Chapter 396: The game that makes you kill yourself [3]

Seth’s comment was all it took to bring the chat back to life.

—Holy shit!

—What the fuck just happened?

—I...

—It’s the developer! Fucking bastard!

Everyone immediately started to curse him, but he was long gone by the time they started to curse him.

Still, that was all that was needed to wake everyone up out of their stupor.

—Did... anyone get a clip of the last moment?

—I did. Do you think...?

—I don’t know, but for a moment, I nearly forgot it was a game. It was incredibly realistic.

—Naah. Samurai is just a pussy. That shit doesn’t look scary at all.

—Why don’t you try it then?

—That’s what I’m doing. I’ve already bought the game and plan to try it out.

—The same goes for me. I don’t believe I’ll actually kill myself like that idiot.

—Same. I think it might’ve been a skit. There’s just no way.

Everyone was talking about the game. No one could stop talking about it as clips surfaced online, showcasing the highlights of the streams. The videos started to garner a lot of views, and the general thoughts were, ’Is the game really that scary? I don’t believe it. Let me try it.’

Immediately, the Dock page started flooding.

People started to purchase the game one after another.

It didn’t take long for the game to reach the trending page, and with each passing moment, it only grew more and more.

*

In a certain room.

"....."

A man stood in silence, blankly staring at the empty ceiling of his room.

Every so often, his hand drifted to his neck, fingers brushing lightly against the skin. The touch was slow, almost absentminded, as his thoughts slipped back to the moment just before.

The sensation was still vivid in his mind, and despite the stream still being on, Darwin’s mind continued to linger over the game.

’I...’

His thoughts were empty, and whenever a stray thought managed to surface, it only dragged him back to those final moments, making his whole body tremble with the memory.

He remained like that for an unknown period of time.

Until—

Trrrr! Trrrr!

"Uah! Haaa!"

A scream ripped out of his throat, his chair wobbling as he nearly fell back.

"N-no! No! Make it stop!"

His face was pale with fear, his hand reaching for his pocket and taking out the phone. The moment he saw that someone was calling, his memories drifted back, and he instantly hung up the call.

"No, no, no, no, no..."

He gripped both hands with his head, his lips tremoring.

’Please stop. Please stop.’

But would it really stop?

As if the person on the other side of the phone was playing a sick joke on him, the phone rang again.

Trrrr! Trrrr!

Darwin’s face trembled again, his heart racing out of his chest.

The dimness of the room deepened, shadows stretching and warping along the walls. As Darwin’s eyes darted around, the unease crawling through him turned into a full-bodied tremble.

"No. Enough..."

He was even too scared to pick up the phone.

Thankfully, the ringing stopped a few moments later, bringing quietness to the room.

That was until—

Ding!

A chime rang, and a message appeared.

Since the phone was lying face up, Darwin could see the message clearly. The instant his eyes caught the words on the screen, his trembling stopped altogether.

[Nightmare Forge Studios Rep.] —

Call me back immediately. Answer now!

Seeing that it was the rep from Nightmare Forge Studios, Darwin calmed down for a second, but he still hesitated to reach for the phone.

Eventually, he decided to use his voice assistant.

"Call back Nightmare Forge."

—Calling back Nightmare Forge Studios Rep.

The phone rang a couple of times, but it soon connected.

"What happened?"

A very unsatisfied voice echoed from the phone’s speakers. Before he even gave Darwin a chance to speak, he started berating him.

"We had an agreement! You were supposed to make sure that the game flopped!! You were supposed to criticize it and make those gullible people watching you believe you! But look at what you’ve done!? The game is trending!"

Daniel’s voice was loud on the other end of the speaker.

He was incredibly pissed.

Darwin could sense it, and he tried to apologize, but Daniel was having none of it.

"Due to your actions, we are now forced to cancel our plans! The disruption you’ve caused is unacceptable. I request an immediate refund of the payment we issued. If this matter is not resolved promptly, I will pursue legal action for breach of contract, and we assure you, the consequences will be significant!!"

"Ah, yes, yes..."

Knowing that he was in the wrong, Darwin immediately nodded.

Even though he didn’t like being spoken to like this, he also knew that they were right to be angry. He had indeed messed things up.

He also didn’t want to burn bridges with such a large company.

"Good."

Thankfully, his subservient attitude helped ease a bit of Daniel’s anger.

"...As long as you comply, there shouldn’t be any problems. I still want you to do a stream right now. Do your best to repair the damage that you’ve caused. I heard that you were pulling great numbers. In fact, let me see how many you have right now."

A muffled clicking sound echoed from the speakers. Presumingly, it was Daniel opening up his stream to check his situation.

"Hmm, very good! You’ve got more than 200,000 people! This is excellent! Start streaming our game imm..."

Daniel suddenly stopped.

The line fell silent.

"Hello? Hello? Is something happening?"

Confused, Darwin tried to speak a couple of times, but he received no response each time.

And soon—

Click!

The line fell.

"What?"

Having calmed down quite a bit, Darwin was no longer as scared as before as he managed to reach for his phone.

He planned to message the representative from Nightmare Forge Studio, hoping to figure out what was happening. But the moment his fingers brushed the screen, he froze.

His lips trembled, and as he slowly lifted his head, his gaze fell on the red dot right next to the camera.

He then looked at himself on the monitor.

His heart sank.

"Oh, shit."

***

"...Do you think they’ll buy the game? I think our game is pretty good. I’ve shot myself a couple of times while playing it."

"Me too."

"I wonder how the boss does it. Even though I’ve worked on the game with you all, it still feels unreal that the game can provide such an effect."

"The graphics, too, right?"

Noah, Ryan, and Joseph all stood by the monitors, checking the game for any bugs. Because there was no internet inside the ’Studio’, none of them could properly check the situation outside. They didn’t know how the game was faring, but thinking about all the backlash that Seth was facing, they weren’t very optimistic.

"I’ll be fine as long as we break even."

"...How many sales should that be?"

"I’d say around 40,000 sales. I think we can reach that." Ryan replied, though his voice didn’t sound very confident.

Noah also didn’t sound too confident as he said, "40,000 might be a little too much, but I at least hope we can cross the 10,000 mark by tomorrow morning. I won’t check my phone until then. I don’t want to jinx it."

"I’ll do the same."

"Me too."

As the three were discussing the sales amongst themselves, the door to the studio opened.

A figure walked in shortly after.

"Boss!"

"Boss!"

"Boss!!"

They all shouted in unison, prompting Seth to lift his head.

Noah stepped forward.

"How is the situation outside? What do you think? Is the game doing well? Is it a flop? Please don’t tell me it’s a flop. I refuse to believe it’s a flop."

Everyone looked at Seth, who stopped dead in his tracks.

Taking in the looks around him, he smirked, putting his phone away.

"Don’t worry about it. We’ll see the results tomorrow."