Chapter 29

Chapter 29. Come to the Land Filled with Happiness

【Invitations will soon be sent to your friends! They say happiness grows the more you share it, don’t they? Greater happiness will come to you too, binary, for sharing happiness!】

“Damn it.”

“This…… this bastard just did something weird to us, didn’t he?”

“It said Happyland just now, right……?”

With no hair to grab, the bald man, who was one step away from having his collar seized instead, wrote another short memo and showed it to us.

[There was no other choice. Please understand.]

His face was ashen, perhaps because he was in poor condition, but there was no sign of apology on it.

No, there seemed to be no expression at all.

“Wow, wow…….”

Choi Jaeha grabbed the back of his neck.

“This guy is seriously shameless, isn’t he?”

[Still, I’ll tell you everything I can. Oh, my name is Lee Jinsu.]

Whether this was what the man was originally like, or whether it was because of the Labyrinth.

[One second. This has a time limit.]

Lee Jinsu put down his phone and looked back at the game screen after the pop-up vanished.

【A clerk wearing a raccoon mask is selling ice cream. It looks delicious. You cannot endure your hunger.】

【▶ Eat】

【▶ Endure】

Click.

【Eat!】

The moment Lee Jinsu clicked ‘Eat.’

CRUNCH! SPLAT! CRACK!

With sound effects that could not possibly be believed to be the sound of eating ice cream, red bloodstains splattered across the entire screen and then quickly disappeared.

The clerk wearing a raccoon mask in the pixel art disappeared as well.

【The sweet-and-salty combination never fails after all! You licked the ice cream around your mouth in satisfaction. You do not think you will be hungry for a while.】

Lee Jinsu, who had been looking calmly at that unpleasant game screen, opened the memo app again and showed it to us.

[If the time limit passes anyway, it auto-selects on its own, and you take the penalty as a penalty, so you have to choose within the time no matter what.]

“What exactly is the penalty?”

[Things like this.]

Lee Jinsu opened his mouth wide.

His tongue really had been cut off, with only the root barely remaining.

“Ah…….”

“Ugh, good grief…….”

Even Choi Jaeha, who had been glaring at Lee Jinsu until just now, lost some of his momentum.

[But it doesn’t hurt, and sometimes it’s just at the level of your hair disappearing like this, so there’s no need to be too scared. What part disappears and how much of it disappears seems to be just random.]

Just then.

FLASH—!

Ta-daa, dan, da-dan…….

Suddenly, a phone turned on, and circus-style music began flowing out.

A bright and cheerful rhythm over a retro organ accompaniment. It was a melody that brought to mind an amusement park parade.

“What is this?”

“Don’t tell me it’s that invitation from earlier…….”

The same thing happened on the phones of the other companions.

RATTLE.

Next, the drawer of an ownerless desk flew open, and a portable game console sprang out of it and fell in front of Jeong Jiho.

[There are mobile and console versions too. Maybe it’s because there aren’t enough computers for everyone.]

If there was no computer, then a phone. If there was no phone, then even someone else’s game console.

What a fair and kind Labyrinth.

We all looked at the game title on the screen.

【Lost In HPPYLN】

【ENTER】

Happyland.

An abandoned amusement park that had become an Invasive Labyrinth eight years ago.

It was an amusement park that had closed long before Labyrinthization, and because of its distinctive atmosphere, it was often used as a filming location. Then one day, during the filming of a certain idol’s music video, the Labyrinthization Phenomenon occurred.

The Happyland Labyrinth was also resolved through Total Wipeout of Internal Personnel.

Like Seonghwa High School, which we had seen as a movie in the Main Auditorium, or Yeongun Mountain, which we had heard about as a radio story in the parking lot.

“Can we…… not play this?”

Hwang Juyeon feebly tried to escape reality.

Even she did not look as though she believed that would be possible.

“It would be best to sit together first. May we borrow some chairs, Mr. Lee Jinsu?”

At Yoo Hyunjae’s question, Lee Jinsu readily nodded.

[Use whatever you need. The owners aren’t here anyway.]

SCRAPE, RATTLE.

The wheeled chairs gathered together near Lee Jinsu.

When we pressed enter beneath the game title, a new screen appeared.

【Enter your name.】

【＿＿＿＿】

“Was there no particular problem if you didn’t use your real name?”

