[ ······Twist it. If you want to kill me. ]
The sword lodged in the man’s heart was trembling.
At the very edge of his life, not far from its end, the man haughtily urged on his own death.
[ ······ ]
The woman gripping the sword said nothing, and twisted it.
His chest caved in and blood surged forth, but the man did not let out even the faintest groan.
[ You are still······ beautiful because you can never be possessed. ]
The man’s hand slowly rose and touched the woman. The blood on his fingers smeared across her cheek.
The woman’s face held no expression. Frigidly steadfast and cold, just as she had been when he had fallen for her. A beauty fitting to adorn the end of his life.
The man smiled faintly.
Then, at last, his final words surged back up as if he were coughing blood.
[ You damned bitch······ ]
You damned bitch, he said.
“Phew. It’s not crashing anymore······.”
Looking at the screen working properly, I let out a sigh of relief. Then I checked the character’s settings once more.
「 Deculein von Grahan Yukline 」
：Alignment ─ [ Evil ]
：Initial Class ─ [ Head Professor ]
：Initial Mana ─ [ 3,357 ]
：Talent Grade ─ [ Grade 6 ]
：Talent Type ─ [ Magic ： Manipulation System / Elemental Earth(土), Fire(火) Attributes ]
：Traits ─ [ 6 ]
：Personality ─ [ 13 ]
Deculein. A named villain who served as one of the mid-bosses of this game.
He was an important villain with all sorts of branching paths, so he’d been riddled with errors until now. Fortunately, the bastard who spent the entire game scheming and doing filthy things died without a bug after 11 hours of playtime.
This time, the cause of death was a sword wound inflicted by his fiancée.
“Um, Mr. Woojin?”
I was just about to resume the game when a familiar voice called my name. I turned to look.
“Ah, yes. Ms. Ara.”
Even without makeup, her distinctive eyes were still large, and her long hair, left to fall down her back, gleamed and swayed without any special care.
Her name was Yu Ara, a woman whose features were convincing enough to pass for those of a decent actress. Her position was team leader.
She was the person I had once dated—no, the person who had graciously dated me.
“Is the test going well?”
At that question, I shrugged.
“Yes. I’m doing it~”
Yu Ara nodded without a word. As I glanced at her, I suddenly noticed the new accessory hanging around her neck.
Without realizing it, my lips jutted out.
“Looks like, what, things are going well with that someone you’re seeing these days?”
“Hm? Ah······ I don’t know?”
Yu Ara shrugged too.
Those similar gestures we shared to some degree were things we had come to resemble in each other while dating.
“I think they’re going well.”
“Mm~”
I needlessly scraped the mouse back and forth.
I’d already heard through rumors, but hearing it directly from her left my insides feeling rather twisted.
“But why do you ask?”
“······What do you mean, why?”
Our breakup was already a story from six months ago.
There was no question of who had done well or poorly at the end of it. We had simply stopped understanding each other.
I was a born idler, and she was a born workaholic.
Her ambition somehow led my endlessly easygoing self into becoming someone who could at least make a living, but in the end, she could not accept my personality.
······No. I was the one who could not change.
“I sincerely hope you make it all the way to marriage~”
“······Haah.”
“Oh my. Was that a little pathetic?”
I waggled my eyebrows and sneered.
Yu Ara did not take the bait of such a petty provocation.
“Just get ready to work. They said some of the settings changed, so you might have to revise the modeling.”
“Again? No······ why does the writer change things every single day?”
I sighed and looked at the clock.
9 p.m. It was already night, yet leaving work was still a long way off.
“Ah. Looks like you were looking at Deculein?”
Yu Ara, peering at my monitor, gave a small laugh.
“Yes. He died after 11 hours. But if you use a bit of a trick, you could kill him right at the start of the game. Is he really a mid-boss?”
“That’s the charm of our game. The longer you leave Deculein alone, the worse of a villain he becomes, so killing him as early as possible makes the game a bit easier. The difficulty changes depending on the player’s choices.”
“······True.”
Every employee at the company, myself included, had already run through game tests dozens, hundreds of times. I’d made it to my fourth run too.
It had probably been replayed about a thousand times in total, but this mid-boss named Deculein had died in every single one except once.
“But did you know? Apparently this character’s model was you, Mr. Woojin.”
“······Deculein?”
“Yeah. That’s why I kill him first as soon as I start.”
“What?”
I frowned.
