1-1. KingRPG.exe
I thought I'd made it by that point.
The fighting game I'd built right after college because I didn't want to get a job became a bigger hit than expected, and the girlfriend I'd been dating since freshman year happily accepted my proposal.
- Click, click
Everyone told me I'd made it.
That I'd touched some money at a young age and married a beautiful wife—what more could I want?
Lucky bastard, go pay more taxes. How does someone live a life without a single bump in the road?
- break point set
Honestly, I'd thought so too.
My life was a streak of good luck. To put it in terms of my programming major, it was a life without a single error code.
Even the comprehensive health checkup I'd splurged on after getting married came back without a single abnormality.
"Not even a cavity. You signed up for health insurance for nothing," the doctor had said—that was how perfect my life truly was.
And I'd thought it would stay that way.
"That's how it was...."
I muttered, pressing F5 to run the debugger.
A process to check for errors in the code. Before long, the computer whirred and produced its output.
- start debuging…
public sealed class Background_Main : Background { …
public override void Register(){
var QuestName = GetType().Name;
if (!Registration.AllQuests.Any(t => t.Value.Name == QuestName)){
var builder = new QuestBuilder(){ Name = QuestName };
builder.SetTrigger(new NewEventTrigger(bgqInst));
builder.Register();
…
The output stopped at the breakpoint I'd set earlier.
I hammered the F11 function key mechanically. A cigarette dangling from my lips in the pitch-dark room.
The newly written lines of code stepped through one by one without a hitch. I'd finally cleared out the hundreds of error reports.
Something to celebrate.
But what's any of it good for?
I stopped the debugger and hit the Build key.
The process of assembling what was still just code into an executable file.
The new game's file size was substantial enough that the build alone would take a good thirty minutes.
Maybe I'll take a break.
I stretched and stood up, sending cigarette ash showering down.
I brushed it off without a care and jammed another butt into the ashtray, already bristling like a hedgehog.
Juha would've been horrified if she'd seen it. She'd have started nagging me on the spot.
But my wife wasn't here.
It had been over four months since the separation, and this place—once our newlywed home—had long since become my sanctuary.
Ha ha.
Long live bachelorhood.
I headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. There were no clean cups, so I grabbed one from the overflowing sink.
That was another thing Juha hated.
I gave the cup a quick rinse and poured myself some coffee. Ice-cold drip coffee I'd brewed in bulk two days ago.
The desolate living room. I perched on the cold sofa and fired off a message to an employee.
Told him I'd fixed the bugs and pushed to the hub, so check it. Then the phone rang.
- "Confirmed. Should I merge this with the existing build?"
"Go ahead. Bundle it as version 1.31."
- "Uh... actually, sir. Hold on. I'm just now seeing that the co-CEO's team uploaded something. Looks like we'll need to merge it as version 1.32."
"Again? I'm pretty sure I said we were done here...!"
A flash of irritation made me raise my voice.
The employee fell silent as though he'd swallowed honey, and I realized I'd made a mistake.
"Never mind. Fine. Push it as version 1.32. There'll probably be new bugs again. Tell CEO Yu Juha that this is the absolute last one. We're launching as-is, whether it works or not."
I hung up and steadied my ragged breathing.
That was childish. What did that poor employee do to deserve being caught between me and Juha?
Juha and I were preparing for divorce.
We'd already divided our assets, and all that remained between us was the fighting game license we'd built together, this new game project, and countless memories.
We were each other's first love.
We'd promised to be each other's last, and we married because we were in love—so deeply in love.
Our meeting had to be fate, since we matched in hobbies, personality, and vision.
But who would've thought it'd all crumble under the weight of daily life?
We'd never fought once through our entire long relationship, but everything fell apart after we married. Once the honeymoon sweetness faded, we couldn't stand each other. By the time the accumulated resentments became irreversible, we'd chosen separation.
I hadn't gone into the office since.
The perks of being a programmer.
What happened to the company was none of my concern. No—deep down, I wished it would just disappear.
Because that company was mine and Juha's past, our future, and the very dream we'd pursued together.
I'd actually wanted to scrap this new game project entirely, but Juha said let's at least finish this one.
That we'd file the divorce papers once this game was done. We agreed to close out our relationship with this.
Maybe that was why.
I'd been restless the entire time we were making the game.
When progress stalled, that unsettled me in its own way, and when things went smoothly, it was just the same.
Whether it was Juha calling when I reported the physics engine was behind schedule, or her team letting me know they'd cut some character to shorten the timeline.
I couldn't take the work as purely work.
But in the end, neither of us budged.
Version 1.32. Thirty-two iterations of lingering attachment, and this was the last.
