Prologue: The Game That Swallowed Reality
There was one game.
After the era when everyone huddled together in pure romance, gazing at the sunrise and savoring every moment of joy.
After the era when the label dark gamer was replaced by the scornful nickname rice-soong-i, and the pleasure born from cooperation had curdled into stress.
When the world finally arrived at the era in which people entrusted their bodies to VR capsules instead of keyboards and mice in pursuit of enjoyment, one game alone raised its banner as an MMORPG, shouting for the lost romance and freedom of the past.
The game’s name was Fantasy of Galicia.
At first it drew skeptical glances and worried murmurs—An MMORPG in this day and age?—yet it silenced every critic with its outrageous freedom.
Things that made players think Can you even do that? were not only possible but encouraged, capturing the hearts of hardcore gamers.
The game guided casual players with gentle directions so they would never feel abandoned in its vast open world.
Even non-gamers found themselves drawn in, exploring a mysterious continent so rich and wondrous that a bizarre new trend—cyber filial-piety tourism—swept the older generation.
3 crowns at the 2nd VR GOTY Awards
User rating: 98/100
Overwhelmingly Positive
In the flood of applause, the world’s largest corporations waged bidding wars worth hundreds of billions just to display ten-second logos across the virtual night sky.
Politicians no longer talked about regulating games; instead they promised to create special autonomous districts inside the game, desperate for even a crumb of its success. The age had truly arrived in which the virtual had swallowed reality whole.
Naturally, even a cosmic masterpiece on this scale had a creator.
The game’s main director—Kim Se-rin.
Players attached the divine title and called her God Se-rin. Depending on their mood that day, the honorifics grew even more glorious: Dick Se-rin. Or, taking her physical features into account, Tit Se-rin.
An unparalleled genius. The maestro of virtual reality. The woman who had dressed the world of Fantasy of Galicia in breathtaking wonder and, by shattering every technological limit, granted players the sensation of stepping into an entirely new universe.
That same woman was once again buried under a mountain of overwork.
Today, as always, the director of the masterpiece game was drowning in endless toil.