Chapter 39: An Unexpected Problem
Chapter 39: An Unexpected Problem
In any case, games selling and bringing in money was always a good thing. At the moment, the two arcade games had sold 60,000 and 80,000 units respectively. Compared to PC games, the numbers looked smaller, but arcade boards were so expensive that the actual amount of money involved was enormous.
Of course, as the original creator, Ras only received royalties, so the amount entering his hands was actually similar to — or slightly less than — what he earned from PC game sales.
Even so, considering this was money that might never have existed in the first place, it was still incredible. And while selling 100,000 units no longer sounded impressive after constantly seeing games hit 400,000 copies, even that level of sales translated to roughly 2.4 billion won in Earth terms.
And sales still weren’t over. The boom was continuing in full force, so even greater profits could be expected.
Barbal Soft Office.
“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?”
After successfully pushing the arcade ports, Amans burst into hearty laughter that matched his Viking-like appearance while proudly flaunting his achievement to the company president.
Barbal Soft had also earned profits from this matter. And it wasn’t as though they had earned them unfairly.
Simply arranging the arcade ports and connecting Panchi Games with Meta Soft was already enough to justify their share. But beyond that, they had also handled all sorts of contract and document work on behalf of Meta Soft and even dispatched employees with a strong understanding of the games to directly assist with the porting process itself.
But money wasn’t the only thing they gained from this success.
The intangible value of successfully porting distributed games into arcades was enormous. Even viewed very simply, it gave them a powerful competitive advantage over other distributors, increasing the chances of attracting higher-quality games in the future.
Beyond that, it broadened the scope of what people believed the company could handle and improved evaluations of their negotiation capabilities. In other words, it increased the company’s overall value.
These things might seem minor, but how a company appeared externally was extremely important. Even with the overseas distribution project currently underway, if they looked more competent, foreign companies would naturally become more interested.
Which was why, even though Amans’s attitude looked slightly arrogant, neither the president nor the other employees particularly criticized him and merely gave bitter smiles instead. Partly because they already knew Amans was that kind of person.
“Anyway, let’s keep this momentum going and make the overseas expansion a success too.”
President Roxy concluded the almost festival-like performance report by striking a fighting pose as he said that.
Meanwhile, Ras also continued developing Project War in high spirits. But it seemed good things couldn’t last forever.
It was lunchtime.
Unlike before, they had now placed a large table inside one of the vacant rooms and converted it into a cafeteria.
“I really love this dining room.”
While eating the stir-fried pork from her lunch portion, Pana suddenly said that to Ras. He was pleased that she liked the cafeteria he had deliberately prepared, but he honestly wondered what made it so different from the previous office.
Back in the old office, they had briefly eaten at office desks when they first started. It had been somewhat inconvenient, but only temporarily, and eventually they switched to eating around a meeting table similar to this one anyway. Curious what exactly she disliked before, Ras casually asked with a joking tone.
“But the food’s the same anyway, isn’t it? We’re not cooking here or anything, and we only moved next door, so we still order from the exact same restaurants. Even this pie is the same thing we always ate at the old office.”
Pana awkwardly smiled and answered.
“It’s not that. It’s because of the food smell. I hated when the office still smelled like food outside of meal times.”
“Ahhh...”
Ras nodded as though he understood, though honestly he couldn’t really relate since he had never paid much attention to that sort of thing.
But when he glanced around, he noticed Nebrania quietly nodding in agreement. Just those two already accounted for a quarter of the employees, and there were probably others who simply never said anything. Apparently more people cared about such things than he expected.
That was fortunate.
Perhaps because the topic had shifted toward subtle annoyances, Nebrania brought something else up next. Unlike the striking impression she gave when they first met, she had now adapted quite normally to company life.
“But doesn’t the constant running noise from upstairs get really irritating?”
This time, around half the employees showed expressions of agreement.
It had started not long after they moved in. They began hearing loud banging noises from the floor above. At first, since they had been told the upper floor was vacant, they assumed they misheard it or that the sounds came from outside.
But that wasn’t the case. After the same thing repeated several times, the source became obvious.
At some point, noise-sensitive people like Nebrania and a few others even started automatically looking up at the ceiling whenever the sounds began.
They said it was empty, so what’s going on?
In truth, Ras hadn’t spent long thinking about the issue because he already had a rough guess. It was the children he had frequently seen around the neighborhood since moving in. There had even been several occasions where he heard large groups of children running up the stairs together, making it almost impossible not to notice.
Honestly, the noise itself didn’t bother Ras very much. It wasn’t that he was insensitive to sound, but once he focused, he tended not to hear most background noise anyway. However, employees like Nebrania losing concentration during development was a serious problem.
And the fact they had finally brought it up directly meant they had reached their limit. He had originally stayed quiet because he worried that scolding the children might create bad relationships with the local neighborhood, but his employees and game development naturally came first. At this point, he had no choice.
Ras let out a quiet sigh before speaking.
“Understood. I’ll either make them quiet down or kick them out.”
Nebrania responded with a playful smile that seemed to say she trusted him.
Contrary to the slight expectations he once had when she first joined the company, nothing remotely romantic had developed between them. Even so, perhaps because some fanboy feelings still lingered, that friendly smile still made him feel slightly happier.
After lunch, Ras immediately headed upstairs. The metal door was already half open. Smiling bitterly, he stepped inside.
Contrary to expectations, the interior wasn’t especially dark. Plenty of sunlight streamed in through the windows. And although he had no idea what kind of business used to occupy the place, half-collapsed partitions blocked portions of the view.
