The Amusement Park Attack (4)
Vroooooom—!!
“Woooo, ahahaha~!!”
About an hour had passed since we entered the park and started making the rounds on various rides, and Cha Eunju was now radiating laughter with the giddiest expression imaginable. She was showing a level of excitement you'd never see from her on a normal day.
The fact that she could have this much fun on nothing more than a bumper car was, ironically enough, thanks to that height restriction posted on nearly every ride in the park.
'Guests under 150cm riding the water slide must be accompanied by a guardian….'
'The Magic Castle requires an accompanying guardian….'
'To ride the Air Swing, a guardian must be present….'
Everywhere we went, there were rides she couldn't board alone and could only ride with a guardian alongside her. And ever since the carousel, it had become an unwritten law that I would be Cha Eunju's designated guardian — so naturally, every single ride ended up with her glued to my side.
Riding rides alone together with the person you like, bodies pressed close — it must have genuinely felt like a date to her. As a bonus, she now seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Kim Isabel was clutching my hand every time we moved from one attraction to the next.
…Though for her part, Kim Isabel was visibly sulking at how I was riding nearly every ride alone with Cha Eunju.
CRUNCH—!!
“Nnngh, hyaaaak?!”
“…You really shouldn't let your guard down, Cha Eunju.”
Kim Isabel had openly rammed her bumper car into our side at full speed.
It was an unusually aggressive move for someone as normally gentle as her, but I could more than understand the impulse. Under the influence of Succubus Heart, her affection for me was amplified far beyond its usual levels.
In that state, watching Cha Eunju cling to me all day must have made her feel like she was watching a rival in love.
Under normal circumstances she was a girl who almost never expressed negative emotions like jealousy, but after receiving my Suggestion, being stuck next to me and Cha Eunju nonstop had left her with no other option.
CRUNCH!
“Hieeeeeek?!”
“Lee Seonho! Where do you think you're looking?!”
“Hey, Han Sora! Why are you ignoring Kim Isabel and only targeting us?!”
“Obviously we have to keep it fair, two on two! It's not fair that you two get to gang up!”
We were all riding the same car, for crying out loud — what two on two? With that flimsy excuse, Han Sora hammered into our car from the side opposite Kim Isabel, over and over.
THUD, THUD, THUD!
“Alright, that's it, Eunju! Turn the wheel, turn it!”
“W-which way?!”
“Any way! We can't just sit here and take this!”
“O-okay…!”
Whether it was intentional or pure reflex, Cha Eunju wrenched the wheel with all her strength — toward Kim Isabel's car.
The moment our direction shifted, she stomped on the accelerator, and a heartbeat later the bumper car carrying the two of us slammed squarely into the rear of Kim Isabel's.
KA-BOOM!!
“Hiiiyyyk?!”
“Okay, next is Han Sora! Target Han Sora!”
“O-okay…!”
Boing.
“Hnngh, h-here we go…!!”
Whether she simply hadn't noticed that I was gripping her chest in the chaos, or whether she noticed and was deliberately pretending not to, I couldn't say.
And so the two of us rolled around together in that cramped little car, launching attack after attack at the other pair.
“Ah, that was fun. I feel so much less stressed now.”
“You spent all ten minutes ramming me and Cha Eunju, Han Sora.”
“That's because Isabel and I are on the same team. Right, Isabel?”
“…That's right. Since you and Cha Eunju were a team, I suppose it couldn't be helped.”
Han Sora tossed out the team remark as a joke, and Kim Isabel nodded along with dead seriousness.
Meanwhile, Cha Eunju — who had absorbed attacks from both sides and come out of it dazed — was practically hanging off my arm the moment she stepped off the bumper car.
“That was fun, hehe….”
…I think I finally understand why every ride in this amusement park has a height restriction.
That restriction was probably a mechanic built into the original story specifically for courting Cha Eunju. Take her on a date at Neverland Amusement Park, and this way you could ride everything alone together under the convenient pretext of being her guardian.
