Chapter 1: Final Chapter Update for the well-known failed game |
1. Final chapter update of the national hypewreck
The game which flourishes enough to be known by the entire country is called a national masterpiece, a completely ruined game is called a national hypewreck [1].
Korea didn’t have a national masterpiece, but it did have a national hypewreck.
Around 10 years ago, the game was announced.
‘Player Maister Highschool’ Mobile RPG, ‘PMH’ for short.
Due to the clash of different worlds, the modern-day world changed drastically.
Maister Highschool trains Players possessing supernatural abilities.
That school was a background for various characters you operated to progress the story or clear quests in this role-playing mobile game.
PMH started out great, becoming a hot topic before even its release.
The opening song sound source, sung by a famously talented singer, was breaking the charts.
CM was broadcasted during the golden hour on air and general TV.
Buses, stops, subway walls and doors were full of posters.
Banners and trailers were all over the portal sites.
It wasn’t exaggeration to say that all people of Korea saw PMH’s advertisement.
‘It’s the game of the lifetime!’
I, one of the 3 million pre-registered players, thought so.
PMH’s service started a day after the end of SAT [2].
At the end of SAT I was among those with a lot of time so I dived into the first day of service with 3 million other people.
However PMH rather became the hypewreck of the lifetime for many gamers.
Characters, skills and items were ruining the game balance.
No day went by without adding another bug, which stayed unfixed.
The operation difficulty level which you didn’t know whenever it was made to be a challenge or to make you feel like shit.
There was no auto function or anything like that for excessively manually repetitive elements with little rewards.
As there was no ‘Ask other players for help’ command, it was a single player only, the multiplayer was missing.
It led to the store’s star terror and comments overflowing with curses and declarations of quitting.
However the fans which were solid like concrete endured.
It was full of shortcomings, but the game also had its strengths.
Beautiful high-quality illustrations.
Characters and in-game elements rendering closer to embodying illustrations.
Detailed and attractive character designs.
Concrete fandom couldn’t let go of this game.
But even that didn’t last.
The development of the story without dreams or hopes crushed the mentality of the concrete.
[The rotten water starting from the launch, store refund goes!]
[Characters I raised, family, teachers, friends, all of them died, so it’s a run now. Sharing information about successful ways of refund runs would be appreciated. Thank you very much.]
[Teacher Yong and Jeok-ho hyung died tragically, so shit is going down, thanks producers. You should also get out quickly. I understand your feelings, but if the refund is a bit late…]
[To quit I enlisted in the army and notice came. Isn’t it part of luck?]
[I thought I’m gonna drop dead because of suffocating, fucking sweet potato story expansion. I’m out!]
[I’m gonna be short. Quit. Your brain will live without this game.]
[Cafe staff management position will be handed over. If within 3 days there won’t be any application, I’ll randomly assign the position before leaving.]
Characters continued to die in masses in the story after.
PMH unofficial data-sharing cafe was destroyed and most of the concrete fandom left.
Later this time came to be called ‘PMH concrete collapse incident’ by the game community.
Such words started to go around:
‘Never have any dealings with Player Maister Highschool maniacs’.
PMH was a rare hypewreck which was engraved into the gaming history.
Only that game’s creators and maniacs play that, but both of them are dangerous species, so you should avoid contact with them.
Meanwhile, I repeatedly returned and quit, while listening to curses about maniacs.
Time and time again when story updates came, playable characters and people around them died miserably.
The surviving characters also mentally crumbled.
Even so, I kept reading the next story.
‘If even one more person dies, I’ll really quit!’
At that moment I sincerely thought so.
However, while thinking that, a double digit of characters died, and I couldn’t quit.
At some point I stopped even quitting which I used to do sometimes.
Even after being enlisted in the army, when I was allowed to use my smartphone in the barracks for about 3 hours I used that time to play.
“Hey, youngest.”
“Ah, sorry sir, private Jo Uisin at your orders! Did you call, sir?!”
“What game are you playing?”
“…It’s Player Maister Highschool.”
The barracks turned awkward in the instant.
Having a smartphone in one hand and a TV controller in the other, sergeant Choe’s mouth opened wide.
Sergeant Choe looked at me as if I was the moron diving head first into solid ground and said:
“Hoo, this pitiful bastard.”
Until the time I was discharged, I was treated as a pitiful bastard.
I had a relatively peaceful time in the army thanks to so-called ‘You must not touch the pitiful bastard’ treatment until Sergeant Choe was discharged.
Yet when Corporal dog [3], no Corporal Gye became the sergeant, it turned into constant grilling until he was discharged.
A few years later, I really became a pitiful bastard.
“Stage 4 lung cancer.”
