Swish.
The ship that escaped Blawima was sailing smoothly through the waves toward the New World.
“… … .”
Standing on the ship’s aft deck, Elaine stared blankly at the receding Old Continent.
Captain Dre muttered as he approached Elaine.
“The damage was terrible.”
“… … .”
Elaine continued to look towards the Old Continent in silence.
Captain Dre sighed, leaving the densely written note window open at his side.
It was about the damage suffered by users and the current status of users trapped in Iceberg and Beginner Village.
“Even if I manage to return to the New World like this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight back against those guys.”
“… … .”
Only then did Elaine turn around and check the situation on the ship.
Users with haggard complexions were sitting all over the ship, waiting for arrival at the New World.
The NPC soldiers were still standing straight behind Elaine, but their numbers had been drastically reduced.
It will take considerable time to recover lost troops.
And the Demon King’s army won’t miss that opportunity.
“I don’t know what Napalm was thinking by leaving the game in this state, and since the world has become like this, of course the number of users has decreased significantly… … .”
Captain Dre shook his head.
“To be honest, I can’t see the next move. What should I do… … I don’t even have a clue.”
“… Mr. Drake.”
Elaine opened her mouth slowly.
“Do you remember what you said to me in Season 1?”
“… … ?”
Captain Dre looked puzzled. Elaine smiled.
“You said that one day, everyone on the server will become a named user whose name is known to everyone.”
“Ugh… … .”
“Even if everyone around me laughs at me, I promise that one day I will become the best guild master on the server.”
When the story from five years ago suddenly came up, Captain Dre just scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment.
“At that time, I had just started playing games, and I was convinced that Wings was the game of my life… … I was burning with ambition.”
“At that time, Mr. Drake knew that his dream was close to impossible.”
Drake listened quietly to Elaine’s whispered words.
“Becoming one of the top-ranked players among the countless players gathered from all over the world… … He himself often said that it was a vain dream.”
“… … .”
“But he never gave up and found a way, eventually becoming one of the most famous raiding party leaders.”
Now the Old Continent was no longer in sight.
Elaine walked slowly from the back of the boat to the front.
NPC soldiers followed her, and Captain Dre followed her.
“Please don’t give up so easily. The game is not over yet.”
“… … .”
“Above all… … .”
Elaine looked down at her wrist. The white jade bracelet Gaia had given her was sparkling there.
“Because we still have the clue to a counterattack.”
Elaine reached the head of the ship and slowly raised her head.
Far away… … the new continent Betelos was slowly revealing itself.
* * *
Pangyo.
Napalm’s Developer Tower. Development Team 2 office.
In the early hours of the morning, when the sun was just beginning to rise, employees could be seen dozing off in their chairs throughout the office.
It’s already been several days since the Wings Online development team was devastated.
The ‘Demon King’s Descent’ situation in the game grew out of control, and from their perspective, the game was getting ruined by the minute.
Just a few hours ago, the last city on the Old Continent fell.
As the area where users can be active has shrunk, the number of users has naturally plummeted.
Sales naturally plummeted as well.
All day long, I was bombarded with phone calls.
All the on-site GMs whose access was blocked were suddenly mobilized to the call center and had to endure harsh verbal abuse from users.
But the only answer we can give for now is the lie that ‘it is a temporary event and will soon be restored to its original state.’
All kinds of experts rushed to solve the situation, but there was no significant progress.
Even adding cash items became impossible after Gaia closed the connection with the server after the last fairy bullet was added.
It’s not even possible to support users with cash items.
From the beginning, the Milky Way was more interested in sucking up to the point of ruin rather than selling cheap cash items for commercial purposes… … .
“In reality, there is only one last option left.”
cabinet.
Although it was a place where smoking and food were prohibited, the team leaders were continuing their all-night meetings in this place filled with ashtrays and coffee cups everywhere.
“We need to physically take down the servers, extract Gaia, and roll back the game.”
“… … .”
The planning team leader clutched his aching head at the operations team leader’s words.
