I leaned back in my chair as if collapsing into it, fiddling with my phone.
My confusion at the shocking news lasted only a moment; as I explored the gallery a little more, the outline of the situation began to emerge.
And I accepted one fact.
The new game I had rejected as a heretical enemy of the sect was becoming an enormous hit.
[Title: So how is it compared to the previous game?]
: Anon
I played the previous one pretty hard. Did this one come out well?
Modern controls? seem to be a hot topic, but how’s the game itself being rated?
Are the bosses designed well? Pretty?
└Anon: It’s a god game, buy it right now
└Anon: Honestly, the people whining about Modern are just a tiny minority
└Anon: Honestly, those guys are probably secretly happy there are more newcomers too
└Mm: Seems like multiplayer optimization has issues lol
└Anon: If your specs are cutting it close, you can buy it later when it’s on sale
Seeing the gallery’s praise, and more than anything the player count, my sharply bristling heart began to soften little by little.
…Yeah. I know too.
Even if on the outside I said old-man things like, “Did they have to overturn the game all the way down to its roots?” and “The Odinson I loved wasn’t this kind of game”…somewhere in my heart, I had been acknowledging it.
That the Odinson system was a newbie guillotine.
That Zanshin was the main culprit that created stagnant veterans and ruined the game.
And that, from the game company’s perspective, this was the right answer.
In truth, Odinson’s commands were so complicated that even if you searched the entire gaming industry, it was hard to find anything to compare them to.
↓ light kick, medium punch, → heavy punch, kick kick kick
If an ordinary fighting game used a combo like that,
↓ light attack mid-stance switch medium attack → high-stance switch heavy attack special special special
In Odinson, you had to press it to the rhythm like this.
[Title: Upvote if everyone insulting Modern is a spy]
: Anon
Practicing combos like a rhythm game and feeling proud when you pulled them off was only fun in the early days.
I could barely manage one or two combos, while the veterans were using dozens of them and playing mind games. It was a garbage game.
If you don’t like it, practice? GIT GUD?
Even if you practice hard and learn them, the moment the meta changes it’s all a hard reset, isn’t it?
[Title: The veterans are just whining because their bellies are full]
: Anon
For a game to survive, it needs an influx of new players lol. Tyr, the previous game, got stagnant too, and after five years the concurrent players completely dried up lol.
Even if they made the bosses a bit hard, the veterans would clear them in fifteen minutes and whine, so they kept getting harder, and newbies couldn’t kill a single one and ragequit.
The fact that Modern increased the user pool is something not even the rotten-water undead can deny.
└Anon: This is true
└Anon: It is kind of a shame Arena disappeared
└Anon: Niflheim and Midgard came out so well that I’m satisfied
Right. It wasn’t as if using Modern controls made Classic completely meaningless.
It was convenient, of course, to have things come out with a single click in Modern, but they said attacks dealt more damage when used in Classic.
And they said Zanshin for movement and stance changes outside of combos was still alive and well.
I set down my phone and looked at the monitor.
On the monitor was the character creation screen for Odindottir, which I had launched.
Right. Let’s change my mindset.
Whatever else could be said, it was still a new game after eleven years.
They say seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times; whatever it was, I’d only know properly if I tried it myself. Then I’d have to start by making a new character.
For reference, I’m pretty knowledgeable about character customization.
I made custom characters for quite a few other users too, to the point that I was called the Beautician of the Odin Gallery.
There were admittedly some rather coercive aspects to it, but those who lost a first-to-ten had no right to choose.
I rolled my shoulders once and grabbed the mouse. And first, focusing on the width between the eyes and the height of the cheekbones, I began the surgery.
***
“Hello, Lumis!!”
-N-hi
-Ha-stream on
-bye bye
-Nami-stream on
-Nami hi
An avatar appeared on the screen and smiled.
If Jincheol from 2025 saw it, it might seem somewhat awkward, but by the standards of the current year, 2020, it was an avatar that belonged to the cutting edge of technology.
“Then today~ you already know what we’re doing, right?”
-Kya
-Odinson is here!!
-Let’s go latest game
-Let’s go!!
“Boss and Iruka turned on their streams too, right? Are we using voice chat? No. Until one person is left and first, second, and third place are decided, we’re all doing closed-door training separately.”
Hanami was a first-generation member of the domestic virtual group Florence.
For reference, Hanami means flower viewing in Japanese, but the VTuber Hanami was, strictly speaking, a Korean name. Her surname was Ha, and her given name was Nami, that was all.
You might ask what that was supposed to mean, but Florence’s stage names were all created in roughly that way. For the dolphin RP, Iruka, the surname was Lee and the given name was Ruka, that sort of thing.
The VTuber industry was still unfamiliar domestically, and since the atmosphere was one of following Japan’s lead, apparently that Japanese-side taste worked.
Still, they had judged that it was too early to openly copy Japanese surnames and given names as they were…or so the boss had said.
