Chapter 03

“Since Smiley is a toy too… maybe the treatment will work on him?”

It was, in a way, insurance.

I was aiming for the True Ending, so I couldn’t afford to get on the toys’ bad side.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, sorry. My shoelace came undone.”

I hurried after Park Seong-gyeon, then glanced back over my shoulder.

…

The candy still rested on Smiley’s outstretched hand.

The mechanical voice that had been playing moments ago had simply fallen silent.

It didn’t seem to have had much effect.

We passed through a long corridor decorated with murals introducing the toys of Happy Smile Factory before arriving at a massive plastic door.

Both walls and the ceiling surrounding it were lined with dozens of small coloured levers.

“Lieutenant Park. Right side.”

As Mo Hae-in pointed with her index finger, a plastic chain shot upward with a rattling clatter and latched onto one of the ceiling levers.

She quickly pulled down the coloured levers on the left wall and ceiling.

Park Seong-gyeon handled the right side.

Normally, you had to match the levers to the colour pattern painted on the floor, but judging by how effortlessly they moved, they’d memorised the sequence long ago.

Click.

As the final lever was pulled, cheerful music began to play, and the plastic door swung open.

Without hesitation, Mo Hae-in and Park Seong-gyeon stepped inside.

This was where players officially began their first shift as factory employees.

The job was simple—sorting toys arriving on conveyor belts.

As the tutorial stage, it was supposed to be easy.

Unlike the two of them, however, I subtly slowed my pace.

Because—

“Ca-Captain…”

“…The pattern’s changed.”

Lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the room from the entrance inward.

The once-dark interior gradually came into view.

A tune that should have sounded bright somehow felt deeply unsettling.

The toys that should have been happily spinning atop the conveyor belts…

…were all standing on the floor.

Every one of them stared at Mo Hae-in and Park Seong-gyeon with glossy plastic eyes.

Ding!

A notification chimed, and a system window appeared.

Main Quest: Survive the Murderous Toys

The toys will never forgive the adults who attacked Smiley.

You decide that surviving the enraged toys is your top priority.

I mean… maybe you shouldn’t have beaten Smiley half to death…

Suppressing a sigh, I quietly made my way toward the safe zone.

As a government agency, the Trial Response Agency enforced strict regulations inside Trials.

Among the most important was:

Do not make unnecessary contact with NPCs.

The less contact you made, the lower the chance of infection.

The extraterrestrial Trials carried strange viruses.

Anyone infected would undergo physical mutation and develop overwhelming hostility toward humans.

As an officer of the Agency, Mo Hae-in followed protocol to the letter.

This was probably the first time she’d ever attacked an NPC pre-emptively.

She had likely expected the story to change somewhat…

…but not this much.

The route she had entered…

…was the Collapse Ending Route—the hardest route in Happy Smile Factory.

By attacking Smiley, the very first NPC, every toy in the factory became permanently hostile.

From then on, the player would be attacked in every stage until finally escaping the burning factory at the end.

The final message of the Collapse Ending was one I still remembered vividly.

Happy Smile Factory has collapsed.

Smiley was hacked to pieces and thrown into the flames…

Yet even then, he could not die.

Smiley will become a nightmare…

…and come to find you again.

Even now, I could remember it perfectly.

Still… the Collapse Route also connects to the True Ending.

If I played my cards right…

I could remain nothing more than an ordinary civilian while still reaching the True Ending.

As I recalled the Collapse Ending, cheerful music filled the room once more.

Then a child’s voice echoed through the speakers.

“It’s the grown-up who bullied Smiley.

Grown-up.

Boring grown-up.”

Hundreds of toys stared at Mo Hae-in and Park Seong-gyeon while swaying to the rhythm.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Left.

Right…

“We want to make grown-ups fun.”

“But they’re already grown-ups.

Grown-up.

Grooown-up.

No.

We don’t like them.

They’re boring.”

“Ah-ha!”

The crash of cymbals rang out alongside children’s cheers.

“We’ve found the answer!

We’ll make the grown-ups smaller!”

“Smaller.

Smaller.

Smaller.

Like children.

Ch-child…

Like children.

Smaller.

Smaller.”

“Pieces.

Pieces.

Pieces.

Pieces.

Pieces.”

“Civilian!”

Mo Hae-in shouted.

Park Seong-gyeon, who had unconsciously begun tilting his head side to side with the toys, snapped back to reality.

Swearing under his breath, he shot out his toy grabber arm, grabbed me around the waist, and dropped me onto the conveyor belt.

“If you want to live, stay right there!”

In other words…

Don’t expect us to save you.

“Yes, sir!”

I answered energetically while sighing inwardly.

The conveyor belt counted the player as a toy.

It was one of the game’s designated safe zones.

Unfortunately…

Neither Park Seong-gyeon nor Mo Hae-in knew one thing.

During the Collapse Route…

The conveyor belt didn’t work.

“Operation:

Turn the grown-ups into children…

BEEEEEGIN!”

Children burst into laughter.

The announcement ended.

