Conquest Complete, So Why Is the Affection Dropping? - Chapter 64
Hello, Readers! I am celebrating my birthday with extra chapter updates, so please enjoy this special chapter release of 4 bonus chapters! 
(Lurelia’s Birthday Bonus – Update 3/4 
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♡ To all readers who purchased these chapters before my Birthday: I can’t express this enough – Thank you for your support. (*ˊᗜˋ*)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*
“Hey, 1-soo-0! Long time no see.”
“Ugh, how tacky. That’s such an old nickname.”
Soo-young made a sour face when I called her by her high school nickname.
It was admittedly an embarrassing nickname to use in our mid-twenties. But with a name that was a combination of 1 and 0, I couldn’t help giving her that nickname since we were young.
I put both hands on my cheeks, making a heart shape, trying to act cute for the first time in a while.
“Aww, what’s wrong with it? Between us~”
“Crazy… Shin Joo-ah. If you’re going to use that face like that, give it to me.”
“What are you saying? Why would I give you my face? Love your own face. Love yourself!”
“I’m not in any condition to love…”
Soo-young, who sat down and ordered bean sprout soup, had dark circles under her eyes, probably from working overtime. Better not to mention it.
I was about to start with some casual small talk about recent events, but Soo-young spoke first.
“Joo-ah, do you know why game developers don’t use other people’s tools and instead code their own engines from scratch?”
“Hm? No.”
“Because when bugs appear in something others made, you never know how much you need to fix or where.”
“Oh? Really?”
“The clueless higher-ups want us to buy and use proven engines, but that doesn’t work for me. Can’t fix things my way, you know.”
I decided to keep to myself the thought that there seemed to be tons of bugs even when she fixed things her way.
“Ah, I tried your game. ‘Not Just Anyone Can Build a Harem 2.'”
“……”
Technically, I had experienced it through a dream where I was transmigrated, so it’s a bit ambiguous to say I “tried” it. Given that there were play records but no memories, I probably got so immersed in the game that it continued into my dreams.
“That was hard to play. The affection points kept dropping.”
“It’s easy to raise affection points, though. Why?”
“Huh? Easy?”
Well, certain events did make the points shoot up by dozens at once, so the rate of increase wasn’t exactly stingy. The problem was that they rarely increased during normal play, and when they dropped, the fall was terrifying.
“Dating games are all predictable, you know. Just figure out each male lead’s strategy and choose their preferred options, and the points shoot up automatically.”
Oh. Say that out loud, and you’ll become public enemy number one.
You shouldn’t mess with female gamers’ pride in their genre.
“For something so simple, you put quite a lot of work into it though? The kids were all handsome.”
“Kids?”
“Huh? The kids there…”
I tilted my head, not understanding Soo-young’s question, then had an ‘oh’ moment.
“Ah, I mean the romance-able characters.”
Two steaming hot stone bowls were placed in front of us. They looked so hot and bubbling that we didn’t dare touch them, quietly waiting for them to cool down. Maybe I chose the wrong menu.
“You’ve always been like that, giving personalities to things that aren’t even alive. Calling characters ‘our kids’ and stuff.”
“Isn’t that normal?”
That’s just how being a fan works. Whether they’re the worst scum or a troublemaker, once you fall in love with them, they all become your precious babies.
“Once you start attributing personalities to digital bits, it’s all downhill from there. Some people even end up claiming that deleting data is murder.”
“No, I don’t get that obsessed…”
“I used to think only mentally unstable people who couldn’t distinguish reality from virtual would make such claims, but with AI developing these days, more and more people are making concerning arguments.”
“Concerning arguments?”
“Like saying AI has personality and human rights, that kind of thing.”
Ah. While they’re still a minority, people like that are gradually increasing.
Unlike before, when machines just repeated algorithmic responses, nowadays, they can provide new answers combined from their learned data.
They say it’s similar to humans in that the output isn’t just a direct copy of the input, but each AI combines things in its own different way to give answers.
“Still, claiming AI has human rights is going too far.”
Soo-young looked somewhat surprised at my response.
“Joo-ah, I thought you’d be the type to say virtual humans are people too and shouldn’t be treated carelessly.”
“Just how much of a hopeless otaku are you making me out to be?”
