An Invitation to Happiness
【Invitations will soon be sent out to your friends! They do say happiness grows the more you share it, don't they? And since you shared yours, binary, an even greater happiness is on its way to you!】
"Goddammit."
"D-did that bastard just pull something freaky on us?"
"It said HAPPYLAND just now, didn't it......?"
The bald man — spared a hair-pulling only because there was nothing left up there to grab, and now one step short of a collar-grab — scribbled another short memo and held it up for us to see.
Whether his body was in poor shape or not, his deathly pale face carried not a trace of apology.
No — there didn't seem to be any expression on it at all.
"Wow. Just...... wow." Choi Jaeha clutched the back of his neck. "You've got some damn nerve, pal?"
Was this simply what he'd always been like, or was it the labyrinth?
【A clerk in a raccoon mask is selling ice cream. It looks delicious. You can no longer bear your hunger.】
▶ Eat it
▶ Hold out
Click.
【Eat it!】
The instant Lee Jinsu clicked Eat it—
Crunch! Splash! Squelch!
The pixel-art clerk in the raccoon mask vanished along with it.
【Sweet and salty — that combo never misses! You licked the ice cream from the corner of your mouth with great satisfaction. You won't be hungry again for a while.】
"And this penalty is what, exactly?"
Lee Jinsu stretched his mouth wide open.
His tongue had genuinely been severed — only the barest root of it still remained.
"Ah......."
"Oh, God. Oh, no......."
Even Choi Jaeha, who'd been glaring daggers at the man only moments ago, lost all his steam.
Then—
Pat! A tinny fanfare trilled out: ta-da-ran, dan, ta-dan.......
The phones had switched themselves on, spilling circus music into the room — a bright, jaunty rhythm over a retro organ riff. A melody that conjured the image of an amusement park parade.
"What the hell is this?"
"Don't tell me — that invitation just now......"
The same thing was playing out on everyone else's phones too.
Vrrrr.
What an impressively fair and considerate labyrinth.
Happyland. An amusement park that had shut its doors long before the labyrinth era; its singularly eerie atmosphere had made it a favorite filming location, right up until the day the labyrinth phenomenon erupted in the middle of a certain idol group's music video shoot.
The Happyland labyrinth, too, had ended with the total annihilation of everyone inside.
Just like Seonghwa High School, the one we'd watched on film in the grand auditorium. Just like Mount Yeongun, whose story we'd heard read out over the radio in the parking garage.
"There's really no way we can...... not do this, is there?"
Hwang Juyeon made a half-hearted attempt to escape reality, her face betraying that she didn't believe it was possible even as she asked.
"We should take our seats first, I think. Would it be all right to borrow some chairs, Mr. Lee Jinsu?"
At Yu Hyeonjae's question, Lee Jinsu nodded without hesitation.
Rattle, clatter. The wheeled chairs gathered themselves into a snug cluster around Lee Jinsu.
【Enter your name】
【＿＿＿＿】
"There was no problem using something other than your real name, I take it?"
From that popup earlier, Lee Jinsu appeared to have typed in binary instead of his actual name.
Then again, one could argue that was his real name.
"Then I'll go with...... my name."
After a brief hesitation, I typed it in.
【Seon Yuhan】
【ENTER】
I stared at the four syllables for a moment, decided I was being an idiot, shook my head, and pressed Enter.
It wasn't as if the labyrinth were stupid.
Typing in a different name would hardly blind it to my existence. Even if I'd written Hong Gildong, the thing wasn't going to go kill some other Mr. Hong Gildong in my place.
【...Waiting to enter Happyland...】
Hwang Juyeon, who had typed in Hwang, clutched her head and groaned in despair.
This is why labyrinths.......
Yu Hyeonjae, muttering in a voice pitched low, fiddled needlessly with the ring on his pinky before writing Hyeonjae.
"Tsk, then I'll just do initials....... Ah, Jiho — what about you, buddy? Uncle'll help you out, yeah?"
When Jeong Jiho nodded silently, Choi Jaeha worked the buttons with practiced ease, asking how about this one? Or this one?
"By the way, this thing's stuck on loading and won't go any further?"
"Ahh."
At Choi Jaeha's question, Lee Jinsu made a noise and opened his notepad.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"What did he say?"
"No — are you kidding me? You lead with that stuff!"
"Could it be...... in the order we entered our names?"
If it was first come, first served, I would most likely be the next batter up. After me, in order: Hwang Juyeon, Yu Hyeonjae, Choi Jaeha, and at the very end, Jeong Jiho.
