Chapter 7
“…….”
Smiley remained silent.
Its black plastic eyes simply held me in their gaze, as though examining something unfamiliar.
A moment later…
Smiley’s pincer hand lowered me to the ground.
The instant my feet touched down, an intense drum-and-bass track began to play. It was the music announcing HSF’s final boss battle.
A System Window appeared.
◆ Ma?in Qu?est??: Grant Smiley eternal rest.
You promised Smiley death.
If you fail to keep your promise, you and your com?panions will?die?dea?th?is?will.
You believe you must win the battle against Smiley.
Perhaps because this wasn’t the normal progression, even the System Window was behaving strangely.
I exhaled softly.
Truthfully, there were still several stages I needed to clear and plenty of Affection I needed to earn from the toys before fighting the final boss.
I didn’t even have a weapon item.
In short, I was about to throw myself headfirst into the challenge without any help at all.
But an error had already occurred. Even if I wanted to proceed in order, I couldn’t.
And although it wasn’t exactly an HSF item…
I had obtained one reasonably useful thing.
Good little Smiley was waiting for me to attack first. I took the Bolt Candy from my Inventory and tore away the wrapper.
The Bolt Candy’s attack and physical enhancement buff lasted 180 seconds.
I had to defeat all three of Smiley’s phases within that time.
Thirty-five seconds each for phases one and two, sixty seconds for phase three, and twenty-five seconds for each event scene between phases.
It was a slightly tight allocation of time.
When I placed the Bolt Candy in my mouth, an electrifying taste spread across my tongue.
“Ugh….”
The prickling sensation felt like static electricity and made me grimace instinctively.
But it was exhilarating to directly experience a flavor I had only ever seen described in lines of text on a System Window.
I jumped lightly.
The moment I confirmed that my body could move beyond anything I had expected, several promising strategies sprang into my mind.
Choosing one of those ideas, I looked at Smiley.
Waiting for my initial attack, Smiley silently followed my movements with its eyes.
Sorry, Smiley, but you don’t get a turn in phase one.
“Captain Mo Haein!”
I drew my cuffed hands as far back as I could.
“Eat the Bolt Candy!!”
I slammed the hinged handcuffs into Smiley’s left eye.
Crack!
The plastic eye split apart.
‘That actually worked.’
These were special Trial Response Agency items designed to restrain the Compatible.
I had thought their durability, far greater than that of most items, might make them usable as a weapon, but it had still been a gamble.
The thrill of winning that bet heated my brain.
Counting the seconds in my head, I grabbed the cracked pieces of plastic and tore them out.
Rainbow blood burst forth, and Smiley thrashed its body.
The recoil sent me flying, and I landed some distance away.
When I noticed my movements suddenly felt easier and looked down, I saw that the hinge connecting the cuffs had broken.
Having unintentionally regained the use of my hands, I listened to the music.
Crackling static began to blend into the background track.
It was the sound of the battle transitioning into phase two.
‘I saved four seconds.’
Rainbow liquid streamed from one eye as Smiley slammed a pincer hand into the ground.
The floor split apart in an earthquake.
Small toys crawled from the cracks.
Unfinished toys that the employees must have been constructing also abandoned the production lines and came running.
They looked as though they were rushing over to play with me, but two hits from those toys meant an immediate death judgment.
Block-shaped bullets flew between the toys pouring in from all directions. They had been fired by toy soldiers.
A bullet I failed to avoid grazed my thigh with a searing pain.
The instant I stumbled, a fish toy with its mouth wide open flew toward my face.
But its pointed teeth never bit me.
“You crazy bastard!”
The Black Moon Blade cut the fish to pieces. The chunks of fish scattered like a fresh sashimi toy.
Veins standing out on her neck, Mo Haein shouted,
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”
“I’m sorry, Captain.”
But you survived, didn’t you?
I kept that last part to myself.
Fortunately, Mo Haein had no time to remain angry with me and immediately turned her head away.
Using the fragment of Smiley’s eye I had torn out as a shield, I spoke quickly.
“To end phase two, we need to attack the left eye.”
Mo Haein and I ran forward. My body shook from the impact of the toys and bullets striking the shield.
Then Smiley’s pincer hand slammed down where I stood.
The ground surged upward, sending Mo Haein and me into the air.
In the game, it would have been judged as a simple obstacle, but here, we found ourselves atop the suddenly raised earth.
Mo Haein snatched away the eye fragment I was using as a shield and laid it beneath her feet as a platform.
“Hold on!”
I grabbed Mo Haein around the waist.
The moment the fragment touched the raised earth, we used it as a sled and went sliding down.
The charging toys couldn’t keep up with our speed. They collided with one another and crashed down in a jumbled mess.
As soon as we reached the bottom, we threw aside the ruined fragment and ran toward Smiley again.
Its pincer hands repeatedly slammed the ground in pursuit of us, but avoiding them wasn’t difficult.
The instant she came within range, Mo Haein leaped high.
The Black Moon Blade plunged into Smiley’s left eye.
Its blade sank deep into the pool of rainbow fluid where the outer shell had been stripped away.
Although Smiley was a plastic toy, it felt as though the blade were piercing soft flesh.
A mechanical voice like a laughing, shouting child played repeatedly from Smiley.
“Die!-Kill-me!-Die!-Kill-me!-Die!”
Mo Haein pulled the blade free and landed on the ground. With a series of grinding cracks, the fifteen-meter Giant Smiley began to shrink.
Having returned to a height of one meter, Smiley stood motionless as though broken, rainbow liquid spilling from its eyes.
A hazy rainbow mist filled the entire area. Screeching static loud enough to become painful joined the background music.
Phase three had begun.
‘I lost about five seconds.’