On the monitor, the line, ‘You damned bitch—’ was still lingering.
“Hehe. Didn’t you notice while modeling him? You look alike.”
“No, I’ve only met the writer twice?”
“I guess she saw you while passing through the company. Anyway, look. Your personalities are similar too.”
“······Our personalities are similar? His dying words are ‘you damned bitch.’”
“They’re similar.”
“Tsk······ That’s why I dumped you.”
Yu Ara’s expression stiffened. I raised both hands as if frightened.
“Oh dear, sorry. Was that pathetic too?”
I couldn’t help it. After being called pathetic, I had become pathetic, so I could no longer not be pathetic.
In the end, Yu Ara couldn’t hold back and got drawn in.
“······You really are pathetic.”
“It feels pathetic because you think it’s pathetic. Your personality is practically paranoia, you know? I only put up with it because it was me.”
“Be quiet and look at the game. How does the test feel?”
I decided to obediently go along with her usual change of subject. I turned my gaze back to the monitor.
“The game itself is fun.”
The game’s setting was a fantasy world where cultures from roughly the 14th to 20th centuries were mixed together.
Its overall framework was that of a supermassive RPG, but the focus was storytelling.
“The problem is, if this flops, the company flops too.”
REW had appeared like a mutant in the barren land that was South Korea’s console game market.
After succeeding with one game after another as soon as it was founded, REW had somehow become a company the entire world paid attention to. This was an AAA-class game they had made by pouring in all the profits and investments they had accumulated so far.
If it failed, we were fucked.
Literally fucked.
“Don’t worry. It absolutely won’t fail. Didn’t you see the reaction to the gameplay video? The whole world went crazy over it.”
Depending on how the player acts, the story and difficulty of the game change. Though it is a single-player game, the player is not truly playing alone, because they are accompanied by various ‘named’ characters equipped with advanced AI.
Thanks to that fresh approach and the reputation REW had built up over the years, gamers both in Korea and abroad, as well as several overseas webzines, had even put our game down as a contender for GOTY, Game of the Year.
“It’s a format where, as long as we raise the IP’s reputation with the single-player console game, we can rake in money online. We’ll definitely succeed.”
Just as she said, this game had many appealing characters and many classes.
Knight, mage, demon, demon hunter, administrator, adventurer, mercenary, king, noble, and so on······ In the game, the player could become anyone.
“Yeah. That would be good for me too. I’ll get a bonus.”
With a faint smile, I turned my head toward the window.
“······Ah, there he is.”
My seat was by the window, so I could see the street outside the company. Near the company entrance, a gleaming foreign car was waiting for her.
“But is he less pathetic than me?”
I smiled and pointed out the window.
Now, I could say things like this with ease.
She also let out a small pfft of laughter.
“······He’s a good person in a different way from you.”
That alone was enough—the implication that I had been a good person too.
Even if that was not what she intended, I would take it that way.
“Really? That’s a relief.”
Of course, I still felt a little sick inside, but not as much as before.
As she said, the man in that car was a good person. If he had been some thug-like bastard, I would have been angry instead.
“Yeah. ······But, and······ you know. Um······.”
Yu Ara started to say something, then only moved her lips.
She would hesitate alone like that, agonizing for a while, then soon say, It’s nothing, and turn away.
I knew that habit of hers all too well.
I already knew what she wanted, too.
“Ms. Ara. We first met three years ago, didn’t we? What were you trying to say?”
Our office romance was a secret.
We had been dating even before I joined the company, but in any case, it was an office romance, so it was a secret.
“······You’re right. What was I trying to say······?”
Yu Ara smiled weakly.
Tick, tick, tick.
A brief silence flowed between us as we faced each other, loud enough that the sound of the second hand grated on my ears.
······In awkward moments like this, the one who spoke first was always Yu Ara.
“Then, Mr. Woojin. I’ll be leaving work now.”
“Yeah. Get some rest.”
“Yes. You’ve worked hard too, Mr. Woojin.”
Clack, clack—
She walked away with the sound of her high heels. Her figure from behind was more perfect than anyone I had ever seen, but in truth, she was a woman whose inner self was even more beautiful than her outward appearance.
She was that wonderful of a person.
The greatest luck of my life.
A benefactor who first made me accept the saying that only a person can change another person.
“······Take care.”
Words that could never reach her. Words I said only to myself.