Looking at the pop-up earlier, it seemed Lee Jinsu had used ‘binary’ instead of his real name.

Depending on how one looked at it, maybe that was his real name too.

[Every now and then, it asks if you remember your name, and something like a quiz pops up where you choose, but whether it’s your real name or not didn’t seem important. It really felt like just a player identification code.]

“Then I will…… use my name.”

After a brief hesitation, I entered my name.

【Seon Yuhan】

【ENTER】

As I looked at those characters, I shook my head because I felt foolish and pressed enter.

Then again, it was not as if the Labyrinth was stupid.

Even if I wrote a different name, there was no way it would fail to recognize my existence.

Even if I had written Hong Gil-dong, it would not kill Mr. Hong Gil-dong instead of me.

【…Waiting to enter Happyland…】

“Ugh, I’ll try just writing my surname. Ah, what do I do? I really don’t know anything about games…….”

Hwang Juyeon, who had entered ‘Hwang,’ clutched her head and groaned.

“I have never been suited for games played on electronic devices like this either.”

This is why Labyrinths are…… Yoo Hyunjae, who muttered in a low, sunken voice, fiddled for no reason with the ring on his little finger and then wrote ‘Hyunjae.’

“Hmm, then I’ll use initials……. Ah, Jiho, what will you do? Should Uncle help you?”

When Jeong Jiho silently nodded, Choi Jaeha skillfully operated the buttons while asking for his opinions, saying, ‘How about this? Or this one?’

And so the name ‘Jyo’ was entered into Jeong Jiho’s game console.

“But this just keeps loading and doesn’t move on?”

“Ah.”

At Choi Jaeha’s question, Lee Jinsu made a sound and opened the memo app.

[Looks like only one person can play this.]

“What does that mean?”

[Since it’s an offline game, it’s an awkward way to put it, but only one person can be connected. I’m playing right now, so you can’t enter. My game only started after my colleague quit too.]

“What?”

[So I think if I die or quit, the next person can enter one at a time.]

“No, you crazy bastard, you should say that kind of thing earlier!”

“Could it be in the order we entered our names……?”

If it was first-come admission, I was probably the next player.

After me, the order would likely be Hwang Juyeon, Yoo Hyunjae, Choi Jaeha, and Jeong Jiho.

“But can you quit?”

[If you retire in-game? If you die? Anyway, the choices CONTINUE and EXIT appear. My colleague pressed EXIT, and it became my turn.]

“You said your colleague died.”

Was that not a button to escape life rather than the game?

“Ah.”

Lee Jinsu opened his mouth blankly, then tapped on his phone again.

[That’s because I killed him.]

“What did you say?”

“Wh-what?”

“You killed him? A person?”

Choi Jaeha sprang up in shock, Hwang Juyeon grabbed a pen from the desk, and Yoo Hyunjae quietly moved Jeong Jiho behind him.

Still wearing a calm expression, Lee Jinsu continued.

[He was going to die soon anyway, but he didn’t die because he pressed EXIT, so don’t worry.]

The fact that he did not actively defend himself ironically made it more credible.

[If you press CONTINUE, you just keep playing the game. But you take a penalty instead.]

“Ha……. That penalty is randomly losing part of your body, right? But without pain.”

Lee Jinsu nodded.

[It’s all pure luck-based random. Sometimes it’s just at the level of clipping your fingernails, and if you’re unlucky, well, it might take out a lung.]

If you did not press a choice within the time limit, you took a penalty, and if you died in the game and wanted to continue playing, you took a penalty then too.

In that case, depending on which body part the penalty was applied to, you could die immediately.

[So if you don’t want to lose anything, just press EXIT.]

Then it would move on to the next turn.

If it kept moving on like that, it would eventually reach Jeong Jiho, who was last in order.

Was it telling us to play some loyalty game?

“Then why didn’t you quit, Mr. Lee Jinsu? Because there was no one to pass it to then?”

[That too.]

The bloodshot eyes with burst vessels looked straight at me and smiled.

[Because it was fun.]

Perhaps what Lee Jinsu had lost in this game was not only his tongue and hair.

It seemed something had gone wrong with his brain.

Though I could not rule out the possibility that he had been like this even before the game.

“Wow, he really must be insane…….”

A horrified Choi Jaeha slowly pulled his chair toward me.

