**Chapter 21**
In a life-or-death situation where, with mascots weeping bloody tears staring at me with pupil-less eyes, I was ordered to “kill someone already,” the lies flowed smoothly from my mouth.
“A trap?”
“Yes. Think about it.”
I tried not to look at the insane mascots on the windows, maintaining an expression that said, ‘I’ve just had a brilliant idea.’
“The one who tied us together as a team is this Darkness itself. But do you really think it’ll be fine if we recklessly kill a teammate?”
Actually, it would be fine.
“This Darkness chokes us just for being too far apart from each other. So what if we kill someone?”
You just carry the corpse around.
In the process, my cowardly heart wouldn’t be able to take it, I’d throw up, get labeled as ‘this guy’s a liability,’ and be reassigned to a perfect spot to die…
“…No matter how I think about it, there must be a huge penalty.”
“Hmm.”
The eyes beneath the butterfly mask narrowed.
“But what if we get a penalty for not killing?”
“On the flip side, what if we all get wiped out for killing?”
“……”
“If both are possible, I thought it was more rational to choose the option that preserves our numbers.”
The other person seemed slightly shaken.
I swallowed and added.
“Of course, the final decision is yours, Deputy Managerā”
“Yeah! If you kill me, huh? You’ll die too, huh, huh? You crazy bastard! You don’t want to die either. So stopā”
*Thwack.*
I decisively struck the back of the researcher’s neck.
Knocking him unconscious.
*’I set up the whole board, so why are you trying to die naturally?’*
If you had that little situational awareness, no wonder you end up gambling in the office!
By then, the restraints seemed to have been releasedāthe Team Y newbie was also releasing the researcher’s limbs with a pale, queasy face.
After watching the whole scene, the Team A superior slowly opened his mouth.
I waited anxiously.
“You.”
“……”
“You’d better not regret this.”
I was saved.
“Yes, of course.”
The Team A superior didn’t respond. It seemed my score had dropped considerably.
But that wasn’t what mattered right now.
What mattered was that I’d gotten past this moment.
[Die……]
The narration that had been repeating “Die” gradually faded as we stopped attacking each other.
*Flicker.*
And in the moment the train lights flickeredā
“They’re, they’re gone…!”
The mascots that had been surrounding the windows had vanished.
All that remained were bloodstains.
“……”
But they weren’t the only thing that had disappeared.
‘Gone.’
The conductor mascot too.
The cheerful theme park music too.
The cheerful disembarkation announcements too.
“……”
*Creak.*
After manually pushing the train out, we saw the interior, eerily devoid of sound and light.
“…Feels like we stepped on a mine.”
“……”
That’s… right.
I recalled one of the Darkness Exploration Records.
======================
Cheerful Theme Park User’s Guide (Up to Exploration Record 64)
4. Each zone of the theme park is colored according to its theme! The place where you first open your eyes is your team’s zone!
Respect the zone. The zone is more important than anything. Look at the colors. Do not offend the mascots’ feelings. The mascots are everything to the zone.
======================
So this clause wasn’t there for nothing…
If you displease the mascot in the theme park’s colored zone, you no longer receive respect as a ‘guest’ in that zone.
You might have to play a deadly game of tag.
But you couldn’t just press the nuke button to avoid stepping on this mine, could you?
‘The mascots’ demands escalate step by step.’
Usually, they start with something simple.
Eat something, pick something up, give them a warm hug.
‘But on the very first turn, they ask for murder?’
Then by the time you ride the next attraction, you’d be treated worse than dead.
For example, I’d seen in the exploration records that they’d make you do insane things like “make a balloon from your own bladder”…
By that point, the mascot’s influence would be too strong to refuse.
‘Better to die than that.’
This is a horror story world where it’s common to end up in a state worse than death.
And even now, it wasn’t like there was no escape route.
I swallowed.
‘Just run.’
If we escape the Red Rabbit, Magic Bunny’s zone, and enter another mascot’s zone, this aggro will drop.
