans hurt me?!'
Its voice trembled through the earpieces in distorted agony.
Lisa answered without hesitation, "We don't talk to dead things."
'You stupid humans… I will… I'LL-!'
The ghost suddenly lunged forward. It shot through the alley at terrifying speed, dragging a shrill, painful scream behind it.
The drunken man recoiled in horror. But just before the creature reached them, its body faltered.
The floating head twitched violently.
Then it dropped.
All strength vanished from it at once, as if whatever was keeping it alive had finally burned out. The glowing particles scattered through the air were immediately sucked into Udin's device.
The strange extractor emitted a low mechanical hum while the particles spiraled inside like smoke being trapped in a bottle. One side of the device resembled a normal electronic canister, while the other displayed a glowing number on its indicator screen.
0.2
"Target eliminated," Udin reported.
"Hm. Nice work, everyone," Nimi nodded.
The tension in the alley loosened almost instantly.
Some members of the team stretched their shoulders casually, as though they had just finished routine overtime work instead of hunting a ghost in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, the drunken man was finally released. Still shaken, he stumbled backward while staring at them.
At the weapons.
At the strange equipment.
At the extractor device still humming softly in their hand.
None of this looked normal.
"Y-You people…" he muttered weakly. "You're not cops… are you?"
Lisa glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Calm. Unbothered. Then a faint crooked smile appeared on her face.
"Close enough."
* * * *