The elevator hummed quietly as it climbed upward. Giri stood alone in the car—everyone had probably arrived before him, settling into their morning routines while he'd been scrambling to get dressed.
He caught his reflection in the polished metal doors. Early thirties, black hair pulled into a small ponytail, square jaw behind brownline glasses. A bit of scruff from skipping his morning shave, but otherwise the same as always.
Blue jacket, brown pants, trusty satchel. One of several identical sets hanging in his closet.
There was a running joke he'd tell anyone who asked about his wardrobe: "My fashion sense is about as diverse as an anime character. Rarely change."
The truth was, he'd stopped caring how other people looked at him.
The elevator chimed as it reached the eighth floor. Game Evolution.
Some people he knew nodded or gave him quick greetings as he walked by.
It wasn't just him who'd been reeled in for today. He could feel it in the air, catch fragments of hushed conversations. Others had gotten the same urgent call.
Giri stopped at a desk with a lineup of figurines beneath the monitor—from elegant maid to stern shrine maiden. A gaming thermos sat at the corner.
His own desk.
Kenji's head popped up from behind a monitor as Giri approached. "Hey, you made it. Bad news though—server went down around 2 AM."
Giri dropped his satchel beside his chair. "Any idea what caused it?"
"Memory allocation, most likely." Kenji shrugged. "IT got it back online, but I haven't had a chance to dig through the crash logs yet."
Giri turned toward the next desk, where Hane was scrolling through her inbox. "Think you could check those logs later? After whatever this meeting is about."
She glanced up from her screen. "Sure, once I get through this email backlog."
"You know what we need?" Kenji stretched back in his chair. "Some kind of AI that handles all this tedious debugging for us."
Hane's fingers paused over her keyboard. "Right. First they'd make us build it, then it would take our jobs."
Giri and Kenji's eyes met, both fighting back grins at her deadpan delivery. But the humor faded quickly—her prediction was dangerously plausible.
A notification window popped up on Giri's monitor with a soft chime. Hane's screen lit up with the same alert, and Kenji's sudden groan confirmed he'd gotten it too.
Meeting invitation. The usual corporate ritual.
Giri glanced around the office as chairs started squeaking and people began standing. Not just his team—he spotted members from QA, the art department, even a couple of game designers closing their laptops.
"Looks like it's showtime," Kenji muttered, pushing back from his desk.
They filed into the conference room with the usual suspects from their team.
The glass door clicked shut, muffling the keyboard noise from outside. The room buzzed with quiet conversations as people settled into their chairs.
One of the QA testers looked up from his tablet. "Hey, any word on when we're getting that VR alpha build for testing?"
YOU ARE READING
GameDev Reincarnated into His Own Creation
FantasyWhen renowned game developer Giri meets his untimely end, he awakens as twelve-year-old Vel in the magical realm of Aeonalus-his own creation. Five hundred years have passed since he crafted the world, and Vel finds himself in the village of Oakhave...
