Chapter 179
Chapter 179
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 179
Chapter Title: An Expected Variable (1)
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Ten million.
Not one hundred thousand, not one million, but the ten million that is called the wailing wall of this industry.
Although it was boosted by the pandemic, it was by no means a number to be dismissed.
The moment the record was broken, news articles began to pour in as if a floodgate had opened. It quickly became the industry's biggest story, and the name Cheon Yeon-ho became the hottest topic on the peninsula.
Someone asked.
“Is selling ten million copies of a game really that big of a deal?”
It was a fair question for someone unfamiliar with the industry.
In the film world, a movie with ten million viewers comes out every so often in the country. For the average person who doesn't know much about console gaming, it was hard to grasp the significance of this achievement.
In cases like this, the best way to make someone understand the scale of it is to prove just how phenomenal it is through data.
Or, to have them understand it indirectly through the praise of famous people.
Fortunately, both were quite easy.
“―Yeah, it's fucking amazing. You can count the number of games that hit ten million in a year on one hand. And for a game from this hell-peninsula that started from scratch to reach ten million? It's a miracle.”
Proving it with records meant citing games with similar achievements, leading to reactions of surprise like, “Wait? *Hellic* achieved something on par with *that*?”
The praise from celebrities worked in a similar way.
“I lost all track of time playing it.”
The entertainment industry, in particular, had become rigid since the start of the pandemic.
Of course, everyone was doing their best within the restrictions, but they were no longer moving around as restlessly as before.
People get bored when they're alone.
It's no different for famous actors or singers.
Among them were some who had just gotten into gaming, and others who were already serious gamers.
The media play from influencers has more power over the public than one might think.
For one, it allows people to easily skip past the “What's that?” stage.
In short, it creates a ripple effect.
On top of that, articles were published summarizing the respect shown by giants of the same industry.
They were compilations filled with nationalistic pride, but the baby Korean media didn't know any better.
They were just happy that a new name had been added to the list of those who brought prestige to the nation.
To sum it up.
『HellicLover: Ah... It's 'Do you know' time...!』
Cheon Yeon-ho, welcome to the 'Do You Know' club!
* * *
Now that the DLC has been released, Development Team 1 is quiet.
It was never a bustling office to begin with, given the low number of people coming in, but it had become much quieter than before.
However, the atmosphere itself hadn't calmed down.
On the contrary, this was the most ludicrous the mood at Studio Rewind had been since the pandemic began.
The reason was, as expected, singular.
“Do you know Cheon Yeon-ho?”
“Yeah~ I know Cheon Yeon-ho!”
Yeon-ho's proud entry into the 'Do You Know' club.
It had become a sort of meme among his long-time colleagues.
Whenever employees met, “Do you know Cheon Yeon-ho?” came out like a greeting. Everyone had gotten so used to it that at Rewind, it had replaced 'hello'.
There was one reason this trend had spread so far.
“Hmm...”
Every time someone pulled the 'Do you know' on him, Yeon-ho would turn his head away with a shy “hmm.”
It was a reaction so surprising it was almost miraculous.
Who was Cheon Yeon-ho?
He was a man with a personality like Satan reincarnated, with a poker face reminiscent of a sociopath, who never showed emotion unless it was an event on the level of an awards ceremony or an injury from sparring with Team 2.
And yet, this man was showing the emotion of 'embarrassment'!
When else would they get to see such a reaction?
Anyone would have thought the same.
Thus, the “Do you know Cheon Yeon-ho” trend showed no signs of stopping, and there was one person who particularly enjoyed it.
“Do you know?”
“Hmm...”
“Do you know Cheon Yeon-ho?”
“...Seo-rim, you can stop now.”
“No, it's just fascinating to see you blush.”
With one corner of her mouth quirked up, Seo-rim tormented Yeon-ho the most.
She would stare intently at his reddened cheeks, as if she derived some kind of pleasure from it (which she actually did).
Yeon-ho cleared his throat with a cough, but Seo-rim showed no signs of stopping.
The long, long years of patience and humiliation... come to think of it, she had been on the receiving end of his antics ever since they first met.
The signature sound of Rewind, which had become so commonplace that she barely registered it anymore, was her own voice.
When *Hellic 2* was first released, she was forced into cosplaying for the sake of the 'game's success'—something she'd never imagined doing—and suffered the miserable fate of being ignored in favor of A-yun's tinfoil monster (she was even less popular than Yeon-ho!).
And was that all?
Most of the games she played under the pretext of 'studying' were horror, terror, or thriller games.
Seo-rim knew.
She knew that Yeon-ho was visibly delighted whenever he made her play them!
And that A-yun had been hiding a recorder behind her back!
What would innocent A-yun know?
The recorder must have been Yeon-ho's idea, and considering that most of the screams from the mobs in *Hellic* were remixed versions of her own, the man's horribleness was simply astounding.
Could you understand how she'd gotten to the point where she wasn't sure if she was an Art Director or a sound designer?
Anyway, after enduring all that time, she couldn't let this moment—this reversal of their power dynamic—go.
She had to enjoy it while she could.
“Do you know?”
“Seo-rim, stop.”
“Nope.”
Yeon-ho's lip twitched.
His gaze couldn't quite meet hers, scattering into the empty air.
Was he always this fun to tease?
Seo-rim felt as if she was confronting a part of herself she never knew existed.
It was then.
“P-President...!”
