When night fell and his time to work came, the newly hired night watcher felt indescribably nervous. His back was covered in a cold sweat, and his fingertips felt like those of a corpse. This behaviour might lead one to believe that he deeply regretted taking this job, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This job was an immense opportunity for him… Only by working here would he have a shot at actually offering his children the education they deserved–They had incredible magical talent at such a young age, they clearly weren’t destined that walk in the steps of their parents, but even so, it did not mean that their father and mother would be willing to just throw them away into the hands of other people.

  They had to try their best to be the ones to provide for their children… There was just one problem, however. His opportunity was not about being a night watcher at Glown’s Wonderland–The pay was indeed incredible, even better than his job as a caretaker for the horses of the city lord, but even that wouldn’t be enough to actually give his genius offspring the support they needed to truly flourish.

  He guessed that his family’s situation had been talked about… A week prior to now, he had been approached by a city guard who often patrolled in the area where he and his family lived. The man had offered him a simple task with an impressively high pay and had even given some of the money ahead of time.

  It was an incredible opportunity that had fallen into his lap, and he had managed to be hired as a night watcher, exactly what he needed to actually receive the full payment.

  The new hire stepped into the location that was still at the heart of discussions. Everyone loved this place. Both the common people and the bourgeoisie would come to eat here. It was a huge business worth more money than most people could fathom.

  He had not been given any keys to enter. The owner–Mara Nebulo–Had apparently created a machine capable of recognising a special badge that all employees were given. The night watcher hadn’t been told much, but it apparently recognised who the badge belonged to as well… All that without using magic, a commoner like himself frankly couldn’t wrap his head around how that was possible.

  As much of a boom as mechanical creations had been ever since the Nebulo siblings had first started their restaurants inhabited by entertainment automatons, it had remained a very niche concept due to the fact that the twins had had a monopoly on it since the very beginning. No one could build machines as they could, not even close.

  So the layman remained far more familiar with magic than with machines…

  The doors locked themselves behind him, startling him a bit as he approached the main stage. He had actually never visited any of such places as a customer before, so he couldn’t help but take a look at the automatons–Purpurnita, Blaunellie, and Gelbimi. The three main stars of the show were currently standing on their stands, their eyes shut and their bodies unmoving.

  It was rather uncanny how… Alive, they looked. Even dormant, it felt weird not to see their chest heave up and down.

  He did not linger for too long and soon made his way to his office. He sat down in his chair and did his best to navigate the computer as Mara Nebulo had shown him–He got the feed of the cameras to show, and began going through as was supposed to be his job… Of course, his true purpose here was different. The man who had promised a large sum of money didn’t just want him to get the job and work like normal.

  His mission was to find proof that Mara Nebulo was responsible for the disappearance that had been the talk of the city for a while now. The man seemed quite certain she was to blame for it, for reasons unknown.

  Hopefully, the city guard was correct, because the payment was dependent on the finding of evidence, and if she is innocent, then… He would never get paid.

  After a little while of pretending to be working the actual job, the man rose from his seat, intent on visiting Mara Nebulo’s office in search of something substantial. He frankly had no idea why there would be evidence of any wrongdoing in such a place, but his secret employer had been quite insistent on his getting the job of night watcher, so he simply assumed that the man knew that there was something to be found here.

  A beeping noise rang out from the computer, making the man freeze in place as the screen flashed green for a moment, soon revealing the figure of a clown girl walking into view… She placed one hand against her hips, leaned forward slightly, and then wagged her finger for a few moments with a disapproving expression on her face.

  “Welcome to the job, new blood-Is what I would like to say if you weren’t a nasty spy!”

  She smiled brightly while readjusting her big, floppy neckbows, as his facial expression went from surprise to horror.

  “I am Zlown, the clown-assistant! I would normally begin giving you explanations on how to use your work equipment, but since you are a big meanie, I shall instead pass over to you a message from my dear mother–Aherm!”

  She pulled out a piece of paper from behind her back, alongside a pair of glasses.

  “...I would like to preface this by stating that these are her words, not mine…”

  “Listen here, you little piece of shit. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that you were sweating like a pig out of sheer nervousness? I ran a background check on you. If you don’t want me to turn your entire family into a new paint job for your house’s interior, then you'd better listen carefully to my instructions”

  “First of all, if you aren’t doing so already, sit down”

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  He listened.

  “You will not leave this office under any circumstances. You will watch the cameras and pay close attention to my wonderful creations–My clown girls have my back, you see? They will attempt to make their way to your office. You should be capable of imagining what they will do if you let them get their hands on you”

  “If you survive tonight, come back again tomorrow. Do not say anything about what is happening here to anyone else. You might not know it, but I will be paying close attention to you. Step out of line, and you think about starting a new family from scratch…”

  “I will leave the rest up to Zlown. She won’t lie to you. It is more amusing this way”

  The green clown gal chuckled and began stepping away, soon no longer visible on the screen. She only told the night watcher to get to work.

