Chapter 172
Chapter 172
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 172
Chapter Title: Irony (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
At first, no one paid it any mind.
The virus was dismissed as just another seasonal flu.
After all, that’s what experience had taught them.
Avian flu, MERS, SARS, and so on...
There had been viruses deemed dangerous enough to warrant national control and caution, but how had those all turned out?
They had their impact, but they were suppressed before they could exert too much force.
Everyone said this time would be the same.
Just a passing wave, they claimed, one that would bring no change to their lives.
It was the same when domestic cases surpassed one hundred, then one thousand, and even the moment they broke ten thousand.
It was only after that people began to feel something was wrong.
[The first death from the coronavirus...]
Reports of deaths began to emerge.
The virus showed no signs of abating.
The global medical community declared:
The Black Death has returned.
Yet, complacency remained.
The chronic ailment of the masses was not easily cured.
The result was a horrific Christmas.
[The infection is spreading rapidly through the gathered crowds...]
That time of year, when everyone was meant to wrap up one year and start anew.
In that moment, the world changed.
[Today's number of confirmed cases is...]
The bleak numbers reported day after day continued to swell.
Everyone trembled in fear.
They realized that this virus, unlike the others, was not someone else's problem.
[The year 2020 has begun. The authorities...]
A living hellscape unfolded.
[The economy...]
[The controls...]
It was not a disaster that could be stopped.
But if everyone stopped working out of fear of a single disease, the social structure would collapse.
If not even a minimal economic foundation could be maintained, the nation would die.
And so, the world kept moving, one way or another.
It just kept moving.
Painfully, at a slower pace than before.
It was such a time.
And it was during this time that only Rewind managed to sidestep the current and maintain its operations.
[...I caught it.]
“Okay, take some rest.”
Yeon-ho often received such calls and had his employees take time off.
But compared to other companies, the damage was minimal.
The reason was simple.
“Alright, everyone, let's head home. Though it’s only about twenty of us.”
A work-from-home system was already in place.
The intranet, established even before the pandemic began, had yielded significant results.
With only a minimal crew rotating in-office and the rest working from home, how could the infection possibly spread rapidly?
Moreover, there was no concern about them going out and fooling around just because they were working from home.
“Ah, for any unfinished work, please wrap it up after your shift and submit a report.”
“...?!”
With an insurmountable pile of work, how could anyone even think of going out?
In short, he had completely blocked off the possibility of ‘straying thoughts that arise from physical comfort.’
In the context of an Eastern martial arts novel, it was akin to reaching a sublime state.
The Unity of Body and Sword.
When the body and sword become one, the sword feels like an extension of one's limbs.
So, what would happen if work and home were to become one?
They say one reaches a state where the workplace is wherever one extends their arm.
By the great authority of the emperor, it was decreed: suffer no more from the commute.
Sleep, at least, you may take comfortably in your home.
Empty-handed you came, and empty-handed you shall return; erase the futile process of commuting and leave only work in its place.
The result was this.
“...Why has such a terrible thing happened?”
The perfection of a world where no one could ever clock out.
* * *
It was February.
February, when the fear of the coronavirus had swept the globe and the gravity of the situation was finally being recognized by the public.
I had managed to protect my company, but I couldn't let my guard down.
I knew how much companies had staggered during this period.
Of course, that was the story for ordinary companies.
‘Truthfully, there’s no need to be too tense.’
I looked out the window.
The midwinter weather was cold.
But I couldn't feel any difference from previous years.
The reason was simple.
‘Because IT was about to enter a golden age.’
The indoor IT content market, especially gaming, would achieve rapid expansion.
People unable to leave their homes would have nothing else to do.
It was ironic.
That a miracle would befall some in inverse proportion to the despair of others was undeniably ironic.
But should I turn my back on this trend out of some sense of public responsibility?
‘No.’
I had no reason to.
I didn't have the power to stop it in the first place.
I am just an individual myself.
Even with the group I've formed called Rewind, we're still just a company making waves in a small corner of the gaming industry.
All I could do was ride the wave of the market boom.
That was what the 2019 GOTY I had been honing was for.
Of course, I hadn't done absolutely nothing in the face of this terrible situation.
“President, I’ve finished processing the mask donation. These are the related documents.”
“Good work.”
I took the papers from Yang Gil-sang and opened them.
It was nothing special—in simple terms, it was a move to build goodwill.
Doing good deeds as a company during a time when everyone is struggling has a positive effect on image-making.
In a time like this, with so much talk of mask hoarding and whatnot, it's even more effective.
A single line in a news article, the comments on an online report—all of it becomes potential public support for the gaming industry.
This was especially true considering the various incidents that would occur in the domestic game industry after the pandemic.
I was casually flipping through the documents.
Yang Gil-sang spoke up.
“By the way, sir.”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t about the donation, but about our future.”
Yang Gil-sang's tone grew cautious.
Sensing it was something I should listen to carefully, I looked up as he continued.
“...Will the market expansion really be that dramatic? I must admit, I’m skeptical.”
So that's what this was about.
From Yang Gil-sang's perspective, his concern was understandable.
If I didn't know the future and someone told me the market would double in size and rake in money, I wouldn't believe it either.
It was a time when the limits of the mobile game market were becoming apparent, so even domestic game companies continued to tighten their belts in the early days of the pandemic.
No one knew.
