Chapter 6

Before I could answer, she spoke in a cold voice.

“Nut Candy.”

It was an interrogation that made it clear I shouldn’t even try to make excuses.

Her words brought a scene to mind.

“Well, I found this candy, and it said it could repair toys.”

It was what I had said when I explained why I was putting Sad Smiley’s pieces back together.

If someone wasn’t a Compatible, they couldn’t see the item description for Nut Candy.

In other words, they couldn’t see the system windows.

It was simple logic.

But for me, the existence of system windows was so natural that I had made a mistake.

Mo Haein must have started suspecting me from that moment.

And now that I had survived perfectly well after being left completely alone, it seemed she had confirmed her suspicions.

‘I’ll have to be more careful from now on.’

In any case, I had already decided to stop pretending to be a normal civilian.

With Park Seonggyeon involved, obtaining the True Ending was far too difficult if I kept acting like someone who knew nothing.

That was also why I had defeated Princess Tarantella.

I answered somewhat ambiguously.

“I think I can see them.”

“You think?”

“This is the first time something like this has happened to me. Square messages keep appearing. Are those what you call system windows?”

“Yes.”

Mo Haein asked without lowering the blade of her weapon.

“How did you deal with the spider?”

“I just dodged its attacks.”

The tip of the spear pricked beneath my chin.

I quickly added.

“It seemed to have patterns. I have pretty good eyesight.”

Mo Haein let out a disbelieving laugh.

“You’re telling me you defeated the spider without any items, using only your dynamic vision and reflexes?”

“I thought it was like a video game, so I played it like one. I really like games.”

The corners of my eyes tilt slightly upward, so when I keep a serious expression, I usually look suspicious.

I tried to make my gaze as innocent as possible and slightly lifted the corners of my lips.

“Besides, you said I wouldn’t die.”

“What a reckless idiot.”

Mo Haein muttered something that I couldn’t tell was an insult or not.

Finally, she lowered the Black Moon Blade.

I rubbed the spot beneath my chin where she had poked me.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be bleeding.

Mo Haein watched me in silence.

“For a Compatible who’s entered a Trial for the first time to play like this is…”

She stopped halfway through the sentence.

“Let’s get out of here first, and then we’ll talk. What did you say your name was?”

“Han Goyo.”

“Call me Captain.”

“Yes.”

And shortly afterward, I found myself forced to address her again.

“…Captain?”

Click.

A pair of articulated handcuffs snapped shut around my wrists.

They were special handcuffs used by the Trial Response Agency.

An item reserved for officers of captain rank or higher.

Restraining handcuffs for Compatibles.

Unable to move my hands, I looked at her in confusion.

While caressing the Black Moon Blade, Mo Haein warned me.

“Can we behave ourselves calmly?”

“……”

I decided to stop asking questions.

It seemed I had completely failed to earn Mo Haein’s trust.

After handcuffing me, she did not head toward the next stage.

She turned around.

“We’re going to find Park Seonggyeon.”

In the corridor between the warehouse and the laboratory, Mo Haein opened a locked door.

Behind it was a small room with an elevator.

Unlike the exterior, which was decorated in bright colors like a children’s paradise, that elevator was made of cold gray metal.

▼

There was only one button.

The button for going down.

As soon as she pressed it, the doors opened.

The first thing that caught my eye was a huge warning written in bright red.

CHILDREN ARE FORBIDDEN TO ENTER!

Inside the elevator, there was also only one button.

More precisely, where there should have been around fifty different floors, there was a single gigantic button.

Inside a long rectangle appeared an endless string of numbers.

B9999999999999999…

I tried counting how many nines there were.

I gave up quickly.

Mo Haein opened her claw hand as wide as possible and pressed the enormous button.

A distorted voice came from the speakers.

“D-d-descending. Ch-ch-children. Don’t go down. Don’t go down. Don’t go down.”

The doors closed.

The elevator began to descend.

