by Shouji Gatou
A brief silence hung over the garden, and then a commotion began. Most of it sounded like grumbling, criticism, and mockery, but there seemed to be a few, who, taken aback by his blustering words, had begun to show a hesitant interest.
Okay, come on. Any one of you. Say it to me, hurry up! Those words that I’m longing to hear, yes—
“Er... what makes you so sure that you can do it?”
There we go!
The one who had asked Seiya the question he’d been waiting to hear was a girl in a whimsical fairy tale dress. Seiya racked his memory, and remembered she was the Fairy of Water, Muse, who was part of the musical show.
“The revelation, my secret plan, and unwavering confidence,” he told her. “Why, I could bring in 500,000 people if I had to! We’ll need to get busy, though, so get ready to work your tails off!”
The commotion grew louder. The voices still seemed more critical of Seiya than otherwise, but a few words stood out from among the conversations: “The revelation...” “Maybe...” “Do you think...”
He’d gotten what he needed, for now. None of the rest of it mattered.
“I’ll send out more detailed instructions later,” he finished. “For now, report tomorrow for your regular shifts, and you’d better be on time! Got it?”
He cast a glance at Isuzu.
She had been staring at him, dumbstruck, but came back to her senses to shout, “Dismissed!”
Once the cast had filed out, Seiya, Isuzu, and Latifah were left alone in the garden. Moffle had left immediately with the other mascots—the tacit implication was that he had nothing more to say to Seiya.
“What are we going to do with Moffle?” Isuzu whispered.
“Is that rat always like that?” Seiya questioned her.
“No. Normally, he’s the one who keeps the cast in line, a bit like a senior NCO in your mortal militaries. He’s popular, too,” she added.
“I see,” Seiya frowned. “So he’s our hard-nosed drill sergeant, is that it?”
“That’s why I wanted to introduce you to him on Sunday,” Isuzu explained.
It was sounding like he’d need to solve the Moffle problem right away if he wanted to get anything done here. It was the “on-site leader” types who held the real power in organizations like these—the head nurse at a hospital, the site foreman at a construction site, the shift manager in a restaurant...
“Uncle... er, Moffle-san is a proud man,” Latifah said weakly. “Despite my revelation, he may still feel that it is wrong to ask a mortal for help.”
“Well, it’s understandable,” Seiya sympathized. “He was just humiliated by a total outsider, after all.”
“It’s almost like you realize you were doing it...” There seemed to be an extra layer of meaning in Isuzu’s words.
Latifah seemed to realize something too, and spoke up again, hesitantly. “Ah... Kanie-sama, the things you said were quite difficult for us to hear. Is it possible that...”
“Yeah,” he admitted, “it was a performance. I was trying to make them mad.”
“You were... trying to?” Latifah sounded bewildered.
Seiya rubbed the back of his head, feeling a little awkward. “I told them that their visitors were idiots to test them. If that line had gotten an apathetic response, it really would have been hopeless; they really would have been losers, and I would have walked right out, then. ...But they didn’t. They got really angry.”
“...Which means...?” Latifah prompted him.
“It means that I can work with them.”
“Ahh...”
“There are a lot of industries that are about bringing people joy, right? Singing, acting, writing, drawing comics, cooking... Professionals in those fields can stand being insulted—well, some can’t, but the ones who last a long time are the ones who can—but there’s one kind of insult that they absolutely can’t stand,” Seiya explained. “Do you know what it is?”
“Insulting... their patrons?” she guessed.
“Exactly. They can shrug off criticisms of their own shortcomings, but if you mock the people who love their work... that hits a nerve. They’ll get as angry as if you had mocked their family or friends. It’s a strange psychological trick.”
“......”
“Anyway, if they get mad because I insult their visitors, that means they’re still serious about their jobs. And that means there might still be hope.”
“I see... How very educational,” Latifah said, a smile in her voice.
Does she really understand the situation? Seiya wondered.