Read only on MUGEX
Failing to avoid the rising ground at the start had cost us time.
But there was still some room to spare.
I sharpened the senses the Bolt Candy had enhanced. Since the mist restricted visibility, reaction speed was vital to this gimmick.
Rumble. The ground vibrated, shaking everything around us. The toy factory was collapsing.
Debris began to fall.
The heavy objects emerging through the mist caused instant death if they struck you and became obstacles even when they missed.
In an instant, the floor was covered with huge chunks of stone, machine parts, and broken toys.
Once the terrain finished changing, Smiley began to move in earnest.
Amid joyful laughter, I heard plastic chains clattering as something approached from behind.
Boom, boom, boom, boom. The heavy impact of pounding footsteps.
But we couldn’t move yet.
Standing close beside me, Mo Haein asked in a low voice,
“Is there no trick to this one?”
“We just have to run honestly. But at the end….”
I told Mo Haein what I would do at the very end. Her brow furrowed, but we had no time to speak further.
The factory speakers playing the background music crackled, then delivered a signal.
“One, two, Happy Smile!”
Our bound feet were released. Mo Haein and I sprinted forward like mad.
Smiley’s final, third phase was a chase.
Smiley smashed through everything in its way while pursuing the player, who had to run while avoiding obstacles on the floor.
All while dodging the pincer hands that shot out without warning from behind large obstacles.
Even with the Bolt Candy enhancing my physical abilities, I was soon gasping for breath.
An announcement played over the shrieking background music.
“An announce. Ment. Employee Gun-bam. Gun-bam of Happy Smile Factory. Employee Gun-bam is instructed to stop immediately. Now. Stoooop nooow.”
It dragged out the two syllables of Gunbam until the name sounded almost like the phrase ‘roasted chestnut.’
It kept calling for me, but I never looked back.
The rainbow mist slowly began to thin. That meant the virtual space Smiley had created was nearing its end.
But the remaining seconds were dangerously few. The chase had lasted longer than I expected.
‘Eight seconds.’
The tension that it might take even longer made my skin prickle.
‘Five seconds.’
At last, the end of the mist came into view.
I wrung out the last of my strength.
‘Three seconds.’
Just before I escaped the mist…
Throb! A sharp pain pierced my thigh.
I hadn’t seen the exposed steel jutting between the chunks of stone. Of all places, it had struck the spot that was already injured.
The buff ended, and my enhanced physical abilities vanished.
My body abruptly became heavy. I lost my footing and tumbled across the ground.
My hand sliced uselessly through the mist.
‘Just one more step and I’ll be outside.’
At that moment, a pincer hand seized me by the collar.
It wasn’t Smiley. Mo Haein had extended her toy arm and snatched me up.
The instant she dragged me out, the mist and obstacles covering our surroundings disappeared.
I had emerged outside the factory.
The toy factory was collapsing before me. Smiley, its body reduced to a terrible wreck, continued pursuing us to the very end.
After throwing me onto the ground, Mo Haein gripped the Black Moon Blade and pulled her arm as far back as it would go.
She hurled the weapon like a javelin, impaling Smiley.
Smiley pitched forward onto the dirt and let out the cry of a child.
“Nooo—!”
The ear-splitting background music vanished. HSF’s final boss battle was over.
You have won the battle against Smiley!
“Haa, haa.”
After putting away the Black Moon Blade, Mo Haein sank to the ground and panted for breath.
I steadied my breathing, then rose unsteadily to my feet.
Mo Haein’s gaze wavered briefly. Her eyes revealed a conflict over whether it was right to let me do what I was about to do.
“Captain…….”
At my call, which was mixed with a pained groan, Mo Haein muttered unhappily,
“What are you even trying to accomplish by healing the boss?”
But she didn’t stop me.
I limped toward Smiley alone.
I unwrapped a piece of Nut Candy and placed it on what looked like Smiley’s mouth. The candy dissolved into light and seeped into Smiley.
Its broken body restored, Smiley slowly rose.
Smiley stood motionless and looked up at me.
“I’m going to keep my promise.”
Only someone who shared Smiley’s own blood and flesh could kill it.
Twins who had lost their childhood memories of one another and been separated.
That was the player’s true identity.
After gaining both power and eternal life, Smiley remembered the player and lured the only person capable of killing it into the factory.
I sincerely wanted to give Smiley peace.
Death itself was Smiley’s Happy Ending.
Its black plastic eyes held me in their gaze for a long time. A quiet voice emerged.
“Why-did-you-take-so-long?”
The drawn-out, childish voice wasn’t mechanical.
‘But that isn’t the original line….’
It felt as though something had become terribly tangled, but we still seemed to be moving toward the True Ending, so I quietly apologized.
“I’m sorry.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I placed a hand atop Smiley’s head.
When I gently stroked the smooth plastic, Smiley said another strange line.
“Don’t-want-to-die.”
Then a pincer hand quietly reached out and caught the end of my uniform sleeve.
“Want-to-go-with-you-Gunbam-together-forever-.”
The words sounded like a child pleading. I wanted to take Smiley with me immediately, but it wasn’t an item, and I had no way to do so.
At that moment, a System Window appeared.
Smiley and the toys wish to become ■■ ■■ ■■.
You wish to accept their request, as they gladly seek to become the ■ and ■ of ■■ ■.
The text was buried beneath strange ■ symbols, making it impossible to read properly.
Worse, the choices that followed were quite a sight.
- Yes!
- Gladly.
- YEEES!
No, seriously… Haa.
I had no choice, since refusing meant I wouldn’t see the Ending.
I selected ‘YEEES!’ A System Window appeared with a cheerful notification chime.
Clear!
- ■■ ■■ ■■ Banquet Ending.
Announcing an Ending I had never seen in my life.