It's Always Someone Else's Fault
Clunk!
The door to Melody Bringlight's dorm room swung open, revealing a glimpse of a bright, cozy one-room apartment through the narrow gap.
"...Hold on a sec."
"Why?"
Just as I was about to step inside, Melody blocked the doorway in a panic, her face flushing red as she tried to stop me.
"Senior, give me one minute first."
"...You haven't cleaned up, have you?"
She nodded sheepishly at my question.
"Even so, when a guest comes over, you can't just leave the place a mess, right?"
"Everyone living alone is like that."
A solo dorm room is basically a pigsty by default.
The proper solo dweller...
Doesn't clean until their boyfriend or girlfriend is about to visit. That's Article 1 of the Solo Dwellers' Constitution.
"Even if the room's a bit messy, we can still have our planning meeting."
"...Does Lewis Senior have no shame as a human being?"
"Nah, I'm just prioritizing the urgent stuff."
One minute later.
Melody flung the door wide open, her face still beet red, and I stepped into her surprisingly spotless dorm room.
For a solo dweller, this is a solid 10/10 on cleanliness.
...Meaning the dirty trash and unwashed junk was shoved into the corners, but there was plenty of space for another person.
After tidying up just enough, it was finally time to talk planning. We sat facing each other in the middle of the tiny room. I cleared my throat softly, eyeing Melody who was still giving me suspicious side-glances.
"Ahem, anyway, I've got this killer idea."
"Let's hear it."
I grabbed a pen from the desk and scribbled lines on a sheet of paper.
Scritch-scratch!
Three lanes. And ten little doll-like character figures.
"What do you think? Perfect rough model, right? So, this is..."
"Senior."
"Hm?"
Melody pointed at the character figures.
"What are these potato-looking things?"
"...Characters. Characters."
"...You really can't draw, huh."
"Art's not my major."
I grumbled pointlessly. Planners are supposed to know a bit of everything, but hey, nobody's perfect.
Drawing...
I can code, but I've never been able to draw for shit.
"Anyway, what are you planning to do with this?"
"A mashup of RPG and strategy."
"RPG and strategy...?"
Melody blinked in confusion.
"Strategy games are like Stars' War, right? Where one person commands everything."
"Exactly."
I nodded. It was the same in this world and my previous life—strategy games ruled their eras.
The overwhelming commander directing the battlefield solo.
It's the pinnacle of human intellect: commanding vast armies, pulling off massive maneuvers and tactics right where they're needed.
And it's not just brains—you need lightning judgment and godlike reflexes too.
Micro-managing every single soldier isn't for the faint of heart.
Sure enough, Melody lived up to her top-student rep and rattled off the definition of RPGs.
"RPGs are about raising characters, though."
"Yep."
"So how the hell do you combine those two genres?"
I flicked the pen lightly toward her furrowed brow.
"Simple. On the strategy battlefield, the player only controls one character."
"No way."
Melody shot back immediately, looking exasperated.
"Senior, you've never played a proper RPG, have you? They're marathon genres—you sink dozens, hundreds of hours into raising a character. How do you cram that into a single strategy match?"
"Compress it."
"Huh?"
I drew lightly with the pen. Her eyes followed.
Three lanes, meeting at a central point in the middle of each.
"The player grows here. Way faster than any RPG—several times, no, dozens of times quicker."
"How?"
"You get EXP when nearby grunts die. And gold if you kill them yourself."
Every AOS game works the same. Minions dying nearby give EXP. Last-hitting them gives gold.
But Melody zeroed in on what I hadn't said yet.
"Okay, Senior, but then every character grows the same, right?"
"Nope."
I pointed to the empty spaces between the three lanes.
"We'll put mobs here."
"What kind?"
"Mobs that give bonus EXP and gold when hunted."
"...Okay, that's starting to sound plausible."
She looked half-convinced.
"But what do you even buy with that gold?"
"It's an RPG, remember? Items. Skilled farmers gear up better."
"...So what's the win condition?"
I pointed to where the three lanes began.
"Destroy the enemy base here. I drew ten characters earlier? It's not two players—it's ten players, five per team in two teams. Team-based competition."
The moment I finished explaining, Melody snorted derisively.
"Senior. The flaws in this plan are glaring."
"Like what?"
"Team-based competition? Why bother?"
She snatched the pen and tapped the paper.
"Stars' War lets you control hundreds of units solo. Gamers are addicted to multitasking. Why split into five controlling one each? Just have one player handle all five heroes. Way more efficient, easier to balance variables."
