Seoul Object Story
Chapter 55: Theme Park (6)

In the dimly lit guest room, an extremely thin man, his bones barely visible, scurried around restlessly.

Clink-! Clang-!

Every step of his was accompanied by a harsh clang of metal clashing together.

It was clear that the man had struggled with some form of anxiety disorder, unable to stay still even for a moment.

“The ru-rules. It’s harder than I thought.”

“B-But I-I’m a genius, so why don’t I understand? Is there something wrong with the problem?”

An uncertain smile danced across his lips as the man endlessly muttered to himself, a twisted blend of self-justification and arrogance dripping from every word.

What truly struck me as strange was the fact that he had gathered all the cutlery in the room and bundled them up in a tablecloth. Seeing such eccentric behavior, I was certain he would be eliminated right away…

Yet, to my surprise, he managed to figure out the rulebook and pass the guest room’s rule trap.

However, considering it took the man over ten hours to solve just the guest room puzzle, it seemed difficult for him to survive until the end.

As the man rejoiced in happiness for solving the guest room problem, I adhered to the rules and approached the happy man, offering my congratulations and one of the nine stamps.

Clap clap clap-!

“Congratulations, dear guest!”

***

Finally!

I finally managed to pry open that darn door. Took me long enough.

As I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I saw myself drenched in cold sweat looking all pathetic.

I look so pathetic!

Gotta fix my glasses… can’t have them slipping down. Can’t see a thing with them like that, hehe. And damn my wrist looks like it went through a meat grinder… gotta hide that mess, let’s lower my sleeve to hide it again, don’t need people seeing that.

“He-heh. This place seems like it was specially prepared for intellectuals like me… Right, Mannequin-chan?”

“Ahh, yes. Dear guest, you’re totally right~”

The female mannequin standing next to me, Mannequin-chan totally agrees. Look, clap clap, she goes.

Why do I call it Mannequin-chan?

‘Cause it told me to call it whatever, and I felt like calling it that. Yeah yeah, its face looked terrifying, but if you thought about it the face was nothing but a doll mask, it was totally fine.

By the way, the quiz in that guest room was a joke! Seriously, was it a murderous quiz? Hah, it was more like kiddie playtime. And more so for a puzzle junkie like me, it was just too ez.

Like, seriously? The quiz was totally EASY MODElevel stuff. Were they even trying? It would only be worth my time if the problem was a real brain-buster, only solvable by proper rigorous logic.

Stepping out of the room, I was greeted by the loud noise of firecrackers and the refreshing coolness of the night breeze cooled my body.

Looking at the large map displayed at the entrance to the theme park, I talked to Mannequin-chan and refined my plan.

“Hu-huhu. First of all, since I already got a stamp from the guest room, strategically it will be best to aim for an attraction with puzzles similar to the room.”

So, pointing at the food court on the map, I confidently asked Mannequin-chan.

“Y-you s-said the place called FOOD COURT has s-similar puzzles to the one in the guest room, d-didn’t you?”

“You’re absolutely right, dear guest~ The quizzes are indeed so similar that you will be utterly shocked~”

“I-Is that so? N-nice. Let’s go there then.”

Clink-! Clang-!

The delightful sound of knives clashing could be heard with my every step. It was music to my ears!

After a short walk, I finally reached a large one-story building, the food court.

As I pushed open the door and entered, it slammed shut with a bang. Huh? I pulled the damn door with everything bit of my strength, but it didn’t budge an inch.

“A-As expected, it has the same theme,” Feeling anxious, I instinctively gripped the knife I had kept in my arms.

Inside the food court, numerous mannequins were busy preparing food.

The food court had seven operational restaurants.

A red sashimi restaurant.

An orange Japanese-style pork cutlet specialty.

A yellow army stew spot.

A green fast-food joint.

A blue pizzeria.

A navy bakery.

And a purple chicken eatery.

The setup allowed customers to order using the kiosk and receive their order in the corresponding restaurant.

“The food court is the pride of the Smile Theme Park. It offers a variety of dishes, each tailored to the tastes of the guests who enter.”

“Woah, they only have the foods I like.”

The colors of these storefronts were like those darn tags from the guest room puzzle. Seeing the same elements from the guest room puzzle, one that I solved easily, here too, I felt pretty stupid for even being nervous, you know? At this rate, escaping the Object shouldn’t be that hard… So, like, didn’t that mean that my acquittal was almost guaranteed?

Inside, just like the guest room, there was this piece of paper with rules written on it and an eraser with ‘remove’ written on it.

