Loyalty and Duty
"A zombie game? Aw, come on. You're already prepping your next project?"
"No, not yet. I came to Gamestar and got inspired, but nothing's concrete."
The first impression I had when I came to this game festival was that the crowd looked like a horde of zombies.
The moment the event began, they'd all surge forward staring straight ahead, or swarm around beautiful cosplayers in revealing outfits, chasing them down to snap photos—and for a split second, it looked exactly like a zombie horde.
Watching them so intently, a thought crept into my head: what if my next project was a zombie game?
"Hmhm. A zombie game, you say..."
Ma Chenyu rubbed his brow with his fingers, looking troubled.
"You're not thinking of changing your next project to a different genre, are you?"
"No, sir. I've come to want to make it."
"Good grief. So that's why you turned down Tencin's investment. You're the kind of man who'd make the game he wants to make even if it killed you."
"Well, something like that."
"Phew... What a shame."
Brother Ma Chenyu let out a long sigh.
"As much as I expect from your games, a zombie game is a hard sell. You know that as well as I do. Dodging the authorities' regulations won't be easy, and even if you did manage it, that wouldn't be the direction you wanted anyway."
I nodded.
China's regulations were famously, brutally strict.
At their foundation, the Chinese state was built on socialism and embraced materialism as its governing ideology, which meant supernatural beings—superstitious creatures like zombies, jiangshi, and ghosts—were forbidden outright.
The market had loosened up a bit since opening up, but several prohibitions remained strictly enforced: no exposed skeletons, no human modification or mutation, no depictions of blood (red blood, that is). A zombie violated every single one of these rules.
If I truly wanted to break into the Chinese market with the zombie game I had planned as my next project, I'd have to change the color of the blood and graft living flesh over the zombies' rotting corpses—at which point it would cease to be a zombie game at all and become something else entirely.
I'd have had no choice but to settle for the far less favorable Plan B. But Brother Ma saw things differently.
"As far as I'm concerned, I never heard any of this."
"Excuse me? What do you mean...?"
"I mean I never heard that your next project is a zombie game. No such conversation ever took place between us. And if that's the case, there's no problem with you choosing Plan A, is there?"
"No—Dage! Wouldn't that be a loss for Tencin?"
"After all that grand talk I gave you before, I've been carrying a weight in my chest over a promise I couldn't keep. I only wished to lighten that burden, in whatever small way I could. You didn't discuss your next project with Ma Chenyu, department head of Tencin—you discussed it with me, your syungdi. One must keep public duty and personal loyalty separate."
Hearing the man who separated public and private less than anyone else alive say those words set my heart ablaze.
"Brother Ma...!"
"Brother Jo...!"
I, Cho Yihan, could only thank the heavens for weaving the fate that allowed me to serve this man as my Dage.
"Someday... someday, I will repay you...!"
"There's no need. It's nothing more than the small courtesy an older brother extends to his younger one."
"How could I possibly...!"
"Enough. If you truly think of me as your brother, then keeping it out of your heart is what's best for me."
Scrape.
Brother Ma rose from his chair as if to say there was nothing left to discuss.
"The contract signing is in one week, at one in the afternoon. Baekje Hotel."
"Dage...!"
"I have a schedule, so I'll be off. I hope you achieve what you came to Gamestar for, little brother."
He left without a single glance back.
Watching Brother Ma today, I finally understood how wuxia—a genre built on yi, on righteousness—could have been born in China.
The founding scribes of wuxia knew.
They knew that in a world of the strong devouring the weak, where supreme power trampled all, there existed those who rose above the petty gains and losses that obsessed ordinary men—figures like heroes walking out of legend.
They knew that in a China where so many lost face, there were still those rare few who shone all the brighter for their rarity.
"Again... with the yi and the duty..."
Meeting the monitor's gaze,
straightening my hunched back,
resting my hands on the keyboard,
eyes wide open,
mind sharpened to a point,
one great step forward.
For the next project.
The consideration Brother Ma showed me—repaying it through my games was surely my duty.
"Dage...!"
