“Strange…”

As Emmet strode out toward Maisytown Park (the new name Emmet had given for the newly established amusement park), Fruity perched securely on his shoulder, he discovered something peculiar.

He couldn’t help but feel that there were many more people walking around than usual - despite it being extremely early in the morning, there were nearly constant streams of passersby, excitedly chatting as they walked this way and that.

Observing them, Emmet couldn’t help but get an anticipatory feeling. Unconsciously, he quickened his pace, his heartbeat pumping quicker and quicker. Fruity seemed to be in sync, also tightening up with some excitement and grasping more firmly onto Emmet’s shoulder.

The closer they reached toward Maisytown Park, the thicker the crowds became, until soon, it became a crowded mess of interweaving people, and Fruity had to struggle to edge by all the passing people without getting rammed into. With a bit of clash, they finally reached the area of the park, and Emmet quickly panned his gaze over.

His eyes immediately widened, his mouth gaping wide like a fish. “Wha… what.”

Truly, it was incredible - almost like the scene of the eight year graduation. There were literally thousands and thousands of people in the space, huddling in loose lines around the two rides. The sound of chatter was nearly deafening, people clearly in high spirits as they looked up and oggled up at two towering rides. Around the two rides, especially, it was a dense mass of colors, people dressed in nice clothing just waiting for the rides to open up.

Chirp! Chirp!

Fruity could sense the mood, instantly becoming excited and flapping its wings up and down. It began to dance from the perch of Emmet’s shoulder, like a high-energy performer. In the thick crowd around them, he attracted quite a few gazes.

“Emmet!” Emmet heard a distant yell.

“Hm?” He turned his gaze over, glancing upon a frantic-looking young student, weaving through thick rows of people tiredly and running toward him. “Xia? What is it?”

Xia - that was the name of this second year student. She was responsible for the overall management for Maisytown Park - Maisy had hired her the previous year as a manager for Maisy’s Mega Marvel, and Emmet had her return as a manager for both of the new rides.

Completely of breath, Xia reached Emmet and began to pant, but not before hurriedly bowing respectfully. Looking up, she only glanced at Fruity for a brief moment before turning toward Emmet and giving a brief: “Emmet… boss, you’re finally here! It’s bad. It’s really bad. Look at these people, Emmet! I only have ten workers… how are we supposed to manage all of this?”

“Ah…” Emmet panned his gaze around them, still in awe at what he was seeing. Was it really this popular? He had never seen anything close to this amount of people in this space, not even during the previous year at the opening of Maisy’s Mega Marvel! “I’ll… I’ll quickly try to go hire more people. Manage for now! We’ll open on schedule. Make sure to run the rides correctly and that no one gets hurt.”

“Ah, jeez…” Xia grasped her head exhaustedly. “This is… this is too much. Alright, boss. I’ll try.” She hurriedly turned and ran off into the crowd.

“This…” Emmet spent a few moments just standing there and absorbing the atmosphere. Truly, it was overwhelming - thousands of loud voices travelling this way and that, tens of people crossing every which way every way you turned… Suddenly, he was reminded of his first day of school at the academy, when he had to find his way through those dense crowds of students, and he hadn’t a slightest idea where he was going. This scene before him now was remarkably similar, yet somehow even more crowded and chaotic.

“This is gonna be a long day…” Emmet had a sudden premonition. Even now, more and more hordes and hordes of people were rushing into the area, clearly to visit the attraction. He hurriedly weaved through the crowd and ran out toward the village, planning to meet with the other employees and discuss the operations for the park’s opening.

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At the end of the day, Emmet was completely exhausted.

The opening of Maisytown Park was a total smash hit success - absolutely, there was no doubt. From the start of the day to the end, the crowds never died down, flowing into the area like a gushing waterfall. Because of the shortage of workers, Emmet was forced to personally step in and help as well, and so the entire day, found himself running back and forth between Maisy’s Mega Marvel, The Sky Wheel, and Maisytown Village. Up until the last minute, there were still people cramming to get onto the rides that they had to deal with.

Thus, Emmet was currently completely and utterly worn down. Of course, he was overjoyed at the park’s popularity, but never in his wildest imagination could he have expected such a conglomeration of people! He had really underprepared.

Luckily, throughout the course of the day, he had managed to hire an additional dozen more workers to come in and man the different stations and maintain order - ten of them had also agreed to start working there part-time. Or else, the next day, Emmet didn’t know how he would be able to do it again. He immediately began looking for more workers, posting urgent notices on job bulletins looking for manual labor employees at the Maisytown Park.

As Emmet strode back into his apartment and got ready to collapse down, he caught eye of Tauruk, who was busily writing something down at the dining room table. Noticing Emmet enter, Tauruk only looked up and gave a knowing look. “Told ya. What were you worrying about?”

Emmet could only give a wry smile as he staggered into his room and fell face-first into his bed.

