Chapter 134: Novel & Game

Ugh... what should I write?

After enjoying the Spirit Stone network for quite a while, he belatedly realized this was not the time for that and clutched his head over the keyboard.

In the past, he had only written what he liked no matter what, but after communicating with people, he realized how important choosing a subject was. Because of that, he had been agonizing over this issue.

As he continued thinking for a long time, his thoughts suddenly reached the computers, games, and PC communication he was currently enjoying. These were certainly things he enjoyed, but they were also things people were becoming increasingly interested in these days.

Besides, the place where I’ll upload my writing is Spirit Space, isn’t it?

To understand what subjects people liked, he needed to analyze what kind of people made up his readership. Since he had only met them beyond the monitor, he did not know what they were actually like, but at the very least, he could clearly tell that they liked PC communication.

It felt like he had found a direction. But instead of using those subjects directly, he decided to exercise his imagination a little more.

Among the novels already being uploaded, there was one that directly used Spirit Space as its subject. It was about a man and woman who met through Spirit Space, then kept coincidentally encountering each other in reality, and despite the long distance between them, they communicated through Spirit Space and nurtured their love.

It was not a bad novel and was quite popular, so it was being considered a candidate for the win. But Arrof felt that kind of approach did not suit him.

He wanted to twist it a little more and use the subject of a network indirectly.

A space where many people meet, and a society similar to reality...

As he thought about it, he suddenly recalled the word “virtual reality,” which he had seen somewhere before. Then the subject of artificial intelligence also came to mind. He liked science fiction quite a lot.

If I handle this well, I think I can make a decent story...

After keeping his hands on the keyboard for a long time and squeezing out ideas, he suddenly began moving his fingers quickly, as if grabbing onto a thought that flashed through his mind, and started striking the keys.

<There was a game created by a mad programmer.>

That was the first sentence he typed.

The story he wrote afterward while thinking it through was like this.

A game developer who had suffered repeated failures wanted a perfect game. And that programmer believed that for a role-playing game to feel like reality, the NPCs inside it needed to possess intelligence like humans.

But no matter what he did, achieving that with the current performance of computers was impossible. Frustrated by this, the programmer went mad. No, perhaps he had already been mad from the time his life fell into the abyss after one failure after another.

Then, a few years later, a role-playing game was released. The protagonist, who liked games, was drawn in by the package’s unique design and bought it. He enjoyed the impressive graphics and gameplay while wondering why a game like this had not become popular.

But after playing the game for a while, he accepted a proposal from an old man character inside the game and was suddenly dragged into the game world.

There, he became a hero who would save the world. He searched for a way to escape outside somehow, but when he could not find one, he began acting in the role of a hero for the time being.

It was because he feared what would happen to him, trapped inside the game, if the game world was destroyed.

However, he found it strange that the NPCs inside the game were so intelligent they seemed almost like real humans.

And as the story progressed, he learned that this game had been created by borrowing the power of a being from the Demonic Realm. In the end, the NPCs inside it were the fallen forms of players who failed to overcome the trials.

It was a fantasy novel featuring many other characters as well: the developer who had become the lord of one region inside the game, the Queen of the Polar Region who had once been the developer’s daughter, a police officer dragged in while investigating after noticing something strange, and a priest who came after receiving a divine revelation and was also pulled into the game, yet did not lose hope.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

On Earth, it was the kind of story one might have heard somewhere before, but by this world’s standards, it was extremely fresh.

Because of that, once this work began serialization, it became quite popular. However, since there were many extremely strong works, its ranking rarely rose.

Arrof wanted to at least enter the rankings somehow, but he kept narrowly failing to make it in. Because of that, he could not give up and became even more fired up.

Then, one day, he received a phone call.

“Hello?”

“Yes. Is this Mr. Arrof? This is Meta Soft.”

Arrof was startled by the words Meta Soft. Then he wondered whether he had perhaps won the contest. The contest period was already almost over, so his heart pounded with anticipation as he waited for the person on the other end to continue. But what he heard through the receiver was quite different from what he had expected.

“First, I’m sorry, but I should tell you this is not about the contest.”

Meta Soft had already made several calls like this, so they anticipated the authors’ reactions and said this first.

“Yes...”

Naturally, Arrof was disappointed. Still, it did not mean he had been rejected either, so he was not deeply discouraged.

“We contacted you because we would like to make a proposal.”

“A proposal?”

It was a word that made his expectations rise again. And what followed was something completely unexpected, but it caught his interest.

“Yes. There is a service we are preparing for Spirit Space. It is a text-based network role-playing game. We are calling it a MUD.”

A MUD?

This was the idea of Giselle, the team leader of the Spirit Space Team. Since MUD games were text-based, she judged that the story and setting were important. Coincidentally, Spirit Space was holding a novel contest, so the simple idea began with wondering whether they could take a source from there.