“You will help us, then?” Isuzu asked, cautiously.
The realities of “A theme park run by mascots from a magical realm is facing financial troubles” and “I, a mere high school student, am going to be their manager” hadn’t fully sunk in yet, but— Well, after making such an imperious showing in front of that meeting of monsters, he couldn’t exactly say “No, I’m out” at this point.
“I will take the job,” he finally said. “But only for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“I’m still a high school student,” he explained. “I need to focus on my studies.”
My video games, too. I’m not losing my precious gaming time to some stupid job. Finals are coming up, followed by spring break, and what kind of idiot spends their spring break working? I want to play video games from morning ’til night.
“Your studies, hmm?”
Seiya brushed off Isuzu’s skeptical gaze, then continued, “You just need to get over this immediate hurdle, right? The park’s destiny will be decided in two weeks. So whichever way it goes, my job ends there. Agreed?”
“...Yes,” Latifah smiled. “Still, you have my deepest gratitude.”
“...Don’t thank me just yet.” Seiya let out a deep sigh, then sank down into a nearby garden chair. For some reason, he was feeling extremely tired right now.
He wrestled briefly over whether or not to reveal his thoughts to Latifah and Isuzu. Then at last, he spoke. “I think I should be straight with you. ...I’m an ace student. I’m brilliant. I’m also extremely handsome and omni-talented.”
“Did you just start bragging about yourself for no reason?” Isuzu’s brow furrowed.
“Shut up and listen. ...So between that revelation of yours and that weird power you gave me, there’s a certain sense of destiny hanging over my being here. It might seem like someone with talents like mine really could make a miracle happen, but—and I’m sorry to say this—getting 100,000 people in two weeks is all but impossible.”
Seiya had been able to do a rough estimate of their attendance yesterday based on what he had seen; it was probably between 2,500 and 3,500. That was on Sunday, so it was probably the highest they could expect during this time of year, early in March. Weekdays, then, would be a fraction of that.
Assuming an average of 1,500 visitors per day, it would add up to a total of 21,000 over two weeks. They had a target of 100,000, but they were on track to get about 20,000 and change. No wonder the cast was so desperate.
“So?” Isuzu asked.
“I’ll do all I can,” he told them, “but it probably won’t change how things turn out. I just want you to be ready for that.”
“Then what you said to them before...”
“It was a lie, of course. I don’t have any secret plan.” A self-recriminatory smile came over Seiya’s face.
“......”
“I just had to say that to them,” he admitted, “because I need them to have hope if I want them to give it everything they have.”
Isuzu turned her eyes to the floor despondently. But Latifah was gazing into the distance, still smiling. “I see... But Kanie-sama, I do still believe that you will make a miracle happen.”
Seiya was dumbfounded. She obviously was in full possession of her faculties, so... Did she somehow not understand the situation she was in?
“Oh?” he asked curiously. “Is that what that revelation of yours told you?”<
br />
“No,” Latifah told him. “My revelation merely told me which path to take. Nobody can know what will happen next.”
“Then how can you be so sure?” Seiya wanted to know.
“It is simply a feeling that I have. When you came in here earlier... I thought, ‘this is a man who will make a miracle happen.’”
Utter nonsense, he scoffed inwardly. I’m not the kind of fool who hopes for miracles... Feeling pure contempt for Latifah’s words, Seiya wanted to lay into her. But he didn’t. As to why he didn’t... not even he knew for sure.
Seiya got to work that very night. He decided not to bother going home; he just called his aunt Aisu to let her know he’d be staying out tonight, and that was that.
Isuzu prepared him an office on the fourth floor of an old administrative building, backstage. It was a bare-bones room with little more than a basic office desk, a folding chair, and several bookcases; it looked less like an office, and more like an interrogation room from a police drama.
“These are all the documents you asked for,” Isuzu said, as she dropped a thick stack of papers on top of his desk. Seiya, his nose already buried in the financial documents, answered, “Sure,” and nothing more.