——————
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It was the most fundamental solution. But the fundamental problem still remained.
How to extract Gaia?
Gaia’s hand touched everything in Wings Online.
In addition, she has ‘swallowed’ all the AIs that were put into the game, as well as the additional suppression AIs.
Throughout history, there has never been an example of AI running wild to this extent, and becoming this powerful.
“It’s just too… difficult to remove Gaia from Wings unless she withdraws from this game herself.”
“… … .”
“Even if it succeeds, the process will take at least several months.”
The servers have been down for a few months.
It is virtually the same as declaring the end of service.
What about refunds for cash items purchased by users, and what about those expensive servers that are generously equipped to handle the surge in users?
It wasn’t an easy decision to make.
But other than that, the problem was that there was no clear solution in sight.
Above all, the director who has to decide all of these situations.
“… … .”
Wasn’t there.
The team leaders all stared blankly at the empty seats.
Everyone is working all night and dying here without being able to leave work, but Director Eunhasu hasn’t been seen for the past few days.
Sometimes, when the planning team leader calls, he usually says, “I’m busy right now,” and immediately hangs up.
“Are you preparing to throw it away… … ?”
Someone muttered something like that.
It was a story that shouldn’t have been said so openly, perhaps because the Milky Way was afraid of the power it held over Napalm, but no one denied it or tried to stop it.
The current state of Wings Online is critical.
For Eunhasu, who had only built a successful career as a parachute drop-in, it would be better to quickly get rid of this stigmatizing career.
There was nothing strange about running away.
‘Then who will be using the dump truck…?’
The face of the planning team leader, who was presiding over the meeting as the team’s second-in-command, turned pale.
The person who should drown while carrying the blame for the game’s failure on his back is… … Surely, it’s me here?
‘No, no, that’s not right!’
Cold sweat poured down the planning team leader’s face, which was dirty from not having washed properly for several days.
Everyone looked at the planning team leader with blank eyes because they could clearly see what he was thinking.
The game was nearing its end, and everyone was starting to think about protecting themselves.
That was when.
bang!
The conference room door opened roughly. The half-asleep team leaders looked in that direction with startled amazement.
“Haa, haa, haa!”
The one who came running in urgently was Shinji, the head of the graphics team.
“I found it!”
The surprised planning team leader stuttered.
“Yeah, uh, yeah? What, what? Oh, you found out where Director Milky Way is?”
“No, not that kind of kid!”
Shinji, annoyed, gestured outside.
“I found a clue to resolving the situation!”
“… … !”
Shinji gestured and went outside, and the surprised team leaders followed him.
The planning team leader followed, wiping his sweaty face with his hand.
The place Shinji guided us to was the QA team’s seat.
After everyone left work, Dong-ha was busy fiddling with his computer in the empty QA team.
The screen was littered with Wings Online codes.
The planning team leader muttered in a trembling voice as he looked at the complicatedly rotating screen.
“Uh… … What is it, Dong-ha? Do you know how to program?”
“This guy is one of the three who created the Wings frame.”
Shinji shrugged.
“Of all of us, he was the one who touched the program the best.”
“Oh, but why the QA team… … .”
They call themselves the ‘Quality Inspection Team’, but in reality, the handling of napalm is a menial task force.
Shinji, standing behind Dong-ha, crossed his arms and let out a deep sigh.
“This is what happens when people are too nice. They just follow what others tell them, saying, “Yes, yes.”
In both ‘Wings’ and ‘Wings Online’, Dong-ha’s hand was involved in the key areas.
Because almost all early programming was done by Dong-ha.
However, since he is not the type of person to take the lead and is bad at office politics, his achievements were not recognized and he was pushed around and beaten… … It is true that he was treated as a so-called ‘easygoing’ person.
“You can talk behind my back later! For now, just look at this.”
Dong-ha turned his round body and looked at the team leaders standing behind his chair.
“Do you remember the incident a few weeks ago when hackers broke into the Wings Online database?”
