Chapter 52: Dropping Out and a New Project
Chapter 52: Dropping Out and a New Project
For now, the conclusion Insu had reached was that he would try to bring as many team members as possible with him. If he managed to bring all of them, the Korean development studio would naturally be shut down. If many people said they would not go, then he thought he might leave it in place for the time being and have them work on other development projects, such as the messenger program he had thought about before or other games.
Although Insu’s answer was somewhat vague, Yoo Juyeon fell silent again, as if he had read Insu’s thoughts or perhaps understood his intention.
Before long, Park Yoonsu suddenly raised his hand high and said, “I’ll follow you!”
“You’re welcome to come!”
Whether it should be called loyalty or not, Park Yoonsu had always been one of the most enthusiastic team members during development, so Insu had expected this to some extent. Still, hearing him actually say he would follow made Insu feel incredibly relieved and happy.
“Ah! Also, if you go to America, your salaries will increase a lot. You might also be worried about suddenly having to live overseas, but we plan to provide accommodations where you can live on your own. And I learned this during the trip too, but prices are much cheaper in America. Beef, especially, is incredibly cheap!”
“…”
Insu did not think there was anyone among the current development team who specifically could not follow him. First of all, they were all young and unmarried. And from what he had observed while developing together with them, none of them seemed to have girlfriends either.
And perhaps because North Korea did not exist in this world, the country had already switched to a volunteer military system long ago, so there was no issue with military service either.
“Please take your time thinking it over. We’ll only start moving after at least two months. You’ll be on vacation soon, right? Rest and think about it then.”
“Yes…”
Of course, even if they did not have girlfriends, they surely had parents, siblings, friends, and other relationships they would be reluctant to leave behind, so it would be difficult for most of them to answer right away.
“One last thing I’ll add is that if you plan to continue living as developers, working in a major market like America will be a huge career step and experience.”
A week later, Lee Suhyeon from the graphics team was the first to decide to join them.
Lee Suhyeon had also thought about it a lot. But the reason he had originally joined this development team was because he judged that computers would become the mainstream in the future, and he wanted to ride that wave.
And after working under Insu all this time, he had become convinced that he had come to the right place.
Of course, he did feel something that might have been fear or resistance toward living in an unfamiliar place like America. But he absolutely did not want to leave this place when its future success was so obvious.
And like the Team Leader said, America is the land of opportunity. It’s a place some people are desperate to go to but can’t!
That was the thought that made him decide.
“You made the right choice!”
Insu felt greatly encouraged now that most of the team members had already decided to join him. But he was still concerned about the one remaining person, Yoo Juyeon.
Ah. He’d be a real shame to lose too.
While developing Medieval Fantasy Nobility, Insu had confirmed Yoo Juyeon’s skill in handling sound. Even if he was not exactly a master musician, he was definitely not a talent one could easily find. Moreover, the fact that he could code while also handling sound to that level was a huge plus in game development.
To be honest, Lee Suhyeon was diligent and competent, but he was relatively easier to replace, so for a brief moment, Insu wondered whether it might have been better if Yoo Juyeon had been the one to say he would join instead.
But it’s not like I can drag him there by force.
If Yoo Juyeon were at the company, Insu could at least try persuading him, but since he was on vacation, even that was difficult. For several days, Insu looked at Yoo Juyeon’s phone number in the company contact list and agonized over it.
Meanwhile, Yoo Juyeon himself was also deep in thought.
“Father. What do you think about me going to America to work?”
Instead of going somewhere to enjoy his vacation, he rested at home, then visited his father’s instrument shop, a place he had wandered in and out of like a playground throughout his childhood. There, he healed himself by fiddling with instruments and peripheral equipment.
Then he suddenly confessed his dilemma to his father.
“Why America? Are you trying to change jobs?”
“No. My current company says it’s moving to America.”
Yoo Juyeon’s father wiped an instrument and thought for a moment before opening his mouth again.
“As for me, of course I’d prefer it if you lived near home.”
“…”
That made sense. No parent would simply be happy about their child leaving for a distant place. Just as Yoo Juyeon’s heart began leaning to one side, his father continued.
“But America, huh? If it were me, I’d go at least once.”
“Really?”
“Of course! When you’re young, you should try playing in bigger waters! And don’t worry about me and your mother. We’re still perfectly healthy. Besides, it’s not as if going to America means you’ll never come back, right?”
“…Right.”
It felt as if his eyes had opened wide. True, it was not as though he was going somewhere he could never return from. So he could just go first, and if it really did not suit him, he could think about it again then. Once he thought of it that way, interest in America finally began welling up inside him.
It was a country he had only seen in movies, and the most developed and powerful country in the world.
Right!
Yoo Juyeon hesitated and thought a little longer, then picked up the phone.
“Oh! You made the right choice! Huh? Ah! Of course. If you can’t handle it, just tell me.”
When Yoo Juyeon called first and said he would go with them, Insu clenched his fist and rejoiced. Once he went to America and opened a new development studio, he planned to expand its scale, so he would hire more people no matter what.
Even so, if the people who had worked in sync with him all this time stayed together, it would naturally be easier to organize the company and more psychologically reassuring as well.
After it became certain that they would go to America, his mother and father became busy preparing all sorts of things. There was his father’s resignation, preparations in America, establishing an American corporation, organizing the current office, and many other tasks.
They decided not to close the Korean corporation and to keep it operating.