I couldn’t comprehend what I just heard.
It wasn’t something which gamers, who couldn’t even afford a cigarette, should hear.
“It’s uncommon, but lung cancer can develop until the 4th stage without any symptoms in some cases.”
He added ‘Even among non-smokes, many people get lung cancer’.
After that, the doctor said some more words.
About half of what he said escaped my ears again.
I merely understood what follows:
I’ll die within 6 months the fastest.
If I receive treatment and the prognosis is good I can expect to even survive more than 3 years.
Even if I apply for medical insurance, it won’t be enough to cover long-term hospital bills without a job.
After saying I’d think about it, I never looked for a hospital again.
I lost my parents when I was a middle schooler and lived on salt at the house of relatives until highschool graduation.
To earn for living expenses and tuition fees I repeatedly took leave of absence and came back for 4 years until university graduation.
The job recommendation I got from the professor was given to the ‘friend of a boss’ and I lived as a job-hunter for a year.
I barely survived with part-time jobs and finally succeeded at getting a job last month.
The health check was needed for the recruitment papers, and after receiving inspection, I was diagnosed as terminally ill.
It was a life worth living even if many days were difficult, but now it ended like this.
I became a game addict.
Before, I was a common gamer with some social life.
However, now, I stuffed myself into a Gosiwon[4] cubic and ceased any productive or social interactions, only staring at my smartphone with sunken eyes.
I had no excuses, I became a game addict stuffed into the corner of my room.
‘One of the reasons I got cancer must be this game.’
I lamented many times like this while playing PMH.
However, even now, having cancer and dying, I couldn’t put down this game.
Recently, coughs became worse.
Two or three times a day I spat coughs mixed with blood.
Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, because my whole body hurt so much I thought I was dying.
The painkillers bought at a pharmacy didn’t help at all.
‘Is it time to die?’
I was okay while playing the game, but whenever it was time for maintenance, I couldn’t think about anything else than death.
When I refreshed the game news portal to distract myself.
The main article changed.
[Last chapter of the masterpiece mobile RPG Player Maister Highschool will be updated today!]
Death or whatever, the curses came out automatically.
I immediately pressed the add comment.
[jo2god111: Why does this hypewreck update the main news article? What ridiculous ‘masterpiece’? If you have money for reporters, make a balance patch or fix bugs.]
A few minutes later, a comment appeared under mine.
[kye777ing: This is for real. PMH parents abandon this dog shit hypewreck yet you don’t shut it down? I can’t even eat with the guys who are PLAYING this.]
It’s correct to say that PMH is a hypewreck.
But when the ‘abandoned by parents’ joke came out, I lost my temper.
Even if you roast it don’t you need to be at least a person who played this game?
Even if I roasted it, it was a roast with the mindset of a stubbornly rotten addict who played this hypewreck.
I replied on impulse.
[jo2god111: Those words are a bit harsh. Why won’t you try it for yourself and then roast?]
Then, an explosive reaction followed my reply.
[zxYJ0008xz: jo2god111, what? Are you sick?]
[kye777ing: Are you crazy? Come and look at what you wrote again.]
[dudtn90: Don’t feed retards.]
[rkrehrl12: Don’t forget your crookedness measurement tools (harsh language) for THEONEWEDON’TSPEAKABOUT. ]
It was the comment I wrote but looking at it from the top to bottom, it really seems like something.
Immediately the comments section was filled with curses, half towards the game, half towards me.
I had no way to even refutate and was destroyed by the comments. I closed the news page just after PMH’s maintenance ended.
‘…I’m going to see the ending and die.’
I laid down on the narrow bed and turned on the PMH’s app. The update was in progress.
While downloading the update files, I took out a folder file and setting books.
The folder file was a binding of my organized strategies printed on A4 paper.
8 volumes of setting books had 500 pages per volume and a notorious reputation among anyone who read them.
I threw them on the bed so I could immediately reach for them and read.
I rampaged through my remaining attack notes written all over the setting books until the update was finished.
‘It ends today’.
The 6 months the doctor told me about were long gone.
When you’re in a situation where you don’t know when you’re gonna die, time and strength are more valuable than gold.
But I was using it all up for this game.
***
Desperate struggle between life and death ended only after a very long time.
‘It ended.’
It was a bad ending without dreams, hope or mercy to its very core.
In the end, nothing and no one could be saved.
‘Baek Ho-gun’ was my main character who was with me until the final boss.
He also lost everything in the cruel hands of scenario writers and met a gruesome end.
‘Writers, you fucking bastards.’
Before, I thought ‘It’s okay even if I met such a bad ending.’
Rather, I didn’t know if my stomach wouldn’t twist if I saw a happy ending and was left to die alone immediately after.
