Chapter 157
Chapter 157
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 157
Chapter Title: Countdown (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It was a time when anticipation swelled as worries subsided.
Naturally, with Hellic 4's release just around the corner, the biggest meme setting the community ablaze was 'AV Actor Cheon Yeon-ho'.
『The King of One-Upmanship: ???: Now, look at the camera and state your name and age.
(Image of Yeon-ho's Alice cosplay)
???: Cheon Yeon-ho… thirty-one years old….
WaitingForHellic4: Hahahaha
BangbaeBloodyLord: Why's Alice so haggard? Hahaha
FutureIsntBright: ???: Please buy a lot. I'll make it enjoyable for you.
MedExamFlunker: ???: I’ve only done this five times.
ㅇㅇ: Hahahahaha
YeonhoLovePuppy: Oppa ㅠㅠㅠㅠ You're so pretty ㅠㅠㅠ
PassionateGamer: Oh,,,my,,,goodness,,,what,,,is,,,this,,,』
In the online world, rife with conspiracy and betrayal, the weak cannot survive.
Showing even a moment's weakness meant a knife in the back—such was the nature of this place. Thanks to a joint operation that went from A-yun to the editorial department to Gil-sang, Yeon-ho was being utterly wrecked.
In response, Yeon-ho said.
“What can you do? As long as the users are having fun, that's what matters. Besides, it drew a lot of attention, right? I'm all for it if it helps sales.”
With the game's release approaching, all of Yeon-ho's focus was on sales figures.
Of course, that didn't mean there were no repercussions.
*Thwack!*
“Ouch…!”
A-yun got a flick on the forehead.
The editorial department fell silent, and Yang Gil-sang was plunged into work hell.
It was a petty revenge, and apart from that, time flowed quickly.
The freshness of spring was already on the verge of turning into the heat of summer, and Hellic 4's release was about two months away.
The atmosphere at Rewind was as sharp as a newly honed blade.
It was reminiscent of generals resolutely inspecting their equipment before a war.
“Found a bug!!!!”
“Ah! Why'd you find it! I told you not to look!!!”
The QA team trembled with the thrill of finding a bug, while the programming department despaired at the new discovery.
“Fix this and bring it back.”
“Eh…?”
“I don't like the color palette.”
The art team members were being ground down by the final visual checks.
And,
“How many days has it been for the Team Leader?”
“Three days, I think?”
“Wow, this is the first time I've seen our Team Leader not go home.”
“I know, right...”
...even A-yun, who had finally begun working on the final chapter's BGM.
The Sound Director clocking in at the sleep room—an event said to have happened less than three times since Rewind's founding.
That unbelievable event was happening right here, right now.
* * *
At work, a psychopath and pure evil; in the game, the Raid Leader; and at home, 'this darn girl!'.
A-yun had many nicknames, but the name she identified with was none of the above.
Sound Director.
A-yun confined her identity to those two words.
It was different from calling herself a musician.
Different from calling herself a composer, and different from calling herself an artist.
Director.
A-yun knew her job was to 'direct the story' through the melodies and rhythms etched onto a musical staff.
Therefore, A-yun didn't create music prioritizing her own aesthetic sensibilities.
She didn't create art whose true value was only revealed upon close listening.
However, because her talent was overflowing, she poured all of her overwhelming ability into one thing.
The task of creating the sound of the story.
It was about showing them.
That when someone as talented as herself viewed a story, its colors would be heard with this particular saturation.
'Trauma.'
That was the theme for the final battle's BGM.
It was a battle that repeatedly flashed back to the moment that had finally ended the man's life, the moment that had killed him as a human being.
So, how should it be expressed?
She revisited the basics of composition.
'Composition is about layering. Overlapping and refining all the sounds of that moment.'
A-yun immersed herself in the man.
She retraced the sensations he must have felt, moment by moment, as he aimed his gun at Anna and Olson.
The world grew distant.
