Chapter 1. You’re Stimulating My Curiosity!
“Gasp! Huff!”
I had thought that the distant sea, where the land could not be seen from one end to the other, would be calm.
Splash! Rumble!
It was a foolish thought.
The great force of nature known as the sea was not something humans could easily take lightly.
No matter how desperately I moved my arms and kicked my legs, I could not tell whether I was actually swimming forward or simply being swept away by the current.
‘I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm goin—huh?’
Suddenly, there was an open sky, sunlight pouring down, a calm sea… and a hard sensation beneath the soles of my feet.
‘Huh…?’
When I lowered my head, I saw a fish's eye beneath the rippling surface.
I could not even see its entire body at a glance.
[Leviathan has appeared! An overwhelmingly powerful enemy! Run away!]
Swoosh.
At least, that's what it sounded like.
The mouth of the monstrous fish called Leviathan slowly opened, and in an instant, the surrounding water was sucked toward it.
“Damn, shit! You! Youuuu!”
It felt like I had fallen into a deep swamp that I could not escape from no matter how much I struggled.
Anger welled up inside me.
“I'll remember this! You damn bastards! Someday! I swear I'll make you extinct!”
That was my second death.
Virtual reality game.
Those words always had an incredible resonance for me.
Just saying them out loud made my heart flutter, and countless fantasies unfolded in my mind.
Back when I was suffering badly from my middle-school chuunibyou phase, I had read fantasy novels.
When I heard the news that the things I had read about were gradually becoming reality, I was bewildered.
And when it finally appeared before the world for the first time, I couldn't help but cheer.
Of course, I'm not talking about VR.
Well, of course not.
I didn't cheer when I first learned about VR.
I merely thought it was amazing and impressive, but I felt those emotions rather calmly.
I'm absolutely not trying to disregard VR.
But the thing at the place I was heading toward was something far beyond it.
Yeah.
It was perhaps a collection of unbelievable scientific technology advanced enough to make ordinary VR seem like nothing.
“…Wow, is this really a game company?”
As far as my eyes could see, there was a tall, perfectly white wall without even a single visible seam.
There was also a gigantic iron gate that made me wonder how they had managed to build something like this in the middle of Seoul.
Behind the gate were so many company buildings that it could almost be called a forest of skyscrapers.
I couldn't believe that all those pure white walls I had passed while riding the bus for two stops had been surrounding the game company I was heading toward.
I had definitely thought those walls were part of an apartment construction site.
But this was unbelievable.
“This is insane…!”
Super Real.
That was the name of the company standing before me, a company possessing such overwhelming presence and absurdity that it felt like something straight out of a fantasy.
Just a few years ago, the company had enjoyed a certain cult popularity among enthusiasts.
But that was about it.
If someone had shown me something like this in the past and told me it was the future of this company, I would have laughed and told them to stop talking nonsense, go home, wash their feet, and get some sleep.
You have to understand that the games this company had made until now had one particular characteristic.
They were made by setting-obsessed weirdos who were almost pervertedly obsessed with details, desperately squeezing out games with insufficient technology.
They were unusual, but crude.
That had been their trademark.
In other words, this wasn't some gigantic corporation capable of devouring even the world's major companies like it was now.
It had simply been an indie game company.
Because the settings inside their games constantly overlapped with one another and produced bugs that were almost miraculous in their absurdity, the company had been something people laughed at.
It had never been something people admired.
How long had it even been since the news came out that the company's CEO had changed?
And yet, how had they managed to accomplish something this ridiculous?
Was something like this even realistically possible?
I didn't pay much attention to the world, so I honestly had no idea.
From my personal perspective, I had enjoyed their games.
But objectively speaking, I had never thought they were the kind of people who would ever become this big.
That's why I kept being shocked and saying that I couldn't believe it.
Because this was seriously ridiculous.
What was this, some kind of manga?
Had I somehow met a hidden master?
Was this one of those legendary encounters people called a “fateful opportunity”?
“Is this for real?”
Most of the people, including me, had gotten off at the same bus stop for the same reason.
They were now standing in front of the tall, sturdy-looking iron gate with expressions similar to mine.
It almost felt as though I was standing at a border crossing into another country rather than in front of a company.
They wouldn't refuse entry unless I had a passport, right?
“Excuse me, is this really Super Real?”
A man whom I had never seen before, but who somehow gave me a strange sense of kinship, cautiously asked me.
I nodded while still feeling dazed.
The company's name really was Super Real.
“Ohhh, I knew it.”
“I thought we got off at the wrong stop.”
“Are we supposed to go inside?”
Without realizing it, I had apparently been receiving the attention of quite a few people.
As soon as I nodded and gave them uncertain confirmation, the others slowly began moving toward the iron gate.
A little late, I also walked toward the gate.
Among the crowd, I hesitantly took slow steps forward.
For some reason, I felt like I had come somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.
“Are you all beta testers?”
While everyone was walking forward hesitantly with confused expressions, a guard opened the door of what looked like a security booth and walked out.
And his appearance was shocking.
The game called Project: New World was a traditional fantasy-based RPG.
Its main selling point was an insane degree of freedom that had never existed before.
In other words, it was a fairly orthodox game that wasn't particularly innovative in terms of its genre.
Perhaps because of that, the company seemed to have decided to go all out with its concept outside of the game itself.
In my common sense, a security guard was either a somewhat older man wearing a uniform or a large, cleanly dressed man in a suit.
But what the hell was that?
A knight wearing full plate armor?
Were they serious?
I had heard that the new CEO—or should I call him the chairman?
The two positions were probably a little different.
Anyway, I had heard that the chairman was an extreme concept fanatic.
But I never imagined he would make even his employees do something like this.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Did something get on my armor?”
“Ah, no… Thank you for your hard work.”
Well, regardless of what happened with the game, this would definitely become a huge issue.
I didn't know much about the chairman either, but apparently he himself was quite the walking source of controversy.
“Yes, then.”
“Please come this way and present your territory pass—”
“Ah, no, your identification card.”
“We'll check it and let you enter!”
Hmm.
He seemed to be enjoying himself, so I decided not to worry about it.
“Yes, I've confirmed it.”
“Please go inside and wait for a moment.”
“Someone will come to meet you.”
“Then, please enjoy yourselves.”
Wasn't telling people who had been paid to become testers to “enjoy themselves” a little strange?
This wasn't an amusement park.
After handing over my identification card, I stepped through the gate with an excited heart.