Since it was directly above their office and not particularly gloomy, it didn’t feel frightening. Still, just in case, Ras cautiously looked around as he slowly walked deeper inside.
And the moment he rounded one partition wall, he encountered children almost immediately.
“Mister, who are you?”
But they were much younger than he expected. One was a Beastman boy with red hair who looked about five years old, while the other was a human girl around the same age or slightly younger. The girl had light brown hair and clutched an old rabbit doll tightly in her arms.
“Hello. I work at the company downstairs.”
When he came upstairs, he had intended to get angry. But with two adorable little children staring up at him with enormous curious eyes, he simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, Ras sighed, crouched down, and met their gaze.
At first he hadn’t noticed because of the dim lighting, but up close the children looked rather grimy.
Still, they weren’t exceptionally dirty. This world had concepts of hygiene, but people generally washed less frequently than in Korea.
And among poorer classes, things were even worse, so children running around looking like this were common enough on the streets that Ras didn’t think too deeply about it.
He merely stopped himself halfway through instinctively trying to pat their heads.
“Hey, where are your parents?”
“What’s ‘parents’?”
Apparently the word itself was too difficult for children this young.
“Ah, I mean your mom and dad.”
He couldn’t exactly scold children this young, so he intended to speak with their guardians instead. But at those words, the girl behind the Beastman boy suddenly looked on the verge of tears, while the boy himself merely clamped his mouth shut and shook his head firmly.
At first Ras didn’t understand what that meant. Then a terrible possibility crossed his mind. His expression darkened, and unable to ask further, he bit his lip awkwardly.
Don’t tell me...
He shifted his gaze away from the children and looked around more carefully. At first it simply appeared cluttered, but now he noticed bedding, wardrobes, dishes, and various other necessities of daily life. There were even rag-like curtains hanging around.
If he went deeper into the partitioned areas, there were probably even more belongings. This definitely wasn’t children playing house inside an abandoned building. They were genuinely living here.
Without realizing it, Ras pressed a hand against his forehead.
This world was filled with beggars, child panhandlers, shoe-shining boys, and countless children who clearly didn’t seem to live in proper homes. But he had never really thought about where those children actually lived.
Yet he never imagined one such place would exist directly above his own office.
Still, standing there in shock solved nothing, so Ras quickly forced himself to recover. Seeing the children shrink back slightly in fear at his sudden change in expression, he forced a smile and gently asked again.
“Are there any other kids here?”
The two children blinked for a moment before suddenly pointing toward one side of the room. Ras flinched in surprise and turned around, only to discover someone standing silently in the shadows watching him.
Then the figure shouted at him.
“Who are you?!”
A boy’s rough adolescent voice echoed through the dim interior. Moments later, a human teenage boy in his mid-to-late teens stepped out of the shadows and glared at Ras with eyes filled with wariness equal to the harshness of his voice.
“Aran! Georg! Come over here!”
Ras was briefly startled, but since the boy wasn’t attacking and was only calling the smaller children over, he quickly regained his composure and looked back calmly.
“I work at the office downstairs.”
“...Really? Then why are you here?”
The boy flinched slightly at first but quickly regained his composure and responded casually. Ras’s expression hardened automatically. The brazen attitude of someone secretly living inside a vacant building directly above his office irritated him immensely.
Still, losing his temper wouldn’t solve anything. And beyond the boy, more large and small silhouettes slowly began emerging from deeper within the building. For now, it seemed wiser to keep things light and retreat.
“The noise from upstairs is too loud. I’d appreciate it if you were more careful.”
But because he disliked the entire situation so much, irritation naturally slipped into his voice. The boy looked momentarily furious but suppressed it instead of lashing out.
“Fine. We’ll be careful. So go back!”
“Yeah! Go back!”
One of the children behind the boy shouted in agreement. Judging by the voice, it seemed to be a younger girl. Ras felt unfairly wronged. He hadn’t done anything wrong, yet they reacted to him like this.
His luck was truly terrible. He had only come upstairs casually intending to warn some local children for playing noisily inside an abandoned building, never imagining he would discover something this serious instead.
Still, staying longer would only agitate the children further, so he decided to withdraw for now.
“People are working downstairs, alright?”
He added the reminder before leaving, though he wasn’t confident they would actually listen. In any case, Ras stepped back through the metal door and headed downstairs again.
As he descended the stairs, Ras let out a deep sigh. Everything had gone smoothly for him until now, so he never expected to trip over a problem from such a completely unexpected direction.
“...”
After returning to the office, he stared silently at the ceiling for quite a while. At least things had become quiet for now.
Then again, even if they caused trouble, unless they were idiots, they surely understood that if Ras truly decided to act, they could easily be thrown out onto the streets. Naturally, they would have no choice but to be careful.
But the problem itself wasn’t solved. He still didn’t know exactly what kind of group they were. There seemed to be several boys and girls there, including children who looked like orphans, but he didn’t know whether any adults were involved.
Still, one thing was certain: people secretly living together inside a vacant building like that was absolutely not normal. Knowing a group like that existed directly above his office made Ras sigh again.
It wasn’t a massive disaster, but it definitely felt like an annoying complication.
After thinking for a while, Ras decided he should first confront the real estate broker who introduced him to the office. The broker’s name was Gingbaol.
“Oh? Welcome, Mr. Ras!”
Gingbaol greeted him warmly with a friendly expression on his thick face. Before today, Ras would have thought that face looked trustworthy. Now it immediately made anger boil up inside him.