  He could hardly believe that this was happening, but the panic quickly settled in. His heart began beating loudly. It felt as though it was bulging up to the point of pressing against his ribs as he checked one of the cameras that gave a wide angle of the main dining area…

  Gelbimi was already gone, nowhere to be seen–Meanwhile, Blaunellie was staring up at the camera. It was like she had known in advance that he would end up checking this camera first… He quickly sifted through the cameras, while the entire building was plunged in darkness, the cameras were of the maximum possible quality available, so not only could he spot the smallest of details, but they could easily peer through the dark…

  He eventually found Gelbimi in one of the other dining rooms. There were quite a lot of those, but they weren’t usually used outside of private events. Typically, they were meant to be left closed to the public, but it seemed like the automatons had free rein to move wherever they pleased, benefitting from employee-level authorisations.

  The new night watcher, unfortunately, did not benefit from knowing the personalities of the specific automatons. He was wholly unfamiliar with the clown girls… Thankfully, Zlown was here to help him. Otherwise, the fun would end far too quickly!

  “Hey, hey!”

  Zlown pressed her nose a few times, causing a honking noise to play–One thing of note about the clown gals was that they actually lacked the common red nose of clowns. It was not that Mara Nebulo did not like this aspect of clowns, but she had decided not to include it to make the gals more akin to the Glown costume–As it also lacked a red nose, instead having a small, cute pale nose.

  Nonetheless, she had still given their noses the ability to honk when pressed…

  “Gelbimi has already made quite a lot of progress, heh? Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal for her. She is somewhat hyperactive and rarely walks… She prefers to run around all the time”

  “This is why you should be very careful about tracking her movements on the cameras. She can arrive at your office very quickly–One moment of inattention, and WAZZAAAH! Here she is! You wouldn’t want this to happen, would you? So be aware of where she is…”

  “...Though she is a bit of an airhead and is easily distracted, so she isn’t guaranteed to make a beeline to your office. I have seen her move around a fair bit during previous nights since my creation. As twitchy as she might seem, if she finds something interesting, she can stand still for a while”

  “Anyway, you probably want to know what you should do if she does come to your office, right?”

  “S-Shouldn’t I just lock the door like I was told to do if there was an intruder I couldn’t deal with…?”

  “Excuse me? I see your lips moving, but I’m afraid I can’t hear you! Why don’t you type on the keyboard what you are trying to say?”

  “By the gods…”

  “Ahahah! I am messing with you, little guy! I can hear you just fine! I can even hear your beating heart!”

  “Listen, Buddy-Guy… As I just said, Gelbimi is hyperactive and can also be hyperfocused. We all love our mother dearly… And mother said that–Apart from me–We should do our best to actually try and get to you within the scope of the game’s rules”

  “Game rules?”

  “Ignore that. Pay attention to what I am saying. If you lock the door when Gelbimi tries to come into the office, she’ll know that something interesting is inside. She won’t know that you are here, because the night watcher’s office is part of the rooms the other gals don’t have mapped out–But she’ll be intrigued, and she’ll try to bring the door down”

  “Can… Can she do that?”

  “She can’t force the door open per se, but everything is done so that the automatons can’t damage themselves, so the door will open itself after a handful of strikes from her. In short, closing the door when she shows up is a death sentence”

  “Well… What am I supposed to do then?!”

  “Can you not think for yourself? I gave you all the keys to figure it out… I guess I’ll just say it since you don’t have much in your noggin: She doesn’t know exactly where you are, she only comes here because it is a room she doesn’t know and isn’t normally allowed to access. If she sees you, she’ll enter, but if not? She won’t bother to search inside. You have to hide–I would personally recommend that you get out of your seat and run to the door. Hide the left side of the door, so when she opens… BOOM, she can’t see you, gets bored, and runs off somewhere else”

  “Which is why you need to pay attention to her on the cameras. If she is ever in a position where the door to your office is within eyeshot, she’ll most definitely check it out. So be ready to run when this happens…”

  “I-I see… Oh crap”

  He checked back on the main stage, only to find that Blaunellie was gone too. Thankfully, she wasn’t anywhere near as excited as Gelbimi and was still within the main dining area.

  “Are things different with the blue one…?”

  “Her name is Blaunellie, you uncultured swine. I’ll explain when she gets closer. Until then, I would still recommend keeping track of where she is. Our resident bard isn’t going to run around like our lovable cheerleader, but I wouldn’t allow her to stay out of my sight if I were you”

  “What does this even mean?!”

  He checked back on Gelbimi, but she was no longer where he had last seen her. She had moved all the way to the play area and seemed to be debating whether to keep running around the lower floor or take an employee-only door that would take her to the second floor.

  The night watcher prayed that she would take the first option… She did not.

  “Damn it… Are only these two out to get me? What about the others?!”

  He tried to breathe in and out. He needed to keep his cool…

  This was a matter of life or death… Or perhaps a matter of life and something so indescribably horrible that death would seem preferable.

  He could only blame himself for accepting this job…