Volume 3 - Prologue

Prologue

A loud trumpet sound filled the area, and pieces of confetti released from above danced their way down. Following that, a cheerful melody played, welcoming the dancers who entered the stage in brightly colored outfits. The dancers spun around, with their tails drawing a nice arc.

Welcome to the land of paradise, a realm of adventure that transcends even time and space!

Yes, that’s right! It’s Amagi Brilliant Park! Come on, put on your smiles and cheer with us! If you cheer loudly enough, our mascots might notice and come over! Let us begin with the first: Macaron, the fairy of music! Everyone, let’s shout together! Macaron! Macaron!

“Ron!”

Macaron, the fairy of music, appeared. He rocketed from below the stage and landed at the centre. Following that, he began with a bagpipe solo before being joined by more dancers.

Guess who’s next? That’s right! It’s Tiramie, the fairy of flowers! Let’s shout together once more! Tiramie! Tiramie!

“Mi!”

Tiramie, the fairy of flowers, appeared. Just like Macaron, he kicked off and landed on the stage with a spin. He took off his silk hat and performed a magic trick with flowers growing from it. With a wave of his wand, the flowers flew out and scattered around the stage. Once again, more dancers joined in.

Featuring our beloved mascots from Sorcerers’ Hill! Let us smile and welcome them all on stage!

More of Amagi Brilliant Park’s mascots appeared and join in. Things became livelier and livelier.

But wait! Aren’t we missing something?

Yes, that’s right! Sweets! We’re missing sweets! Everyone, let’s cheer once more for Moffle, the fairy of sweets! Moffle! Moffle!

“Mofu!”

Moffle, the fairy of sweets, appeared on a tall platform, and an array of colorful fireworks welcomed his arrival. The amount of bling used for his entrance spoke volumes about his significance as the lead mascot for the park.

Everything up until now had been close to perfect, but—

The fireworks ignited Moffle’s chef’s hat, setting it ablaze.

“Mofu! Mofu…!”

God knew whether Moffle had realized it or not. Regardless, he readied himself and jumped towards a hidden trampoline. Moffle did quick spins during his flight. He had been doing everything as scripted, but his abrupt actions caused the fire to spread to his clothing.

“Mofu!!!”

It appeared like Moffle had finally realized what was going on. Moffle, who was now in flames, fell down to the stage. The scene became increasingly chaotic—seeing the lead mascot ablaze and crashing down, the dancers blanked out, forgetting their script, and fled off the stage. All of that was being accompanied by some inappropriate cheerful music.

As Moffle ran around in flames, he trampled over the “Talking Flowers” props and banged into a speaker, shouting in pain. Amidst his writhing, the confetti also began to catch fire.

“Ouch, so hot! HOT!!! SOMEONE HELP!”

“Don’t move! Someone bring a blanket!”

“The fire extinguisher! Where is it, pi!? Where is the fire extinguisher!?”

The stage that used to be full of joy and fun turned into a terrible mess. Cast members grabbed the fire extinguisher with paled faces and took aim.

Full blast—

White smoke shot out of the nozzle, enveloping the whole area.

*

5 minutes after the fire was extinguished—

“…This is precisely why I suggested we stop the fireworks!”

Kanie Seiya, who had recently gotten the extra job of “firefighting,” shouted at the cast members. His uniform had been terribly bleached by the extinguisher’s powder.

“We’re lucky this is just a rehearsal. What if this happened in the real performance? We’d be on television for the wrong reasons! Videos of our pathetic stunts would be uploaded to YouTube and we’d be laughing stocks!”

“Hmm, but won’t that make us popular, ron?” Macaron wondered.

“Yeah, we’d explode in popularity, mi! Hah, get it?” Tiramie jested.

“This isn’t a joke, guys. We’re nearing the performance date, and we can’t afford to mess this up. If we do, our visitor count after Golden Week will be affected. You do know that it’s a very important performance for us, don’t you?”

The show they were rehearsing for was titled “A(maburi)-fight begins! The descendent of Earth, Moffle.” It was scheduled to be performed in Amaburi’s central stage during its all-important event on Golden Week. The organizing of this show was a part of their plans to reorganize their lineup of events.

