Chapter 1

Someone once said that life was like a box of chocolates.

“Gihyeon-ssi. Do you think a company is a place where people learn?”

It was probably meant as a metaphor about holding onto hope in life. Even if you had to taste life’s bitterness, there would still be sweet chocolates waiting for you.

“The more I watch you, the more I feel like your sense of time is completely different from mine. You’re not here on vacation, are you? You need to produce results faster than this if the project is going to move forward smoothly. The company keeps investing its resources in you! Why are you so frustrating?!”

But I saw things a little differently.

Life was one enormous garbage dump.

“I know you’re working hard, but what’s the point if there are no results? Results! We need results!”

It had already been four years since I started working at one of those tiny, exploitative mobile game companies people commonly referred to as a hellhole.

Lately, the atmosphere around the office had been especially miserable.

Not that there had ever really been many good days…

But these days, my biggest concern was that the company looked like it was genuinely on the verge of going under.

“I’m so worried I can’t even sleep at night! It feels like I’m the only one worrying about this company’s future! Gihyeon-ssi, you just seem to brush everything off!”

Bonuses were out of the question. The project teams kept shrinking, quarterly sales did nothing but trend downward, and after churning out one generic gacha game after another, public opinion had long since hit rock bottom.

To be honest, the reason the company was falling apart couldn’t have been clearer.

It all came down to the CEO’s idiotic philosophy of cutting development costs.

A new game that used to require thirty developers was reduced to twenty… then ten…

And now there were only five people left.

How could anyone expect a proper game to come out of an environment like this?

No matter how many nights we worked overtime, the work never ended. These days, the office was filled with exhausted groans from team members saying they’d never finish everything.

The most infuriating part was that every employee knew exactly what the problem was.

Everyone except the CEO.

A month ago, the youngest member of the art team quit in tears.

A week ago, the planner who sat beside me announced they were leaving for another company.

Now there were only two people left on our team.

Ji-young-ssi.

And me.

The situation was so absurd it made my vision go dark, but whether we liked it or not, the game still had to be finished.

So I spent the last three nights sleeping in the office.

After finally putting together a build…

Well…

As you can see, I was currently getting chewed out by the CEO-nim.

“CEO-nim, that’s absolutely not what happened…”

“What do you mean it isn’t?! You’re actually proud of getting paid for work like this? I gave a chance to someone with nothing but a high school diploma who didn’t even have the basics, and instead of doing your job properly—”

It was the same routine as always.

Relentless personal attacks.

Endless humiliation.

“Gihyeon-ssi. How much longer are you going to keep living like this? Any other company would’ve fired you ages ago. Get your act together, will you?!”

I couldn’t bring myself to respond.

As my dignity was being trampled without mercy, irritation quietly welled up inside me.

If my work was really that awful…

Why didn’t the CEO-nim just develop the game himself?

Seriously.

I’d been skipping meals because of this job.

I’d worked until my back was permanently hunched over.

So why did I have to be cursed at like this?

What was the point of any of this other than willingly living like a slave?

My anger boiled over.

Then, just as quickly…

It fizzled out.

The reason was obvious.

Money had always been the biggest problem in my life.

“I’m sorry.”

I lowered my head and apologized.

It wasn’t that I had no pride.

To be honest, I wanted to quit just as badly as everyone else.

But…

Money really was the bane of my existence.

I couldn’t.

No…

I wasn’t in a position where I could.

Ten years ago, my family’s life had taken a sharp turn for the worse after my older brother suddenly collapsed.

The tragedy began when I was in middle school.

I’d gone to a PC café to play games with my friends, and when I came home, my parents and my brother were nowhere to be found. The only thing left on the dining table was a note telling me to come to the hospital.

When I rushed there, my parents were clutching my brother’s hand as he lay in the hospital bed, crying their hearts out.

He’d been cheerful and full of energy just the day before.

How could they not have been devastated when their eldest son suddenly collapsed without warning?

Their faces were twisted with anguish as they begged him to wake up.

As for me…

I simply stood there in a daze.

The person lying on the bed, doing nothing but blinking…

I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he was really my brother.

“Mom… Dad… This is all a lie, right? It has to be… Why did it have to be hyung? Why…?”

“It’s okay, Gihyeon. Your hyung will definitely get back on his feet. We just have to believe in him… Okay?”

My mother’s eyes were bloodshot as she spoke, but honestly… things looked hopeless.

He had to wear a urinary catheter all day long, and he couldn’t even manage the simplest movements without someone else’s help.

…No matter how optimistic I tried to be, there was no way I could look at my brother’s condition positively.

Even the doctor had recommended transferring him to a long-term care hospital, so there was no need to explain just how serious his condition was.

But my parents refused to give up searching for a treatment. After that day, they both quit their jobs. Looking after their eldest son—whose mental capacity had inexplicably regressed to that of a four-year-old—while holding down full-time jobs was simply impossible. Instead, my father found a night security job with rotating shifts. To be honest, I remembered that even his paycheck was barely enough to cover my brother’s hospital bills.

In a situation like that, there was only one thing I could do.

Grow up as quickly as possible.

And earn money.

To make that happen, I had to give up many things. I abandoned my dream of becoming a track-and-field athlete—a dream I’d nurtured since elementary school—and enrolled in a Meister high school because it had a high employment rate. After graduating, my homeroom teacher even recommended that I go to university, but I chose to enter the workforce as quickly as I could.

That’s why I had been genuinely happy when I joined this company. For someone with only a high school diploma, the starting salary was surprisingly good, and they even offered a modest housing allowance. After overcoming countless obstacles and finally becoming a client programmer, I thought nothing but a bright future lay ahead…

What a load of bullshit.

