Chapter 01
—
**Director:** Goyo, there’s a coaching position open. Come anytime.
**SGY:** Player-nim, this is Day News’s Sa Gong-yeon. Would you be available for an interview…?
—
He turned on his phone screen to check the time, and saw a notification for unread messages.
It had been ages since he retired as a pro gamer, yet he was still calling him ‘Player-nim.’
The director should have given up by now, but he kept sending persistent messages.
I looked down at my hand for a moment.
After the accident four years ago, it looked perfectly fine on the outside and functioned without issue in daily life.
It just couldn’t handle pro play anymore.
With a familiar flick of my fingers, I swiped away the notification, leaving only the push alert for the live stream.
It was time for my favorite streamer’s broadcast. I didn’t have time to invest in messages I wouldn’t read anyway.
I turned on the computer, connected to the live stream, and immediately sent a donation.
My nickname and donation message appeared large on the chat window.
The streamer flashed a bright smile and called out to me.
—
“Gunbam-nim, welcome!”
[Gunbam: Hello.]
—
My greeting was quickly buried under the flood of chat from enthusiastic viewers.
—
[Save me please please get me out of here I can’t clear this]
[I can’t do this anymore hehe hihi hihik hik hik hik]
[I was wrong I was wrong I was wrong I was wrong]
[Die just die ahhh it hurts it hurts it hurts]
[Ending? How? Ending please ending]
—
My favorite streamer’s broadcast didn’t have many viewers.
Only a few dozen people tuned in, but they all seemed to be dedicated fans, making the chat far more active than other streams.
Another peculiar thing was that, unlike small-scale streams where viewers tend to become chummy, here they showed no interest in each other at all.
They were all too busy telling the streamer what they wanted.
But I actually preferred it that way. Without unnecessary attention, I felt more at ease.
—
“I was just waiting for you, Gunbam-nim.”
[Gunbam: I was waiting for the broadcast too.]
—
More than anything else, I genuinely liked this streamer.
I sent the chat with a shy smile.
I had debuted as a pro gamer at 19, built a decent career, and then retired.
It was a forced retirement due to an accident, and becoming unemployed overnight was incredibly boring.
So, to stave off the boredom, I started playing games.
I got hooked on various online games, and later turned my attention to packaged games, playing everything from AAA titles to indie games without discrimination.
Then I discovered an indie game that perfectly suited my taste.
After staying up for two nights to see all the endings, I naturally searched for other games by the same developer.
That eventually led me to the developer’s own live broadcast.
That was two years ago.
Becoming a devoted viewer of the developer, I was granted a special privilege: playtesting their games in development.
Since they were a solo developer, all the games were pixel-art indies.
But thanks to their creative settings and stories, I could immerse myself more deeply than in any other game.
The genres were diverse, so there was no overlap, and all the games were even connected within a single, grand universe.
The so-called Archive World.
For two years, I playtested the games the developer handed me and had a wonderful time in their world.
Wondering what game they’d created this time, I typed into the chat.
—
[Gunbam: The game you gave me last time was really fun.]
“I knew you’d be the one to see the True Ending, Gunbam-nim.”
—
How did they know I cleared the True Ending?
I blinked for a moment.
But it wasn’t strange, since they probably knew I’d stayed up all night to clear every ending for every game I’d received.
Shaking off my puzzlement, I asked.
—
[Gunbam: What game is it today?]
—
Amidst the torrent of chat messages from viewers, the streamer somehow picked out mine and grinned.
“Well, there’s no game today.”
—
Then, suddenly, they leaned their face close to the camera.
Their face filled the entire screen, and I instinctively leaned back a little.
The streamer, their eyes gleaming under the lights, whispered.
“And there won’t be any from now on eeeither.”
—
My heart sank.
“No games?”
For someone like me who had enjoyed a variety of games thanks to this streamer, it was a bolt from the blue.
Unlike me, frozen in shock, the streamer seemed unusually excited today.
As if they’d won the lottery, almost.
—
[No games? No games? Can I leave? Get me out?]
[I want to leave I was wrong please save me]
[It’s over already? Boring.]
[Finally finally die die die die]
—
The streamer’s bombshell announcement sent the viewers’ chat into a frenzy.
Amidst the flood of messages, I managed to move my fingers.
—
[Gunbam: That’s disappointing…. Can I ask why?]
“Because it’s over now.”
—
The streamer said in an immensely relieved voice.
“Thank you for everything. It was all because of you, Gunbam-nim.”
—
Were they quitting the broadcast entirely? Would they continue making games? Or quit that too…?
It was common for solo developers to stop developing for various reasons.
But it was such a waste. They were a genius creator.
Even just the viewers of this broadcast loved their games so much.
*’Couldn’t they release a few as early access?’*
Knowing there were already several highly polished games, I bit my lip.
I started typing a chat to ask for more details, then stopped my fingers.
It felt like the streamer across the screen was looking me in the eye, even though that couldn’t be.
Staring straight into the camera, the streamer stretched their lips into a wide, long smile.
At that moment, accompanied by a warm sensation, my nose started bleeding.
“Ugh…”
My eyeballs burned, and a throbbing headache split my skull.
