Chapter 26
“B-but that person just now. He probably suddenly appeared after a week had passed since getting the ticket……?”
As they walked, Yuna said. Ian glared at a fleshy puppy brushing past right beside him and nodded.
“That seems likely. It was a sudden transfer.”
“Y-yeah…… If he’d come through the front gate like us, he wouldn’t have ended up like that…… If we’d just stayed put for a week, we would’ve been in big trouble…… heh-heh…….”
Leaving the grinning Yuna behind, Ian glanced over his shoulder.
By now, the Bureau agent had long since been neatly disassembled. Torn and ripped body parts rolled around on the floor, and larvae with human heads picked them up and devoured them.
Around the corpse, staff and guests alike swarmed over it, continually shoving something red into their mouths.
It was a thoroughly disgusting sight. Ian turned his head away.
The phrase “forced transfer” itself sounded ominous enough, but he hadn’t expected the theme park to identify them as intruders. Worse, it had dropped them right in the middle of the plaza, which was practically no different from telling them to die.
More than that, he hadn’t expected the Bureau agent to die so anticlimactically.
The cartel seemed to have information about the theme park, while the Bureau apparently did not.
No, maybe they had deliberately dragged things out in order to gather information.
Whatever the case, it was certain that the Bureau had started intervening in the theme park.
He didn’t know when they’d storm this place, but the most likely possibility was sometime very soon. He couldn’t rule out them coming in today, either.
‘This is going to be a pain.’
They still had a little time, but that didn’t mean they could afford to take it easy. Ian let out a long sigh and tapped Yuna’s shoulder twice.
“Hieek!!”
Yuna jumped at the sudden touch, but he ignored it and spoke.
“Let’s hurry. We should clear at least one or two more attractions than the Bureau before they do.”
“A-ah, okay…….”
Now that Yuna had calmed down, Ian followed the map drawn in the booklet.
They arrived at the haunted house. From the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary haunted house, but the letters on the sign were made of human corpses.
Blood dripped from them, and limbs dangled grotesquely.
They were probably the victims who had tried the haunted house and failed. A pity, but there was no time to get sentimental.
“……The booklet has changed.”
Once they stood facing the haunted house, the contents of the booklet that had been giving an overall guide to the theme park changed into instructions for the haunted house. Ian and Yuna slowly read the rules.
[Haunted House]
[This attraction operates unmanned.]
[The haunted house has a variety of ghostly friends and a killer who’ll add extra thrills. Our prickly, sensitive ghost friends won’t leave their assigned areas, but the moment you enter the haunted house, the killer will start tracking you! What happens if you’re caught? It wouldn’t hurt to experience it firsthand!]
[Rule 1. Our ghost friends in the haunted house are extremely sensitive. If you do anything that offends them or scream, they’ll personally rip out your heart and brain!]
[Rule 2. Our friendly killer will track you down, catch you, and kill you. If you enjoy torture, try getting caught on purpose!]
The rules were simpler than expected.
Avoid offending the ghosts and stay away from the killer. That was far better than having all sorts of complicated rules. Ian nodded, folded the booklet, and shoved it into his pocket.
“I-it looks doable…… Are we going in right away……?”
Yuna asked.
Ian was about to nod, then stopped moving for a moment at a thought that suddenly occurred to him. Then he casually placed a hand on the haunted house wall.
“Let’s test one thing before we go.”
“Mm…… okay…….”
Yuna stepped back, and Ian activated his magic with the grimoire in hand.
“Be reborn.”
Krrrack!
The moment he spoke, the shape of the wall warped. There was no trace of its former straight lines in the wall undulating like waves.
But a nearby theme park employee kept walking along his path without caring about the altered outer wall.
That meant one thing.
‘So Re-creation isn’t considered vandalism or causing trouble.’
The magic of Re-creation preserves the components that make up an object and only changes its shape. It doesn’t alter the total amount itself.
Ian didn’t know whether that was scientifically possible. Magic itself is a force that ignores science to begin with, and quibbling over that sort of thing wasn’t very mage-like.
