Chapter 2: The Beginning

I am a game director.

At the same time, I am what you'd call an otaku who enjoys subculture.

In other words, I'm more familiar with popular media like games, comics, novels, and subculture than most people.

From my perspective,

It seems I've regressed.

"Ho-jin! How long are you going to roll around in bed on a weekend!"

To a certain day in 2011, when I was living with my parents.

To that time when I was 29 years old.

I've traveled back 10 years into the past.

***

Of course, it's not that I wasn't bewildered by the current situation.

In my last memory, I was certainly dead.

Judging by the lingering phantom pain, this definitely wasn't a dream.

Moreover, this smartphone I took out to check the date.

It felt clunky and heavy, unlike the latest A-company smartphone I used to favor before regressing.

"Did I... really come back to the past...?"

"Ho-jin! Come out quickly for breakfast!"

"I'll be right out!"

I couldn't help but smile at my mother's nagging, which I hadn't heard in a long time.

Since I started living alone, I hadn't had the chance to hear her nagging.

Responding to my mother's urging, I left the bed, had a meal and, when I returned, quite some time had passed.

As a bonus, I had somewhat sorted out my thoughts while having a meal with my parents.

In short, it was all about perspective.

What was the need to know why I had time-traveled to the past?

I just needed to humbly accept the fact that I regressed and make the most of this situation.

For that, first... I turned on the computer.

Having returned to the past, there were many things I needed to check.

First, I had to confirm whether there were any differences between the events in my memory and the actual events at this current point in time.

If future events differed from those in my memory, it could throw off the entire plan.

After about an hour of browsing the internet and comparing... Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any major differences.

If there had been significant differences, I would have had to revise the plan from scratch, so that was a relief.

While I was at it, I looked into gaming issues as well, but nothing had changed from my memory.

It was still the era of PCs, with PC games dominating, just as I remembered before regressing.

In the mobile game sector, news about mini-games popped up occasionally, but it was still at a nascent stage.

Smartphone performance was still quite poor, and the games available weren't much different from those on feature phones.

Considering that the flood of full-fledged mobile gacha games from Japan, the homeland of subculture, would start two years later in 2014...

There was no time to act leisurely just because I had regressed.

The first thing to do was to recover the project proposal.

Thankfully, I had regressed not long after completing the proposal...

If I had regressed any later, it wouldn't have been easy.

*

After uploading the project proposal I had completed in half a day to the cloud, I launched a new word processor.

'Now that I've put out the urgent fire, next is....'

Having regressed to the past, I had a vague goal of what to do, but I lacked detailed plans to execute that goal.

Let's think calmly.

The top priority is to find a company that will approve the project proposal and make the game.

While it might not have been an issue in the future, at this point in the past, it was quite a challenging proposal.

Of course, there was the option of starting a business, but I ruled that out as a last resort.

Because right now, I had nothing.

No capital to make games.

No personnel to make games with.

Of course, if it were me just before regressing, it might not have been impossible to somehow start a small game development company.

But for the current me who had returned to my younger days, it was nearly impossible.

Then the remaining options were two:

Somehow get the project proposal approved at ND Soft where I'm currently working,

Or transfer to another company.

'What should I do....'

Rationally thinking, choosing to transfer was the obvious choice.

Recalling my memories from before regressing, the chances of the proposal being approved were close to zero.

But... it felt somewhat regrettable to give up right away.

Maybe it was a sense of loyalty to the company.

Even before regressing, we hadn't parted on bad terms, so I wanted to try one more time.

With that resolve, I spent the weekend and went to work for a week.

I ended up earning the nickname "weirdo" in the company.

***

I had expected this.

Well, if it had been an easy problem to persuade, I wouldn't have gone through all that trouble before regressing.

Still, I thought I could communicate to some extent if I negotiated directly with the department head...

Reality was the exact opposite of my expectations.

"Ho-jin. I understand what you're saying, but this doesn't seem right. Business isn't child's play, you know."

"Yes, yes. Of course, the mobile game market will grow as smartphones become more widespread. I get that. But why, out of all the genres, that one?"

