It was early morning.
On his way into the office, Taeyeon thought,
If this were truly a brand-new title, we’d be going into a minimum one-year emergency on-call mode…
No matter how much you test and patch, once service begins, bugs pour in by the bundle. Everyone’s play environment and playstyle are different.
Monster Eater doesn’t require going that far, but I should keep a close eye on things at least until the first update.
On top of that, he wouldn’t be the one running operations forever; he needed to pick a successor PD and hand things over at the right time.
This isn’t my game. And it’s not like I only have one or two projects on my plate…
Even if sales exploded, nothing special would fall into his lap. Hanging on would only drain his stamina.
I need the work process and operating guidelines finished by the end of this month.
Three months.
That’s when the first update after the Korean service would wrap.
Taeyeon had that point in mind as when he would step down.
But he still didn’t know that, in the real world, things often don’t go the way you plan.
[Monster Eater. 10 billion won in sales on day one!]
[Record-setting revenue and a flood of praise—Nexple’s momentum is unstoppable!]
[PD Takizawa Satoshi: We’re sincerely grateful for the explosive support from Korean users. Together with PD Yoo Taeyeon, we promise to deliver an amazing experience.]
Nexple’s internal intranet and office worker communities were on fire.
[Whoa. 10 billion on day one? And it’s a subscription game, not F2P?]
└ Guess that’s the difference when it’s a world-famous title.
└ The IP was huge to begin with, but the localization is genuinely excellent. Translation’s great, lots of optimization issues are fixed!
└ IP power + PD Yoo Tae—
The industry was floored.
That’s how shocking the numbers were.
And if that’s the mood at other companies…
“PD Yoo! Congrats on the monster sales!”
“I knew you’d pull it off. I played during internal testing and it was genuinely fun!”
Everyone he ran into offered congratulations.
[When you arrive, come by my office.]
A chat from Chairman Yoo Jinseong.
Taeyeon checked in on the intranet, then headed straight for the chairman’s office.
“You saw the article, right? 10 billion on day one!”
“Yes, I saw it this morning.”
He looked positively ecstatic.
“And after that, sales didn’t drop much and are holding steady? How is that even possible? This is a subscription game!”
“Word of mouth is strong, so users keep pouring in.”
A twitch touched his lips.
“People are full of praise too. What kind of magic did you work? Come on, tell me the secret!”
“I only focused on three things.”
“Three? What are they?”
“Localization. Optimization. Prompt response to feedback.”
Another twitch.
“Easy to say, but isn’t that insanely hard?”
“It is. But you have to do it. That’s exactly the scope of service users paid for.”
“…”
Chairman Yoo’s face twisted into an odd shape, then—
“Puhahaha!”
He couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“You really have a way with words. You say exactly what I love to hear. Did you crawl into my heart and take notes?”
“I’m not exactly swimming in free time. There’s too much to do.”
“You stiff. Let’s see, how many people are at Nexple Plus right now?”
“It was 70, but we’ve recently added headcount to 75.”
“Huh? Really? Why did I think it was 70? Hang on…”
He fussed with something on his desk, then waved Taeyeon over.
“Come take this.”
A stack of white envelopes.
“Don’t tell me… cash bonuses?”
“Knowing you, you wouldn’t like it if only you got something. I split them fairly—hand them out to your team. You and Myunguk take one each as well.”
Meaning he’d included ones for Taeyeon and CEO Kim Myunguk too.
Fair.
Only then did Taeyeon crack a grin.
“Thank you.”
“Now you react. You’re probably busy, so I won’t keep you. Off you go.”
Even though it wasn’t officially work hours yet, the Nexple studio was packed with no empty seats. With service going well, morale was naturally up.
Taeyeon raised his voice.
“Everyone, eyes up for a moment!”
“…?”
All eyes turned toward him.
“The chairman has given a cash bonus to every employee of Nexple Plus. For the record, it’s the same amount across the board, regardless of rank.”
“…”
A beat later—
“Wooooaaah!”
“Cash bonuses!”
“Long live!”
Cheers erupted.
He handed them out to the staff, gave one to CEO Kim Myung-uk, and tucked the last remaining one into his own jacket.
I’ll use this to buy Yuna a present.
With Monster Eater’s official service underway, his time with Yuna had shrunk. She said it was fine, that she understood—but Taeyeon still felt bad.
He texted her,
[Let’s shop and have dinner together at the Pangyo department store at 6 tonight.]
Her reply was quick.
[Are you sure you can?]
[I can spare that much.]
As long as nothing critical happened, he could handle most issues by phone.
Yuna matters more than work.
If he had to choose, it would be Yuna, obviously.
After setting the date, he dove into work like a madman.
Check issues and handle them, and meanwhile coordinate with Crying Soft to co-run the first update work—
He was doing all this to synchronize the update timing of the Japan/global servers with the Korean server.