Feeling pathetic for that very fact, I sighed and focused on the monitor again.
“No, but seriously, the writer went too far.”
As I looked at the character named Deculein, who had already kicked the bucket, my hair soon stood on end.
This piece of shit is me? Unbelievable.
······Though we do look alike.
His appearance certainly did seem to be based on me. While modeling him, I’d thought he resembled someone, but to think that someone was me.
“I should at least upgrade his looks.”
Officially, the game had already gone gold, but the company and the writer’s greed remained. So they had even given me master privileges and asked me to do the final modeling.
“Let’s see.”
No one would dislike a character becoming more handsome.
He might be a villain, but if I was the model, I had to at least make his face proper. It wasn’t as if I’d ever heard anyone say I was ugly, either.
“······Done.”
After quickly finishing the revisions, the character’s 「Features」 suddenly entered my sight.
“Hmmm······.”
In this game, there are two types of features that determine a character’s individuality.
‘Traits,’ which directly affect basic specs, and ‘Personality,’ which affects them indirectly.
The more important a named character is, the more of these Traits and Personality aspects they have.
「Traits」
：Intimidation and Dignity
：Prodigy
：Magical Mediocrity
：Better to Break
：Aesthetic Sense
：Villain’s Fate
Deculein’s traits were the six above.
Good heavens, a combination of 「Prodigy」 and 「Magical Mediocrity」. Truly the worst of the worst, evil among evils.
「Personality」
：Elitism
：Mysophobia
：Regular Habits
：Competitive Spirit
：Noble Etiquette
：Sensitivity
：Authoritarian
：Bluff and Composure
：Steadfast Mind
：Compulsion for Refinement
：Atheist······.
And many other personality traits.
“His personality is pretty awful.”
Even I don’t have elitism, mysophobia, or bluffing or anything like that. I don’t have the authority to be authoritarian either.
As I glared at the monitor for no real reason, displeased, I glanced at the codes stretching out beside the Traits and Personality sections.
“······Ahem.”
In the empty office, I looked around and then browsed through the other Trait and Personality codes.
It wasn’t as if I was going to troll or anything. I was just scrolling down for fun when······ I found one.
「Comprehension」
“At least you shouldn’t be pathetic.”
It was probably similar to consideration. Though it was categorized as a Trait, not Personality, but who cared?
I inserted Comprehension as one of Deculein’s traits.
Next was Tycoon······ He should at least have a lot of money.
Click— click— click—
After that, I playfully added several other traits. 「Tycoon」, 「Midas’ Hand」, 「Yuk An」, 「Iron Man」, and so on······
“What the hell am I doing?”
I had added about five miscellaneous features that probably wouldn’t stand out much, and then reality hit me.
I took my hand off the mouse and leaned back against the chair.
A dry laugh escaped my mouth for reasons I didn’t understand.
“······Hah. It was seven years.”
Seven years.
For you and for me both, seven years was far too long.
Too long to end in a single moment.
No. Perhaps I was the only one who felt it was a ‘moment.’
You must have simply grown tired, slowly.
And slowly prepared for our parting too.
I simply failed to notice your change······
Ding-a-ling—
“Whoa!”
A loud notification. I almost rolled right off my chair.
[ REW (5/107) ]
[ Rain : Mr. Woojin, are you still working? ]
It was the company messenger.
The sender was Ms. Rain, the writer of this game and the general manager of the AI department.
As one could tell from the name, she was a foreigner.
[ Ah, yes. If there’s anything you’d like changed in the modeling, please tell me now. I’ll change it right away. ]
I moved the mouse to delete the traits I had just added.
[ Rain : No······ that’s not it. I’m just waiting to watch. ]
I froze.
Watch what?
Watch me?
I looked around, but there was no one.
[ Watch what? Me? ]
I blinked and stared at the monitor.
Soon, a reply came along with a smiling emoticon.
[ Rain : Pohahang^-^ No~ Look out the window! ]
Without thinking much, I turned my head toward the window.
“······Huh?”
Beyond the transparent glass, in the sky on the other side.
Light was being born.
A flash of radiance fell, illuminating heaven and earth.
A blaze carved itself into the air like the veins of a human body.
Lightning.
That fiercely raging streak of light rushed into my widened pupils.
A tremendous shock shook the world.
The cluster of light that engulfed the office dyed my vision black, and the belated thunder struck my ears.
Ruuuuumble—!
······I have no memories after that.