So they took the streamer name she originally used, Nami, and attached the surname Ha to it: Hanami. That was roughly the RP she ended up with.
Though the word RP itself couldn’t be openly mentioned in front of viewers… In truth, VTuber culture was just as unfamiliar to Hanami herself.
Even the RP and debut had been slapped together. She had merely been swept up in the bulldozer-like momentum of a fellow streamer with incredible drive.
But she was a veteran as a broadcaster, and somehow or other, she was adapting well to the new trend and proceeding with her stream as usual today too.
“Roll! Roll! Rol…l!! You selfish jerk! Only you get to hit!! Ack! That hurts!! Potion!!”
…She was.
“No, how am I supposed to hit him!! No!! Ack!! That hurts like hell!! Half my health from one hit!! Ugh!! Trash game!! Trash game!! Dead game!! Garbage dead game!!!”
YOU DIED
Looking at the words written in red on the blacked-out screen, Hanami thought.
What kind of dogshit trash garbage game is this…?
***
Odinson. Was it called Odindottir now?
It was such an infamous game that she had thought it would have nothing to do with her.
Because it was such a hot topic, news had flowed in through chat and the fan cafe, but this kind of game was absolutely not her specialty.
Even if the viewers pestered her, she had only intended to coax and appease them and move on. In fact, her regular viewers probably knew best that even if she tried it, there was no way she would clear it properly.
She too was a veteran streamer with quite a bit of broadcasting experience under her belt. She had been through things like this several times, so this time too, she figured she’d dangle a little carrot and move past it.
The reason she ended up playing was homework assigned by the boss.
Even though only a few days had passed since its release, it had considerable buzz. This couldn’t be ignored. I’ll host it, so let’s make content out of it and have everyone make a bet. It was roughly that sort of talk.
He posted the announcement first without even asking her opinion, so she couldn’t avoid it.
That grudge-bearing… Next time I see him, I’m going to hit him…
Still, certainly, as a streaming material, it looked appetizing, and so she had no choice but to accept it.
First of all, as befitting a newly released game, the graphics were excellent. The artwork was enough to surprise even her, worn down as she was as a game streamer, and the optimization wasn’t bad considering it had just launched.
Though the fact that her computer specs were beefy due to the nature of her job played a big part.
When she was looking around at the gigantic World Tree occupying the center of the wide open world and the rainbow bridge spanning between its branches, she had thought it was pretty decent.
Until the six-legged horse she encountered while walking flipped its eyes back and charged at her.
“What is it? What’s going on. Huh?”
Sleipnir. Son of Loki.
The six-legged horse Odin was said to have ridden in Norse mythology.
What would ordinary people think about it? It must run fast? It’s creepy? It’s fascinating?
Generally, that would be the case.
But what the employees of Asgard Software thought was this.
If it runs on four legs, it can attack with the other two, right?
We could put in both beast-skeleton patterns and giant-skeleton patterns, couldn’t we?
YOU DIED
“…No, what was that?”
-Welcome to Odindottir
-lololol
-Ooh, tasty
-Ooh, sweet
Hanami blanked out for a moment, then immediately checked the streaming computer first to confirm the recording.
-Gleipnir, Youngest Daughter of Sleipnir, Gatekeeper of the Rainbow-
“…It was his daughter? But a boss shows up as soon as I start? Is there no tutorial or anything?”
-You haven’t played Odinson yet, have you.. haha
-As if there would be.
“Odinson? Isn’t it Dottir?”
-Up to the previous game, it was son.
-This is the first time it came out as Dottir.
“Ah. Because Hela is a woman? Still, this is the first time I’ve seen them change even the series name.”
-Fr, unless they changed Hela into a man.
-A game title TS is rare.
Still, it wasn’t that bad yet.
Even if she got angry, she had to know what was going on and then die in order to get angry; when she was beaten so absurdly, it just felt like an event, and she didn’t feel anything in particular.
…That was until she learned that the mission designated by the boss was that insane six-legged horse.
“Ah, the tutorial boss the boss mentioned is that? …That’s a tutorial boss? Uh. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Ah. Thank you for the mission~ Clear it within four hours!”
“Come on, would it really take four hours? Hm? You’re all seriously looking down on me too much~ Why are you making such a fuss over the first boss?”
-This probably isn’t the time to be laughing…
-Gleipnir-sensei, Gatekeeper of Your Wallet…
-Ah lol why is this already funny
“Wallet? Ah, that person’s name is Wallet Gatekeeper?”
“Refund it, kid? Haha, that’s hilarious!!”
“…Huh? Is that right? Is that range right?”
“…The damage is weird, though?”
“G-going again!! I’m still figuring out the patterns!! Figuring out the patterns~ I’ll figure them out in no time~”
YOU DIED
[Defeat Wallet Gatekeeper within 4 hours - 1 hour 12 minutes 59 seconds/800,000 won]
“…?”