"Rather than that, even if it costs more to develop, why not an RPG that's easier to attract big spenders, or something minimal like that... what's it called, that mini-game that became a hit where you throw birds to destroy buildings."

"No matter what, it's not possible. You know well that the business department won't approve such a project. Instead, when the mobile game development team is established soon due to organizational restructuring, I'll send you there. Understood?"

In the end, nothing came out of the 30-minute meeting with the department head.

It would be a lie to say I had no regrets, but well...

I was somewhat prepared, so I didn't feel particularly bothered.

I just felt a bit bitter about having to pull out the transfer card that I had been putting off until the very end.

For now, I entered the break room, passing by the team office to clear my head.

There wasn't much to do in the office at this point when the project had ended, and I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone right now.

It would have been troublesome if there were people in the break room, but fortunately, it was empty.

Well, it's the middle of morning work hours, so of course, there wouldn't be anyone.

As I was enjoying the pleasure of stealing company time, burying myself in the reclining sofa of the break room,

I saw a familiar figure entering the break room as the door opened.

"Senior, so you were here."

The junior who entered the break room glanced at me and immediately sat down in the chair next to me.

"What's up? Did the department head send you to fetch me?"

"No?"

"Then how did you know I was here?"

To my question, the junior replied with a nonchalant expression.

"After getting shot down by the department head, the only places you'd be moping are either here or the rooftop, right?"

"You really have a way with words..."

This cheeky junior's name is Lee Ye-rin.

Currently holding the position of Art Director, she was a close workplace junior who had been with me since her days as an art designer.

I first met Ye-rin about two years ago during a new project,

We worked well together and she was skilled, so we always participated in projects together.

We had become quite close after spending so much time together, including overtime and such.

"More importantly, senior, is something really going on with you these days?"

"Not really? Why?"

"There's a lot of talk about you lately. Even the department head was saying that the guy who used to make good games without causing trouble has become strange."

"That much?"

"You really didn't know?"

"No, honestly, I had some idea, but hearing it directly makes it feel more real."

"So why are you suddenly acting so eccentric?"

The junior leaned her face closer to me and asked.

"Usually, you don't even show that you like subculture, let alone have any interest in it, but suddenly you're saying you want to make a subculture mobile game. Everyone seems curious."

Seeing my junior, who usually doesn't talk much about others, say such things, it seemed like there had been quite a lot of gossip over the past week.

"Actually, I've seen the future. A future where the so-called 'weeb games' top the sales charts and anime movies reach 4 million viewers."

Knowing they wouldn't believe me anyway, I told the truth as it was and, as expected, my junior had an incredulous expression.

"If you don't want to tell me, just say so..."

"It's true though."

"Forget it. I was worried for nothing."

I shrugged at my junior's sulky attitude.

'Oh, come to think of it, should I ask my junior to evaluate the project proposal?'

Personally, I didn't think this proposal would receive a bad evaluation,

But still, others might see it differently from how I see it.

Moreover, based on my memories before regressing, Ye-rin's judgment was reliable.

"Ye-rin, can I ask you for a favor?"

"A favor? I don't mind, but..."

"I've written a project proposal that I haven't shown to anyone yet. Could you take a look at it?"

"It hasn't been long since our last project ended. Are you already preparing for a new one?"

"It's not a new one, it's that. The one you were curious about."

"The one I was curious about... Oh."

Ye-rin, who had been tilting her head at my words, seemed to quickly realize what I meant.

"The one that got brutally rejected by the department head, right?"

"That's right."

"I can take a look... but I'm not an expert in that area, so I don't think I can give you much feedback?"

I inwardly admired my junior's act of playing dumb while sipping the coffee that had been brought at some point.

If I hadn't regressed, if I hadn't heard from my junior before regressing, I might have been completely fooled by how smooth it was.

However...

"It's okay. I already know everything."

"What? What do you know?"

"I know you're already familiar with this culture."

"No, what are you..."

"What was the name of that doujin circle... was it Nero Workshop?"

"Pffft!!"

My junior's face clearly showed surprise, probably not expecting me to even know the doujins circle’s name.