Life Is Not a Boiled Egg, but a Labyrinth (5)
A clear day, with brilliant sunlight pouring down in sheets. Perfect weather for opening a theme park. True to it, workers near the shore were busy mounting the nameplate.
"Ooh! At last, my dream is bearing fruit."
The Minotaur snorted, breath steaming from his nostrils, his face alight with excitement.
The nameplate bore the Aria Trail logo in a modern italic script—lettering that sat easily with the park's atmosphere, its strokes curling like a ball of thread.
Planning it myself really does make the finished thing more satisfying. I thought back to the client's reaction when I'd walked in with the new proposal, replaying that electric moment.
The long-awaited client presentation.
Once again I was standing in front of people—no, beings—with a pointer in my hand.
I still hate presenting!
The rule that whoever's draft got picked had to present it in person had, inevitably, been applied again. When the prince took his seat, I offered him a brief greeting and began.
"Your Highness. Before I unveil the proposal, may I ask one question?"
"Of course. What would you like to know?"
"What is your purpose in building this maze theme park?"
"Oh. An important question."
The bull's eyes lit as he answered.
"Our Crete is a great power. Of late, however, any number of city-states have been rising to challenge us."
"I see."
"This is an age in which everything inflates, so holding our present standing means we must grow. Economic strength, military strength—we cannot afford to neglect a single one."
Well. A rather sharp analysis, coming out of a bull's head.
"And so, for the sake of this nation's power, I mean to raise funds through this venture."
In a word, it was about the money.
"So the goal is to fill the treasury in a way that doesn't put people off."
"Yes. Precisely."
As expected. What other reason was there for launching a new business?
"Then let's talk revenue. The current concept is a Thrill Adventure Maze."
"Correct. When you experienced it yourself, was it not thrilling?"
Thrilling? I'd walked out having suffered nothing but a threat to my life!
"It was. Not knowing what device might spring out, or from where, kept things interesting."
You couldn't exactly say the honest part. I produced the line in the dignified manner of a working adult whose real feelings never showed—pure, soulless noise.
"But this sort of thrill and adventure is a genre that lives and dies on the first experience. Go through it once, start guessing what's coming, and from then on the fun cools."
The unexpected objection left the prince a little thrown. Sorry. That was me going for the throat so the pitch would land....
"Once our team figured out how the traps worked, we simply walked around them. Thrill and adventure are that vulnerable to spoilers."
I let a thoughtful beat hang, then went on.
"Which means there's a good chance people won't come back."
I could see the bull's face darkening. Before he sank too deep, I flipped fast to the next slide—and up came a page crammed with charts and figures.
"Design the content to pull people back for repeat visits, though, and the profitability improves."
On the screen, calculated from Crete's population, one graph showed revenue from a single visit and another the gap opened up by people coming again and again. Around the three-year mark, the repeat-visit line looked to be bringing in a good five times as much.
"Oh! That is certainly hopeful. How do we induce them to visit more than once?"
The bull's eyes came alive again, burning with naked ambition.
I smiled and advanced to the page subtitled Solution.
And so the maze theme park was remade as a scenario attraction—one where the story turned on the path a visitor chose.
Rebuilding ate a little time. Even so, one round of construction that could keep generating revenue indefinitely was a net gain. With this scenario theme, seeing every ending would take at least fifty playthroughs.
Yeah. We could suck them dry to the marrow!
I put real work into the story for each scenario, too. I'd brought in Crete's foremost storyteller to help shape the narrative, so I could vouch for it. It was going to be fun. No question.
I thought about safety as well. People could lose themselves in the experience, but the whole thing was built around a story of growth and feeling. Turn back or take any road you liked—a variation on the ending would be waiting. Getting trapped with no way out was simply impossible.
Satisfying.
I looked at the flags fluttering outside the park. Beside the logo, a slogan was written.
Every path I wandered is a story
At this rate, everyone would play it safe and have a good time. If all the client wanted was profit, slapping on something like Get in there and spend, now would have been more efficient....
Vanta Design can plant the suggestion for us. Even so, a line like that was just too tacky, wasn't it? A higher standard of branding was still better. That was the reward of the job.
"Hmph. I told you not to use my name, and you went and used it anyway."
Ariadne watched the unveiling of the Aria Trail nameplate with her attendants around her, sipping from the cup a maid had handed her.
