Prologue (1/2)

[……Twist it. If you want to kill me.]

The sword embedded in the man’s heart was twitching.

At the end of his short life, the man haughtily asked for his death.

[……]

The woman who held the sword twisted it without saying a word.

His chest was cut open and blood gushed out, but he didn’t even let out a single groan.

[You’re still……so beautiful and yet I can’t have you]

The man’s hand slowly reached up to touch the woman.

The blood on his fingers dirtied her cheek.

The woman held no expression. Cold and firm, just how she was when he fell for her. It was a beautiful sight worthy of the end of his life.

The man wore a hazy smile.

Before long, his last words poured out like blood.

[Damn bitch……]

“Damn bitch” he said.

“Phew. It’s not lagging anymore……”

I sighed while looking at the screen. I once again looked over this character’s settings.

[Deculein von Grahan Yukline]

: Disposition — [Evil]

: Initial Job — [Senior Professor]

: Initial MP — [3357]

: Aptitude — [ Rank 6]

: Aptitude Type — [Magic: Control Type/Elemental: Earth, Fire]

: Traits — [6]

: Personality — [13]

Deculein. One of the game’s mid bosses, a named villain. There had been a lot of bugs since there were a lot of important villains with a wide variety of branching storylines, but fortunately, he had done a lot of sneaky and cunning things throughout the whole game so that he’d die without fail within the first 11 hours of gameplay.

This time his cause of death was his fiancée’s sword.

“Uh, Woojin-ssi?”

I was going to play the game again, but I heard a familiar voice call out my name. I turned to look back.

“Ah, yeah. Ah-rah-ssi.”

Even without any make-up, her eyes looked big and her long hair was shiny even without special care.

This woman, who was endowed with such beauty, was Yoo Ah-ra.

She’s the one I’m dating, or rather dated.

“Is the testing going well?”

I shrugged at the question.

“Yes, I’m still on it~”

Yoo Ah-ra nodded silently. As I looked at her I noticed a new accessory hanging around her neck.

My lips pulled up into a pout unconsciously.

“Looks like it’s going well with your boyfriend, huh?”

“Huh? Oh…… I’m not sure?”

Yoo Ah-ra shrugged her shoulders as well.

Some of our gestures had become somewhat similar as we dated.

“I think it’s going well.”

“Hmm~”

I pointlessly drummed my finger on my mouse.

I had heard about it from the rumours, but I still felt very upset hearing this directly from her.

“Why do you ask?”

“……just because.”

Our break-up was already 6 months ago.

In the end, there was no one right or wrong. We just couldn’t understand each other anymore.

I was at my roots a loafer while she was a natural-born workaholic.

Her drive to improve led me to become a man who could make ends meet, but in the end she couldn’t accept my introverted nature.

……No, it was because I didn’t want to change.

“I wish you all the best in your marriage.”

“……Hah.”

“Aigo. Was that a bit pathetic?”

My eyebrows twitched provocatively along with my sarcastic remark.

However, it didn’t get to Yoo Ah-ra.

“Just get ready for work. There’s been changes in the setting so you have to get the modeling done.”

“Again? No…… Why does the author keep changing it?”

I sighed and looked at the clock.

9 p.m. It was already night time, but I still had a lot of work to do.

“Ah. Were you watching one of Deculein’s scenes?”

Yoo Ah-ra, who was looking at my monitor, smirked.

“Yes. He died after 11 hours. But if you use certain tricks, you can kill him right at the start of the game. Isn’t he supposed to be a mid-boss?”

“That’s one of our game’s charms. The more you leave Deculein to his devices, the more evil he’ll become, so the earlier you kill him off, the easier the game will be. The difficulty depends on the player’s choices.”

“……I see.”

The game was tested hundreds of times by all employees of this company, including me. I had already played it 4 times.

It must have been played a thousand times in total, but the mid-boss called Deculein always got killed except for one time.

“But did you know? The model for this character was actually you, Woojin-ssi.”

“…… For Deculein?”

“Yep. So I just kill him off right at the start.”

“What?”

I frowned.

There was still the Line “Damn Bitch…” displayed on the monitor.

“Fufu. Didn’t you notice while modeling him? You look similar.”

“That can’t be. I only met the author twice, you know?”

“I guess he saw you while dropping by the company. Anyway, look. You even have similar personalities.”

“……Similar personalities? Me and that guy, whose last words were “Damn Bitch”?”

“You’re similar.”

“Phew…… So that’s why I got dumped by you.”

As Yoo Ah-ra’s expression hardened, I raised my hands pretending to be scared.

“Aigo, I’m sorry. Did that sound kind of pathetic, too?”

I couldn’t help it.

After hearing me call myself pathetic again, she lost her temper, so I couldn’t help but poke at her more.

Eventually Yoo Ah-ra also got involved.

“…… I’m the one who’s pathetic here”

“It’s just that you think you’re pathetic. Do you have paranoia? It’s me who’s pathetic.”

“Shut up. Just check the game. How do you feel about this time’s test run?”

I decided to change the subject. I put my eyes back on the monitor.

“The game itself is fun.”

The backdrop of this game was a fantasy world mixed with culture from the 14~20th century.

The whole framework was that of a massive RPG, but its main focus was its storytelling.

“The only problem is that, if this flops, the whole company will go bankrupt.”

REW appeared in Korea, the barren land of console games, like a bolt out of the blue.

As soon as it had been founded, it produced one successful game after the other. Now, REW, which the whole world was paying attention to, was creating a AAA class game that was already beating the profits and investments of the past before it had even been released.

If it failed, we’d be screwed.

Literally screwed.

“Don’t worry. It won’t fail. Didn’t you see the reactions to the game play sneak peek? There was a huge uproar.”

The story of the game and its difficulty depends on how the player acts.

Although it’s a single player game, you don’t play alone, but with several “named” characters equipped with advanced AI.

Thanks to that fresh approach and the hype that REW had built up, not only international players but also many international webzines had nominated our game as “GOTY (Game Of The Year)”!

“As long as we keep raising our IP reputation with a single console, we can rake in a lot of money online. We’ll make it, no matter what!”

As it had been said before, there were a lot of attractive characters and jobs in this game.

Knight, wizard, demon, demon hunter, administrator, adventurer, mercenary, king, aristocrat, etc….. The player could become anything.

“Okay. That would be great for me. I’d get a bonus after all.”

With a big smile I turned my head towards the window.

“……Oh, there he is.”

My seat was by the window, so I could see the street outside the company.

Near the entrance, a shiny car was waiting for Yoo Ah-ra.

“By the way, isn’t he more pathetic than I am?”

I whispered and pointed out the window.

I said these words casually.

She smiled slightly.

“……He’s a good person in a different sense from you.”

I was also a good person, huh? That was enough for me.

Even if she didn’t mean it like that, I’d just take it that way.

“Oh, yeah? That’s a relief then.”

Of course, I was still upset, but not as much as I was before.

As she said, the man in that car was a good person.

I’d be angry if he were some type of gangster.

“Yeah…… By the way…… You know……. That……”

Yoo Ah-ra seemed like she wanted to say something, but her mouth kept on snapping shut.