Chapter 7

“……”

Smiley remained silent.

As if he were looking at something completely unknown, he simply stared at me with his black plastic eyes.

A moment later.

Smiley’s claw hand gently lowered me to the ground.

As soon as my feet touched the floor, intense drum and bass music began to play.

It was the music that announced the start of the final boss battle of HasFac.

A system window appeared before me.

◆ Main Mission: Grant Smiley eternal rest.

You have promised death to Smiley.

If you do not fulfill your promise, you and your companions will die will die will die death will die will die.

You think you must defeat Smiley no matter what.

Perhaps because the story was no longer following a normal progression, even the system window was acting strangely.

I exhaled softly.

The truth was that there were still many stages left to complete and a lot of toy affinity left to earn before facing the final boss.

I didn’t even have a weapon.

In other words, I had been thrown headfirst into the battle without any help.

But the situation had already gone completely off the rails.

Even if I wanted to follow the normal order, I no longer could.

And although it wasn’t a HasFac item.

I had obtained something quite useful.

The kind Smiley was patiently waiting for my first attack.

I took a Bolt Candy out of my inventory and unwrapped it.

The attack and physical ability enhancement from Bolt Candy lasted 180 seconds.

I had to clear Smiley’s three phases within that time.

Thirty-five seconds for the first phase.

Thirty-five seconds for the second.

Sixty seconds for the third.

And twenty-five seconds for the transition scenes between phases.

It was a rather tight distribution.

I put the Bolt Candy into my mouth.

“Ugh…”

An electrifying taste ran across my tongue.

It stung as if I were receiving static shocks, making my face scrunch up involuntarily.

But personally experiencing a flavor that until now I had only seen described in system windows was strangely fun.

I made a small jump.

As soon as I checked how my body responded, several strategies appeared in my mind.

I chose one of them and looked at Smiley.

Smiley was still watching my every movement while waiting for my first attack.

Sorry, Smiley.

But in the first phase, you won’t get a turn.

“Captain Mo Haein!”

I swung my handcuffed arms backward with all my strength.

“Eat the Bolt Candy!!”

I swung the articulated handcuffs and struck Smiley’s left eye.

CRACK!

The plastic eye shattered.

‘It worked!’

Those handcuffs were a special item manufactured by the Trial Response Agency to restrain Compatibles.

I knew they had much greater durability than most items.

I thought they might work as a weapon.

But it was still a gamble.

The thrill of succeeding made my blood boil.

While counting the seconds in my head, I tore away the fragments of broken plastic.

Rainbow-colored blood gushed out.

Smiley violently shook his body.

The force of the movement sent me flying through the air.

I ended up landing quite far away.

When I looked at my hands, I noticed something.

The hinge connecting the handcuffs had broken.

Without meaning to, I had regained my freedom of movement.

I listened carefully to the music.

Static noises had begun mixing into the background track.

It was the sound that announced the transition into the second phase.

‘That saved me four seconds.’

Smiley, with rainbow-colored liquid pouring from one of his eyes, slammed a claw hand into the ground.

The earth trembled.

The floor split open.

Small toys began emerging from the cracks.

Incomplete toys that were presumably being manufactured by the employees also appeared.

They abandoned the production lines and ran toward us.

They seemed as though they wanted to play.

But if they hit me twice, I would receive an immediate death sentence.

Among the sea of toys, block bullets began flying.

They were being fired by toy soldiers.

One bullet I failed to dodge grazed my thigh.

A burning pain ran through my leg.

As I staggered, a toy fish opened its mouth and leaped straight at my face.

However, its sharp teeth never reached me.

“You idiot!”

The Black Moon Blade split it in half.

The fish pieces flew away like freshly sliced sashimi.

Mo Haein shouted at me, the veins standing out on her neck.

“Are you completely insane?!”

“Sorry, Captain.”

But I survived, didn’t I?

I kept that last part to myself.

Fortunately, Mo Haein didn’t have time to keep yelling at me.