Maybe it was because I’d stayed up all night and tuned into the broadcast right away.
As I got up to find a tissue, a voice reached me.
—
“You’re the best viewer I’ve ever had, Gunbam-nim. If it’s you, I know you can do it. Because I found it and I confirmed it.”
—
I finally found a tissue, pinched my nose, and looked back at the screen.
The streamer was still staring straight into the camera.
“From now on, I’ll be your viewer, Gunbam-nim.”
—
They’d been saying things I couldn’t understand this whole time. I pressed down on the bridge of my nose and typed with one hand.
—
[Gunbam: I don’t know what you’re talking about.]
“I can’t wait. I’ve waited so, so long for this. So, so, so, so long.”
—
By now, I couldn’t miss that the streamer’s state was abnormal.
They didn’t seem drunk. Could it be drugs…?
Just as I, as a long-time viewer, was about to type a chat suggesting they end the broadcast for now—
“Alright then, shall we begin?”
—
They called my name.
“Han Goyo.”
—
My name, which I had never once told them.
“Huh?” My lips parted, and the entire world warped.
My perfectly normal, ordinary studio apartment was stained with blotchy fluorescent colors, crumpling and melting away like it was dissolving.
Along with a cheerful notification sound, a system window appeared before my eyes.
—
‘Han Goyo’ registers their name in the Akasha!
Current Recognition: 0.01%
—
System windows with unknown content kept popping up, obscuring my vision.
After checking the very last system window, I lost consciousness.
—
You are the system of the planet ‘Earth.’
—
* * *
A string sound resonates through an old speaker.
The constant noise mingling between the drawn-out notes grated on my ears, making me frown.
I groaned and opened my eyes.
The scene before me was unlike anything I’d ever seen in my life.
An interior decorated with colorful hues. A mural with a large, cute character painted on it. Towering stacks of toy package boxes like a Christmas tree.
No matter how I looked at it, it was a space vastly different from my studio apartment.
It looked like some kind of toy factory.
I pressed my temples firmly against the lingering mild headache and surveyed my surroundings again.
A large sign with rounded typography was prominently affixed.
The letters were very familiar. I couldn’t believe my eyes even as I looked at them, and ended up reading them aloud.
“The ‘Happy Smile Factory’…?”
I hurriedly looked back at the character mural I’d glimpsed earlier.
—
Welcome to the Happy Smile Factory!
We are your toy friends who will make you happy!
Let’s all shout together! Happy Smile!
—
The toddler toys, adorned with cute phrases, wore happy smiles.
Cold sweat soaked my back.
Because, <Happy Smile Factory> was…
A game made by my favorite developer.
Had the developer kidnapped me and trapped me in a place similar to their game?
It was the most plausible hypothesis, but it was also preposterous.
Who would kidnap a retired, unemployed former pro gamer? It was such a useless thing to do.
I was frozen in this surreal situation, then slowly stood up from the floor.
“…Wow.”
I let out a hollow laugh, stopping mid-motion as I saw what I was wearing.
I was clad in the work uniform from <Happy Smile Factory>.
On the chest of the eye-catching, light-green coveralls was a name tag with the Happy Smile logo.
—
Employee: Gunbam
—
I scratched at the name tag, which was stitched on with embroidery, but it was firmly attached and wouldn’t come off.
Hoping to find something useful, I rummaged through the pockets, but they were empty.
Instead, a pouch containing a flashlight was hanging from my waist.
It was the exact same start as the game’s opening.
“I’m going crazy.”
A curse slipped out involuntarily. I wiped my face with my hand.
<Happy Smile Factory> was the first game of the developer’s that I had played.
The player wakes up in a toy factory and escapes while uncovering lost memories and the factory’s hidden secrets.
The problem was the toys.
The toys in this factory absolutely despise ‘adults’. Therefore, they try to eliminate the adult who has trespassed without permission—the player.
So, if the current situation flows like <Happy Smile Factory>…
I had to escape the factory while avoiding killer toys.
A lunatic who could prepare a factory of this scale would surely have prepared murderers wearing toy masks as well.
What should I do?
I tried to abandon common sense and think like a lunatic.
First, I thought it might be good to proceed like playing a game.
Since, according to the game, it was about escaping the factory.
I cautiously walked across the lobby. Just as I was about to enter the interior—
*Boom!*
An enormous sound erupted from inside the factory.
‘Could the toys be moving already?’
If so, it was no good to be outside.
I leaped over the turnstile gate for entry and ran inside.
Dusty haze rose, obscuring my vision. As I tried to cover my nose with my sleeve and find a place to hide—
Suddenly, my neck was squeezed tight, and my body was lifted off the ground.
“Ghk!”
I struggled against the hard plastic grip, but soon my assailant set me back down on the floor.
A flustered voice reached my ears.
“What the hell, a civilian?”
As the dust settled, I began to see the person who had choked me.
A short-haired woman with a small build and sharp features—a beauty.
Beside her stood a man, also wearing a work uniform.
As I met the woman’s gaze, a square system window appeared.
—
You have discovered ‘Mo Hae-in’!
‘Mo Hae-in’ is a registrable character. Would you like to register?
—
