Chapter 20
There was a reason why Movie Soft chose to have this new title developed in Korea instead of at the headquarters that had produced the previous entries in the series.
That reason was Eve Paimo.
He was a famous game developer the company had scouted from outside after it began declining during the transition into the capsule era, unable to adapt.
As the company's CCO and the president of the Korean branch, he made the bold decision to personally come to Korea and develop the game there, based on the fact that Korea had the highest capsule adoption rate in the world and consumers who were highly sensitive to trends.
There had been plenty of criticism from the very beginning, but as development progressed, he became convinced this series would succeed, and he had even begun preparing the next installment that would follow afterward.
And once the success of Shadow in the City was confirmed on launch day, the sequel project immediately entered full-speed production.
Everything had become a smooth road ahead.
But there was one problem.
The picture he had envisioned was already in danger of falling apart from the very beginning.
Because of a single streamer.
Kim Yunchan, who had been summoned to the president's office early in the morning, cautiously opened his mouth.
"I told you I had a bad feeling about thisβ¦"
"Cut the crap. Explain it already. Why has Weakness Detection already been uncovered?!"
Eve Paimoβ
"Hahaha. Seriously though, even I didn't expect myself to get figured out."
Kim Yunchan smiled brightly, and Eve Paimo became curious.
"What do you mean 'figured out'?"
"Boss. We estimated users would take at least a month to unlock Weakness Detection, right?"
"To be honest, even if it took half a year, that wouldn't have been strange. Accidentally striking the weak point, breaking the weapon, recording it, and then sharing it with peopleβhow easy do you think that is?"
"Exactly. Even if someone deliberately tried searching for weak points, it should still take at least a month. Bare minimum."
"And our game has too much content for people to waste time chasing Weakness Detection in the first place."
Eve Paimo took pride in the assassination system he had created for Shadow in the City.
"That too. There's already so much to doβwho would sit around trying to find weak points that break weapons? Especially when it also relies on luck."
It was the kind of content only hardcore veterans with nothing left to do after clearing every achievement would bother targeting.
And in truth, Musou and Weakness Detection had indeed been designed specifically for players like them.
"Right. So then why was Weakness Detection unlocked only one week after launch?"
Unlocking Weakness Detection itself wasn't the problem.
The real issue was that obtaining Weakness Detection allowed players to pierce through the heavy armor of one of the Rulers, Richard Neville, and defeat him using Musou.
And the reason that mattered was because of the Fragment of Order rewarded for killing a Ruler with Musou.
They had hidden easter eggs related to the sequel all throughout the game, and the Fragment of Order was one of them.
A short quest connected to the sequel that could only be progressed once every fragment had been collected.
And then, at the perfect moment when attention peaked, they would release a teaser video to generate hype.
It was the natural and effective promotional strategy Eve Paimo had envisioned for the sequel.
The problem was that there was now a possibility that all the Fragments of Order would be collected before the teaser video was even finished.
"Well, like I said earlier, it got unlocked because he figured it out."
Eve Paimo barely restrained the urge to punch that calm, cheerful-looking Kim Yunchan.
"Stop dancing around it and explain properly."
"Yes, sir."
Kim Yunchan sent him a clip.
It was footage from a collaboration stream with Alpaca.
"Hmm? Clean execution."
"Right? Someone else originally discovered this, and that streamer named Seojun recreated it."
"I see. He's pretty skilled."
"And the next video is where that streamer finds the weak point himself and breaks it."
"What?"
Eve Paimo asked back, convinced he had misheard.
"He found the weak point? That streamer?"
"Yes."
After watching the second video, where the shield and sword were broken, Eve Paimo stared at Kim Yunchan with wide eyes.
"No, how⦠does this even make sense? Don't tell me a bug caused Weakness Detection to just exist for him?"
For Eve Paimoβsomeone who confidently claimed his game had no bugsβto bring up bugs at all showed just how absurd the footage was.
"Nope. We checked that ages ago."
"Thenβ¦"
"I watched the entire collab stream, and speaking as someone who has now become a fan of streamer Seojun, I think he figured out the pattern. Honestly, it makes no sense that someone could deduce logic that an AI team and developers struggled over using only two examples, but⦠he says that's what he did, so what can we do?"