Historically speaking, Amagi Brilliant Park had never held a live show on a scale as big as this. Most of them were routining 10-minute skits and dances done at intervals during the park’s operating hours. One of the management’s restructuring plans was to host larger-scale shows like this. The performance alone would involve almost all of its performers, and they’d be up on stage for about 50 minutes at a time. In order for this to work, the cast members had to compose new songs, prepare new props, and even design new costumes. It was no surprise that this event would become a gold sink for them—a lot of money went into the resources consumed and advertisements. Nonetheless, Seiya did not hesitate one bit when approving the expenditure.

As such, this performance was of great importance to them. It would be an announcement that Amagi Brilliant Park was no longer the run-down, out-of-date theme park it used to be—a chance to open their visitors’ eyes and fix their impressions of the park.

Of course, in order for that to happen, they ought to shine. They could not afford to let their guests leave with a “meh.” They had to deliver so well that their guests walk out telling their friends “It was awesome!” After all, word-of-mouth advertisements never fail. But despite all that effort put into planning—

“This is ridiculous? Which act would involve lead performers catching fire and falling down!?”

“Seiya, I understand your concerns, fumo.” Moffle looked like he just came back from the sick bay. His chef’s apron had been burnt completely black, and his fur was completely white due to the extinguisher powder. His footsteps were rather unsteady, hinting that he might have suffered quite some emotional trauma earlier as well. “However, we absolutely need the fireworks, fumo. We need to show them we’re no longer old-fashioned. We need more oomph in our performances. If we don’t at least give them a bright flare and a bang…”

“You already stressed its importance in the meeting. But look at how it turned out.”

“Hah! This kind of battlefield is nothing, fumo. We’ve experienced this countless times in the past.”

This isn’t a battlefield, and you’re a mascot now, in case you haven’t noticed…

“It’s okay, we learnt our lesson. I’ll be sure to add fire retardants to our clothing and flammables so that this won’t happen again,fumo.”

Seiya sighed. He had certainly understood Moffle’s intentions. However, he was the acting manager of the park and had to analyze the situation from a broad perspective. If he were to choose between flashiness and safety, he’d have to pick the latter.

But then again…

“I second Moffle’s opinion, ron. We need to step up our game and include this,” Macaron added.

“Me too, mi. In fact, it’s a good thing this happened during the rehearsal, so we know how to improve on this,” said Tiramie.

“We think so too, mogu. Let’s use this opportunity to iron out all the flaws in our performance.”

“Well, we don’t need to go overboard though, neru.”

“If our guests enjoy it, then shouldn’t we go all out to deliver?”

Taramo, Dornel, and Wrench-kun spoke.

“Hmph…”

I guess if they’re so insistent, I should just put some faith in them and take the risk…

“Very well. We’ll strive to achieve minimal risk and design safety measures. All departments are to submit a report tomorrow at 9. Should I determine that the safety concerns outweigh our benefits, the fireworks will be abolished. Think you can do it?”

“Of course!” Everyone shouted. That was surprising, considering they were all hiding around like cowards earlier. The mascots were small, but had pupils that sparkled brighter than any ray of hope.

“Good. Let’s clean this place up and go back to square one.”

Seiya observed the rehearsal from the audience’s seat. Because there were no fireworks this time around, Moffle’s act proceeded smoothly without any problems.

“Kanie-kun.”

Isuzu, who was holding on to a file of documents, sat beside him and spoke. “I heard the story from Wrench-kun. Must’ve been a hectic day for you.”

“It was a catastrophe. I’m thankful they actually still have the drive to continue with this.”

Seiya gave his remark in a relaxed manner, but Isuzu stared at him from the side and asked.

“Is this really okay?”

“Huh?”

“You haven’t told them about this year’s annual minimum visitor count yet, have you?”

Isuzu was referring to the sale of the 2nd park located south of the main park that solved their financial problems. In exchange for Amagi Development’s approval of the transaction, they had increased the minimum visitor count to 3,000,000. Essentially, Amagi Brilliant Park would cease to be if they failed to attract 3,000,000 guests by the end of the fiscal year.

To be honest, it was an insane number. Of course, the top amusement parks could get 20,000,000 visitors without breaking a sweat, but things weren’t that simple—only a few Japanese amusement parks could even approach that number. Amagi Brilliant Park would have to leap from “barely in the top 50” to “in the top 5” in Japan.

Ridiculous as it may seem, they had no choice but to aim for it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be able pay this month’s wages.

“Now’s not the time to inform them,” Seiya affirmed. “First, we raise their morale. Then, we talk. I ought to earn their trust before breaking such deathly news to them.”

“You think they’ll believe in us?”

“We’re finished if they don’t.”