Free Web NovelChapter 6: Chapter 6
Before I could answer, she spat out coldly.
"Nut Candy."
An interrogation that said: don’t even think about weaseling your way out. Her words brought a scene flashing through my mind.
"Well, when I picked up this candy, it said it could repair toys."
My explanation when I’d been talking about collecting the Sad Smiley pieces.
Non-Adaptees can’t see the Nut Candy’s item description — the System window.
Simple logic, but to me, the existence of the System window was so obvious I’d slipped up.
Mo Haein had been suspicious ever since then. Seeing me alive and well after being left alone must have confirmed it.
I’ll have to be more careful from now on.
Not that it mattered. I’d already decided to stop pretending to be a civilian.
Playing dumb wouldn’t work — not with Park Seonggyeon in the picture. The true ending would be impossible.
That was why I’d dealt with Princess Tarantella in the first place.
I gave a deliberately vague answer.
"It seems like I can see it."
"Seems like?"
"This is my first time experiencing something like this. A rectangular message pops up — is that what you call a System window?"
"Yeah."
Mo Haein still hadn’t lowered her spear. She asked,
"How’d you deal with the spider?"
"Just dodged it."
The tip of her spear jabbed at the underside of my chin. I quickly added,
"I could see its pattern. I’ve got pretty good eyesight."
Mo Haein let out a disbelieving laugh.
"You’re telling me you beat the spider with nothing but dynamic vision and reaction speed? No items?"
"I figured it was like a game, so I played it like one. I like games."
My eyes naturally slant upward. If I keep my face blank, people tend to misunderstand me.
I tried my best to make my eyes look gentle, even pulling the corners of my mouth up slightly.
"Besides, you said we don’t actually die, right?"
"Kid’s got no sense of fear."
Mo Haein muttered something that might have been an insult or not, then finally lowered her spear.
I rubbed my jaw where she’d jabbed me. Didn’t seem to be bleeding.
Mo Haein stared at me silently.
"An Adaptee entering a Trial for the first time, pulling off a play like this..."
She trailed off, mouth snapping shut.
"Let’s talk outside first. What’s your name?"
"Han Goyo."
"Call me Captain."
"Yes."
And then, in the next moment, I found myself calling out to her.
"...Captain?"
Click.
Hinge handcuffs snapped around both my wrists.
Adaptee Restraint Cuffs — a special-issue item from the Trial Response Agency, only given to officers ranked Captain or higher.
Completely unable to move my hands, I stared at Mo Haein in shock.
She ran her hand along the Black Moon Blade and warned,
"Behave yourself."
"..."
I didn’t ask or argue. I just shut my mouth.
Looked like winning Mo Haein’s trust was a bust.
With me cuffed and walking ahead of her, Mo Haein didn’t head for the next stage. She turned her steps back.
"We’re going to find Park Seonggyeon."
Mo Haein opened a sealed door in the corridor between the Warehouse and the Laboratory. A small space with an elevator appeared.
Unlike the outside — decorated in bright colors like a children’s paradise — this elevator was made of stark, colorless steel.
▼
The elevator only had a down button. I pressed it, and the doors opened immediately.
Bright red lettering, scrawled large across the wall, caught my eye first.
CHILDREN NOT ALLOWED!
Inside, the floor buttons were just as sparse as the outside. To be precise, in a space meant for about fifty buttons, there was only one — oversized.
Inside a long rectangle, a dense string of numbers was crammed together.
B9999999999999999....
I tried counting the nines, then gave up. Mo Haein spread her fingers wide and pressed the giant button.
A crackling announcement came through.
"G-g-going d-d-down. Ch-children, children, d-down. Down. Down."
The doors closed, and the elevator began to move.
Inside the descending car, she hooked her spear over her arm and crossed them.
"You."
Suspicious criminal candidate or not, she was still talking to me. I answered cheerfully.
"Yes."
"What do you think happens if you die here?"
When you exhaust all your given lives and game over — or when you equip Cherry Pickers on both arms and both legs.
The Player becomes an employee of the Factory.
"You become a worker in the toy factory, unable to leave forever."
Mo Haein was telling me something I already knew.
But what she said next was something I didn’t.
"The place we’re going now — there are people trapped in the Trial there. In here."
I’d already seen what was on the underground floor in the game.
Hundreds of employees in the same work uniforms as the Player, working hard to make toys.
I’d checked every corner, but there were no events, so I’d figured it was a hidden space the creator added as a light joke — an easter egg.
But all of them were people trapped in the Trial?
The memory surfaced: tiny dot-graphic employees repeating the same motions, making toys. I’d thought it was cute.
They never tired. Never got sick. Never felt pain.
In the gloomy, dark underground factory — so different from the surface — they just made toys with bright, smiling faces, perfectly matching Happy Smile Factory.
I slowly swallowed and opened my mouth.
"Is Lieutenant Park Seonggyeon there?"
"Lieutenant my ass. I’ll have that bastard stripped of his uniform."
Mo Haein leaned her face against the Black Moon Blade. Her cheek pressed into it, puffing out slightly. For a moment I forgot the situation and just found it fascinating.
They said the Black Moon Blade wouldn’t cut its owner — and sure enough, even with her face pressed against that sharp blade, her cheek was perfectly fine, not a single scratch.
She lowered her eyes and moved her lips.
"From the start, he attacks an NPC, goes hostile with all the toys, stages a mutiny against his superior — and doesn’t even have the ability to clear the stage on his own."
So Park Seonggyeon had attacked Smiley.
And Mo Haein had been trying to protect him, which cost her hearts.
I finally understood what that noise was, back when I first woke up in the Factory.