Inside the elevator, Mo Haein crossed her arms with the spear resting against her forearm.

“You.”

Even though she was treating me like a suspect, she at least seemed willing to talk.

I responded cheerfully.

“Yes.”

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

When all your lives were used up.

Or when someone equipped Cherry Pickers on both arms and both legs.

The player became a factory employee.

“You become an employee of the toy factory and can never leave.”

It was something I already knew.

But what she said next was new to me.

“In the place we’re going now, there are people like that. People trapped inside the Trial.”

I had already seen what was in the underground levels of the game.

There were hundreds of employees dressed in the same uniform as the player, diligently manufacturing toys.

I had explored everything.

Since no special event ever occurred there, I had always thought it was simply a hidden area the developer had added as a joke.

Just an easter egg.

But were all those people really individuals trapped inside the Trial?

I remembered those little pixel-art workers mechanically moving as they manufactured toys.

They had seemed adorable.

They never got tired.

They never got sick.

They never suffered.

In that dark and gloomy underground factory, so different from the surface, they simply smiled with the happy faces characteristic of Happy Smile Factory while manufacturing toys forever.

I slowly swallowed before speaking.

“Is Lieutenant Park Seonggyeon down there?”

“Lieutenant? No way. I’m going to have that bastard kicked out of the army.”

Mo Haein rested her face against the Black Moon Blade.

For a moment, I forgot the situation and was surprised.

They said the Black Moon Blade never harmed its owner.

And it was true.

Even though she pressed her face against that incredibly sharp obsidian blade, she didn’t have so much as a scratch.

She lowered her gaze and spoke.

“He attacked an NPC from the start, turned all the toys into enemies, rebelled against a superior officer, and doesn’t even have the ability to clear the Trial on his own.”

Park Seonggyeon was the one who attacked Smiley.

And Mo Haein had lost a life trying to protect him.

Now I thought I fully understood what that noise had been that I heard when I first woke up in the factory.

After dying once and reviving, Mo Haein had been dealing with a Smiley who had already become hostile.

That was the reason a veteran like her had ended up following the difficult Collapse Ending route.

“Because the only place where Park Seonggyeon can hide without being attacked by the toys while I complete the Trial is down here.”

I looked at her identification badge.

The Smiley emoticon on the badge was now crying.

Mo Haein was on the verge of Game Over.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous. But I can’t complete the Trial while constantly worrying that he’ll stab me in the back.”

She was right.

Park Seonggyeon still had two hearts left.

Of course, equipping Cherry Pickers on all four limbs caused an instant Game Over, but unless he had gone completely insane, he wouldn’t do something like that.

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

In fact, I had my own trump card as well.

The Bolt Candy I had obtained after buying time by even using a bug.

If things became complicated, I planned to give it to Mo Haein.

Although ideally, I would defeat Park Seonggyeon without using it, since explaining where I had gotten it would be troublesome.

Clunk.

The elevator shook briefly as it reached its destination.

“Floor ■■. Ch-ch-children. P-please, children, do not come down.”

The doors opened.

But what greeted me was not what I expected.

A bright yellow face completely filled my field of vision.

Smiley.

A Smiley so gigantic that his face completely covered the elevator doors was waiting for me.

In his glossy black plastic eyes, completely devoid of pupils, Mo Haein and I were reflected.

Both of us stood frozen with our eyes wide open.

We couldn’t even scream.

We barely dared to breathe.

As though a single wrong breath would be enough for him to crush us.

In Happy Smile Factory, the giant version of Smiley only appeared during the final boss battle.

As befitted a final boss, he possessed extremely difficult attack patterns.

His enormous size and his massive area attacks using various toys were his defining traits.

He was an enemy that required thorough preparation.

So then.

Why was he here?

This was a place where toys were not supposed to appear.

No.

Could I really say that?

The game was already changing from what I knew.

Something like this was entirely possible.

