When Chaos Finds Its Way Home
After everything that happened with Lumina Arcana, I thought my life would return to peace and quiet. But sadly, my life has gotten twice as busy and chaotic instead.
"Ugh... why did I even acquire Cheonmun?"
I'm not the one leading Cheonmun. I'm not the one leading Black Ridge either. So why are reports still landing on my desk?
ATHENA://VOICE> Even if it doesn't show on the surface, the true owner of those companies is you, Master. Some reports are unavoidable.
"Can't you handle it yourself?"
ATHENA://VOICE> I could. But you should get used to this sort of thing bit by bit, Master.
Here I am, a high school graduate who never even finished college — am I really supposed to be doing this?
"I don't know. You're the one who told me to do this."
I'll give it my best shot, but... if something blows up, it's not on me. Probably.
ATHENA://VOICE> What disaster could come from this? It's just comprehensive reports and a few items that need your review.
"I just got a really bad feeling about this."
Call it intuition, but I have a sinking feeling the pile of documents on my desk is only going to grow over time.
ATHENA://VOICE> You don't need to read all of it. Just focus on this section here and...
Athena, who had been explaining things to me, suddenly asked me to hold on.
"What's up? Something wrong?"
ATHENA://VOICE> No, nothing major. It seems there's an issue with Neo Gate.
If it had been any other company, I wouldn't have batted an eye. But hearing Neo Gate — the company that made my life hell before the acquisition — coming out of Athena's mouth made my hair stand on end.
"Why? What is it now? I'm freaking out."
The odds of it being a major disaster are close to zero, but even hearing the name Neo Gate makes my heart pound.
ATHENA://VOICE> Give me a moment. I'll show you.
And there it was on my screen — a new skin illustration of Serena, the most popular character and my in-game wife.
"What the hell? It's just an illustration."
For a second I thought maybe my wife was just too pretty and that was causing problems. But no, that couldn't be it.
ATHENA://VOICE> Here — could you take a closer look at the right hand?
Her left hand was making a V-sign, and she was leaning with her right hand resting on a desk. A completely normal pose. Nothing wrong with it.
"What? She looks beautiful. What's the problem..."
I looked closer. Her fingers seemed a bit off.
"Huh? What the fuck? How is that even possible?"
I felt a bit embarassed, but I tried to mimic the pose myself — and there's no way a right hand can bend like that.
The skin was scheduled to launch this Thursday. The illustration and in-game motion previews had already been released ahead of time. And this is where it blew up.
"Ah. I seriously want to kill someone. How the fuck did this happen?"
I vacillated between blinding rage and sudden calm like a manic-depressive on a roller coaster, cycling through my emotions until I finally reached one conclusion.
Is having a certain ideology the problem? Of course not. Even if that ideology is morally reprehensible, what ideology someone holds is their own damn business. You don't have to understand it, but as long as it doesn't harm others, it deserves respect.
But shoving that ideology into commercial artwork intended to generate profit for a company — causing customers and the company itself to lose their minds, inflicting financial and time losses?
That's just wrong. I guarantee even that illustrator's own parents would say the same thing.
Or maybe...
"Please, for the love of God, tell me it got caught during quality assurance. Please."
I'm already pissed that my favorite character has been tainted by those fingers. But if it was caught before upload — during QA — then it's no big deal. I'd praise the QA guy and fuck up the illustrator. End of story.
ATHENA://VOICE> I'm sorry, Master.
Hearing those words from Athena felt like my world was collapsing.
"It's already up? For real?"
It's Tuesday, which is when all the promotional material goes live. I knew it must have been uploaded, but I wanted to deny it.
ATHENA://VOICE> From now on, I'll be monitoring this area too. I'm truly sorry, Master.
I still don't know why Athena is apologizing. Probably because I was fuming one moment, then looking heartbroken the next, acting like a total bipolar mess.
"No, it's not your fault... You don't really get involved with Lumina Arcana — only the new projects."
She checks the in-game source code, but everything else is handled by the Lumina Arcana team.
Still, I have to do what I have to do. I tried to check the YouTube comments for Lumina Arcana, but the image — which had been up for only an hour — already had over a thousand comments.
"We're fucked, aren't we?"
The game's been picking up steam lately, but I know damn well it doesn't have this level of engagement normally.
Fuuu—
I took a deep breath and clicked on the comments. The first thing that greeted me was a torrent of profanity.
Every kind of comment you could imagine — insults at the company, insults at the illustrator, and trolls who showed up just to stir the pot because of the mess.
