Chapter 76
Until he visited the developnt office, Team Leader Choi Ho-jun had been certain.
[Reinhardt] was Han Yura, and she was just showing off her characteristic eccentric side.
That was why he had intended to have a showdown.
No matter how great a figure Han Yura was, there was a clear difference in roles between marketing and developnt.
Marketing was the marketing team's domain. Since she had overstepped her authority, he had a clear justification this ti. That’s what he had thought, but…….
“Are you really saying it’s not you? Really?”
“I said it’s not!”
He had guessed wrong.
Completely and utterly wrong.
According to what Han Yura had said so far, [Reinhardt]’s achievents were not a situation that could be intentionally brought about just by being involved in developnt.
“Then who on earth……”
“Oh? Co to think of it, wasn't this a project run by the marketing team?”
Flinch.
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun trembled.
That's right.
Because he was convinced that Han Yura was the culprit, he had unknowingly revealed his inner thoughts.
“That is……”
“Anyway, please tell them I was impressed. And if possible, ask them to let know a little, too. I think I could create more realistic NPCs then.”
“……Yes.”
“It’s just my guess, but I think he touched their emotions. I did set up basic emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. They feel joy when they eat their favorite food, things like that.”
“Emotions? Are you saying NPCs have emotions?”
“No way.”
NPCs are just the result of coding.
It was the sa as the world inside Soul Calibur.
It might look real, but it wasn’t real.
“But it ans I made them look like they have emotions. When an appropriate value is input, an emotion is output.”
“Then that ans he t those conditions, right? [Reinhardt].”
“Yes. I don’t know how he did it. There aren’t that many choices a player can make in Part 1. At most, a few limited emotional expressions, or, well……”
Han Yura tilted her head.
“Unless you go inside and talk to them directly, you have to assu it’s difficult.”
“Are you thinking it’s actually real?”
“I’m not that strange of a person. Though I know how the company views .”
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun awkwardly shook his head.
“That’s not what I ant when I said that……”
“Don’t worry, I don’t mind. Anyway, that’s what I an. Unless you talk to them directly, it’s a near-impossible task.”
“You an it’s impossible to touch an NPC’s emotions?”
“That’s right. Or it could be sothing else. For example, hmm, maybe he repeated a specific emotional expression and accidentally got the desired result.”
“Is that possible?”
“The probability wouldn’t be 0. Though it would be absurdly low.”
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun nodded gloomily.
The explanation was interesting, but nothing had changed.
“But actually, I also have this thought. The thought that maybe there isn’t much difference between us and the NPCs.”
“What do you an?”
Flash–
For a mont, Han Yura’s eyes lit up.
A passionate explanation followed.
“In any case, the brain is like a part that operates based on electrical signals, right? If a signal to be happy is input, it becos happy, and if a signal to be sad is input, it becos sad.”
“I think I’ve heard sothing like that before. I did hear it, but……”
“I’m approaching it from that context. If that’s the case, then isn’t the world we live in also the result of careful programming by a higher being…… Team Leader? Team Leader Choi Ho-jun?”
“I’m sorry. I’m busy.”
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun escaped the developnt office as if fleeing, with a gloomy expression.
He just didn’t want to hear any more of that bizarre idea.
“This is driving crazy.”
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun muttered in a low voice.
The situation was out of his hands.
Han Yura was not the culprit. She wasn’t the type of person to lie about sothing like this.
“She said no one could do it.”
She said it was an event that only appeared when near-impossible conditions were t.
She said that not only the developnt staff, but even Han Yura herself wouldn’t be able to do it.
“She said it’s an impossible task unless you go into the ga and talk to them. No, a near-impossible task.”
Click.
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun opened the community page.
After organizing [Reinhardt]’s posts, he began to read them sentence by sentence, starting from the first post.
‘I ca into the ga. I ca in, I beca Reinhardt, and anyway, it seems sothing is different from the original story I rembered.’
The content was as he rembered.
But Team Leader Choi Ho-jun focused on the emotions contained in the writing.
He tried hard to find the reactions that a human would inevitably show in certain situations.
[Reinhardt] had made a plan to survive in his own way, overca crises, and solidified his position in the gateway city of Serigel.
It wasn't a smooth process.
Occasionally, truly dangerous monts had struck, but he had broken through them.
Only at the end of all that had he reached his current position.
‘Was this the condition the Head Developer was talking about?’
[Reinhardt] had ford friendly relationships with various characters.
He was almost at the level of a firm ally.
This was true not only for ‘Ethan Taton,’ who had been placed as a moderately disposable character, but even for ‘Knight Fermil,’ who had been placed to make the protagonist stand out.
All the characters he had t so far.
Excluding the warlocks among them, it ant that Reinhardt was leading all of them while keeping them alive.
“I see. That’s what it was.”
As a result, the condition ntioned by Head Developer Han Yura had been t.
It would never have been unlocked through a normal route, but [Reinhardt]’s playstyle was clearly far from standard.
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun stared blankly at the screen for a mont.
As he sat there, strange thoughts began to arise.
‘Could it be real?’
He felt like a fool.
The surrounding circumstances were making him so.
‘Did he really go into the ga? Did sothing like that really happen?’
Even as he thought it, a hollow laugh escaped him.
It was impossible.