And while he was at it, the original Lee Seonho could gripe about it too. He worked her to the bone and never once took her to the amusement park she loved — the perfect way to brand himself as an irredeemable scumbag.
Unlike the other heroines whose relationships with him had more or less solidified by the end of second year, Cha Eunju remained Lee Seonho's errand girl right up until the start of third year. This was an affection event designed for latecomers.
'Not that it matters, since I'm the one making full use of it now.'
Of course, I can't be certain. I dropped the original story at the exact point where Lee Seonho lost to Seo Woojin and Cha Eunju was absorbed into his harem.
Since I'd been sympathizing with Lee Seonho rather than the protagonist, the bitter aftertaste of Cha Eunju's betrayal — she was pretty much his only hope — was why I'd quit reading.
Honestly, given the size of his sins, the original Lee Seonho had no one to blame for being betrayed. Two years of loyal servitude — she'd actually held out remarkably long.
“All that playing has made me hungry. Shall we head off to eat?”
“Already? It's only four o'clock.”
“Oh, right. Then let's grab a snack to hold us over and eat dinner after we leave. Is anyone who has to be back early?”
“I-I'm fine.”
“I told the head priestess I might be late today, so I'm fine as well.”
“Late is good for me. It's not like there's anyone waiting at home anyway.”
“Oh, really? Seonho, you live on your own?”
“On my own… well, something like that.”
More like kicked out than living alone… but there was no need to explain Lee Seonho's background to the girls right now.
“Seonho, I want some churros….”
“Sure, I'll buy you some.”
“…I'd like churros too, Seonho.”
“Of course, Isabel, I'll get yours too.”
“Hey, me too! Just one!”
“You got the biggest payout last time, and now you're mooching off me again?”
“I haven't gotten it yet, okay? Once I get paid, I'll buy you lunch at the cafeteria. Deal?”
“Fine, have it your way.”
Just as I'd somehow ended up running errands for three girls and was leisurely making my way toward the snack stand, reaching for my wallet—
KWAAAAAANG!!!
…The enormous Ferris wheel at the center of the park began to tilt, engulfed in an explosion.
“Whoa, we're really going up! Hey, Hana! This thing really goes up, I'm telling you?!”
“…Please, for the love of god, shut up. You're embarrassing me. You're not some country bumpkin fresh off the farm, so why can't you just sit still for one second?”
“Because it's amazing, obviously! We never had anything like this in Biranggol! Seoul really is different in every way! Whoa, whoooooa!”
“Plenty of towns out in the provinces have Ferris wheels. *Sigh*, honestly….”
Embarrassing.
That was the thought Park Hana had had more than any other since arriving in Seoul.
Her twin brother Park Cheonho, born just minutes ahead of her, was nothing like an older brother at all.
He gawked at everything in sight like an overexcited puppy, walked right up to total strangers and chatted with them like old friends, and on top of all that — why on earth did that pointlessly loud voice of his never show any sign of getting quieter?
She had no acquaintances in Seoul, so she had no choice but to stick with him, but in this single day alone there had been more than a few moments where she'd wanted to abandon her own flesh and blood and run.
Climbing onto a decorative monument that anyone with eyes could tell was untouchable, then demanding someone take his picture; dropping a coin under a vending machine and trying to shove the entire machine aside to get it out.
When he'd tried to haggle over food prices inside the amusement park, she had genuinely wanted to walk away and leave him there. It was only because they shared blood that she endured, and endured, and endured.
'This is exactly why I tried to come up here without telling that idiot.'
He could have just sat for an academy entrance exam in nearby Daejeon. Why did he insist on dragging himself all the way to Seoul to take the Cheonmu Academy exam?
With that head of his, he'd barely scrape through even the written test. Unlike her — she'd ranked in the 90s among the academic high-scorers — this fool had only just cleared the passing cutoff.
Thanks to genuinely excellent combat instincts, he had managed to fill his submission quota, including an orc, but… it was probably impossible for this idiot to get into Cheonmu Academy.
Prime Academy or Chosu Academy, with their emphasis on practical skills, or at the absolute very best Myeongwol Academy if luck smiled on him. No matter how she looked at it, Cheonmu Hunter Academy was a terrible fit for this fool.