“I remember. That guy from the Milky Way was talking nonsense… … .”
Everyone recalled the events of a few weeks ago.
Because of that, the security team was completely destroyed and everyone ended up losing their balls.
That spot was replaced by AI.
But the situation has reached this point as even those AIs have been taken over by Gaia.
“The backdoor that the hacker used back then is still functional.”
“What is it?!”
The team leaders were all terrified.
Dong-ha nodded.
“It’s still there, even though it’s been patched up. It looks like the security team was cut in a hurry, so they weren’t able to properly repair it.”
“Then, uh… … what is it? What happens?”
“We can use this backdoor.”
The planning team leader, who had been unable to understand the words for a moment, stammered and repeated his question.
“So, what Dong-ha is saying now is… … should we hack Wings Online?”
“You understood correctly.”
This time, the team leaders’ mouths all fell open.
They’re hacking their own game. What the heck is going on?
“Of course, Gaia is a formidable opponent. It will react immediately as soon as it invades. Considering the speed at which the AIs we deployed to subdue it were swallowed, if we calculate back in time… … .”
Dong-ha displayed the result value on the screen.
“Even if you infiltrate through the backdoor, the effective hacking time is about 10 seconds. You can’t do much. At most, the only thing you can hack is one line of core source code.”
“A line of code… …? What can you do with that?”
“I think we can change one or two of the ‘rules’ of the game.”
The core source code that forms the basis of the game.
As the first developer, this was something Dong-ha could access and modify.
The ‘laws’ that make up this game, so to speak. This is the part that even Gaia cannot touch.
Dong-ha suggested changing this part.
A commotion spread among the team leaders.
“It depends on which rules you change, but it could increase the chances of users winning against the Demon King.”
“… … .”
The planning team leader scratched his head and then asked again in a heated voice.
“No, no. Wait a minute. You finally have a hacking chance, and you’re using it to change one of the game rules? Not something like a Gaia shutdown?”
“That’s impossible in the first place. Gaia is a monster right now. Changing the in-game rules would be the most realistic option.”
“So, what you’re saying is, Dong-ha… … are you saying that we should put the fate of this game in the hands of the users? Are you saying that we should let the users resolve this situation?”
Shinji answered instead.
“It was out of our hands a long time ago.”
Shinji nodded to the planning team leader who was looking at him.
“At this rate, we’ll either have a real game over or we’ll have to prepare ourselves to shut down the server.”
“… … .”
“Now, you have to decide. How are you going to use this chance? If you could change just one rule of the game, what would you change?”
Everyone looked at the planning team leader.
“… … .”
The planning team leader, who was sweating like rain again, screamed and took out his cell phone.
“What the heck, why is the director always absent at times like this-!”
Now it was openly dissing.
* * *
Mincheol’s house.
Mincheol was lying on the bed, sleeping with an eye patch over his eyes.
It was just beginning to get light in the morning, and I was sleeping soundly, even snoring.
Since I had been organizing the situation on the Old Continent until dawn and then fell asleep, I planned to sleep well at least until lunch.
Ding dong. Ding dong.
But suddenly the bell rang loudly.
Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.
“… … Hey, what is it? Who are you?”
Mincheol, who had barely woken up, grumbled as he got out of bed and headed to the front door.
Normally, I would have asked Oasis first who the visiting guest was, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to do that.
“Whoa, who are you… … .”
Mincheol, standing in front of the intercom, asked, wiping his tired eyes.
– Oh, hello. Sorry for bothering you so early in the morning.
The guest standing at the door smiled kindly and asked.
– Is this the home of Nam Min-cheol, the former director of Wings Online?
“… … ?”
I woke up wide awake.
Mincheol, surprised, opened his eyes and looked at the intercom screen.
– I came here to talk to you for a moment.
The person standing in front of the door was none other than Eunhasu, the current director of Wings Online.
With a good-natured smile, Milky Way whispered into the intercom.
– Please open the door, Mincheol.
