Chapter 63

As the ending credits rolled, Ga Joon-sik let out a scream.

“I did it! F*ck! I finally did it——!”

The game ended, and the title appeared on the screen:

*Resurrected Students Also Need Love*.

The long journey of about a month had finally come to an end.

Honestly, *Resurrected Students Also Need Love* didn’t achieve massive popularity.

It surpassed 1 million sales and was heading toward 2 million, but compared to Han Yoorim’s other games, its performance was lackluster.

Was it a boring game?

Everyone finds different things fun. Fun is an extremely subjective thing, so it couldn’t be a proper evaluation criterion.

Was it poorly made?

Similarly, everyone values different aspects. Such subjective things couldn’t serve as proper evaluation criteria either.

However.

It was undeniably a fresh game.

NPCs that moved like real people.

Game companies worldwide even tried reverse-engineering it to figure out how it was done (the security was so tight that only a few succeeded, and upon inspection, they found no AI-related technology in the game—characters moved based on external commands received via the internet, deepening the mystery). That alone spoke volumes about its impact.

Gamers are sensitive. While consumers might not know the detailed mechanics of a work, they can definitely sense “fun.”

Didn’t I just say fun is subjective and can’t be used as an evaluation criterion?

Yet, “fun” still exists. It’s not entirely an illusion.

Gamers felt that “fun” in *Resurrected Students Also Need Love*. Freshness was also an important element of fun.

If you’re asking, “But you said sales were relatively low. If it’s fun, why the low sales?” the answer is simple.

That’s just how dating sims are.

Even though dating sims have grown several times in scale compared to the PC and console eras, they’re still dating sims.

Sometimes, an IP based on a dating sim blows up, making people forget, but the market itself is inherently small.

A genre where you have to sit through hours, sometimes dozens of hours, of mundane scenes for the highlights—wouldn’t it be strange if that became massively popular?

Anyway.

That’s why *Resurrected Students Also Need Love* had an insane amount of playtime.

Officially, there were 100 endings.

And that 100 didn’t even include bad endings.

This often made players of *Resurrected Students Also Need Love* furious.

“Hey, what’s with all these useless bad endings? Are you trying to piss people off?”

The answer was always the same.

“Because the creator is Han Yoorim.”

With 100 official endings and bad endings included, it reached hundreds.

It took 16 hours to see one ending, so just calculating the official ones, it would take 1,600 hours—about 66.6 days—to 100% the game.

Of course, skipping common branches would shorten that, but including bad endings would make it even longer.

That’s why, a little over a month after the game’s release, even if someone threatened, “You need to clear 98 more routes to save your daughter,” seeing Han Yoorim’s true ending was tough…

But Ga Joon-sik did it.

Parental love is also a form of love, after all. Didn’t it work miracles?

*User ㅇㅇ donated 1,000,000 won.*

*User ㅇㅇ donated 1,000,000 won.*

*User ㅇㅇ donated 1,000,000 won.*

……

Donations poured in. It was that grueling of a journey.

With dopamine surging to his head, Ga Joon-sik calmed his excitement.

“What kind of condition is this?”

To see Han Yoorim’s true ending, you didn’t actually have to clear all the remaining routes.

Han Yoorim never said you had to clear all routes to see the true ending. She just said, “You won’t reach it if you don’t clear the remaining 98 routes.”

Clearing 98 routes just increased the *probability* of reaching the true ending—it wasn’t a mandatory condition.

In fact, Ga Joon-sik reached the true ending after clearing only half the routes.

“How the hell did I figure out that the true ending’s condition was our kid having acting talent and the protagonist being good at writing, leading them to hit it big with an indie film?”

There were plenty of clues.

Han Yoorim, who lived her life acting, and the protagonist, who somehow always aced Korean language exams.

Not to mention, the kid, who wasn’t born with a silver spoon, had saved up tens of millions of won by the time they became an adult. It was clear they didn’t live an ordinary life.

So, if you persistently repeated playthroughs, you’d find out the protagonist had been writing for a long time, the saved money came from web novel serials, and Han Yoorim was more interested in things other than studying.

But connecting those elements to a short film wasn’t easy.

Why?

Because of the freedom level.

*Resurrected Students Also Need Love* had a different progression system from typical dating sims.

NPC reactions, progression, and content changed based on the player’s actions.

It was completely different from the usual dating sims where you press Enter and choose options to reach an ending.