"Mr. Seokho, what's wrong with the Director? He's seemed a little out of it ever since lunch."
"I have no idea! He had a meeting with someone from Tencin, and he's been like this ever since!"
"Did the terms get so bad his mind just broke?"
"Stop! Ms. Juhui, even if you are a employee I cherish, I will not stand by while you slander my sworn elder brother!"
"What is with him..."
No estrogen-drenched Cha Juhui could ever comprehend the burning friendship of men.
Brimming with fresh resolve, I turned to Mr. Seokho, the manager in charge of this event.
"Mr. Seokho. How many visitors have we had today?"
"Around 140."
I knew better than to compare us to the massive booth we'd run at Nexon's showcase, but against an event that averaged ten thousand visitors a year, 140 was far, far too few.
I knew this was the reality of any ordinary booth. Even so, this wouldn't do.
"Starting tomorrow, Ms. Juhui and Ms. Minji, let's promote a little more aggressively."
"I'm sorry—more than this? How?"
"Ms. Juhui, take a page from the Nine-Tailed Fox and practice luring visitors in with your eyes alone. And Ms. Minji, what you're doing right now is excellent, but it takes you far too long to work a single person. Let's trim that down a bit."
"I'll do my best."
Unlike Ms. Minji's crisp reply, Cha Juhui's answer began with a sigh.
"I'm not actually a Nine-Tailed Fox! How am I supposed to do that!"
"Put your mind to it and you can."
"Before you tell us to shape up, shouldn't you and Mr. Seongbae be the ones shaping up? Compared to us, your numbers are absolutely dismal!"
Every visitor I brought in, Cha Juhui and Ms. Minji brought in ten, so her point wasn't wrong. But there was one thing she was failing to grasp.
"Ms. Juhui. Do you know the visitor gender ratio at Gamestar? Seventy-five percent men, twenty-five percent women."
"..."
"If we told the male visitors to follow us—would they come, or wouldn't they?"
"...I'll work hard."
"Working hard is the baseline. Let's work well."
I resolved to make my own efforts too.
cosplaying was mortifying beyond words, utterly humiliating—but I would bear it. I would perform this masquerade to the absolute best of my ability.
"Three days left. Let's give it everything."
On day two, thanks to my newfound aggressiveness, slightly more visitors stopped by the booth than on the first day.
On day three, word had spread that Minji and Cha Juhui's "customer service" was something to see, and visitors curious about the two of them pushed our numbers past the first two days combined.
"I quit... I'm quitting... Now that I think about it, I'm on the art team. Why am I doing this job...?"
"Take a lesson from Ms. Minji."
I pointed at Ms. Minji, who was hard at work drumming up customers with all her might, just as instructed—watch and learn.
"Hey! You! Get over here!"
"Uh... yes?"
"Don't you dawdle at me, male!"
"Th-thank you..."
"Stupid male, spouting nonsense! Inside! Now!"
Ms. Minji was doing exactly what I wanted: working hard, and working well.
"That is not the Minji I know..."
Snapping out of her despair, Cha Juhui's head shot up and she glared at me.
"You demon! Give me back the Minji I know!"
"If you're done resting, get back out there."
"Ahh... I should've quit ages ago..."
Cha Juhui trudged off grumbling, but the moment a visitor passed by, she lured them in with all the enthusiasm of someone who'd never worn a tearful expression in her life.
And so, the final day arrived.
At the Gamestar Cosplay Awards, Cha Juhui and Ms. Minji won the Popularity Award.
"Let's hear an acceptance speech!"
"Whew... I never expected to stand on a stage like this.... I'm grateful for the Popularity Award, but honestly, I have no idea how, or why, the two of us received it.... Please give lots of love to Dot Hero and ACD, released by our very own Playforge.... And, um, if anyone here is thinking of applying to work with us—please don't."
"A refreshingly original acceptance speech! Thank you! That was the Nine-Tailed Fox and Wolf Lady, winners of the Popularity Award!"
It was all thanks to the visitors in attendance, so moved by the two women's dedication that they'd voted for them in droves.