Mo Haein — revived after her first death — had been dealing with the Smileys that had already turned hostile.
That was why a veteran like her ended up on the hard collapse-ending route.
"This underground area — it’s the only place Park Seonggyeon can hide safely without getting attacked by the toys until I clear the stage."
I looked at her name tag. The smiley emoticon on it was crying now.
Mo Haein was on the verge of game over.
"Isn’t that dangerous?" freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
"Of course it is. But I can’t leave a loose end at my back until I clear it, can I?"
Fair point. Park Seonggyeon might launch a surprise attack.
Park Seonggyeon had 2 hearts left.
Sure, if he equipped Cherry Pickers on all four limbs, he’d game over instantly — but he wasn’t crazy enough to do that.
With three Cherry Pickers equipped, Park Seonggyeon had the physical advantage in the current situation.
Not that I didn’t have my own contingency.
The Bolt Candy — I’d bought time with buggy play to get it.
If things went south, I planned to hand the Bolt Candy to Mo Haein.
Explaining how I’d obtained it would be tricky, so dealing with Park Seonggyeon without it would be ideal, but still.
Thump.
The elevator reached its destination, stopping with a short jolt.
"B-B-Bottom floor. Ch-children, children, children, please do not get off."
The doors opened.
But what greeted me wasn’t what I’d expected.
A bright yellow face filled my vision.
Smiley...
A Smiley so enormous it filled the elevator doorway with its face, waiting for me.
Its plastic eyes — smooth, pitch-black, no pupils — reflected Mo Haein and me.
Both of us frozen, eyes wide.
We couldn’t even breathe, let alone scream.
Like one wrong breath would get us crushed on the spot.
In HapFactory, Smiley’s giant form only appeared in the final boss fight.
The giant Smiley had difficult attack patterns befitting a final boss — large-scale area attacks using its massive body and various toys.
You were supposed to face it with full preparation.
Why was it here?
This was a space where toys weren’t supposed to appear.
Then again, who said they couldn’t?
The game was already diverging from what I knew. This was entirely possible.
What I needed to think about wasn’t the cause.
It was how to deal with the giant Smiley right in front of me.
"..."
Mo Haein lifted her foot very slowly.
And stepped back.
A cautious step.
I could see the blue veins bulging on the back of her hand as she gripped the Black Moon Blade.
Luckily, even as Mo Haein took a step back, Smiley didn’t move.
She silently signaled me with her eyes.
I started backing away, just as slowly as Mo Haein.
I tried to.
Shit.
Krrrrrk. The elevator doors, forced open, let out an unsettling sound.
Smiley had pushed its face inside.
Now it was clear. The one Smiley was interested in was me.
Cold sweat trickled down Mo Haein’s temple.
HapFactory’s final boss was no joke, even for Mo Haein.
If she were alone, she might have been able to attack the giant Smiley with the Black Moon Blade and win.
But with a burden to protect? Impossible.
The cramped elevator — too narrow to swing a long spear like the Black Moon Blade freely — didn’t help either.
At this rate, Mo Haein might game over.
She didn’t know me, but I knew her.
I didn’t want to see someone I’d grown fond of through Archive’s games end up in an ending where they became a toy factory employee.
I decided to take a gamble.
I moved my foot forward — the one I’d been pulling back.
As I took a step forward, Mo Haein’s eyes went wide.
She looked like she wanted to yell at me, but afraid of provoking Smiley, she could only move her lips.
I took another step forward.
And another.
Smiley pulled its face back. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
The elevator doors — which I’d thought were broken — rattled and tried to close again.
CRUNCH. Smiley ripped off the elevator door panel with its claw hand.
Thanks to that, I could step out easily.
Though it would’ve been better if it had just let the doors close...
Smiley backed away slowly, matching my pace.
As I walked, I pulled the Bolt Candy from my inventory and held it in my hand.
I let it drop quietly, then stepped completely out of the elevator.
The underground floor — hidden behind Smiley — came into view.
A space so wide and tall it was hard to grasp the scale at a glance.
The deeper parts were hidden in darkness, but I was sure they stretched far.
Dozens of massive machines sat there, eerily silent.
All of them seemed powered off, completely still.
And hundreds of employees.
In colorful work uniforms, they stood at attention with wide smiles — their mouths stretched to the limit.
Despite so many people present, not a single breath could be heard.
Probably because they weren’t ’people’ anymore.
The giant Smiley, with the employees lined up behind it, looked down at me.
...Kinda scary, I’ll admit.
A toy about fifteen meters tall was quite imposing.
Still, I was okay for now.
Judging by how HapFactory’s toys had treated me so far — with goodwill — Smiley probably wouldn’t attack first either.
Smiley’s claw hand reached toward me. I didn’t feel any hostile intent, so I waited.
The claw grabbed me like a claw machine grabbing a prize.
I was lifted up like a prize doll.
Smiley brought me to its face. A mechanical voice came through.
"Smiley-welcomes-you-only-you-in-Happy-Smile-Factory-we-together-happy-happy-."
Behind the mechanical voice repeating "happy happy," I could hear children’s laughter and cheers.
An eerie chill ran down my spine.
The moment Smiley put even a little pressure in its hand, I’d break apart into blocks.
But strangely, I wasn’t that afraid.
Maybe because Smiley — like Mo Haein — was also an NPC I liked.
Even at this point, I still wanted to end it with the true ending.
It might be impossible. But I wanted to try until it worked.
"Smiley."
I smiled at Smiley.
"Want me to kill you?"
The absolute condition for the true ending — Smiley’s death.
I’d spoken the wish HapFactory’s final boss desperately wanted. Now I waited for its answer.