I never asked whether you became his fan.
"So what do we do now?"
"About what?"
"How long did we schedule for making the sequel teaser video?"
"One month."
"And if we start working overtime immediately starting today and rush it as fast as possible?"
"One⦠week?"
"Then what are the odds that streamer collects all the Fragments of Order before then?"
"At least this part is easy to answer. One hundred percent."
That's not something to be relieved about, you bastard.
"Well, it's not like we absolutely have to release the teaser video immediately anyway."
"Then the whole setup falls apart!"
Pressing his temples out of habit, Eve Paimo searched for a solution.
Not everything in life went according to plan, but this had truly been unexpected.
It might seem trivial, but he didn't want the sequel project derailing from the start.
"Oh? Looks like the stream just started. Want to watch together?"
For a moment, Eve Paimo nearly grabbed the stack of documents on his desk and hurled it at him, but instead he politely said:
"Get out! And stop watching streams during work hours!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Haβ¦"
They never should have created the Fragments of Order in the first place.
If only someone hadn't insisted that there should be at least one easter egg distributed into Musou-related content for Musou players.
Now that he thought about it, the one who said that had also been Kim Yunchan.
Feeling frustrated, Eve Paimo kept replaying Seojun's videos.
How the hell did he do it?
Then he contacted Kim Yunchan through the company messenger and received more videos.
Including footage of Richard Neville's heavy armor being neutralized in a single move.
'He defeated a Ruler without Weakness Detection?'
This wasβ¦
cool.
It was almost eye candy.
Afterward, more and more videos related to Seojun poured in.
Especially when Seojun found Drake's location, Eve Paimo couldn't wipe the pleased smile off his face.
Because the route Seojun discovered had been one of Eve Paimo's own ideas.
'So this is how it finally got uncovered.'
It felt rewarding.
Watching people enjoy the game they had poured their souls into in their own ways.
And seeing players react with, "Wait, this works too?"
That was exactly the kind of response they had hoped for while making an open world game.
After replaying the clips several times in admiration, Eve Paimo quietly pressed the follow button.
"Hello everyone."
Seojun greeted viewers with a light wave of his hand.
-Seoha
-Seoha
-Why's the stream title like this?
-Seoha!
[Viewers: 1,700]
The chat window flew by rapidly.
The firepower approaching 2,000 viewers was definitely on another level.
Apparently, his stream had always had unusually active chat compared to its viewer count.
But now that the viewer count had increased, the speed of the messages flooding in was incomparably faster than before.
Soβ
"Alright, Joseon's Assassin, Great Defense, White-Horse Rider Patientβyou're all here, right?"
The moment Seojun said that, chats marked with sword icons next to their nicknames began flooding in.
-Yes!
-Yep. We'll do our absolute best.
-"Just leave it to me. I, Joam, owner of 25 million points, shall manage things thoroughly."
-The nicknames are all full of psychos lol
-How are the managers named Great Defense, Patient on a White Horse, and Assassin lolololol
They were viewers who had watched Seojun's streams since day one.
After checking their previous chat logs, he saw that despite their nicknames, they had never caused problems and had consistently enjoyed his streams without missing any broadcasts, so Seojun asked them to become chat managers, and they gladly volunteered.
Meanwhile, Brick Extortion King still hadn't responded yet.
"These people will be helping out as managers from now on by cutting off chats that break the rules. Thanks, everyone."
At that moment, Joseon's Assassin used points to add special effects to his message.
Was this the dignity of the rich?
"And my channel has chat rules now, so please give them a quick read."
-Wow, I'm jealous of the managers.
-I wanna be a mod too.
-I wanna wear a sword icon too.
-!rules
-!rules
-!rules
Messages flooded in asking to check the rules.
Please only talk about things related to the stream.If you see an annoying chat message, don't fight in chatβwhisper a manager instead.You know what kinds of things aren't allowed, right?
On Travel, chat rules varied wildly from streamer to streamer without any standardized guideline.
Some people wrote long, strict rules.
Others just wrote, "Don't speak informally."
Some even simply left cheerful greetings telling people to have fun.
