Chapter 99: April Fools’
Chapter 99: April Fools'
It’s a good idea to make a to-do list.
If you proceed without writing things down, you’re bound to forget.
If you remember too late and try to handle it, the problem will only get bigger.
When writing a novel, that process of dealing with blown-up problems can become material in itself.
But in most cases, trying to fix things just leads to disaster.
If I were to organize the things that need to be solved before opening Slime Land-
-Solve the transportation issue.
-Expand facilities and secure IP.
-Finalize which stores will move in.
-Hire staff.
That’s about it.
If I can solve just these issues, even if things are a little lacking, I can open the doors to Slime Land.
-Solve the transportation issue.
While my staff worked hard, I also dug tunnels and created Tunnel Slimes.
The plan is to turn the various plots of land I bought into entrances leading to Slime Land.
If you enter the capsule-shaped Slime hidden inside an empty store, you’ll arrive at Slime Land through the underground tunnels.
I tried calling in the people I’m negotiating copyright with through this passage, and there were no problems.
In fact, some people enjoyed it so much they rode it several times like an amusement ride.
The reason it’s called Tunnel Slimes and not Station Slimes is that once you get on, you can only go to Slime Land.
It’s a little ambiguous to use as a means of transportation, but it’s not impossible.
Once you arrive at Slime Land, I don’t plan to stop you from traveling to other regions from there.
With these passages, people can come to Slime Land with a lighter heart.
Theme parks are places where you really have to worry about the trip itself. Without something like this, no matter how free the entry or facility usage is, it’s not easy to just drop by. Even if you finally decide to go, if it takes four hours to get there and four hours to get back, you’ll only have time to ride four popular rides before it’s over.
That can hardly be called enjoying yourself.
I thought it would be nice if people could visit Slime Land the way they’d go to a nearby park, so I dug out underground passages.
So you can come and go in about ten minutes, just like living in the Slime Land zone.
This was the whole reason I acquired underground rights in the first place.
I do plan to punch holes all over Seoul, but I’m not there yet.
Still, I’ve already made quite a few, so the number of cars heading for Slime Land should drop to less than half.
To reduce traffic congestion, I also made trash bins at intervals where garbage collection vehicles can dump their trash. That way, those vehicles won’t need to come all the way here.
In the future, I’ll work with other stores besides my own land to create secret entrances.
Imagine going into a quiet bar, pouring your heart out to the bartender, and then he opens a door leading to Slime Land. That’s got a great vibe, right?
Of course, I’m drilling holes outside of Seoul as well.
The goal is to have almost no one coming by car.
You can still drive here if you want. The roads around here are pretty wide.
The place where Mother is now used to be dead land after a dungeon break. After the break, demand vanished and land prices plummeted. So the government simply paved roads over the paths the monsters had made when they burst out of the dungeon.
But just because the roads are wide here doesn’t mean they’re wide everywhere. There are still bottlenecks in various places.
So if possible, I’d prefer people to just use the Tunnel Slimes.
-Expand facilities and secure IP.
Uh Byungwook, Doa, and Marco are driving the new hires hard, and the facilities are being completed quickly. Theme parks are fun for a day or two, but you’d think people would get bored if it drags on. Instead, the positive feedback grows louder by the day. That means there are more new things and more improvements all the time.
Securing IPs to add spice to the facilities they’re building is also going smoothly.
I persuaded the key authors from each publishing house, and then the publishers themselves got hooked, so I was able to secure a large number at once.
The IPs are mainly focused on two-dimensional content.
You can make real people look similar on the outside, but the unique sheen of Slimes always leaves a sense of something off. It’s like seeing a wax figure covered in Slime come to life.
So I decided to just stop at the anime level or aim for a VR-like, virtual space feeling.
And speaking of two-dimensional content, you can’t leave out Japan, the big player in manga, anime, and games.
But there was a bit of a snag with acquiring Japanese IPs. Maybe they were worried about losing tourists, but it seems the Japanese government advised them not to sign contracts with me.
So I immediately sent Hans, armed with Slimes, to the Alchemy Center.
Whenever I did deals with other countries, I always had to involve the Alchemy Center as a middleman.
Things did get a bit more complicated, but the Alchemy Center and the Korean government won’t interfere. After all, it’ll mean more tourists coming to Korea instead of Japan.
It’ll be hard for the Japanese side to break off business, too.
They must really want Raincoat Slimes.
Japan is a country so prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons that it almost seems hated by the planet.
If everyone was equipped with Raincoat Slimes, casualties would drop drastically.
Raincoat Slimes can protect you even if something heavy falls on you during an earthquake.
If you get swept away by floodwaters, they’ll keep water out of your airways and supply you with air.
Even if a sign gets blown off by the wind, you’ll be safely protected.
And if you add Glove Slimes and Boot Slimes for the full penguin set, it’s even better.