Anyway.
It had been proven that Re-creation magic could be used in the theme park without any danger. Ian smiled faintly and turned to Yuna.
“Let’s go. Don’t wander off.”
“Mm…… more importantly, did you do that……?”
“Who else would have?”
At Ian’s confident answer, Yuna’s mouth fell open in a daze.
“……A-amazing magic. You forcibly twisted a wall that big, and there’s no cost at all……?”
“Strictly speaking, it isn’t free. It does consume ether. If I use it repeatedly, I get a bit of a headache too.”
“A-at the very least, that makes no sense…… Even a grimoire on the level of the Lemegeton or the Necronomicon couldn’t do that…….”
Yuna muttered as she traced a finger along the wall.
If it were up to him, Ian would have liked to let her quietly study the magic, but they didn’t have much time now. They had to clear as many attractions as possible before the Bureau entered and something went wrong with the theme park.
It was regrettable—no, actually, not even that—but either way, there was no time to get lost in admiration.
So Ian forcibly grabbed Yuna’s arm and went into the haunted house. Yuna blushed and let out a startled “Heeek!” but they had work to do.
Creak, clunk!
And so they entered the haunted house.
The entrance slammed shut behind them, and a long corridor stretched out before them.
The corridor was lit without a single beam of light, relying solely on the flame of candles to illuminate the surroundings. From the window hanging at the far end, a strangely shaped face and arm suddenly popped up.
“…….”
On the ceiling, corpses were strewn about like hunks of iron clinging to a magnet. In some of the rooms along the corridor, a woman in a white shroud peeked her head out from behind the door and giggled.
“Eugh…… disgusting…….”
Yuna, who had been blushing just moments ago, switched gears in an instant. Ian didn’t say it, but he felt much the same.
At the very least, it wasn’t a place to stay long. Ian immediately opened the grimoire and placed a hand on the wall.
He triggered Re-creation directly, creating a new route in the corridor that had been nothing but a straight line.
Krrrkk!!
-??
-?!!!?!
The grotesque beings that had been waiting for prey with their tongues lolling out rushed out of the rooms in surprise.
Not a chance. Ian turned the door of the room they were in into a wall.
With a crash, something collided, and they roared while pounding the wall.
Ian didn’t care and kept walking straight down the newly opened route.
Yuna stared blankly at his back for a moment, then followed him with a slightly excited expression.
“This is seriously an amazing magic! You can even remodel an entire space!”
“…….”
“What kind of grimoire did you pick up to use magic like this? Is it a grimoire written by Merlin or something? Hm? Hm?”
As if the timid, shriveled demeanor she’d shown until now had been a lie, she blushed and huffed through her nose. Ian let out a snort and forcibly carved out a path toward the exit.
Bang!
At the end of the straight stretch of path, a huge opening labeled Exit appeared. Ian walked toward it while answering Yuna’s question.
“It’s just a somewhat amazing grimoire. At least, that’s what I think.”
At those words, the grimoire held in Ian’s hand trembled.
It was a gesture of embarrassment, like a girl who had just been confessed to.
*
Thanks to Ian’s magic, the haunted house was wrapped up with ease. They never ran into the ghosts waiting inside, and they never faced the killer either.
That was how they cleared the first attraction. Without hesitation, Ian and Yuna immediately headed off to finish the second ride.
Their destination was the bumper cars.
The attraction’s rule was to drive the bumper cars and endure until the time limit without being destroyed by other vehicles. It was similar to a kind of battle royale.
However, unlike ordinary bumper cars, the vehicles driven by guests were nothing more than tiny compact cars, while the self-driving vehicles were all as huge as cargo trucks.
They were monstrous trucks to the point that if they so much as rammed a wall, the wall would be the one that shattered.
There was no way they could endure if they just left them alone. So once again, Ian moved to modify the trucks through the magic of Re-creation.
But Yuna was even faster.
“I-I’ll do it this time. I think I’m better suited for this…….”