A bright future, my ass.

The only thing I’d learned over the past four years was that this company was nothing but a pitch-black hellhole.

Hundreds of slaves, worked like pack mules hauling heavy carts. A suffocating corporate culture where you were valued less than a cog in a machine. The office lights stayed on so late every night that people nicknamed the building “the lighthouse of XX Station.” Working there was hell in every sense of the word.

Even so, quitting wasn’t an easy choice.

My parents’ and my brother’s livelihoods rested squarely on my shoulders.

“Gihyeon-ssi. Stop advertising how uneducated you are and get your act together, got it? Finish this by today, commit the build, and then you can go home.”

The stack of documents struck my forearm with a loud smack.

I bent down, gathered the scattered papers, and neatly stacked them together. My teeth clenched with anger at the unreasonable demand, but thinking of my parents, I took a slow, steady breath.

No matter how humiliating the words thrown at me were…

There was only one answer I could give.

“I’m sorry.”

Quietly apologizing, I left the CEO-nim’s office.

By the time I finally got off work, it was well past eleven at night.

It was only possible because Ji-young-ssi—looking like a zombie with dark circles hanging under her eyes—had stayed behind to help me.

After countless setbacks, we finally committed the alpha build. We threw our arms around each other and cheered, celebrating that we could finally go home.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

The workload should have required at least four or five people, yet the two of us had managed to finish the build by entering a coding trance and pouring out line after line of code.

Still riding the high of our victory, Ji-young-ssi suggested commemorating the occasion with a few beers, but with the last train fast approaching, I had no choice but to turn her down.

Four straight days of overtime.

Dragging my exhausted body along, I trudged back to my tiny villa on the outskirts of Seoul—a place I’d scraped together every last penny to afford.

After squeezing myself into the cramped bathroom for a shower, I dried my hair with a hairdryer and absentmindedly reflected on the day.

Perhaps it was the cool night breeze drifting in through the window.

For some reason, I found myself growing unusually sentimental.

“Life really isn’t easy.”

I stared blankly at the resignation letter tucked between the books on my shelf and muttered to myself.

After slowly reading the words written across the white envelope, I let out a sigh and slipped it back into its place.

I’d imagined countless times what it would feel like to march into the CEO-nim’s office and slam it down on his desk.

But I never had the courage to actually do it.

At least until my hyung no longer had to stay in the hospital, I had no choice but to let this hellish cycle of all-night overtime grind me down.

Even so, I never considered myself an unhappy person.

After all, my hyung meant the world to me.

As long as my parents and my brother could live a little more comfortably, what did it matter if I had to endure a few insults from the CEO-nim? And if luck was on our side, maybe one day we’d even find a way to cure my brother’s condition.

Besides…

No matter how difficult life became, as long as there was something that could still make you smile, you could always find the strength to face tomorrow.

I didn’t think I was the only one.

Everyone carried someone—or something—like that in their heart.

For some, it was a beloved son or daughter who looked just like them.

For others, it was an adorable dog or cat.

Or maybe an idol.

Or an anime character.

As for me…

The thing that brought joy to my life was none other than my favorite.

After all, what hobby could be more fitting for a game developer than playing games?

Putting the hairdryer away, I sat back down in my chair.

The moment I slipped on my headset and looked up, magnificent background music and breathtaking artwork greeted me.

A mighty fortress surrounded by towering walls.

The valiant members of the Hero Party.

And finally…

The title appeared.

[Journey of the Hero Party IV]

This game was my endorphin.

My dopamine.

I’d become so obsessed with it over the past few months that my playtime was already approaching two hundred hours.

If someone asked whether it was really that fun…

I couldn’t honestly say yes.

But to me…

It was special.

The reason was simple.

It was the fourth installment of the legendary SRPG (Strategy Role-Playing Game) series that had first been released twenty years ago.

Back when I was still a snot-nosed kid, my hyung and I used to fight endlessly over the Journey of the Hero Party games.

I could still vividly remember us wrestling each other just to claim the computer first.

There’s probably still a picture back at my parents’ house of me bawling my eyes out after getting beaten up by hyung.

It was a game filled with memories of my brother back when he was still healthy.

And after a ten-year wait following the third installment…

The fourth game had finally arrived.

The moment rumors of its release began circulating, videos flooded YouTube, and posts explaining the game’s lore racked up astronomical view counts.

Of course, back then I’d never imagined I’d end up sinking so much time into it.

Too many game studios had taken crowdfunding money only to suddenly shut down.

And I’d seen far too many sequels fail to live up to expectations.

Besides, when you’re a kid, every game feels incredible.

My memories were also colored by nostalgia since it had been the last game my brother and I had played together.

It was hard to trust those childhood memories completely.

So I promised myself I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

I didn’t want to ruin a cherished memory.

I bought it simply to relieve the stress I’d built up from work.

I hadn’t expected to grow even the slightest bit attached to it.

But…

The moment the opening cinematic began…

I knew I’d been wrong.

He was there.

The Hero who had been my brother’s and my childhood idol stepped onto the snow-covered battlefield with unwavering resolve.

His ash-gray hair contrasted beautifully with his golden eyes.

There was something almost mystical about him, like a lone wolf wandering across a frozen wilderness.

Even the scar running through one of his eyebrows only accentuated the untamed ferocity he carried.

As the pale light of dawn settled over his dignified face, the Hero climbed to the top of a hill.

He turned to look back at his comrades.

Then…

He raised his sword high toward the heavens.

The triumphant blast of war horns echoed across the battlefield.

The battle had begun.