Sound Director (2)
Here he was — the sound director Shin Se-rin had marked. A man who loved working from home far more than commuting to an office. Because of that, he had never taken a proper job and remained a freelancer. His name was Seo Han-ryang.
Whether it was because of his name or his fate written in the stars, he truly lived the relaxed, carefree life his name suggested. Fortunately, his musical talent allowed him to handle just enough freelance work to keep that lazy lifestyle going.
Unlike Yoo Seol, who had spiraled into a dark, rice-eating evolution after losing Kim Ji-hyun, Seo Han-ryang only expressed mild regret that his easy-to-talk-to friend had gone missing. He figured the guy would come back eventually.
It wasn’t that he was irresponsible. He simply understood Kim Ji-hyun a little better than Yoo Seol did. Even if the man was currently hiding away in depression, Han-ryang believed he would return to the industry someday.
“It’s breaking through! It’s breaking through! Fuck, left side’s open! Block it!”
Right now, he was desperately fighting off a flood of zombies inside virtual reality.
…
Even though Seo Han-ryang pursued a relaxed life, there was one thing he was fanatically obsessed with: dopamine. How could relaxation and dopamine coexist? Simple. Live life easy. Play games like a madman. As a gamer he was excellent. As a human being, he was basically a failure.
Thinking of it as one of those eccentricities common among artists made it slightly easier to accept. Kim Ji-hyun had often comforted himself with that thought.
And saying he played games “like a madman” could also be rephrased as: he was the type of player who savored games like gourmet cuisine.
Because his skills were outstanding, he could afford to be picky about freelance jobs. That was also why Se-rin hadn’t contacted him from the very beginning.
While listening to the savory political trash-talk pouring into his ears and staring at the allied base that was already half overrun by zombies, Seo Han-ryang gave a small nod. That was the extent of his hesitation.
He had also felt a pang of regret when Galicia Online shut down. After all, nothing beat an MMORPG when it came to growth, challenge, and dopamine.
The only problem was that it tasted like actual shit instead of dopamine. But if Kim Ji-hyun was directing this new one? If it could at least reach the level of a decent mid-tier game instead of a masterpiece?
Damn. He couldn’t resist that.
Seo Han-ryang’s mouth began to water.
* * *
The next day, Fantasy of Galicia (Alpha) was installed on Seo Han-ryang’s capsule. After listening to a few cheap click sounds that sounded like they came from free assets, he logged in using an avatar that closely resembled his real self. The world around him fell into silence.
“Welcome to Galicia! I’m Elysia! Heehee, please take good care of me!”
“Ugh.”
A heart-attack-inducing white-haired loli.
“Come on in.”
“Huk…”
Kim Ji-hyun’s cousin, whose destructive beauty and overwhelming proportions had already been warned about in advance.
“Wait, it’s just Han-ryang.”
“What the hell, why are you here too?”
And then the crazy bitch appeared.
It was like a single poisonous weed blooming in a flower garden, but overall it was quite the luxurious party composition. That was as far as his thoughts about people went.
“Give me a second to check my class.”
Unfortunately, Seo Han-ryang was the heavenly born solo gamer who cared about games roughly five times more than he cared about women. He tapped the holographic UI button that looked exactly like the one from Project A and checked his available classes first.
“Whoa, it really is Kim Ji-hyun’s work.”
The contents did not disappoint. If the Project A they had poured their hearts into until the company went bankrupt was recreated in virtual reality, would it feel like this?
The core philosophy behind Project A had always been freedom. It was the ultimate crystallization of madness — if a player could imagine it, the game would somehow make it possible.
The job system was the same. In normal RPGs, you picked one main class and kept advancing through its subclasses. If you started as a warrior, you might become a knight, then a paladin, then a divine knight… stacking abilities that way. But Project A was different. It created a huge variety of jobs. And if the player wanted, they could take all of them.
To make that work, they had separated Character Level from Job Level. Character Level could be raised through general activities like hunting, while Job Level rose by performing class-specific actions — using skills, for example. They had also prepared a system so that players who wanted to specialize in one job tree could keep deepening those abilities.
Of course, if one person activated too many jobs at once, combat balance would collapse. So they limited the number of active jobs according to Character Level.
For example, if your Character Level was 20?
I want to be a decent melee dealer! Swordman 3rd Rank. Or Swordman 1st Rank and Knight 2nd Rank.
Teacher! I want to be a magic swordsman! Sure, go ahead. Efficiency will suck at first, but Swordman 2nd Rank and Elemental 1st Rank. Or the reverse.
Just seeing fragments of the job system he had designed after those heated debates with Kim Ji-hyun filled Seo Han-ryang with satisfaction.
“Ah, shit. I’m so damn crooked.”