They might be able to make use of it someday, and above all, disposing of the assets tied to the corporation would be troublesome. So Insu would continue holding ninety-nine percent of this corporation and leave it to manage assets, including real estate, while continuing game development through the new corporation they would establish in America.
And finally, he was able to quit school.
There was still quite a bit of time left before they left, but the timing was awkward for continuing classes, and he managed to receive permission to drop out using the excuse that he needed to study English for immigration.
Insu called his friends, including Sangshik.
“Yeah. I’m going to America. I don’t know. I’ll probably keep living there. Yeah. Yeah.”
In truth, since these were friends from the lower grades of elementary school, and he was separating from them by going overseas, he did not think there was much chance they would keep in touch for long. Still, he thought he should at least say goodbye.
And you never know what might happen later.
Also, when he thought about it, if he went to America like this, the only people he would still know in Korea would be his school friends. Insu resolved that he would at least keep contacting them steadily himself.
“Yeah. It’s me, Insu. Kim Insu. I’m going to America.”
[Huh? Insu? America? Really?]
As this thought occurred to him, his classmates began to feel more precious, and he even ended up calling Kim Joohee. Fortunately, Joohee seemed a little surprised, but she answered the call normally.
“Then I’ll call again.”
[Yeah. Okay. See you later.]
If Insu had truly been a second grader in elementary school, he would absolutely never have called a girl from his class. But if this too counted as a reincarnator’s ability, then it was an ability.
Insu chuckled to himself for no reason as he thought this.
In any case, he was finally liberated from school.
“Yes!”
Officially, he would still receive homeschooling even after going to America, but in reality, he would likely make a small donation to a Korean church’s homeschooling program and only show his face from time to time. This had already been discussed with a local church.
Since one could never know what might happen later, he planned to study on his own and eventually pass the GED test. But in any case, it could be said that he would no longer have to sit through elementary school-level classes like he did in Korea.
GED could be considered America’s high school equivalency exam. Eunha noona was probably rejoicing over being freed from school without even knowing that something like this existed.
He might perhaps need to take something like the CAT as well, but it was not necessarily required. And even if it was, it would truly be at a child’s level, so he was not particularly worried.
(Translator’s Note: Translator’s Note: CAT (California Achievement Test) — A standardized academic achievement test commonly used in U.S. schools and homeschooling programs.)
Afterward, he rested for a short while, then learned English from his mother and thought about his next project and future plans.
Originally, Insu had planned to attend an English academy. He could speak English to some extent, but to be honest, he was not at the level where he could call himself fluent.
However, Insu was still too young, so it was dangerous for him to attend a conversation academy alone. It would have been different if there were one near his house, but the decent conversation academies were quite far away.
“I’ll just teach you.”
“Huh?”
“Mom is good at English!”
When his mother heard Insu say that he wanted to attend a conversation academy, she said she would teach him herself. Only after hearing her words did Insu wonder why he had not asked his mother to teach him first.
But when he thought about it again, it had not been that long since he learned that his mother was this good at English.
Actually learning from his mother was not bad at all. Since she had not majored in English education, she was not especially skilled at teaching itself, but her English was close to native-speaker level.
In truth, the reason Hyein became confident enough to teach Insu herself was because she had recently started using and studying English again, recovering the skills that had grown rusty. To be honest, before she took over as CEO from her husband, she had simply been forgetting more and more English.
“Let’s stop here for today.”
“Yes!”
“But you need to keep practicing your pronunciation.”
“Yes…”
His mother was not the harsh type, but the pressure of English itself and the burden of one-on-one lessons left Insu quite exhausted.
But he could not just sprawl around and play. It was already August of 1991. Considering that he planned to finish all preparations and begin MMORPG development in 1993, if he dawdled, he might not be able to build as much of a foundation as he wanted.
No, come to think of it, I’ve already earned money, so I probably can create the development team somehow.
Even so, he felt uneasy about taking a newly formed development team and immediately moving into a large-scale project like an MMORPG, one that was quite experimental by the standards of the current era.
He also thought that the two games they had developed so far formed at least a minimum foundation, but it was not at a satisfactory level.
I also need to release more entries in the series and strengthen the IP.
There were less than two years left until 1993. It was not a very long time, but if he planned properly and moved busily, it was also enough time to make one game.
This time, it should definitely be an RPG.
The title would probably be The Land Of Fantasy 2.
The part he agonized over the most was the combat system.
Although Insu had an MMORPG in mind, when developing The Land Of Fantasy 1, he had adopted a turn-based system because of the limitations of computer specifications at the time and the nature of a single-player game.
But since he planned to create an MMORPG right after The Land Of Fantasy 2, he needed to design the system with that in mind.
Generally, an MMORPG worked by having the player control a single avatar and live in a world.
So at first, he had thought about making the second game work in that direction somehow.
Since computer performance was still limited, he wondered whether he could compromise somehow and use something like the bump combat from the Ys series.
(Translator’s Note: Ys Series — A long-running Japanese action role-playing game franchise developed by Nihon Falcom, known for its fast-paced combat and fantasy storytelling.)
But lately, he had begun thinking that an MMORPG did not necessarily need to be made with a single character and real-time combat.
After all, by the time the mobile era arrived later, many online games used deck-building turn-based combat too.
And when Insu recalled the online games he played as a child, many people enjoyed playing alone rather than necessarily engaging in party play.