6

Chapter 6

Before I could answer, she spoke coldly.

“Nut Candy.”

It was an interrogation, warning me not to even think about feigning ignorance. Her words brought a scene flashing through my mind.

“Well, when I picked up this candy, it said it could repair toys.”

That was what I had said while explaining why I had pieced Sad Smiley back together.

Anyone who wasn’t one of the Compatible couldn’t see Nut Candy’s item description—in other words, the System Window.

It was simple logic, but the existence of System Windows seemed so natural to me that I had made a mistake.

Mo Haein must have suspected me ever since that moment. When she returned and found me alive and unharmed after being left alone, her suspicions had apparently turned into certainty.

‘I need to be more careful from now on.’

I had already decided to stop pretending to be a civilian anyway.

Remaining the helpless man who knew nothing would make reaching the True Ending difficult because of Park Seonggyeon.

That was also why I had dealt with Princess Tarantella.

I gave a somewhat ambiguous answer.

“I think I can see them.”

“You think?”

“This is the first time anything like this has happened. Rectangular messages keep appearing. Are those what you call System Windows?”

“Yes.”

Without withdrawing the blade, Mo Haein asked,

“How did you deal with the spider?”

“I just dodged it.”

The tip of the blade pricked beneath my chin. I hurriedly added,

“I could see its pattern. My eyesight is fairly good.”

Mo Haein let out an incredulous scoff.

“You cleared the spider without a single item, using nothing but dynamic visual acuity and reaction speed?”

“I thought it was similar to a game, so I treated it like I was playing one. I like games.”

The outer corners of my eyes naturally tilted upward, so my expression was easy to misinterpret when my face was blank.

I tried to open my eyes as innocently as possible and raised the corners of my lips a little.

“Besides, you said dying here didn’t mean truly dying.”

“You fearless bastard.”

After uttering words that might or might not have been a curse, Mo Haein finally lowered the blade.

I rubbed the spot beneath my chin where it had pricked me. I didn’t seem to be bleeding.

Mo Haein silently stared at me.

“For one of the Compatible entering a Trial for the first time to play like this….”

She stopped midway through the sentence and closed her mouth.

“We’ll talk after we get out. You—what did you say your name was?”

“Han Goyo.”

“Call me Captain.”

“Yes.”

And because of what happened next, I immediately found myself addressing her.

“…Captain?”

Clack.

A pair of hinged handcuffs snapped around my wrists.

They were specially made Trial Response Agency items issued only to officers of Captain rank or above: restraint cuffs for the Compatible.

With my hands rendered completely immobile, I looked at Mo Haein in bewilderment.

She stroked the Black Moon Blade as she warned me,

“Behave yourself, all right?”

“…….”

I closed my mouth without asking or arguing any further.

It seemed my attempt to earn Mo Haein’s trust had failed.

With me restrained and walking in front of her, Mo Haein did not head toward the next stage. She turned back the way we had come.

“We’re going to find Park Seonggyeon now.”

In the corridor between the warehouse and laboratory, Mo Haein opened a sealed door. A small space containing an elevator was revealed behind it.

Unlike the colorful exterior decorated like a children’s paradise, the elevator was made of hard, colorless steel.

▼

The elevator had only a button for going down. The moment she pressed it, the doors opened.

The first thing I saw was a huge warning written in vivid red across the wall.

NO CHILDREN ALLOWED!

Like the controls outside, the floor panel inside the elevator had only one button.

More precisely, a single enormous button occupied a space that looked large enough for about fifty.

A long string of numbers was packed inside an elongated rectangle.

B9999999999999999….

I tried to count the nines before giving up. Mo Haein spread her pincer hand as wide as it would go and pushed the enormous button.

A crackling announcement played.

“Going-going-down. Chil-Children, down. Down. Down.”

The doors then closed, and the elevator began to move.

During the descent, she folded her arms with the Black Moon Blade tucked against one forearm.

“You.”

