While I chatted with Alice, we finally reached the front of the gate... and it was gargantuan. Even from a distance, I could tell it was a massive city, but the gate was so enormous that I would have believed it if someone told me it was a fortress for the ages.
"By the way, Alice, I have a quick question..."
"What is it, ssu?"
"You said all the guests have already entered the venue, right?"
"I did, ssu."
"Then... who is supposed to be watching this parade?"
"Ah, so you noticed. The party guests aren't actually on-site here."
Right. If everyone had already gone inside, that meant there would be no one between this gate and the castle. If that were the case, this parade would just be a bizarre spectacle of me waving at thin air.
"Instead, there are plenty of Extras, ssu."
"Wait... this isn't a movie shoot. What do you mean, Extras?"
"It can't be helped, can it? The people planning this are the type who can create anything to suit their needs, whether they're Extras or whatever else. It’ll feel like you’re passing through a massive crowd. But they really are just Extras meant solely to liven up the parade—a kind of hallucination, basically. Just treat them like a bunch of potatoes and you'll be fine."
"O-Oh..."
"Also, the parade is being broadcast."
"I see..."
I looked up at the sky with an indescribable feeling in my chest. It was a frustratingly clear, beautiful blue.
Well, there was no point in lamenting. As we prepared to head for the castle, Alice snapped her fingers. The Huge Gate groaned open... and a literal mountain of people, enough to fill my entire field of vision, came into view.
Were all of these really just hallucinations? The realism was staggering. Far from mitigating my embarrassment, it was being amplified a hundredfold.
The Parade Car lurched forward, and applause and cheers erupted from the spectators. The realism was so intense that if I hadn't been warned beforehand, I would have honestly thought they had abducted an entire population and brought them here.
No, wait. Knowing Shiro-san and Machina-san, they probably could create new lives just to have them cheer during a parade if the whim took them. I liked to think they wouldn't do something so ethically problematic as creating disposable life, and I was sure someone would have stopped them if they tried... but then again, they really were beings for whom anything was possible.
I felt my anxiety about the party ahead grow even sharper.
"Ah, Kaito-san, apparently they’ll react if you wave your hand or something. It seems they crammed in a ton of pointless performances because everyone involved just did whatever they felt like."
"Like this?"
When I waved my hand as Alice suggested, the cheers reached a fever pitch. I heard shouts of "Wonderful!" and "Look over here!" and "Look this way!" and even "Your fan service is the best! Shuki-Shuki-Merory!"
Wait a second. Wasn't that last cheer a bit too much like an obsessive idol fan? Was I hearing things?
"Kaito-san, Kaito-san, look! The fireworks are going up."
"The production value is way too high..."
"Oh, look! A performance by Fighter Aircraft in Formation Flight, trailing colorful smoke, has begun over the castle."
"I’m begging you, please, unify the worldview... Why are there Fighter Aircraft in Formation Flight over a fantasy castle?"
In any case, there was no doubt it was flashy and lively, but just as Alice had said earlier, it felt like they had crammed every single idea they had into one event. It was complete chaos.
Rainbows arched across the sky and massive clusters of balloons drifted past. Various spectacles triggered as we advanced. If I were watching this from a completely unrelated location, it probably would have looked lively and fun.
But as the person actually sitting in the car while a Huge 'Happy Birthday' Text and a Deformed Kaito Face appeared in the sky, my primary sensation was a sharp pang of sympathetic stomach pain.
I understood that Shiro-san and the others were dead serious—the pain in my gut told me that much. What terrified me most was that we hadn't even reached the venue yet. The main event hadn't even begun.
???: "The parade is being broadcast (to the venue... and to the World Creators' Fan Club)."
Serious-senpai: "That last cheer was definitely from an Oshikatsu God..."