Chapter 15

Later on, they also added and filled in parts that only afterward felt lacking.

Even though the game was finally complete, that did not mean the work was over.

“Now we’ll spend about a week playing through this again and looking for more problems.”

They still needed to perform bug testing and identify issues that could only be discovered through actual gameplay.

Watching Pana nod in understanding, Ras felt slightly regretful.

It was not because her abilities were lacking. It was simply because there were only two of them, meaning the number of testers was far too small.

Still, they could not risk leaking the game, so it could not be helped.

Ras launched the game and began creating a character.

He deliberately chose not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to include randomness in the stat allocation process. It was a lesson learned from games he had played in the past.

After all, players would simply keep rerolling the dice until they got what they wanted anyway.

So instead, he gave players free stat points to distribute manually.

After setting the stats, the player had to choose a race.

However, since the races appearing in the game actually existed in this world, it had been extremely difficult deciding how to implement ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠racial traits through stats.

If this were Earth, choosing an Orc might lower intelligence while increasing strength.

But if he did that here, it would practically invite complaints like:

“Oh really? So Orcs are just stupid beasts with muscles? You fucking racist!”

Still, if races had no differences at all, then there would be no point in including race selection.

And in a world where multiple races genuinely existed, he could not simply leave races out entirely. In a novel, readers could imagine things on their own, but this was a graphical game.

So after much deliberation, the solution Ras devised was to leave the base stats untouched while assigning each race a unique passive skill instead.

Elves received bonuses to magical ability and accuracy, Orcs gained increased attack power and vitality, while Lizardmen gained defense and water-element bonuses.

Some people might see this as little more than semantics or empty wordplay, but at least he was not directly altering the stats themselves, so he hoped it would somehow pass without issue.

Besides, while some people were sensitive about discrimination, everyone still objectively acknowledged that each race possessed distinct characteristics and differences.

So it should be okay... right? Please.

In any case, Ras selected Human, finalized the character settings, and started the game.

The screen shifted, revealing a rural village rendered in pixel graphics.

The protagonist was shown farming while grumbling about his dull daily life. Ras intentionally used this to create empathy between the protagonist and the players who would eventually experience the game.

Soon afterward, monsters arrived to destroy the farmland, and combat began against White-Haired Boars. Through this battle, the game naturally introduced the status and combat systems.

He could have simply told players to read the manual, but since role-playing games had never existed in this world before, he wanted the experience to feel approachable and not overwhelming.

After winning the battle, the protagonist became intoxicated by the lingering adrenaline and dreamed of adventure.

Then he noticed smoke rising from the distant village.

Alarmed, he rushed back and discovered soldiers engaged in slaughter and pillaging.

Though the protagonist had grown reasonably capable from fighting monsters and farming in the frontier regions, he was still overwhelmed by sheer numbers and soon found himself cornered.

He was afraid, but he neither ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wanted to beg for mercy from the murderers of his family and villagers nor believed they would spare him even if he did.

So he prepared himself to die fighting.

At that moment, however, one elderly soldier revealed that they were mercenaries and offered to let him go if he retreated.

They were merely fighting for money, and there was no reason to risk injury trying to kill someone who looked completely penniless.

Seeing the enemies genuinely withdraw, the protagonist hurriedly fled.

That was where the real adventure began.

Ras played through the game with reasonable immersion, leveling his character and progressing through the story.

Still, because he himself had created the game, he did not find it overwhelmingly entertaining.

That made him slightly anxious.

Fortunately, Pana was completely absorbed in the experience.

Though she herself had drawn the graphics, she had only followed Ras’s instructions while creating them.

Yet now those images seemed to have gained life, moving through a vast world, making the experience feel even more mysterious and emotional to her.

Perhaps even more so than it would for future players who simply purchased the game later.

It was on an entirely different level from the dolls and toys she had played with as a child.

With dolls, everything depended on one’s imagination. But here, whenever she did something, the game automatically responded, creating the illusion that it was truly alive.

As she became immersed, even the NPC dialogue no longer felt like simple text.

It felt as though emotions and thoughts were being directly conveyed to her.

“So? Is it playable?”

“Huh? Yes! It’s fun!”

Although Pana only looked young and was actually an adult, she had become so engrossed that her honest emotions burst out naturally like a child’s.

While conducting tests, Ras finally secured an office and was able to move out.

At first, he had simply forgotten about it while spending an entire month developing the game. Afterward, he had been too focused on development to properly search around, so he had failed to find a suitable place.

Only after the game was completed did he finally have enough free time to seriously look for office space.

The office was not far from his apartment. He had deliberately searched nearby for the sake of his own commute.

Apparently, the area had once been bustling around twenty years ago, but after large-scale housing developments shifted the city center elsewhere, it had declined somewhat. Still, it was located along a main road and transportation remained fairly convenient.

Ras rented the second floor of a three-story building there.

The space had apparently remained vacant for a long time, but the electricity and water worked perfectly fine. It was simply old, without any major problems.

The move itself was not difficult.

He hired workers to thoroughly clean the place, ordered all the furniture directly for the office, and only needed to move Pana’s computer from his apartment.