To do that… let’s see.
‘Found it!’
I finally spotted something on one side of the dark exit path.
“There’s something over there.”
“Huh?”
This was exactly why I’d wanted to ride this attraction in the first place.
‘The theme park color map!’
[~Fantasy Land Color Map~]
Because after riding this attraction all the way through, there’s a map showing each mascot’s territory at the final exit.
I approached quickly and muttered.
“It’s a map. This could be helpful to us.”
“Wh-why is that?”
At first glance, it looks like just interior decoration.
Since the attraction introduced Fantasy Land, it seems like just a visual representation.
But the information it contains is enormous.
“Do you remember the content of this attraction?”
“Ah, uh, so, the mascots of this theme park were fighting over land…”
“Exactly.”
I nodded.
“On this attraction’s map, the territories of the other mascots should be marked.”
“…!”
You can see with your own eyes the shortest route to reach a different colored zone.
“We got on the monster’s bad side, so let’s run away? Carrying that?”
The Team A Deputy Manager gestured with his chin toward the researcher I was carrying.
It seemed like he was about to say “let’s kill him now,” so I immediately answered.
“As soon as I confirm the map, I’ll wake up the Research Team 1 Assistant Manager and make him walk properly.”
“Hmm.”
Please, just don’t put on a dismemberment show right in front of me…
At any rate, now that there was some vision, a glimmer of hope returned to the Team Y newbie’s face.
Mine was probably similar.
‘Please be nearby.’
I took a deep breath, quickly approached the map, and confirmed…
“……”
“……”
“There’s… nothing.”
Huh?
I looked at the map again.
But the picture didn’t change.
[~Fantasy Land Color Map~]
Every single area of the theme park shown was.
Red.
[Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone] [Magic Bunny Zone]
Every sign bore Magic Bunny’s face.
“Ah.”
[MAGIC BUNNY’S FANTASY LAND]
There was nowhere to run.
“……”
“……”
“Th-this must be wrong, right? Soleum-ssi, just now, there were definitely other mascots…”
“They were all driven out.”
“…!”
The narration I’d heard during the attraction automatically came to mind.
-Drown them in pits, drown them in water, push them off cliffs!
Then…
“So the yellow and blue ones are all dead, and that red mascot took over this place entirely.”
“……”
“Then… the employees who drew different colored pieces,”
“Who knows.”
The Team A Deputy Manager shrugged.
“All missing?”
“…!”
“Is that important right now? What’s important is…”
The eyes beneath the butterfly mask turned sinister again.
“That it seems you made the wrong choice.”
“……”
“Don’t worry. You’re not the one who needs to die first.”
That meant one thing.
There was someone else who needed to die first.
“It’s not too late even now.”
“……”
…Reflexively, I looked at the researcher, who was hanging like a lump of baggage on my shoulder, unconscious.
B o r i n g
“…!!”
“Wh-what…”
B o r i n g
A sound ringing in my head.
B o r i n g
Hadn’t I heard that somewhere before?
Ah, the talk show, Tuesday Talk Show. In the revamped talk show, the sacrificial lamb choir’s dead pig head screaming like an animal animal mascot! MagiMagic Bunny is boring ha
“Ugh.”
I covered my ears.
B o r i n g
I lowered my gaze.
The admission ticket on my wrist was vibrating.
[(Cheerful) Fantasy Land Ride Ticket ā ā”ā”]
[(Cheerful) Fantasy Land Ride Ticket ā ā”ā”]
The sound was coming from here.
N o t F u n
*Screeeeech.*
It began to tear apart from the sound vibrations.
The admission ticket.
======================
Cheerful Theme Park User’s Guide (Up to Exploration Record 64)
1. Keep your admission ticket bracelet clean!
If lost or damaged, you are no longer a guest. If you are not a guest, you are an intruder. A thief! A lawbreaker! A terrible punishment awaits. Or
Do you want to be an employee?
======================
No.