“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.
“No.”
“If you’d like to take a nap—”
“There’s a sofa in the hallway, right? Leave me a blanket or something, too,” he said distractedly, and silently turned a page.
He wanted to get a solid grasp of the park’s circumstances—its financial situation, its facilities, its attractions, its cast performance—before tomorrow morning. Then, somehow, he had to come up with a plan.
The park attendance was more or less in line with what Seiya had expected. During this season—early March, when it was still too cold to properly be called spring—the average daily attendance was 1,400. He compared that data against the yearly average, and it seemed that no matter how hard they worked, the most they’d be able to get in two weeks was about 25,000.
And yet, they needed 100,000!
No ideas were coming to him. Surely, though, there had to be a way through somewhere... He felt like a man trapped in a collapsed tunnel, searching for a hole where fresh air was coming through.
Before Isuzu left the room, she spoke again. “Kanie-kun.”
“Yeah?”
“...Thank you.”
“Sure,” he responded absently. He was so absorbed in his reading that he didn’t even look at her face.
[Today’s park attendance: 1,332. (98,789 from goal) / 13 days left.]
A family restaurant along Fujo Road
Moffle, Macaron, and Tiramii had come to the family restaurant, “Goonies,” in the city. Naturally, after a meeting like that, no one was in a mood to hit up the yakitori bar for drinks. Instead, they ate their crab cream croquettes, keema curry, and meat doria respectively, drank free refills of some pretty lousy coffee, and discussed their situation with gloomy expressions.
“...Hmm. There don’t seem to be a lot of good prospects, mii...” Tiramii whispered as he tapped and swiped on his smartphone. The little Pomeranian mascot had been browsing fervently through “Plush Navi,” a job hunting site for mascots, for some time.
“You’re only searching in the city, right? Try the whole country, ron,” sheep mascot Macaron chimed in.
“But I want to stay in the city, mii... I don’t want to move too far away.”
“By which you mean, you don’t want to leave the woman whose email you just got, ron?”
“Certainly not! Okay, it’s true, mii...”
Tiramii’s womanizing tendencies were hardwired into him. It was the only reason Macaron could imagine for why he’d want to stay in the city.
“There are a lot of nice amusement parks out there if you look, ron. They rent old expo sites for next to nothing, slip a little under the table to the local governments, and basically end up rolling in dough.”
“Really? Wow, Macaron, you’re so smart about money, mii.”
“Just a sample of the sickness that permeates the Japanese economy, ron.”
“It does sound very cutthroat, mii!”
Macaron cast a glance at Moffle.
Moffle had barely said two words since the incident in the garden—since his argument with Kanie Seiya—and was now just staring silently out the window. He seemed sullen and listless. Even after receiving those croquettes, his favorite food, he had only eaten about half of the meal before shoving the plate away.
Macaron wanted to say something to him, but nothing clever was coming to mind. So, with no other choice, he resumed his vapid exchanges with Tiramii.
“...Anyway,” he advised Tiramii, “forget that woman already and seek out new frontiers.”
“Hmm... but I don’t want to lose Takami’s sweet booty, either...” Tiramii protested.
“When exactly did Takami’s ass become yours, ron?”
“I mean, in a future aspirations kind of way... I wanna puff with her someday, mii...”
“Puff” was a Maple Land word that referred to a certain act. We won’t reveal the details here, but suffice it to say, it was nothing you’d do in polite company.
“...Oh! I’m also a Melody fan, mii... So I really want to stay in the area.”
By “Melody” he meant “Melody Shibazaki,” a soccer team based in a city next to Amagi. They’d gotten pretty far in the playoffs last year, so they were quite popular.
“That’s right, the opening game is soon, ron... Tiramii, if I got tickets, how much would you pay for them?”
“Macaron, you always do this, mii. You also sold AK47 tickets to Wanipii at a price that would make a scalper blush.”
