That Game's Way of Catching Suckers

I spat out a string of harsh curses. The manager watched me with that look on his face. Then, when the girl from another race beside him turned her head with a bright, happy expression as if she’d just received something, every single one of them immediately pretended they hadn’t been staring at me. Their eyes snapped back to their smartphones like a bunch of pathetic, secret-crushing nerds from my school days who used to sneak glances at the girls they liked.

The sight made my skin crawl. It was too disgusting. When I glared at her, she looked back at me with an expression that clearly said, What’s this guy’s problem? before heading off toward what appeared to be her group—a whole crowd of women who were all far more beautiful than me.

I broke out in a cold sweat for a moment and tried to do some damage control, but I felt like absolute shit so I just left. My stomach was churning from how filthy the whole thing made me feel. I stopped by the convenience store, grabbed some beer, and figured I’d drink it back at the lodging I was staying at. Lately I’d been feeling nauseous all the time, constantly dry-heaving. It was a weird feeling. No way, right? I told myself, but just in case, I bought a pregnancy test at the store and checked it.

Two lines.

“Ah… what the fuck is this? Why are there two lines, you son of a bitch!”

It had been four months since I broke up with my boyfriend. If it happened back then, I should’ve noticed way earlier. But why were there two lines now?!

“This test kit must be defective, right? Yeah, that’s it!”

I was screaming, desperately denying reality, when a memory flashed through my mind.

“Hannah, I’ll throw in another three hundred on top of the seven hundred to make it a full million. In return, is it okay if we skip the condom?”

The words the chairman had said to me at the hotel seven weeks ago.

“Fuck…”

Because he offered three hundred thousand more, I had agreed. And because I thought no way it’ll actually happen, I hadn’t taken the morning-after pill afterward. I cursed myself bitterly while my mind spiraled into chaos. Thoughts of What the hell am I supposed to do now? filled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my head, and my eyes brimmed with tears.

“You crazy bastard! You fucking piece of shit!”

I hurled every curse I could think of at the chairman who had done this to me.

Ravius Online. Cute characters. A solid story. Well-balanced difficulty. Fun raids. In the early days of the server, it was surprisingly user-friendly—you didn’t need to spend money to enjoy it. For a game that was clearly aimed at otakus, it actually had a decent number of players. We used to say we could become the miracle of a small company. Once we started making money, we’d expand to mobile.

Our dreams were huge. But because it was too user-friendly, people didn’t feel the need to spend. With no revenue coming in, the number of employees kept shrinking. Fewer employees meant slower updates. Slower updates meant players had nothing to do and started leaving. As players left, revenue dropped even more. It was an endless vicious cycle, like a Möbius strip.

We even took out loans from secondary financial institutions, desperately trying to keep the spark of hope alive. But the players who left never came back. Later we added a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠favorability system like those dating sims and released costume items designed to appeal to players’ desire to dress up popular characters—including NPCs. Sales doubled, but it was already too late.

We had no money left. We let every employee go. In the end, only three people remained—including the president. Peak concurrent users? One hundred and fifty. People who played more than once a week? Around five hundred. The numbers were so pathetic it wouldn’t have been strange if the company received a Closed sign tomorrow. It was the worst possible situation.

Then one thing changed everything.

‘A girl from another race is playing our perverted game.’

That single fact flipped the script. Connection queues that hadn’t existed since the first week after launch suddenly came back. The servers kept crashing because they couldn’t handle the explosive surge of new users. Revenue jumped more than fifty times compared to the previous month.

It was so unbelievable that the president looked at us and shouted like a madman, “This isn’t a dream, right? Punch me so I can make sure it’s real!”

We had to ride this momentum and release an update, but with only the three of us developers left, we couldn’t do it immediately. So the president pulled an all-nighter and released a raid that had been scrapped because its difficulty was so absurdly high that people would ask, “You’re telling me this can actually be cleared?” On top of that, it required a full party.

Thanks to the massive patch—the first major update in nearly a year—and the rumors, even players who had quit came flooding back. We seized the momentum and launched events for new and returning users. We tried to contact the user who had caused all this—MusclesAreGreat—by sending in-game letters, but they weren’t even reading them. We wanted to reach out through their contact info, but there was absolutely no information available.