My head was spinning. I read a few comments and immediately closed the tab.
"How the hell do we clean this up?"
A few years ago, when similar incidents happened at other game companies, Lumina Arcana hadn't escaped the controversy either. They took the same hit. And now it's happening again. I'm speechless. The same exact kind of scandal that turned the company upside down years ago — and the QA team still fucked up so badly that this happened again. It's almost funny.
"What the hell? I thought we already purged the QA team."
The QA team that was in place before the acquisition was famous for being incompetent, so I'd cleaned house. And yet the same thing happens again. Makes me want to pull my hair out.
────
*Knock knock knock*—
The same sound of knocking I always hear. But today, it sounds like Death himself is at the door.
"Come in."
Kang Hyeok-jun — now in his second month as CEO of Neo Gate, having taken over more than a month ago — was working in the former chairman's executive office when he received a call from the parent company. He'd just covered his face with his hands and sighed when the director of Lumina Arcana and key team members walked in.
*Bowing*—
The director, who was the same age as him, bowed politely and took a seat with his team.
"Have you managed to contact the artist?"
Hyeok-jun had worked at a major domestic game company and earned recognition for his outstanding skills, but luck had never been on his side, so his career had stagnated. He was headhunted and recruited by Neo Gate. He already had a firm grasp on how the company operated.
"I'm sorry. He's ignoring all attempts at contact and has gone off the grid."
If the screw-up had come from an internal employee, damage control would have been much easier. But when an outsourced illustrator causes a major disaster, there's no good answer.
And to make matters worse, the incident wasn't even caught by the company's own QA team — the *parent company* found it and contacted them first. There was no excuse for their incompetence.
"Director, you understand the situation, don't you? The summer update is right around the corner. We had a major incident just like this years ago, and now it's happening again in the exact same way. If we handle this cleanup poorly, the summer event could take a serious hit."
"I'm truly sorry. The YouTube video and community posts have been taken down, and all images on the official community have been removed as well."
"And the apology? Has it gone up yet?"
"We're drafting it now. It'll be uploaded immediately after review."
"Understood. Go back to your work."
Kang Hyeok-jun sighed and dismissed the director and his team. A disaster right before a major update.
────
I was chatting with Athena while reviewing reports, and suddenly getting blindsided like this killed any remaining focus I had.
ATHENA://VOICE> The apology is up. Would you like to see it?
"Yeah. Let's see how they wrote it."
I'm going to intervene regardless. But if the apology is garbage, I'll be swinging my sword again.
Greetings, Adventurers. This is Neo Gate.
First and foremost, we sincerely apologize for including inappropriate imagery in today's newly revealed Serena skin illustration, causing deep discomfort and concern among our users. We bow our heads in genuine apology.
We would like to inform you of what has been identified regarding this issue and the direction of our future actions.
The promotional YouTube video and all related posts on the official community have been made private or deleted.
Furthermore, we have decided to scrap all illustrations and in-game resources related to this skin by the artist in question.
This work was produced through an external commissioned artist, and we have determined that the artist deliberately inserted personal ideology during the creative process, damaging the image of both the company and the product.
Neo Gate will immediately terminate all ongoing collaborations with this artist and permanently exclude them from all future projects. Additionally, we pledge to pursue full civil and criminal legal liability for intentional business interference and breach of contract to the fullest extent of the law.
Moreover, despite having replaced our QA team to prevent repeating past mistakes, we failed to catch the subtly inserted inappropriate imagery. There is no excuse for our incompetence. We once again bow our heads in apology.
We will also conduct a full investigation of all previous works involving this artist, as well as every resource related to the currently developing summer update.
The lengthy notice included cleanly written messages about the skin's rework and an apology. But of course, since the same old problem happened — even after replacing the QA team — user reactions weren't exactly positive.
Their past track record hurt their credibility. The reactions weren't exactly positive.
Honestly, I admit the apology was well-written. But I still feel like shit.
ATHENA://VOICE> I'll join the full investigation of previous resources too. If we leave it to the Lumina Arcana team, who knows what else might slip through.
"Yeah. I'm nervous about another explosion too."
Years ago, when the same kind of thing turned the entire gaming industry upside down, Lumina Arcana had also written a terrible apology, taken a backlash, and promised a full investigation. But still — if Athena is doing a double check, nothing will slip through. That puts my mind at ease.
"I'll leave the internal resources to you... and now I need to catch that fucker of an illustrator and take him down, right?"
Even just on principle — the bastard shit all over my company's business and then went dark, trying to run. I have to destroy him.