Ras bought another computer for office use as well.

By this point, the profits from Tetris had continued pouring in, so there was no need to live frugally anymore.

Just as expected, Tetris had become a massive hit, selling forty thousand copies over two months.

This news came directly from the president of Barbal Soft himself rather than through Kandel.

“I think this could become the highest-selling game in history!”

The president’s name was Paul Roxy, and he sounded extremely excited.

Naturally so.

This success brought not only significant profits but also the prestige of discovering a blockbuster game.

And that prestige was far from meaningless.

Not long afterward, even sales of software unrelated to Tetris began ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gradually increasing.

For that reason, Roxy had no choice but to treat Ras as extremely important.

And it was not mere flattery either.

At present, the highest sales record among PC games in this world belonged to a shooting game called Great Counterattack, which had sold one hundred thousand copies over two years.

Meanwhile, Tetris had already sold forty thousand copies in only two months, and its popularity was still burning hot.

Reaching one hundred thousand sales now seemed entirely possible.

Compared to Earth’s blockbuster games that sold millions or tens of millions of copies, it might sound insignificant.

But Ras already knew the market itself was still immature.

And honestly, he was already more than satisfied with forty thousand copies.

That was nearly one billion won worth of money.

Back in Korea, he doubted he could have saved that much even in an entire lifetime.

No, truthfully speaking, he absolutely could not have.

Part of him still thought that copying Tetris should have earned far more than this.

But the feeling produced by the numbers displayed in his bank account was not something that rational calculations alone could explain.

After finishing the move, Ras resumed testing and concluded that there were no major issues with the game’s overall quality.

“Once we fix the bugs we found, I think it’ll basically be complete.”

At those words, Pana’s face brightened immediately.

Although she had originally taken the job after being cornered into it, game development itself had become incredibly interesting to her.

At some point, she had begun working with the same feelings she once poured into drawing her manga.

And she was a failed manga artist.

No, perhaps “failed” was too harsh. She was still young and had not suffered enough despair to call herself truly defeated. It might be more accurate to say she simply had not succeeded yet.

Still, regardless of the wording, she carried deep emotional frustration over never being able to release her own work into the world.

So even in this form, seeing her artwork become part of something released publicly made her genuinely happy.

“Then are we selling it immediately?”

That was why those words came out first.

But Ras smiled awkwardly.

“No. First we need to finalize the title. Have you thought of anything?”

“Ah, right. We still don’t have a title. I did think of a few.”

Pana suggested several names that sounded marketable within the Republic of Smite, such as Legend of the Hero, Chronicles of the Terrasia Continent, and Trial of the Hero.

They were not bad, but something felt lacking.

After discussing various ideas and comparing them with titles Ras had thought up himself, they eventually settled on the name Land of Adventure.

The two immediately began adding the title to the opening screen, along with the name Meta Soft.

The company registration process was currently being handled through a lawyer.

While paying taxes on the income earned from Tetris, Ras had learned that this world also taxed companies more favorably than individuals.

So he had immediately visited the legal office beside the accountant’s office and commissioned the work.

Ras had worried slightly because he was still only seventeen years old, but there were apparently no age restrictions on founding a company.

Not only that, but even minors could work and pay taxes without issue.

“Here’s the registration certificate and related documents. You’ll need them when paying taxes, so make sure to read through them carefully.”

Only a week later, Ras received a call and visited the legal office to collect the company registration certificate.

In truth, company registration itself was not difficult. As long as the required documents were submitted, rejection was extremely rare.

The actual review process only took around three days, but the legal office’s schedule caused a slight delay.

In any case, after finally completing the company registration, Ras contacted Barbal Soft regarding the release of the game.

“You’re releasing a new title? Of course we welcome it.”

Having already tasted enormous success through Tetris, Roxy welcomed the idea enthusiastically, as though rejecting it had never even crossed his mind.

The very next day, he sent Kandel to Ras’s office.

“The office looks nice. You even hired staff?”

Kandel casually jerked his chin toward Pana, who sat in front of the computer diligently performing tests — or more accurately, enthusiastically enjoying the game.

It was obvious at a glance, so he was not genuinely asking out of curiosity. He was clearly saying it intentionally to boost Ras’s mood.

Ras simply grinned in response.

“You’ve been doing well?”

“Of course. The atmosphere at the company has been amazing lately.”

“Really?”

Within the industry, it was already fairly common belief that the software market itself would expand as computers became more widespread.

Barbal Soft was one of those companies struggling to endure the present while betting on that future.

And companies like that usually suffered from severe financial pressure.

No matter how bright the future appeared, living through the present under those conditions was painful.

Then the money brought in by Tetris arrived.

While not enough to be called an enormous fortune on a corporate scale, it was still enough to pull them one step away from their suffocating situation.

Moreover, it felt as though the future they had been waiting for was finally drawing near.

Naturally, the atmosphere inside the company could not help but improve.

Kandel’s mouth itched to reveal more, but he restrained himself.

No matter how important Ras was as the creator of Tetris, he was still ultimately an outsider to the company.