I stared out the window for a while, then got up. Back at the computer, I logged into the hub and found version 1.32 already uploaded.
Right.
It's finally over.
There were probably some bugs from the changes, but nothing that would prevent it from running. While I was downloading and building version 1.32—ding, my phone chimed.
| It's done. Good work. |
It was Juha. Yu Juha.
I stared at that message for a long time before replying. It felt like a massive piece of my life had just broken off.
"Okay, okay. Enough moping. Think positive."
The weight that had settled on my shoulders with marriage was gone. It didn't feel exactly liberating, but I was back to being a single man, so it was fine to dream new dreams.
Funny enough, thanks to marrying early, I was still young.
So what now?
I'd been so busy getting married, starting a company, and working that I planned to kick back for at least half a year.
I'd plow through all the games I'd missed. I was just thinking it'd be nice to binge all the web novels I'd shelved, too—when:
- build complete
Our game was complete.
KingRPG.exe
I ran the file and watched our company logo appear on screen.
Then the intro cinematic began.
A voice actor's deep bass accompanied a map of a kingdom spreading across the screen, as the factions vying for control bled across it like spreading paint.
A story grand yet futile.
And yet—an arena of heroes that sets the heart racing!
KingRPG was a game about seizing the throne. Strength, cunning, and a dash of fantasy.
The player began alone and was meant to walk that grand journey.
How to claim the kingdom was entirely up to the player.
Incite the peasants suffering under tyranny into rebellion, collude with the secular powers and become one of them, pursue personal strength and rise as a lone supreme being, or unearth hidden mysteries and shake the very foundations of the world.
Anything was permitted.
Vast, boundless freedom. The sole caveat was that at the journey's end, the player must ascend the throne—that was KingRPG's theme and its only condition.
I straightened up in my chair and focused on the intro cinematic.
Because the game had to finish loading in the background while the cinematic played, it was a nerve-wracking moment for me as the developer.
So far, no problems. No bugs either.
But...... at some point while I was listening to the narration, I realized something was wrong.
"The princess has assassinated the king."
The audio quality had suddenly skyrocketed. The kind of sound my dirt-cheap speakers, haphazardly hooked up to the computer, could never possibly reproduce.
At the same time, a gust of someone's breath washed over me.
There was a person right in front of me.
[ Chapter 0. The King's Proof ]
"Hck—! Wh-what?!"
Suhyeok, who'd been sitting in the dark room staring at his monitor, was so startled it was a wonder he didn't pass out.
A burglar? How did he get into my house? And when did he get in front of me...... Wait. Where am I?
He tried to leap up in shock, but the chair wouldn't slide back. Only then did Suhyeok look around.
A cramped space.
Doors on either side, each draped with red velvet curtains.
The sound of hooves and a faint vibration—it was as though he were riding in a moving carriage.
The unidentified intruder caught the ink bottle Suhyeok had nearly knocked over. Looking annoyed, the man spoke in a rather agitated voice.
"I understand you're startled, but don't act rashly. Focus only on transcribing my words accurately. This is urgent news that every lord in the kingdom must hear."
A man dressed in Western medieval garb. A nobleman, most likely. Mid-forties, perhaps.
He started rattling on again, but Suhyeok remained frozen stiff.
He fidgeted with the quill pen in his hand, then looked down at his own hand as if it belonged to a stranger.
This isn't my hand.
Suhyeok's fingers were on the slender, long side—the kind commonly called piano hands, and he'd been secretly proud of them.
But the hand holding the quill now was short and stubby. When he reached up to touch his face in shock, entirely different features met his fingers.
"What are you doing? Get to writing already."
"......Viscount?"
The man blinked at him.
With a look that said, Why are you calling me? Suhyeok thought, 'Oh, dear God,' and let himself entertain an absurd idea.
Could this possibly be inside the game?
A truly, utterly absurd idea.
And yet, this man's voice and appearance were identical to the narrator from KingRPG's intro.
The king's close aide, murdered by the princess.
He'd forgotten the name, but it was Viscount Something-or-other.
If this wild theory was right, Suhyeok knew what was about to happen.
Because this is the game I made.
But there was no cause for celebration at being inside his own game—this intro cinematic ended with the narrator, the Viscount, being killed by a pursuit squad sent by the princess.
The dawn of an age of chaos.
The starting point from which every power in the kingdom would rush toward the vacant throne.
At that moment, a TWANG—! from a bowstring pierced the air, and the carriage lurched violently.
"What?! What's happening?!"
The Viscount threw open the window and shouted.
"It's a pursuit squad!"
The intro where the Viscount dies had begun.
With me included in it, of all things.