Open Beta (10)
Im Su-yeon had never trusted Im Seong-u from the beginning. She didn't believe he'd made an online game all by himself, and she didn't even buy his claim of pulling all-nighters to get the work done. Whatever scam he'd pulled, the success of Railroad Software was nothing but a farce.
I've been in a game club for... what, a few years? It was only one or two years, but Im Su-yeon considered herself something of an expert. She'd seen through Han Yu-ra's limits ages ago, so she had no doubt this company would crash and burn soon enough.
"Guys."
"..."
"Remember when we started the club? How clueless Han Yu-ra was back then?"
She giggled to herself, thinking back on the old Han Yu-ra and mocking her.
"We weren't some central club. We couldn't even borrow a room, so we worked in cafés. But what did we pull off?"
"..."
"We won two awards, got featured in the news once, and now we've even snagged some small-scale investment. A-ram, Su-yeon. And Se-hee."
"..."
"Seriously, thank you."
"..."
"We wouldn't have made it this far without you." Han Yu-ra had been so overcome with emotion back then that she'd burst into tears. They'd hugged her, cooing Sis, don't cry~, but Su-yeon had just sneered inwardly.
Crying over something so lame.
"You all mean the world to me... Let's keep pushing forward together. We can hit it big, and when we do, you won't just be regular employees anymore. I promise. Stick with this company a few years, and I'll make you all rich."
But Im Su-yeon hadn't bought a word of it. Ha. Does she have any idea how brutal the world is? Rich? Yeah right. This reeks of bullshit. You think I'm falling for it again? You'll just work us to death. Fine, Yu-ra. I'll just loot as much salary as I can and bail.
She'd shattered her ideals and ended up making mobile games, for fuck's sake. Did she really think she'd hit it big like Fate/Grand Order? Did she actually believe she had even a 0.1% shot? Su-yeon hated that blind, idiotic faith too.
There were two kinds of people in the world, they'd said. Those who try harder when treated well. And those who see kindness as weakness and take advantage. The latter type unconsciously overestimated their own smarts... and Im Su-yeon was textbook.
Like the new recruit who thinks the nice squad leader is a pushover. The kind who plots to exploit a senior who grants favors. They believed it was the way of the world, that trusting first made you the idiot, and scamming for personal gain was just smart. That was Im Su-yeon.
So she acted on instinct.
"I think A-ram unnie's right. Honestly, I have no clue what Im Seong-u even does here."
"...He does programming?"
"Unnie." She sided with Kim A-ram. If Im Seong-u grabbed real power, he'd make them work their asses off. Just compromise with me, you moron. If the employees stuck together, they could bleed Han Yu-ra dry (not that she was a lesbian). But he was useless for that. So she subtly isolated him, just like back in school.
"Yu-ra unnie. Hear me out. We trust each other, right? How many years have we made games together? Huh? The company's only been around a short time... but you remember? I pulled all-nighters even when you couldn't pay us."
"Still."
"But trusting Im Seong-u more feels off. At least you've got history with A-ram unnie."
"..."
"And I saw it."
"Saw what?"
"Im Seong-u chewing out A-ram unnie behind her back. She was bawling... The gullible startup boss is ripe for salary looting." That had been her plan from day one.
To her, the current situation was a total clusterfuck.
"Director Seong-u. As one developer to another, please be honest."
"...Yes."
The new bald auditor looked like a hardass at first glance. A shiny-headed guy in his late fifties. Dressed like shit in a green checkered shirt and red backpack—nothing normal about it. Im Su-yeon swallowed a laugh.
Developers, man... That guy's wife is definitely cheating. Heh. What a clown. Who dresses like that on purpose? No shame? Stuck at a computer all day and turned into that?
She dismissed decades of dev experience. But even she could tell one thing: this Lee Seung-cheol auditing today was a stickler.
Pretending to listen to music with her headphones on, she eavesdropped.
"This programming... you didn't outsource to China, right?"
Say it! Admit it! Im Su-yeon snickered inwardly. You outsourced to China! What could a loser like you do?
Just like tenants couldn't sublet without permission, invested companies needed approval for outsourcing dev. Han Yu-ra was done for. Su-yeon smirked.
But Im Seong-u responded with rock-solid calm.
"Yes."
Idiot.
Im Su-yeon slipped out on a bathroom break excuse. Han Yu-ra often wouldn't notice if she lounged an hour. Watching that bald guy grill Seong-u might be fun, but... She didn't want to be in a stress bomb of yelling. Like an assassin, she snuck out of the office.
......
The late-fifties bald developer, Lee Seung-cheol, glared at Director Im Seong-u against the backlight.
"Director. Look at me."
"Yes..."
Im Seong-u, director. A cocky punk young enough to be his son, who couldn't even meet Seung-cheol's eyes and flicked his gaze to the monitor.
Ha. Figures.
Of course, he didn't realize the intense late-spring sun had grazed his bald head and shot straight into Im Seong-u's eyes. Bald guys rarely knew how much they shone.
