'I died? Just like that? Because of a rat?'
Fang's consciousness floated in the nothingness. There was no pain, only the silence of the void.
But then, the silence was shattered.
[Ding!]
A mechanical sound, rang directly inside his soul.
[Global Notification!]
[Welcome, Players, to the MMORPG Tycoon!]
[System Initialization... 100%]
[Reconstructing Body...]
[Transferring to Sector 774...]
Light exploded.
Fang's eyes snapped open. He immediately crouched, his muscles tense, his eyes darting around to assess threats.
He was standing on grass.
Fang stood up and walked to the edge. A sheer drop. Below him? Endless purple nebulae. Above him? A sky filled with digital code.
He was on a floating island. It was small, roughly the size of a football field. It was barren, save for a single, glowing white terminal in the center.
Fang narrowed his eyes. He looked into the distance.
"Interesting," he muttered. His voice was calm, devoid of the panic that surely gripped others.
Far away, looking like distant fireflies, were other islands. Thousands of them. Millions. They stretched out endlessly into the cosmic void.
"A Battle Royale?" Fang sneered. "Or a management simulation?"
He walked toward the white terminal.
[Ding!]
[Welcome, Host #893021.]
[Current Status: Novice Developer.]
[Objective: Build the ultimate MMORPG. Attract players. Harvest their engagement. Survive.]
[Warning: Developers who go bankrupt will be erased.]
"Erased?" Fang repeated. The corner of his lip curled up.
He didn't care about the ethics. He didn't care about who kidnapped him. In his previous life, he had built a guild from nothing by stepping on the weak. This was no different.
He touched the terminal. A semi-transparent blue holographic screen materialized in front of him.
[Initializing Player Stats...]
[Distributing Beginner Gift Pack...]
[Ding! You have received: Basic Terrain Tool x1, Basic NPC Generator x1, 500 Creation Coins.]
[Scanning Host's soul for Talent Awakening...]
The screen flickered rapidly, turning from a calm blue to a violent, deep crimson.
[Alert! Rare Soul Wavelength detected.]
[Generating Talent...]
[Ding!]
[Congratulations! You have awakened an SSS-Class Talent!]
Fang's eyes gleamed. SSS-Class. In every game, in every novel, this meant one thing: Supremacy.
[SSS-Class Talent: Despair Harvester]
[Description: Your game thrives on the intense emotions of players. While other Developers earn Creation Coins only through standard playtime, you earn 10x currency from player deaths, rage-quits, and fear.]
[Passive Effect: The harder your game is, the more addictive it becomes to the players' souls.]
Fang laughed. It started as a chuckle and grew into a cold, terrifying laugh that echoed across his small, barren island.
Most developers would try to make a happy, relaxing farm simulator. They would try to make players love them.
Fang knew better. Humans were masochists. They claimed they wanted peace, but they craved conflict. They craved the dopamine hit of overcoming impossible odds.
"Open Status Panel," Fang commanded.
[Name: Fang]
[Role: Level 1 Developer]
[Game Name: Unnamed]
[Genre: Not Selected]
[Player Count: 0]
[Creation Coins: 500]
[Talent: Despair Harvester (SSS)]
"Time to choose," Fang said, pressing the 'Game Setup' button.
The screen shifted.
[Please select your MMORPG Genre:]
[1. Romance / Dating Sim]
[2. Cozy Farming]
[3. Puzzle / Strategy]
[4. Combat / Adventure]
[5. Sci-Fi / Exploration]
Fang didn't hesitate. With his talent, a dating sim was useless. Farming was for weaklings.
He slammed his finger on option 4.
[Genre Selected: Combat / Adventure.]
[Please specify Sub-Genre.]
"Dark Fantasy," Fang said coldly. "Souls-like difficulty. Permadeath mechanics enabled."
[Ding! Sub-Genre set: Dark Fantasy.]
[Warning: Permadeath significantly reduces player retention for normal Developers. Are you sure?]
"Confirm."
[Ding! Configuration Complete.]
[Game World Initialization...]
The island rumbled. The edges expanded slightly. The bright green grass withered, turning into a desolate, grey wasteland. The sky above his island shifted from a digital blue to a brooding, thunderous grey.
A small, crumbling stone altar appeared near the terminal.
This was the 'Spawn Point' for his future players.
Fang looked at it with satisfaction. He didn't have the resources to build a city yet. He didn't need one. He needed a slaughterhouse.
"I need monsters," Fang muttered. He opened the [NPC Generator].
[Basic Slime: 10 Coins]
[Goblin: 20 Coins]
[Wolf: 30 Coins]
[Undead Skeleton: 25 Coins]
Fang looked at his 500 coins. He could buy a small army of slimes. But slimes were cute. Slimes were boring.