They didn't know how much worse the fear and control related to the virus would become, or how an unprecedented ban on gatherings would make ‘hobbies to enjoy at home’ so precious.
“Please, trust me. You know I have good instincts for this kind of thing.”
“Even so...”
Yang Gil-sang, who had been about to speak, let out a sigh.
He then hardened his expression and said.
His bald head gleamed.
“...Yes, I’ll be frank! President, are you crazy? Postponing the GOTY Edition release until May!”
“Because that’s when the DLC is released.”
“You should just sell them separately on two occasions! In terms of profit...”
“It would fall. We might pull in short-term profits, but in the long run, it would definitely be less.”
“What?”
What I'm aiming for isn't the resale profit of a special edition.
“I told you. The market is going to expand.”
What do you think that means?
How should we tie this GOTY Edition and the DLC together?
“It means the user pool is going to widen.”
We need to attract a new user base.
We need to scrape together users who don't know about games yet, or who know games but not consoles, and absorb them into Hellic’s player base.
The goodwill campaign, the media play, and the delay of the GOTY Edition were all for that purpose.
“I got Sona’s agreement too. They’re dying over there right now, what can they do? They’re probably just glad to have one less thing to worry about.”
It's not about the immediate future.
Once you've cast your line, you have to wait.
And if you're raising livestock, you must feed them well to fatten them up.
“May. There will be no change in plans.”
Just as the public adapts to the age of the virus and finds new ways of life, Hellic will greedily devour the largest piece of the market pie.
* * *
Mid-February, a time when the fear of the coronavirus was still growing.
For the employees, to whom Yeon-ho’s tight schedule and grand ambitions were a distant story, the current situation was absolute hell.
“Ho-su! Isn’t it time for work?”
“...Yeees.”
They didn't have to go to the office.
But that didn't mean they didn't have to work.
Ever since working from home was confirmed, the employees were now monitored by their families instead of the president.
No, even for those living alone, considering they worked via video chat, they were always under someone's watch all the same.
A more terrible... work life with no end-of-day clock-out had officially begun.
The advantages of not having to wash your hair properly in the morning, wear makeup, or shave had quickly become disadvantages.
[...Mr. Ho-su, I sent the data.]
“Confirmed. Mr. Ji-seok, please check the files I sent you as well.”
[Yeees...]
It was an environment where dark circles were inevitable.
In that field of grueling labor, someone wished.
‘Ah... I wonder if the president will ever catch Corona.’
They hoped someone would please make that man sick so he would have to rest.
But who was Cheon Yeon-ho?
He was a meticulous planner who even possessed the special advantage of being a regressor.
He was stricter than anyone about COVID precautions, and his personal appointments converged to zero, leaving no possible route for infection.
The only possibility was the office.
However, the people still coming into work were no ordinary individuals either.
“Senior, please check the overall modeling.”
“Hm, just leave it there.”
Art Director Han Seo-rim. She had already evacuated her neural pathways to the online world a decade ago, so her chances of physical virus contact in reality, much like Yeon-ho's, converged to zero.
“Yeon-ho, the optimization seems mostly done. I think we need to run more QA, though.”
Chief Programmer Go Myeong-gyu, a man who lived a ten-minute walk from the office and could do everything from home without ever needing to step outside.
And one last person.
“P-President...!”
Sound Director Jo A-yun, a woman who had bet her life on MapleStory and had lived more than half of it as a shut-in.
It was the ultimate combination.
No one looking at this group would ever think, ‘They got infected while out having fun.’
The individuals themselves knew it, and the employees knew it too, so their despair grew day by day.
And then, the incident finally occurred.
It was the day A-yun brought Yeon-ho some side dishes from her mother.
“She told me to give you this.”
“Green onion kimchi. Please tell her thank you.”
“Hehe... It’s... it's delicious with Jjapagetti...”
“Yeah, I should pick some up on my way home.”
Yeon-ho's dinner menu was decided: green onion kimchi and Jjapagetti.
It was then.
“Achoo...!”
That A-yun sneezed.
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
“Huuh...?”
One of the changes in the age of coronavirus: if someone coughed in public, fearful glares would pour down on the culprit.
A-yun, startled, looked around frantically.
But everyone else remaining in the office had already moved more than ten meters away from her.
Everyone, that is, except for Yeon-ho.
“....”
“N-No... it can’t be...?”
A-yun fell into extreme confusion.
But that didn't change anything.
She had already sneezed, and the important thing was whether or not she was infected.
Yeon-ho swallowed dryly.
The sneeze, sprayed right in his face, brought some rather frightening possibilities to mind.
“A-yun.”
“Y-Yes...!”
“Did you check your temperature?”
A-yun slowly shook her head.
With a trembling hand, Yeon-ho picked up the thermometer from his desk and brought it to A-yun's ear.
Beep!
The result was disastrous.
[37.9]
A-yun hastily made an excuse.
“Th-This is just because I drank and fell asleep... Ah...!”
A-yun clapped a hand over her mouth, having confessed to drinking... but a much bigger problem had just befallen Yeon-ho.
Yeon-ho closed his eyes tightly.
To cut to the chase, this was the conclusion.
[President... you've caught it.]
Exactly three days later, after the incubation period, Yeon-ho was sick in bed along with A-yun.
The Hero, Jo A-yun, Defeats the Vile President Who Returned from Hell