Besides, isn’t it kind of creepy when AI thinks exactly like humans? Actually, when something becomes too similar to humans, it becomes uncomfortable. And if it deviates from expectations, it becomes scary.
“If AI ever gets human rights, it won’t be because they think like humans or are superior to us in some way, but for a different reason.”
“What reason?”
“Probably similar to why animal rights came about.”
It wasn’t that long ago that animals were treated as something similar to machines. Until just half a century ago, most people believed that animals had neither souls nor emotions.
So for AI to gain rights, it would need to touch people’s sympathy.
For example…
“Like whether AI can feel pain, that kind of thing.”
“That’s such a Shin Joo-ah way of thinking.”
Soo-young clicked her tongue and then slurped up her rice mixed with the cooled soup. Then she let out a satisfied “Ahh” sound.
She says I’m like an old man, but I’m not sure which one of us is eating like one.
“Joo-ah, is that why you quit making games too?”
“Huh?”
“The one we made in high school. I said we should quit since it wouldn’t be popular, but you insisted ‘we can’t kill our kids’ and made us finish it.”
“I said something like that?”
“You did. Don’t you remember?”
“Not at all.”
“It was only 7 years ago! Shin Joo-ah, your memory is terrible.”
“I’ve already forgotten everything I studied in college. How could I remember something from 7 years ago?”
“…According to what you said back then, the data would resent you, not me.”
“What do you mean?”
Soo-young tilted her stone bowl on its stand and started scraping up the remaining soup.
“You said that once we create the world view and characters, it’s like they’re born into that world, so if we quit halfway, it’s like the characters die without having properly lived, as if their world suddenly ends in destruction. You didn’t want to be a murderer, and you wanted them to live in a proper world. You cried all night writing scripts, remember?”
“I remember crying while writing…”
I thought I cried because there was too much script to write, but was that not it?
“It was quite a sight, saying things like that while making a dating game.”
“Don’t you think it shows the kind of delicate sensibility fitting for a dating game scriptwriter?”
“It’s the complete opposite.”
Soo-young, who had finished her meal, wiped her mouth with a tissue and poured water into her glass.
“According to what you said, from the game character’s perspective, the player who shared true love with them suddenly disappears when the ending logo appears.”
“Well, isn’t that natural since you can’t continue the game after the ending logo?”
“The characters don’t know that. If their lover who promised eternal love suddenly disappears, and their world ends without knowing why, wouldn’t that be more devastating?”
She criticized me for getting too immersed, but she’s not much better. Do people usually think that far?
“You’re the one with really unique thoughts. I guess not just anyone can become a game developer.”
“I remembered it because you kept saying ‘I feel sorry for leaving our kids in a text game with just letters on a dark screen, without any graphics.'”
“You became a game developer because of me?”
“No, that’s not it. That’s how I made the sequel.”
“Huh?”
“…You didn’t call me here to confront me about that?”
Confront about what? The game’s extreme difficulty? The bad endings that went too far?
Actually, I wanted to complain about it when I saw it, but it wouldn’t be right to protest to a real person about a game ending. Especially face to face.
“Shin Joo-ah, you really forgot everything. Even I would resent you.”
“Why would you resent me? I gave up on the dream of being a developer long ago. I don’t even know how to code in the first place.”
“Ugh, let’s drop it.”
Soo-young stood up first.
I suggested going to a cafe, but she declined, saying she was busy with work. She said she needed to be on standby even during weekends and couldn’t risk missing calls by talking with me longer.
Life as a cog in a 7-day workweek company machine or life as an unemployed person wailing at their shrinking bank balance.
Either way, it’s hopeless. I’d rather choose game transmigration!
“Oh right, Soo-young. Tell me something.”
“What is it?”
“The game is too hard to clear. How do I get the happy ending?”
“What do you mean how? Just follow the dating game basics. Save them, say what they want to hear, don’t push too hard at first, just keep pulling and pulling, then give a little push at the end, and they’ll come running – that’s the golden rule.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
Come to think of it, all I’ve done is s****l harassment. No wonder the gameplay was difficult.
“Give gifts sometimes, make them jealous too. Play around with multiple romance options, and the ending will come naturally. Nothing special about it.”
“Isn’t it harder to pursue multiple characters at once?”
While it might not be impossible system-wise, it seemed like it would be quite challenging. After all, Hexion’s affection drops drastically just from talking to Kaint.
