5

Chapter 5

Park Seonggyeon’s lips trembled as a terrified mutter escaped him.

“Wh-What is this…. Why is this happening……?”

He backed away in an attempt to evade the System Windows thrust before his eyes, but his back soon struck the wall.

Although he must have known physical force couldn’t affect them, he even flailed his hands in an effort to make the System Windows disappear.

Pretending to know nothing, I approached Park Seonggyeon.

“Are you all right?”

“Gah!”

Park Seonggyeon, who had been trembling violently, started and swung his pincer hand.

Having already anticipated his response, I evaded the attack by a hair.

“Second Lieutenant Park Seonggyeon!”

Mo Haein shouted with fire seemingly dripping from her eyes.

But Park Seonggyeon had already lost his senses. With a yell, he charged at Mo Haein.

“Aaaaaagh!!”

Ordinarily, Mo Haein would have dodged him with ease, but at that moment, she was evading both Tarantella’s attacks and the musical-note gimmick.

“Ugh…!”

She clenched her teeth. Red blood seeped between them and trickled down the corner of her mouth.

With Tarantella’s toy leg piercing her abdomen, Mo Haein suppressed the pain and swung the Black Moon Blade.

The Black Moon Blade carved a long gash across Park Seonggyeon’s chest.

After pitching forward onto the floor, he was struck repeatedly by the musical-note toys raining from the ceiling, leaving deep dents all over his body.

As the discordant notes continued, Park Seonggyeon screamed and his body turned a riot of rainbow colors.

Then, with a clatter…

His body became toy blocks that spilled across the floor. He was dead.

‘He has three hearts, so he’ll revive.’

We hadn’t activated a separate save point on the way here, so he would probably revive in the lobby.

“Damn it…….”

Mo Haein looked at me with trembling eyes. She, too, would soon be pronounced dead and lose a heart.

Despair, frustration, and helplessness filled her gaze as she looked at the civilian who would be left alone before the boss.

Mo Haein rattled off her words like rapid gunfire.

“Listen carefully, civilian! Dying doesn’t mean you truly die. You’ll revive, so don’t move an inch from wherever you wake up. I’ll—!”

She couldn’t finish speaking before collapsing into toy blocks. The concern she had shown for me pricked my conscience.

I’m sorry, Captain Mo Haein. I’ll make it up to you when you return.

Once revived, she would prioritize protecting the civilian over pursuing Park Seonggyeon.

I calculated how long it would take Mo Haein to realize something was amiss while waiting for me to revive in the lobby and return to the laboratory, then raised my head.

Princess Tarantella was looking down at me.

Ding! A System Window appeared.

◆ Main Quest: Soothe the angry Princess Tarantella.

All your companions have died. You are alone.

You are the only one who can face the angry spider.

You want to soothe Princess Tarantella. To do so, you must win the battle.

The boss’s target had now changed to me.

Musical notes poured from the ceiling as eight legs lunged toward me.

The attacks rained down in a chaotic barrage, but they weren’t difficult to follow with my eyes. I had completed this section without dying even in the game.

‘And my body moves well.’

Inside a Trial, you were generally granted the minimum physical capabilities needed to clear it.

It fascinated me to feel my body moving so lightly in accordance with my will.

“–!”

Tarantella, which had failed to land even a single attack, unleashed a shrill cry.

The second phase had begun.

The shower of musical notes vanished, and Tarantella began spraying webs of yarn in every direction.

The webs severely restricted the player’s movement. Getting caught meant being rendered completely immobile, attacked, and pronounced dead.

‘I wonder if the exploit works here too.’

I didn’t have much time. I intended to try a strategy that exploited a glitch in the game to clear the battle quickly.

The chances of success were low, of course.

It had worked in the game, but there was no telling whether it would work in this place too.

I ran straight toward Tarantella. The key was to move before the webs had been fully laid down.

Stepping on its eight legs, I leaped upward and reached the top of Tarantella’s head.

Ugh.

Only a handspan from where I had placed my foot, I could see a mouth packed tightly with teeth.

If I failed, I would fall straight into that mouth.

‘But I still have hearts left, don’t I?’

I jumped with all my strength toward the darkness of the hole in the ceiling.

Everything was pitch-black.

My body, which had risen as far as it could, slowly began to fall.

Faint goosebumps spread across my skin.

The pain awaiting me if this failed sent a chill down my spine.

A short fall.

My feet found purchase.

“Haa…….”

I released the breath I had been holding in a rush and looked down.

Having lost its target, Tarantella looked around in confusion before spraying out a web.

The second-phase exploit involved hiding on a platform inside the hole in the ceiling.

If you waited briefly on the glitched ceiling platform that should not have existed, Tarantella lost its target, behaved erratically, and eventually awarded the player victory.

After spraying webbing at a single spot as though it were broken, Tarantella raised all eight legs at once.

It then spat out a cocoon. The mouth split in four directions closed, restoring its smiling face.

“—….”

The sound of a young child crying escaped it as the spider toy crumpled to the floor.

I had won the boss battle.

You have won the battle against Princess Tarantella!

Using Tarantella as a foothold, I climbed back down.

The once-cheerful chiptune music had now changed to a melancholy melody.

The cocoon Tarantella had spat out dissolved into wisps, revealing pieces of a doll.

They were the arms and legs of the prince doll.

I collected the doll pieces and placed them in my Inventory.

“…….”

All the while, Tarantella didn’t move in the slightest.

I took out some Nut Candy and slid it toward Tarantella.

One of Tarantella’s legs suddenly twitched.

It weakly clicked the pincer at the end of the leg, trying to pick up the candy, but kept missing.

I unwrapped the Nut Candy and placed it on what I assumed was Tarantella’s mouth.