It was a true “simulation” game of dating beautiful girls. That’s what *Resurrected Students Also Need Love* was.

And as you know, high freedom levels make players struggle. The amount of information to learn increases exponentially.

Well, there’s not much to tell.

To see Han Yoorim’s true ending, you had to consider her aptitude and situation. You had to think about the protagonist’s aptitude and the highest score that matched it, then write a short film scenario. Just coming up with this idea was tough, but the real headache started after that.

Because you actually had to write the scenario.

There was no prepared scenario.

The player had to write a plausible scenario and use it to make a movie.

When first told to write a scenario, Ga Joon-sik didn’t think much of it.

He just casually copied and pasted the scenario from <Parasite>.

Then the game displayed the following script:

“Whether this scenario can be filmed on a low budget or not is beside the point, this is <Parasite>. This won’t do.”

Thinking it was blocked because the movie was too famous, Ga Joon-sik tried copying various movie scenarios, but all were rejected. It felt like the protagonist knew every movie in the world.

Reluctantly, Ga Joon-sik gave up on plagiarism and wrote an original movie scenario.

Then the game displayed the following script:

“A movie with such a scenario won’t do well. To convince Yoorim’s parents, it has to be a blockbuster from the start. Otherwise, it’s a no-go.”

Upon seeing this, Ga Joon-sik almost blurted out, “What do you want me to do?” but held back.

The kidnapped kid needs to be saved, right?

So Ga Joon-sik kept submitting scenarios while discussing with viewers, and finally got a pass, seeing the ending.

When the scene of Han Yoorim smiling brightly and walking on the beach appeared on the screen, Ga Joon-sik couldn’t help but shed tears.

It was a mystery how they prepared the footage for the original scenario in advance, but <Resurrected Students Also Need Love> had more than a few strange elements anyway. He just let it slide.

“Thank you all for following along for the past month.”

<ㅇㅇ님이 1000원 기부>

– You worked hard too.

With the sound of donations in the background, Ga Joon-sik went to the window and drew the blackout curtains.

As sunlight streamed into the room, he finally felt like he was back in reality.

In a daze, Ga Joon-sik looked at the chat window.

The spam had been relentless, leaving him completely drained.

So, what now?

That was the first thought that came to mind.

It was also an occupational hazard of being a broadcaster.

No matter how tough the day was, you had to go live tomorrow. That’s what being a broadcaster was.

You always had to be ready with content.

The easiest game to fall back on was <Eternal World>, but after a month-long peak with <Resurrected Students Also Need Love>, transitioning to <Eternal World> felt a bit off.

It would be nice to have a one-time content cushion in between, but was there anything?

Deep in thought, Ga Joon-sik crossed his arms.

That’s when it happened.

Ding. A video donation came in.

<ㅇㅇ님이 13400원 기부>

– (A clip of Han Yoorim and Akane’s back-and-forth)

Are you going to play this game next?

“Wow, what’s that?”

Ga Joon-sik’s eyes were drawn to the game in the video.

‘Ormal’, ‘Marvin Flail’, ‘Han Chan-hyuk’, ‘Ishikawa Yuzuru’, etc. They clearly looked like <Eternal World> characters, but their presence was different from what Ga Joon-sik knew.

They looked as majestic as boss monsters, making his mouth water.

As you know, Ga Joon-sik was a famous <Eternal World> enthusiast.

For him, a Souls-like game made with the <Eternal World> IP?

It was a feast among feasts.

―――

It’s Han Yoorim’s new game.

Originally an unreleased game, but Novella begged to release it, so it’s coming out soon.

It’s not out yet, so only Japanese VTuber companies can play it now.

―――

“It’s not out yet?”

Ga Joon-sik’s appetite was whetted.

It looked really fun, but it was a shame.

<ㅇㅇ님이 2300원 기부>

– (A short of Han Yoorim slightly lifting her gothloli dress to bid Akane farewell)

Your daughter is here too lol.

“Is Thierry perhaps a lost past-life connection to Han Yoorim?”

―――

How would we know?

Don’t try to understand, just feel it.

Why don’t you ask her directly lol.

―――

Reading the chat, Ga Joon-sik paused at the last message.

Ask her directly?

This is it!

Ga Joon-sik opened his mailbox.

He had an idea for the next content.

Ga Joon-sik quickly wrote an email to Han Yoorim and soon received a reply.

<I'm fine with it.>

Ga Joon-sik’s next content.

Han Yoorim guest appearance.

Confirmed.