"Moondae? Is that Moondae?"

Park Moondae's homepage master touched the screen while muttering unconsciously. She couldn't help but question it since the character's appearance was similar to his appearance in the comeback trailer.

As the in-game conversation went on, the character's name, which appeared as '??', was introduced.

And it wasn't Park Moondae.

And the black-hooded boy with luminous drones circling around him appeared in the cut scene as a playable character and became an ally.

'Ah, then did Moondae replicate himself as the character?'

Since she had seen a few advertisements with that kind of concept, she just tried to move on from it, but once again, her over-engrossed brain began to turn and analyze the situation.

'Wait a minute. During Hi-five, Moondae's baseball uniform number was 11. So if you think about it then the 'B' would be derived from his last name 'Park' and this is him as an adult...!?'

//TN: Park can also be written as Bak or Pak in romanization as there's not much difference with the pronunciation of B and P.

She gulped as her reasoning seemed to be right.

'Uh, let's keep playing anyway...!'

Surprised by the unexpected treat, the college student continued to play.

Besides, the game was pretty fun.

The game was fully in first person perspective and began with the protagonist falling into a sinkhole and getting transferred to a half-destroyed Seoul of a parallel world.

The ambiance was somewhat weary, but thanks to the well-constructed world-building, exploring and adventuring for the first time was fun and there was an abundance of options.

While the game relied a lot on text, it wasn't boring because of the eye-catching graphics and illustrations for each battle and option. And the suspense was overflowing as it required a combination of luck and strategy.

'Hmm, let's keep going. I'm also curious about the backstory.'

However, the game had not given much weight to character companions' stories yet, one who was believed to be Moondae, and the other TeStar-like characters who would keep joining.

So instead, she wondered if there would be a story for each character in the future.

'Ah, would a treat about TeStar's world-building appear?'

There would be some people cursing for making them play games, but for those who decided to continue playing, it was a little thrilling.

The game continued until she reached a subway that was engulfed in a strange red mass, with the animated characters half collapsed.

"Go in together! You should go in together!"

She was completely immersed in the game and enjoyed playing it.

It was then.

A battle was forced on.

And all the companions were killed by something terrible that came out from the red mass.

The last person left was B11, who resembled Park Moondae.

A cut scene, where Park Moondae forcefully pushed the main character, was inserted.

The screen went black with the phone vibrating.

...Once again, a narration came out.

And then the opening screen of the game appeared. On the dark screen, the logo, which was based on the biohazard sign, emerged.

"...??"

The college student stared blankly at her smartphone, unable to accept what had just happened.

After the brief opening, a short walkthrough advice was displayed on the screen during loading.

"...?!"

The college student freaked out at that point.

"Th-this, what, what is this?"

She knew something was wrong.

'What kind of game kills all your companions as soon as it starts?'

It was in the middle of the cut scene of that started after loading that she finally barely got herself back together.

'That's right, it can't end like this!'

The college student recalled the complaints she had heard from her gamer acquaintances.

'I heard that there are many people who pay for the game progress to pull for a character.'

If that were the case then she would also curse, saying 'Are you treating me like an ATM? Isn't your intention to extract money too vicious?', while also crying as she was willing to spend the money.

'Just Moondae, I'll just pull for Moondae...'

However, after the cut scene, there was a warning attached to the character draw that finally appeared as a pop-up.

"Hey!!"

She couldn't understand why these jerks wouldn't let her use the money when she had it.

She hurriedly turned on the internet.

'I might have died because I chose the wrong option...!'

Then shouldn't she look up the strategy and proceed properly this time? She logged on to social media with some hope.

And she saw the fans rolling in a pit of fire.

"..."

She was distraught.

And she wasn't the only one who went mad.

The latest comments in TeStar's trailer video already began to run at a frightening speed.

There were a few people who were stopping and fighting people not to give spoilers about the game, but most of them were swept away by the flood of comments.

Fortunately, the fans regained their reason shortly after, and began to worry about sniping comments such as 'TeStar's fans being a nuisance to a new game'.

That was why most of the comments were about crying or shouting.

And foreigners who were unaware of the situation were perplexed, leaving comments such as 'What happened?' and 'Someone tell me why'.

What was funny and sad was that in the midst of that, there were people who continued to swear at the game because it was fun to do so.

In addition, a factor that attracted them suddenly appeared.

It was the costume shop that was added midway through Chapter 2.

If you clicked on this pop-up, costumes that were currently available for special purchases appeared.

And now, the costumes sold during the game launch season... were the costumes of the comrades who mercilessly died in Chapter 1.

Although the dead fixed companions could not be pulled from the character draw, they were made so that their appearances could overlap.

In addition, an explanatory text was attached.

Thanks to this, there were a number of people who somehow selected characters with similar abilities and personality scripts and overlapped them with costumes.

For reference, this symptom also occurred with game enthusiasts.

However, they were calmer about it. Because this had already happened in the previous work.

And as they expected, The Ruined Factory did not open the character draw for the initial companions despite the flood of inquiries.

It was the developer's tenacity not to artificially give out companions who would break the flow of the story since it was time for the users to become more immersed in the game's world-building.

At the same time, it was also because the sales were going up like crazy.

This frequently happened.

Several TeStar fans and game enthusiasts, who were fully immersed in the game, increased the sales.

And in this process, most of the Section 127 players started to feel close to TeStar.

This interest lasted for quite some time, as even in the later chapters of the game you could occasionally find small tidbits about the early companions.

And an unexpected content about TeStar was suddenly announced.

The music video for TeStar's sub-song, Better Me, was released.

And the music video began... with the last scene of the game collaboration trailer.

//TN: As someone with a chronic gacha game addiction (*cough*genshinimpact*cough*), I fully relate to the people ready to throw away their money for game characters...