Chapter 5

Park Seonggyeon’s lips trembled as he muttered in a voice full of terror.

“W-what…? What the hell is this…? Why is this happening…?”

He backed away, trying to escape the system windows in front of his eyes, but his back soon hit the wall.

Even though he should have known that physical force wouldn’t work, he desperately waved his hands, trying to make the system windows disappear.

Pretending not to know anything, I approached Park Seonggyeon.

“Are you okay?”

“Huaaak!”

Park Seonggyeon, who was trembling from head to toe, jumped in fright and swung his claw hand.

Since I had already anticipated his reaction, I dodged the attack by the narrowest margin.

“Lieutenant Park Seonggyeon!”

Mo Haein shouted with a gaze so fierce it seemed as though she were throwing flames.

But Park Seonggyeon was no longer in his right mind.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, he charged at Mo Haein.

“Haaaaaa!”

Normally, Mo Haein would have dodged easily.

But right now, she was busy avoiding both Tarantella’s attacks and the musical note mechanics.

“Urgh…!”

She clenched her teeth tightly.

Red blood seeped through her closed lips and ran down the corner of her mouth.

One of Tarantella’s toy legs had pierced her abdomen.

Enduring the pain, Mo Haein swung the Black Moon Blade.

A long slash tore across Park Seonggyeon’s chest.

He fell face-first onto the floor.

The musical-note-shaped toys falling from the ceiling struck him again and again, leaving dents all over his body.

As a cacophony echoed around him, Park Seonggyeon screamed.

His body began to turn rainbow-colored.

And then.

Crash!

He collapsed into a pile of toy blocks that scattered across the floor.

He had died.

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

He hadn’t activated any save point since we arrived here.

He would probably respawn in the lobby.

“Damn it…”

Mo Haein looked at me with trembling eyes.

She, too, was about to receive a death sentence and lose one of her hearts.

In the way she looked at the civilian who would be left alone in front of the boss, there was despair, frustration, and helplessness.

Mo Haein spoke rapidly, like a machine gun.

“Listen carefully, civilian! Dying here doesn’t mean dying for real! You’re going to revive! So when you respawn, stay where you reappear, and I…!”

But she couldn’t finish her sentence.

Her body collapsed and turned into toy blocks.

Seeing her worry about me made me feel a little guilty.

Sorry, Captain Mo Haein.

When you come back, I’ll treat you better.

When she revived, she would probably prioritize protecting the civilian before chasing after Park Seonggyeon.

Estimating how long it would take her to realize I hadn’t respawned in the lobby and return to the laboratory, I raised my head.

Princess Tarantella was looking down at me.

Ding!

A system window appeared before me.

◆ Main Mission: Calm the enraged Princess Tarantella.

All your companions have died. You are alone.

There is no one left to face the enraged spider.

You want to calm Princess Tarantella.

To accomplish that, you must win the battle.

The boss’s target switched to me.

Musical notes began falling from the ceiling while all eight of her legs launched attacks.

The attacks rained down from every direction, but they weren’t difficult to follow with my eyes.

This was a section I had already cleared without dying even once when I played.

‘And my body responds pretty well.’

Inside a Trial, the minimum physical abilities necessary to clear it were automatically granted.

It felt strange to move so easily, exactly the way I wanted.

“…!”

Unable to hit me even once, Tarantella let out a sharp screech.

The second phase was beginning.

The musical notes disappeared.

Instead, Tarantella began firing thread webs everywhere.

The webs severely restricted the player’s movement.

If you got caught, you couldn’t move and would end up being attacked until you received a death sentence.

‘Will the bug work?’

I didn’t have much time.

I planned to try a quick strategy using a game bug.

Of course, the chances of success were low.

It worked in the video game.

But I didn’t know if it would work here too.

I ran straight toward Tarantella.

The key was to move before she finished covering the area in webs.

I jumped onto her eight legs and climbed up until I reached the top of her head.

Urgh.

Only a few centimeters away from where I placed my foot, I could see a mouth full of sharp teeth.

If I failed.

I would fall straight into it.

‘But I still have hearts left.’

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

Everything was black.

My body, having reached the limit of its momentum, slowly began to descend.

A slight chill ran across my skin.

Thinking about the pain I would suffer if I failed sent a cold shiver down my back.

A brief fall.

Then my feet touched something.

“Fuaaah…”

I let out the breath I had been holding.

I looked down.

Tarantella, having lost her target, began moving back and forth before randomly shooting webs.

The bug exclusive to the second phase involved hiding on a hidden platform inside the hole in the ceiling.

If you waited for a few moments on that platform, which should never have existed, Tarantella completely lost track of her target and began acting erratically until the game awarded victory to the player.

Tarantella, who was firing webs at a single point as though she had malfunctioned, raised all eight of her legs at the same time.

Then she expelled a cocoon.

The mouth split into four parts closed once again, restoring her smiling face.

“….”

A sound resembling the crying of a small child echoed through the air.

The toy spider collapsed onto the floor.

The boss battle had ended.

You have defeated Princess Tarantella!

I used Tarantella’s body as support to climb back down.

The cheerful chiptune music had changed into a sad melody.

The cocoon Tarantella had expelled began to unravel.

Inside it appeared fragments of a doll.

They were the arms and legs of the prince doll.

I collected the pieces and stored them in my inventory.

“……”

Throughout all of that, Tarantella did not move even once.

That was when I took out a Nut Candy and slid it toward her.

Suddenly, one of her legs twitched.

The claw at the end of the leg went.

Clack. Clack.

She tried to pick up the candy but failed again and again.

I unwrapped the Nut Candy and placed it into what I assumed was her mouth.

The smile on her face opened slightly.

Then she swallowed the candy.

