Ura Baito: Toubou Kinshi - Vol. 5 Ch. 59 - Amusement Park Staff ③

[Pagemistress]

I think I figured out why Yume was spared by the mascot as a child.

Well, two reasons, actually.

The first is the possibility these mascots are not malevolent in the main universe. Evidence for this is provided by the fact there are noticeable differences in people, such as our favorite Sugar Packet Addict being so willing to share. Main universe mascots may even have different dietary requirements, who knows?

The other reason is time. The mascots eat time, and all the missing people are adults. It seems quite likely that they deliberately target those that have accumulated more time, so there will be more to harvest. They will gradually harvest with the Night Parade until they reach the point where they are tastiest, whereupon they then do the...fetus thing, or that is only for the victims that break the rule of not going where they shouldn't. Real children, though, do not have enough time to harvest, so they will be more helpful to them so they can take them in the future when they become more miserable and world-weary adults.

 

[KairakuSensei]

Possibly because of the night parade thing. All the kids (adults) got their time sucked away due to the night parade each time, but for the MCs their time got sucked away by the tower and the mascots there instead. So perhaps the rules work differently due to that.

We don't know exactly what Yume smelled as "white" (when asked "Did you smelled white?). It could be referring to the whole amusement park job (hence she picked this particular one) or just that final part when they are juuuust about to be time-devoured - she gestured Hama chan to go along.

We are only hinted that the mascot in Yume's past is somewhat a good guy - having sympathy on an abandoned kid - but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a good mascot present in that Tower of Mercy final room in the alternate present. What happened was the mascots started their diabolical routine, rewinding time backwards for our duo but instead of going through the whole time until returned to fetuses, it got cut out after hitting the 10 days mark. Which somewhat returned our duo to the correct space and also stopped the rewinding (so they don't keep getting younger after arriving at the home universe).

The platform 13 job ended on 20 August, the amusement job ended on 30 August, says the ledger. But since they have never worked in the Home universe amusement park, they didn't get paid - just their transport expenses as a good gesture from the Home A. Park.

Not yet established (or I missed something):

• if the Home Amusement Park has the same sinister phenomenon as that alternate world.
• if Yume's parents got spirited away in Home Amusement Park.

Edit: As to why they got sent home at the 10-Days mark instead of whisked away to oblivion (since I imagined it shouldn't affect other universe), I guess that's just how the author established the Time Rewind rule that way.

It’s been a while since i read this, but it just hit me today - the time reversal that they were doing was keyed to “just before you came into this world”. For normal people, that’s a fetus, which you can see because that’s what they were eating (it had an umbilical cord and was still misshapen meaning it wasn’t a proper ‘baby’). But for those two, that’s the station platform in their original world.
Amazing work, taguchi-sensei

 

[Vainfire]

Aww... I wanted to see how they dealt with a copy of themselves running around. We didn't even see Yume interact with herself beyond the initial surprised reaction! Oh well, glad it turned out,, okay-ish...

 

[silverpetricof]

Thank you for the translation (I love the discussions everyone has at the end of these arcs. I always feel like I come out of them learning something or catching something I missed).