The Bunny Girl Handing Out Chewy Rice Cakes (1)

When my reaction proved less than enthusiastic, the male rabbit vanished almost at once.

This casino, however, remained exactly as it was even after some time had passed.

If anything, it kept trying, little by little, to pull me deeper in.

A guest took a glass of champagne from the silver tray in my hands.

One child met ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my eyes, broke into a bright smile, and waved.

The smile looked so pure that I answered it without hesitation.

Once the child had gone, I glanced down at the tray on my hands.

The texture… is vivid.

A smooth, sleek sensation at my fingertips.

When I tilted it slightly, the center of gravity shifted exactly as it should.

Above all, the temperature was rendered perfectly.

Where my hand had rested, a gentle warmth lingered.

Where I had not touched it, the metal remained cold as metal should be.

My brow furrowed of its own accord.

This is really a hallucination?

The look and sound of a casino I could accept.

Hallucinations and auditory illusions—those were the very essence of the Jangsanbeom urban legend.

Right now the creature and I were locked in a kind of tug-of-war.

If it fully bewitched me, the Jangsanbeom won. If I refused the spell and caught it, I won.

I had come here steeled for the fight, so of course the thing would try every trick it had to enchant me.

Even so… hadn’t this long since left the realm of mere hallucination behind?

Being dragged into a casino ghost story almost felt more realistic.

My constellation added a cautious opinion to my own speculation.

Only then could I nod.

A labyrinth. A phenomenon you sometimes ran into when dealing with anomalies.

A higher-tier version of space-type anomalies like Daon Mart or Hoewolsan.

More precisely, you could call it the condensed, no-frills edition.

If the world were a single painting, Hoewolsan was an anomaly hidden somewhere on the canvas.

Like a hologram on a banknote, a watermark, or microprint.

Hard to find under ordinary circumstances, yet it still existed on the paper itself.

A labyrinth was different.

A labyrinth did not exist inside the painting called the world.

It was a power that briefly overwrote reality itself—like sticking a sticker onto a picture and then peeling it off again.

Time and space. Every constraint ignored, a false reality realized solely by an anomaly’s authority.

That was the “labyrinth” anomalies manifested.

So, an illegal building thrown up while ignoring every safety code?

My constellation hesitated a beat before answering.

The emotion that came through was a faint embarrassment.

Meaning Her Grace had gone, Huh. Does it work like that? Well, it’s not entirely wrong… and fretted over it.

What was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I supposed to do?

That was the kind of work I had done my whole life.

People understood the world through the things they had seen with their own eyes.

Did you know how many people died because of illegal extensions and renovations?

This was a pretty important issue, you know.

Safety regulations weren’t written just to annoy construction companies.

“Anyway, shall I look around a bit?”

Illegal building or not, a labyrinth was still a labyrinth.

To escape, you needed to fulfill some condition.

Standing still would get me nowhere.

From what I had heard, this casino was something the Jangsanbeom had built by yanking out every pillar of its own household.

So the least I could do before killing it was give the place a proper tour.

Besides, I had never set foot in a casino before.

One hour after the opening of the Jangsanbeom Casino.

I was cheering at the top of my lungs.

“Yeeeeeeeah—!”

A cascade of chips raining down!

A dopamine shower that seemed to rinse my brain clean!

“That young lady’s got quite the touch.”

“How much has she won already?”

East or West, rabbits had always been animals of good omen.

In the West, luck. In the East, longevity and eternal youth.

I was hitting jackpots as if I had sucked every scrap of fortune out of this casino.

“Look at the outfit. She must work here, right?”

“I’m not staff, actually.”

“Good heavens. Not an employee, and she’s dressed like that?”

“…….”

“Ahem. People have their tastes. It suits you rather well.”

The soaring mood made an emergency landing straight back to earth.

Honestly, this bunny-girl costume caused trouble no matter where I went.

I had thought Hoewolsan was dark enough that it would be fine—never imagined it would come to this.

Still, the number of chips I had won remained unchanged.

My eyes found the exchange counter at the center of the casino once more.

Clearing this labyrinth was far simpler than I had expected.

Play games, win ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠credits, spend those credits to escape.

So at first I had been extremely wary.

This casino was a place designed to reel me in.

Would some kind of mental contamination seep in while I played?

Was there a trap I didn’t know about that would make me lose credits forever?

Those were the worries I had carried.

Even the casino’s exchange desk looked like this.

Couldn’t you see the casino’s design at a glance?

Lose credits at the tables, then slowly lose yourself at the exchange—that was the strategy.

And these bastards.

The credits they handed out weren’t even that generous.

As a test I sold the memory of the pork belly I had eaten the day before yesterday, and they gave me exactly one credit.

Things you could afford to lose weren’t worth much, apparently.

Only something truly precious would fetch a respectable sum.

In short, I had one chance.

I had to sit down at the tables ready to win by any means necessary.

The result was the scene from a moment ago.

Yeah. This casino was a joke.

“Not this hand. I’m dead.”

“Tch. I’m running low on chips myself.”

“A girl young enough to be my daughter, and she’s got real skill. Even if I lose this round, I’ll see it through. Call.”

“I don’t think I can do this one either. Fold.”

“Oh dear. Was my face that easy to read?”

“Ahaha… I’ve got a good instinct for these things. You’ll play another hand, right?”

“No. I need a break. Good grief, how much have I already lost.”

From the start, I could not lose in this casino.

When I played poker, my constellation simply told me every opponent’s hand.

I lost little when I lost, and won big when I won.

The more I played, the more my credits grew.

In games like darts I didn’t even need the constellation for foul play.

“Triple twenty. Another triple twenty. Triple twenty again?”

“Cheat! This is cheating! Hey! Switch darts with me!”

“Triple twenty!”

“Aaaaaargh! This can’t be happening!”

“Hmm… maybe challenging a bunny girl at darts was the real mistake.”

No matter how fast they spun the board, they could not fool my dynamic vision.

Concentrate my physical enhancement and the board moved in slow motion.

My throwing skill had already been proven back when I was tossing coins.

Everyone inside the gambling floor was an ordinary person anyway.

No sudden appearance of a skilled gambler like the manager from Daon Mart.

Naturally, I carved out an undefeated legend in this casino.

Gathering the credits I needed was not difficult at all.

All I had left to decide was where to spend them.

The first prize—the one that claimed to make dreams come true—was an automatic reject.

If I prayed, “Please erase every anomaly in the world,” would the Jangsanbeom actually grant it?

Not something a creature that couldn’t even build a proper labyrinth could pull off.

It would probably just trap me in a labyrinth of a world where my dream had come true.

That was why the wording was the vague “make my dream reality” instead of something like a “wish ticket.”

Even that labyrinth would be real for a little while, after all.

A cheap trick, but not technically a lie.

So what I needed to buy were numbers two and six.

The name I would hand over to Han Yeseo, and my own escape.

In ghost-story spaces, even anomalies could not freely speak falsehoods.

Aside from number one, the remaining prizes left no room for sleight of hand.

If I simply exchanged for the prizes as things stood, my goal would be complete.

“What. Is this really the end…?”

Of course it wasn’t.

A man came looking for me.

A man whose left leg ended at the knee.

Without preamble he dropped to the floor in front of me and pressed his forehead down.

“Please…! Credits—you can just win them again, can’t you, miss? Me—I’ve got a daughter outside! Please. I’ll beg on my knees like this.”

I finally understood what the fatal flaw of this casino was.

And how this place intended to devour me.