He asked, "You did all this alone?"
"...Yes."
"So the homepage frontend, backend, auth, game client—everything? In one year?"
"That's right."
Ha. Lee Seung-cheol scoffed. "No outsourcing to China or anything?"
His heart pounded. (Not excitement.) The young programmer's lie was so blatant, it stirred emotional thoughts. This kid thinks I'm a sucker.
He dug in harder. "Look... I don't usually go this deep. But I'll go through the code question by question. I didn't want to either! It's just... no trust here. You get it, Seong-u?"
"Sure. Ask away—I'll appreciate it."
Im Seong-u's steady gaze. Lee Seung-cheol's blood boiled.
"Alright? Seong-u? Explain this part."
The interrogation began.
"Which part?"
Lee pointed to the doc's front, tightening the noose. "Multi-user handling. Four connection endpoints on the server. Four. Why?"
"This module handles homepage connections. Not on separate servers—just instances... um."
Not bad. But backend basics. Lee smirked, staring him down.
"The other three communicate with the client. Sepiros_Auth is authentication—shares results with homepage and the other two, processes based on user tokens... yeah. Google login too. Basically the auth module."
"The other two?"
"One's sockets only. Player battles who, kills what monsters—PVP real-time comms go there."
Lee felt uneasy. Off-putting. He can answer that? Impressive, but...
Decades of experience couldn't be fooled. He listened.
"Last one's player battle data storage. Most combat APIs there. Like this."
He sketched:
"No time to optimize design... stuck to basics."
What the... this guy? Diagram screamed pro. But Lee couldn't admit it. Admitting a green kid soloed this in a year insulted his career.
He went dirty, against protocol. Dozens of DB tables: user info, stage logs, active characters. He savored it. Stuff only the coder would know.
Like user_ivt_acquisitions, user_ivt_characters, user_characters—what's the diff? What's in ivt_characters vs. user_characters? How do they link?
Petty nitpicks left no room to wiggle. He asked casually. "Don't usually go this deep... but you said solo. What's each table do? Differences? Show linking code."
Even you can't...! Random snippet from hundreds of thousands of lines. Like quizzing dictionary middles.
Even CEO Han frowned. But Im Seong-u was unflappable.
"Oh, this."
"..."
"Naming slip-up on my part—rushed. user_ivt_characters tracks 'each character's' battle inventory items. user_characters stores 'player-owned characters'. Yeah, bad names. Time crunch, poor design. Sorry."
No need to apologize! Vars are always sloppy!
The game worked. Even inefficient, it ran smooth—well-coded. Dirty code or not, if it performs, it's good.
No... Lee bit his lip. "Show the code."
So far, surface skim. Report verification, DB columns. Courtesy: Won't nitpick your sacred code...
But this was bullying. Im Seong-u smiled easily. "Confidentiality assured?"
"Of course."
He showed code. Lee, shamelessly, picked random from hundreds. Core programmer stuff. "What does this do?"
"Lemme see..."
"..."
Lee's heart raced.
"Found it. Remember character inventories? Player activates item from it—data hits here. Validates, logs to DB. Eh, does active items need DB? Anyway."
"...!"
Lee raged. Such brazen fraud. He grilled Im Seong-u neurotically for an hour. Can't lose...! Veteran coder's sole thought.
......
An hour later. Lee Seung-cheol sat slack-jawed. Fly-catcher wide.
"..."
"..."
"This..." He conceded. "You did... all this... alone?"
No outsourcing excuse left. Tens of thousands of lines, recalled like yesterday—no pushing further.
"Yes..."
Over twenty years glued to dev. Recoding his old stuff would take six months.
Possible... maybe. Code's strings. Lock talented high-schooler a year, make 'em memorize millions of lines, recreate. Humans could memorize dictionary pages under whip.
But for pay, this was absurd. How many all-nighters? He peered into Im Seong-u's eyes.
Ah...
Tears welled in Im Seong-u's eyes.
"Was tough, but yeah, me."
Forced smile. Waves crashed in Lee's heart. These young devs. Bootcamp fakers scamming outsourcing—Im was different.
I... I was wrong.
What had he done? Double-jobbing company and gigs to feed good wife. Avoid junior scorn—home by 10, dev books till dawn. Built homepage forever, snagged gov VR at 50. Veteran of all.
Everything but security, crypto, AI. "Make this"—all-nighter delivery. That's veteran Lee Seung-cheol. Why Angel Ventures tech advisor.
He knew: those eye-tears were hundreds of Americanos condensed.
"Director Im Seong-u..."
"..."
"How... how did you do it all?"
Dev empathy exploded. How'd he endure? So young...
Choking back tears, one surged: respect for young coder.
"This... how, in one year?!"
"The game..."
"..."
Im shifted, forcing blank face to corral emotions. But words unnecessary.
Devs got it from eyes.
"...I really loved it."
That broke Lee Seung-cheol.