The smiling face parted slightly and swallowed the candy. Tarantella, which had lain limp until moments ago, rose as though it had regained its strength.

At some point, the chiptune music had also changed into something soothing.

Tarantella looked at me and stretched its legs upward.

The spider climbed the wall on its toy legs and slowly vanished into the darkness of the ceiling.

A cocoon of yarn remained where it had been.

‘But I already obtained the doll pieces?’

Puzzled, I picked up the cocoon. The yarn unraveled, revealing a small piece of candy.

Bolt Candy: Whirr, whirr, toy upgrade in progress….

It was Bolt Candy, one of HSF’s hidden items.

Bolt Candy temporarily raised both attack power and physical capabilities by a tremendous amount.

Unlike Nut Candy, it could be used without equipping toy limbs.

You could obtain it only once in HSF, and only by completing a secret Quest.

It was also the hidden item I had intended to find before Mo Haein returned to the laboratory.

But Tarantella had given me the Bolt Candy…….

I had never received a hidden item from a boss before.

HSF’s toys hated adults.

Although the toys felt Affection for the player on the True Ending route, it was effectively closer to ‘not hating them.’

It should have been impossible for them to express Affection by giving the player a present like this.

‘Come to think of it, Sad Smiley asked me to become its owner too.’

The request to stay together forever had been chilling, but strictly speaking, it was still an expression of Affection.

Read only on MUGEX

I put away the Bolt Candy, picked up the prince doll from the floor, and attached its arms and legs.

After placing the completed doll in my Inventory, I also farmed a triangular flask filled with rainbow-colored liquid.

I moved on, lost in thought.

‘What if there’s another Ending besides the True Ending?’

When I reviewed everything I had done, there was only one difference.

My blood had gotten on Sad Smiley.

In a game, an item didn’t get stained with blood simply because the player was injured, unless it was part of a specific event.

‘Let’s do what needs to be done first.’

I had gone to great lengths to create this opportunity to separate myself from Park Seonggyeon and Mo Haein. I had no time to sink into contemplation.

I left the laboratory and headed toward the warehouse, the next stage.

I scanned the prince doll’s eyes to open the warehouse door and went inside.

There was a hidden space in the warehouse.

It could only be found by gathering sketchbook pages scattered throughout HSF, crafting an item, and then solving the clues provided by that item.

The sketchbook pages read as follows.

Unknown Page #1

To save the sick princess, the prince summoned a wicked demon.

Unknown Page #2

The princess became healthy after gaining the demon’s power! But she turned into a dreadful monster.

Unknown Page #3

The princess imprisoned in the tower lives an eternal life. She hates what she has become and wants to die.

Unknown Page #4

But no matter what she does, she cannot die. Forever….

Unknown Page #5

The angry princess pushed the prince from the tower.

The prince shattered into pieces and died.

The princess looked upon the death of the prince in pieces and envied him.

Once all five pages were collected, they transformed into a fairy-tale book item.

Unknown Fairy-Tale Book: A crude fairy-tale book made from crayon drawings on sketchbook paper. It appears to have been made by a young child.

Then one additional page appeared at the end of the book.

IWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieKillMeKillMeKillMeDieDieDie

It was a story that pierced directly to the heart of HSF’s main plot.

But I already knew every clue obtained from the fairy-tale book, so there was no need to wander the factory collecting the pages.

Instead, I farmed tarot cards inside the warehouse depicting the crown and tower, symbols that appeared in the book.

Then I approached an old cabinet tucked into an obscure corner, so inconspicuous it was barely visible.

When I pulled on the door of the tall metal cabinet, it merely rattled and refused to open.

It seems to be locked….

That was the System Window that appeared in the game.

But if you stubbornly attempted to open the door ten times or more…

The cabinet door has broken!

The door opened with a notification chime.

This time, I heard the lock break instead of a notification chime, though.

Pieces of dolls came tumbling from the open cabinet. Every one of them belonged to dismembered prince dolls.

I emptied out the doll pieces, then placed the completed prince doll and the items I had gathered in the laboratory and warehouse inside before closing the door.

Brilliant light leaked through the gaps in the cabinet. I waited for the light to subside, then opened the door.

All the other items had vanished, leaving a single piece of Bolt Candy sitting forlornly inside.

‘Now I have two pieces of Bolt Candy.’

It was an item I had never possessed two of before. While considering how best to use them, I called up the System Window.

‘Park Seonggyeon’s Status Window.’

When I checked it, nothing much had changed except that he had used one piece of Nut Candy in the meantime.

Come to think of it, when I sent Park Seonggyeon those Messages earlier, I had been able to see the System Windows.

You normally couldn’t see another person’s System Windows. I had likely seen those because I created the Messages myself.

‘But if I’m the System, shouldn’t I be able to see everything in the first place?’

The moment I entertained that reasonable question, a rectangle appeared as though it had been waiting.

Insufficient ability.

Perhaps it couldn’t be bothered to repeat itself, because its response was remarkably perfunctory.

I had learned what I wanted to know, so I ignored the System Window’s lack of effort.

Then I laid some groundwork while waiting for Mo Haein, who should be arriving soon.

A running gimmick began in the warehouse and continued into the next stage.

Since it required running while avoiding falling debris as the building collapsed, I cleared away obstacles in advance.

Mo Haein appeared just as I moved the final chair.

“Haa, you… How……?”

She was panting as though she had run with all her might.

Standing there with one hand gripping the warehouse door, Mo Haein stared blankly at me from head to toe.

After confirming that I was unharmed and free of injuries, she clenched her teeth and approached me, the Black Moon Blade held in one hand.

Its black obsidian blade drew close beneath my chin. Looking up at me, Mo Haein asked,

“Civilian.”

“Yes?”

“You can see System Windows, can’t you?”