But after thinking about it, she realized that both the readers of the novels and the users of the MUD game were Spirit Space users. If they used a contest novel, it would become a topic of conversation, and since people had already read it and knew the content to some extent, it would also be easier for them to immerse themselves.

Ras also thought it was not a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bad idea and approved it right away.

There were novels with higher popularity, but Arrof’s novel was chosen because its subject matter was perfect for turning into a MUD game. After all, the setting itself was already a game.

“If you cooperate with us, we will provide financial compensation for it as well as a publishing opportunity.”

“I-I’ll do it!”

At the word “publishing,” Arrof answered that he would do it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without even thinking deeply. After all, he had done everything he could to get his writing published. In truth, the mad game developer in this novel was half a projection of himself. Of course, he had absolutely no intention of making a contract with a being from the Demonic Realm.

“Ah. Thank you for accepting the proposal. We can discuss the detailed contract in person.”

“Yes. Yes!”

He had decided somewhat rashly, but it was absolutely not a bad thing for him. Of course, this was one of the methods for making the MUD game successful. Even on Earth, publishing novels based on game stories was common.

But conversely, that also meant if the game became popular, it could become a way to promote the novel.

And considering the popularity of early MUD games on Earth, as long as Meta Soft did not make it too terribly, success was practically guaranteed.

Some time later, the Spirit Space development team began developing a MUD game based on Arrof’s novel.

As an aside, Arrof’s novel ultimately placed third and received prize money from the contest.

“Hell yeah!!”

Needless to say, he was extremely happy.

Until then, Spirit Space had only been serviced within the Republic of Smite. Since the servers were only in the Republic of Smite and there were no intercontinental communication facilities, this was unavoidable. At most, there were only a few users in the neighboring Brunyad Federation who connected while paying expensive international telephone fees.

But now, its service area was about to expand dramatically.

“Oh! Is it finally coming?”

On his way home from work, Weber, who was reading Gamers inside a bus, saw an article and his face lit up.

A gamer from the Brunyad Federation, he was a Dog Beastman in his mid-twenties. He was an ardent fan of Spirit Stone.

Since he originally admired the Republic of Smite, he had always been interested in its culture, and when games from the Republic of Smite became popular, he was one of those who immediately fell into them.

Moreover, as an employee of an automobile maker, he once had the chance to briefly visit the Republic of Smite because of parts import issues. There, he became friendly with an employee from a partner company and was able to try Spirit Space for a short while.

It was truly a whole new world.

As a subscriber of Gamers, he had already known such a thing existed and had been interested in it. But as a new member of society, he could not possibly afford those expensive international telephone fees.

Of course, if he pushed himself, he could probably connect a few times, but he was afraid that if he got addicted, he would lose his mind, so he had not tried it at all.

But as expected, it was no ordinary fun. Because of that, he had almost ended up making an international call even after returning home.

Fortunately, he still retained some reason, and he had seen in Gamers that an overseas ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠service was being prepared, so he was able to endure it. And now, the overseas service he had been waiting for was finally landing in Brunyad.

After that, he counted the days until the date printed in Gamers. He especially wanted to chat again so badly he could hardly stand it.

Even chatting in clumsy Aran Language back then had been that fun. He could not help looking forward to how much more fun it would be to talk with fellow Brunyad people.

In truth, the overseas server had almost been canceled. It was not because of any regulation. Rather, after the magical connector appeared, some people asked whether the server was even necessary.

After all, they could connect to the network without phone lines.

Because of that, they had considered simply greatly expanding the servers at the headquarters in the Republic of Smite. However, after conducting overseas connection tests, they realized this would be difficult.

It was certainly a magical device that made something technologically impossible into reality, but once magic existed in reality rather than in a novel or game, it seemed it also developed realistic limitations.

First of all, overseas connections were possible. The problem was that the response speed became tremendously slow. Not only that, data loss increased, which ultimately slowed the data transfer speed, and above all, mana consumption increased.

The fundamental reason for developing the magical connector was cost efficiency, but even at a distance like the Brunyad Federation, the cost rose to almost the same level as telephone fees.

So in the end, they proceeded with the overseas server business according to the original plan.

Still, that did not mean they had completely given up on intercontinental network service. After all, no matter how talented its creator was, the current magical connector had ultimately been designed somewhat crudely by an ordinary wizard rather than a professional magical engineer, so there was plenty of room for improvement.

Even now, Ras continued hiring magical engineers and expanding the Magical Design Team.

Then, fifteen days later, Spirit Space opened in the Brunyad Federation, the Pluta Constitutional State, and the Nuchin Kingdom. Needless to say, the Spirit Stone network servers opened alongside it.

Players from the three countries thereby saw a whole new world.

Honestly, Spirit Stone was a fun game, but quite a few people had thought the reactions in the Republic of Smite shown through Gamers and similar sources seemed overheated, wondering whether those people were just engaging in patriotic propaganda because it was their own country’s game.

But once they tried network play, they immediately understood.