The Sea Story That Broke My Brain
Sea Story. My brain just blue-screened. Sea Story.
In my original world, this was the single machine that had single-handedly turned Korean arcades into smoking craters. When people thought of pachinko, they pictured those old mechanical slot machines. This thing digitized the whole concept, handing out prizes instead of cash that could then be exchanged for money at nearby exchange shops. In other words, it was basically a gambling den wearing the skin of a game. A true root of all evil that made even the analog versions look innocent by comparison.
What made it even more vicious was that the owner could tweak the odds with nothing but a notepad, and because every machine was networked together, they could even control the exact cash return rate. It wasn’t gambling. It was outright fraud with no escape clause. That damned root of all evil had not only devastated arcades in my previous life but had also been the direct cause of the Game Rating and Administration Committee’s creation. It was the ultimate supervillain of the entire gaming industry.
So the moment I saw it, my teeth clenched and pure rage boiled up inside me. That’s why the sight of it made my blood pressure spike instantly.
In short… how the hell am I supposed to refute this?
Even in my original world, people had tried to brush it off with some half-assed “it’s just a meme” defense, but it eventually blew up anyway. They kept arguing however they wanted until, at the worst possible timing, someone dropped the nuclear option. Honestly, maybe these people are secretly high-IQ masterminds hiding their power levels? For now, I’ll try to shield with the partial defense and… figure out the rest later.
The conversation was starting to veer off in a weird direction. I couldn’t tell if the other side was deliberately shifting the focus or if they genuinely couldn’t stay on topic.
I drew a firm line and clearly separated the standards between games and gambling along with their distinctions. This should be enough of a patch job. I had to stay resolute here. One slip and they’d grab me by the collar and never let go.
And just like that… Sea Story was quietly swept under the rug without any further discussion. They had brought the nuclear option to the table and then failed to even use it properly before moving on. Sigh. What a bunch of idiots. I could’ve countered better than them.
So the meaningless back-and-forth continued. When I checked the clock, more than two hours had already passed. At this rate it wasn’t a 100-minute debate anymore. It was a 150-minute debate. Still, the end was finally starting to come into view.
Oh right. This was end-of-the-century South Korea. I had underestimated this apocalyptic era where only the strong survived.
I brushed it off with the partial defense again and prepared my Taiji Fist.
I was ready to show them the true Taiji Fist of the 21st century, forged with every possible resource from the future.
That’s what I had vowed…
“Pffft?!”
That wasn’t me laughing. Several audience members had burst out at the same time. Looking at the person in the back desperately trying to hold it in, even I couldn’t stay quiet. Yeah, even from your perspective this is ridiculous, right? And you there, the one trying to hold your laughter in. Mr. Representative. No matter how hard you try to look calm next to me, I can see your face turning red and your body trembling. Wow! So a bald man can become a real tomato, red all the way to the top of his head!
And just like that, the 21st-century Taiji Fist was sunk by the legendary self-destruct move known as friendly fire. If that wasn’t a Dark Knight sacrificing his own body for the sake of games, I don’t know what is.
I don’t really remember how the rest of it went. Uh… I think we just crushed them? When I came back to my senses, the debate was over and everyone was dispersing. Well, I guess it turned out fine!
After that… I went back to preparing my papers, occasionally contributing to Linux, and doing maintenance on the games. There were people on SounDrive who saw the rhythm games and asked if they could add their own music, but there were too many ambiguous issues like copyright disputes and revenue sharing, so I put it on hold. I’m still not sure how they even encountered rhythm games in the first place. I had set Digital Inside so that videos longer than a certain length couldn’t be uploaded due to traffic concerns.
Anyway, after high school, this was the most laid-back period I had ever experienced! The fact that I’m calling the state of preparing two papers while simultaneously handling everything I just mentioned “laid-back” probably means I’ve finally lost it.
The paper topics were big ones, just like I had promised to drop bombs. The first was about 3D—specifically, implementing 3D graphics on home computers. The second was about methods to improve graphical performance. I planned to dump every graphics-related trick and optimization technique from my original world that was about three years ahead of current technology.
In truth, I had already applied some of the graphics improvements to the rhythm game’s BGA and Strikers. Thanks to that, our color representation and optimization were probably among the best in the world for the same hardware specs.
Campus life was a lost cause, but I was still attending university diligently. It was hard to shake the thought that I was more competent than my major professors, but crushing it grade-wise was still fun. Sorry, classmates. Please become the fodder for my superiority complex…!
Setting a record average GPA of 4.4 and receiving a full scholarship along with various benefits was quite a nice experience too. In my previous life, maintaining a 4.2 had been my limit. Seeing this, it seems like even excluding my own competence, there might be some reincarnator perks at play.
Time passed faster than expected, and before I knew it, it was winter break. All the senior club members had graduated. But my attendance at the PC bang didn’t change. What was I even doing there if I wasn’t making games? Everyone just worked on whatever they wanted to make.
Im Jin-bae was obsessed with improving SimCity, and Kim Jeong-jun had eagerly snatched up the idea I casually tossed him and was now making a Puyo Puyo Tetris hybrid. Next time we hold a tournament with that, I’ll absolutely crush you, Yoo Ji-young. As they say, a gentleman’s revenge is never too late even after ten years.
Lately I had been occasionally challenging Yoo Ji-young to Tetris matches, but I always lost by a hair’s breadth and had to give her private drawing lessons as punishment. Though I still don’t understand why she’s so obsessed with the word “private.” Having to sit right next to her correcting her drawings on the same tablet means our arms or other random body parts keep bumping into each other, and it’s surprisingly distracting.
If I weren’t in a woman’s body, I would’ve taken it as flirting and gone straight for a confession. What a shame.
‘Ssshhhaa… How can I-seo smell so good without even wearing perfume… Like in that manga I read last time, I want to bury my face in those defenseless, bouncy breasts and sniff that scent all day… Wait?! What the hell am I thinking!’
Of course, Yoon I-seo had no idea that Yoo Ji-young’s brain was unconsciously running every possible delusional circuit. Two people dreaming the same dream, yet their thoughts were still far from reaching each other.
While Yoon I-seo and her group were finally enjoying a long-awaited break, somewhere else, people who viewed them with hostility were multiplying. At the rate they were growing, they were even surpassing college students who read red books and fell into qi deviation. The reason they were appearing so naturally was simple.
It was probably the side effect of the TV debate achieving the highest viewership rating in history, just as the PD had intended. Parents who hated games were growing in power. If Yoon I-seo had heard them, she would have been horrified, spitting while refuting every word. The way they shouted these things like they were at a protest rally showed just how terrifying extremist parents could become once they set their minds to something.
Oh dear. It finally happened.
As usual, Yoon I-seo had stayed up all night and was heading out to grab the newspaper when she saw the army of ajummas lying down in protest in front of the arcade. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The arcade gate was finally racing toward its end.