And Seojun's chat rules were concise.
Because he preferred a free-flowing atmosphere.
-Summary) Just use common sense.
-Got it.
-What exactly counts as "not allowed"?
"What's not allowed? You all know the basics. Honestly, unless it's pretty severe, you probably won't even get a warning."
He had already discussed it with the managers beforehand.
-If you write detailed rules, people always try skirting around them for attention, then complain after getting banned saying, "But I followed the rules!"
['oo' donated 10,000 won!]
[Aren't you recruiting someone to help with your stream settings?]
If it had just been a regular chat message, he would've ignored it.
But since it was a donation, he had no choice but to react.
"β¦Thank you. I'm not recruiting anyone for that."
Having someone help with stream settings would definitely be nice, but the intent behind deliberately putting the word "settings" in that sentence felt suspicious.
-He clenched his teeth lol
-"Thaank yooou."
-The world's first technologically hopeless streamer. But insanely skilled.
-So what's today's stream title?
-You're playing Dawn of the Assassins again today, right?
-Please do some normal assassinations too.
-Go Musou!
-Show more Weakness Detection. I wanna unlock the skill too.
The stream hadn't properly started yet, so the chat was all over the place.
Seojun slowly began building things up for the broadcast.
"Oh, the stream title? Well, apparently quite a few people have doubts about the weak points I found. So I figured it was partially my fault for not explaining it properly, and first of all, I'm sorry."
-You don't look sorry at all.
-Hey, at least bow your head lololol
"But I'm not hacking. And I'm not connected to the game developers either."
-Why are you bringing up hacking yourself?
-He actually uses god-tier hacks (lmao)
-But is there seriously anyone who believes a college student is secretly a Movie Soft developer?
-So how did you really find the weak points? I'm curious.
Seojun nodded while reading the chat, as if he understood their reactions.
"To get straight to the point, the pattern I identified for weak points was basically connecting the parts of the equipment that wear down the most during use through several trajectories that are easy to split apart."
It was far removed from realistic weak points, but he believed that was the rule the developers had designed, and he had been right.
-??? I still don't get it even after hearing that.
-Are you some kind of blacksmith or something? How do you know that?
-How smart is this guy seriously
"Well, I was planning to properly prove it today, but now that I already have Weakness Detection unlocked, people can just say I hacked the capsule no matter what I do, right?"
['Travel Historian' donated 10,000 won!]
[Hack accusations are a long-standing tradition in our streams.]
-20γ γ
-You only get suspected because you're too good.
-"Long-standing tradition" (stream is only 4 days old)
After thanking them for the donationβ
"So I reported it."
Seojun's expression suddenly turned serious.
-?????
-Reported what?
-Why are you filing reports all of a sudden?
"Myself."
Seojun opened the inquiry history window he had prepared for Dawn of the Assassins.
[Hack Report] [I think I may have unknowingly been using hacks. Could you please check?]
-LMAOOOO is this guy insane?
-So THAT'S why he said he turned himself in lolololol
-Ahahaha the game company's gonna prove him innocent for him!
"Alright then, now that the explanation's over, let's get into the game."
As though he had never been serious to begin with, Seojun returned to his usual innocent expression and stretched.
-LMAOOOOOO is this really the attitude of someone making an apology stream?
-He's such a calm psycho lol
-He's a streaming genius lolololol
"Now then, today's stream is⦠oh? Looks like a mission came in. Thank you, Dawn of the Assassins Developer."
Seojun skillfully adjusted the stream settings and accepted the mission.
Then a window appeared in the top-left corner of the broadcast screen.
[Clear the Magic Tower Lord without using Weakness Detection - Mission Reward: 1,000,000 won]
It was the donation reward he would receive if he succeeded.
-Whoa, one million won??
-Damn.
-But does the Magic Tower Lord even have anything you can use Weakness Detection on? He doesn't use equipment.
-Aren't they talking about magic?
-Then can magic be split apart too? If you know that, are you actually a developer? Maybe?
The very first mission already involved an enormous amount of money.
And he had already been planning to go to the Magic Tower anyway.
"Seriously though⦠could this actually be the real developer?"
-As if lol
-Why's the streamer so innocent lolololol