“……You want to, then?”
Just then, Ian had also been curious about Yuna’s magic.
He stepped back and watched the magic she used.
“Hup.”
Yuna took out a long wooden staff from inside the guitar case.
It looked like the kind of staff a typical mage would carry. She tapped the compact car they would ride in with it and chanted a spell.
“By command of the one who has grasped the truth, become treasures harder than anything else.”
Fssst.
The moment her magic finished, the vehicle’s durability changed. From an ordinary compact car, it became comically sturdy—sturdier than even a tank.
Yuna didn’t stop there; she also changed the trucks’ durability.
“By command of the one who has melted into the truth, become the softest mud of all.”
This time, unlike before, the truck bodies turned extremely mushy. If you poked them with a finger, they’d cave in. They seemed even softer than silken tofu.
Ian tapped the truck’s bumper, which wobbled with every hit, and let out a low murmur.
‘A magic that adjusts the hardness of objects.’
It was simple in one sense, but not something you could dismiss as merely simple.
If used on a person, it might even let you blow their body apart just by beating on them.
Even aside from that, its versatility was remarkable. It could make something unbreakable breakable, and vice versa…… creating an absolutely unbreakable shield would probably be easy for her too.
‘You can’t do this with Re-creation alone. It can change shape, but not elemental arrangement, rigidity, or hardness.’
Say Ian used Re-creation on toilet paper to make a giant shield.
Even so, toilet paper is still toilet paper. It can be torn apart easily. On the other hand, if Yuna used her magic to push the toilet-paper shield’s hardness to the limit, that shield would never be pierced or torn.
“…….”
Contrary to her frail, timid personality, her magic was truly impressive. As Ian marveled inwardly like that, he turned to look at Yuna.
“Heeek…… Heeek……!”
Yuna, perhaps exhausted from using magic in succession, had collapsed on the floor, her face somewhat pale, and was catching her breath. Ian crouched down beside her and asked.
“Do you get fatigue as the price of magic?”
“Noooo…… It drains a little blood…….”
Yuna answered, swaying her head back and forth as if she were anemic.
“U-usually, if I use it on a car, it takes about 100 ml on average…… But I used it on eight of them…… so probably around 800 ml of blood just vanished…….”
Despite her comical appearance, the matter was deadly serious. Ian let out a dry laugh and forcibly laid her down.
“Then that’s serious. Lie down and rest for a bit.”
“……Hehe, being worried over feels nice…… but there’s no need to worry…… I usually carry medicine for times like this…….”
Saying that, she fumbled a red pill out of her pocket and chewed it without water. After a moment, color returned to her once deathly pale face.
“Phew……! I feel a little more alive now…….”
“What kind of medicine is that? Some kind of rapid blood regeneration thing?”
“S-sort of. It’s a medicine made by refining ghoul blood. It supplies about 200 mL of blood to your body…… and improves your condition too…… but if you take more than two in a day, your head explodes and you die on the spot…….”
“……Huh.”
“M-more importantly, let’s go. We need to finish the bumper cars before the magic wears off.”
At her words, Ian nodded and took Yuna’s hand to help her up.
Without the slightest hesitation, the two of them got into the car with its hardened body and entered the wide field. Fortunately, the vehicle drove itself that far.
A little while later, the softened trucks entered the field. Since the magic only reacted to outside impact, driving itself seemed to work just fine.
[Then, the match begins! Go!]
Vroooom!!
The instant the announcement came over the speakers mounted above the field, the trucks came charging from all directions and rushed at the car carrying Yuna and Ian.
It was a scene that would have terrified any ordinary person, but the two of them sat there without any reaction.
And then, the moment the trucks and the compact car collided.
KWAAAANG!!
The mushy trucks were crushed like pudding and scattered in all directions. By contrast, the car the two of them were in didn’t budge an inch.
‘Its performance is definitely solid.’
Ian watched the crumbling trucks and put a cigarette between his lips.
And so, they finished the second attraction as well.