If Hans the alien, who looks suspiciously like he’s shooting brainwashing beams from a wriggling, purplish Wig Slime, waves around a Slime, there’s no way they won’t give in.
I can basically say I’ve secured Japanese IPs.
As for American IPs, there are already plenty of games, movies, and theme parks, so as long as I have the Korean and Japanese ones, it’s enough.
-Finalize which stores will move in.
Mostly, I plan to sell food made from Slimes.
This Slime food has zero calories.
It’s incredibly tasty, but it’s a dream food with zero calories.
In fact, it makes your body use fat more efficiently, so you might even lose weight.
That’s good for people who want to lose weight, but it could be a downside for those who don’t.
Even if you burn body fat for energy, it doesn’t give you as much of a boost as eating sugar-laden food that hits your blood vessels. Sometimes you just want to grease up your belly instead of worrying about health.
If you’re hungry, you should eat real food.
So I plan to sell regular food as well as Slime dishes.
I’ve made a solid plan for sourcing ingredients.
I’ve drilled direct passages to airports and ports all over, and signed supply contracts.
As soon as fresh ingredients arrive at the port, they can be moved straight here.
I’ve also made passages to the wholesale market and hired people to buy goods there.
Today’s freshly harvested ingredients can be brought here right away.
I’ll process them inside Mother and sell them to people.
The system is complete, so I can start it up anytime.
I also plan to sell merchandise besides food. Most of it will be made from Slimes, but I’ve stocked up on plenty of non-Slime materials too. If I can make food, why not plushies or figures?
I’ll run the factory inside Mother to produce merchandise as well.
If people interested in making character goods come, I’ll provide them with workspace. There’s a reason I’ve been so obsessed with securing IPs.
Next up is building a shopping mall to sell all sorts of products.
I’ve decided to put off picking which brands will move in for now.
For the moment, I want to emphasize the theme park aspect more than the shopping mall.
Once Slime Land’s popularity is proven, everyone will be fighting to get in, so there’s no need to rush.
-Hire staff.
Training the Mascot Slimes is progressing even faster than planned.
The new hires are also adapting quickly through amusement ride experiences.
There’s really no one else I need to hire.
The problems that needed to be solved before opening Slime Land are pretty much all taken care of.
I can probably announce the opening soon.
***
BeautyLime, who became a pretty successful beauty W-tuber by consistently posting Slime-based fashion content.
She was a huge fan of PengRhyme, who was a W-tuber, an alchemist, a magician, a cursed fairy, an assassin, a demon, an angel, a wizard, and so on and so forth.
Today is April 1st, April Fools’ Day.
With PengRhyme’s mischievous personality, she was sure there would be a fun video.
So she kept waiting.
Just as she expected, an alert popped up for a new video.
Since today’s video was especially long, she went to the bathroom first just in case.
She took a drink to avoid getting thirsty and losing focus, then entered the SLimelove channel.
“Pfft! Cough. Cough.”
The moment BeautyLime saw the thumbnail of the newly uploaded video, she spat water onto the monitor.
‘PengRhyme turned into DoveRhyme!’
On the screen was a pigeon of shock and terror.
Hoping the thumbnail was just an April Fools’ prank, BeautyLime played the video.
Someone was sitting in a dark room on a chair, tapping away at a computer.
The computer turned off, and the person sitting on the chair spun around.
There was DoveRhyme, subtly glowing.
‘Still DoveRhyme!’
She thought maybe only the thumbnail would be DoveRhyme, but it wasn’t.
Her head spun from the shock, but BeautyLime quickly adapted.
SLimelove is cute no matter what form she takes.
DoveRhyme is cute. DoveRhyme is cute. DoveRhyme is cute.
After repeating it a few times, it started to look pretty cute.
If it looks cute, then it’s cute.
While BeautyLime was pulling herself together, the video started to progress in earnest.
As DoveRhyme stood up stretching, a brown slime rolled to their feet, making a ticking sound.
DoveRhyme tilted their head, then chased after the slime.
The destination was a store with a [For Rent] sign.
When the brown slime stopped in front of the door, it opened.
DoveRhyme looked around and stepped inside, where there was a <Slime> shaped like a capsule elevator.
The brown slime rolled inside and disappeared downward.
DoveRhyme cautiously reached out to it and was sucked right in.
“Wow…. So pretty….”
After passing through a corridor lined with stretched-out stars, they arrived at a forest.
DoveRhyme walked along a path through the forest and reached a fork in the path.
The right was a dark mountain trail.
The left was a cannon.
‘Both are scary.’
DoveRhyme crawled into the cannon awkwardly.
Launch.
Cutting through the air, DoveRhyme flapped their wings.
Their body was too heavy to fly.
“Pfft.”
Landing on the ground, DoveRhyme bounced back up into the sky with a light ‘poof’ sound.
The place they landed was a train on rails.
A safety bar came down, securing their body firmly.