I was being treated like a suspected criminal, but apparently, she was still willing to speak to me. I answered cheerfully.

“Yes?”

“What do you think happens if you die here?”

If a player exhausted every life and received a game over, or equipped Cherry Pickers on both arms and legs…

The player became an employee of the factory.

“You become an employee working at the toy factory and can never leave, for all eternity.”

Mo Haein told me something I already knew.

What she said next, however, was something I did not.

“Where we’re going now, there are people who became trapped in the Trial like that…. Trapped inside this place, I mean.”

I had already seen what was on the underground floor in the game.

Hundreds of employees dressed in the same uniforms as the player worked diligently there, making toys.

I had searched every corner but found no event, so I assumed it was a hidden area the developer added as a little joke—an Easter egg of sorts….

They were all people trapped inside the Trial?

I remembered thinking the tiny pixel-art employees looked adorable as they repeated the same motions while making toys.

The employees never tired, fell sick, or suffered.

In the drab, dark underground factory, so different from the world above, they simply made toys with joyful smiles perfectly suited to .

I slowly swallowed against my dry throat and opened my mouth.

“Is Second Lieutenant Park Seonggyeon there?”

“Don’t call that bastard ‘Second Lieutenant.’ I’m going to have him stripped of his uniform.”

Mo Haein rested her face against the Black Moon Blade. Her cheek bulged where it was pressed, and for a moment, I forgot our situation and stared in fascination.

They said the Black Moon Blade never cut its owner, and sure enough, she could press her face against that razor-sharp edge without so much as a hairline scratch on her cheek.

Lowering her eyes, she moved her lips.

“He attacked an NPC from the outset and made the toys hostile to us, then committed insubordination against his superior, yet he doesn’t even have the ability to clear the place and get out alone.”

So Park Seonggyeon had attacked Smiley.

And Mo Haein had lost a heart trying to protect him afterward.

I was now certain of the source of the noise I had heard immediately after waking in the factory.

Mo Haein had revived after her first death and was dealing with Smiley, who had already become hostile.

That was why a veteran like her had been forced onto the difficult Collapse Ending route.

“While I clear the Trial, the underground level is the one place where Park Seonggyeon can hide safely without being attacked by the toys.”

I looked at her name tag. The smiley face attached to it was crying now.

Mo Haein was one mistake away from a game over.

“Won’t it be dangerous?”

“Of course. But I can’t complete the Clear while constantly worrying about being stabbed in the back, can I?”

She was right, since Park Seonggyeon might launch a surprise attack.

Park Seonggyeon had two hearts remaining.

Of course, equipping Cherry Pickers on all four limbs meant an immediate game over, but he would never do that unless he had lost his mind.

With three Cherry Pickers equipped, Park Seonggyeon currently had the physical advantage.

Truthfully, I had made my own preparations.

That was why I had exploited the glitch to buy enough time to retrieve the Bolt Candy.

If necessary, I intended to hand it to Mo Haein.

Since explaining how I had obtained it would be difficult, it would be best if she could subdue Park Seonggyeon without the Bolt Candy, though.

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Clunk.

The elevator reached its destination, coming to a stop with a brief shudder.

“Floor ■■. Ch-Ch-Children, children, please do not get off.”

The doors opened.

But the sight that greeted me was not what I had expected.

A brilliant yellow face filled my entire vision.

Smiley…….

Smiley had grown so enormous that its face filled the elevator doorway, and it was waiting for me.

Our reflections—Mo Haein’s and mine—appeared in its smooth plastic eyes, densely filled with black and devoid of pupils.

Both of us stood frozen, eyes wide.

We couldn’t even breathe carelessly, much less scream.

It felt as though one wrongly drawn breath would get us crushed on the spot.

In HSF, Smiley only grew gigantic during the final boss battle.

As befitted the final boss, Giant Smiley possessed difficult attack patterns and specialized in massive area attacks using its enormous body and a variety of toys.

It was an enemy that had to be faced after thorough preparation.

So why was it here?