"Buy 20 Undead Skeletons," Fang ordered. "And spend the remaining 50 coins on a 'Hidden Trap' modifier."
[Ding! Purchase successful.]
[20 Skeletons placed.]
[Traps set.]
Around the spawn point, the ground cracked. Bone hands clawed their way out of the dirt. Twenty skeletons, armed with rusty swords and jagged daggers, stood motionless in the fog that was rolling in. They looked menacing. Deadly.
"Perfect." Fang grinned.
He sat down on the edge of the terminal. The hard part was done. Now, he had to wait for the System to connect the 'Players'.
While he waited, he noticed a flashing icon in the bottom right of his vision.
[Global Chat (Region 774)]
Fang raised an eyebrow.
He tapped the icon. A translucent chat window expanded, scrolling at blinding speed.
[User9921: WHERE AM I?! MOM?!]
[DragonKing_X: Why am I on a floating rock? I was in the middle of a raid!]
[PrincessLulu: Anyone know how to grow flowers? I picked the Farming genre but I have no seeds! T_T]
[RichBoss_01: I will pay 1 million dollars to anyone who can get me out of here! I am the CEO of Apex Corp! Do you know who I am?!]
[KillerBee: This is a game, idiots. Check your stats.]
[Gamer420: I got an F-Rank Talent... 'Faster Walking'. I'm cooked, guys. I'm actually cooked.]
[SwordSaint: I got an A-Rank Talent! 'Sword Mastery'. Bow before me, trash!]
Fang watched the text scroll by, his expression unreadable. They were loud. They were disorganized.
Most of them were treating this like a sudden vacation or a nightmare. They didn't realize the stakes. The System said 'erased.' Fang knew what that meant. Real death.
He saw names boasting about A-Rank and B-Rank talents. 'Increased Gold Drop', 'Cheaper Buildings', 'Charismatic Aura'. Cute.
None of them had an SSS-Class talent. Or if they did, they were smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
Fang typed nothing. He had no intention of making friends. In a Tycoon game, other developers were rivals. If he wanted the most players, he had to have the best product. Or he had to destroy the other products.
[Ding!]
[Grace Period Ending in 10 Minutes.]
[The First Wave of Players will be connected shortly.]
[Note: These 'Players' are projections from the Multiverse. They are looking for entertainment. Bore them, and they leave. Kill them too fast without purpose, and they leave.]
Fang read the note. 'Kill them too fast without purpose...'
"That applies to normal games," Fang thought, standing up and brushing dust off his pants. "But my game isn't about fun. It's about the challenge."
He looked at his skeletal army waiting in the fog. He checked his balance. 0 Coins.
He needed the players to die. He needed them to rage. He needed them to scream in the Global Chat of his game about how unfair it was, because that anger would attract more people trying to prove they were better.
It was the ultimate marketing strategy.
[Ding!]
[System Announcement: The MMORPG Tycoon has officially begun.]
[Connecting to the Multiverse Data Stream...]
[3...]
[2...]
[1...]
A beam of light shot down from the sky, striking the crumbling stone altar in the center of Fang's wasteland. The light faded.
A figure stood there. A 'Player.' It was a young man wearing basic novice rags, looking around with wide, excited eyes.
[Player 'NoobSlayer' has joined your game!]
The player looked around, seeing the fog, the grey sky, and the realistic graphics.
"Woah," the player said, his voice echoing. "This graphics engine is insane! Hello? Is there a quest giver?"
Fang watched from the shadows of the terminal, his arms crossed.
"Welcome to hell," Fang whispered.
The player took two steps forward.
He stepped on a hidden pressure plate.
[Ding!]
A rusty spike shot up from the ground, impaling the player through the chest. Blood splattered onto the grey dirt.
[Critical Hit!]
[You have killed a Player!]
[Effect of 'Despair Harvester' activated.]
[+50 Creation Coins.]
The player's avatar shattered into pixels, leaving behind a glowing loot bag.
Fang smiled.
50 Coins for one death. A normal kill gave 5. He was already earning ten times faster than anyone else.
[Global Notification: First Blood! Developer Fang is the first to claim a Player's life!]
The Global Chat froze for a second. Then, it exploded.
[User123: Who is Fang?! It's been 30 seconds!]
[PeaceWalker: You monster! How could you kill a player already?]
[HardcoreGamer: Wait... he killed a player in 30 seconds? What kind of game is that? I want to play!]
Fang ignored the chat. He looked at his coin balance.
"Fifty coins," he calculated. "That's two more skeletons."
He opened the build menu immediately. There was no time to celebrate.