Chapter 3
‘Smiley is a toy too, so couldn’t this help repair it?’
It was a kind of insurance.
I was in the middle of fulfilling the conditions for the True Ending, so I couldn’t afford to make the toys hate me too much.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I stopped to tie my shoelaces.”
I hurried after Park Seonggyeon at a near run and glanced back.
“…….”
The candy remained where I had placed it on Smiley’s hand.
The only change was that the mechanical voice from moments ago had stopped.
It apparently hadn’t done much good.
We passed through a long corridor whose walls bore simple introductions to HSF’s toys, then came face-to-face with an enormous plastic door.
Dozens of small levers in all kinds of colors covered the walls and ceiling on either side of the plastic door.
“Second Lieutenant Park, take the right.”
When Mo Haein extended her pincer hand, its plastic chain unspooled with a rattle and seized one of the levers on the ceiling.
She rapidly pulled down the colored levers on the left wall and ceiling.
Park Seonggyeon took responsibility for the right wall and ceiling, pulling down the levers there.
You were normally supposed to operate them by examining the colored pattern painted on the floor. The fact that they had memorized the entire pattern made it clear they were thoroughly familiar with the HSF walkthrough.
Click. The moment the final lever was moved, cheerful music began to play, and the plastic door opened.
Mo Haein and Park Seonggyeon entered without hesitation.
This was where players began their first shift as factory employees.
The job involved sorting toys as they arrived on a conveyor belt, and since it was the first shift, the difficulty was easy.
Unlike the two people leading the way, however, I quietly slowed my steps.
Because…
“C-Captain.”
“…The pattern got twisted.”
Clunk, clunk, clunk. Lights came on one after another from the outer edge inward, gradually revealing the dark interior.
Music that should have sounded lively yet felt nothing but eerie filled the space.
The toys that should have been sitting obediently on the conveyor belt, turning round and round, had all climbed down to the floor.
Their gleaming eyes stared at Mo Haein and Park Seonggyeon.
Ding!
With the notification chime, a System Window appeared.
◆ Main Quest: Survive the murderous toys.
The toys will not forgive the adults who attacked Smiley.
You believe you must avoid the enraged toys and survive.
‘That’s why you shouldn’t have beaten Smiley up….’
Swallowing an inward sigh, I began edging toward the safe zone.
As a government agency, the Trial Response Agency enforced strict rules inside Trials.
The most important of those rules was ‘No Unnecessary Contact with NPCs.’
Its purpose was to reduce the risk of viral infection by minimizing contact.
The extraterrestrial Trials carried unusual viruses.
Anyone infected with a Trial’s virus underwent physical mutations and developed powerful aggression toward humans.
As a soldier of the Trial Response Agency, Mo Haein followed the rules meticulously.
Today was probably the first time she had ever launched a preemptive attack against an NPC. She must have anticipated some degree of change to the story, but not that it would be altered this drastically.
The route Mo Haein was currently following was the Collapse Ending route, the most difficult one of all.
By attacking Smiley, the very first NPC to appear, the player caused every toy in the factory to become completely hostile.
The player came under attack by toys in every stage. At the end, they escaped with the factory engulfed in flames behind them, bringing the Ending to a close.
The message displayed at the end of the Collapse Ending was particularly chilling.
has collapsed.
Smiley was hacked apart and cast into the flames, yet even then, it could not die.
Smiley will become a terrible nightmare and seek out the player once more….
It was an Ending that remained vivid in my memory.
‘But the Collapse Ending route connects to the True Ending route too.’
If I handled this properly, it seemed I could maintain my position as an ignorant civilian while still seeing HSF’s True Ending.
As I recalled the Collapse Ending, a child’s voice delivered an announcement over the music.
“They’re adults who bullied Smiley. Aduuults. Boring adults.”
Hundreds of toys stared at Mo Haein and Park Seonggyeon, swaying their bodies to the music as though doing warm-up exercises.
Left, right, left, left, right…….
“We want to make the adults fun.”
“But they’re already adults. Adults. Aduuuults. No. Don’t like them. They’re boring.”
“Aha!”
Cymbals crashed, followed by the sound of children cheering.
“We found the answer. We’ll make the adults smaller!”
“Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Like children. L-L-L-Like children. Smaller. Smaller.”
“Pieces. Pieces. Pieces. Pieces. Pieces.”
Mo Haein shouted.
“Civilian!”
Park Seonggyeon, whose head had been bobbing from side to side like the toys’, abruptly came to his senses.
He swore, shot out his pincer hand, and grabbed me around the waist, setting me on top of the conveyor belt.
“If you don’t want to die, stay right here!”
He was telling me that no matter what happened, he wouldn’t rescue me again.
“Yes!”
After answering Park Seonggyeon energetically, I swallowed a sigh.
The conveyor belt made the toys identify a player as another toy. It served as the safe zone used to avoid attacks in HSF.
There was, however, something neither Park Seonggyeon nor Mo Haein knew.
The conveyor belt was useless on the Collapse route.
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“Turning grown-ups into childreeen, staaart!”
The announcement ended amid children’s laughter. The toys that had been swaying began springing into the air like popcorn as they rushed forward.