She immediately turned her head back toward the battle.

Using one of the fragments of Smiley’s eye as a shield, I spoke quickly.

“To finish the second phase, you have to attack the left eye!”

Mo Haein and I ran forward.

Bullets and toys slammed into the improvised shield, making my entire body shake.

Then Smiley’s claw hand came crashing down directly on our position.

The earth surged upward violently.

Both Mo Haein and I were launched into the air.

In the game, it was only a simple obstacle mechanic.

But here, we had literally ended up on top of an enormous pillar of earth raised by the impact.

Mo Haein snatched away the eye fragment I was using as a shield.

She placed it beneath our feet.

“Hold on!”

I grabbed her around the waist.

As soon as we touched the top of the pillar of earth, we began sliding down using the fragment like a sled.

The toys running toward us couldn’t match our speed.

They crashed into one another and fell into complete chaos.

The moment we reached the bottom, we threw away the shattered fragment and ran toward Smiley again.

The claw hands continued slamming into the ground to intercept us.

But they were no longer difficult to dodge.

As soon as we entered range.

Mo Haein jumped.

The Black Moon Blade stabbed into Smiley’s left eye.

The spear tip penetrated deeply into the place where the plastic covering was already gone and only rainbow-colored liquid remained.

Even though he was a plastic toy, it felt as if she were piercing soft flesh.

A mechanical voice accompanied by children’s laughter began sounding from inside Smiley.

Again and again.

“Die! Let me die! Die! Let me die! Die!”

Mo Haein pulled back the spear and landed.

The gigantic fifteen-meter-tall Smiley began shrinking with a series of creaks.

He returned to being barely one meter tall.

He remained motionless.

As if he were broken.

Rainbow-colored liquid continued dripping from his eye.

Rainbow mist began spreading everywhere.

The music filled with unbearable static noise.

The third phase had begun.

‘We lost about five seconds.’

Getting hit by the rising terrain had cost us time.

But there was still some margin left.

I sharpened my senses enhanced by the Bolt Candy.

The mist greatly reduced visibility.

Reaction speed was the key to this phase.

Rumble.

The ground trembled.

Everything began shaking.

The toy factory was collapsing.

Debris started falling.

Massive objects emerged through the mist.

If they hit you, you died instantly.

And even if you avoided them, they became new terrain obstacles.

Within seconds, the ground was covered with huge stone blocks, mechanical parts, and broken toys.

When the stage transformation ended.

Smiley finally began moving in earnest.

Amid cheerful laughter came the sound of plastic chains rattling behind us.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Heavy footsteps echoed one after another.

But we still couldn’t move.

Mo Haein, standing close beside me, spoke in a low voice.

“There’s no trick here either?”

“No. We have to run it honestly. But at the end…”

I explained what I planned to do during the final phase.

Mo Haein frowned.

But there was no longer any time to continue talking.

The factory speakers, which were playing the background music, began crackling.

Then a signal sounded.

“One, two, Happy Smile!”

The restriction disappeared.

Mo Haein and I ran like mad.

Smiley’s final third phase was a chase sequence.

Unlike Smiley, who destroyed everything blocking his path while pursuing us.

The players had to dodge every obstacle on the stage.

And also the claw hands that suddenly appeared from behind the debris.

Even with the physical abilities enhanced by the Bolt Candy, I felt short of breath.

Amid the distorted music, an announcement sounded through the speakers.

“Announcement. Important. Happy Smile Factory employees. Employees. Employees. Must stop immediately. Immediately. Stooooooop.”

“Gunbam” was pronounced so drawn out that it almost sounded as if they were saying “roasted chestnut.”

They kept calling me again and again, but I never turned around to look back.

The rainbow mist slowly began to dissipate.

That meant the artificial space created by Smiley was nearing its end.

However, the remaining time was dangerously short.

The chase had lasted longer than expected.

‘8 seconds.’

The tension of knowing it could still drag on longer made my skin tingle.