A perfect counterargument from this world's RTS player. But I just smirked.
"Melody. You think about games way too rationally."
"What do you mean?"
"What's the real reason people play games? Perfect control? Efficiency? Nah."
I leaned in close to her.
"It's blaming others."
"Huh?"
"If you solo five heroes and lose, it's all your fault. How stressful is that? But if five players each control one and you lose? Not your fault. It's those other four idiots who shit the bed—minus you."
"......"
Melody froze, mouth half-open. I piled on.
"Flip it around for a win? Whether they bussed you or not, you get that insane carry high. Loss responsibility gets spread thin, win euphoria maxed out. That's the core of this game."
She picked up the scribbled paper and examined it closely.
"...But will that actually be fun?"
"Of course."
I declared it confidently to her lingering doubts.
"It's gonna be the greatest game ever—packed tight with humanity's sticky malice."
"......Team game, huh. Where's the malice in that?"
She tilted her head. I clicked my tongue inwardly at her innocent face.
Team games mean...
Prime setup for shoving blame, asking about teammates' moms, and bailing when shit hits the fan.
Anyway...
"Alright, you get the gist of the plan now."
"So what next? Start from scratch?"
"Nah."
I placed a hand on her crystal orb as she still looked uneasy.
Bzzz! It lit up, projecting a hologram onto the wall.
As expected...
Sure enough, the game dev major had the national pastime, Stars' War, installed.
Crystal orbs are game platforms, but they come with dev tools built-in. No different from my old life's coding suites.
But I didn't launch the main game.
Melody glanced at the hologram and exclaimed in surprise.
"This is... the Stars' War map editor?"
"Bingo. No need to build a sample from the ground up."
What we needed wasn't some fancy standalone client. It was a use map—piggybacking on an existing game's systems.
Melody peered at the screen and spoke up.
"But Senior, we only have a month left."
"I know. That's why we skip full builds. Save time and resources, test if it suits this world's tastes first."
I fired up the map editor and tossed the crystal orb to her.
"Whoa?"
"My top game dev junior."
I grinned and shouted.
"I made the plan, so now you do the work?"
"...It better be fun."
Kekeke!
She grumbled back but immediately started tapping away at the map editor. I just swallowed a laugh watching her.
Alright, let it begin.
Time for Earth's plague game to descend on this world.
A few days later.
Orc Doom Pressure was your average orc day laborer.
His strength was renowned in his village, but in modern society, he was just another dime-a-dozen temp worker.
"Here's your pay for today."
"Thanks, grr."
Doom Pressure pocketed his daily wage from the temp agency and trudged back to his rented room. Even in a peaceful world, heavy lifting was still orc territory.
"It's an orc!"
"Dude, you acting like you've never seen a country orc before?"
"Nah, history books say they were super brutal and savage. He's surprisingly chill."
He ignored the whispers behind his back. A true warrior doesn't sweat petty gossip.
But for a warrior whose blood boiled for battle, this peaceful modern society was boring as hell.
His rented room was as spartan as any average Joe's—no different from the next guy. The glory days of savage, heroic orcs were long gone; the world had changed, reducing them to skilled laborers.
"The world's too damn peaceful, grr."
Not that it was bad. Just a bit dull for Doom Pressure.
He washed up roughly and placed a hand on the crystal orb in his room. His body ached from hard labor, but he always had energy left to game.
"That elf squad leader was such a hardass today, grr."
To vent work stress, he logged into this world's national game: Stars' War.
Only games can satisfy an orc's savage instincts.
Sure, other orcs griped that games were lame and stuck to ball sports or physical fights as hobbies. But for Doom Pressure, gaming was pure orcish catharsis.
Though the main game's petty unit micromanagement is total trash.
Hiding in the back giving orders? Not a real warrior's way.
And RPGs are too slow.
Stuff like Maplewood Tales ate up too much time picking mushrooms, and all the guild drama and sticky human relationships just wore him out.
He tapped the crystal orb to open the use map server.
Hero-smashing use maps are the true warrior's game. Need something extra spicy today.
Browsing familiar use map servers for something playable, a weird map caught his eye.
"Arena of Special (A.S.) v0.1?"
First time seeing it. Curiosity piqued, he clicked the room. Empty lobby at first—then users flooded in instantly.
No time to process the popularity—the host hit start like they'd been waiting.
Short loading screen. Then his vision cleared, and Doom Pressure faced a totally alien battlefield for the first time—with pure shock.
"Wh-what the...?!"