Everything in her vision blurred like watercolor paint dissolving in water, and when it solidified again, A-yun was already at the scene of the incident.
In that moment, A-yun had become one with the man.
She looked at Anna and Olson, revolver in hand.
The man's senses were shared with her.
As they became vivid, auditory hallucinations began to tap against her eardrums.
'The sound of a heartbeat.'
It's fast.
Irregular and loud.
'Trembling.'
The revolver rattles faintly.
That sound strikes her eardrums like thunder.
'Breathing.'
It's ragged.
Her vision began to blur, as if the sound itself was taking form and obscuring her sight.
Those things gathered together: anxiety, nervousness, fear.
Emotion becomes melody.
'Refine it.'
She placed the sounds that formed the emotion onto the musical staff.
She could see the rules that existed within the naturally occurring irregularity.
'Mixing.'
She mixed them to blur the boundaries.
At a glance, the heartbeat, the breathing, and the rattle of the revolver would feel like popping static.
All preparations were complete.
'Now...'
She just needed to add music that matched this tone.
Following the noise that surged across the staff like a wave, she would embroider the notes as if decorating a tree.
The process was grueling.
In a state of excessive immersion, clinging to a single thread of reason to process it into a product was incredibly difficult.
The first day, she built the framework.
All her focus was on collecting the necessary elements for the composition.
The second day, she focused solely on processing and shaping them, moving the notes to more appropriate positions.
And on the third and fourth days, she polished the final version.
The chorus of countless notes finally revealed its complete form to A-yun.
*Beeeeep—*
The piece began with the sound of tinnitus.
To that, A-yun added one final touch.
'Let's give it a rusted feel. The battle needs to be dry.'
To give the impression of a mechanical battle, repeated for so long that the personality of the man named Olson Rick had worn away and turned into an anomaly, she added that post-processing, and a plausible result emerged.
A-yun smiled with great satisfaction and fell asleep right where she sat.
* * *
For the final chapter's recording, A-yun went on a short overseas business trip.
It was a trip she took with the entire sound team.
The schedule for hiring the orchestra had already been arranged, so there were no other inconveniences.
Everything was done on-site.
The performance, the recording, and the final mastering to process it into music.
By the time she finished adjusting the tone so the sound effects and BGM blended seamlessly, it was early May.
The Rewind headquarters in Pangyo received A-yun's work by email and soon inserted it into the game.
All that remained was to resolve minor optimization issues.
At this, Yeon-ho pushed them once more.
“Let's just push a little harder.”
Though they thought he was being harsh, no one raised any objections.
In truth, everyone knew.
Anyone with experience in the game industry, not just at Rewind, would know.
That bugs and optimization could somehow be solved by grinding down the programmers.
Also, no pain lasts forever.
“Hah, it's done.”
The game was finally finished at the end of May, four weeks before its release.
That one person's remark could be explained with many metaphors.
It's an escape. A military discharge. Release from prison. And so on....
In any case, it wasn't far from the truth, in that they had been liberated from something that had oppressed them.
“Everyone, you've worked hard.”
Yeon-ho offered his praise.
Now, only packaging and marketing remained, and that was out of the development team's hands.
An arrow already shot can only fly toward its target.
Life is a one-way street; it's impossible to go backward.
Now that it was made and packaged, all that was left was to pray.
“Ah, please, just let there be no bugs...”
The release was imminent.
* * *
Community nickname 'WaitingForHellic4', real name Kang Seok-hun, a fan of the entire Hellic series and now a respectable member of society.
And,
'Ahhh...'
...a man in his third week of marriage, experiencing a night where he wanted to play Hellic more than ever, was here.
“Honey, are you worried about something?”
Even the time spent lying in bed chatting with his wife couldn't capture Seok-hun's heart.
Not even Su-jin's expectant gaze!
Not even the passion of a newlywed or the heart that burned just from meeting her eyes!
