Chapter 24
“We’ve arrived.”
“Ah, thank you. Here’s the card.”
The taxi driver took the card and processed the fare. Ian got it back from him and got out of the taxi.
“……Phew.”
What filled his vision was a dense forest.
The middle slope of a nameless mountain on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province. The road had been paved, so a taxi could come this far, but even so, this was still an unmanaged back mountain with a rough road.
Although the sun was still up, a gloomy atmosphere filled every direction. He could feel the gazes of lingering spirits staying on the mountain, and black shapes stood boldly where the sunlight did not reach.
‘The welcome is a little too flashy.’
Ian gave a bitter smile and put a cigarette in his mouth.
There were too many ghost stories about back mountains to count. Even ordinary people would easily be possessed by vengeful evil spirits in a place like this, so let alone a magician, who would be drawn in by all that mystique?
Fortunately, most of them were petty ghosts, and the unidentified things that only had a shape didn’t seem that strong, so dealing with them wouldn’t be difficult. The best outcome would be for none of that to happen, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility of something suddenly rushing him.
Well, his stock of materials for making anomalies was getting low anyway, so it was about time to replenish it. He had originally planned to pick up a little inside the theme park, but if something over there came running up and asked to be used, he wouldn’t refuse.
“…….”
Setting aside those pointless thoughts, he sat on a nearby rock and took out the ticket.
The theme park address written on the ticket was exactly at the mountainside where Ian stood, beyond the broken road. A few more steps forward, and he’d be at the entrance.
There was nothing visible to the naked eye as an entrance, but the theme park itself didn’t exist on this mountain in the first place. There was no way something that huge could be invisible from here.
So the “entrance” specified on the ticket was, in effect, best thought of as a passageway.
A passage connecting the theme park and reality. Once the ticket holder passed through the entrance, he would probably be transported to the theme park.
‘Once you’re in, it’ll probably be impossible to come out on your own. If that were possible, they wouldn’t have bothered forcibly dragging people in a week later either.’
He couldn’t tell exactly what purpose the theme park had, or what it was taking people for.
He didn’t need to figure that out. That was a job for the Administration, not for a magician like Ian.
What mattered to him was the cartel’s request target: the manager’s heart. If he could save the survivors, he would, but if he couldn’t, or if things went bad, he planned to cut his losses without hesitation.
In any case, the most important thing to Ian was his own life.
While he was thinking, someone came panting up the downhill path. Ian reflexively moved a hand inside his coat, to the revolver, and stared at the unwelcome visitor.
“T-the road... huff... why is it so roughhhh... huff...”
A woman with light brown hair and striking black eyes came into view. She huffed for breath and her legs shook as she climbed the road, then came to an abrupt stop when she spotted Ian sitting on the rock.
“A-ahh...”
Her cheeks flushed in an instant, and her eyes trembled miserably.
The trembling corners of her mouth made it obvious she didn’t know what expression to make, and she couldn’t even look straight at him.
To put it kindly, she was painfully shy. Ian lightly cocked the revolver’s hammer and slowly got to his feet.
“Hiiik...!”
That tiny movement alone made her flinch. She looked like a frightened hamster, but Ian did not relax and carefully spoke up.
“Who are you?”
“A-ah, hello... I, um, I was supposed to meet some man here...”
Her voice ended in a bleating quaver as she fidgeted with her fingers. The huge guitar case on her back shook along with her trembling.
Ian mulled over her words and, on a hunch, spoke up.
“……Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie?”
“Ah!”
Her eyes flew wide open.
“N-newbie...?”
At the slightly brighter tone in her voice, Ian released his grip on the revolver and squeezed his eyes shut.
What he had hoped would not happen had become reality.
*
Community nickname, Strawberry Yogurt Smoothie.
Real name, Han Yuna.
She sat a little away from Ian, fidgeting with the ticket in her hand.
No matter how you looked at it, she didn’t seem like a magician. Rather, she looked more like someone tense in front of a stranger.
‘So the way she spoke in the community was just a persona after all...’
Well, I suppose everyone is like that to some extent.
Ian swallowed a sigh inwardly and held out a cigarette to Yuna.
“Want one?”
“Ah, no, I’m a non-smoker...”
“I know. I was just joking.”
“Ah! S-sorry! I can’t take it...”
This is insane.
Ian tucked the cigarette back into his coat and stood up. Yuna slowly rose after him.
Maybe because she had climbed the uphill road on foot, the muscles in her thighs were trembling. So that “I can run 2 km no problem” claim had been bullshit after all.
But unlike her ridiculous appearance, her abilities as a magician were likely excellent.
Even with that personality and those physical abilities, she still didn’t back out and decided to come to the theme park. That definitely meant she had some dependable qualities.
Besides, no matter what anyone said, Yuna was a veteran who had been in this line of work far longer than Ian. There was no need to worry that she’d hold him back.
Of course, that didn’t mean he planned to be carried. Ian intended to do his best too.
“Let’s go in soon. Or do you need any more preparation?”
Ian asked. Yuna shook her head vigorously and grabbed the strap of the guitar case.
“N-no! We can go in!”
“Then let’s go.”