“Mr. Seon Yuhan, you know how you grabbed me in front of the elevator and said all that nonsense, and I asked if you were insane? I snapped at you in the parking lot too……. I’ll seriously apologize for that. Mr. Seon Yuhan, you’re really normal.”

Having obtained the honorary qualification of a normal person, I turned my gaze toward Lee Jinsu’s monitor.

【There is the ‘Pang-Pang Car’! Ride the adorable bumper car and go pang-pang! Become happy!】

【▶ Become Happy】

【▶ Become Unhappy】

Lee Jinsu pointed at ‘Become Happy.’ Calmly, regardless of whether anyone was wary of him.

[For attractions, just press this and ride them when possible. That makes in-game time pass quickly too, and if you don’t ride them, some ominous script appears.]

That meant he had tried pressing ‘Become Unhappy.’

“What is the goal of this game? What do you have to do to clear it?”

[Judging from the opening script, the goal seems to be to survive until closing time. Flow-wise, that sort of ending is natural.]

“How large does the game seem to be?”

[Not sure. It doesn’t seem like the volume is that big, but if you don’t drag out the time limits as much as possible and choose the right options immediately, playtime might be about twenty minutes? Assuming the best and shortest route.]

That meant the actual playtime could be several times longer, and we might die before it even became longer.

[Still, at this level, the difficulty isn’t extreme.]

“No, where exactly…… is that…….”

Choi Jaeha flared up, then trailed off, as though he did not even want to speak to Lee Jinsu.

[Because the player is in the role of a guest. If it were on the cast side, the balance would be completely ruined, and nobody could clear it.]

“What…… Why would……? Mr. Seon Yuhan, what does that mean……?”

This man Choi Jaeha really had no interest in Labyrinths.

Must be nice.

Still, Hwang Juyeon seemed to understand roughly.

The representative of Yuwi Guild, who had kept his mouth quietly shut all this time, would naturally have understood.

As for Jeong Jiho, who had not even been born when the Happyland Labyrinth happened, it was only natural that he did not know.

“First, the people who were trapped in Happyland…….”

For their safety, I had to explain the basic background knowledge.

“It happened during the filming of an idol music video—”

“—Ah, I remember that. People gathered and memorialized them and all. They were unknown, but seeing them become famous only after they died was kind of…… strange.”

I honestly found it disgusting.

The people who had never been interested, yet once news came that they had died tragically, only then pounced, dug up traces of the dead, and began forcibly loving them.

The people who enjoyed grief like a game.

After eight years passed like that, even that idol had gradually been forgotten, and the staff members who had been memorialized only as an aside were no longer remembered by name.

“Mm, anyway, when their bodies were recovered, they were all wearing cast…… that is, Happyland employee uniforms. Various kinds.”

Cast uniforms looked different depending on their assigned attraction or work.

“But judging by the state of the bodies, it was presumed that they had effectively been treated not as employees, but as the corresponding attractions.”

And that presumption was probably correct. If the contents of this game were based on the actual incident.

“Uh, wait. You said the player is in the position of a guest in-game. Then we…….”

“Yes.”

BANG! CRUNCH! BANG! SPLAT!

【You performed a perfect drift even on the wet road surface.】

I glanced briefly at Lee Jinsu’s monitor, where unpleasant sound effects and text appeared, then continued speaking.

“We are the ones killing people.”

“Ha……. No wonder. So that’s why the game is like that?”

Choi Jaeha looked with revulsion at the Neosoft employee who had called such a game fun.

Just then.

BANG! CRUNCH!

“Ohgho.”

Lee Jinsu let out a sound like a sigh. It seemed to be ‘oh no.’

【Oh dear! There is no beating a mutual-destruction strategy. You have entered a state where you can no longer enjoy happiness. Still, you can continue becoming happy.】

【CONTINUE】

【EXIT】

“Mr. Lee Jinsu, wait…….”

Click.

【CONTINUE!】

The mad gamer’s hand was faster than the eye this time too.

【Wise as you are, you do not miss a chance to become happy.】

【However, happiness always requires a price!】

【Worry! It will not hurt. A small sponsorship will make you happy：head】

The moment that script was printed.

“Bwaagh! Wh-what is this, ugh!”

Part of Lee Jinsu’s head disappeared.

【Admission Complete!】

And the game screen that had continued waiting for admission changed.

【Welcome to Happyland, the Land of Happiness!】