“That’s a handling charge. Legitimate compensation for my efforts, ron.”
Just then, Moffle stood up. “...I’m going home, fumo.”
“Oh? But Moffle, are you okay, mii?”
“Am I okay? I don’t really know, fumo...” Moffle left his payment on the table, then left the family restaurant by himself.
3: There’s a Facility That’s Gone Unused For Decades
As the cast arrived for work the next morning—a Tuesday—they found a large announcement posted just inside the employee gate.
The announcement stated three things:
1. The park will be closed for the day.
2. Every cast member must spend the day cleaning and repairing their station.
3. Any station that doesn’t show improvement by the end of the day will be closed indefinitely.
This was followed by a bit of supplementary information, which was then followed by the signatures of “Acting Manager” Kanie Seiya and Latifah Fleuranza, who had approved the notice.
It was addressed to “All Cast,” which meant it didn’t just apply to the performers, but to everyone who worked at the park, including the people who ran the attractions, guides, shopkeepers, food vendors, security, and ticket sellers. It applied not only to those from the magical realms like Maple Land, but also to the mortal employees.
“What... What the fumo is this?!” Moffle, arriving for his shift as usual that morning, shouted as he saw the announcement. He marched back the way he came and stuck his head into the security station nearby.
“Okuro-san! Okuro-san! How could you let someone put up that prank sign?! You need to keep a better eye on things, fumo!” Moffle chastised Okuro, the morning shift security guard. He then noticed that Okuro was in the middle of tidying up his office with a broom.
“Oh, Moffle-san,” Okuro greeted him. “That’s no prank sign. It was put up by the acting manager and Isuzu-san this morning.”
“Acting manager? That child, fumo?”
“Yep. Told me to clean up the security station, too... Well, I doubt he’d close down security either way, but I figured I’d do my job right, even so. It’s not as though I have anything better to do at the moment.”
“Where is he now, fumo?”
“He
said he’d be touring the on-stage area. Just a minute, hmm... ah, there he is,” Okuro said, using his security terminal to check where Seiya had been using his ID card. “He entered your House of Sweets three minutes ago.”
“Moffu...!” Moffle ran off, not even pausing to greet the familiar co-workers he passed on his way.
He leaped into his electric cart and took off down the underground passageway. It was extremely slow—so slow that speed-walking would be faster. He promptly jumped out and squeak-squeak-squeaked his way down the corridor. Once he reached the Sorcerer’s Hill area, he came back above ground, then entered Moffle’s House of Sweets, his usual station.
Kanie Seiya was standing in the entrance hall, running a finger along a wall garnished with trim that resembled fresh cream. Isuzu wasn’t with him; he was all by himself.
“What the fumo are you doing?!”
Hearing Moffle’s howl, Seiya turned around. He didn’t look at all surprised to see him. “Well, at least you weren’t late.”
“Boy, this is my workplace, fumo. I don’t appreciate an amateur putting his hands all over it.”
“...I didn’t notice it when I came on Sunday, but the ornamentation here is excellent,” Seiya commented. “It feels like the work of a real artisan... I thought it was urethane foam, but it’s not. I don’t know what this material is... It can’t really be hand-carved, can it?”
“You get away from there, fumo.” Before Moffle could charge in and grab him, Seiya stepped leisurely away from the wall. Then, with silent footsteps, he began walking a circuit around the entrance hall.
“I officially accepted the position of acting manager from Latifah yesterday,” he mused. “I’d say I can go anywhere in the park that I want, wouldn’t you?”
“So you came to pester me, is that it, fumo?”
“You really think I have time for that? I’m busy preparing a miracle.”
“Still flogging that line, I see, fumo.” Moffle fixed the young man with a glare, but Seiya just shrugged with a perfunctory smile. “But that’s not what I’m here for... it’s that announcement, fumo! You can’t just close the park without warning! In all of this park’s 29 years, we’ve never once done anything like that, fumo!”