I desperately tried to think.
But there was no way out.
Really, not a single inch of escape. No place to run! If I wanted to preserve my human dignity, it seemed better to kill myself before it was too late…
-Mr. Kim Soleum.
Now even auditory hallucinations,
-Mr. Kim Soleum. Can you hear me?
‘……’
It wasn’t a hallucination!
I lifted my head.
There was nothing visible in the air, but I heard a voice so clear in my ear that I couldn’t possibly mistake it for a hallucination.
Its owner was…
“…Section Chief?”
-Yes.
The lizard Section Chief, Lee Ja-heon.
A sense of dĆ©jĆ vu washed over me. Though the positions were reversed this time!
“How are you contacting me?!”
-I’m using Assistant Manager Park Min-seong’s specialized equipment.
B o r i n g
The voices overlapped, and the sound of the red great Magic Bunny faded. I only just realized I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
No, that’s not what matters…
-Is the musk deer brat okay? You’re alive, right?
-We’re fine! We just rode all three attractions!
Team D was all together. How?
“You three weren’t the same color team, were you?”
I remembered clearly.
‘Section Chief Lee Ja-heon was the blue team, and the rest were yellow!’
-Musk deer, that’s not what matters right now…
“It does matter! You three opened your eyes in different teams, yet you’re in the same theme park spot?”
After a brief silence.
-No.
The calm voice of the lizard Section Chief answered.
-I found the two of them and moved.
Multiple questions flooded my mind simultaneously, but the most urgent was this. So,
“…Where did you find them?”
-Outside the blue zone.
“…So right now, you’re in the blue mascot’s zone?”
N o t F u n
-Yes.
A chill ran down my spine.
“It’s not marked on the map, but could you tell me which point is the blue zone?”
-I don’t know.
Damn it.
“You don’t need to give me specific coordinates. Just tell me the nearby attractions! Even cardinal directions would be fine.”
-I see.
After a brief silence.
-West…
*Click.*
The connection was cut off.
“Section Chief?”
No answer came back.
Probably a timeout on the specialized equipment’s usage.
And more important than that speculation was…
“W-west?!”
The Team Y newbie, who had been desperately listening beside me, had a blank look on his face.
The Team A superior’s expression was similar.
The reason was simple.
“We’re in the west?”
That’s right.
The ‘Fantasy Train’ was located at almost the western edge of the Fantasy Land map…
The opposite side of the east, surrounded by rugged forest, the west was smoothly finished with a surrounding wall.
And this attraction, right next to that wall.
There was nothing further west in Fantasy Land than this!
B o r i n g
“It seems we dropped into different theme parks. Like, a timeline where the blue mascot won. Darkness is always like that, you know.”
Different places?
So it’s a completely different parallel dimension?
N o t F u n
“No.”
That couldn’t be.
“This is a Darkness derived from a board game. There’s no way the same game would use different boards.”
“Hey. Shut up.”
The Team A superior replied coldly.
“All that plausible-sounding chatter… if it doesn’t match reality, it gets discarded.”
No, this wasn’t reasoningāit was induction.
I wanted to say there were numerous cases to back it up, but I knew he’d never believe me. What I needed right now was… to just say the right answer.
Where exactly is ‘west’?
‘Quick, quick.’
Think. There’s definitely an answer.
I looked at the Fantasy Land color map again. Still, every visible zone was painted red.
The Ferris wheel, the carousel, the roller coaster, the Viking ship, the magic palace. Without exception, Magic Bunny’s face spun red on every one.
Every ride… wait.
“…!”
B o r i n g
Wait a minute.
I scanned the map again.
And I realized.
“…I found it!”
“What?”
“A different colored zone.”
This way.
With certainty, I moved my feet. Whether carried along by my momentum or feeling hope, the team members followed.
N o t F u n
I had to move fast before the mascots noticed me. There was no time to waste, so I stepped outside the attraction as quickly as possible.
Moo-si-ha-ne?
Too late.
