10. This Game Company Handles Things Well?
10. This Game Company Handles Things Well?
***
"Seoyun, Seoyun, look at this!"
Han Seoyun, who had been tidying up and moving to her next lecture, turned her head without much thought at the chattering voice of the friend beside her.
And then, the phone thrust in front of her face. The familiar background on that phone. At the sight, Seoyun frowned and gave a small shake of her head.
"...Chaerin, I told you I don't play games."
A spectacle of characters fighting with weapons wreathed in all sorts of strange light effects—it was obviously a video about that game everyone was into these days, 'Another World.'
"No, Seoyun! Seriously, just once, can't you just watch it once? I'm telling you, this video is really fun. It's already got four million views on NewTube!"
Chaerin kept clinging to Seoyun as she walked. Lee Chaerin—a friend so obsessed with gaming that rumors about it had spread beyond the design department and across the whole university.
Seoyun and Chaerin had been in the same class since high school, and since their personalities meshed well, they'd naturally grown close. Now attending the same university, Seoyun and Chaerin were practically inseparable.
"Chaerin, I'm really sorry, but I don't play that Another World thing, so watching a video of it isn't that fun for me."
And so, despite Chaerin's continued pleading, Seoyun kept walking toward the lecture hall with an indifferent expression.
"Oh come on, Seoyun, fine then. How about this—I'll treat you to a barbecue place tonight?"
"...You know I don't eat unlimited refill places or thin-sliced pork belly, right?"
"Oh, of course, of course, I know. Have you ever seen me cheap out when I take you somewhere?"
"No."
Faced with Chaerin's relentless urging, Seoyun finally answered quietly, as if admitting defeat.
'...Where the hell does she get her money?'
Her friend Chaerin had definitely been suspiciously flush with cash lately. She was pretty sure Chaerin hadn't been this well-off back in high school.
Had she been buying meals noticeably more often these days?
Getting dinner at a barbecue place just for watching one video—well, it wasn't a bad deal for Seoyun herself.
“Okay, let’s stop here and watch the video properly.”
"Just so you know... I can't promise a great reaction."
"Ah, it's fine, I said. Just watching the video is enough, so come on. Let's go!"
Chaerin grabbed the arm of Seoyun, who was nodding with a subtle expression, and hurried her toward a shaded spot.
Seoyun found it fascinating, really—her friend treating her to barbecue just for watching one video.
Just how entertaining could this video be?
Chaerin moved to a spot shaded by a huge tree on campus and, looking excited, started playing the video on her phone again.
Pressed right up against Seoyun's side, holding her smartphone horizontally, Chaerin enlarged the video, finished adjusting all the quality settings, and pressed play with an expectant expression.
Seoyun simply leaned against the bench and watched it all, blinking.
The moment the video started, Seoyun began blinking rapidly, as if her eyes couldn't comprehend what they were seeing.
"How is it? Isn't it so cool? Look at that silver-haired character—you can customize characters so realistically, I'm telling you... Seoyun, if you started playing too, in a short time... I could really help you out a lot... And..."
Chaerin’s chatter beside her, trying to lure her in, and the weapons and bursts of light in the video—none of it registered with Seoyun right now.
Just one person moving on the screen.
Her older sister, who had become so hard to reach lately.
Even this morning, when she'd checked the integrated control system app on her phone, there hadn't been a single entry or exit record for the house from her sister.
So why was her sister appearing in the video her friend was showing her?
Seoyun's head was filled with that incomprehensible question.
"...Seoyun, Seoyun? Are you listening to me?"
"Huh? Yeah?"
"No, Han Seoyun! You're too much, you haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"
"Chaerin, sorry, sorry. It's just that the character in that video is so pretty, I couldn't help..."
Her sister was pretty—absurdly, ridiculously pretty.
Even just seeing her on screen drew out an involuntary gasp of admiration.
"Really? Well, I guess even to a normal person like you, Seoyun, that character looks pretty, huh? I tried to customize mine like that too, but no matter how many hours I put in, I just couldn't do it. I wish that user would share their customization."
Character. Customization.
Those words snapped Seoyun back to her senses.
Right—the character in that video, the one that looked exactly like her sister, might not actually be her sister.
Then, suddenly, her eyes were caught by the view count below the video.
'Over four million, seriously.'
Around 4.2 million views, and the video had only been uploaded for barely a day.
"...Chaerin, that female character in the video—is she famous?"
"That character? Yeah, she's famous. Since yesterday, or something, all the communities and NewTube have been going crazy over that female user."
"So she suddenly got famous starting yesterday?"
"Well, I guess you could say that?"
Seoyun definitely knew that one of her sister's hobbies was gaming.
But had she played 'Another World'? That, Seoyun couldn't be sure of.
Her sister was a gaming fanatic on Chaerin's level—no, maybe even worse.
And the character in that video looked absurdly like her sister for it to be just a simple customization.
Considering that Another World was a game based on 'virtual reality,' the likelihood that it really was her sister was very high.
“......What on earth are you thinking, Serin?”
And so Seoyun ended up muttering without realizing it.
Social anxiety disorder.
Depression.
Ever since they were young, Serin’s striking looks had drawn all kinds of creeps. Her sister had always been timid and afraid of people because of it.
And she knew the recent misfortune involving their parents had only made it worse, so she couldn’t help worrying.