Nothing could stop Seok-hun's yearning for Hellic!
“Umm...”
Seok-hun mumbled.
A look of concern appeared on Su-jin's face.
A small sense of guilt welled up, but could human nature really change so easily?
He knew there were things he had to give up when living with someone.
But understanding it with his head was different from actually liking it.
Seok-hun just thought.
'I want to play Hellic.'
It's a gamer's psychology to have their mind elsewhere starting three days before the release of a long-awaited game.
But with the Hellic release overlapping with his third week of marriage, Seok-hun had no choice but to prioritize, and he felt a sense of self-loathing for having chosen his wife and put his beloved game on the back burner.
His sighs grew more frequent.
Seok-hun had a sad premonition that if he kept giving up parts of himself like this, one by one, eventually nothing that made up the person Kang Seok-hun would remain.
It might have been a slightly delayed case of the marriage blues.
Though it was a bit funny that the cause was a game.
Anyway, even in the midst of that, his wife's hand wrapped around his waist.
Seok-hun gently closed his eyes.
His department head's words flashed through his mind.
—Seok-hun, you have to do well during the newlywed phase. If you mess up then, you'll be a sinner for life over it.
'Ah, Department Head.'
How did you live like that?
The pity ended there.
'But.'
If that's what marriage is.
Seok-hun was a wise man who heeded the advice of his elders.
No matter what storms came, he would remain a good husband.
It was the moment he made his decision.
“Honey.”
Su-jin whispered in Seok-hun's ear.
“Guess what I prepared today?”
For some reason, her sweet, alluring voice made Seok-hun a little scared.
He was almost in his mid-thirties.
An age where he had too much on his mind to let blood rush to his head, swept away by lust.
But if he showed it, he would live as a sinner like his department head.
Seok-hun put on a sweet husband's smile and asked back.
“Hm? What could my Su-jin have prepared?”
There's a database built through years of experience.
Seeing her covered up to her neck in the blanket, it could be cosplay, or perhaps a toy to satisfy his curious wife's exploratory desires.
'Whatever it is, I should probably just resign myself to my fate.'
he thought...
“Huhu...”
Su-jin's laughter overlapped with a rustling sound.
Su-jin's hand pulled back for a moment.
'It's a tool.'
His eyes squeezed shut.
The texture of the object felt even more distinct.
'It' was approaching.
The thing that touched his stomach was, for some reason, rectangular and hard, a shape familiar to Seok-hun.
'Huh...?'
It was the moment it reached his chest.
“Look.”
Seok-hun opened his eyes at Su-jin's words.
And gasped.
“Wha, what...?”
The back of a man in a leather jacket was drawn on the rectangular plastic box.
Above it were the letters 'PS4'....
“He, Heeeeelll...”
“You like this game, don't you, honey?”
Seok-hun stared at Su-jin, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Su-jin giggled and continued.
“All those times you lied to me whenever this game was released. You thought I wouldn't know?”
Touched, guilty, and excited.
In that moment, Seok-hun found Su-jin so incredibly lovable.
“Su-jin!”
“Go on and play. Just make sure you eat.”
No, the release isn't today, it's tomorrow.
Today's Seok-hun was not a gamer, but a 'beast'.
In a newlywed rental apartment somewhere in Seoul.
There was no obligatory defense match.
Here, there was only a mighty beast and its tamer.
* * *
The next evening, 11:45 PM.
“Don't stay up too late, okay?”
Su-jin went to sleep for work the next day.
Seok-hun nodded and settled comfortably into his seat.
Fifteen minutes passed all too quickly.
Seok-hun wrote a post on the community forum.
『Hellic4Nghh: Let's gooo~』
Immediately after, he started the game.
As always, feeling the sound that made his heart pound.
[Aaaaaaaah!!!]
[press to start]
Kang Seok-hun the man, his long, long time of suffering and humiliation over, had now, in this moment, returned to being a 'gamer'.