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As it turned out, not only was Maisytown Park a hit commercially, it was a smash hit critically as well. Review columns all over began to rave about it. There was a lot to talk about… Maisy Harbinger’s new amusement park, Maisy’s new successor, the return of the Maisy Mega Marvel, the expansion of the Maisytown Village, and most of all… the new ride, the Sky Wheel.

The Sky Wheel proved to be a true phenomenon among noble circles. While it seemed that the young children still preferred Maisy’s Mega Marvel as their ride of choice, favoring the fast-paced, adrenaline-pumping fun of riding the vast and spanning roller coaster, the adults found a new love in the soft and mellow experience of the Sky Wheel.

Review after review detailed the serene and beautiful atmosphere up above in the little cars on the ride, and how when they slowly rose to the top, the beautiful scene of the city sprawled out before them, the bright radiant sun lighting up the busy metropolis beneath them. It was peaceful… it was romantic… and it was… somewhat nostalgic. Many of the critics went through exaggerative lengths to boast the experience of the ride. As expected of the namesake of Maisy - it seemed that the person who took after Maisy (a boy named Emmet, according to sources), was just as incredible.

With such a fantastic view on the top of ride, and such a calm, private, and amorous atmosphere in each car, many people felt it was a perfect spot for dates. Unexpectedly, this aspect of the ride became the most iconic and popular. Within a few weeks, it had become trendy for lovey-dovey noble couples to come ride the wheel and kiss just as their car arrived at the top. With such a relaxing and emotion-heartening view, some couples even did more than just kiss...

Because of this reception, over the next few weeks, the ride only became more and more popular, becoming a hot topic among numerous noble circles. While thousands of people arrived on the first day to go on the rides, by the second week, this number had risen up to ten thousand. Soon enough, the overcrowded space began to get more and more chaotic, injuries and incidents becoming more and more common as the number of visitors increased. Although the sound of the clamor was mostly blocked off by arrays of noise-cancelling formations, the lack of establishment and organization in the park continued to cause more and more issues.

Emmet scrambled to address these issues. Immediately, he put his new employment efforts in overdrive, putting out more and more work searching notices and immediately hiring anyone who contacted him, and within a few days, he had hired close to fifty people to help manage the rides and all of the crowds. Then, to address the messy crowding of the visitors, he built up queueing barriers everywhere to direct all the lines neatly, make sure no one cut in line unfairly, and make sure no one rammed into each other, causing any possible injuries. Finally, he paved a few roads in between the three locations to further direction traffic and make travel easier and more efficient.

In this time, the Maisytown Village, full of food stands and street-side entertainment, also continued to expand, seemingly unrelentlessly. Day after day, Emmet would receive request after request for licenses to build new stands and set up their own businesses in the village. Emmet approved one after one, taking initiative and helping build up dozens of open structures for people to set up shop. There was only one caveat - for each of these new businesses, he charged a sizeable tax on their profits - this would provide another lucrative income source that Emmet could draw from. Within a month, the village had nearly tripled in size, and sure enough, as it expanded, it attracted more and more people.

It was a few weeks in when Emmet finally felt that he had gotten the situation somewhat under control. Finally, it was beginning to get a bit colder, resulting in somewhat less crowds, and by now, he had regulated and segmented many areas of the space so that crowds would have very directed places to go. No more was there uncontrollable chaos, but rather lines of organized groups. Further, he eventually expanded his workforce to over a hundred people, all organized in a hierarchical structure of managers, relieving a large portion of the burden and allowing him to take some days off.

All throughout this time, however, he still never stopped with his ever-continuing pursuit of knowledge. Like clockwork, every night, he would spend 2-3 hours in the library reading through book after book and working on problem after problem, or spending his time in one of Maisy’s old construction spaces working on some kind of new formation or task. He felt his time was extremely fruitful, and every day, he would learn something new. By now, he had gone through a large portion of the advanced-level textbooks available in the library.

Meanwhile, during this time, it seemed that Emmet’s personal assistance was rarely needed at Maisy’s Debugging Depot anymore. He would only have to check in for short periods every day to oversee what everyone was doing and then could leave to work on other matters.

By now, the first years had integrated fully within the company, becoming quick and productive workers, resulting in a much more efficient workforce. He didn’t know if it was because of the new changes, but it seemed that this year, the company was much more structured and organized, everyone working together collaboratively when they were struggling with finding a solution. Emmet was also glad to see frequent pairs of big sib - little sib students discussing heartedly with each other, clearly having gotten very close.

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Within this busy routine, time quickly passed, and the weather got much colder. Week after week passed, the number of visitors toward Maisytown Park dwindling with the weather, relieving Emmet workers’ burden greatly.

Finally, in the last month, the first snowfall began, and Maisytown Park finally officially closed for the year.

Like this, the second semester eventually approached a close.