"....Seoyun, what's wrong?"
"Chaerin, I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can make my next lecture. Could you let the professor know for me?"
"Yeah, but why all of a sudden? Seoyun, did something happen?"
At Seoyun's sudden change, Chaerin quickly wiped the slightly hurt look off her face and began asking with concern.
"Yeah, something urgent came up. I think I need to go right now."
Seoyun's plan to wait until the weekend to visit her sister had changed.
She didn't know what had shifted in her, but she felt she needed to see her sister immediately.
Besides, the only family they had left in the world was each other—just the two sisters.
When her sister was struggling, shouldn't she at least be there for her? Those were the thoughts Seoyun had been having a lot lately.
And so, in the end, Seoyun gave up on her lecture and resolved to go see her sister.
"...Okay, be careful. If anything happens, contact me right away, got it?"
"Yeah. Thanks so much, Chaerin. I'll treat you to something big next weekend."
"Don't bother."
Seoyun quietly thanked Chaerin for looking out for her, then left campus and started toward her sister’s place.
***
Beep.
Han Serin, who had just woken up, immediately turned on her PC.
Pulling herself together from her groggy state, she picked up her phone to check the time—it was already late afternoon.
'...How many hours did I sleep?'
She'd just closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, it was somehow 4 p.m.
It wasn't like she'd stayed up late into the night—she was sure she'd gone to sleep early due to deep fatigue.
As she gathered her disheveled silver hair, which kept blocking her vision, and tied it to one side, Han Serin browsed the community sites she had bookmarked and came across unexpected good news.
A post sitting at the very top of the community's trending topics.
It was a post about her.
[The game company officially announced that the user 'Rin' isn't cheating. Attached the source here. JPG]
When she clicked on the post, the first thing she saw was a photo that appeared to be an official notice from the game company.
————— Notice Regarding a User Suspected of Cheating —————
Hello, dear Another World players.
Another World Company has always strived to maintain a clean game and a smooth, comfortable gaming environment.
That remains one of our highest priorities to this day, and we continue to devote sustained effort to it, including expanding our related personnel.
We have also confirmed that the user “Rin,” who was a hot topic throughout yesterday, became the center of a major controversy regarding cheating.
After a precise and thorough review, we have concluded that the user 'Rin' is not a user of so-called 'hacks' or 'unauthorized programs,' or any other programs constituting 'cheating,' but an ordinary user.
We would like to emphasize once again that our key operations staff, along with security specialists, conducted the thorough review multiple times, and no irregularities were found in the process.
We are always grateful to the players who enjoy Another World, and we will continue to strive as a game company.
Thank you.
——————————————
"What the... This game company actually handles things well?"
After reading through the statement—a truly clean position statement with no unnecessary additions, emphasizing the security and safety—Han Serin felt a refreshing sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted.
The statement from Another World Company had gone up before she'd even filed an inquiry, and less than a day after the controversy began.
It was the strongest possible proof that she wasn't a cheater, and the game company's swift response, as if they truly valued individual users, stood out.
And looking at the upload time—1 a.m.? It had gone up around then, so the company's actual response had been far faster than she'd thought.
Compared to the trash game Black Ark she'd played in her previous world, the level of response was on a completely different plane.
Slow responses, meaningless updates, an attitude that ignored users, an operations team so disinterested in the game you couldn't tell if they were communicating with users or not.
On top of that, all sorts of incidents and accidents, unpunished bug exploiters, and so on.
Unlike the Black Ark game company, which seemed to embody every one of those garbage traits, the Another World company she was seeing now showed none of those flaws.
Han Serin quickly scrolled down and looked through the comments on the trending post.
Comments had been pouring in nonstop since the early morning hours while she'd been sound asleep. The comments on the announcement that she wasn't cheating had already surpassed six hundred.
[Holy shit, that was actually skill?]
[lololol the hack-accusing assholes vanished like ghosts the moment the notice dropped, huh?]
[└ weren’t you one of those hack-accusing assholes until yesterday?]
[Just look at the new NewTube video that went up yesterday—she's logging in like it's nothing. Didn't I say she wasn't cheating?]
[Another World Company works fucking fast, who the hell posts an announcement at dawn lolol]
[Who the hell is this Rin person, is she some kind of hidden master or something?]
[└ a gorgeous hidden master, dayum]
"No... When did those assholes ever defend me?"
Reading the comments, she was dumbfounded.
Those bastards commenting now, acting as if they'd known all along she wasn't cheating—they disgusted her even more.
In the trending posts that had branded her a cheater, not a single person had defended her. But now that the official announcement had come out, they'd completely flipped their attitudes and were writing comments as if they'd known this would happen.
"Well... Anyway, it does feel good."
With this, there was nothing holding her back.
She'd unintentionally become famous. Aside from that, there was no reason for anything to get in the way of playing the game or streaming.
'Oh, wait—doesn't that mean I have no reason to start streaming?'
Then, suddenly, she felt that her reason for starting a stream had disappeared.
She'd been planning to start streaming to deny the misunderstanding that she was a cheater.
"Still, I spent hours yesterday studying how to be a streamer."
But now that she was considering not streaming after all, it felt like a waste of all the effort she had put in yesterday carefully learning how to start a stream.
While Han Serin was thinking that.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell suddenly rang.
"...?"