What mattered now was not discovering the cause.

But finding a way to deal with the giant Smiley standing before us.

“……”

Mo Haein very slowly lifted her foot.

And took a step backward.

An extremely cautious movement.

I could see the blue veins standing out on the back of her hand as she gripped the Black Moon Blade tightly.

Fortunately, although she stepped back, Smiley did not react.

Mo Haein signaled to me with her eyes.

I also began slowly backing away.

Or at least I tried to.

Damn it.

Creeeeak.

The elevator doors emitted an unsettling sound as they were forced open.

Smiley was pushing his head inside.

That made one thing perfectly clear.

The person he was interested in was me.

A drop of cold sweat ran down Mo Haein’s temple.

Even for her, the final boss of Happy Smile Factory was not an easy enemy.

If she had been alone, she might have been able to defeat the giant Smiley using the Black Moon Blade.

But with dead weight to protect, it was impossible.

Moreover, the confined space of the elevator made it extremely difficult to use a long weapon like the Black Moon Blade.

At this rate, Mo Haein might end up getting a Game Over.

She didn’t know me.

But I knew her.

I didn’t want to see someone I had cared about for so long while playing Archive World end up becoming an employee of a toy factory.

So I decided to take a gamble.

I moved forward the foot I had stepped back with.

I took a step.

Mo Haein’s eyes widened.

She looked as though she wanted to yell at me at any moment, but she could only slightly move her lips for fear of provoking Smiley.

I took another step.

And then another.

Smiley backed away.

At that moment, the elevator doors, which I thought were broken, began closing again.

CRACK!

Smiley ripped one of the doors off with his claw hand.

Thanks to that, I was able to step out comfortably.

Although, honestly, I would have preferred if he had simply let the doors close.

Smiley continued backing away slowly at the same pace as my steps.

As I walked forward, I took a Bolt Candy out of my inventory.

I held it in my hand.

Then I discreetly dropped it onto the floor.

And fully stepped out of the elevator.

At last, I could see the underground floor that had been hidden behind Smiley’s enormous body.

It was a space so vast and so tall that it was impossible to estimate its size at a glance.

The darkness concealed the far end, but I had the feeling it extended far beyond what I could see.

There were dozens of enormous machines.

Yet an eerie silence reigned.

All of them appeared to be shut down.

And there were also the employees.

Hundreds of them.

They wore work uniforms of various colors.

All of them stood perfectly still, neatly lined up.

And all of them were smiling.

A smile so wide that it seemed to have reached its physical limit.

Despite the enormous number of people present, not a single breath could be heard.

Probably because they were no longer people.

The giant Smiley, accompanied by hundreds of employees behind him, looked down at me.

…It was a little frightening.

A toy approximately fifteen meters tall exerted quite a bit of pressure.

Even so, for the moment, it was fine.

Based on all the goodwill the toys of Happy Smile Factory had shown me so far, I concluded that Smiley would not attack first either.

Smiley’s claw hand approached.

I sensed no hostile intent, so I remained still.

The claw picked me up as though I were a prize from a claw machine.

I was lifted into the air like a prize doll.

Smiley brought me close to his face.

A mechanical sound came from inside him.

“Smiley-we-welcome-you-only-you-to-Happy-Smile-Factory-let’s-all-be-happy-happy.”

Behind that mechanical voice repeating “happy happy,” I could hear children’s laughter and cheers.

A chill ran down my spine.

If Smiley squeezed his hand just a little harder, I would instantly become toy blocks.

And yet.

Strangely, I didn’t feel very afraid.

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

Even after coming this far, I still wanted to reach the True Ending.

Maybe it was impossible.

But I wanted to try until the very end.

“Smiley.”

I smiled at him.

“Do you want me to kill you?”

The absolute condition for reaching the True Ending.

Smiley’s death.

After voicing the wish that the final boss of Happy Smile Factory desired more than anything else, I waited for his answer.