Mo Haein launched her toy arm toward the ceiling.
Hanging from one of the pipes running overhead, she slashed her human hand through the air.
An obsidian woldo appeared.
It was Mo Haein’s item, the Black Moon Blade.
The Trial Response Agency recommended clearing a Trial using only items obtained inside that particular Trial.
Using an item acquired from another Trial had a high probability of introducing unexpected variables.
But this was an emergency, so she seemed to have brought out the Black Moon Blade.
‘Wow……!’
Even in this desperate moment, I marveled inwardly.
I was seeing Mo Haein wield the Black Moon Blade with my own eyes—and from right in front of me, no less.
As though mesmerized, I watched her fight.
Park Seonggyeon swept the toys away with his pincer hand while using his human hand to shine a flashlight on them.
The toys struck by the flashlight’s beam stopped moving for a moment.
Mo Haein did not let the opening escape her and sliced through them with the Black Moon Blade.
The toys severed by its long, slender blade shrieked like young children and bled bright, rainbow-colored blood.
As much as I wanted to keep watching, unfortunately, there was no time.
I barely managed to tear my eyes from Mo Haein. Then, dodging the toys lunging at me, I ran along the conveyor belt.
Avoiding their attacks wasn’t difficult despite my lack of items. I knew their attack pattern.
The toys’ swaying motions when the music first began had been a clue to that pattern.
Having seen every Ending in HSF, I was enough of a hopeless veteran to have memorized the entire thing.
While sprinting along the conveyor belt, I swiftly scanned the toys rampaging in every direction.
New toys were being added through the production pipes, so the place was absolute chaos.
Even so, finding what I wanted wasn’t difficult.
A fifteen-centimeter mass-produced Smiley doll, Black Edition.
Amid all the toys in riotous primary and fluorescent colors, the solitary pitch-black doll was difficult to spot.
But it was an essential item I absolutely had to obtain for the True Ending.
I reached between the toys.
“Ugh……!”
A burning sensation grazed my arm. A plastic kitchen knife wielded by a pony doll in an apron had cut my forearm.
Nevertheless, I succeeded in snatching the black Smiley.
Smiley Black Edition: The one and only Sad Smiley in the world.
I resumed running along the conveyor belt and reached the packages stacked like part of the scenery behind a production machine.
Among the boxes containing various toys, one was exceptionally large.
It was the toy package that was originally supposed to contain the NPC Smiley.
It now stood empty because Mo Haein had attacked Smiley earlier.
Since it was designed to hold a one-meter doll, the box had enough room for one adult man.
I crammed myself inside and sat down.
It was a rather undignified sight….
It had looked fine in pixel art, but doing it in real life was a little embarrassing.
In any case, once safely settled inside the package, I observed Mo Haein and Park Seonggyeon through the transparent plastic.
The two of them had nearly finished disposing of the toys.
If I delayed any longer, reaching the True Ending might become difficult. I hurriedly checked the Smiley doll.
Not a single second could be wasted, yet I froze for an instant.
‘It’s smiling?’
The Sad Smiley doll was smiling.
As its name suggested, Sad Smiley should originally have worn a crying expression.
There was no possibility that I had grabbed the wrong doll.
Sad Smiley was the only achromatic toy in the entire colorful factory.
As I examined the doll, I discovered my blood on it.
Some must have splattered when my forearm was cut, but I hadn’t noticed because the doll was black.
I belatedly wiped the blood away, yet Sad Smiley’s face continued to smile.
The situation was suspicious, but I had no time to deliberate.
I pressed firmly on Sad Smiley’s stomach. A recorded voice belonging to a gloomy child began to play.
“Please make Sad Smiley happy.”
In the original game, two choices appeared.
- Ignore it.
- Ask how.
But there were no choices here, so I spoke aloud myself.
“What do I need to do to make you happy?”
Then Sad Smiley was supposed to tell me a clue that would reveal the toy factory’s secret….
“Please become Sad Smiley’s owner.”
…That was what it told me……?
“Let’s stay together forever. Being together is fun. Fun makes you happy. Forever. Fo-fo-forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. Foreveeer….”
Crack!
The Sad Smiley in my hands split in two. Black blood splashed across my face.
“I believe I told you to stay put, civilian.”
Mo Haein glared at me, holding the Black Moon Blade—now stained in rainbow colors—at her side.
Carrying the remaining half of the Sad Smiley doll, I climbed out of the box.
The plastic window of the package I had hidden inside had also been sliced in two, so getting out was easy.
Rainbow colors covered everything around us.
“I told you not to move around on your own!”
Park Seonggyeon scowled and bellowed at me.
Still dazed for a moment by Sad Smiley’s bizarre behavior, I responded a little late.
“I’m sorry. I stayed on the conveyor belt as you instructed, but the toys attacked me, so I had to avoid them….”
“They attacked you even though you were on the belt?”
Mo Haein and Park Seonggyeon’s expressions immediately turned grave.
While the two briefly conferred, I found the other half of Sad Smiley where it had flown.
I placed it beside the half I was holding and set a piece of Nut Candy on top.
I stared blankly down at Sad Smiley’s smiling face.
My goodness. An unexpected development. This was truly….
My heart was pounding with excitement……!