“E-even if it’s easy, isn’t this just too easy?”

The < Smile Theme Park Food Court Rules > were almost a carbon copy of the guest room!

The only difference was that there were two items in the conditional statements instead of three.

“It’s purple again, huh? Well, since I love chicken the most anyway, it’s not that bad.”

< The restaurants in red and purple serve poisonous food. >

So, noticing the solution almost immediately, I removed that one line.

Meanwhile, Mannequin-chan stood there, staying silent and just giving me this weird look, which made me feel pretty strange.

But, hey, my solution seemed pretty good to me! It was absolutely perfect!

So, if one line had to go, it made sense to remove the one with purple written on it, as it was not written in any other line, right? I felt pretty smug about my deduction skills.

I went ahead and ordered one portion of all the chicken dishes sold at the kiosk.

The chicken got plopped onto my tray faster than I could start drooling, and it looked quite delicious, not gonna lie.

“Alright, then. Shall we dig in?”

Yet, as soon as I took a bite of the fried chicken leg, the ceiling started to spin for some reason.

“Ugh… I feel dizzy.”

Wha?As I looked at my hand, I saw that it had become all purple! That was definitely not normal!

No, wait… that wasn’t it!

It wasn’t my hand that turned purple—everything I saw was purple.

Did Mannequin-chan pull a fast one on me?

I fumbled around, trying to pull a knife from under my sleeves, but I couldn’t find the strength.

I just came crashing down onto the table.

When I finally managed to lift my head a bit, there was Mannequin-chan, just staring at me with those creepy eyes.

“Why…?”

There was no reply, Mannequin-chan just looked on in silence.

***

Plop-! Plop-!

As I swung open the door to the food court, my nose was bombarded with a sweet smell.

Wow!

“Welcome! The food court is the pride of the Smile Theme Park. It offers a variety of dishes, each tailored to the tastes of the guests who enter. So, you’re certain to be satisfied!”

The mannequin was right, the food court was indeed heaven. Like, the food wasn’t just any old pre-packaged stuff; it was freshly cooked, piping hot goodness straight from the kitchen!

A red tteokbokki restaurant.

An orange apple pie house.

A yellow fast-food joint.

A green western confectionery.

A blue pudding shop.

A navy western candy shop.

A purple cake shop.

The lineup was so huge that it was hard to decide what to eat. It was a feast for the eyes and the stomach~!

But oh, the ordering process was a bit of a challenge…

Hop-! Hop-!

The kiosk was so tall, I had to jump just to see the contents!

I jumped up and chose the purple store! Before everything, I needed to eat my favorite strawberry cake~!

Having ordered my strawberry cake, I rushed over to the purple store. I sneakily hung over the counter and stuck my head out to take a peek.

The mannequins were like kitchen ninjas! It looked like they were working at 10x speed—probably because making the cake would normally take a long time.

Hmm… should I get an ability like that too? It looked so cool and would make everything easy peasy.

It was as if time itself had sped up by ten times, and almost instantly the cake was done and in my hands, ready to eat!

Thanks for the food!

Om nom nom-!

***

After I finished the strawberry cake, the mannequin gave me another stamp.

Now I have 3 stamps!

I raised the stamped paper up and looked closely at it. The faces of three grinning dolls stared back.

Their faces weren’t particularly cute, but collecting stamps like this was a blast!

But even if I went around the amusement park to the different rides and collected stamps like this, I’d still only end up with 9 stamps in the end.

Hmm, the killing condition of the Theme Park Invitation Doll was to collect 10 stamps… so, what kind of rides do I have to hop on to get the last stamp?

Actually, I had a sneaky suspicion.

Once, I held the paper close to the mannequin’s face, and it totally freaked out. That’s when it clicked.

The big circle in the middle of the paper was the same size as the mannequin’s face.

Hihihihi.

***

Cackle… Cackle…

The behavior of the Theme Park Invitation Doll had changed once more.

It acted like a thief who had been caught red-handed while trying to hide a treasure chest. It was as if it had lost all purpose. As if life had no meaning to it anymore, it just sat quietly in a corner of the room, gazing outwards with a hollow stare.

Even though its size had already exceeded five meters, it just lay motionless, showing no signs of protest.

Cackle… Cackle…

The doll’s previously eerie laughter now just sounded sad.

Just what’s going on inside?

The most plausible scenario pointed to the involvement of the Gray Reaper, an Object with the highest danger level.

“Good job, Reaper! Now you just have to kill that doll!”

Hearing the ominous mutterings of Director Lee Sehee, I opened my notebook.