‘5 seconds.’

At last, I could see the end of the mist.

I gathered the last bit of strength I had left.

‘3 seconds.’

Just before emerging from the mist.

“Argh!”

A sharp pain pierced my thigh.

I hadn’t seen a steel beam protruding from among the stone debris.

And to make matters worse, it had struck exactly the same wound again.

The buff’s effect ended.

The enhanced physical abilities disappeared.

Feeling my body suddenly become heavy, I stumbled and rolled across the ground.

My hand passed uselessly through the mist.

‘Just one more step and I would have made it out.’

Then a claw hand grabbed the back of my clothing by the neck.

It wasn’t Smiley.

It was Mo Haein, who had extended her toy arm to catch me.

The instant she dragged me out, all the mist and obstacles covering the area vanished.

I had emerged outside the factory.

I could see the toy factory collapsing.

And also Smiley, ruined and battered, chasing us until the very end.

Mo Haein threw me to the ground.

She gripped the Black Moon Blade tightly and drew her arm completely back.

The spear shot forward like a projectile.

It pierced through Smiley.

Smiley fell face-first onto the earth while emitting the cry of a child.

“I don’t waaaant toooo—!”

The background music, which until then had been deafening, disappeared.

The final boss battle of HasFac had ended.

You have defeated Smiley!

“Haah… haah…”

After putting away the Black Moon Blade, Mo Haein dropped to the ground while catching her breath.

I also regulated my breathing and staggered to my feet.

Mo Haein’s eyes wavered briefly.

It was the look of someone wondering whether she should allow me to do what I was about to do.

“Captain…”

Hearing my voice mixed with groans of pain, Mo Haein muttered in disgust.

“What the hell are you trying to accomplish by healing the boss?”

But she didn’t try to stop me.

Limping, I approached Smiley alone.

I unwrapped a Nut Candy and placed it on what appeared to be his mouth.

The candy melted into light and was absorbed into Smiley.

Smiley’s shattered body began repairing itself.

Slowly, he stood up.

He remained motionless while looking at me.

“Because I wanted to keep my promise.”

The only person capable of killing Smiley was someone who shared his blood and flesh.

A twin brother separated from him after losing his memories during childhood.

That was the player’s true identity.

After obtaining immortality and his powers, Smiley recovered his memories of the player.

And that was why he had lured the only person capable of granting him death to the factory.

I truly wanted to grant him rest.

For Smiley, death was the real Happy Ending.

The black plastic eyes stared at me for a long time.

Then a calm voice was heard.

“Why-did-you-come-so-late?”

That drawn-out childish voice was not a mechanical voice.

‘But that wasn’t his original line…’

Everything seemed to have diverged drastically.

Even so, it seemed we were still moving toward the True Ending.

So I simply apologized.

“I’m sorry.”

I hesitated for a moment.

Then I placed my hand on Smiley’s head.

I gently stroked the smooth plastic surface.

And Smiley said something I had never heard before.

“I-don’t-want-to-die.”

Then he slowly extended a claw hand and grabbed the end of my uniform sleeve.

“Let’s-go-together-Gunbam-together-forever.”

He sounded exactly like a small child pleading.

If it had been up to me, I would have taken him with me immediately.

But he wasn’t an item.

And there wasn’t any method to do so.

At that moment, a system window appeared.

Smiley and the toys wish to become ■■ ■■ ■■.

You wish to gladly accept their request to become the ■ and the ■ of ■■ ■.

The text was covered by strange ■■ symbols, making it impossible to understand.

And the choices that appeared afterward were even worse.

— Yes!

— Of Course

— Yeaaah!

No… seriously…

I sighed.

If I didn’t accept, I wouldn’t be able to see the ending.

I had no choice.

I selected “Yeaaah!”

With a cheerful notification sound, a new window appeared.

Completed.

— Banquet Ending ■■ ■■ ■■.

Announcing an ending I had never seen in my life.