NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20
The incident began with a post on the community board.
[Username: Anonymous]
[Title: Girls’ Memorial – Is this a bug?]
[Image: Screenshot showing an abnormal accumulation of premium goods called mana stones]
Our Wi-Fi at home has been a bit unstable, and when I clicked the button to claim the 500,000 pre-registration reward, it got stuck in an infinite load, so I reconnected.
After that, the rewards just kept coming in.
What is this? It’s freaking terrifying.
[Comment List][Sorted by Views]
– Goodbye lol
– Holy crap, how many mana stones are those? lololol
– The server’s probably about to crash.
– You’re banned lolololol
At first, community users thought it was either a合成 trolling post or an implausible bug and didn’t give it much attention.
Due to that, it seemed like it would be buried, but an hour later, another anonymous post verifying the bug made the situation spiral out of control.
*
The phone rang.
I had been dead to the world to catch up on much-needed sleep when the sound of the ringing bell woke me up.
Since I had just woken up, a muffled bass tone came out of my throat.
“Hello…”
[Dear sir, I sincerely apologize for calling so late. This is Seijo Tanaka from SFLAG.]
“Ah, yes… Mr. Tanaka, is something wrong?”
[There’s a serious bug that has crashed our server. I’ve sent you an email with the details; please take a look.]
‘Bug?’
The unexpected situation sent all my sleep away.
“I’ll check it after arriving at the office immediately and get in touch with you.”
[Understood. Please contact us as soon as possible.]
The moment the call ended, I jumped out of bed and dressed quickly.
‘Wait, the QA team reviewed everything several times, so what the heck is wrong?’
Swearing to myself, I called Myunghoon next since we’d need the development team to fix the bug no matter what.
After a few rings, Myunghoon picked up.
“Hello? Is this Myunghoon’s phone?”
[Uh… who is this?]
“It’s Ho-jin.”
[Oh… hey, Ho-jin. Did something happen? It’s the middle of the night.]
Slightly hesitating before responding, I answered.
“…Yes.”
From the other side of the line, I heard the blanket being thrown off.
‘This older brother had the same reaction as me.’
[Really?]
“There was a bug detected from Japan, and they shut down the server…”
Suddenly, a silence flowed through the conversation.
Then, through the phone, Myunghoon’s sigh could be heard.
[I’ll head to the office right away too. Are you coming?]
“Yes, I’m getting ready to go as well.”
[Alright, then we’ll meet at the office.]
After the call ended, I slipped on my sneakers and headed straight to the office.
If I had been living in the main house, I would’ve spent a ton on taxi fare, but fortunately, my rented apartment was close to the company.
After greeting the security guard who was sitting in the guard house, I went up to the team office and saw Myunghoon there.
With the look of someone who had just woken up, his hair was standing up in all directions, and the combination of his pajamas and slippers clearly showed how rushed he had been.
Myunghoon also looked at me with a sympathetic expression, realizing I must be in a similar state.
Yeah, my outfit wasn’t in much better shape than his.
“You’re here?”
“Yes, Brother.”
“Alright, we need to find out what’s wrong first… Didn’t they say there was some data sent from Japan?”
“Ah, here it is.”
I sent the data I had pre-downloaded on my smartphone to Myunghoon via the company messenger.
After moving to his own desk in the office, Myunghoon began reviewing the information I sent.
About five minutes later, Myunghoon, frowning, said without looking away from the screen.
“Headache.”
“Is the bug so severe? Is it hard to solve?”
Shaking his head, Myunghoon responded.
“No, it’s not that difficult to find and fix. It’s clear there’s an issue with the server, and the fixing itself isn’t the hard part… So why didn’t the QA team catch this sooner?”
“That’s exactly what I’m wondering.”
“Anyway, it shouldn’t take long to fix. I can do it in about 30 minutes. The aftermath will be the problem, though.”
“Things will get chaotic when it’s morning.”
Both Myunghoon and I sighed at the same time.
It was because of all the tasks that came to mind after fixing the bug.
We’d have to compare the inflated amount of magic stones with previous data to determine the severity of any abuse,
and we would need to deal with accounts of users who had unfairly benefited from the bug.
Moreover, since it was clearly our fault, deciding how much compensation to give the users was already making my head hurt.
‘But Myunghoon’s QA team will likely get off with a reprimand at worst, given how the fault will be distributed…’
Thinking about handling the public’s sentiment after a major bug in the game’s launch made my head ache.