“Good work!”
“See you tomorrow!”
Taeyeon headed out quickly as well.
He pulled the car from the basement parking and drove to Yuna’s place.
[I’m here.]
Not long after he texted, a woman in a mask and hoodie slipped into the passenger seat.
“Are you sure it’s okay to be taking it easy when service just started?”
“For me, Yuna comes before work.”
No response. He glanced over and asked,
“Moved?”
“No, cringe…”
“What?”
“I guess I’m still not immune to the cheesy stuff.”
“…”
The moment they stepped into the Pangyo department store, they drew stares.
No matter how much you cover the face, you can’t hide an athlete’s proportions.
On top of that, her model-like height made her stand out by default.
It’s not time to go public yet. Let’s just buy what we need and slip out quietly.
“This is it.”
They arrived at a sportswear boutique called Blue Lime.
“This brand is huge right now among women who work out. People call it the Chanel of leggings.”
“How do you even know that?”
“I overheard the women at work talking at lunch. I asked, and they said for women who train, having at least one of these is basically the rule.”
Hearing that, he’d decided this was the present.
“You wear leggings a lot for training. Let’s get two sets here, and one set for Seol-ah, too.”
“You’re getting something for Seol-ah unnie as well?”
“She’s the one who connected us. We owe her.”
“…”
“Oh, and a tracksuit for hyung too.”
Mid-meal, a call came in from the Nexple Plus studio.
— PD, some users’ PCs are force-closing the game.
“Have we found the cause?”
— Not 100% sure, but I think…
After finishing the call, Taeyeon let out a sigh.
He was about to broach it, but—
“You have to go, right? Go on.”
“…Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We still finished dinner. And I got a lovely present.”
Her quiet smile felt like balm.
“I had a really good time.”
“…I’ll at least drive you home.”
After dropping Yuna off and getting ready to head back to the office—
“Oppa.”
“Yeah?”
Yuna stopped him with her voice.
She shook the gift bag and said,
“I’ll wear these well. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“…”
Something swelled in his chest; he couldn’t think of what to say.
He just smiled.
He watched her go inside, then turned back toward the road. A text arrived soon after—a try-on shot.
[They fit perfectly. I love them!]
They looked fantastic on her.
The cash bonus plus his own money… It was worth every won.
By the time he’d wrapped the issue and stepped out, it was already 2 a.m.
He considered texting that he was finally heading home, but didn’t want to wake her.
And on the way back, he ran into a sight he hadn’t expected.
“Huh?”
A flagship store of a world-famous sports brand!
“Yuna’s?”
On the exterior wall, a massive ad of Kim Yuna in an orange top and black leggings, stretching.
“Wait a sec…”
He pulled over, quickly searched the brand name along with Kim Yuna’s.
[N**e taps “gymnastics queen” Kim Yuna as model for its women’s line!]
[Gymnastics queen’s women’s line—sales skyrocketing!]
“…”
Taeyeon was at a loss for words.
So she’s contracted with another brand…!
Below that was another headline.
[Over 10 billion won a year! 1 billion per spot. Kim Yuna keeps the CF queen crown years after retirement!]
“…!”
Her wiki listed more commercials than he could count.
And I gave her sportswear from a rival brand!
His face burned.
Call himself her boyfriend and he didn’t even know that?
“What an idiot…”
He could only laugh at himself.
On top of that, the media estimated her assets at at least 100 billion won!
And there he’d been, bragging about getting a “cash bonus” from the company. Even if it was in jest, it was like wrinkling in front of a chrysalis—comically out of place.
I really don’t know her, do I?
From now on, he’d need to think a lot harder before buying gifts or choosing places to take her.
A sleepless night passed.
He got to the office, checked the issues he’d handled the previous day, then monitored patch progress. He also took the issues that had piled up overnight from the ops team and distributed tasks to each team.
It really hits me how incredible Takizawa Satoshi’s crew is.
Even if it had already been live elsewhere… it was still a new release in Korea. And yet, how could there be so few issues?
That’s how capable the producer and dev team are.
After meetings, he summarized the issue status and held a video call with the Crying Soft team. Since the game had just launched in Korea, he was giving it special attention.
What issues cropped up, how they’d be handled, what they planned to knock out today. What HQ at Crying Soft needed to do, what they would handle on their side.
By the time they finished talking, the whole morning had flown by.
Before lunch, he called Kim Yuna.
And apologized right off.
“Sorry. I didn’t even know you had a contract with a different brand and went and bought that…”
She burst out laughing before he could finish.
— That’s why I texted “I had a really good time” yesterday.
“That’s what you meant?”
As her laughter rolled on, his embarrassment swelled in proportion.
On the other hand, imagining her, who almost never laughed out loud, cracking up that hard made him feel oddly proud.
Taeyeon chuckled and said,
“The gift was a bust, but if it made you happy, I’ll call it a win.”
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