At least until the living disaster of the art team, Yoo Seol’s profanity, stabbed into his ears. Good thing it was remote work. At least he didn’t have to breathe the same air as her in the same building.
…
In the end, unable to withstand Yoo Seol’s pressure, Seo Han-ryang gave up on coming up with a creative build and simply followed the preset.
Thus:
Yoo Seol — Tank
Elysia — Ranged Dealer
Seo Han-ryang — Melee Dealer
Se-rin — Healer
If you ignored the detailed jobs and grouped them roughly, that was the composition.
In front of the entrance to the yet-unnamed instant dungeon.
Boing! Jiggle!
“Oh, jump animation.”
Seo Han-ryang let out an impressed sound at the polite demeanor of Kim Ji-hyun’s cousin — who until now had only drawn his interest as “the girl with something huge that bounces.” Yeah, jumping in tight clothes was basically law.
After entering the dungeon, Seo Han-ryang could only feel pure awe. Not just because the production quality was excellent — though that was part of it — but for another reason.
“The combat feel is insane…”
Of course, there had already been games where you could swing medieval weapons like the longsword in his hand. But because of the PVP focus and rather slow tempo, the dopamine came more from winning than from the combat itself.
“Kueeeek!”
“Kiiiek!”
Goblins placed as trash mobs died to his swordplay. Never swung a real sword before? Then just use the assist system! A friendly system like that turned even clumsy inputs into surprisingly elegant swordsmanship. Getting hit stung a little, but the moment the heal landed it felt refreshingly cool instead.
The more that satisfaction from gameplay piled up, the more a certain regret grew in his chest.
“Hmm…”
What more was there to say? SFX. Sound effects. Sound effects.
The sound of a blade slicing goblin flesh, the metallic clang when it struck their patchwork armor, the natural sounds created by the dungeon environment itself… they were all realistic enough. But as a game?
“It’s flat.”
“I thought so too, right?”
When Se-rin, who had just applied a buff to him, answered with a bright smile, Seo Han-ryang made an awkward face.
“You’re Miss Se-rin, correct? Um, obviously… you haven’t added any separate sound effects or background music yet, have you?”
“No, that’s correct.”
“Ugh.”
As expected. That was why, despite the thrilling combat feel, something kept feeling a little lacking. Professionally lacking. Man, if only there was a proper *clang* here. With that thought in mind, he kept pushing forward.
And then, when they finally reached the boss appearance cutscene…
“Uwaaaaaagh!”
His occupational disease exploded.
Considering it was a virtual reality where players could collide with each other, the Goblin Lord was a fairly large humanoid despite being a goblin. He slammed the handle of his massive axe — clearly designed to be easy to parry — into the ground with a *thud*. Even that thud sounded disappointingly flat. Still, the sheer pressure was real.
“Here we start with drum and bass at a rhythm similar to a heartbeat, gradually building the atmosphere… Before combat, scrape the strings and layer low brass to stack tension heavily…”
“What’s Han-ryang doing?”
“Once combat starts, loop only the low frequencies. If there’s a parry pattern, match the beat and split the bass into off-beats…”
The actual boss fight hadn’t even begun yet, but Seo Han-ryang was already composing melodies in the silence. For a composer, was there anything more dopamine-inducing than the perfect motif appearing at the perfect moment?
Yoo Seol looked like she was about to poke his side, but—
“Just a moment, please. Could you wait just a little?”
Se-rin carefully grabbed the hem of Yoo Seol’s clothes and stopped her. A satisfied smile played at the corner of her lips.
Yeah, Han-ryang. I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold back.
…
There was a thirty-minute delay in front of the boss room while he kept talking, but the Goblin Lord was defeated surprisingly quickly, as befitting the first boss. Of course, who had designed the Goblin Lord? Main tank Yoo Seol. She had checked every joint movement in every pattern, so naturally she had the entire fight memorized.
“Hgyaaaaak!”
There was a minor incident where Elysia, who had been helping from the side with zero thoughts in her head, nearly got her skull split in two. But who was the healer? Se-rin, who had personally designed the boss patterns. She knew both normal and special patterns perfectly, so no matter how badly Elysia messed up and ate hits, she could cleanly take care of her.
And so, the impression of Mr. Seo Han-ryang, who had ridden the bus as tank-heal-dps:
“I took the bus.”
It was only natural. Even while trying the boss, instead of focusing he had been thinking things like, “The sound effect here should be like this…” Se-rin, who had vaguely wondered if natural sound effects might be better, found herself nodding in agreement as she listened to his muttering.
The conclusion they reached after all that:
Team Galicia. Sound Director recruitment complete. As a bonus, in-game gameplay footage secured as well.
* * *
[Team Galicia]
[Releasing in 3 hours]
Isn’t this the sequel to that Galicia shit game? It’s only been a few months since the servers shut down, why is there already a teaser?