“I’ll call you when I’m done. In the meantime, take care of whatever you need to do.”
“Understood.”
With that, I left the office and made a phone call.
The recipient was Tanaka of SFLAG.
Since we had delegated the operations to the publisher, it felt natural to first explain the situation to them.
“Hello?”
[Director, I’ve been waiting for your call. What’s the status?]
“The repair might take anywhere from half an hour to an hour.”
[That’s fortunate. Fortunately… but the aftermath is the problem.]
“What does SFLAG plan to do about this?”
[For now, we plan to go with a short apology statement and a promise to prevent recurrence, as per the manual…]
Tanaka’s words made me let out a sigh internally.
‘This really makes you feel like you’re in the past, doesn’t it.’
Before the regression, the directors had already studied previous examples and built a manual for how to respond.
That manual consisted of an immediate apology without any extra talk and sufficient compensation.
While some might say this was obvious common sense,
the reality was different; many people in the past had the mindset that apologizing was admitting fault,
and compensation affected the company’s revenue, so most hesitated.
SFLAG also developed such a manual for the same reasons.
“Could I take charge of the aftermath of this incident?”
[Since this isn’t something I can decide personally, it’s difficult to comment right now. Do you have any particular methods in mind?]
“Because I think there’s a resolution, but we need SFLAG’s help for resolving this matter.”
[What kind of help?]
When I told Tanaka about what was needed for solving this problem, his voice changed, becoming reluctant.
[Right now, I’ll report to the team leader, but if approval isn’t granted, there’s nothing I can do.]
“That’s enough.”
[Then, I’ll contact you again later.]
After ending the call with Tanaka, I could sigh in relief.
I was worried that he might reject, but the conversation went smoother than expected.
‘Since the first step was good, next…’
I took out my smartphone, which I had tucked in my pocket, and made another call.
“Mr. President, I apologize for the late-night call. We have an urgent matter right now─”
*
Two hours later, I visited the studio at Enson Korea’s headquarters with Yumi.
We were there to record an apology broadcast to calm public sentiment.
The reason we came all the way to Enson Korea during the morning was that there was no broadcast studio in Enson GT’s main office,
and there wasn’t enough time to book an external studio either.
“Yumi, can you handle the rental registration for me? I’ll take a quick call.”
“Yes…”
With Yumi filling out the rental registration, I stepped out into the hallway just in time for my smartphone to ring.
[Director, are you available to take this call?]
“Yes, go ahead.”
[Everything the Director requested has been approved.]
“Is that true?”
[Of course. To be honest, I thought a few requests would be rejected, but we got lucky.]
With Tanaka’s words, I let out another sigh of relief.
‘This feels like we’ve climbed over the biggest obstacle.’
“Once this video recording is done, I’ll be in touch.”
[Understood. Please do it as quickly as possible.]
“Yes.”
After ending the call and returning to the studio, I saw Yumi had finished the registration.
“Director, you’ve arrived?”
From her busy movements along with a nearby employee, it seemed she was helping with the broadcast setup.
“Yeah, who’s the person over there?”
“Oh, this is one of the studio’s permanent staff members.”
“Hello, I’m Chief Yejin Choi from the Enson Korea studio.”
She bowed slightly while introducing herself.
“Hello, I am Director Jihojin.”
“All the details have been explained by the PM. I know you’re in a rush, but should we start recording immediately?”
“Of course.”
“In that case, are we recording in your current outfit?”
“That’s correct.”
The outfit I was currently wearing, an all-black suit people might jokingly say looked like attire for a funeral, was also a styling choice based on examples from countless previous directors.
“Then, please follow me to the recording area.”
Following Yejin’s words, I entered the recording area.
She then carried a few stand-type lights inside.
“Can I help?”
“No, thank you. I usually don’t delegate lighting setup.”
It was either professional or just out of politeness, but she finished setting up the lighting in a flash.
“There’s a little more fine-tuning left, but given how busy you are and the simple effect-less concept of this video, we’ll go ahead as is. Alright?”
“This is good enough.”
“Then, I’ll count down and give the cue, and we’ll start the recording.”
With Yejin’s words, I relaxed my tension and focused on the camera.
“Alright, three, two, one─!”
Following Yejin’s cue,
I bowed at a 45-degree angle and started speaking.
Even though it was in Japanese, it flowed naturally without any hesitation.
“Hello, this is Director Jihojin of Girls’ Memorial.”
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