It was content that directly contradicted the common sense of a modern person.
But, if that were the case.
Not soone from the marketing team, or another employee of Skylines.
By chance.
Unfortunately.
If a user who was happily playing Soul Calibur had been possessed into the ga.
‘I’d rather it be that.’
If it was an individual’s careless mistake, the responsibility would be clear, but no one questioned another’s responsibility in the face of a natural disaster.
‘Anyway, it’s still Part 1. Even though Jenkins has appeared, the fact that it’s Part 1 hasn’t changed. It was the scope we were going to release anyway.’
[Reinhardt] had not yet crossed the line.
It was the amount they were going to consu for marketing purposes anyway. The story of Part 1 was just fuel to heat up the community.
Having thought that far.
Team Leader Choi Ho-jun let out a deep sigh and took his hand off the mouse.
“Let’s see how far this goes. At this point, I’m getting curious too.”
If [Reinhardt] didn’t cross the line, it would end as a simple happening.
But if he did cross it.
If he released content related to Part 2 in the community.
“Then I’ll know. What was real.”
There was no one to hear his monologue.
Click.
Only after sitting like that for a long ti did Team Leader Choi Ho-jun turn off the office lights and leave the company.
***
Taton Knights.
The group run by Ethan Taton had undergone a dramatic change in the past few months.
And the change was still ongoing.
The conditions improved daily, to the point where countless love calls were coming in from nurous groups with vested interests.
“How many new mbers did you say there were?”
“There are thirty-two individuals undergoing basic training. Twenty-seven have completed their training and joined.”
The secretary replied to Ethan’s question, pushing up his glasses.
Originally, Ethan didn’t keep a secretary.
His own skills were much better than most secretaries, and to hire a truly outstanding person would be a waste of operational funds.
But now the situation was different.
Funds had beco plentiful, and the amount of work had beco terrifyingly large.
No matter how outstanding a rchant Ethan Taton was, it was nearly impossible for him to handle all the work alone.
“How are the training results?”
“All have shown results exceeding the standard. At this rate, it seems you can lower the difficulty of the next entrance examination a little.”
“I should. Is there a need to expand the facilities?”
“No, sir. The current facilities can accommodate about a hundred more people.”
“What is the accommodation standard?”
“Three new mbers per existing room.”
“I’m not trying to build a chicken coop. Increase it. We must guarantee two people per room.”
“I will prepare for it.”
The facilities of the Taton Knights were on the excellent side.
It was thanks to Ethan’s focus on ‘appearances’ until now.
Because they were a knight order ridiculed by the public.
Because they were evaluated as being no different from a group of rcenaries, despite having the na of a knight order.
The things he had done to escape that situation were now of great help to Ethan.
“They say you never know what life will bring.”
It was sothing Ethan’s rchant father always used to say.
That an item that was worth a pittance until yesterday could have its value rise to be comparable to a gold nugget as soon as the sun rose the next day.
The Taton Knights were in exactly that situation right now.
Knight Reinhardt.
Just by the fact that they had embraced the knight who was the pride of Serigel, weren’t they being treated as the most outstanding knight order in the gateway city?
“This is no ti for this.”
I had to work.
A day of 24 hours was not nearly enough for the neat and tidy Knight Commander.
Ethan looked over the pile of request letters.
They were requests to dispatch Taton’s knights to operations such as escorts, guarding, and subjugations.
Ethan, who was examining the contents, began to sort the request letters to the left and right according to their content.
Left was rejection.
Right was acceptance.
Unlike in the past when he accepted any request that ca in without question, now he too had to consider the honor of the knight order.
“Rom Caravan. Were they still around?”
Ethan let out a chuckle after spotting a familiar na in the middle of it all.
Rom Caravan.
This ti too, the request was for an escort mission to the Gamudan Kingdom.
Ethan sorted the request letter to ‘rejection’ without any lingering attachnt.
Even after confirming the massive request fee written at the bottom.
It was at that mont.
“Sir Commander. Sir Reinhardt has arrived.”
At the secretary’s voice, Ethan shot up from his seat.
After quickly pushing all the docunts he was processing to the corner of his desk, he shouted.
“From now on, don’t report it and let him in first! Sir Reinhardt’s ti is much more precious than mine. Understood?”
“Yes. Sir Commander.”
Ethan rubbed his hands together with a broad smile.
Soon the door opened, and Reinhardt entered.
The very person who had raised the Taton Knights to their current position.
“Sir Reinhardt! What brings you here today… I would have co to you if you had called, you didn’t have to co all this way.”
“I could not do that.”
“Right. How about getting an attendant? To assist you, Sir.”
“It is not necessary.”
“Alright. I won’t make any more unnecessary suggestions. So, what can I do for you? Just say the word.”
“I did not co to ask for anything in particular.”
If so.
Ethan’s eyes sparkled as he waited for Reinhardt’s business.
“Could I see Dirk’s training results? If possible, it would be good to see the results of the other new mbers as well……”
Reinhardt stopped talking and closed his mouth.
Ethan grinned and tapped the desk with his index finger pointing down.
“Here, I’ve already prepared it. I thought you might be curious, Sir.”
Ethan Taton was an expert on Reinhardt.
To the point where he knew what he wanted and disliked without him having to say it.
Reviews
All reviews (0)