Chapter 148
Chapter 148
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 148
Chapter Title: Remake (2)
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Yuri Jackson, head of the Rewind Modding Team, which had now become Development Team 3.
He returned to his team in a state of confusion, his hands and feet trembling, his head spinning.
Unfortunately, the team was in a festive mood.
“Yuri! We knew you could do it! We’re an official development team now!”
The team members’ faces were brimming with energy.
But Yuri couldn’t bring himself to smile.
“Ha, haha…”
To understand this difference in reaction, one must first understand who Yuri Jackson was.
To put it simply.
If his life were a light novel, the title would be something like, *I Didn’t Do Anything, but Everyone in this World Knows Me?!*
‘How did it come to this?’
From beginning to end, every part of his journey had been like this.
He’d enrolled in the software engineering department of a decent university and joined a club to make friends, which just so happened to be the ‘Hellic Modding Team.’
It was during the height of *Identity’s* modding competition, and Yuri had participated in the development with the lighthearted intention of making some youthful memories.
But it turned out to be far too successful.
Words he’d said as a joke, meant to be laughed off, had somehow become core systems of the game.
—Since it’s a *Hellic* mod, how about we modify the face E-40 uses to fit the hell theme?
From the design concept,
—In *Hellic 1*, he slides around on his butt, right? What if we made it so when E-40 hits a wall, his hemorrhoid gauge fills up…
to the systemic gimmicks,
—Let’s combine E-40 and Smile. Like in *Hellic 3*.
and even the bizarre concepts that honored the original game’s lore.
His colleagues’ reactions were always the same.
—You magnificent bastard…
—…That’s an irreplaceable sensibility.
—With this guy, maybe we can…?
The members developing the *Hellic* mod were people with big dreams.
Unlike Yuri, who had a casual attitude, they were all serious about joining Rewind, which meant they had to be serious about creating the mod.
They willingly offered the leadership position to Yuri.
The *Hellic* mod they created won first place in the official competition.
They were able to enter Rewind with their heads held high.
But Yuri wasn’t happy.
‘Isn’t Rewind known for its insane workload?’
To have willingly walked into Rewind, a place called the programmer’s hell, was enough to make him tremble.
But there was one saving grace.
‘Huh, we’re kind of on an isolated island here.’
They hadn’t even been hired as a proper team like Development Team 3, and work directives for the mod team were scarce.
He thought he could just collect his salary and live a quiet life, which put his mind at ease for a bit.
But life doesn’t always go as planned.
—Hey, Chief! Let’s push for an official spot!
His team members, who still yearned to become an official development team, were working far too passionately.
That was why Yuri, who had been trying to keep a low profile during the Rewind general meeting, had become Yeon-ho’s prey.
And so, today.
“Yuri is beautiful!”
“Yuri is awesome!”
“Yuri is hot… Mmph! Mmph…!”
Amidst the applause and cheers of his team, Yuri returned to his desk, feeling a cold sweat run down his back.
He clutched his head, his mind racing.
‘Me? Remake *Hellic 2*? Me? *Me?*’
Having been a developer for a while, Yuri didn’t think much of the remake itself.
The problem was that the game he had to develop was *Hellic 2*, a title classified as a masterpiece among Rewind’s works.
The ever-worried Yuri Jackson thought.
‘If I mess this up even a little, I’m so screwed.’
A remake was a double-edged sword.
Even before the craze for them had begun, any developer knew the pros and cons were starkly clear.
First, there was the issue of graphics.
Sure, from a user’s perspective, seeing a beloved game in higher resolution was a plus.
But even that was subject to evaluation based on *how* the resolution was improved.
After all, giving concrete form to what users had filled in with their imagination in low resolution was another way of saying, ‘you have to meet their expectations,’ wasn’t it?
In other words, your modeling skills had to be top-notch from the get-go.
Second,
‘It can’t be too similar, but it can’t be too different either.’
If it was too similar, people would say, ‘Why bother remaking it and selling it again?’
If it was too different, they’d say, ‘They just borrowed the IP’s name to ruin our memories.’
What users wanted from a remake was a faithful recreation of the original, reprocessed into a polished form that suited the modern era.
In short, the more a work was classified as a masterpiece, the higher the difficulty of remaking that masterpiece skyrocketed.
A no-win situation.
Yuri felt like he was about to foam at the mouth and collapse.
His only despair was that his environment wouldn't allow it.
“Hey, Yuri! Let’s have a team dinner tonight!”
All around him, people were shooting him expectant glances, as if to say, ‘What kind of trouble will this guy stir up next?’
Yuri could no longer back out of those expectations.
There was only one thing he could do.
“Ah, of course. It’s the day we became ‘official,’ after all.”
As always, he could only feign composure and live each day as if walking on thin ice.
And in doing so, he finally accomplished something.
‘That bastard Cheon Yeon-ho…’
Yuri Jackson, from Development Team 3, the isolated island of Rewind, who had never had a reason to clash with Yeon-ho and thus held no ill will towards him, finally joined the ‘Damn You, Cheon’ club today.
* * *
And so, on the day Development Team 3 gained another of Yeon-ho’s enemies.
It was uncertain whether this fact would soothe their sorrow and suffering, but Cheon Yeon-ho—the universal bastard, the goddamn son of a bitch everyone wanted to throttle—was not without his weaknesses.
Take, for instance, right now.
“Just one more.”
“Nngh…!”
“That’s right. One more.”
“Grrgh…!”
That weakness was, of course, working out.
At the fitness center, one of the new amenities established in the company after *Identity’s* success, Yeon-ho was doing barbell squats under Seo-rim’s instruction.
Why there was a fitness center in the company was not important.
After all, with a cafeteria, sleeping quarters, and even a sparring ring already in place, what was the point of questioning it now?