Drop.
While passing through a dizzying and chaotic course even on screen, DoveRhyme suddenly raised their wings upward.
“Upward!”
Then a pillar of light enveloped them, and their body ascended along the pillar.
Breaking through the ceiling, they arrived at a land where the floor was made of fluffy, cotton candy-like clouds.
Walking with bouncy steps on the clouds, DoveRhyme spotted a cluster of rising balloons.
Tilting their head, they flapped and jumped onto the balloons.
Stepping on the rising balloons, they climbed higher and higher.
They arrived in front of a cloud floating somewhat unnaturally.
Tearing it open and stepping inside, there was a treasure chest.
Opening it, inside was a coin shining with golden light.
Holding it, DoveRhyme pointed downward.
“Downward!”
Through the pillar of light, DoveRhyme’s body descended.
Passing through the land of clouds and descending, what awaited them was a Penguin Slime as massive as a mountain.
It wasn’t PengRhyme.
It looked similar, but it wasn’t.
DoveRhyme held out the golden coin to the giant Penguin.
The giant Penguin, holding an ice cream cone, delicately operated a machine to pile up soft serve.
Receiving an ice cream stacked as high as 1 meter, DoveRhyme wildly flapped their wings toward the giant Penguin.
Along with that, the ice cream swayed back and forth.
No matter how much it was shaken, the astonishing ice cream never collapsed.
DoveRhyme tossed it upward.
Crunch, crunch.
Gulp.
Swallowing it in one go, they started walking again with light steps.
The destination was a library filled with countless books.
While browsing the shelves, DoveRhyme pulled out a book and quickly flipped through it.
Stopping in the middle, they took out a bookmark, placed it inside, and closed it.
The book swelled up and turned into a door.
Stepping through the opening door, a lavish ballroom welcomed them.
DoveRhyme approached a woman in the corner, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to the center.
Then, with short limbs, they began dancing an astonishingly flashy and intense dance.
As if inspired by the dance, the orchestra playing started performing a passionate piece.
‘I’m jealous!’
While slightly jealous of DoveRhyme’s dance partner, BeautyLime suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.
‘That woman, somewhere….’
She looked like a 3D animation, not modeled after a real person.
But there was something familiar about her features.
“It’s Aria!”
She was the protagonist of a romance fantasy hailed as a masterpiece.
She also recalled what scene this was.
The scene where Aria, enduring scorn and oppression, contemplates revenge.
But the current Aria was completely overwhelmed, being swung around by DoveRhyme.
As the dance ended, Aria collapsed, looking as if her eyes were spinning.
DoveRhyme patted her head lightly.
Aria burst into laughter, as if dumbfounded.
She showed a bright smile that only appeared in the latter half of the novel.
It could be called a destruction of the original work.
But thinking of it as fanfiction, the disgust wasn’t too strong.
Far from disgust, BeautyLime felt chills down her spine at the possibility she glimpsed.
There are moments when you’re constrained by the wall of dimensions, unable to do anything.
Moments when the protagonist is pitiful, but you can do nothing, so you wish someone else would reach out to her. Now, you can reach out yourself.
You can run to a protagonist showing incomprehensible actions and scold them directly.
You can approach a crying protagonist and give them a tight hug.
As if affirming BeautyLime’s thoughts, DoveRhyme dashed out of the castle and was back in the library.
This time, they opened a comic book and placed a bookmark inside.
After delivering a dropkick to the back of a man fighting someone and mocking him thoroughly, they ran off.
Coming out of the comic book, DoveRhyme approached a screen where an animation was playing.
Instead of entering, they pulled out a sandwich from the screen.
‘That’s possible too?’
Tossing the sandwich upward and catching it to eat, DoveRhyme continued wandering around.
They bought and ate food at a restaurant.
Exploring a forest that seems like elves might pop out.
Eating a long churros.
Watching a performance of the Slime Rangers fighting monsters.
Munching on a house of sweets.
Riding a Viking ride that shoots up into the sky.
Catching and eating a runaway hot dog.
Riding a penguin boat that calms the mind.
Scenes capturing various places started to flow by faster and faster.
All of it was sucked into a black silk hat placed on the floor.
The sound of footsteps from boots echoed as they approached.
“PengRhyme! Tuxedo!”
PengRhyme, dressed in a tuxedo, lifted the silk hat that had absorbed all the scenes.
Twirling it lightly in hand before pressing it down onto their head.
Raising a hand and snapping fingers, the screen went dark.
[coming soon]
BeautyLime stood there, dazed for a moment.
Soon, their heart started pounding with anticipation.
“How much of this is actually real?”
Today is April Fools’.
Companies full of mischief release fake news.
But sometimes, companies release real news instead of fake.
Amidst the confusion of people, the video remained up even after two days, then three.
The opinion that more than half of the content might be real took its place as the prevailing theory.
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fever dream ahh vibes