Well, he had at least taken the exam there, so in a few weeks when the results came out, he'd end up living in some other academy's dorms. Park Hana quietly steeled herself. She just had to hold out until then.
“Wow, it's so high! Seoul Ferris wheels really are on another level. Oh, hey, I can see the Cheonmu Academy buildings from here!”
“So what if you can see them? If you don't get in, you won't be able to get within a mile of the place. You should be scoping out Chosu Academy instead. You barely finished half the written test.”
“I think I did pretty well on the practical, so it'll work out somehow! Even Cheonmu can't ignore someone who stood out in the practicals the way I did, right? If I'm first in the practical exam, they won't even glance at my written scores….”
“I heard one of the other groups took down a subspecies orc. We didn't see anything like that. No matter how tightly you stuff your report with goblin and orc kills, unless you're first place….”
“……Hey, look, there's Namsan Tower! Look at that, look at that thing!”
“Yeah, I see it. Faint, just like your future.”
Life in a rural village with fewer than twenty students from elementary school through high school combined was about to end. Once next month's admission announcements came out, she would leave that exhausting countryside behind for good and settle properly in Seoul.
As for this idiot — he could get into another academy or crawl back to Biranggol, whatever suited him. Short of some special-admission miracle, Park Cheonho was never getting into Cheonmu Hunter Academy.
Unless he happened to defeat some alliance of villains or put down a monster wave in the middle of downtown, of course. Not that a situation like that could ever actually happen—
WHUUUMMM!!
“Hurgyaak!!”
“Wh-what?!”
She'd been musing over these impressions while watching her idiot brother gawk out the window, and before long, another massive shock rippled through both their bodies.
WHUUUMMM!!
The shaking gondola. Her body lurching sideways. The scenery outside the window spinning past far too fast.
She couldn't tell exactly what was happening, but Park Hana grasped without much difficulty that the Ferris wheel they were riding in was collapsing.
“Uwaaaah?! Wh-what is this?! Are Seoul rides supposed to do this?!”
“It's falling apart, you moron! Open the door, now! You're good at something, aren't you?! You're always breaking and wrecking stuff!”
“You told me not to climb on things earlier because they might break!”
“Argh, damn it! If we don't get out fast, we're BOTH going to die!!”
Even if she and Park Cheonho both possessed Physical Enhancement Type abilities, there was no way either of them would survive a fall from this height.
Escape needed to happen yesterday if they wanted to keep their bodies intact — and only now realizing the gravity of the situation, Park Cheonho unleashed a full-power kick at the gondola door from inside the tilting car.
CRRAAACK!!
“Got it open, Park Hana! Now we jump down?!”
“Jump without thinking and you'll just die faster, you idiot! Climb onto the lower gondolas next to us and go down one at a time!”
“Okay, got it!”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The two of them escaped by leaping from one collapsing gondola to the next, one at a time.
Unfortunately, they had no spare attention for rescuing anyone else. Looking out for their own skins was, at that moment, the only means of survival available to them.
Having performed what was nearly an acrobatic escape act to claw her way free of the collapsing Ferris wheel, Park Hana let out a shallow breath and muttered under it.
“God, insane. I seriously thought I was going to die. Hey, let's get out of here fast. I don't know what's going on, but we need to run—”
“…Come to think of it, isn't this the chance heaven gave us?”
“What is?”
“A chance for Cheonmu to give us special admission, obviously! If the two of us catch the bombers ourselves, every academy — Cheonmu especially — will be falling over themselves to recruit us!”
“Are you out of your mind?! Do you even know who the terrorists are?! And I'm practically guaranteed admission already, so I'm not doing any of that—”
“Park Hana, look over there! There's someone suspicious! That guy! The one in the black hood!”
“Hey. Park Cheonho! Stop being an idiot and let's get out of here!! Argh, this dumbass…!!!”
Even as the curses spilled from her lips, Park Hana couldn't bring herself to abandon her own twin brother, and reluctantly started walking after him.