However I was wrong.
I guess I was hoping for a happy ending.
It wasn’t because I was a pervert who enjoys pain that I eventually returned to reading this painful story, even after I dropped it so many times.
If it was like that I wouldn’t feel so miserable.
‘Because I hoped for a happy ending I couldn’t put this game down.’
Only after becoming terminally ill and clearing the entire game did I realize that.
However, the game ended.
All playable characters died tragically.
And I’ll also die soon.
I forcibly closed the game and threw the smartphone in the corner of the bed.
Ding!
But almost as if it was protesting, the notification sound rang.
It was a notification from the PMH’s app.
‹You can obtain the final chapter clear reward. Please check the giftbox.›
‘…Final chapter clear reward?’
In the past PMH was criticized for its game operation and display-design.
It didn’t send update notifications, no mention pop ups, why all of the sudden?
‘The reward must be crap.’
I didn’t have any hopes, but was curious.
I had to see it.
It was like the thinking circuit of the game addict playing right into the hands of the game’s company.
Even when having such thoughts I turned the game with dead eyes.
However, the game froze on the picture of the gift box opening in the main menu.
No matter how long I waited, the picture didn’t budge.
Even forced closing didn’t work.
Even the entire smartphone was impossible to turn off.
Because of the internally fused battery I couldn’t even take it out.
“Ah, because of the bug! Cough, ugh.”
I opened my mouth and broke out into coughing.
The ending of the game which came after playing it for nearly 10 years.
Emptiness caused by that.
Strength reduced by long hours playing and fighting against disease.
My body started to rapidly crumble.
Cough, ugh, courgh, cough…
Gradually it didn’t sound like coughing, becoming closer to shriek.
Like the shrieks shouted in the final death spasms.
I thought I spit saliva and wiped corners of my mouth, but my hand turned deep-red.
‹Connection to the Transcendent Universe has been completed. Evaluating qualifications of connected players.›
Tran… what?
I started to have auditory hallucinations.
That’s dangerous.
I guess it’s really time to die.
‹Evaluation ended. Player ‘Jo Uisin’ had been selected as ‘Suitable Other Dimension Future Modification’.›
“Uisin hyung, it’s Seong-heon. Are you okay?”
I heard the manager of Gosiwon, Cheon Seong-heon knocking at the door.
The other tenants may have complained because of the sound of coughing.
It was only the next week when there was an available bed in the hospice where there were many people similar to me.
I guess I should go there even if that means laying in front of the ward, if I don’t die today.
I was a nuisance to Cheon Seong-heon and the tenants around my room.
‹Data reconstruction and dimension synchronization as well as transfer of Suitable Other Dimension Future Modification ‘Jo Uisin’ in progress. 10 seconds until completion.›
Cheon Seong-heon was a junior of the same major during my university days who followed me well.
Even after we met as a Gosiwon’s manager and a tenant, Cheon Seong-heon’s attitude didn’t change.
He would often offer snacks and cough medicine instead of asking for money for meals he bought me before.
He was an underserved junior for a guy who was going to die soon.
I made preparations in case I suddenly drop dead in my room at Gosiwon.
The will and a small amount of remaining money for funeral fees.
On the envelope Cheon Seong-heon’s name was written.
‹8…7…›
First, I should say I’m okay, but I couldn’t reply.
The hallucination kept sounding in my ears and blood kept gushing out of my mouth, it was a mess.
I tried to at least block the sound of coughing.
However because coughing intensified, the sound only grew louder.
Coughrp, cogouhr, coughr, ugh, keugh!
Cheon Seong-heon started to pond at the thin door.
“Hyung, open the door!”
Cheon Seong-heon seemed to search for the key as there was the sound of metal hitting against metal a few times and soon, the locked door opened with a click.
‹2…1…0›
Just as the door opened, pure white light filled my vision.
~*~*~
[1] Hypewreck – raws uses the word ‘망겜’, which is type of game that gathers a lot of hype but completely do not delivers on this, because of bugs, bad design or idea just being shit from the beginning.
[2] SAT – National college entrance exam.
[3] Corporal Dog – Gye (계) is almost the same like 개 (dog).
[4] Gosiwon – it’s a very small room students usually rent for a small price and short time to study.
Translator’s note about names: I’ll follow official Korean romanization in 99% of Korean names. There are two reasons. 1: I’m not a native English or Korean speaker. I’m sure to chop the pronunciation in at least one language. 2: It’s to ease work for those who wish to find out what those names mean, as the author loves to leave second meanings and foreshadowings in such small details.
Second note: Be prepared that any part with Universe can be somewhat changed in the future, if this translator finally gets some answers to ALL of *SPOILERS* and etc..
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