After nothing else happened, everyone started thinking it must have been a composite image. We thought so too. There was no way a girl from another race—who was known to harbor extreme disgust ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward humans—would play a perverted game like ours.

So instead of relying on the beautiful-girl buff, we focused on holding various events to retain the users who had already gathered. One of those events was the offline gathering happening right now.

‘Ugh, that internet broadcasting station bastard.’

A girl who looked like she’d be more at home among normies was doing a live broadcast right in front of us, so the otakus weren’t even trying to approach our booth to check out the game. Personally, I was happy to just collect my salary and do nothing, but the company had to survive if I wanted to keep eating and maybe even get a bonus. So I really wished they would come over. But they didn’t.

I checked out the broadcasting station and the girl. She had around four hundred viewers—a decent number for an independent internet streamer. She was a female cam streamer famous for her cute and pure image.

“Her name is Cherry Hannah… She really is pretty.”

If a girl like her were my girlfriend, I’d be insanely happy. While I was thinking that and fantasizing about maybe going on a date with a beauty like her—or at least striking up a conversation—someone finally approached our booth.

“Whoa, pushing through that crowd of normies? Impressive.”

I was genuinely impressed and prepared to greet this rare visitor warmly, but then—

“A… another race?”

I rubbed my eyes, thinking I must have seen wrong. But no. It really was a girl from another race.

‘The one from that post that got deleted right after it was uploaded… It couldn’t be the same girl from another race, right?’

There was no way someone that beautiful would play a game like ours. No way. But it really was her.

“For real?!?!”

We had all thought it was a lie, but she was actually playing?!

She walked right up to me, flashed a happy smile, and held out her two adorable little hands, asking for a coupon.

I’m dead. No—this is insane. This can’t be real. It’s a scam. A total scam! How can something like her actually exist? She’s so beautiful it’s terrifying.

The girl standing in front of me was on a completely different level from any woman I had ever seen. She was like a goddess descended from the heavens. The girl I had been calling pretty just two minutes ago and fantasizing about as “my girlfriend” now looked like an orc next to her. She was overwhelmingly beautiful.

My heart started pounding like crazy. Completely unaware of how I felt, she smiled brightly and asked for the coupon again.

The offline coupons included limited cash avatars, so we were only allowed to give one per person and had to verify their account. But none of that mattered right now. This unbelievably beautiful girl was begging me in the cutest voice imaginable—one that could melt your brain just by hearing it. There was no way I could refuse. I would never refuse!

“Here you go!”

The moment I handed her the coupon, our hands touched. Her hand was so soft and squishy! So soft!!! It even seemed to carry a wonderful scent. Holding the hand of a saint felt like ascending to heaven.

She received three coupons and looked up at me with a delighted expression, thanking me. She was so radiant I thought my eyes might go blind. She gave a polite little bow and turned to leave. By the time I came back to my senses, the booth was packed with people waiting to get the game coupons.

They had probably all come just to see her like I had, but I didn’t care. Just being able to touch her hand, just being able to stand next to a girl like her—I felt like I would do absolutely anything. And then one thought hit me.

“New character…”

We should make it a special girl from another race!

But I didn’t know much about her, did I? The very next day, the president looked at me and said,

“You really saw that Synapse girl, didn’t you!”

“I watched the broadcast last night too. You talked to her, right?”

The rumor had already spread like wildfire. That same night, the servers crashed again.

A wiki page had been created at some point. Looking at it, I said,

“President, this is it! We’ve been worrying about the design for the new character, right? We don’t need to worry anymore! If we model the new character after the Synapse girl who’s playing our game right now, it’ll be a massive hit!”

“……You……are amazing!? Alright, Employee—no, Assistant Manager!”

“Assistant Manager…?”

“From now on, you’re an Assistant Manager!”

Thanks to her, I got promoted, and our company began enjoying the greatest boom in its history.

“Uuuuugh……!!!”

A certain girl—Primrose—let out a groan as she stared at the new character’s appearance.

“No matter how I look at it, this is clearly modeled after me… It can’t be, right? Nah, no way.”

She muttered to herself, but the character on the screen was her spitting image, as if she were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looking in a mirror.