I greeted the two as they trudged back with a round of applause.
"Truly—Playforge's proud art team leader and senior artist."
"Too exhausted... to even talk back..."
After packing up the booth, we had a casual team dinner at a raw fish restaurant in Busan.
"Everyone, thank you for your hard work putting this event together on such short notice. First, our developer Hwang Seokho, who oversaw the whole thing—despite being handed work completely unrelated to programming, he exceeded every expectation."
"Thank you! It was my first time running a project like this, so I had plenty of worries, but I think it went well because everyone threw themselves into helping!"
I planned to hand him another event down the line, or maybe let him try his hand at planning. Mr. Seokho looked happier right now than he ever did writing code—it suited him.
"Next, Cha Juhui, Kim Minji, and... Mr. Seongbae, for luring in visitors with all that hard selling. Well done, all of you. It's winter, and you spent the entire day in costume—that couldn't have been easy. Thank you for your efforts."
"We... are getting bonuses, right?"
"Of course."
"A bonus... yahoo..."
The yahoo came out so listless it barely qualified as one. They must have been utterly exhausted.
"And Daniel and Mr. Jaemin, who put their backs into hauling materials like tables and chairs—you both worked hard too."
"Boss. I think I threw my back out. Does this count for workers' comp?"
"Naturally. Mr. Jaemin, are you holding up all right?"
"M-my whole b-body aches..."
People who sat at desks all day had done physical labor; of course they were sore.
Because I knew exactly how much they'd toiled, I decided on a very generous reward.
"Today is Sunday, so take Monday and Tuesday off. Rest up properly."
"R-really?!"
"Yes. I'm not the kind of man who works his people through the weekend and then pretends it never happened."
"D-Director? Then for two days it'll just be the j-junior developers at the office... will that be all right...?"
"Of course. The team leaders will come back and review everything anyway, so it'll be fine."
The light that had returned to Mr. Jaemin's face drained right back out.
"Th-then isn't that a case of 'a m-man in the m-morning, a dead man by evening'...?"
"In that case, would you rather rest just the one day?"
"Yes.... I'll rest Monday only and c-come in Tuesday.... I find it easier to s-stay ahead of the work..."
It was his own choice, so I had no intention of stopping him.
"What about you, Ms. Juhui?"
"If I-i-it's going to be like this, I never should have taken the team lead position!"
"Shall I take it back, then?"
"That's not what I meant.... I'll take both days off anyway. Future Cha Juhui can deal with the consequences!"
Well, that was her own choice too.
"Do as you please. I've been talking too long—the fish is getting eaten. Dig in, everyone."
"The fish is getting... cold, you mean?"
"That's what I said, Ms. Juhui. Going to catch my words on a hook?"
"I cosplayed for something that isn't even in my employment contract—I've earned the right to nitpick!"
I had my own share of guilt on that front, so I snorted a laugh.
"I won't make you do it again, so let this one slide, everyone. I got too carried away because it looked fun."
"As long as you know."
As the dinner mellowed along, Mr. Jaemin asked me a question.
"D-Director. I've been th-thinking—will the D-Director be taking the two days off too? You're the o-owner, the CEO, the e-executive director of the company, and yet you'd rest one day while I rest two...?"
Maybe it was the alcohol, but he was asking more bluntly and bravely than usual. We'd had plenty of team dinners before, but this was our first with drinks in it, so this was my first taste of Mr. Jaemin's drunken boldness.
"I'd like to, believe me..."
"You'd... like to?"
"I don't think I'll be able to come in for those two days. There's something I need to do in Busan. Well, if it finishes up quickly, I'll try to make it in on Tuesday."
Daniel, mid-pour, stopped and looked up.
"Something to do? Gamestar's over. What's left to do in Busan?"
"Yeah."
"The China meeting?"
"No, that's done. All that's left is signing."
"Then what is it?"
It wasn't anything that needed hiding, so I told him.
"Prep for the next project. I'm planning to set it in Busan, so I came to capture some landmarks and terrain."
Crash—!
The sound of soju glasses shattering against the restaurant floor rang out, again and again.