"But you can quit, correct?"
"You said a colleague of yours passed away."
"Ahh."
Lee Jinsu stared blankly into space for a moment, then tapped at his phone again.
"I'm sorry — what?"
"Wh-what?"
"You killed them? A person?"
Choi Jaeha shot to his feet in horror; Hwang Juyeon snatched a pen off the desk, the nearest thing within reach; Yu Hyeonjae quietly guided Jeong Jiho behind him.
Lee Jinsu continued in exactly the same flat tone.
Ironically, his refusal to argue the point only made it more believable.
"Hah....... So this 'penalty' of yours — losing a random body part, correct? Painlessly, at that."
Lee Jinsu nodded.
Which meant that, depending on where the penalty happened to land, it could kill you outright.
And then it would pass to the next in line. Passed along far enough, it would inevitably reach Jeong Jiho at the end of the queue.
"Then why didn't you quit, Mr. Lee Jinsu? There was no one to pass it to back then, was there?"
Eyes webbed with burst capillaries looked straight at me — and smiled.
Something was wrong with his brain. Clearly.
"Wow, this guy's actually insane......."
Aghast, Choi Jaeha began scooting his chair furtively in my direction.
"Mr. Seon Yuhan. Back at the elevator, when you grabbed hold of me and started spouting all that nonsense, I straight-up called you crazy. And in the parking garage too, going on about whatever....... I really am sorry about that. You're the sane one here, Mr. Seon Yuhan."
Having thus been awarded my certification as an honorary sane person, I turned my gaze to Lee Jinsu's monitor.
【There's the Bang-Bang Car! Take a ride in an adorable bumper car and go POP! POP! Get happy!】
▶ Become happy
▶ Become unhappy
Lee Jinsu pointed at Become happy. Calmly, regardless of who flinched at it.
So he had, at some point, tried pressing Become unhappy.
Meaning the actual playtime could stretch out several times longer — or end before it ever got the chance to.
"No, but where the hell are we even suppos—" Choi Jaeha flared up, then wilted mid-sentence, apparently too reluctant to keep talking to the man.
"What...... why's that......? What is it, Mr. Seon Yuhan?"
This guy genuinely does not care one bit about the labyrinth, huh.
Must be nice.
Hwang Juyeon, at least, seemed to have roughly caught on. The Yuwi Guild co-CEO, who had been sitting silently all this while, had obviously understood as well. And Jeong Jiho, who couldn't even have been born yet when the Happyland labyrinth happened — naturally knew nothing.
"The people who were trapped in Happyland......."
"They were in the middle of shooting some idol group's music video—"
"—Ah, right, I remember that. Everyone gathered up to mourn them and all. Some complete nobodies blowing up only after they'd died....... left a weird taste in my mouth, honestly."
I'd been no better, truth be told.
People who, having cared nothing for them in life, rushed in with relish only once word spread that they had died tragically — excavating every trace of the deceased and forcing themselves to love them after the fact.
People who played at grief like it was a game.
Eight years passed like that. The idol group was gradually being forgotten, and the staff who had once been mourned as footnotes were now remembered by no name at all.
"Mm. In any case, when we recovered the bodies, every last one of them was dressed in cast costumes. Happyland staff uniforms, that is. All different varieties."
Cast uniforms differ depending on the attraction or duty assigned to the wearer.
"However, judging by the state of the bodies, the prevailing assessment was that rather than having been staff, they had in effect been treated as the attractions themselves."
"I see."
BANG! Craaash! BANG! Splaaash!
【Even on a rain-soaked stretch of road, you pulled off a flawless drift.】
I glanced briefly at Lee Jinsu's monitor — at its unpleasant sound effects and the text crawling across it — and went on.
"We're on the side that does the killing."
Then—
BANG! Craaack!
"Aigoo-er."
Lee Jinsu breathed out something like a lament. It might have been oh dear.
【Oh dear! You simply can't beat a take-us-with-you gambit. You are now in a state where you can no longer enjoy happiness. But you can still become happier.】
CONTINUE
EXIT
"Mr. Lee Jinsu, wait—"
Click.
【CONTINUE!】
The mad gamer's hand proved faster than the eye this time, too.
【A wise player such as yourself never misses a chance to become happier!】
【But of course, happiness comes at a price!】
【Don't worry! It won't hurt a bit. A small donation will make you happy: HEAD】
The moment that script printed—
Pop! Wh-what the— urgh, ulp!
A portion of Lee Jinsu's head simply ceased to exist.
【Entry complete!】
【Welcome to Happyland, the Land of Happiness!】