Ian took the lead with a ticket in one hand and the grimoire in the other. Yuna wobbled for a moment under the case’s weight, then followed him.
Starting from the broken road, he slowly stepped forward.
One step.
No change at all.
Two steps.
Somewhere, the sound of fireworks rang out. The sky was perfectly normal.
Three steps.
The song of a band, the sound of instruments, and children’s laughter faintly echoed all around. There was no living creature nearby that could have made those sounds.
Then, four steps.
“……!”
The moment he stepped forward, the scenery changed in an instant.
The blue sky turned red. In the place where clouds should have been, giant clown balloons floated around, and an entrance with employees standing there appeared ahead.
“Come now, little friend! Here, take a balloon!”
Beside the entrance,
a clown with bunches of balloons hanging where his arms should be handed a balloon to a bug with a human head crawling along the ground.
“Wow, thanks, mister!”
With a creak, the bug bit down on the balloon pulled from its arm and crawled away. Red blood trailed across the floor wherever it moved.
“……It’s hell on earth.”
He had expected it wouldn’t be a normal place, but he hadn’t thought he’d be seeing things like that from the entrance onward.
“W-whoa... this place is seriously, r-really disgusting...”
Yuna, who had come in after Ian, muttered that. Ian agreed with her.
“Disgusting?”
At that moment, the three employees standing at the entrance all snapped their heads around.
It really was three, not one. The employees were not human. Their bodies were exactly like human bodies, but their heads were those of beasts. It wasn’t a mask, but as if a real head had been crudely stitched on. Blood was pouring out from where the stitches had come undone, and bits of flesh were dangling loose.
Among them, the rabbit-headed one in the worst condition tottered over and stood in front of Yuna.
“You say we’re disgusting? Really? Really? Really?”
“……Ugh. Ugly...”
Yuna frowned in disgust and waved a hand. But deciding there was no reason to make a scene right here, she held out the ticket toward the rabbit.
“I’m going in. Just take the customer.”
“Ah, you were guests! I’m sorry, I thought you were intruders!”
The rabbit bowed elegantly the instant it checked the ticket.
Its voice was impossible to distinguish as male or female, and it was full of static, like an old recording device playing back. Listening to it made Ian feel like he was getting a headache.
‘……No, it wasn’t my imagination.’
It wasn’t just that it felt like a headache; one really was setting in.
Probably its very voice had some special mental-manipulation ability.
There was no benefit to listening any longer. Ian stood beside Yuna and held out his own ticket.
“I’m going in. There shouldn’t be any problems, right?”
“Yes! Enjoy Magic Eden! Dreams and hope, blood and flesh! We sincerely welcome you to this charming theme park where screams live and breathe!”
The rabbit hopped around the two of them with exaggerated gestures. Ian ignored it, crossed the gate, and stepped into the theme park. Yuna followed after him, staring at the anomalies with disgust in her eyes.
“Please be sure to take a theme park guidebook! We are not responsible for any disadvantages if you don’t take one!”
Beside the escalator leading deeper into the theme park, a human head planted on a shelf of booklets opened its mouth and shouted. Ian stared at it for a moment, then took a booklet and stepped onto the escalator.
Yuna did the same.
“I-it’s such a creepy place... I expected that, but...”
“You don’t stutter or tremble when you deal with anomalies?”
Ian said as he wiped the blood off the booklet. Yuna nodded shyly as if that were only natural.
“B-because they’re stupid things... there’s no reason to get nervous...”
“Are people a bit hard for you to handle?”
“U-um... I’m really shy, and I’ve never had any friends before... A-ahaha...”
She laughed awkwardly. Ian nodded as if he understood, then opened the booklet.
[Magic Eden Rulebook!]
Those words were written at the very top of the booklet.
He checked the contents.
[1. Never disobey the employees’ orders. Please comply with all control measures!]
[2. Each attraction has its own mission and rules! We are not responsible for any consequences if you fail to follow them!]
[3. No troublemakers allowed!]
[4. If trouble arises with another guest, make up with them! Otherwise our reeducation team will step in!]
[5. In honor of the money and effort spent creating the theme park, you may not leave until you’ve experienced at least 3 attractions!]
[6. Please enjoy Magic Eden to the fullest! No criticism or slander!]
“T-this is like a Napolitan ghost story...”
After checking the rules, Yuna let out a low groan and muttered. Ian nodded.
“For now, it’s better to follow them, right?”
“Mm... usually, the moment you break rules like this, something troublesome happens...”
She answered as she closed the booklet. Ian also folded his booklet, put it in his pocket, and got off the escalator as it reached the top.
The scenery that spread out before them at the same time was, to say the least, overwhelming.
“Waaah, it’s flying! It’s flying!!”
Humans ran naked along the line set up for the cable car, only to plummet and fall.
Darts and shooting, carried out with living humans as the targets.
A child walking around with a bright smile, holding a human head like a balloon.
And all sorts of other malicious attractions and stalls that went beyond common sense.
“Ugh, ugh...”
At the blood and foul stench surging from all directions, Yuna pinched her nose with her fingers.
Ian gave a dry laugh and stared at the clown clouds floating in the sky.
It didn’t seem like this was going to be an easy request after all.