Tarantella, who had remained motionless until then, began rising as though she had regained her strength.

Even the chiptune music had changed into a much calmer and more pleasant melody.

Tarantella looked at me and raised one of her legs.

Then she slowly began climbing up the wall using her toy legs.

Eventually, she disappeared into the darkness of the ceiling.

In the place where she had left behind, there remained a cocoon of thread.

‘But hadn’t I already obtained the doll fragments?’

Confused, I picked up the cocoon.

The thread began to unravel.

And inside appeared a small candy.

Bolt Candy: Crick-crick, upgrading toys….

It was HasFac’s secret hidden item.

Bolt Candy.

Bolt Candy greatly increased attack power and physical abilities for a limited time.

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

It could only be obtained once in all of Happy Smile Factory and only through a secret quest.

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

But for Tarantella to give me a Bolt Candy.

It was the first time I had ever seen a boss hand over a hidden item.

The toys of HasFac hate adults.

On the True Ending route, the toys develop a certain degree of fondness toward the player, but in reality, it is closer to “they don’t hate him” than genuinely liking him.

It was impossible for them to show affection as directly as giving gifts.

‘Now that I think about it, Sad Smiley also asked me to become his owner.’

The part about staying together forever was creepy, but if I thought about it carefully, it was still a sign of affection.

I stored the Bolt Candy away.

Then I picked up the prince doll that had fallen to the floor and reattached its limbs.

After completing the doll, I stored it in my inventory.

I also took the opportunity to loot a triangular flask filled with rainbow-colored liquid.

As I walked, I found myself thinking.

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

As I reviewed everything that had happened, I could only find one difference.

The blood that had fallen onto Sad Smiley.

In the game, except during specific events, objects never became stained with blood even if the player was injured.

‘First, let’s do what I need to do.’

It had taken a lot of effort to create an opportunity to separate from Park Seonggyeon and Mo Haein.

I didn’t have time to stand around thinking.

I left the laboratory and headed for the next stage.

The warehouse.

I scanned the prince doll’s pupil to open the warehouse door and entered.

Inside was a secret area.

It was a place that could normally only be discovered by gathering pages from a sketchbook scattered throughout the factory, crafting an item, and solving a clue based on that item.

The contents of those pages were as follows.

Unknown Page #1

To save the sick princess, the prince summoned an evil demon.

Unknown Page #2

The princess recovered her health thanks to the demon’s power.

But she ended up becoming a horrible monster!

Unknown Page #3

Locked inside a tower, the princess lives an eternal life.

The princess hates having become a monster and wishes to die.

Unknown Page #4

But no matter what she does, she cannot die.

Forever.

Unknown Page #5

The enraged princess pushed the prince from the tower.

The prince died, shattered into pieces.

The princess looked upon the prince’s fragments and envied his death.

When all five pages were gathered, they transformed into an item.

Unknown Storybook

A crude storybook drawn with crayons on notebook paper.

It appears to have been made by a child.

And at the end of the book, an additional page appeared.

iwanttodieiwanttodieiwanttodieiwanttodiemurdermemurdermemurdermedeathdeathdeath

It was a story that cut straight through the core of HasFac’s main plot.

But I already knew all the clues provided by the book.

I didn’t need to search the entire factory to gather the pages.

Instead, I obtained a set of tarot cards hidden in the warehouse.

One depicted a crown.

The other depicted a tower.

They were symbols that appeared in the storybook.

Afterward, I approached an old metal filing cabinet placed in a secluded corner, so well hidden that it was barely visible.

I pulled on the door.

Clunk.

It only made a noise.

It didn’t open.

It appears to be locked.

In the game, that exact message appeared.

But if you persisted and tried opening the door more than ten times.

The filing cabinet door broke!

The door would eventually open, accompanied by a system message.

This time, no notification appeared.

Only the sound of the lock breaking could be heard.

When the door opened, a rain of doll fragments fell onto the floor.

All of them were pieces of shattered prince dolls.

I emptied the cabinet’s interior.

Then I placed the complete prince doll inside, along with the items I had obtained in the laboratory and the warehouse.

After that, I closed the door.

An intense light began to shine through the gaps.

I waited until it went out.

Then I opened the filing cabinet again.

All the other items had disappeared.

Only a single Bolt Candy remained.

‘Now I have two Bolt Candies.’

It was an item of which I had never managed to obtain two copies.

While thinking about how to use them, I summoned a system window.

‘Park Seonggyeon’s Status Window.’

When I checked it, I discovered that there had been no major changes.

He had only consumed one Nut Candy.

Then I remembered something.

When I had sent him messages earlier, I had been able to see his system windows.

Normally, it wasn’t possible to see other people’s windows.

I had probably been able to see them because those messages had been created by me.

‘But if I’m the System, shouldn’t I be able to see everything from the beginning?’

As soon as I formed that reasonable question, a window appeared.

Your abilities are insufficient.

It seemed the system was too lazy to repeat explanations.

The answer was incredibly dry.

I had already obtained the information I wanted.

So I ignored its lack of enthusiasm.

While waiting for Mo Haein to arrive, I prepared a few things in advance.

Between the warehouse and the next stage, there was a running section.

You had to run while dodging the debris of a collapsing building.

So I went ahead and removed some obstacles.

Just as I moved the last chair, Mo Haein appeared.

“Haah… You… how…?”

It looked as though she had run here risking her life.

She was breathing heavily.

Holding onto the warehouse door, she stared at me in a daze from head to toe.

After confirming that I was completely unharmed, she clenched her teeth.

Then she walked straight toward me.

With the Black Moon Blade in her hand.

The black obsidian tip stopped just beneath my chin.

Mo Haein looked up at me and asked.

“Civilian.”

“Yes?”

“You can see the system windows, can’t you?”