What was important was that Yeon-ho was still, in fact, working out.
He was making an effort to live like a human being, suffering the consequences, and duly paying for his karma.
However, Yeon-ho was no Nishimura or Copson.
His goal wasn’t to build practical, combat-ready muscle through high-intensity training or to increase his destructive power and durability, but simply to ‘build a body that could walk and stay alive.’ As such, even after several years, lifting heavy was still a distant dream.
All Yeon-ho could do was writhe in agony, and Seo-rim, watching him, didn't know where to look.
“That’s enough…”
“Just one more.”
Translated, that meant, ‘I want to watch you for a little longer.’
This wasn’t a new development.
To pinpoint the exact time, it would be around when Yeon-ho had come to her house to resolve her family issues, leading her to mistakenly believe he might like her, a misconception that was later shattered.
Once she started seeing him that way, it became difficult to look at him as she had before.
The man who had once been just a paycheck-dispensing machine had started to look like a person.
The first emotion a person feels in the face of a sudden change in a long-standing relationship is often ‘denial.’
Few people in the world are honest enough with themselves to maturely accept every phenomenon that occurs, and Seo-rim was not one of them.
‘Me, like this guy? Me?’
That thought was currently at the forefront of her mind.
Enduring the growing delusion during her period of denial, Seo-rim had now entered the stage of ‘anger.’
‘…No, right? Why would I?’
Han Seo-rim.
All she had was her pride. Her standards were impossibly high, and she had the skills and family background to match. She also lacked any friends who could bring her ego down a notch.
So all that grew day by day was her sighs, or perhaps the torment of her delusion.
No matter how much she tried to deny it, and no matter how much anger she vented, she didn’t feel any better. In the end, all she could do was watch Yeon-ho.
Of course, she didn’t watch him in a normal way.
Because it was embarrassing!
“Seo-ri—”
“One more.”
While he was dripping with sweat from the workout, Yeon-ho’s attention wasn’t on her.
So this was the perfect time for Seo-rim to observe him.
He was naturally handsome, so even his pained expression looked decent.
As she consciously watched him, there were moments when her mind would go blank.
That was the problem.
*Thud!*
“Huh, huh?!”
Yeon-ho fainted.
He had blacked out from the excessively intense workout.
“Sunbae? Sunbae?!”
Her heart sinking, Han Seo-rim slapped Yeon-ho’s cheeks. Behind them, the employees of Development Teams 1 and 2, seeing their demon king finally fall, sent silent cheers to their hero, Han Seo-rim.
* * *
Fortunately, Yeon-ho regained consciousness before too long.
A blackout itself is a momentary phenomenon.
But he couldn’t move his body right away.
Thanks to his dazed trainer, Yeon-ho was not in good shape.
The two were in a corner of the fitness center, Yeon-ho’s head resting on Seo-rim’s lap as he tried to grasp his fuzzy consciousness.
Seo-rim felt a mixture of guilt and embarrassment.
She had no excuses.
What was most embarrassing was the fact that she had been so engrossed in looking at his face.
Swallowing her pride, Seo-rim asked tentatively.
“…Are you okay?”
“I don’t think I’m dead.”
“…You should have said something if you couldn’t do it.”
“I did, but you said one more, so I thought I could.”
How could a person be so utterly unconcerned with their own body?
She was amazed but was in no position to scold him, which was frustrating.
A thought suddenly occurred to her: if someone wasn’t by this man’s side taking care of him, he would probably die alone on the street.
Though she had no way of knowing that this was, in fact, how the pre-regression Yeon-ho had died, she had made a rather accurate guess.
Of course, Seo-rim’s mind was already elsewhere.
‘For the rest of my life?’
This is totally…
As she was lost in such idle thoughts, Yeon-ho showed signs of getting up.
Seo-rim instinctively pressed down on his forehead.
“Just lie here a bit longer.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“…”
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that his strength was drained, Yeon-ho lay back down with a skeptical look.
Seo-rim avoided his gaze.
Silence fell, and to break the awkwardness, she inevitably brought up work.
“…It’s been quiet lately.”
“Well, I’m in planning, and you’re the AD.”
“I’m getting lazy just supervising other people’s work all the time.”
“You’ll have your own work soon enough.”
She felt a little more at ease.
She chose not to dwell on her tendency to use work to escape awkward situations.
However, at the mention of new work after being idle since the mid-game chapters, Seo-rim’s ears perked up.
“The latter half?”
“Yeah, the latter half.”
*Hellic 4* was a game divided into three major acts—early, middle, and late—based on story turning points.
From what Yeon-ho had said so far, the third act, the latter half, would serve as the branching point for the ending.
As she thought about it, Seo-rim suddenly remembered something and asked Yeon-ho.
“But, Sunbae.”
“Yeah.”
“Did the protagonist really kill his wife in the end?”
Yeon-ho never revealed the story until the plan was finalized.
Thus, all Seo-rim knew was what she had worked on up to the middle chapters, drawing the concept art and supervising the modeling.
The clues up to that point suggested it.
That the protagonist had killed the woman, and that he regretted it.
Furthermore, given his identity as a detective, it made her wonder if there was some hidden story.
After she asked the question, Yeon-ho’s expression changed.
Seo-rim unconsciously thought to herself.
‘Ah, that’s the look.’
Having watched him for a long time, she knew.
Sometimes, when Yeon-ho was thinking about a game, his expression would become submerged, as if he were sinking into deep water.
A strange feeling that he was very far away washed over her, and at the end of it, Yeon-ho murmured.
“Yeah, the man killed her.”
Seo-rim asked reflexively.
“Why?”
The answer that came back was a bit cryptic.
“He had to make a choice. Between love and responsibility.”
She still didn’t understand.