Toys weren’t supposed to appear in this space.

No, could I really say they weren’t supposed to?

The place was already changing from the game I knew. This was entirely possible.

The cause wasn’t what I needed to consider right now.

I had to think of a way to deal with the Giant Smiley before my eyes.

“…….”

Mo Haein lifted one foot with agonizing slowness.

Then she placed it behind her.

A cautious step.

Blue veins stood out on the back of the hand gripping the Black Moon Blade.

Fortunately, Smiley did not move even after Mo Haein took a step back.

She silently motioned to me with her eyes.

I tried to retreat just as slowly as Mo Haein.

Or I was going to.

Damn it.

Creeeak. The elevator doors emitted an ominous noise as they were forced apart.

Smiley had pushed its face inside.

That made it clear. I was the one who had caught Smiley’s interest.

Cold sweat ran down Mo Haein’s temple.

No matter how capable Mo Haein was, HSF’s final boss was no easy opponent.

If she had been alone, she might have attacked Giant Smiley with the Black Moon Blade and emerged victorious.

But it was impossible while burdened with dead weight she needed to protect.

The narrow elevator, where she couldn’t freely swing the long-handled Black Moon Blade, only made matters worse.

At this rate, Mo Haein might receive a game over.

She didn’t know me, but I knew her.

I didn’t want someone I had grown fond of while playing the Archive games to meet an Ending where she became a toy-factory employee.

I decided to gamble.

I brought my retreating foot forward. Mo Haein’s eyes widened as I took one step closer.

She looked ready to shout at any moment, but fearing she might provoke Smiley, she could only move her lips.

I took another step forward.

Then one more.

Smiley drew its face back.

At that, the elevator doors I had thought were broken rattled and tried to close again.

Crunch. Smiley tore the doors off with a pincer hand.

Thanks to that, I could step outside with ease.

Of course, it would have been better if Smiley had simply allowed the doors to close….

Smiley retreated little by little, matching my walking speed.

As I moved, I took a piece of Bolt Candy from my Inventory and held it in my hand.

I discreetly dropped it below me, then stepped completely out of the elevator.

The underground level, which Smiley had blocked from view, came into sight.

The chamber was so vast and high that I couldn’t estimate its scale at a glance.

Darkness obscured its interior, but I was certain it extended far into the distance.

Dozens of enormous machines stood throughout the area, but it was deathly quiet.

Every machine was motionless, as though powered off.

And there were hundreds of employees.

Dressed in colorful work uniforms, they stood at attention with broad smiles stretched to the absolute limits of their faces.

Despite the presence of so many people, not even the sound of breathing could be heard.

Apparently because they were no longer ‘people.’

With the employees arrayed behind it, Giant Smiley looked down at me.

…This was a little frightening.

A toy roughly fifteen meters tall possessed a considerable sense of menace.

Even so, everything was still all right for now.

Judging from the favor HSF’s toys had shown me so far, I inferred that Smiley would not attack first either.

Smiley’s pincer hand approached me. Sensing no intention to attack, I waited without moving.

The pincer seized my body like the claw in a claw machine.

I was lifted like a prize doll.

Smiley brought me in front of its face. A mechanical voice emerged.

“Smiley-welcomes-you-only-you-to-Happy-Smile-Factory-let’s-be-happy-happy-together-.”

Children’s laughter and cheering sounded behind the mechanical voice repeating happy, happy.

An eerie shudder ran down my spine.

The instant Smiley exerted even a little force with its hand, I would shatter into blocks.

Strangely, though, I wasn’t particularly afraid.

Perhaps it was because, like Mo Haein, Smiley was also an NPC I liked.

Even after matters had come this far, I still wanted to finish with the True Ending.

It might be impossible, but I wanted to keep trying until it worked.

“Smiley.”

I smiled at Smiley.

“Would you like me to kill you?”

Smiley’s death—the absolute condition required to reach the True Ending.

After stating the wish HSF’s final boss so desperately desired, I waited for an answer.