The toys sprang into the air like popcorn.

They charged.

Mo Hae-in’s toy arm shot toward the ceiling.

Hooking herself onto an overhead pipe, she swung through the air.

With her free hand, she sliced through empty space.

A jet-black glaive materialised.

Black Moonblade.

Her personal weapon.

The Trial Response Agency normally prohibited using items obtained from other Trials.

Doing so greatly increased the chance of unexpected changes.

But this was an emergency.

“Whoa…”

Even amid the chaos, I couldn’t help feeling impressed.

I was actually watching Mo Hae-in fight…

…right in front of me.

I stared, completely captivated.

Park Seong-gyeon’s grabber arm swept toys aside while his human hand shone a flashlight across the room.

Whenever the beam hit them, the toys froze.

Mo Hae-in never missed those openings.

Her black glaive sliced through them one after another.

The severed toys screamed with voices eerily similar to children’s cries as rainbow-coloured blood splashed everywhere.

Honestly…

I wanted to keep watching.

But there wasn’t time.

Reluctantly tearing my eyes away, I sprinted along the conveyor belt, weaving through the charging toys.

I had no weapons.

No equipment.

Yet dodging them wasn’t difficult.

Because I already knew every attack pattern.

The way the toys swayed at the start of the music…

That was the hint.

As someone who had seen every ending in Happy Smile Factory…

I’d memorised them all.

While sprinting at full speed, I scanned the battlefield.

Fresh toys continued pouring from the production pipes.

The factory had descended into complete chaos.

Even so…

Finding what I wanted wasn’t difficult.

A fifteen-centimetre mass-produced Black Edition Smiley Doll.

Among the gaudy rainbow-coloured toys, the lone pitch-black doll barely stood out.

But it was absolutely essential for the True Ending.

I reached into the crowd.

“Urgh!”

A sharp pain burned across my arm.

A pony doll wearing an apron had slashed my forearm with a plastic kitchen knife.

Still…

I managed to snatch the black Smiley.

Black Edition Smiley

The one and only Sad Smiley in the world.

I continued running until I reached a stack of toy packaging boxes piled behind one of the production machines.

Among the boxed toy sets sat one unusually large package.

The box where the NPC Smiley was originally supposed to be.

Now…

Thanks to Mo Hae-in’s attack…

It was empty.

It was large enough to fit a one-metre plush.

A grown man could barely squeeze inside.

I folded myself into the box.

…

This was honestly kind of pathetic.

Back in pixel graphics it looked fine.

Doing it in real life was…

…embarrassing.

Still, settled inside the box, I watched Mo Hae-in and Park Seong-gyeon through the transparent plastic covering.

They had already nearly finished off the remaining toys.

If I delayed any longer…

The True Ending might become impossible.

Quickly, I examined the Black Smiley.

Then…

I froze.

…He’s smiling?

Sad Smiley…

…was smiling.

His default expression should have been crying.

There was no way I’d picked up the wrong doll.

Sad Smiley was the only monochrome toy in the entire factory.

Looking closer…

I noticed blood on the doll.

My own.

My arm had been cut earlier, and some of my blood must have splashed onto it.

Because the doll was black, I hadn’t noticed.

I hurriedly wiped it away.

Even then…

Sad Smiley continued smiling.

It was suspicious.

But there wasn’t time to think.

I pressed the doll’s stomach.

A gloomy child’s recorded voice played.

“Please make Sad Smiley happy.”

Originally…

The game would present two dialogue choices.

• Ignore him.
• Ask how to make him happy.

But there were no dialogue boxes here.

So I asked aloud.

“How can I make you happy?”

In the game, Sad Smiley should now reveal a clue about the factory’s secret—

Instead…

“Please become Sad Smiley’s owner.”

…

He just told me?

“Let’s stay together forever.

Together is fun.

If it’s fun, we’re happy.

Forever.

Foooorever.

Forever.

Forever.

Foreveeeer…”

Slash!

The doll in my hands split cleanly in half.

Black blood splattered across my face.

“I told you to stay put, civilian.”

Mo Hae-in stood over me, her Black Moonblade hanging at her side, stained with rainbow-coloured blood.

Holding the two halves of Sad Smiley, I climbed out of the box.

The plastic wrapping had been sliced apart as well, making it easy to escape.

Rainbow blood covered everything.

“I told you not to move!”

Park Seong-gyeon shouted angrily.

I’d been so stunned by Sad Smiley’s strange behaviour that I’d reacted a moment too late.

“Sorry. I stayed on the conveyor belt just like you said, but the toys attacked me anyway, so I had to run.”

“They attacked you even while you were on the belt?”

Both Mo Hae-in and Park Seong-gyeon’s expressions immediately turned serious.

While they quietly discussed the situation…

I found the other half of Sad Smiley.

I placed the two halves back together…

…then carefully set a Nut Candy on top.

I stared silently at Sad Smiley’s smiling face.

Well…

An unexpected development.

My heart was pounding…

…because I was so unbelievably excited.