Ariadne's thread always showed the right way. So for a park where every path a guest chose and wandered became the correct answer, there could be no brand name more fitting than Aria Trail. The golden thread could split into many strands, and that had inspired me too—part of why I'd borrowed the princess's name.
And also...
...because I felt guilty for pretending to be Poseidon to take the thread, and then using it on the very maze he hadn't wanted. Out of that guilt, I'd talked the client into dedicating the park in the princess's name.
Maybe Ariadne had been the wise one, disliking the original action park for its poor returns. Now, simply attending the unveiling seemed to be her quiet way of showing she approved.
"A splendid theme park has opened in your name, Sister! It is all thanks to you!"
"Honestly... just see that you run it properly."
Ariadne lifted one leg and gave the prince a light kick in the shin. Oh. She was probably the only person alive who could pull a stunt like that on that monster.
Half-siblings, from what I know, and they seem to get along.
...Hm. A little enviable.
"Lee-hyun! I'll show you which parts to check when we hang the nameplate!"
Henna called me over, offering to walk me through the work. I went gladly.
I owe the two of them a lot. When I'd first floated the counterproposal, Henna and Pascal could easily have hated it for piling on more work. We were salaried. We'd get paid even if we half-assed the job.
But the team agreed to my idea without a fuss. Thanks to them, I hadn't had to get blood on my hands, and the client had been free to flail his way toward a direction he actually liked. Yahoo!
I feel clear-headed. Today I could go home in a good mood. Seeing the Minotaur that pleased, the client evaluation would probably come out well too, wouldn't it?
"Hey. Let's clock out."
The installation was finished before I knew it. In a spot clear of the crowd, Pascal set the door keyring and called us over. By Korean time it was only three in the afternoon, and we were already off. I was turning toward the door, sweetly imagining what I'd do once I got home, when—
Thud!
I collided with someone and went down.
"Ugh..."
"Oh dear. Are you all right?"
A man with a pleasant voice reached out and helped me up.
"My apologies. I've only just arrived from abroad, and in my excitement I failed to watch where I was going. The fault is mine."
Skin handsomely bronzed by the sun. A body so fit and vigorous it looked as if it could cut down any monster in a single stroke.
"I heard a maze theme park full of action and thrills was opening here, so I came."
He answered with a bright grin, and beneath his lips his teeth were perfectly even. A young man with a heroic air that practically anyone would warm to.
...The Minotaur, though, was as impatient as ever. Looked like he'd sprayed marketing everywhere before we'd even locked the branding.
Crash!
Somewhere nearby, a cup shattered. I turned toward the sound and found Ariadne.
"Princess! Are you all right?"
Both hands that ought to have been holding the cup were clamped over her mouth. Pupils blown wide. Both cheeks flushed red.
......Unmistakably, the face of someone in love.
...Oh.
This part was the same as the myth. Would she try to run off for love here, too?
Please, this time, let that love come to something. Even if she hadn't meant to, she was the benefactor whose thread had saved my life. I offered a brief prayer for her happiness.
Sunlight pouring through the window! A soft bed! Nothing is happier than getting off while the sun is still up. I got home, and it was four in the afternoon. People of the world, for this one moment, envy me with everything you've got. Hahaha!
"Should I order chicken? I'll need beer, too. Oh—I'll eat it while I watch that new Netflix series."
I celebrated the day's small satisfaction by ordering something good and resting properly. Unlike at the office, the time flew. Before I knew it, it was nine at night.
Right. I meant to set messenger alerts to stay off after work. The phone had a feature that kept an app from chiming during set hours. I'd sworn I'd leave the alerts off, then gotten so buried in the project I'd forgotten. Better to do it while I had a free moment, like today.
"......"
I stopped. Halfway into the settings, I suddenly froze.
"...The team went through a lot because of me."
From hearing out my counterproposal all the way to the overtime of sneaking into the palace of Crete together to get the thread.
...Pascal and Henna are both reasonable beings. If they contacted me late, it would be because something that urgent had come up.
Right. Don't block notifications for the whole app. Instead I opened the chat with one particular person.
Yeah. I only needed to mute this conversation. From now on, if the CEO messaged me outside work hours, I'd play dumb. I wasn't about to let anyone disturb my peaceful free time!
Haha. Leaving them on read!
The moment I went to hit mute, the phone buzzed and the chat refreshed.
Because I was already inside the messenger window, it was marked read at once. Which meant I had to reply.
......
Why was I getting another pointless message at nine at night?!