“Yes?”
A-yun came scurrying over.
In her hands was a small cake with a single candle stuck in it.
“Hehe... C-Congrats on ten million...!”
“You shouldn't have...”
“...?!”
In that moment, Seo-rim felt a sense of crisis.
Because Yeon-ho was looking at A-yun with a visibly touched expression!
*'Huh?'*
Jo A-yun, melting Yeon-ho's heart with pure goodwill!
Only then did she realize.
Instead of leading the charge when others were teasing him, she should have shown a different side!
A wave of distant despair washed over her, and for a moment, her vision went dark!
Han Seo-rim, single since birth, a woman who learned about romance from online communities!
Her way of showing interest was on par with, or perhaps even below, that of an elementary school boy...!
* * *
The moment of accomplishment is always hazy.
It's like someone released a drug into the air, and every breath you take plunges you into a hallucination.
A pleasant languor takes over your body, only to be shaken by a sudden wave of euphoria.
It's like alternating between a cold and hot bath.
Or, to put it another way, like wandering aimlessly on the border between dream and reality.
Two weeks had already passed since we hit ten million, yet this feeling hadn't faded.
I tried to get used to it, but the fact that I had actually achieved this still didn't feel real.
It was, quite literally, something I had considered just a goal, one with a low probability of being realized.
It was an impossible feat for my pre-regression self, and a wall that made my post-regression self think, 'Not yet.'
I can't erase the surge of emotion I felt the moment that wall came down.
Every day feels so precious that it makes a person a bit more sentimental.
But nothing stays new forever. Humans are, after all, creatures governed by adaptation and inertia.
I'm no different, and at some point, I began to get used to it.
I started to accept it and make an effort to live up to it.
In that process, I had help from my employees' teasing, Jo A-yun's congratulations, and Han Seo-rim, who for some reason stopped teasing me and started mechanically repeating her congratulations while clearing her throat even more than I did.
And above all, there was my family.
“Yeon-ho, you're a celebrity now that everyone recognizes, what's with your appearance? Hurry up and eat. Have some more of this ham and stew you like.”
I'd come home for a vacation.
With Development Team 1 mostly on hold aside from handling various external performance reports, I had some free time as well.
My father had a sullen look on his face, saying baseball wasn't going well because of the pandemic.
In truth, that team probably wouldn't do well even without the pandemic, so was it just my imagination, or did he seem more at ease now that he had an excuse?
Anyway, the person who was especially happy about my achievement was my mother.
She went around bragging so much about how her son had become a great person known by the whole nation that I even heard rumors of her saying, “My son is Cheon Yeon-ho.”
I didn't mind it.
The fact that she was proud of her son filled me with even more pride.
Plus, for me, there was another kind of joy in it.
A joy rooted in relief.
It felt like such a relief to see my mother's face bright with a smile, not furrowed with worry like in my past life.
She always worried about me.
Even though she didn't know how my last life ended, she would always call and lovingly nag me, worried that I, living crazily for my dream, would push myself too hard. Whenever I was in an article, she would print them out one by one and even make a scrapbook.
This time, she had displayed a photo from the article about my ten-million-sales achievement among the pictures below the TV, our family's hall of history.
Seeing her so happy made my heart ache for some reason.
“Hm? Yeon-ho. Eat some of these vegetables, too. You need to eat greens for good digestion.”
Of course, that was that.
“Mom, are these seafood patties?”
“So what?”
“Ssk...”
“Just shut up and eat it!!!”
Seafood patties are clearly heresy, are they not?
Mom definitely crossed the line with this one.
* * *
Vacation time means game time.
Not my own games, but primarily those from other directors who defined their eras.
Besides that, I didn't stop cramming my head with all sorts of popular media for input.
I do it more for enjoyment than as work.
That's because it's the only way to intuitively understand their purpose on a deeper level.
To put it simply.
It's easy to feel 'this is fun' and create something in the same vein, but 'this would probably be fun' is difficult.
That's because the factors that influence fun are too complexly intertwined to be theoretically defined.
It all comes down to intuition.
I need to cultivate an eye for intuitively grasping the key points of what makes something fun. I believe that's what's truly meaningful in applying the fun I feel as a member of the public to my own creations.
Of course, it becomes a problem if your own tastes deviate from the mainstream.
But fortunately, I tend to enjoy rather mainstream tastes, and something I've been eagerly anticipating is about to happen.
*The release announcement for Lost Kingdom should be soon.*
Valhalla's *Lost Kingdom*, by Alid Russo, is about to have its release announced.
In my past life and in this one, I have always been an ardent fan of his, and I always look forward to his games.
The soon-to-be-announced *Lost Kingdom* will set an unprecedented record.
A record that will easily surpass the one-year, ten-million sales record of *Hellic 4*.
It's fair to say that the anticipation for it was making it hard for me to focus on anything else.
Fandom can be a frightening thing.
Anyway, these days, I've been spending every day on pins and needles, thinking about how the still cuts that made my heart pound would soon be released.
Then, the day arrived.
I went online and was overcome with confusion.
*'There's nothing?'*
Not a single piece of information related to *Lost Kingdom* had been released online.
Not the next day, nor the day after, nor the day after that, nor the following week.
Two weeks passed in a state of bewilderment.
Only then did I face reality.
*'Lost Kingdom isn't being released?'*
The game that had shaken the industry and captured my heart had vanished.